How a good deed turned into $15,000 for 3 hours of work.

[Thomas Mitchell]

This is a long story, but you will want to read it. Trust me!

Last Thursday I met with an elderly couple who had a recently disabled son. They wanted to sell his house for cash since he was unable to care for it. They said, "It is on the tax roll for $89,000 and we'll take $50,000." The house needed some work and they were realistic about its value. I drove to meet them at the house and spent about an hour meeting with them. I went home and looked at the comps on the house. I calculated my numbers and repair costs and called to tell them the best I could do was $42,500. They thought about it for 24 hours and called me back to accept my offer. I drove to their house the next day to sign paperwork with them. During our visit the father said, "We know that we could get more for this if we listed it, but then we would have to deal with people walking in and out all the time and we just want to be done with it." Like I always say, I'm the path of least resistance. Knowledge is power and if I have more know-how I will usually profit from it. This is where the story gets REALLY good. They live in a rural area about 20 minutes from my office. I have to drive by their son's house (which I now have under contract) to go back to where my office is. On the way I saw a baby longhorn calf that had gotten out of a fence and was grazing just off of the 4 lane highway. I slammed on my brakes thinking that I might try to coax it back over the cattle guard. I looked to my right and saw a very large house and figured they might know the owners of the land next door to them. I walked up to the house and the owner came outside. I explained to him that the cow in the pasture next to his house was out and I wanted to know if he knew who owned it. He said it was his and thanked me for letting him know. (You need to know: I have my car wrapped with my company logo that says "I buy houses") After we chatted about the cow for a bit he asked me, "So do you buy houses?" I told him I did. He then asked me, "Do you have any rentals that you want to unload fast for cash?" I said, "As a matter of fact, I do. I have one that is just about a mile from here. I'm asking 60K." He said he would drive by over the weekend and call me next week. Well next week was today and he asked me to show him the interior of the house. Long story short, he's coming by my office tomorrow to sign the contract to buy the house for 60K. I got it under contract for 42.5K and we will do a pass through closing to save closing costs. I'm going to pay my money partner 1K to use his money for maybe 2 hours and I should net +/- 15K - all because I stopped on the side of the road to tell a guy that his cow was out of the fence. All in all I have about 3 hours of work in this deal. And I have to say thank you to the good lord for putting this deal in my lap.