After I had purchased a home as a rental, cleaned it up and started the leasing process, I met a single mother with two young daughters, coming off a broken marriage, desperately in need of a place to live for her and her two daughters.
She wanted our rental and ultimately she proved to be a very qualified tenant and we placed her in the home.
She was an excellent tenant over time. It was a great landlord-tenant relationship.
That was all I intended to accomplish with that transaction.
Here is where the real story unfolds
This is the home leased to the single mother with two young daughters.
Talking with her and trying to understand better how to solve the problem of finding a home for her, she said the reason she needed to rent was because of the broken marriage.
I asked her what she was leaving behind, something she rented or she owned. She said she literally walked away from a home she and her now ex-husband owned just a few blocks over.
I asked, “You walked away, what does that mean?”
She explained the house was in poor shape and their relationship was in worse shape, so they chose to walk away from the home and let the bank have it.
I asked if the process of the bank taking the home had begun yet. “No, we’ve just moved out and ultimately the bank will see no more payments are coming in, and we’re not responding, and they will foreclose,” she said.
I told her regardless of her scenario she did not want a foreclosure on her background and she agreed, but had no idea how to avoid that process. At that point I leveraged my network and got my short-sale Realtor involved and, long story short, we ended up purchasing that property as a short sale property and saved that new tenant of mine from a foreclosure.
We did not intend to solve her problem of avoiding a foreclosure. And yet we were able to. I did not intend to provide my short-sale Realtor with an income-producing lead that I ultimately bought. But we did. So a lot of good came from that conversion.
The story continues to unfold
This is the home the single mother was letting go to foreclosure prior to us buying it and avoiding the foreclosure.
As I began the rehab on that short-sale property I purchased for rental, I met the neighbor next door, and he had a problem too. He was so excited to see me come along to purchase the property.
He had high pride of ownership for his home and his street. He had taken it on himself to maintain the yard just out of the goodness of his heart because it was a highly visible home on a corner lot next to his own and he did not want the eyesore in the neighborhood.
He was thrilled as we started to landscape, paint and clean up and manicure.
So, we never intended to purchase this property, but we did, and solved my tenants’ problem of a foreclosure.
We never intended to solve a neighbor’s problem of an abandoned property next door, but we did.
An overwhelmed widow
I got a call a few weeks later from an elderly widow a few blocks over from that rental property.
She said she got my name from the neighbor I met in the front yard who was so happy to see us fix that house up. He happened to be a sprinkler repairman and the elderly widow was one of his clients.
She had a problem. She was recently widowed. She had been living in the home 40 years with her now deceased husband.
She was completely overwhelmed with the thought of selling the home– how to do it, what to do, who to call. So the neighbor I met at the previous rental property, the sprinkler repairman, had told her about us. He told her, “I know a guy named Kevin who buys houses.”
We ultimately ended up purchasing her home as well. So once again, we never intended to buy another rental but by leveraging our network and the neighbor next door we ended up purchasing her home and that is now part of our rental portfolio.
A family on the waiting list for a rental home
We had a tenant on our waiting list, but we had not had anything suitable for this family. This home we purchased from the elderly widow was a sizable home. She had raised her family there.
This particular tenant had a need for a big home and we were able to solve their problem.
They had been on a waiting list, living with a family member, with multiple children desperately in need of their own home and this home fit exactly what they needed. So before we even purchased the property we had a tenant earmarked and ready and waiting for that property.
There are two morals to the story
First is solving problems. As personal real estate investors we can never lose sight of our role as a problem solver. When you think about just this one story, we solved the problem of a single mother needing housing. We helped an individual avoid a foreclosure. We solved the problem of a neighbor burdened by an eyesore of a property on their street. We solved the problem of an elderly widow who was overwhelmed with selling her home. And we solved the problem of a family needing a large home to rent.
To be able to do that is the essence of what we do as investors. We stay focused on solving others’ problems. Purchasing the homes is simply a byproduct of that. If you solve others’ problems, listen to their distress, you will get the homes you need as an investor to satisfy your business objectives.
The second moral is leveraging your network. When you think about it, we were able to buy two additional rental properties that we never intended to because we told people what we do as investors and we talk to people. That ultimately led to the purchase of two homes, and we leveraged our short-sale Realtor who was part of our network. We leveraged tenants, with whom we had built relationships, who were waiting for homes to rent. Tell people what you do as an investor and you will be surprised what comes of it.
Our goal initially was just to put a tenant in one home. And we ultimately bought two more houses and occupied those with tenants as a result of simply focusing on our problem-solving skills and our role as a skilled networker.
I buy people’s problems
My key focus and role is a problem solver. I often joke with people and tell them, “I buy people’s problems. ” Nine times out of 10, homes are the byproduct of solving that problem. I cannot purchase a home unless I understand the need of the seller and the problem to be solved and how to leverage others around me.
As I walk up to that doorbell, I know there is some type of distress inside that home. Whether in the home or the situation, I have to understand how to solve that distress. If I stay focused on that, the solution will ultimately result in a purchase of a home. It may not be that home, but it may result in a purchase of a home a week from now, two weeks from now or two years from now, from someone indirectly related to that person inside that home.
If you stay focused on the problem, you are going to buy plenty of homes as long as you stay grounded in those principles and those skills.
Hear Kevin talk about this story on blog talk radio, click here.
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