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Student “Private Money” Success Story – Al Curiel

Mitch Stephen|By December 10, 2019

Episode 341: Student “Private Money” Success Story – Al Curiel

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REIS 341 | Raising Private Money

Seller financing and notes is a vast industry, but sometimes, it can be very challenging when you have a hard time getting private money. In this episode, host Mitch Stephen interviews Al Curiel about his real estate success story. Al opens up about his limiting beliefs that got in the way of achieving his goals. He shares how he was able to get rid of that mentality, meet people, develop his elevator pitch, and raise money for notes and seller financing.

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I have Al Curiel here. He’s from Chicago. We are here to share a success story. Al and I bump into each other from time to time across the country at different places. We were at the NoteExpo with Eddie Speed down there in Dallas around 2018. You were there again. What did you win? You won some awards down there.

We had the performing and the nonperforming competition that Eddie has every NoteExpo. I was blessed enough to be voted by my peers as the nonperforming note of the year. Justin Bogard won the performing note of 2019.

When I was out there in 2018, you were at a crossroads in your real estate career. You have a full-time job, daytime gig where he’s successful at what he does. He’s trying to A, put away some extra money and build a bigger, better retirement or B, maybe even walk away from that job. Right now, it’s the part-time thing, but you are at a crossroads. You’re about to give up. Talk a little bit about that.

Let me give you a little bit of background. I was about to give up the business. I had signed up to be in the program with Eddie Speed and the notes because that space intrigued me. I had been in real estate for about 35 years. I started when I was 22 years old in the Chicago area. My brother and I started buying, holding, renting and everything else and we were fairly successful. I was a waiter in high school and everything else. I’m an immigrant, so that 2nd, 3rd and 4th jobs are nothing to us, as you know. We were saving a lot of money, taking the money and saving it. My brother and I decided to buy these buildings and we were fairly successful.

We had about 35 throughout the Chicago land area, but then 1989 hit. You know what happened in ‘89. The market had a horrible correction, interest rates shut up and we were basically out of business. We picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off and went on to another round of investing, all along me having my job because I wanted something to fall back on. I had gotten married and I didn’t have a kid or anything like that on the way, but that mentality of having to better yourself all the time. I went through another cycle with my brother of this time wholesaling and the market tanked again in 1992 and then again back in 2008.

Back in 2008, we decided what is out there that is going to be basically recession-proof. We didn’t find anything until I heard the concept of seller financing and notes. A lot of discounts came by way of buying discounted notes. I started getting into that space. I signed up and I did a lot of research and the name of Mitch Stephen came up when I was doing my research. My brother checked out. My brothers said, “This is not for me. That’s too volatile for me to do it.” I was flying solo and in 2018, it’s pretty lonely when you have one-man shop. You become creative. I decided to sign up for NoteExpo. One day you were having breakfast with another gentleman. I slithered my way in and said, “How are you doing, Mitch? I read all your books, all three of them. I’m having a bit of a problem.”

If I can talk to the audience directly, this guy is generous. You won’t find a more giving and generous guy out there. Without any trepidations, without anything to gain, he just sat me down and talked me off the ledge. Number one, that was emotional for me. Number two, it made me realize that it’s a vast industry, but a small community. For the most part, everybody tries to help everybody else. You showed me the way to, number one, develop your elevator pitch, to either get notes or to get properties discount and then seller financing.

Where did your family immigrate from?

I was born and raised in Mexico City. I came here when I was fifteen years old, but that’s another story which I’ll share. You said take it slow.

Help me because I don’t remember the exact conversation, but I do remember the place and I remember the time. I remember sitting down. Talk more about the exact conversation. Do you remember?

I do actually. I said, “I’m having a hard time getting private money.” The old mentality that you talk about in the Private Money Changes Everything course, that is so spot on. I wasn’t tall enough. I’m too old to do this. I am too short. I talk funny. I wasn’t born in this country. All of those factors that you talk about, that you speak of in your course, that was me.

