Okay, I remember my very first inspection on commercial property. It almost caused me to quit and be discouraged about real estate investing.
I was contacted about a new apartment building that was on the market. I liked what I saw: the apartments were large and well designed. But I didn’t know what I was doing and was nervous about making an offer on the building.
The asking price was $85,000. As far as I could make out, the seller was retiring and planning on moving out of state. He wanted to liquidate this asset, his only real estate investment, before moving from Chicago.
I told the agent I’d put in an offer. We drove to her office to draw it up. She agreed the building was a good deal and warned me that several other offers would be coming in from other people who were at the open house of this apartment building. She persuaded me to offer more than the asking price, to maximize the odds of my offer being accepted. I offered $85, 700 with $25,000 as a down payment.
As a first-time investor, I was very cautious. Perhaps scared.
I asked my agent to include certain conditions, known as contingencies, in the offer, so I would be protected against unseen problems, should the seller accept my proposal. These contingencies had to be met to my satisfaction before I would finalize the purchase. One of my conditions were:
* a professional building inspector would examine the overall condition of the property and give me a report of his findings
My First Serious Inspection
Posted by James Pockross
No comments:
Post a Comment