My first experiance on the real estate roller coaster was when my wife and I bought a handy man special on a real estate contract. It needed work from the foundation up. Literally jacking up the house to fix the foundation walls and working up from there, refinishing wood floors, gutting bathrooms and kitchen, all while living in the house. Three years later wesold it as a "For Sale By Owner". We stumbled through the the renovations and learned many hard lessons (Always start with a straight line when setting tile, get references for all contractors, to list a few). We also managed to close the house with many a frustrated call from a title company having to deal with an owner who had no clue what they need to provide or do. From the highs of owning our first house and getting an offer the second week the house was on the market to the lows of having mud flow into the basement during a rainstorm and not knowing if the sale was going to go through because the buyer had not even applied for a loan we road the real estate roller coaster. To this day I look back and am amazed everything worked out. Now I work hard to smooth out the ride for others so that they don't get that falling feeling in the pit of their stomach. I try to be a resource to turn to, not just another part a mysterious process where you close your eyes and hold on tight and hope you make. I have since bought and renovated two more homes in Albuquerque and helped many other and with each the ride has gotten smoother and smoother.
