A month after buying my second 7 unit building I purchased a nice 3 unit building from an out of state owner named John. Originally, John and his wife had bought the property and lived in the 1st floor apartment while renting out the other 2 units. After a job transfer (and a new baby), they now lived over an hour away and were not too thrilled about absentee landlording.
John was an accountant and a bright guy, but it was amazing how long it took to purchase this house. It wasn't a negotiation over price; my initial offer of $95,000 was okay with him. I had even asked him to pay $4,000 towards my closing costs and that was okay too. Through our conversations I sensed that he wasn't a 'people person' and perhaps a little untrusting of a stranger. This was perfectly understandable. After all, he had received one of my direct mail letters and now he was about to bind himself to a legally enforceable document.
At this stage of the negotiation I decided to do 2 things. First, I encouraged him to seek legal counsel and have the contract looked over. I use a standard Maryland Association of Realtors purchase agreement and it's very unambiguous. Any attorney will modify it slightly, but I knew this wouldn't be a problem. And are you ready for this? The second thing I did was invite him over to my house for dinner! This may seem crazy to some people, and maybe it was a little crazy but so what! I wanted him to feel comfortable dealing with me and I knew that if he saw where I lived (a modest 3 bedroom townhouse at that time) it would give him a warmer, fuzzy feeling about me. I was a real person, with a real wife, living where I said I did in a real house. I wasn't trying to take advantage of him so I felt that I had absolutely nothing to hide.
Within 2 weeks my wife and I entertained John & his wife at our house. We had a relaxed conversation and the deal was finally done.
David Lawn went from broke & bankrupt to owning over 100 apartments worth over $6 million dollars. Now, he's sharing the techniques he used to accomplish this. Learn more at http://www.survivordave.com
Source: www.articletrader.com
