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Funding Options With Blair Halver

Episode 350: Funding Options With Blair Halver                    

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REIS 350 | Funding Options

 

Getting the right leads means more chances of getting quality deals and having more funding options. However, acquiring prospects these days are costly and can sometimes waste your time and effort. Thereby, converting these leads is necessary. In this episode, Mitch Stephen talks to Blair Halver, a real estate investor, entrepreneur, and marketing automation expert. Blair shares some useful ideas on how to make a deal on any kind of lead or most leads. With lead generation, he explains how you can capitalize on every possible lead and even use those with lower equities. Learn more about funding options for these leads with Blair’s proven system.

I’m here with Blair Halver. We’re going to be talking about how to make a deal on any lead or most leads because it costs money and you need to be able to convert no matter what happens. When a lead comes in, we’re not the horse whisperers but we’re the house whispers. We let the house talk to us. It will tell us how to make at least some money off of it because we spent a lot of money on this advertising engine and it costs a lot of money to keep running to get these leads. A lot of people are walking away from leads that they don’t think there’s enough profit. We’re going to talk about how to convert.

Before we meet Blair Halver, we’re going to give homage to my sponsor, TaxFreeFuture.com. If you don’t have a tax-free or tax-deferred environment to which to grow your retirement or your wealth, you have no idea the size of the tool that you’re missing. Check it out. If you give a little bit of information, believe me, they’re not going to beat you up with a bunch of stuff. You can get access to 37 little video vignettes that can tell you how people are making their IRAs, 401(k)s, self-directed with checkbook control, and taking them to magnificent values in short periods of time. You will not believe what your financial advisors are not telling you. We’re going to tell you what they’re not telling you. We’re going to tell you why and it’s going to make sense. Blair, how are you doing?

I’m doing great, Mitch. Thanks for having me on.

Are you in North Carolina?

I’m in Morrisville, North Carolina, north of Charlotte.

That’s a non-judicial foreclosure. Is it a judicial foreclosure?

I believe so.

You’re non-judicial.

I don’t deal with it. I let the attorneys handle that.

Give us a little bit about your background. How long have you been in the business? Where are you now?

I’ve been in the business since 2009. I started out wholesaling and then moved into doing the marketing for other investors. I still have a company called Dealbot to do lead gen for real estate investors. We did that for a long time and then I started noticing all my clients doing these large equity spread deals, alpha leads. I was sent into them and I was like, “I’ve got to get back into doing my own leads. I’m doing my own deals.” Years ago, I started doing my own deals again and came up with this whole different system as opposed to what everybody’s doing out there or they run out of the house if they got equity. We have a whole reverse offer, two-step system, and all that stuff. We’re doing a handful of deals in North Carolina and expanding out to virtual markets. I’ll do ugly houses, pretty houses or whatever. My favorite deals are the term deals as our friend, Ron LeGrand, talks about a lot.

Do you do it all over the country or you mostly do it in your region or your city?

This is one of the biggest breakthroughs I’ve had is getting our cost per lead down by going wide geographically. I was focusing on Winston-Salem and Charlotte, North Carolina. That was my hometown. I lived between them, but as soon as we went statewide and then region-wide with our ad targeting on Facebook and everything, it dropped our cost per lead down from $90 a lead down to $4 a lead, which changes the economics of the whole game. That’s what I’m excited about.

You were able to data-mine because you had bigger numbers. You could put more filters in between your data so that you had a higher quality lead dropping in the bucket every time. Is that the idea?

The way I look at it is if we give Facebook free reign over fifteen different states wherever we want to be buying houses, it will skim the cream off the top of that whole population instead of trying to go deep in one where are you going to spend more money. Let’s get the cheap, easy leads off the top. The flip side of that is you’ve got to be ready to do a deal in the middle of nowhere such as Oklahoma, but a deal is a deal. This works wherever there are houses and people who want to live in them.

I’ve always stayed close to home, but I do seller financing, 30-year notes, and I got my private lenders underneath that are financing all my houses. I didn’t want to get them to spread out all over the world, but if you’re flipping, I get it. You’re in, you’re out and you’re not in Oklahoma anymore for long. Not that there’s anything wrong with Oklahoma.

