My Very Best Real Estate Deal May Not Be What You'd Expect

What has been my best real estate deal so far? The deal I didn’t do.

This isn’t a story of the big fish that got away. I’m sure we all have some of those. For me, the best deal or real estate decision I’ve made was choosing to walk away from a large multifamily investment.

The One I Passed On

I walked away from this big 118-unit apartment complex.

At first it looked like a viable deal. It looked like the numbers could work, financing was a possibility, and there was room to push more value in it with some renovations, smart management, and new tenants.

We ran numbers, negotiated with the seller, and got our teams busy on it. Then we walked away.

Why? Well after really digging into the property, we figured out we’d need new roofs on all the buildings. That wasn’t in our budget. We could have tried to pull it off anyway, but we wouldn’t have been where we wanted to be financially. It wasn’t easy to let it go at that stage. But looking back, it was the best move — and probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in real estate so far (besides transitioning from single-family investing to multi-family).

Lessons Learned

I learned a lot in this process. Maybe some of these things will help you in your investing too.

1. Listen to the Seller

The seller had alluded to there being some roof issues, just not at that scale. When a seller mentions a potential repair, expect it to be worse than that. “Just needs new flooring” could mean you can see the ground through the floor. “Could use some updating” might mean it needs rewiring and re-plumbing throughout.

2. Get Financing Set Early

One of the smart things we did was to get with our lenders early. They sent out their own engineer and appraiser in a timely manner. Any questionable items they find during inspection are things you want to know upfront, not a day before closing.

3. Be Ready to Look at a Lot of Deals

Depending on your area, criteria, and types of product you are looking at, you may have to look at a LOT of them. Even if you aren’t that picky, you might look at a dozen before inking a contract. If you are looking for great profit margins and value, you might look at 100 on paper, run deeper numbers on 10, and sign one or two deals.

4. Get Contractor Quotes Early

The earlier you can get actual contractors out to inspect the property and provide quotes, the better. Those are much more reliable numbers than your rough estimates.

5. Have a Due Diligence Team

My due diligence team has saved me from making a lot of money mistakes. Have a numbers guy to run the deal and check your math. Have someone to check out the neighborhood, review local market data, and check the rental pool.

6. Be OK With Losing Money

If you are in real estate long enough and are active enough, you will lose money. You will burn money and time on due diligence, deposits, and other minor issues. That’s fine as long as you are making more than you are losing. You can’t get hung up on it. You’ve got to be able to stay objective and just keep going. We ultimately burned somewhere around $5,000 to $7,000 on this deal we didn’t do. We could have lost a lot more if we’d followed through. Don’t keep going just because you already spent or invested something.

After it was all said and done, we got some education and saved ourselves a big mess. We stuck to our numbers and remained objective. That’s what makes the difference in the long run, in my experience.

What have been your best deals?

What were the best ones you let get away? Biggest lessons learned? Share below!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.