Looking for my first deal

[D.J. Parten]

My dad and I decided that we would start investing together. He has the money, and I have the time and have been studying for several years now. We ended up getting two properties under contract that looked like great deals! The agents gave us decent comps that showed high ARVs and our initial estimate on the rehab was good. We were looking at around 70k profit for each deal. 

Once the properties were under contract, we sent out contractors to verify our rehab estimates. Boy, were we off. Some bids came back nearly $100k higher than we expected (maybe Dallas is just more expensive.) Then we called some other agents to verify the ARV our agents gave us. They were quite a bit lower than originally expected. Our agent told us that one property could sell for 600k. We got a "subject to" appraisal to confirm and the appraiser said we would get no more than 520k.

Unfortunately, we had to back out of both deals, but this was a great lesson. Your agent wants to sell the property to you and may find comps that look good in order to do so. Always confirm your numbers. 

Now the search continues.