This story was featured in the June 2015 issue of Octane magazine.

“Let’s call it!”

“What?” I said. With a dead-serious look on his face, my company’s CFO repeated himself: “Let’s call it. Close it all down and let the bank come and get it.”

At that point, I knew I had really screwed up. It was January 2008. Two years prior, when local housing prices were skyrocketing, I was faced with an opportunity. The real estate market was capable of increasing by more than 20% in a single month, and I knew that if we didn’t figure out a way to buy the homes we needed to operate our company, we would be forced out of the city.