Lower cost per lead can equal to lower cost per deal. Click To Tweet

I usually say Texas, but I didn’t want to say that on this show.

Texas is a good place to do real estate. We still have rights around here. There are some places that hardly anything works anymore because they don’t have any rights. What we’re going to be talking about is lead gen and then capitalizing on every lead possible and not throwing away the ones that don’t have big equity. Talk to us about that.

I see many wholesalers out there and this was me when I started, you’re looking for a needle in a haystack deal. The home run deals where the house is beat up, the sale has got enough equity, and the seller is willing to discount enough to let you do a deal and get the right price you need. A lot of times, what happens is you’ll get 50 leads in, whereas a typical wholesaler might get 1 deal out of 50 leads. We’ll get 2 deals out of 50 leads. It doesn’t sound like a big difference, but that doubles your conversion rate, which means our earnings per lead doubles. We can pay more for a lead if we have to. We could outspend all the rest of the competition in the market and then we could suck up all the leads in the market if we wanted to. That is my little secret to success being able to do a deal with any seller lead that comes your way, whether they got enough equity for a cash deal or not.

Let’s talk about how you capitalize on a slim deal.

That’s the pretty house business terms deals, as Ron LeGrand talks about. Ron is my mentor.

He and Lou Brown are the ones that launched. There were a lot of people out there. There are a few of them still there. Lou Brown and Ron LeGrand are both there still, make no mistake. They’re heavy into the educational business, but those guys know how to make deals and probably one of the greatest assets of having a show myself. You said you have a podcast. What’s the name of your podcast?

The Transactional Real Estate Investor Show.

One of the reasons I have a show and that I do it myself is because I get to talk to a lot of smart people. That’s what Lou and Ron did. They have talked to thousands of students every year. If something’s going on or there’s a new way to do something, they’ve heard about it. It’s difficult to come up with something that they don’t know. I did, however, come up with one thing on how to find owners of abandoned houses. It’s in the book. It’s probably towards the end.

I remember that story. You put a sign in their yard, didn’t you?

I put a for sale sign on the yard of the abandoned house and my phone number. It’s not my house and the owner calls me every time and is pissed off. There are ways to deal with it. There were ways to deal with the whole thing, but Ron had never heard of that the day that I dumped it on him. He made a lot of me a couple of times and then finally, I got vindicated. Tell us the basic pretty house scenario. I’m familiar, but tell the audience.

I’ll maybe relate the story of my first term deal I ever did way back when this lady called me off my classified ad in the print newspaper locally here in North Carolina. She had a house. It was probably worth $110,000, all fixed up. It was in decent shape. It needed paint and carpet, but she owed $92,000 on it. It’s not enough to go in and do a full rehab and put granite in. I go out to the house and it was clear this lady wasn’t going to let me leave the house without me buying it. She was nervous that I was going to see something in the house I didn’t like. She was grateful that I was there. I told her, “I can buy your house, but the only way I can do it is by taking over your mortgage. I’ll start making payments on it, but you’re free and you can move on. I’ll take care of everything.”

Was she current?

She was current at that time, but I think she was getting ready to be not current the next month.

One of the ones that thought ahead usually, they call you at the last minute. She was current, it was worth $110,000. She owed $92,000. It was not a big spread. That’s one of the problems in this industry. People are like, “That’s $18,000.” I said, “You don’t put that up for sale and clear $18,000.” Tell us what you did.

As soon as I signed the purchase agreement with her, I started putting signs out in the area that said, “Lease, purchase, rent to own home.” Weeks later, the seller had finally moved out into her new place and we closed on it right after that. Within a week after that, I had a buyer come in at $20,000 down and was going to pay me $700 a month. My payment on that was only $650, so not a huge spread, but she came in with $20,000 down and our lease option price for her was $129,900. We injected some equity into that thing because we were able to provide terms, provide financing as you do with your own financing stuff.

It’s powerful medicine providing financing when no one else will or to people who can’t get financing. I like the mobile home business, mobile homeland. Nobody wants to finance a used mobile home. You have to have an 850 credit score. Most people are like, “I have an 850 credit score, why am I buying a mobile home?” No one wants to finance them. You buy them for cash at a low price and then all of a sudden, they become worth about double because you say the magic words, “I will finance this,” and changes the price. It is powerful. Let’s not make a lie to this, taking a property subject-to has a lot of responsibility and can get you in a lot of trouble if you don’t close a lot. How are you handling that? When you’re selling this subject-to property, you’re probably taking over a note that you don’t have the original lender’s permission to take over.