You had all these limiting beliefs and all these obstacles in your way.

You said it’s all in your head. It’s like the game of golf.

It’s not about you.

It’s about the deal. You said, “The first thing you need to do is get rid of that mentality. Check that out, and then meet people and develop your elevator pitch.” I did. My elevator pitch goes like this. “What do you do?” “I’m Al. I raise capital to give my clients above-average returns secured by real estate.” That’s it. It’s very simple. Of course, that intrigues people. In my field of work, my job, I deal with a lot of insurance and claims. I deal with a lot of lawyers. That next week after you and I spoke, I met a couple of attorneys that I deal with on a regular basis that defends our cases or claims. I gave him the exact same pitch, Mitch. Lo and behold, I got $100,000 out of him.

At the end of the day, when you get enough curiosity in their head, they're going to say, 'Can I be part of that deal?' Share on X

That wasn’t it. I said, “This works. I need more training.” I think it was that spring or summer, 2018, I bought the course, Private Money Changes Everything. From there, it’s just been wonderful. I texted you that one time. This guy had committed to loaning a $400,000. He reneged on it about a month later but I didn’t give up. There was another guy, another lawyer who committed $300,000. With that, I was able to get about 27 nonperforming notes, which is a direct derivative to what I’m going to tell you next. From that money that I got, then I got the Eddie Speed training on the notes and the nonperforming notes. I got this nonperforming note, which is the one that won in 2019 because I was able to foreclose on that property.

Not only was I in the note business, but I was in the real estate business because I took ownership of the property. This was a property in Arkansas, a long walk from Chicago. I had boots on the ground and we had an issue with the property. The guy had bailed out and we couldn’t find him. We find out through some tracers that he was in Dallas. I tried to get the deed in lieu. He wasn’t that interested. I had to go through the next step, which was foreclosure. After the mayor of that town found out that I was the new owner of the property, she picked up the phone and called me. She says, “I just got elected and my platform here is I’m not going to help blighted properties. You people from the North or whatever you’re from, you come in here and think you’re going to be a slum lord.”

She read me the riot act. I said, “Ma’am, I understand you have no way of knowing me and you have no way of believing in what I’m going to say, but here’s the deal. My mission is to work with you. Number one, make money from me, but also create a win-win for everybody.” That changed the dynamic a little bit and then she says, “That’s fine.” My problem, Mitch, was that I didn’t have my boots on the ground that could go and look at the property and clean it up. The problem with the property was weeds and grass. You can just imagine the code violations.

I pick up the phone of my own volition and I said, “Ms. Glover, I want to work with you, but I’m having a bit of a problem getting vendors to clean up the place for me. Would you be interested in having your city workers cut the grass for me and clean the weeds? I’d be glad to pay you.” She said yes. A week later, the place had been cut, the grass had been mowed, the weeds have been cleared, and they even power washed the façade, all for the incredible price of $150. I was going to dig up the receipts to show you, but she faxed me the bill.

That’s called turning chicken poop into chicken soup.

That became a very unlikely ally. The ally that I have was a mayor and she said, “That’s great.” I thanked her and everything else.

I hope you’re going to owner finance this house. You weren’t going to rent it out, you’re going to make someone an owner. Of course, everyone understands that ownership takes pride to a different level than renters. She was trying to peg you as a slum lord and she had no idea that you were owner financier.

That whole dynamic changed and the balance became in my favor because then 24 hours later after she had received a draft for a $150, she picked up the phone and called me. This time, it was not Patricia Glover, the mayor of Waldo, Arkansas. This time, “This is Patricia.” I said, “Rock and roll.” She said, “Are you still looking for a renter?” I said, “No, ma’am. I told you I’m not looking for the rent. I’m looking to sell the house via owner financing to a deserving buyer.” She says, “I may have a buyer for you.” This town is so small that everybody knows everybody.

