RBBP FIRST DEAL CLOSED for $5706.70 Net Profit!!!

I just closed my very first deal today (Tue) for $5,706.70 net profit!!! It took me 2.5 months, since I bought RBBP on August 1st. And I had a few last-minute surprises but everything worked out in the end. Man, this stuff works! Only if you work though

Just to let you know what happened, my realtor listed this 2-br/2-ba townhouse in a nice neighborhood for $89,900. The ARV is about $125k, so I made an offer for $66,300 with EM of $500 and got it accepted and approved by the bank (it's a short sale). While pending the approval, we stumbled upon a cash buyer who's a contractor, who was also very interested in this property. So I decided to flip it to him through double closing. We had some back and forth and we ended up with $77,500!

A mistake I made during the negotiation was that I forgot to ask him to pay his own agent's commission. If I remembered I had to pay that, I would've negotiated with a higher number. This mistake caused me more than $2k! It's definitely a very valuable lesson.

As for the transactional funding for the first closing, I got the cash from my buddy who's in the hedge fund business -- I paid him 2% fee. I also put in a little bit of my own money to save on the money costs (since it's sitting in the bank anyway). The funny thing is, I actually sent him a message in Facebook one night thinking that he probably wouldn't want to invest his money, but he replied the next morning with some questions and we talked over the phone and made a deal in less than an hour! This reminds me: don't be afraid to ask, the worst somebody can do is say no.

The last thing that caused a 1-day delay of the closing was that the title search returned an open mortgage on the property by a contractor. The mortgage was paid off 20 years ago, but the company already went out of business and we couldn't find the owner. Luckily, the seller dug through her documents and managed to find the release papers at 1 am last night! She was really motivated as she's been trying to sell the property for 1.5 years!

All said and done, the closing took less than an hour and I walked away from the table with about $5,700 net profit, and I've never even seen the property myself!!! How cool is that?!

But, the best thing that happened today is to see the big smile on the seller's face -- she was literally dancing and hugging people! It's just so wonderful to be able to help take a burden off someone, give business to the title company, the attorney, 2 realtors, bring a great deal to the end-buyer, and make some money myself (plus the county and state take a good chunk of taxes too...). Everybody wins!

Bottom line, just go out there and keep making progress every single day. Never ever give up because that's when you actually fail! I didn't know a lot of the things that happened, and I still probably don't. I had many obstacles, most of them psychological -- What if they try to scam me? What if I look stupid? What if it doesn't work out? Too many what ifs...but I definitely had a wonderful real world education, not just theoretical stuff. I'm moving on to my 2nd deal, and I hope your next deal is right the corner! Hope this helps, good luck!