My first out-of-state turnkey was a bust (sort of)

[Joshua McGinnis]

Just thought I'd share a story for any others out there considering buying a multi-family out-of-state, sight-unseen, from another BP member who markets and manages properties.

I found a deal on the BP Marketplace in the Cleveland, OH area. It was marketed as turnkey and ready to go. The numbers looked great and the person marketing the property had a positive reviews. Everything appeared peachy so I decided to move on it.

I knew early on, that I wanted this first remote sight-unseen investment to go well for a few reasons. One, I didn't want to lose money (who does?) and second, I wanted a positive experience to give me that mental motivation I need to push me to do something that is normally outside of my comfort zone. One of the ways I told myself I'd do this is to make sure to get the property appraised and make sure I get the property inspected.

Long story short - I got the property under contract. Once it was under contract, I was told that the owner was still finishing up some carpeting in the unit. I thought to myself, "that's strange - I thought this property was all ready to go." Nevertheless, it's just carpet so I move on to scheduling an inspection. 

The day of inspection comes around and the BP member who was marketing the deal and managing everything on the ground informs me that the utilities are not on and that the owner is still finishing up some work. Frustrating, because again - I thought the property was already ready to go and I would have expected someone, either my guy or the seller, to anticipate needing the utilities turned on. So we reschedule the inspection.

A week goes by and I check in to see how the inspection went, and low-and-behold - one of the units still doesn't have the gas turned and work is still continuing on the unit requiring we yet again delay inspection a week.

At the end of the day, I backed out of the deal. None of the issues were that big of a deal, but there was something about running into this many problems just getting to the inspection that rubbed me the wrong way. I don't expect every acquisition to go 100% smoothly, but I was operating under the premise that the property was ready to go. If that wasn't the case, then who knows what else might be hiding for me to deal with in the future. I've purchased several homes in the past and have never needed to reschedule an inspection, let alone more than once.

It's a shame - I was really pumped about it and I've already sent a ton of referrals to person who sourced the deal, but it just didn't pan out.

I wonder what the community thinks about this situation and if I could have or should have handled it any differently.

It was a great learning experience either way. On to the next one!