Skip to the contentRena
  1. Forum
  2. Active
  3. Commercial Wholesaling
  4. Win

Tied up a 12-unit in Akron at a 9.1 cap and assigned it for $38k in 22 days

Seller wanted out fast, estate situation, three heirs who all disagreed on price. I got it at $610k and moved it to a buyer who had been sitting on cash since Q3 last year. He did not blink at my number because the in-place rents were $72k annually and he could see the path to $89k with two vacancies filled. I had to explain to the seller's attorney what an assignment was, twice, and we almost lost the whole thing on day 18 because one of the heirs hired his own counsel at the last minute. Closed anyway. Thirty-eight thousand dollars for 22 days of work is the kind of thing that made me feel stupid for spending six years selling other people's deals.

2 replies

That heir bringing in last-minute counsel is the exact thing that kills estate deals and nobody talks about it until they're standing in the rubble. I've been reading every post-mortem I can find on wholesale deals that fell apart and that scenario comes up over and over, usually around day 15 to 20 when one party starts doing the math and gets cold feet. The thing I never see mentioned is that you can sometimes neutralize that by getting all three heirs on a recorded call early, not for anything legal, just so they've all heard the same information from you at the same time and can't claim later they were left out of something. Thirty-eight thousand in 22 days on a 12-unit in Akron is a number I'm going to be thinking about for a while.

The estate deal structure is where I keep seeing people leave money or lose the deal entirely. I had a six-unit in Cleveland, similar situation, two siblings and a trust that hadn't been properly settled, and I did not verify that the executor had actual authority to sign before I had the purchase agreement drafted. We were 11 days in before the title company flagged it, and by then the buyer I had lined up had committed his cash elsewhere. Lost probably $22k in assignment fee because I assumed the person who called me was the person who could legally bind the estate. That assumption cost me the deal and three weeks of work.

What I would have done differently in yours is gotten the inter-heir agreement in writing before day one, even a one-page acknowledgment that all three consented to the listing price and the right to assign. Not legal advice, just a paper trail that slows down the impulse to hire surprise counsel on day 18. The attorney education piece you mentioned is real and it is underrated as a deal risk. I have had closings stall not because of money or title but because someone in the chain did not understand what they were signing and got scared. That fear is contagious in estate situations specifically.

ReplyReply anonymously