There was an issue with a woman that had been abused. She was in a marriage and had been abused. The guy was abusing the mom and the 15 and 16-year-old boys. She says, “We can’t get involved. This is domestic law, but I know there are virtually no places to rent in this town.” I said, “I’ll listen.” She says, “You may have trepidations about selling it to her but she’s got a job. She works at the local hospital. She’s a phlebotomist. She draws blood. She’s just got a steady job, but nobody will give her a chance.”

At which time I said, “Okay.” I got my RMLO to qualify her against the RMLO’s judgment. He says, “She’s got a 530 score.” As I thought about it, you and I talked about how I have limitations. I am an immigrant and all this other stuff and I’ve got opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise have. To turn my back on this woman would be completely un-American. I said, “Let’s sell the property to this lady.” She qualified and I’m selling financing the property to her at 9.9% interest, $50,000 with $4,000 down. The woman has been paying on time for a whole year.

The first thing that pops into my mind is she doesn’t want blighted houses. Obviously, that’s a problem in that town. There are blighted houses. Did you ever think about going into that town and say, “Patricia, where’s the next one that we need to go make an offer on?” Is that what you did?

That’s exactly right.

You didn’t want to be in Arkansas. You bought a note and wanted your payments to come in, but now you end up in this. What’s the name of this town in Arkansas?

Waldo.

It’s the last place you thought you’d ever end up. You didn’t want to be there. The opportunity never knocks when it’s just right. It never knocks when you’re ready. It never knocks at the time you want it to knock. What do you mean opportunity is in Arkansas? That’s where it is. Tell me more because I don’t know the rest of the story.

Raising Private Money: When you take ownership of a property, you have to have boots on the ground.

In Waldo, Arkansas, they couldn’t find it. The vendors that I wanted to go and clean up the place, they didn’t know where it was. I found out that it’s about an hour North East of Texarkana and about 45 minutes South East of Little Rock, in the middle of nowhere. Those ladies, now we talk once a month and she says, “I’m still looking for properties for you to fix and help me fix this town because it will make me look good.” The money is great. I’m not going to deny that. At this juncture, my mission has stopped about making money because I have a nice job.

You don’t have to worry about that. Money happens. Focus on the good stuff.

It’s about paying it forward and doing the right thing. If I can talk to your audience about this, none of this would have happened without me having the foresight to keep my eyes and my mind wide open to the possibilities and then talking to you, taking action and getting the course. Getting myself, not one mentor or two. I’ve got three mentors. I’ve got a life coach. I have you, I have Eddie Speed. The synergy that I get from these three individuals is great. I’m not trying to say this is all kumbaya we’re all great, but you need to find your niche. You need to find a mentor and educate yourself with the things that matter to you because at the end of the day, it’s all about people.

I appreciate that you’re counting me out of that group. The point here is whether you pick me or someone else, you’ll find your niche, drill down on that niche and find the guy who’s done a lot in that niche and still doing something. Make sure they’re still active and make sure they’re the guy. Do your research. With the digital age, everybody can be a guru tomorrow. Do your research and make sure the person that you pick is A, an expert in the niche that you’re in and it’s where you want to be in that niche. B, and really important is the person that you want to be on the field and off the field. Pick a good person that you relate to all the way around. Did you ever talked to Patricia about, “I could do a lot more of these houses if we could find some private people that wanted to put up some money and make it X amount return?”

I talk to her about it all the time. The opportunity hasn’t come up in a year, but now I got her being my watch out person. She’s looking out for properties from me and she wants to better her platform. She wants to better the town. We have a functioning property that’s paying taxes. There’s the pride of ownership and it’s a feel-good story yet at the end of the day. The one thing that I wanted to talk about that you touched on briefly is do your research and find out about the mentors. I could have walked away after talking to you, Mitch. The reason why I still have a job, full disclosure, is because I made a fatal mistake in my research. That was going with somebody that didn’t deserve to be trusted. This person took me for a ton of money from my private investors. I’m still paying. I’m getting notes and it’s a nice income. I’m not going to deny that because it’s not my investor’s fault that I made a mistake. I have three mortgages right now but that’s okay. It’s all good. I’m still healthy. I’m able to do that and hustle, but do your research, people, because there are some bad actors out there and that’s what I’m going to say.

