The Five Minute Gratuity

[Brian Buckingham]

As part of my journey to be a Level 10 everything, I am implementing Hal Elrod's suggestion to start my day with my 5 Minute Gratuity Journal. On this adventure, I am always giving myself excuses not to post, share, etc... and get plugged into this BiggerPockets Network. So today, I am going to post my gratuity :)

Big thanks to everyone for sharing their knowledge on this forum, YouTube, and through the many books (Audio of Course!). If success is genuinely when preparation and opportunity meet, then I can see the light.

Feeling priced out of the Seattle Market, battling my frustrations because my brain is convincing me everyone has it figured out but me, and some "hiccups" with my career and health, I was beginning to think everything I was reading was B.S. to sell books. I was looking at tear down houses for 500K, contractors that won't give you the time of day, and guys on podcasts talked about picking up homes for 20K.

Finally, with my gift of desperation, years of preparation though reading books and gaining no traction (So I thought), we looked in Pennsylvania, where my wife has a family. We found properties that would pencil, and we could buy cash.

The duplex about to close will technically not meet the criteria for a true BRRRR. However, one thing I have learned since getting my real estate license is that real estate is a relationship game. I have a General Contractor I have never met; A property manager I have never met; a buyers agent I have never met, all helping me through the process. I feel it is on me to now prove that if I say, "The deal is going to get done," it gets done. I caught myself getting 'analysis paralysis' and had to put the pencil down and close Excel. The numbers kept working and kept trying to make them not work!

Every post on this forum has helped, from the new guy with his questions, all the way to the experts answering them. I want to give a big thanks to David Greene, it was his book, and YouTube videos gave me the confidence to muster up the courage to take this plunge.

I will end it with this. The other day I was talking to a lady who had some local investments. She thought I was nuts for purchasing in PA. Though I may be nuts, I don't believe it is for that reason. I told her, "The only thing that scares me more than buying this property unseen and a 12hr flight away is working 7 days a week until I leave this world".