Posted by Joe Kaiser on March 31, 1999 at 02:13:06:
No one is really ever “sure” of the numbers. Frankly, there are too many unknowns initially to really be sure of much of anything . . . but that simply does not matter.
We make offers even though we don’t know the whole story, and we make them quickly and without a lot of dinking around because we know if it turns out to be a really good deal, while we’re out trying to reassure ourselves of the numbers some other fellow is out there writing it up for himself.
Meet with the seller, put a deal together and then (and only then) spend a week checking things out. Actually, you don’t even really need to do that. Just spent the week marketing it for more than you’re paying (hopefully, a lot more) and if someone bites, you do your original deal. If no one’s interested, then your number may in fact be too high. As such, you just tell the seller “oops” and you tear up your deal.
I spend very little time “making sure of my numbers.” I’m not in that business. My job is to make the best deal possible with the limited amount of knowledge I have about the property, and then let everyone else figure out if it was a “good deal.” When they say “I want it,” that’s pretty much all I needed to know anyway and my number must have been in the ballpark.
Some people spend lots of time analyzing every single aspect of every property they encounter. Doesn’t seem like a lot of fun to me.
Joe