REIS 350 | Funding Options

Funding Options: The thing that separates the men from the boys is being able to go through enough of the tenant-buyer leads to find the ones that had the money.

 

We don’t get permission from the lender.

No one does 99.9% most of the time. You’ve got to let your buyer know the risk of that. The bank could call that note.

We disclose everything and that’s the key to it. When we buy it, we have the seller sign initial all down the page of this whole two pages disclosure. The same with the tenant-buyer over here on our exit. You have them sign a three-page disclosure and their initialing every paragraph. We want everybody going in with eyes wide open.

It’s like a wraparound mortgage. You have to disclose, “I owe somebody and you owe me and you’re going to pay me and then I’ve got to pay my other guy. If I didn’t pay my other guy, you could be in trouble.” That’s wraparound, but you got to go further in a subject-to wraparound because you also have to disclose that like, “I don’t have permission even to take over this note that that’s underneath your debt, but people think, “Wouldn’t that kill the sale?” No, it doesn’t. People that don’t have a choice. They’re willing to take whatever. I don’t know what they’re thinking. I’m not sure you would do it with someone else. Thank God we’re honest and when people do it with us, I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose those people’s equity or they’re going to lose because of me. It’s not going to happen. Do you have a lawyer draw up every individual document and have them close at that attorney’s office or there’s some separation there?

We got an attorney doing every transaction we ever do. We want to make sure all the paperwork is done right. We’re protected. We want to make sure everything’s above board to the letter of the law. We make it that way.

They can’t say, “You said this,” because there’s a third-party involved and he’s an attorney. That’s one good reason to do that. I tell people that if there’s not a pretty big chunk of cheese at the end of this subject-to rainbow, then don’t do it over $5,000 or $4,000 because it can come back. I don’t like it when everyone talks about all the upside and then they don’t say anything about the downsides. May we talk about the downside of this a little bit?

Yes, and we can continue on with that same deal example.

The downside that I have found the subject-to is not that the bank calls the note due, that’s not what it is. It’s that the person that you saved their ass when you took over their payment and you got their payments caught back up, you saved them from foreclosure in the last hour, who was grateful years from that, doesn’t give a crap. He’s got a new wife. He can’t get another FHA or VA loan because they haven’t liquidated the one that you’re making payments on. They’re screaming and yelling, saying they’re going to sue you because they want that loan paid off and they’re going to get an attorney. That’s the problem with the subject-to. The biggest problem I’ve seen is not the banks calling the note due. It might be as a result of that person calling the lender, that pissed off guy. How do we handle this?

I’ve never had to handle that. I’ve had more problems with the tenant buyers. I find that most of my issues come from tenant buyers because you know how it is with people in that situation. They come into a chunk of change, they inherited some money and they say, “I want to put it into a house, so I don’t waste it.”

They then can’t afford the house.

We’ve gotten good, strict on looking at their ability to afford this thing.

That was our fault. When we put someone in a house that can’t afford it, that could be possibly right upfront our fault. It doesn’t mean that we could assess someone and they’re great and that person’s circumstance could change. That’s always a chance. I like your problem better because you can hone in your restrictions and get a better buyer. I always like to ask, “Where are you getting this $20,000?” For example, “Grandma’s going to give it to me.” That doesn’t count. I had a lawyer and I won a lawsuit from a slip and fall in the grocery store. I don’t give a crap if you have $100,000, you’re not getting my house. I was the next freaking lawsuit. You got to ask a lot of questions about, “Where’s this down payment coming? What’s the one we like?” “My wife and I had been saving for a few years.” That’s the one I like.

I learned my lesson on one of these deals. I’m more interested in their monthly income and being able to afford the monthly payment than the big down payment. I still want to get the big down payment. If they got a big down payment and low income.

You are showing us the huge sign of a mature investor. There are other criteria to look at than the biggest number you can find for down payment or cash in your pocket. In a lot of strategies, there are other criteria that you better take into effect because getting an extra $3,000 to $5,000 may cost you a lot more in the long run. I would take the stable person at $15,000 down who’s been at his job for several years, that has a retirement plan and his kids are about through college. This person has been responsible for his whole life over the one that looks a lot more transient and then takes your thing.

