How I fell into a 24 unit apartment complex...

[Demetri T.]

Before I knew about Bigger Pockets I had purchased two houses (both initially as primary residences) and two commercial buildings (the first one where I had my office).   But it had been several months and I had several rejected offers and struggles finding another deal.  I was getting annoyed and reading up on ideas on how to finance deals and how to find them when I stumbled upon BiggerPockets.  Literally the day I registered with BiggerPockets I got a phone call at my office...

I am a lawyer (personal injury aka ambulance chaser) by trade and my CPA called to see if I could handle a landlord tenant case for a client of his with an apartment complex.  I told him I didn't and gave him a referral for another lawyer.  A minute later I sent back a one sentence email to my CPA saying "...but I will buy the place from him".  At that point I knew nothing about the project but small town connections are how I got my other projects.  He put me in contact with the owner and it really snowballed from there.

We met and discussed his complex- he said it was 24 units and gave me some back of a napkin numbers.  I did some more research on the property and it looked really good.  He had sold it on a contract before and had to take it back from that buyer 5 years ago.  He had subsequently cleaned it up- both physically and improving the tenants.  

Apparently I could not have picked a better time to ask about buying the apartments.  He had a problem tenant which I knew.  But he had been retired for several years and it seemed like a good time to get out of the apartments.  Then on top of that his wife was having some health issues and it just seemed providential that I came along at just that moment.

We both came to the same price and then they decided they didn't really even want as much money down as I was offering- they didn't want the tax hit.  So they ended up carrying nearly the entire contract because all they wanted was the income monthly from me.

Long story short, 2 days shy of my 36th birthday I closed on a 24 unit complex less than two months after I had ever heard of it.  My favorite part of the story is that it wasn't for sale.  

Another fun part is that I ended up using a line of credit for the down payment so I literally have no cash out of pocket on this one.  This is actually kind of deceptive because I have another property I am in the middle of refinancing and this will clear out that line of credit almost immediately- but still I used my other property to buy this one... so its not that deceptive.