The Power of Buying With No Money Down

[Stewart Beal]

The Power of Real Estate (and buying real estate for no money down): In 2013 the Midwest and Toledo OH were still mired in the foreclosure crises 5 years in. I had purchased a building in 2009 in the Old West End and I was standing outside when a man approached me saying he owned a 45 unit apartment building with a 30 car parking garage across the street that he wanted to sell to me. I told him that I couldn't buy anything else, I was out of cash having already purchased a lot, but what is the price. He said $500,000 which I thought was pretty good but I told him sorry I can't do it. 2 months later he found me outside again and said look, I have to sell, and you own the building across the street, you have to buy the building. I said ok, let me take a close look, give me the rent roll and the financials and let me tour the building. His rent roll said that there were 24 occupied units and 21 vacant units but when I toured I discovered that only 6 units were occupied and there were 39 vacant units, his property manager had been lying to him. I said look, I will buy this building, I will pay $325,000, I will pay you $0 down on a land contract where you lend me the entire $325,000 at 5% interest for 5 years on a 20 year amortization. He was so shocked and depressed to be told he only had 6 occupied apartments that he agreed! I bought a 45 unit apartment complex with a 30 car underground garage for $0 down. The next day I went to the building to get to work and found a man removing every single appliance from the building, I was like what on earth and the man said these appliances are mine, the seller didn't pay me for a bunch of work I did, so I went back to the seller and got him to pay me $10,000 for the appliances (they were basically trash anyway) so it ended up being the seller paid me $10,000 to buy his building. We went to work, under all the carpet we found 100 year old refinishable hardwood floor that looked amazing after a quick sand and poly. We renewed leases with the 6 remaining residents (4 still live in the building today). 6 months later we had turned every apartment, leased them all, and had the building stabilized. 5 years later we had paid down the land contract a lot, got an appraisal for $1,800,000 and did a large cash out refinance allowing us to purchase 4 additional apartment buildings