It’s funny when I got into doing all these lease options and everything, strange things started happening. I started getting these buyer leads in that had $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000 down, but they could only afford $600 a month. I’m like, “How is this possible?” They inherit the money or lawsuit as you were saying.

They sell drugs.

Having as many meaningful conversations with sellers as possible create more opportunities for you. Click To Tweet

Who knows?

I hate that. Some people offer me some big money and upon further research, it’s like, “I don’t want anything to do with that.” First of all, when I go to collect that stuff, he’s likely to kill me. You’re giving away a free webinar and this webinar is on How To Flip Houses Without Wholesaling, Rehabbing, Chasing Deals or Working 80 Hours a Week. Did I get that right?

That’s right.

Sometimes it’s better to have a long URL and say exactly what you do than to have a shorter one and no one knows. That’s my humble opinion. It’s like where you go to get a copy of this book. I could’ve thought of something shorter, but I liked every lead. If you want a free copy of this book on How To Flip Houses Without Wholesaling, Rehabbing, Chasing Deals or Working 80 Hours a Week, go to 1000houses.com/everydeal. Let’s keep going with this scenario. They gave you $20,000 down, you sold it for $129,000. Do you remember the interest rate on this $650 that you owed?

No, it was a typical Chase home mortgage.

What was it about 4%, 4.5% or 5%?

Yes.

What interest rate did you carry at?

When we put it out on a lease option, their monthly payments to lease payment to us. We don’t have to worry about interest rates with them.

How long is your lease for?

We’ll go anywhere from 12 to 24, sometimes 30 months, depending on how big an option fee they want to give us.

When you sell it, do they have to refi?

Within that option term, whenever they’re ready to get their own loan, they’ve got to qualify for their own mortgage and then cash us out.

This is another difference. Notice the subtleties and the differences of the subject-tos. When I take a subject-to, I’m carrying a 30-year note on it. I have a much bigger chance of having that note called because I’m holding the note for long, basically forever. It sometimes changes or the interest rates go way up, the banks may come around. Therefore, I don’t choose to build my huge part of my organization on the subject-to because of the way that I do it. I’m holding these things for a long time. I could do more subject-tos on thinner margins if I’m doing like Blair’s doing, which is getting a larger down payment. They got a balloon period at some time or they have to get out of the lease and exercise their option. How many of these deals are you doing a month or a year?

We do a handful of months, but we see that growing because of expanding geographically and doing them in remote markets. Our cost per lead comes way down so we can end up doing more deals on lower cost per deal essentially.

This is what I found out is tricky about remote markets, but I want you to help me get over it. There’s a lot of places where there are deals on houses, but there are some places that people have no down payment. You’ve mentioned that state. I know that in Birmingham, the houses are cheap, but if you’re looking for a $20,000 down payment, it’s not that easy in Birmingham. I’m saying Alabama, not Oklahoma. How is it in Oklahoma? I bet it’s better in Oklahoma.

REIS 350 | Funding Options

Funding Options: Get on the phone with people with a house for sale and say the right things, and the deals will come.

 

I find that the hard part of this business is finding tenant buyers with money. You can get the tenant-buyer leads all day long for cheap with your advertising. The thing that separates the men from the boys is being able to go through enough of those leads to find the ones that had the money. You got to get on the phone with all of them because they’re not going to fill out a web form. They’re not going to tell you over the phone to PATLive. You’ve got to get on the horn with them, do a prescreening call with them to find out how much money they got. They’re always lying anyway, but that’s the trick.

There are definite criteria for me. I’ve seen tendencies. I’ve seen things that trend. When and where and what? We’re looking for affordable houses, but you’re not looking for the ghetto. There’s got to be some job market in that region because there are cheap houses. Sometimes you’re looking for cheap houses in nice places, nice areas to live, not cheap houses in crappy places to live because then there’s nobody living there has any means or they wouldn’t be living there. It’s a little bit of a trick. Are you going to find as many favorable pockets as possible and then try to hone it down to that? Are you still going to go across every state?

