03/25/2022
Every house has a story...
This one has two:
"Through the Fire"
and
"C.R.E.A.M."
"Mr. Eldrick" is a 70 year old "BROTHER".
To be honest, I can not remember exactly how I came across him and this particular house. I "think" it was on a list I had and I continued to follow-up. Stoxx was able to schedule a meeting with all of us. "Mr. Eldrick", Marqui M. Garrett, and I met at the property and walked through it. It was ROUGH...You see the pictures. There were a few people engaged in "unsavory and dubious" activities on the property. There were dogs, cats, and roosters on the property. Normally, I would have declined, but I decided to talk to "Mr. Eldrick" more. I'm glad I did.
"Mr. Eldrick" was older and was just tired of dealing with the property. He would take anything to get rid of it. BUT...BUT...BUT...he owed $90K on the property. He also wanted to walk away with $25K so it wouldn't be a total loss of time over the years. The property, as it was at that moment, needed over $75K in renovations and upgrades. The most I could sell it for would have been $265K. NUMBERS DON'T ADD UP, RIGHT?
Well...thanks to Training....there can be different ways to MAKE the numbers add up.
"Mr. Eldrick's" mortgage was $600/month. I told him I'd give him $15K up front and take over the $600/month payments. He said, "No", I want $25K. I asked, "Could we trade the $10K in exchange for an additional $200/month? He said, "Yes". So the final deal was $15K upfront, $800/month payments. I would pay the bank directly and then just schedule my bank to send him $200/month. What I didn't tell him was that I would have just paid him $2400 after a month or so and kept paying the $600.
Enough of the details, we put everything in contract and sent to the title company. We decided to assign the property and while we did not get the number we wanted, we found a buyer named "Cee-Cee". "Cee-Cee" insisted that the tenants be out prior to closing and one of the tenants refused to move (which was smart). "Cee-Cee" decided to move on because of that tenant. So we decided to keep the house.
Before the closing date, the tenant was killed when the house caught on FIRE: https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/richmond/two-people-severely-burned-after-house-fire-near-nine-mile-road-in-richmond/
"Mr. Eldrick" was crushed. He and I both called the power company and begged them to turn off the power to the house. They would NOT do it. The fire was started in the kitchen...just as "Mr. Eldrick" predicted to me.
Since the house was under contract, we were due some money from the insurance company. We allowed "Mr. Eldrick" to have that. Some of you may be like, "Yo....that's crazy! That is your money!!!", but we just don't roll that way. It isn't about the money, it is about the PEOPLE...if you take care of the people, you can then find creative ways to make the money.
We restructured the contract so that we could buy the now condemned house from "Mr. Eldrick". Got it very cheap...great deal. We called "Cee-Cee" and asked if her and her partner wanted to JV (joint venture) on the upcoming project and they said, "Yeah!" We found out a few days later that the city had changed the zoning of the property to B-2, which means that we can build on the property...and we can build BIG. Like, an APARTMENT big...and unless we get a ginormous offer on the land due to its location (downtown RVA), we ARE going to build BIG...
We took care of "Mr. Eldrick". He made A LOT of money...and now for us, its "C.R.E.A.M." time.
