Try to Kill Your Deal

“Try to kill your deal.” (- Tim Bratz). As a new investor, this can be hard to swallow. In fact, I own over 200 multifamily units and around 50,000 sq ft of office space, and I STILL struggle with it. I’m a problem solver at heart and I’m always looking for the solution. I’ve encountered every headache you can imagine. My first property ended up having foundational issues, rot, termites, and the floors were so uneven our dogs chased a stray carrot across the entire apartment. Contractors have stolen from me, they’ve underestimated and overbilled. I’ve had plenty of leaks, frozen pipes, and I’ve rented to the absolute worst tenant in the world. None of it mattered - the PAIN of not chasing my dream of financial freedom outweighed the pain of doing it.

I refuse to settle, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs with the same mindset. You’re ready to get to work and solve some problems. You WANT the deal to work and your entrepreneurial spirit is programmed to problem-solve, so you keep “finding ways to make it work” that will inevitably bite you in the ass.

There is another way that does not include banging your head against the wall day after day--you have to learn to kill the deal. You kill the deal by setting your criteria and simply saying “no” when the deal doesn’t fit. It’s simple - not easy. I can promise you that when you find that deal that fits your criteria, you will be relieved that you passed on the previous deal that you “tried to make work.”

It’s taken me longer than I like to admit to learn this lesson. I’ve said “no” in 2020 more than ever and I have more deals that fit our criteria in our pipeline than ever. We are closing 208 units the first week of July, 76 units in August, 34 units in August, and potentially 392 units in September, TOTALING 710 units!

Staying true to your criteria and saying “no” when it doesn’t fit brings an astonishing amount of clarity to your decision making. Instead of spending hours over a deal trying to find a way to make it work, you can kill it in 2 minutes and move to the next. You can exponentially increase your deal analysis and review 10 deals per day instead of 2. This philosophy dovetails nicely with a quote from Richard Bronson: “deals are like buses, there is always another one coming around the corner.”