We’re going across probably about fifteen different states all throughout the south. State set maybe have more favorable laws for what we do and places that I like. I don’t go up to New England much. This is a black hole in my mind for whatever reason.

You can’t get your house back for one. There are a few states like that. I would do my experimentation across however many states. I would start to figure out the areas that are most likely to have big down payments and cut it down a little bit because it doesn’t do me any good to buy a house when I can’t find any money for a down payment. Are you teaching this stuff?

We’ve rolled a training program, but we put that free webinar out.

Do you speak? Do you have engagements? Do you have bootcamps? Do you have any dates out there that people need to know?

We haven’t gotten into doing any live events yet. We do it all online. It’s a virtual mastermind community that we got.

Live events are going the way of the dinosaur, except for there is one thing cool about live events. Every time I’ve been to a live event, I learned as much from the audience members that I have lunch with every day as I do from the guru. Typically, the guru will tell us all the great crap and when you can get to the table, you can find, “This is the problem with that. If you don’t see before that, then you’re going to get stung by the whole nest.” That’s one thing.

I’m with you on that. I love going to live events. It’s that I hadn’t gotten into hosting them yet.

I don’t like it, but since we’re on the topic, I have set a date for a Vacation with Mitch. It’s simply I’m going on vacation to an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Vallarta for 4 nights and 5 days. I’m not selling anything and there’s not going to be a conference room that we’re going to sit in. I have been asked to be a little more structured, so we will have some time that we’re going to meet at the pool bar, talk about a certain topic. It may be me or someone else who’s an expert on that topic. If you want to come and talk about that topic, go ahead.

If you don’t, if you want to go see the Mayan ruins or whatever is over there, go ahead. I don’t care. It’s a true vacation with likeminded people. I’ve been doing it for years. In the last couple of years, we had 100 people, plus or minus, come. I don’t mark it up. I’m not selling anything. I’m on vacation, but we talk all day long, 24 hours a day at that resort. We don’t know anything else to talk about. People are coming from all over the country and probably all over the region. They’re not competing with each other, so everyone’s open.

It sounds like I need to get down to Mexico with you.

It is on May 6th, 2020. If you can, I’d love to have you. Maybe you could be one of our speakers in the pool. Do you have any advice for the new investor out there?

I tell all my coaching clients that this whole business revolves around having as many meaningful conversations with sellers as possible, as often as possible. If you can do more of that, you’re going to create more opportunities for yourself and the deals are an eventuality. They’re going to come. Get on the phone with people with a house for sale and say the right things and the deals will come.

It’s a numbers game. It’s not any different than any other sales job. You follow-up with people, you’ll get your sales. It makes it a lot easier if you’re not counting your failures or counting like, “I didn’t make money.” Try to help as many people as you can. Look at it like that. Don’t worry about the money and then put up a lot of numbers. It’s the same thing. People say, “How did you raise so much private money?” which is a question I want to ask you here. I talked to hundreds of people a year and I tell them what I do and how I do it and how I pay the people that helped me. I don’t even ask them for money. A certain amount of those people raise their hands to go, “Can I be one of those people?” We’re off to the races. How are you funding your deals?

We do all seller financing. We don’t bring in any private lenders.

To learn about the financing business, you need inflow of leads and somebody showing you the ropes. Click To Tweet

Are you doing all the sub-tos?

Sub-to or carrybacks if they got some equity or if they own it free and clear, we’ll make a whole seller finance note.

Are you counting on the financing already being there or the seller providing you with it?

That’s right.

It is smart because you have no personal liability anymore at this point.

I like the way you do it and in my mind, I call them hybrid deals because you’re paying cash and selling on terms. You maximize your spread because you can always buy lower if you’re paying all cash. You can always sell higher if you’re selling on terms.

It makes the spread even wider, but all my lenders give me permission to wrap too, which is one of the anxieties I don’t have to have any more. They’re always collateral only loans, non-recourse. I’m in the same boat. Sometimes my bank goes, “You owe $22 million. The people don’t make you ever questioned.” I said, “I got the right to pay as agreed or I got the right to walk that deed over.” When I say walk it over, if I can’t pay, no one’s going to have to chase me or foreclose on me. I will walk the deed over to whoever that I can’t pay and say I’m exercising choice B. I always had choice B. That being said, you start giving people deeds back. You’re not going to have any private lenders that long. I’ve never given it back in my life and I’d never see a reason to. That’s how I sleep at night is knowing that if some cataclysmic thing happens in the world, my good name is not tied to it.

