ANYONE CAN DO THIS! FIRST DEAL

Well where do I begin. I was out of town and saw the price on this house drop in price from $49,900 to $44,900. When I returned I called my realtor and we went and looked at house. I put in offer for $35,000. It's a 3BR 1BA 2 story home with detached garage. The counter was $44,500. Not much to work with if you know what I mean so I thought it was a dead deal. But it's alive because the seller's realtor called mine and asked if I would meet halfway. Well went home did some numbers over and I think I even looked at it again. I placed offer for $38,000. Okay this is where the learning begins. Seller countered $40,000. On my own I probably would have thought $2,000 isn't much but I didn't rush in this decision. I called a very good local investor and mentor and talked with him; he explained about how you have to put in all the expenses and still be below the 80% below ARV (after repair value) and he told me I needed to stay put. Because I'm stubborn at times I called another local investor friend and she agreed with other investor and it's not that I didn't agree but you know you just want to make sure. Anyway told realtor $38,000. Seller called back and said okay as long as I didn't have any contingencies as far as home inspection so that was a risk but I had been in the house and looked thoroghly 2 times. Oh when I went in to sign purchase agreement I had realtor add 'and/or assign' by my name which was fine. So then I decided instead of keeping I would try to assign and went to Craiglist to search I buy houses and sent email to one of the ads and also because I was told if I had a good deal I could send it to Matt (cbrpower) Larson. Matt replied and asked for more info and such. Here's the exciting part Matt's realtor tracks all of his offers and so Matt was able to share with me that he had placed offer on the same house and guess for how much $38,000--- The exact same price. And this was back in April sometime. It gets better. I was asking $3000 assignment fee and Matt offered $1000 so I asked/counter $1500 and Matt agreed. Because of FMV and price I knew $3000 was alot but yet I also knew you can't ask for more but you can always go down. I was even calling my local investor friend and asking her what she thought about me asking for more for the assignment fee; it was funny to be honest. I was cooking on the grill when Matt and I were texting back and forth about the fee.

Oh before I forget I didn't know until the Edge 2010 that Matt puts in offers about every 2 weeks if they are not accepted. I didn't ask him until the Edge when he had put his offer in and it was about 2 weeks before mine. So basically I just snuck mine in between his. I know there is a God watching over me, lol. Also the house had been on the market for 159 days.

Here's the lessons learned:
1. So just goes to show you that anyone can compete with the big dogs (Matt's a multimillionaire and this was my first deal). You can do this. Believe in yourself!

2. Stick with your offers no matter how bad you want the deal; the numbers work; don't get emotional (I need to take my own advice on this one)

3. Have Mentors whether the academy, this site, or local REI group

4. Don't be afraid to ask and/or counter anything.

Good luck to everyone out there in their REI adventure.
Cathy L