After some negotiations with the sellers on the price, I told them that I’d like 45 days to clean the place up, but then they would have to sell it to me. To keep them from selling it to anybody else, I told him I was going to give them a tiny little down payment. I also said that in 45 days I would start pursuing a bank loan, and then I wanted 60 days from that point to close on the property. I asked for a lot. I didn’t know any better. Guess what? The seller agreed! But here’s the scary part that I wouldn’t suggest anyone else do. Once the seller and I had a deal, I immediately went to work on the place before even knowing whether I could get a bank loan. I figured cleaning the place up was my first priority because I thought "the bank will look at the place before make it pretty, and I will never get the loan." So I blindly put my heart, and soul, and sweat equity, into cleaning that place up. I got creative too, remember I was broke! I got rid of the junk in the front yard by calling a guy who would agree to take everything away for free so he could sell it for scrap. Then I got together with some friends and hired the cheapest laborer’s I could find. Together, we fixed all the broken windows, the front door - - and the porch. A contract with the owners allowed me to evict some of the worst tenants, so I got rid of the ones who are unwilling to be part of the massive cleanup. We planted flowers across the front, mowed the lawn, trimmed the hedges, and painted the front of the building.

Then we went inside and painted the hallway and cleaned up couple of the apartments that we evicted people from. They were nice apartments; they just needed to be cleaned. In 45 days, the building looked gorgeous. Then I went to the bank and was fortunate enough to get a loan. In fact, I get a loan for 100% of the money I needed because the property appraised for much more money than I was buying it for. Wow! Success!

I kept that apartment house for many years and each month I enjoyed great positive cash flow from it. Then I sold it during the peak cycle and made a wonderful profit. What a great learning experience and what a great sense of accomplishment I felt. To this day, I can remember standing on the front lawn, looking at the apartment house after I purchased the property, and feeling a sense of accomplishment that came from knowing I did everything I said it was going to do.

Now I don’t suggest you rush into your first deal like I did. But looking back, I was so aggressive, because I knew what I wanted and I wasn’t going to let anything stand in my way. There was no "what if" option only a "when". Hey, if a naïve kid who came from no money, had no mentors and never went to college can do it. You can to. You just have to get the right knowledge take the right action. Those are the two little known secrets that will allow you to realize your dreams. Your first deal could just be weeks away!

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