Today I had the pleasure, no the honor, to meet a gentleman whose home I was looking to purchase.  This gentleman has lived in the home for 20+ years and has a size-able amount of equity in the home with mortgage payments under $500.  Living there has given him a content life.  A decent life with a solid job (one which he had for 27 years!) that payed him well enough to enjoy the comforts he needed while supporting his daughter.

Then real life happened to this real person.  All it took was for that comfortable job to go away to spin his life out of control.  He reached out to one of my companies (Simply Sold Home Buyers) looking to see if he could perhaps start over and be free of his debt by selling us his home.  You see even though his payments were low, when you have zero income coming in…your reserves can go away very quickly.  With mounting late payments, potential foreclosure looming, and his life starting to spin out of control, he turned to us just to explore the idea of a new beginning.  Needless to say nothing looked very positive in his life at this very point.

You see when things go dark in ones life, it is easy to get consumed by that darkness.  Hope becomes a distant memory.  Optimism turns to pessimism.  Joy turns to misery.  And doubt rules your life.  You begin to doubt your abilities, you begin to doubt your relationships; your friendships, your family, you begin to doubt other’s intentions, and ultimately you begin to doubt yourself.  Nothing seems to go right in your life, all is bleak, or as it was said to me today, “The glass is half empty, not full.”  This is the reality that many people live each and every day, and not surprisingly they all feel completely alone.

This is exactly the state of being/mind the gentlemen was in that I met today.  To say that he was openingly distrustful of me would be an understatement.  His early words to me were, “Ok, now you know I’m desperate, but YOU WILL NOT STEAL MY HOUSE FROM ME!”  I quickly realized through our discussion that this was a man who was still trying to figure out what went wrong and perhaps even more damaging to his situation, he was still focusing on “the good ol’days”.  He was stuck living in the past and reacting to the present.  As Richard Flint has been known to say…and I’ll paraphrase it, “when you react to something it is an emotional response where you leave your brain out it”…or something along those words.

So today, I convinced this gentleman not to sell me his house.  Perhaps I am not the best Real Estate Investor, but you see, I’m ok with that.  Through the course of our conversation, I witnessed a transformation with this homeowner.  From negative to positive, from bleak to hopeful, to doubtful to trusting, and most importantly from self doubting to self confident.  The transformation in the course of two and a half hours was not only amazing, it was soul touching.  I get chills just remembering it.  You see, I told this gentleman that there were options, he had a loving family who offered to help him but his pride was in the way.  I showed him that with the size home he had, he could not only pay his mortgage, but his car, electric, cable and many other bills just by bringing in 2 or 3 renting “roommates”.  His home situation was perfect for a communal house where he could start bringing in income almost straight away.

All he needed to do was let go of the past, let his family reach out and help him, and move forward.  It was that simple.  With all the negativity surrounding him, it was no surprise that he wasn’t able to find work.  And yet here is a man who for 20+ years did ophthalmological photography unable to find a new career path.

<No, I had no clue to what ophthalmological photography was, but he was kind enough to not only explain it, but to show me some pictures.  In layman’s terms it is the photography of the eye, but it goes beyond that…he explained blood flow in diabetes patients and how he would photograph that, etc, etc.  I was in awe.  When he spoke about his Art (and it is truly and Art!) the Passion flowed from him like Jesus on the Mount.>

While the hard work is still ahead of him, I believe in the strength that he allowed me to witness during our visit.  Difficult paths often bear the greatest fruits, and I truly believe that he will continue to move forward towards better days.

Let me close out this article by saying that if helping people by NOT buying their house from them means that I am not a very good Real Estate Investor, then please let me be one of the worst.  As the Master Card commercials say, “Helping people turn their life around towards a positive horizon…PRICELESS!”

Thank you Ricky.

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