In this short, Catherine Bell and other participants discuss a recent property site visit that revealed serious compliance and environmental issues. The property, appearing as a single lot with two houses, had an undersized septic system that violated city and county regulations, requiring the existing tank to be filled and two new septic systems installed within a tight deadline. The conversation then shifts to a separate deal where contaminated soil would cost $10 million to remediate, highlighting the critical role of thorough due‑diligence—especially AI‑assisted tools—to avoid costly mistakes. Speaker B emphasizes that real estate profits are made at the purchase stage, not the sale, and stresses the need to understand all hidden costs. Finally, Speaker D questions why a colleague, Dallin, would push a multifamily development despite known soil contamination, suggesting a possible missed opportunity for a more profitable industrial use.
Chapters
Are you in the deal room?
Is that the money is not made on the sell. It's made when you buy it.
Friday we went out to— I actually went out to a job site with Tommy, and it was really interesting in that we were able to walk the property and it was fascinating that this house was actually sold as is. So it was a lot. I'm not sure if it was one lot or two, but when we got there, it looked like it was one lot, but it had two houses on it. And what they had done is they had put in one septic tank, a small one, and it wasn't big enough to service the two houses. And then they were wanting an RV in the back. So there are multiple fines from the city and the county and stuff because the whole thing had been done. I don't know if it was illegal what had happened, but long story short, they have to fill in that septic tank with cement and then put in two completely separate septic tanks. Leach fields, all that for the two separate houses to be able to manage and handle all of that. And of course they had like 10 days or something to get it done. So the point being is that when we're doing the due diligence, you know, just like last week, Katya, the $10 million, learning that that was dirty soil, is this is why all these tools and using AI is so critical inside of what we're doing.
And what I learned decades ago is that the money is not made on the sell. It's made when you buy it. So making sure that we buy it right, making sure that we understand what all the numbers are moving forward, is the most important piece to the whole transaction.
Because if you buy it wrong, like last week's Sarai on Katya's deal that we're working on, literally the realtor should have actually told us that it was dirty land, dirty soil, because what that means is that it was contaminated and we couldn't actually put a residential they were selling it, that we could put a multifamily unit on it, when in reality it was going to cost $10 million to clean up that soil before you could put anything residential on it.
Now, if it was just industrial, we could leave it dirty and keep doing all sorts of dirty stuff, and that's a whole other thing. So understanding those components is really, really important.
So why— like, if Dallin knew that this was contaminated soil, What was his motivation against not guiding us towards an equally profitable industrial route? Like, why was he— why would he try to force the multifamily?
