Why to Always Work on Your Business & NOT in It (True Story)

[Matthew Rembish]

Exactly one week ago (1/8/2020) I found a self-storage facility listed in Florida that fit the exact criteria I was looking for; room for expansion, operational improvement potential...you name it! I'm normally a house flipper but I've been looking to jump into the commercial game for quite some time now and self-storage was my target asset class since before I even started looking into flipping houses. Getting back to the story, I reached out to the agent right away for the financials and as soon as they were sent over, I ran a quick analysis and sent over my first offer and what do you know, it was accepted! I officially had a 73 unit building for $554,800 and I couldn't be happier. During our discussion, I was made aware that the numbers weren't completely accurate and that I would receive the final financials within a day or so. Later that week, they were in my inbox and I came to notice the expenses were quite a bit higher than originally discussed. I rescinded my original offer and re-ran my numbers. After a day of analyzing the numbers, while also getting pricing on automated gates, kiosks, etc, I came back knowing the highest I could go was $520,000 so I started with $510,000. A few hours later they responded with $525,000 to which I countered with my $520,000 final offer.

Now let me stop everything right here. I sent my final $520,000 offer in at 1:50 pm today (1/15/2020) and then left my office to go install cabinet handles at my flip in the next town over. At 2:15 pm, this was the email that I received from my agent:

Your timing was perfect! I was able to reach the sellers right away...and after some discussion... they ACCEPTED!!
I will amend the documents and send to your for electronic signature :)
Please let me know if you need anything in addition at this time.
Congratulations Matt!! I know you will make this a successful business & investment!! Very Well Done!

But guess what? I didn't see that email because I was working on my flip. I did check my email at 4:30 pm, however, to find out another buyer slipped right through the cracks and sent in an offer over mine. Did that really just happen?

Yup. I lost out on a superb half-a-million-dollar commercial investment because I was doing renovation work I probably could have hired out for $100 or less. This hurt big time, and it still does (being that it happened about 6 hrs ago). I felt I needed to vent and to show the BP community a very valuable lesson I learned today. Always be focused on working ON your business, not IN it.