That’s the problem with signing personally with a bank. I’m not going to tell you that I’ve never signed personally, but the problem is you are guaranteeing the world. You are guaranteeing Kim Jong-Un from North Korea doesn’t drop a dirty bomb in your town. You’re guaranteeing that a meteor doesn’t strike. You don’t have any control over any of that, which I wanted to make an agreement with people because it was my name. I wanted to make an agreement that I could affect the outcome of and when I do non-recourse collateral only, I have the right to pay as agreed or bring you the deed. I can 100% do that no matter what happens in the world. Earthquake, fire, something burns the whole state of Texas down, I can still honor my commitment.

I like your perspective on that. It is similar to mine. Speaking of your perspective, one thing I wanted to take advantage of is getting your perspective on what’s coming in the future in the market and the economy. What do you see out there? What’s your perspective on that, if you don’t mind me asking?

It’s not any secret that I’m a Conservative. I don’t even like to be called a Republican anymore because they all suck for the most part. I think here are some good apples, but all of them have been there too long. I think that if Donald Trump doesn’t get elected in 2020, we’ll be into a recession within days starting that minute. This is my belief. Don’t bet on me. Don’t gamble on me. I believe if he stays in office for another term, that the optimism of the country, not my opinion. Look at the stock market and the number of cranes in every city, the amount of money moving, I think it’ll stay. Things can’t go up forever. There’s bound to be a reset even on his watch. People are going to sell when it gets high enough to take their profits and there could be a reset.

A recession in our business, Blair, would do us a lot of good. I do good in the good times. You’re doing good in the good times. We will boom in the bad times because we don’t need bank money, neither you nor I, to buy houses. When the recession hits, the bank’s going to close, so having ways to buy houses without bank money is the top priority. If the bank’s closed, what happens to your business? There’s always another recession coming in. That moment begins the day that a recession ends. The next one coming that day begins. The question is when, so you need to be set up for it. What great strategies we have. You have a great strategy because your strategy does not pin on a bank to act and acquire the house.

Your strategy does not require a bank to sell the house. My prediction is you’ll get wealthy in the next recession. I’m going to predict that you weren’t ready at the last recession. After going through the recession that I wasn’t ready for and contemplating because it takes a recession to know what it feels like. There are people like, “In the next recession, I’m going to buy everything.” I said, “We’ll see about that because when the recession hits, everything stinks. It’s shitty and it’s scary.” You’re wondering the world’s falling apart and you’re not sure anymore about how brave you were to say you’re going to buy in the down market. We’ll find out how brave you are because it gets scary.

You tell me, you’re the expert on this.

I had to get my two-way bows in a bag and haul them up the hill. I knew it was time to buy. I said, “Everything I ever read. Every girl I ever talked to. Every successful real estate person I ever knew says this is it.” They’re out doing it and I’m going to jump because I’m going to jump. I was buying a house a day in 2009 and 2010 when I could focus on that. You get about 45 houses in, you think you’d better start selling a house. I didn’t have my buy and sell thing fixed. I was the buyer and the seller, which slowed me down a lot in the recession, even though I bought 45 houses in 45 days. That’s when I stopped because I said, “I’ve got 45 vacancies.” When you’re buying a house a day, you can hardly sell a house a day. You better have that fixed. With the recession, you better have someone else doing something because you can’t do everything.

I remember the story in your book, you realized you were buying too many houses too fast.

I tried to buy my own house to find the owner. When I finally found out who it was, we didn’t file our lien either. When my people finally found out who the house was owned by, they called the owners on the record, but the owner says, “We sold it to this person,” and it was me. I was out trying to buy my own house. We have a code red, broken arrow. What are the chances in a town of two million people that I would find my own house? The reason why it happened was I didn’t have any payments to my private lender at that time on that house. I was buying houses, creating notes, and selling the notes within the same month. Maybe it took 90 days, maybe it took 120 days, but my lender was letting the interest accrue.

REIS 350 | Funding Options

Funding Options: With hybrid deals, you can always buy lower if you’re paying all cash and sell higher if you’re selling on terms.

