Found & Closed My First Wholesaling Deal in 7 WEEKS!

[Ezinwanne Hawkins]

7 weeks ago, I decided to begin learning as much as I could about wholesaling. It sounded like a great way to learn about REI from the ground floor, while building savings to be put towards our first purchase.

So, I started working. I started driving neighborhoods everyday to learn as much about Baltimore as I could. I left my card at every vacant house I saw. I spoke to neighbors to get info on distressed properties, and left my cards with them too. I started a website to legitimize my new business. I began advertising on CL on a daily basis for motivated sellers. I started calling rental property owners to see if they, or anyone they knew, were interested in selling.

To my surprise, I got a call 1 week later from a seller who wanted me to make an offer on his vacant shell. He wanted $6500, and long story short, I was able to talk him down to $2000! Despite catching pneumonia a few days later, and not having 1 single "buyer" on a list, I sold the property 10 days later for $4,000! I know it's not much of a fee, but I was very proud of myself and my first deal :)

2 weeks later, I found out during the title search that the seller owed over $4,000 in taxes and liens on the property :( The seller claimed he had no idea, and tried to back out of the deal. I firmly reminded him that we had a contract where he promised to remedy any outstanding liens on the property, and that I intended to hold him to the contract. I also reminded him that my deal would at least get him $2000 in help with the liens. Lastly, I offered to donate $500 of my fee to assist. Eventually, he conceded and we went to settlement earlier today :)

I want to publicly thank Ned Carey for all of his advice and words of encouragement. He seems to think it was no big deal, but I really wouldn't have had the confidence to keep moving forward without his help. Thank you Ned!!

Just wanted to share my story with everyone. I know my first deal came a lot sooner than is typical, but I was focused with an expectation that I would succeed at this, and voila, I did. On to the next!

My second deal (a crazy story!) will hopefully close next week. Keep pushing everyone!

[Ezinwanne Hawkins]

Originally posted by Ibrahim S:

BTW, what were some of the lessons learned in this one Ezinwanne Hawkins?

Things I did right:

~ Constant follow-up with my end-buyer. I could tell she was nervous about the transaction, so I was sure to keep her constantly informed. As a result, she quickly agreed to 3 contract extensions (due to the delays caused by the liens on the property) with no push back at all.

~Keeping my cool when things went left. The seller initially flat out REFUSED to pay for his liens, and seemed to infer that I was being unreasonable for expecting him to. This irritated me very much, b/c he also hadn't been great about timely following up with me on other issues, then he drops this on me. But I remained firm, yet calm and professional with him throughout. As a result, he has 2 other properties that he'd like for me to sell. Go figure!

Things I'll do better next time:

~ More due diligence on outstanding liens or taxes for a property. While you can't easily search for previous city-imposed liens on a property in Baltimore, you can do so for the current year's liens. If I had done this, I would have seen that the taxes hadn't been paid and this may have caused me to question the seller on other outstanding liens or fines.

~ Find out in advance how much the attorney's closing fee is. Most of the fees for closing are fixed or based on the property, so the place for the biggest savings are the costs the attorney charges for settlement. These costs ended up being much higher than I suggested to my end buyer. Thankfully she was prepared for the extra costs, but if I had it to do again I'd nail down these exact costs in advance.

I learned so many lessons with this first deal, so please ask away if there's any more insight I can give :)