My First Deal: The Mile High Club

After leaving my engineering, I ended up down in Florida. I was managing rehabs and a portfolio for a group in very much a fake it till you make it scenario. I was 23 and short on cash. I had been poking around at the Milwaukee market for sometime. I subscribed to the theory of "look at this great cash flow per my excel spreadsheet". I would find out later that this approach isn't one I would advise (old homes, lower income = many headaches and def won't meet your standard pro forma). Anyways, I would jump back and forth from where I was living to where I lived out of college: Fort Myers to Chicago.

While on the plane, I was sitting next to a super nice, middle-aged lady. Her husband was a successful executive. She was living in Fort Myers at this time, and her reason for going back was "I am going to sell our last investment property. What a headache?!". The lightbulb went off. I said something to the tune of "Well, I would love to buy it, but I don't really have much cash". We didn't make a deal, but I have her my contact and asked her to contact me if they would be interested in seller financing. 

The next couple days I forgot about the convo. However, a week or so later, I receive an email asking me my cash available. As I just checked the email, it said "I have $2500 that I can afford to put out...". She responded, "Let's do it: 30 year am, 4.25%, 5 year balloon". After some paperwork, which she paid for, we closed the deal. The purchase price was $30,000. I cash-flowed it for two years and then sold it for $50,000. 

It's a bit of a wild story. I think I learned something from this deal, and I think it's something that stuck with me. Pondering, I think it shifted my mindset a bit and is perhaps a large reason for my success. I think the storyline is "if you put yourself out there, people will want to help you". After this, I wasn't scared of asking. As I bought and invested more and more, I noticed I do the same thing. When a "newby" posts something, I love to respond. I love that a person has made a decision to better themselves both as a person and financially. I love that this person has decided to leave their comfort zone. When I made the leap, my friends thought I had lost it. I bet after I made the move, there were conversations about how I went off the deep end; I bet people thought I watched some late night infomercial and called 888-GET-RICH (this was not the case :) ). 

I am currently going through "mindset coaching". As I go through and unpack some things (is less dramatic than it sounds), I was thinking back on the process. This one stuck out to me. 

Check out my projects on IG @mareacap or follow my personal @stevendsegal. I love to connect with people and talk shop 🤙