 

He wasn’t complaining that he wasn’t getting any payments. This file had fallen between the crack of the desk in the wall and God only knows how long I would have gone if someone said, “What about this house?” I think you’re smart. Your plan is risk-free. Although, let’s get to the truth of this point, do zero down deals with pretty houses because you’re going to take over the existing financing. Most of the deals got something in the rear. We got to fix something. It’s not all to find a zero-down deal. I don’t know that it happens every day. Maybe since you’re casting this wide a net, are you able to find nothing but zero down deals?

Most of our deals are zero down or we’ll give the seller some money.

Do you have to put a little money in all of these deals or are you only doing deals that you put no money in?

We pay for all the closing costs. We’ve got $15,000 or a couple of thousand dollars into it maybe.

Are you saying that you never make anyone’s back payments up to take a deal?

Sometimes we do and so we may come out of pocket on that or we may line up our buyer with a bigger down payment before we close on it and bring it current.

There’s a way to get all of it back or most of it back. I’m saying you still need some wiggle room with some of your own money. One of the sponsors of this show I’m going to put up will help you get your hands on interest-free credit card limits and stuff to float yourself. At the end of the day, life is much easier if you can get your hand on $15,000 or $20,000 anytime you want and for a short period of time, 30 or 60 days. That’s part of the key too. I met people that have a lot of money that wants to come to the business. Not a lot of them, but most of the people I know are starting out broke. Did you start out broke or did you start out rich?

Didn’t we all start broke?

99% of the people I know, including us, started out broke, but you get these people that are like, “I have $400,000. I want to get the house business.” I said, “This is what you do. Put it in a CD for a year. Don’t touch it. Learn how to do this business broke and you’ll understand how not to lose that $400,000.” I do it all the time. There have been times when they find a deal that even from a distance over the internet. I look at it and going, “You got four days. You can buy this thing for $70,000. It is worth $230,000. Let’s get that money out of that CD.” Let’s get it because you only got four days and we haven’t got time to jack around with this much profit. At least there’s someone like us watching over him.

I think that’s important. To learn this business, in my opinion, you need two things. The inflow of leads and somebody is showing you the ropes. Somebody who’s been there, done that already.

I’ve always said it and I’ll say it again, “You can measure a coach by how much money he makes you, but you’ll never be able to measure him by how much money he kept you from losing or how much time he saved you from wasting. Some of the times you make a mistake, you can waste years with your money.” It is breaking even with your money out. We could talk, Blair, forever. Go to 1000houses.com/everydeal. Go to the free webinar, How To Flip Houses Without Wholesaling, Rehabbing, Chasing Deals or Working 80 Hours a Week. If you’re interested in talking to Blair more about his strategy and how he’s doing this over 12, 15, 16 states, how he’s advertising, how he’s finding deals, how he’s sizing everything up. Whatever it takes Blair, they’ll be able to get to you.

That sounds good.

I want to thank you for being on.

Thank you, Mitch.

If you ever do a podcast where you interview somebody, can I throw my hat in the ring?

I would love to have you on if we ever get there. That sounds great. I’d love to return the favor someday.

We’ll probably meet up somewhere. Thanks for stopping by to get you some Blair Halver. I’m learning about pretty houses and how to make every lead count. Check out my sponsor, TaxFreeFuture.com. Figure out what those financial advisors are not telling you. We’re going to let you know and then figuring out why they’re not telling you. Take responsibility for your own finances. A lot of these 401(k) plans have disappeared and vanished off the face of the Earth. Sometimes they don’t produce. Take control of your financial future. We’re out of here. See you, Blair.

Thanks a lot, Mitch.

 

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About Blair Halver

REIS 350 | Funding OptionsBlair Halver is an entrepreneur and marketing automation expert from Mooresville, NC.

Blair is a real estate investor and avid marketer, coming up under the greats: Dan Kennedy, Ron LeGrand, Russell Brunson, and more. He has personally managed a marketing spend of nearly two million dollars and generated more than 100,000 motivated seller leads for him and his clients. 

Blair’s clients are some of the fastest growing real estate investors in the country, and he has helped them systemize their marketing so they can create a life of true freedom in their real estate investing business.
 

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