Melanie, the deal that got away is one that I still think about. It was a raw land deal that involved buying the land, creating the infrastructure, drainage, utilities & subdividing the land - then building custom homes on the lots (development) for my family which they would then eventually sell off and profit from.
My family had found a 15 acre tract of land listed for sale at $500,000 ($33,333 per acre) in a very fast growing area of Texas. I knew this land was a deal when I found it, and I visited the property and it had never been visited by the seller as they were out of state.
My plans were to subdivide the land into 5 tracts of 3 acre lots, install an access road to each lot, and have a middle pond / drainage area with a fountain.
While completing my due diligence (this took months) I was finally ready to move forward with the deal. I had figured I needed to put in another $150-200K in improvements to the land before we could build out homes.
All in, I would be around $700,000 for developed turn key lots, which in turn would be worth $2,250,000 at completion ($150K acre). Homes would be custom built, and would build out for around $150 / ft. putting the value of the lot prices with homes in the range of $700-850K.
Looking at it from an investment deal, we stood to make potentially over $1M after the debt was paid, costs were covered, etc.
It took me months to finalize my costs, and line up financing with a local bank who would finance the initial land, and then refinance the individual lots to the end buyers.
I went to move forward on the deal, and the day we reached out to the other agent to proceed we were notified a church bought the property - and that was it for my deal.
Although this deal cost me nothing but a few months of due diligence, I learned that you need to move forward if your gut feeling tells you so. Someone else is looking at that deal. Don't wait.
