Deals Done
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Foreclosures Canada
is the "Foreclosure Advisor" for Darren Weeks "Advisors Series" as seen at Fast Track To Cash Flow .com |
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"Very enlightening - a good investment in knowledge and contacts; Highly Recommended!!" |
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In 1997 I Started My Investing Career
In The Worst Possible Way Broke, Jobless, and "Without A Drivers License".
I first started wheeling and dealing at about the age of eight. It all started during the summer
holidays just after I graduated from grade two. My family and I had just moved to Abbotsford BC from Edmonton and I was
on the prowl for some sort of new adventure. The area we moved to was abundant with hills and I somehow got
the notion that flying down these hills on some sort of wheeled device would probably be a lot of fun.
At some point during the summer I fell in love with the sportiest looking wagon you had ever seen. This
was not your typically Red Flyer. This baby was bright yellow with red racing stripes, big mag tires, and
it even had duel brakes.
This was the corvette of the wagon world.
There was only one problem. I was eight years old, broke, and my birthday wasn't until December. So what was a kid
to do ...... I hit up my father for the money of course and as to be expected the answer was no. So I tried a different approach.
I thought getting an early birthday present would solve my dilemma. It seemed like a completely
logical idea at the time but he wouldn't have anything to do with it either.
I did everything
I could think of, I even asked to borrow the money. I thought having a loan secured against my
future allowance would work. The fun now would be worth the pain of being broke for the next ten years.
Eventually my dad came up with an idea. He offered to pay for half of the wagon if I would pay for the other half. At first I thought this just
brought us back to square one, I was eight years old, broke, and my employment options were rather limited.
He then explained to me his other idea.
His plan was..... I would start my own business and it would go something like this.
Dad would pay for the wagon and start me off with a cash loan of five dollars. I would then go around our neighbourhood,
with my wagon in tow, and start knocking on doors. When I spoke with our neighbours I would offer to "buy" their empty beer bottles and
pop bottles from them for half of the face value of the deposit. I would then drag my wagon load
of empties down to the bottle depot and I would double my money.
Little did my dad know that this principle of "doubling up" was going to stick with me for a lifetime.
It worked like a charm, I was offering a service and I was getting paid well for it. In fact it worked
so good I soon developed a niche.
I would only take beer bottles, and preferably dozens, because they
stacked up in my little wagon the best. Six packs were awkward to handle and pop bottles were all different heights so it made
it difficult to stack them up more than two cases high.
At the time when I started a dozen beer bottles had a deposit value of 60 cents and soon went to a dollar, I
was in seventh heaven. On a good day I could do two trips to the bottle depot and I would make about $20 bucks. Not
bad for an eight year old in 1973. I had my wagon paid for in no time and the rest is history ......
After graduating from high school I spent years traveling around the world working and hanging out in exotic places like Spain,
Austria, and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.
Shortly before moving to Alberta I was working for a high rise development company in Vancouver. I had
worked for them for about 18 months and everything was going relatively well as far as jobs go. Until
a dormant medical condition I have reared its ugly head.
In March of 1997, while at work, I suffered from a Grand Mal seizure. I was rushed to the hospital and was later diagnosed with epilepsy.
It was the beginning of some pretty
drastic changes. If I had a different job it wouldn't have been quite so bad but since I was the safety officer and the
first aid attendant for the contruction of high rise apartment buildings, it didn't look very good. My prospects for maintaining a drivers license were diminishing as well.
Under the laws of the Transportation Act of Canada the Motor Vehicle Board of British Columbia was allowed to revoke my drivers license.
So of course they did and I got a swift introduction to the public transit system.
Losing
my drivers license put an end to my zipping around town in my brand new little red pickup truck and three months
later my employer put an end to my construction career.
I had always wanted to be a real estate investor and
I knew Alberta, with its booming economy and non-qualifying assumable mortgages, was the place to be. In fact
I had been thinking about moving to Alberta for a year or so before I
was fired. In fact I had already booked a return flight to Calgary, I wanted to come here for the weekend just to check things out a bit. I was going
to leave on a Friday after work have a look around and then return home Sunday night.