Do you think if you have taken an extra hour to research that person before you went in that you would have figured it out?

Without a question.

Usually, their crap is just below the surface. It doesn’t take a lot to find them.

I made the jump. I was seduced. That’s the correct verbiage. I was seduced by this person’s charm and everything else. I deployed the money and these people were like, “We trust you.” I established a relationship with these people. One of them is a person that cuts my hair. She gave me the last money that she had for retirement. I’m not going to be the one to break that trust. I can’t do that.

This is where your metal gets forged. This is the confidence that when you deal with this thing and you get it taken care of, you walk in and go, “I’ve had bad things happen to me and my people got paid anyway.” I had issues too early on when I made some mistakes and I had to suffer through those. It wasn’t easy, nor was it fun. Mine was $8,000 a month for four years.

That’s just about where I am.

I went out and I kept trying to make some deals and dropped that balance all the time. I was doing some wholesales and some flips so I could try to get that off my back. By the way, it’s very admirable what you’re doing. That’s a winner. You’re a winner. Let’s talk about Private Money. You went ahead and got the course. I don’t know that you announced that you were going to, I think you just did that on your own after you saw a little traction. How did the course push you, Private Money Changes Everything? You can see it at 1000Houses.com/privatemoney and you can read up on it and see what it is. It’s not a particularly heavy course. It’s not bulky. It’s like cheesecake though. It’s rich and good. Try a little piece. That’s all you need. If you get much more than that, you’ll throw up. I don’t want people to think like they’re going to get this mountain of crap. It’s not a bulky thing. It’s right on the money.

There are 21 objections that I gave you the answer to. It’s the only 21 objections I’ve ever heard. If you know a 22nd objection that I don’t have on there, call me or email me and tell me and we’ll figure out the answer. You need to memorize the answers to those 21 objections, which they’re pretty simple. The answers and the questions, they start off mundane. Probably the most complicated one will take you all of a day and a half to rehearse and get it down. How I tell people to do it is you take the objections with the answers and you put them where you brush your teeth in the morning and evening and read them while you’re brushing your teeth. You read the question and the answer. After about four or five days, put up the one that only has the questions.

It’s very simple. There’s an hour and 23-minute lecture with you and Mike Powell. That was powerful. What hit me hard was the role play that you have with a lawyer. That is money. Mitch is right. It’s very simple. It’s not hard. A lot of it is common sense and taking action.

You can’t study it then not get a meeting with someone. You’ve got to get some meetings with somebody. The trick is to not beg for money. The trick is to get in the business positions where it’s like, “I want you to do something for me. Let me show you how my business works so you can consider helping me, Mr. CPA,” or “You can consider helping me, Mr. Attorney. You can consider doing documents from me. Let me show you how my business works.” You don’t ever have to ask anybody to loan you money. The minute you ask people, “I want to talk to you about loaning me money,” they get in the boxing stance. We’re teaching how to get in those positions and just a little seven steps and a lot of NLP. Did you find the NLP helpful? How to get people to ask you the question you want to talk about?

Opportunity never knocks when you're ready. It never knocks at the time you want it to knock. Share on X

Absolutely. Neuro-linguistic programming is so powerful because you reverse the role, you’re flipping the script. At the end of the day, when you get enough curiosity in their head, then they’re going to say, “Can I be part of that deal?”

There’s neuro-linguistic programming. We speak in such canned dialogue, all of us as humans, that you can actually ask questions or say things that will require a canned response. I’m trying to get them to ask me, “Where are you getting that money? Can I be one of the people that does this?” Let’s give them an example, Al. If I wanted Al to ask me what I do for a living so I could give my elevator pitch, how would I get Al? I walk up to Al and we’re standing in an elevator together. We don’t know each other. Let’s role-play a little bit. I say, “Al, it’ seriously cold out there. Are you staying warm?”

