Sex, Lies, and Real Estate
Ok there’s no sex, but two out of three isn’t bad.
Hello peoples! First, I want to thank those who have recently checked up on me to see if I’m doing ok. I am alive and well. My real estate career, however, has taken a little turn for the worse.
After 4 months of busting my butt building a strong relationship with my only real client, I finally wrote my first contract on a small apartment building. We were supposed to close on the deal this month. Unfortunately, everything unraveled and turned to shit faster than I could say, “My boss is an evil lying, cheating, unethical, money-grubbing douche.”
See, what happened was, my boss left out a few minor details about the property I was selling. For instance, the tiny fact that the seller on the contract didn’t really own the buildings he was selling yet. You might ask yourself, “How can someone sell something they don’t own?” Well they can’t! There was a pending deal between the actual seller and the person on my contract, which I was obligated to disclose to my client.
Because the pending sale (or lead deal) hadn’t closed yet, the tenant lease agreements provided by the “fake” seller weren’t really accurate. They stated that the current rents each lease was $150 more than they really were.
*Real Estate Lesson 101: When someone buys an apartment building, they’ll calculate how much income they will generate based on the current rents. Often, right before someone sells, they’ll increase the rents to make it look like a more attractive investment to a potential buyer. Unfortunately, since the “fake” seller didn’t own the building yet, he hadn’t really raised the rents. Essentially lying about the potential profitability of the investment.
Now here’s where everything really gets F-ed up. My boss was in cahoots with the “fake” seller and knew what was going on. Rather than tell us the situation and give us a chance to put together a strategy, she instructed me to lie to repeatedly lie to my client. I, of course was unaware I was lying, and eventually when all the information surfaced, and the dust settled, my client was left with the impression that I was either trying to pull a scam on her, or extremely incompetent or worse… both. Either way, my client got pissed off and dropped out of the deal, and I lost a $13,000 paycheck.
I have had zero income these past 5 months, and spent every penny of my savings trying to establish myself as an Agent, so really needed to land this deal in order to continue building momentum. Needless to say, I was pretty upset. When I confronted my boss about why my client dropped out, she nonchalantly said, “Well, she must have not been really serious about buying.”
After making 3 trips to Arizona, renting 3 cars, paying for 10 nights in a hotel, forfeiting $1300 in inspection fees, and handing over $5000 in earnest money, my client wasn’t really a serious buyer. I guess she won’t be a serious plaintiff either when she tries to sue me.
So, after giving it a bunch of thought, I’ve decided to quit my job, and I’m going to work with my Mom’s girlfriend, Carol, doing the same thing. Carol used to work with me at this office, but she quit in January in order to branch out on her own. I have no idea if I’m doing the right thing, but I guess only time will tell. I’ll officially resign on Tuesday or Wednesday. It depends on which day my balls feel their largest.
With all these upcoming changes staring me in the face, and coming to the realization that I’m dirt poor again, I haven’t been much in the mood for blogging. These next few weeks, however, will likely provide plenty of material for future blogs.
Until then, keep your head up.
