Learning to pull the trigger
I noticed the other day that it had been a month since I blogged last, so I figured I would write about what’s been going on since my last post.
“Pulling the trigger” is the art of confidently making a split second decision. Usually, these decisions are noteworthy due to their time-sensitivity. For example, a police officer sees someone point a gun at him, and he shoots them. Granted, he actually did “pull the trigger” 
but the concept is the same. He made the best decision he could, based on the facts at hand. Had he waited, or decided not to shoot, he could have been dead. Fortunately for me, I don’t have to make those types of decisions, and seeing that guns (being pointed at me) scare the begeesus out of me, I make it a point to not be in situations that warrant those types of decisions.
Moving along… I was faced with 2 opportunities in the past month, that I did NOT pull the trigger on. I regret both, although one opportunity I chose to not pull the trigger, and the other opportunity I made no choice.
The first opportunity was my dream house. My last post explained that it went back on the market, and I knew that if left on the market, the house would inevitably sell…and my assumptions were validated the other day when it went under contract…again. Heidi is on board with me, but the financials are not. We still have a little credit card debt accumulated that we wanted to be free & clear of when we moved forward with the dream house. We also still haven’t sold the black truck… almost a $300/mo expense that needs to go away soon. Either way, we weren’t ready so we were holding off until everything else lined up. Now, we wait to see what happens with the new contract. My hopes is that they pull out just like the others, which will make the seller more desperate, and my offer more attractive.
The second opportunity arose a little over a week ago. A house 4 blocks away went up for sale, well under market value, and I jumped at the chance to go look at it with Trev (aka, my partner in crime). The house was in a little worse shape than we expected, but the cost of repairs were still feasible… I went out of town over the weekend, and by monday afternoon the house was under contract. Such a shame too, as the house could have brought at least $200/mo in positive cash flow…and it could have given Heidi & I a place to live during dream house renovation (if that time ever came).
After seeing 2 lost opportunities, I began to wonder if I’m trigger-shy. I’ve read that it’s better to miss out on a good deal to take advantage of a bad deal, but I do have to wonder if I’m just afraid to succeed. And on the flip side, my realization of this makes me cautious to not become trigger-happy. Either way, there was an opportunity that I passed up a couple weeks ago that I might take a second look at… We’ll see how that goes.