There had to be another way…
So I had an idea … Surely there had to be another way. At first I tested this by suggesting to investors that if they were to provide the initial funds required then maybe I could provide the sweat equity and time required to buy, fix up, trade or whatever else was required from someone who had no money. This seemed to work well and I was able, over time, to return profits to investors on such a regular basis that they were happy to continue with an ongoing relationship. My wife and I had a rule at the time that if we got a few things wrong, it could not affect the returns expected by the investors. We did of course get a few things wrong but it was a great way to learn and when you miss out on your profit … a great way to lose weight also. It wasn’t long before we were offered many foreclosed properties by the Federal government who were happy that we had created a machine that enabled us to purchase foreclosed houses.
During this time we discovered cheap does not always amount to good value and we found in early years sometimes properties are cheap simply because people did not want to live in that particular area and sellers just wanted to get away from problem properties.
Around the same time my brilliant wife suggested that maybe we could simply buy our home directly from a seller and pay him directly over a period of time. We put an ad in the paper that generated many calls from sellers who would accept terms if it somehow helped their situation. This was a learning curve as we found that for many sellers it was not just the money that was the issue but more what the money was going to allow them to achieve and since bank loans were not available many types of agreements were entered into to pay sellers over time.
Real estate agents were also having a lot of difficulty selling houses as they had no “cashed up” buyers with loan approval available. It became a case of real estate agents introducing us to sellers and then having them stand by whilst the two of us figured out a way for the seller to sell and for us to buy so everybody could get from the transaction what they needed. Over time we found a whole market of people who would approach us and ask if they could make payments to us in order for them also to own a home and through trial and error we created a system, our system… The WeBuyHouses Way…
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