My Biggest Business Loss (And What It Taught Me)

11 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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In this personal recount, Steve D. Valentine describes his largest financial setback—a roughly $200,000 loss stemming from a lease‑purchase real‑estate transaction he executed between 2020 and 2022. He explains that he bought a house with cash, leased it back to a buyer (who were pastors referred by a church), and financed the purchase with hard‑money loans. The buyers were supposed to refinance and eventually close on the property, but their financing fell through. Because Valentine failed to secure non‑refundable equity protection and did not record a memorandum deed, he had no legal claim to the equity once the buyers abandoned the deal. The buyers simply left, dropping the keys and disappearing, leaving Valentine with the loss. The story serves as a cautionary lesson about the importance of proper risk mitigation, documentation, and due‑diligence when structuring lease‑purchase agreements.

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Lease purchase was also where I had my biggest loss. Well, number one, really easy in 2020 and 2021 to go. Yeah, we can buy this and freaking. We've got plenty of cash and then we'll lease it back to you until your house closes. Duel the ship. I didn't put enough teeth in it and I got burned for 200 grand by somebody that I knew. Yes, the rate started to pump up. This is 22. They had already done the lease purchase, moved into the house. Their financing wasn't all it cracked up to be and they sold their house in North Carolina. But I didn't tag the equity that it was non refundable to come in and I should have memorandum deeded it. I second and I didn't because I trusted these people. They were pastors like all the things and they came from a referral to church. I got them in, I paid for the house. We did hard money on it. They were making the payments. They were supposed to refinance it. We have everything worked out. They walked in, no phone call or anything, dropped the keys off, says we're out.