Don't Underestimate the Power of a Good Joke

As a kid growing up in the rural community of Schuyler, Nebraska I would often get asked what I wanted to do when I grew up. Back then, the answer was pretty clear to me. In my mind I was destine to eventually open my own restoration shop restoring classic cars. Oh, how life has its own plans for each of us.

Today, as the managing broker and owner of Mid-Plains Land& Realty, I’m a long way from what I thought was going to be my career destiny, and have been for many years.

Unlike most, my path in real estate and real estate investing got started by complete accident in 2002. At the time my wife and I were looking at buying a home to raise our young family in. By chance a friend of mine had just started working for his parents’ real estate company, Colfax County Auctions & Realty, after getting his license.

As more of a joke one evening he and I decided to look at an old run-down house that had just hit the market for $15,000 before going to look at a home we were actually interested in. I remember at the time we laughed that we better bring flashlights because he wasn’t even sure if it had electricity.

As we entered the property with flashlights in hand, we managed to discover the electricity was on. When we flipped on the lights, they revealed a run-down house that had old metal cabinetry, holes in the walls, and missing carpet. Even through all that mess, I could see the basics were there for turning the house into a home.

You can imagine my wife’s response was when I called her at10pm to tell her we had to buy this run down $15,000 house rather than the much newer home I originally set out that evening to look at for us. To say she wasn’t impressed at the time is an understatement.

After getting home that night, she patiently listened as I explained that I thought it was an opportunity that could help us have a larger down payment for the home we truly wanted. Reluctantly she agreed to look at it early the next morning and an hour later we had the purchase agreement signed.

After months working long days installing new drywall, painting, and installing carpet we ended up selling the home the following spring for a nice profit. In the process we had also unknowingly found a new business as we started buying and rehabbing HUD foreclosed homes.

After selling a few of our rehabbed homes through my friend’s parents we all joked I should get my real estate license and start selling for them. As destiny would have it, sure enough, that’s exactly what I ended up doing!

While I would eventually go on to build relationships with clients through my own brokerage, C&G Realty, Inc., and personally invest in office spaces, rental homes, and even a mobile home park over the years, I look back on those early days and think how different my career path would have been if it wasn’t for a couple of perfectly timed jokes and an understanding wife.