Woke up this morning to find that I've had a visit on my blog from Australia...Stupid Monkey, I've been expecting you. Not enough happening in Lemon's gym to stop you from stealing from my blog to make comments on your own? Lemon is right, your decision making processes are a complete detriment to his business. Were you my employee, I would fire you--without hesitation.
But back to my blog. I was thinking about my last entry and how those 'flip men' did most of their own work; we're taught not to; if they would have hired contractors, there would have been even less meat on the bone. There were three of them--actually two men and a woman, so in the end, each of them made $5000.00. I'd be hard pressed to get out of bed for five thousand--ten just stops me from yawning--but thirty five thousand gets me to wash my face and brush my teeth.
I was thinking about the only time that I walked away from a deal that might have made me a mere $15,000.00 and I didn't take it. Once, just once, it was a foolish mistake...
I had gotten a phone call from a girl that I knew who had done most of the work for the short sale--bank approvals were done--all that was needed was the closing. She was 2 days away from the closing when life came knocking at her door. She was being laid off and she had a one time opportunity to take $35,000.00 in stock options from the telephone service provider she worked for--and she wanted to. That meant she didn't have the cash to close the deal; but she knew that I did.
I went to look at the property. It was a condo. There had been water damage from an upstairs condo unit--water heater had broken and gallons came through the ceiling--the fire department was called because the property was vacant--they broke the front door. It needed some new appliances, obviously carpet and paint; and just a little sheet rock replacement. As far as I could tell, there wasn't any mold remediation that needed to be done. I had an hour to decide to take the deal or she was moving on to another investor. Everyone that I knew who could comp that county was unavailable; the work that she had done showed about a $15,000.00 profit in the resale. I didn't trust that her figures were right (why would I?) and I walked from the deal feeling OK that I did.
About a month later I ran into her. She ended up closing the deal herself. She told me how 'the Lord had blessed her'. After the closing, she started her clean out and she had a knock at the door. Remember the upstairs condo that had flooded? Turned out the contractors admitted fault and their insurance company was willing to pay for all of the damage to her unit downstairs...how often does that happen? She placed ads 'for sale by owner' in the church that was within walking distance to the condo. The place ended up in a bidding war and went $30,000.00 over the asking price. Without needing to pay the $15,000.00 in repairs and the extra $30,000.00 from the bump, it worked out to be a good deal--for her.
Such is life...(and yet a story to be told)....
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