Our first unconventional small success in real estate.

[Benjamin Shaw]

This is not the typical success story since my wife and I are just starting out and have still not found our first deal. We are reading the books, listening to BP podcasts, going to REIA meetings, and browsing the BP forums. We have actually secured a private money lender for our first flip, but that is not what this one is about.

So last week we saw that our local REIA was having a seminar on wholesale automation. This sounded interesting so we paid the $60 and attended. Of course, it turned out to be a sales pitch from a "Guru" who offered very little practical advice and some tactics he described using were most likely illegal in 49 of the 52 states.

The whole day was a lead-up to him requesting that we buy his $995 wholesaling automation package. I have to admit that it was tempting, but we did not pull the trigger.

Here's our success: 

We gained confidence that this is something we can do. Going to that seminar, seeing that the people there are just like us, and being able to easily following along due to the knowledge that the BP forums, podcast, and books have imparted to us was a huge boost.

We also met an extremely nice gentleman investor who gave us a bit of personalized coaching over lunch, told us to keep in touch, and that he often goes on safari in Africa and would love to take us someday when we get farther along in our business.

Lastly; it turns out that as we walked in the door we got a raffle ticket. Throughout the day the "Guru" pulled a few tickets and gave the winners one of the books taken from the full course he was pitching. 

We did not win anything, until the end of the day when everyone else was at the back of the room buying his program and he ran to the back to raffle off the grand prize, an older version of the current course he was offering for $995.

As he called the number my eyes blurred a bit as I looked down at my ticket. I had to read it a few times, but yes, it was my number! I slowly raised my hand. My wife thought I was joking and tried to stop me, but it was ours! 

He looked at me in disbelief and told me not to get so excited, mentioning that during the whole day I had simply been staring at him without cracking much of a smile. When he handed over the package everyone there was crowding around us, telling us how great it was and handing us their cards if we needed help with the program. Even the guy that told us he goes on safari walked up and told us not to forget him when we made it big!

We quickly made our exit and ran out to the car, wondering what the heck had just happened, and excitedly talked about it on the way home, while we both confirmed that yes, although this guy was a bit on the shady side there was a few things we got out of the day that made it worth the trip.

So we got home and immediately went to work inspecting the course. By the end of the next day, I had read 90% of it when I suddenly realized that all of the stuff he was talking about that we were most interested in was in a "back office" that could only be accessed online! I searched through the box, looking for a card containing the info to log in, nothing...  I started searching online for a support email address and sent an email stating that we had won the program, but there was no login into. No reply.

Three days later I get an email. They had confirmed we won the course and they provided a URL to login to create our account!  I did so immediately. The interface looked horrible, but I knew what I was looking for. I went directly to the resource page and found it, a direct link to download every document in the "back office"!

It was a gold mine. Around 200 word documents containing every type of contract, flyer, direct response email campaigns, postcards, bandit signs, virtual assistant training, and anything else you could imagine would be needed for a real estate business.

While some of it is garbage, I'm sure we will be cherry picking stuff out of these files for years to come. All in all, it was a good day. We are thankful for it, and also for all the content and interaction here on the BP forums. It seems like a great start for us to have some small success right at the beginning.

In the meantime, we are studying our butts off. I have a day job as an engineer, while my wife has a small house cleaning business, she is able to spend many hours a day researching for our first flip. 

While are extremely eager to find our first property, and have already found a private lender as I mentioned at the top, we have learned enough from the BP forums and podcast to know what we don't know and the steps needed to remedy that.

Hope this helps inspire others to stay consistent with their BP education and get out to their first REIA meeting. You never know what will happen out there!