In this case study, I want to talk about a lesson I certainly learned firsthand in the Old Schoolhouse and then applied beyond the schoolhouse later in life. That lesson is one that probably everyone reading this has heard before, but probably not everyone has effectively applied it in their lives. Here’s the lesson:

Stay Patient.

You can see I like to keep my lessons simple. It makes them easier to remember! So, when I was living in the old Beebe Schoolhouse with my mom, stepdad, and siblings, I had to be patient pretty much constantly. The truth is that I wasn’t always very good at it. But one instance in which I was nearly always patient was when I was hunting. If you have read my story, you know my stepdad gave me three bullets the first day he let me borrow his 12-gauge and let me go hunting, and you also know that I was not going to get any more bullets unless I brought home some game.

Believe me: When you have three bullets to last you the rest of your life (how it looks when you’re 12, anyway), you exercise a little patience. I’ll let you read the whole story in the book, but (spoiler alert) I did end up getting another bullet. One. And that one was all I had the next day when I needed to shoot something else to get one more. That was one place I learned this lesson while I was living in the old schoolhouse.

Being Patient Beyond the Schoolhouse

As I got into real estate investing in the 1990s, I soon realized that real estate requires a lot of patience as well. People do not always do what you want them to do (or what they should do) when it comes to physical property – especially not the first time you discuss it with them. Here is an example:

In 2017, things were going pretty well for me. I was building my real estate portfolio, starting and running businesses, and had recently purchased a Party Store that was shaping up to be a fantastic investment. I got a phone call one day from the head of foreclosures at a local bank. She said, “I hear you do foreclosures, real estate investing, etc., and I have a deal for you. Would you go look at [another] party store building and tell me what you would pay for it?”

Well, when a bank officer asks you to look at a property, that usually means they are looking to get that property off the books, so I went right over to check it out. It was in sad, sad shape. It used to be a nice little residence/business location, but it had been through some rough times with the previous owner and would have made most people either run away screaming or say it simply had to be torn down. Thanks to my experience as a builder, I was able to say the building could be saved, but I told her most people would need to tear it down instead. I asked what they were hoping to get, and she told me the bank wanted $19,000. I told her that was a little steep for me, and we hung up.

Two weeks later, my friend from the bank was back on the line. “Make me an offer on that party store. Just tell me what you want to pay.” I knew that they had wanted far, far more than the property was worth the last time we had talked, so I told her to tell me what they’d take. She said, “I would do cartwheels if you gave me $5,000.”

“Start doing cartwheels,” I said.

We handled all the paperwork quickly. Within a few weeks, I owned that building and the land it stood on. I immediately put up a poster board sign in the window that read, “For Sale, Land Contract. Lease/Trade/Make Me An Offer.” I was asking $19,000 because I figured if that was what the bank wanted, that was what I wanted! Of course, the benefit of paying a higher amount than typical market value when you’re using a land contract or other creative financing is that you do not have to have all the money up front and, in many cases, the seller (that’s me) is the source of financing. It’s a great strategy because the buyer gets a property they otherwise could not afford and the seller has good collateral because if the buyer falls short, they can take the property back.

I left that sign up there for a while and finally listed with a local real estate agent. Two weeks after we listed, that property sold for $16,000. In just a few months, I had made $11,000! I made that money because I was patient. I was willing to wait until the bank was ready to meet me where I was comfortable in terms of price instead of trying desperately to come up with the money to buy a property that was not going to be worth what the seller at the time (the bank) was wanting. I was patient, and I got my deal.

I wasn’t the only one who benefitted, either:

• The bank got the property off the books and got $5,000
• The person who bought it from me was able to purchase a storefront for her business as well as a residential property
• My agent sold a property and made a commission
• The local economy added another small business to the roster
• The party store in question was no longer vacant and deteriorating

It was a winning situation all around, as many situations will be if you are just patient enough to let them evolve that way.

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