Closed on our FIRST investment property!

[Alexander Wardell]

As of today, I officially own my first investment property! Back in July my good friend of mine had turned me on to BiggerPockets, and I have been hooked ever since. I immediately began listening to ALL the podcasts, watching the webinars, reading the books, and all the other things newbie investors do when they start out. I did the typical path of showing interest in wholesaling and all the awesome low money techniques, but I quickly realized I needed to take another route. After months of obsessing over anything I could get my hands on regarding real estate investing I decided to make the plunge!

Obviously its not that simple, and anyone who has purchased a property knows the get a loan, find a house, buy a house, manage the tenants is much more complicated than you can imagine. I was fortunate enough to have a good friend of mine show just as much interest in real estate investing so we formed an LLC and went to work. We found an amazing realtor (through BP) and she gave us referrals for just about every person we needed to make this happen. We were able to get a private loan for the property through family and after MANY awful showings, really heroin den and all, we found a three family in a great area, for the right price, and in great condition.

We put an offer in based on comps, and repairs needed, which was about 30k under the original asking price. I had been watching the property drop in price over a month so now it was only 16k over our offer. They countered with the listing price, really did not move a penny, so we again countered with our original offer thinking this is not going to work and we had already moved on in our minds. They decided to move on the price and we came to an agreement at 1k below our absolute highest allowable offer which was a win in our book. We did the inspection, and all the other fun stuff that goes along with the due diligence period. Everything went smooth and we were able to close 12 days sooner than the original closing date which was great! There were some last-minute issues with the title but our RE attorney was great and resolved the issue in time for the early closing.

Yesterday on the 3rd, I went to sign the paperwork with the property insurance agency at which time I was told they put the wrong address on the quote and after making the correction the premium went from $2,600 to $3,900 annually. This obviously did not go over well with me, and since it was now 18 hours before the closing, I had no insurance lined up. I called my realtor and like everything else she knew a guy who can make it happen, and he did! He showed up to the closing and we signed the documents with 10 mins to spare! There is always a last-minute scramble, but you will make it happen if you really want it. We now have a great cash flowing 3 family that will jump start our business and we have BiggerPockets to thank for it.

For those out there who are feeling overwhelmed or think this can never happen for them, you are wrong! It can happen, but you need to make it happen, no one is going to do it for you!

Thanks for reading this far into my little story and I wish everyone a successful year!