Our First Sold Wholesale Deal... in 2004

[Robin Carriger]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence wholesale investment.

Purchase price: $35,000
Cash invested: $800
Sale price: $68,000

This was the first wholesale deal we sold. Our net profit was north of $29K. It was a 2x2x5 (2 detached garages in the back yard). We were going to rehab it at first, but when we were offered $68K by a note investor, we couldn't refuse. :-)

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Building cash quickly at the beginning of our Real Estate Investing journey

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Contacted our credit union to try to piggyback off their access to the local MLS. They said "No" to that request, but... just before I hung up the phone, I asked if they ever did foreclosures. The lady said "I've been here 18 years, and we've never foreclosed on anybody... until the other day." After negotiating with them for a while, they agreed to my offer. I'm so glad they did.

How did you finance this deal?

Short-term loan from a private lender

How did you add value to the deal?

We did $800.00 of rehabbing (mostly hall bathroom upgrades).

What was the outcome?

$29K+ net profit after the wholesale closed

Lessons learned? Challenges?

- We posted "For Sale" signs in the yard which was how we got the attention of the buyer.
- We might've made more money had we rehabbed it fully, but, since this would've been our first fix & flip deal and there was a lot of work to do, taking the $29K+ wholesale profit was probably best for us at the time.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

We got some valuable advice from treasured old friend who passed away a few years ago.