I wound up getting fired on a Wednesday two days before I was set to leave for Calgary so the timing was rather convenient. Instead of just staying for two days
I wound up staying ten. After about five days I decided I wanted to stay so I rented an
apartment then flew back to Vancouver packed my bags and left for good.
I spent the next 6 - 8 weeks going around the city looking at houses and looking for a job. It was all rather tedious because I
couldn't drive and had to take public transportation everywhere. I didn't have the stomach for sitting on a city transit bus anymore so I came up with an alternative mode of
transportation.
To be more specific I bought a mountain bike which I used as my main mode of
transportation for the first twelve months I was in Alberta. With my new mountain bike I hit the streets and went looking for
my first real estate deal and regretfully a job.
Within a month I had my first offer accepted in Alberta (Previously in BC I had only ever owned two properties). I bought a 1100 sq ft bungalow with
some seller financing and a $5,500 down payment which I got from a cash advance on my credit card.
I quickly flipped that house and made nine thousand dollars in nine days.
Within a few months I completed a few more deals and quit looking for work. I felt like I was on my way to becoming a successful real estate investor.
By the end of my first year in Calgary, after arriving here broke, jobless, and without
a drivers license I had bought and sold well over a million dollars worth of real estate.
Now you would think with the kind of success I was having I'd be quite happy with my progress. Well, I wasn't. I soon came to realize there was more
to making money than just buying and selling houses. Most of the properties I had bought so far had been through a realtor and I was paying
pretty close to full market value. Something "you" might still be experiencing.
I had heard of other people buying houses $20-30,000 below the true market value and I wanted to do that as well. I knew I had to
learn how to find motivated sellers, I had to learn the science of finding and buying houses at bargain prices.
I had to learn how to find motivated sellers.
The only kind of situation I could think of that would motivate a home owner to sell
quickly and cheaply would be caused by some serious financial problems
like bankruptcy or foreclosure.
I started to look around the city but the only foreclosures I could find were listed with realtors. The
houses were listed at full market value and I could only locate a few a month. I knew there had to be more than three or four foreclosures a month
in a city the size of Calgary. So I kept looking around, asking questions, and generally sticking my nose in
places some people thought it didn't belong.
I decided I only wanted to deal with sellers that were so motivated it would be impossible to not make money.
Everybody kept telling me "Only Realtors can find foreclosures for you" but being the type of person I am,
I wasn't going to be satisfied with "that" for an answer. Eventually, after months of research on Alberta's
foreclosure system, I did find out how to access the information.
Over the course of the next few months and after spending thousands of dollars on research to get the info and even
more money on marketing tests, I finally pulled in a deal.
I bought a townhouse in Calgary with only a $4,000 down payment, just enough to
cover the arrears and the banks legal fees. Days later I quick-turned that property for a $10,000 profit and
I let somebody else assume the same mortgage from me, all without qualifying.
Not bad for my first foreclosure deal.
Now, nine years after arriving in Alberta, I have taken title to over ninty-seven houses, a commercial strip mall, and have completed a twenty-acre
land development project as well and I still haven't gone to the bank to qualify for a single mortgage.
Not all of these properties were foreclosures but by my last count more than 60 of them were. Foreclosures have
made up about 60% of my business since I started buying them in 1999.
Not too bad for a poor jobless fella who started out with nothing more than
determination, a cash advance on two credit cards, and a bicycle.
I have found that putting good deals together is a lot simpler if you're dealing with a motivated seller who
"needs to sell" instead of a non-motivated owner who only "wants to sell". There is no doubt in my mind that
people in foreclosure are among the most motivated home owners on the planet.
I have also found that investing in real estate is simplified if you follow a system. Find somebody who has a system that works and then copy it and stick with it. Don't
try to reinvent the wheel but do be aware of people that promote systems they don't actually use themselves.
Before you spend any money going to a course or seminar, ask yourself "Does this person or teacher actually use their own principles on
a daily basis? Are they actually out there buying houses on a regular basis and are they buying in
your area or in an area similar to yours?"
If the answer is no then please think twice about where your "education investment" is best spent. That's not just a
push to take my course, it's a push for you to make an educated decision on where you're going to
spend your money .... just like buying a house.
Remember .... making an investment is just like carpentry.
Thank-you for your interest and for visiting my web site.
Take Care and All The Best.
Wade Fenner
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