I have to thank everyone that posted here today. It has been extremely helpful and informative advice.
Luckily, the sellers tried to reneg in order to get interest on their financing. They figured they were giving me some sort of deal by financing 90% AND charging interest. Since I was aware of the already looming bad deals (thanks to ya'll), it gave me the chance to make the appropriate decision of declining their new offers.
Recap of What I have learned from this deal along with your advice:
1) Just because it is owner financing doesn't necessarily make it a good deal.
2) Owner financing doesn't justify the owners to charge FMV and Interest, thus over leveraging myself.
3) The importance of going out there and making offers and gaining the experience from it all. Bad or Good. Priceless. No guru can teach you the same thing that experience does.
4) I can see how easy it is to let emotions take over when analyzing a deal. With emotions aside, it is much easier to look at the numbers only and see if they work or not.
5) Lastly, it is becoming more and more clear why so many newbies quit before they ever start. It's easy to read a book from some guru and go to a few seminars and meetings. What's not easy is accepting the fact that in order to learn the game, you actually have to go outside and talk to sellers. It's easy to put out some half-hazard attempts at marketing and wait for the phone to blow off of the hook. And if no one calls, you can just blame it on the marketing, not your efforts. Sure, marketing is great and good, but if you don't have to courage to call sellers yourself before ever marketing, how do you plan to know what to say when they actually do respond to your ads. It's easy to get caught up doing "investor" activities that don't ever seem to produce any real results. What's not easy is facing your fears of talking to people you don't know (i.e. sellers) and not being afraid to look like a beginner. Like it or not, we as novice investors, are beginners. So why should be ashamed of the fact and allow that to stop us. What's not easy is accepting the fact that this is not a get rich quick type career.This is where it seems that many of the newbie investors start to fall off. I have only been doing this since the beginning of May, and during my time I have seen so many people come and go. They get real hyped about making tons of money, and when the real work kicks in, they disappear and move to the next get rich quick scheme that will hopefully work. I must admit, I was aroused by the idea of making tons of money as soon as I finished reading. But wait, when the first book was done being read, I found the next latest and greatest. So of course I couldn't stop with one book. Many books seemed to follow. A lot of organzing "investing" materials and looking at the MLS for houses. I was "investing" though, right? Wrong. . . Not until I stopped the webinars and closed the guru books, did I really start to understand the importance of action over knowledge. Now knowledge is key of course, BUT real knowledge is what happens from applying these techniques we spend so long learning about.
While this may have seemed to go a little off topic, rest assured there is a moral.
I know many newbies are reading a lot of the posts here. This is why I wanted them not only to see what kind of advice ya'll had given to me, but more importantly, what I learned from the advice as well. I am not concerned with whether or not these deals or past deals worked out. All I concern myself with now is getting out there and making it happen. Making the calls. Going to appointments. Making offers. Having offers rejected. Asking advice and immediately applying it. Why do I concern myself with this? As the veteran investors know, its because these are the things that produce results. When I learned and understood the 80/20 principle, I had a rude awakening. I asked myself: "If there was only one thing that I could do everyday for the rest of my life in this business, what would produce the most results?" The answer inevitably was . . . talking to sellers. We are in this to buy houses, right? And who do we buy houses from? Sellers. Now if you never talk to any sellers, how will anyone ever sell you their house? And if you never buy any houses, how can you expect to make money? It's a hard pill to swallow, I know. Moral of the story . . . . focus on activities that reward you with results.
Now that long, and drawn out story is over, I wanna thank everyone again and wish you the best!
Happy Hunting,
Jimmy D
