They Laughed at the "Green" Kid. Then He Made Them $6 Million. Turns out inexperience isn't the same as being wrong.

I wasn’t always a real estate investor.  In a previous life I was a Computer Service technician, I would go from site to site helping all sorts of people with their computer related woes.  While I was doing this, I was beginning to take my first steps into real estate.  While I was working on a dairy farm, I was surprised to see plans for a new development project.  I didn’t understand everything I was looking at but having spent the last three months getting to know my local market something didn’t feel right.  I started looking at the area that was going to be developed and realized it wasn’t the right area to do this.   I finished up working on the farm server and getting some of the office computers updated I kept thinking about the development plans I saw.  When the owners of the farm came back in and ask about the plans and how far along, they were.  Turns out, the project had literally just started.  No lands were bought, no construction had begun, it was just the first steps to making the plans a reality.

Curious as to why the Computer Tech was asking about real estate plans, I informed my clients that I was beginning to take an interest in real estate investing.  I had told them about the research I had been doing, the trends I had been following, and that I felt there was something off in their planning.  The site they were looking at was well outside of the city proper, nestled between two agricultural farms.  To the dairy farmers, they were simply providing much needed housing to the local area.  They estimated that upon completion, the development would you provide approximately two million dollars in gross revenue.  However, the area was not close to any services a household would need, and would require those living in the area to travel 30 minutes to the closest grocery store.  When I pointed this out, the gentleman running the farm laughed and pointed out that I had no experience in this field, and he couldn’t take the advice of someone so green.  But little did I know other people were paying attention.

I had pointed to another area of the map, about 15 miles from the initial site, that I had recently learned of a modest sized shopping center going into the area.  The land around it had not yet adjusted for this new development.  The family senior wound up working a deal to acquire that land.  The project was moved to this new area for development, and after some wheeling and dealing with City Hall, the project was eventually completed, and wound-up grossing just over six million dollars.  From that point forward they gave me the moniker of six million dollars green.