Handed a 6 unit to a dispo partner on day nine. Closed 62k over.

Contract on a 6 unit brick walk-up in a second ring suburb, 610k, 21 day close. My own buyer list is 340 names and I have closed with maybe nine of them. Sent it Thursday, nothing by the following Saturday. Two soft maybes who both asked for rent rolls and then went dark.

Day nine I called a dispo operator I met at a meetup last year and gave him the file under a written agreement, 35 percent of whatever spread he produced over my contract price, his own marketing costs. He had a buyer walking the building inside 48 hours. Closed at 672k. Spread 62k, his cut 21,700, mine 40,300 before my costs, which ran about 1,900 counting the extension fee and title work I had already paid for.

The part that nearly killed it: my earnest money went hard on day ten, 15k, and the seller granted exactly one seven day extension. If his buyer had wanted a second inspection window I was choosing between losing the deposit and closing on a 610k building I could not fund. I priced that risk at zero going in, which was stupid.

Second problem, the buyer came back at 655k after the walk. The dispo guy just held the number and let him sit a day. I would have folded by lunch.

What I keep next time: fee agreement signed before he sees the file, and spread measured off my contract price rather than my asking price. He asked for asking price as the baseline and that would have cost me about 8k on this one.