How to Get Your First Deal 37 valuable. But we were spending over $9 million for the property and I was using other investors’ money to buy the deal. I wanted to make sure I knew that property inside and out. When you walk the units, what you’re looking for is the common problem. Every property has a common problem. It’s your job to find out what it is. Perhaps it’s the fact that all the faucets and handles are 20 years old and there are now repeated service calls to replace them, one by one. Maybe it’s outdated or worn carpet; it could be older appliances that will need to be replaced on a regular basis. It could be fraying cabi- net doors, leaking air conditioning units, or overflowing condensers. Every property has a common problem. Don’t stop until you find what it is, and allocate resources to counter that problem. While you’re doing your walk-throughs, you should be talking up the staff. You should find out who’s good or bad, naughty or nice among those property personnel. They don’t realize it but they’re actually in a job interview. You may be buying that property. There is no better employee than one who knows the property well and does a good job. There’s no worse employee than one who knows the property well, and also knows how to slack off and steal from you. During this walk-through process, you should mentally put current employees into these two categories, subject to later confirmation, of course. The engineer or inspector will have to provide you with key in- formation, such as what immediate repairs need to be done to the property, his estimate of costs, and, among other things, whether the property is properly zoned. If everything works out okay during the inspection phase, then you’re ready to get the financing. The inspection may have revealed problems that the seller didn’t tell you about. I don’t mean trivial stuff, which you can expect to find in every property. I’m talking about problems that will cost you a chunk of money: a bad boiler, a roof replacement, dry rot in the walls. If that’s the case, it’s time to.... 11.