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For at least sixty-five years I have enjoyed fishing. My grandpa had acquired a 64 acre plot of land in Big Cottonwood Canyon just east of Salt Lake City. It is some of the most beautiful land in the whole state of Utah. Eventually the popular Solitude Ski Resort was built next to it. I don’t know the particulars but I recall Grandpa telling me he bought that land for pennies on the dollar. He was a farmer without much education but he found this property through the delinquent tax records for Salt Lake County.

Grandpa paid the back taxes. I don’t even know, fishing wholesale
, where he got the money. He had a shirt-tail relative who was a lawyer and this fellow contacted the heirs who were scattered around the country and had each one sign a quit-claim deed for any interest they had in the land.

Grandpa built a cabin next to the creek, fishing wholesale
, and spent the next 30 years developing the land.

As a boy I spent several summers working in Silver Fork, building roads with a pick and shovel, digging a ditch to bring, fishing wholesale
, ice cold water from an old silver mine to supply the needs of the growing community, and filling a pickup with topsoil to haul back to the farm every Saturday. Grandpa would sell a 50 X 100 foot lot on the creek for $600 at 6% simple interest. People would make their payments to Grandpa in cash and he would take a little notebook out of his bib overalls and write it down for his records.

My parents built a cabin on their 50 X 100 foot lot in 1953. I imagine their total cost was under $3,000. My brothers and I sold it a few years ago for $195,000 and that was the last time anything sold in the area for under $200,000.

Those were great days. Every morning I would walk down some rickety steps to the creek and catch fish for breakfast. I was a two bait fisherman using worms or grasshoppers.

Most of the time I did pretty well but some days the fish weren’t, fishing wholesale
, taking either bait. At age twelve I got a winter job in an old sporting goods store. Customers would come in to visit, tell stories, and buy materials for tying their own fishing flies. I learned to tie flies and soon I was using,, fishing wholesale
, fishing wholesale
, a variety of patterns. Spin fishing became popular and gave me another method to catch fish.

Trolling has also helped me land some big ones. Let us not forget the joys of ice fishing. When I go now I have so many ways to catch fish that I seldom get skunked.

Why this long introduction? Here is the meat. As we immerse ourselves in the exciting world of real estate investing we learn many strategies. We take classes in wholesale, lease option, foreclosure, probate, creative financing, marketing, etc.

We read books. We are mentored and coached. Then, many of us put on, fishing wholesale
, blinders. Blinders are for horses, fishing wholesale
, but the term is also used metaphorically to refer to people with an overly narrow focus or inability to see the larger picture. When we evaluate a property with blinders on we limit our opportunity to make a deal. When we take them off good things can happen.

Let me give you an example of taking the blinders off and using duct tape, wire, and glue to put a deal together.

On March 13, 2006, I received a call from a lady who had seen my “I Buy Houses” advertisement. I used my motivated seller sheet and filled in the responses as I asked her questions. I determined it was worth driving 100 miles to meet the seller and look at the property. This lady had lost her job, run out of workers comp, was eight payments behind on her mortgage, her husband was in prison for 4 1/2 more years, and she needed to move in with her sister.

The trustee sale, fishing wholesale
, had been set for July. The house was filled with stuff from floor to ceiling in some rooms, fishing wholesale
,, fishing wholesale
, and you couldn’t even walk into the garage.

She estimated that her loan balance was around $55,000 and that it would take $5,000 to bring her current. I offered to bring the loan current and buy the property subject to the existing financing if the reinstatement amount did not exceed $5,000.

I had her sign an authorization to release information and faxed it to the lender. The numbers came back and the actual amount was $5,814 so I withdrew my offer. $814 may seem like a small number but I had determined what my maximum offer would be and to pay more than that would make this an emotional purchase and they rarely create a good return on investment. Now let me tell you the rest of the story.

I asked her to cooperate, fishing wholesale
, with me by requesting the lender to let her sell it to me for less than was owed on it. I explained the process of a short sale and outlined some benefits that might accrue to her if they agreed. I told her that she might be able to live in her house a couple of extra months without making payments and that her credit report wouldn’t have a foreclosure notation on it.

I told her the lender would probably postpone the trustee sale, fishing wholesale
, while they considered the offer, fishing wholesale
, . I told her that I would buy her appliances for $1,200 dollars so she would have some moving money. I also told her I couldn’t guarantee that any of these things would happen but she didn’t have much to lose by working with me.

She agreed and I offered her $40,000 for the property.

We completed the short sale paperwork and sent the package to the bank. I told her not to contact the lender or respond to their phone calls or letters any more. I also told her not to water the lawn or cut it or do anything to make the property look good. The offer was transmitted to the lender April 28, 2006. While considering the, fishing wholesale
, offer they did postponed the trustee sale.

Lenders will usually get an appraisal on the property. Frequently this will be a BPO or broker price opinion and sometimes you can help the agent see things he could miss by meeting him, fishing wholesale
, at the property and pointing out all the defects. I wasn’t so lucky. The man who came had been a county appraiser for a number of years. I asked the seller for a key to the home so that I could meet the appraiser.

When he came I had comps prepared for him. I had 21 pictures showing the worse parts of the dwelling. The yard was almost two feet high in weeds. The appraiser still told the lender it was worth $60,000 “as is”. The bank countered my offer at $50,000. I countered back at $45,000, fishing wholesale
, and then the wait began. All of this took several months but I didn’t have a penny tied up and my expenses were three round trips to the property.

On September 27, 2006, the bank accepted my offer of $45,000 and wanted to close two days later. I decided to use a credit card with a $50,000, fishing wholesale
, limit and a good promotional rate but I couldn’t pull funds from it, acceptable by the title company in just two days so I had to get creative. I pulled together all my own cash and then went to a private lender, my son, for the balance.

He gave me all his cash and we had enough to close the deal.

I knew of a rehabber who was looking for a project. As soon as my purchase closed I contacted, fishing wholesale
, him and within a week I leased it to him for six months with an option to purchase for $63,000., fishing wholesale
, He paid me $1,410 option consideration which paid the credit card fee for the cash advance. His lease payment covered my monthly payment on the credit card plus 1/12th of the annual insurance premium.

In March 2007 my buyer said he was ready to exercise his option and finish the deal but he couldn’t get a loan from his credit union until he had a deed to the property. I closed the sale to him by taking back a note due in one week at zero interest secured by a deed, fishing wholesale
,, fishing wholesale
, of trust. He got a loan from his credit union and paid, fishing wholesale
, me off. We closed on April 9, 2007 and I walked away with a profit of $15,135.

My buyer already had the property leased to someone, with an option to purchase for $97,500.

With the blinders on I would have walked away over the, fishing wholesale
, $814. With the blinders on I might not have, fishing wholesale
, considered a short sale, fishing wholesale
, . With the blinders on I might have sat on the property waiting for a buyer instead of doing a lease option. With the blinders on I might not have created a payment schedule that worked for the rehabber.

With the blinders on I might not have done owner financing. I probably didn’t have 40 hours in the whole project and my cash out of pocket was gas money and a couple of meatball sandwiches at Submarine. I made about $375 per hour. I can’t figure the return on investme, fishing wholesale
, nt since I didn’t have any of my cash in the deal.

So let’s take the blinders off! Be familiar with all the lures in your tackle box and use them to put your deals together.

Source: ezinearticles.com