I thought I found a deal…
Let’s go back to 2023, I just recently moved to Florida from North Carolina. I gave all my belongings away, packed me and my son up and planted ourselves in Tampa Bay. I’ve been wholesaling on and off for a few years with a former business partner, but this was my first go around doing everything solo.
Marketing, talking to motivated sellers, visiting properties, running comps, checking the numbers, finding buyers.
As being the sole operator, honey this is a TASK. Especially to find your zest in an oversaturated market. There’s a lot of real estate professionals and learning your niche in an overwhelming market? A TASK, OKAY?
My niche was distressed and vacant properties. I’m comfortable exploring properties and not knowing what I will find. It’s always a surprise! And mind you, I am easily startled so idk quite exactly how it works for me but it does lol.
December rolls around and I receive a call from a lady who has a property in Port Richey. Am I familiar with anything in this area? Not at all! But I’m game! After calling and texting for a few weeks, doing research primarily from comps in the area… I did the craziest shit possible. I gave some bogus offer, she accepted, it’s under contract, and I pay the earnest money with the title company. Biggest problem? I haven’t seen it yet. Yikes. Things were delayed with viewing it due to the holiday season but after a few days I finally was able to schedule my visit.
Now. prior to my visit she did let me know there were people staying in the property. She called them “friends who kept the property safe” but said before the deal closes, they would move. Lie. Lie. Lie but let’s move forward… I scheduled to make sure someone would be home to make sure I had access to the inside. That whole process was a little sketchy and was hard to get whoever on the phone. So i ended up just showing up and man, my jaw dropped!
Days prior to this viewing, it rained. I’m new to Florida, I had no idea raining season would mean some streets are flooded. So when I turned on the block to check the property… I was met with a street filled with water and deep puddles. I had to drive along the side of the street (damn near on peoples yards) to get all the way down the street to where the property was located. 2 minutes later, I am parked in front of property that is FULL OF JUNK OUTSIDE. Hoarders house. Junk. Everywhere. Before I even get out the car, I am laughing cause girl, what did I get myself into? lmao
I clear my mind and get to work. I step out the truck and analyze the outside, taking photos and videos of everything. To my surprise, this is a man sleeping on a recliner couch outside, barely making it under the carport. Flies all around him and his dog. I get his attention, introduce myself and ask if he can show me the inside. This man couldn’t get inside, all the doors were locked on him, and most of which had no doorknobs. I was puzzled but held my composure. He made a call and after waiting a few, a man on a bike arrives.
This guy does some special trick and boom! Door is unlocked. He shows me around. There’s stuff all over this trailer home- junk, crack, guns, and a lot of bikes! I maintain my stance of “just inspecting and laying eyes”. The guy of the bike is chatty. His perspective of me is that I’m the new landlord so he proceeds to tell me all the issues in the trailer. They have no electricity and running water, this needs fixing, that needs fixing, etc. I remain neutral and take notes of everything. I get back to my truck and I am like “what the fuck was THAT?”
If I had to name a character from a TV show I am 100% sure I just met Frank Gallagher. If you know, you know! I’m not one to back down from an assignment so immediately I get to work. I communicate with the seller who is an absentee owner, by the way. Which means she owns this property but she lives in another state. Now, I put 2 and 2 together without trying to be offensive but I made it clear those are squatters, not tenants. And here is the scary part… I have this property under contract for $60,000!
After seeing the property, collecting my data, visually seeing the neighborhoods.. the numbers DID NOT reflect well of what I actually seen. My mind is like I need a game plan and I need a game plan NOW! I talked the seller down $5,000. That’s practically nothing but okay. I market the property and allow potential buyers to view the property. I had so many people tell me there was a disinterest because the flooding on the street. Some got stuck and weren’t able to even make it to the property. Then there were others who observed and knew without a doubt it was the crackhouse. You can’t hide what you see!
It took me WEEKS to find a buyer who actually wanted the place, but I found someone! And he was completely up for the task of clearing the property, the squatters, and making it a functional property. He saw a plan because he was a landlord in that neighborhood. He knew the type of activity going on. Now here comes the hard part. The numbers on the property were INSANE. Not just because it was relatively high priced for it’s condition. The title company informed us there was still a mortgage open. I said “IKYFL! on THAT place???”. This buyer gave me an assignment. He offered to pay me $3,000 as my finder’s fee if I could talk the seller into accepting getting the mortgage debt being cleared and she would get to pocket $3,000. And I did just that…
I talked and reasoned with her about the pricing, the mortgage, the squatters, the repairs needed, and some more stuff. End result? She told me her property and land value was worth way more than the offer AND mortgage. Delusion at its finest lol.
My biggest take away is DO NOT PUT ANYTHING UNDER CONTRACT without seeing it or having a field inspector go by to view it for you. You need all the facts before agreeing to a number. And the biggest thing about wholesaling is that is has to be discounted. This is usually where many wholesalers fail at. We get excited about getting something under contract but if it’s not a deal, it’s not going to sell!
If you want to see the property I’m talking about check out my tiktok below!
Aligning The Grind 