Real estate investors should ask sellers direct questions about their true motivations, not just their asking price. An 89-year-old woman chose owner-financing to keep money from her heirs, showing how understanding what sellers actually want leads to deals that work for everyone.
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And whenever you hear the stories in the community, you can and should use them. This is the power of the community, right?
I was talking to a seller recently that wasn't interested in terms because of their age. And I don't know if you guys have a good way to combat that. It makes sense to me, like I understand it, but the money is going to be left in the estate to whoever it's going to anyway. So I don't know, I'm just, I'm just sort of thinking through that, and, and Judy just reminded me of that. So just curious.
I typically go, but again, you guys know I try to be— I won't say blunt, it's just clear— and that is, uh, do you mind if I ask a few personal questions to see if this should be the best fit for you? And they're going to say sure, go fire away. Um, I would ask ultimately, do they want cash, you know, in their coffers now for estate planning reasons, or do they just want to make sure that it gets in the estate the proper way and it's long-term? Like that type of thing, because they have an idea of what they want with that. Example, um, Zach structured this deal that took him forever in our area. This has since cashed out, but she was 89, I think it was, couldn't hear that well, so did everything by email, and we got that deal done And she wanted the owner financing because she didn't want her kids to get the money. This is why you have to ask the questions. She said it in front of her daughter, um, I want to do this because I don't want them to get the money right now. So then she went to a nursing home, and we wired the nursing home every month, her account, when she was in the nursing home. Um, after she got her payday, our payday through, we cashed her out. She passed away, coincidentally. But the point is, if we didn't, like, have those conversations, that credit Zach back then and our attorney, then we wouldn't have known that, yeah, she wants this even though she's 89. So just ask the questions, Jeff. I think that's the short answer.
Yeah.
I don't know if you guys have heard this story, but it's worth repeating. And for those of you who haven't heard this, so she was so old that our attorney Adam said, you got to have a notary there or, you know, we got to bring her in. She couldn't come in. So Adam went with Zach to her house in Bristol, Rhode Island. Sat at her kitchen table. After it was all signed, she thanked Zach, thanked our attorney, and said, I was an attorney for— I don't know what it was— 40 or 50 years. We didn't know this. And you treated me like I was your mother or grandmother. Thank you. That's pretty interesting, huh? Pretty cool compliment that Zach and our attorney got. So by asking the right questions, Jeff, he strode her down the right path and she knew it.
Yeah, it's perfect. Thank you.
And you can use that example, by the way, guys. I tell you those stories just so you can see it and feel it, but also so you can use that story. You could say, for example, I'm asking because we had a woman that wanted to make sure her family didn't get the money yet, and she was 89 and she was in a nursing home. You can share that story. And whenever you hear the stories in the community, you can and should use them. This is the power of the community, right? So feel free to steal that one for sure.
