Читать книгу Commercial Real Estate Investing For Dummies - Peter Harris - Страница 29

Morgan was the kind of teenager who struggled in high school. He didn’t get good grades, and he didn’t earn a college degree. He worked a variety of jobs until he found himself working as a bouncer in a bar and surviving on 69-cent cans of beans. Financially, he had a pretty bleak-looking future.

For some reason, Morgan had the wild idea that he could somehow make money investing in real estate. So, he drove around town talking to agents and looking at properties. One day he saw a sign on an empty lot that said, “Exxon Corporation Land for Sale.” Morgan didn’t know much about land, but after looking at the county records, he figured that the property might be worth about $200,000.

After calling and meeting with the agent, he was able to put a contract in place to buy the land for $160,000. But now Morgan had a big problem because the agent was calling about the $4,000 earnest money deposit that Morgan had promised to give to them. So, he went down to the bank and talked them into lending him the $4,000 based on the value of his car, which was the only real asset that he had.

Now Morgan was faced with the problem of having to close the deal in 120 days, or he would lose his deposit and perhaps his car, too. So, he went back to the county office and looked at all the other parcels of land around his piece that he had under contract. He saw that there was a larger lot behind his property that could have its access restricted depending on how he developed his property.

With the help of an architect, Morgan put together two sets of plans. One set showed a larger commercial shopping center that restricted access to the lot behind it. He also put together another set of plans with another smaller building designed as a gateway to the property behind it. Morgan’s next step took a straight face. He marched into a meeting with the owner of the property that was behind his property and dropped both sets of plans down. Morgan told the owner (in a nice way) that they had a choice: The owner could either accept a wholesale assignment of Morgan’s purchase contract for $320,000 so the owner could develop it with the gateway, or (if the owner didn’t want to buy it) Morgan was going to develop the property himself and restrict the other property owner’s access.

Morgan was scared stiff at this point because he knew that he didn’t have any way to close the deal himself. Fortunately, the owner agreed to the wholesale assignment of Morgan’s property for a total price of $320,000 — and after they went through the due diligence, the price dropped down to $290,000. The seller got the $160,000 they were expecting, and Morgan walked away with $130,000 in profit by assigning his purchase contract. This happened because of two reasons: One was that Morgan found himself in a place in life where he didn’t have a lot of choices. Either he was going to go for it and make it in life, or he wasn’t. The second reason that Morgan was successful is because he had guts. Guts boil down to a willingness to move ahead, even though you’ve never done it before and even though you’re scared to death. You can find out more about wholesaling in Chapter 4.

Let us be clear: Commercial real estate allows you to make whopping piles of money. With commercial real estate you can make anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000 on a little deal. And you can make $10 million or more from a bigger property. Sound interesting? Does it take work? Sure, it does. But a $1,000,000 commercial deal doesn’t take anywhere near ten times the work that a $100,000 residential deal takes. So, what you’re doing is working at a higher level that rewards you with the opportunity to make a lot more money with just a little more effort.