“Yes. I have to dress up for this weather.”

“I was admiring your dress. You look very successful. What do you do?”

“I happened to be in the insurance business.”

“What insurance is it?”

“It’s commercial insurance, workers comp, general liability insurance.”

“Can I get your card? I know some guy that’s searching for that right now, would you talk to them about it?”

“You bet. Absolutely. Here’s my card.”

“Thank you.” Now I got the card, which means it’s up to me whether he gets a callback. He doesn’t have to call me. I got his card.

I’m going to ask you, “What are you doing, Mitch?”

“I almost went into the insurance myself but I took a different path.” It begs the question.

“What do you do?”

“I help average people achieve above average rates of return on their idle money. I’m raising this capital and they all get very valuable real estate. If they don’t get the ROI that they’re signed up for, then they get a piece of real estate that actually is better than the original deal. You didn’t get paid or you get paid bigger. Can I call you?” I needed him to ask me what I do so I could give him my elevator pitch. You get in the conversation, then either you or someone needs his card because you want to get control. I want to be in control of if we’re going to talk again or not. I’m not going to leave it up to Al. I’m leaving it up to me. I just say, “I strongly considered going into whatever he said but I took a different path.” You leave that hanging. You don’t say anything else.

That’s exactly right every time without fail.

Raising Private Money: You need to find your niche, you need to find a mentor, and you need to educate yourself on the things that matter to you because, at the end of the day, it’s all about people.

It’s about 8 out of 10 times. There are 2 people out of those 10 that are too busy, they don’t care or they’re not a people person. If you’re not that curious, we probably don’t need to talk anyways. There’s this NLP on how to get people to ask you where you are getting that money so you can get into what you want to talk about. We’re going through my business and I’m phrasing things that it’s begging them to ask me, “Where are you getting that money?” It’s about 8 out of 10, will have to say, “Where are you getting this money?” They open the door. The premise is I can open doors and try to push people through doors or I could get them to open the door themselves and think it’s their idea to get into this room and now I’m not a salesman. I’m an opportunity that they were lucky enough to stumble upon.

Stumble upon they do. That’s exactly right. For me, because I’ve developed rapport with so many people in the area, in downtown Chicago when commuting and everything. If you take the train and whatnot, you get to know a lot of people. Through casual conversation, you break the ice that way. Maybe 8 out of 10 times, maybe 9 out of 10 times, maybe 10 out of 10 times, it depends on the time of day. When it’s sunny outside, people get a little friendlier. When it gets cold and nasty outside, people are a little grumpy so they’re not going to be as engaging. There’s this little bit of psychology.

They’re bundled up and headed to the next warm spot. We still have this time ahead of us that’s going to be pure pay dirt for you. I’m not hoping for it, but it will happen because it always does. It’s always in the future and it’s always on its way. When the stock market fails, it’s the easiest conversation. It doesn’t matter. You can be on the subway. You can look at the guy next to you who has a red silk tie on, nice leather shoes and a nice briefcase. You say, “Did you see that stock market?” You can tell by the look on their faces if they’re in the stock market or not. It’d be he looks down and goes, “It’s horrible.” He starts rubbing his forehead. You go, “I’m so glad I have other investments besides that stock market. I don’t know how these people live by this ticker tape. I’m so glad I don’t have to live by that.” It’s begging the question, “What do you do? Where’s your money at? Tell me more.”

That conversation has already started on the train downtown because I believe that within the next 16 to 24 months, there’s going to be a correction. I can’t tell you the exact date, but I think it’s going to be a correction and that is going to be an opportunity for people like us. There’s going to be demise for a lot of people that don’t take the time.

Think about how to do it now while the stock market is booming. You can walk into the same guy, same subway, same thing and go, “That Trump’s got this economy hotter than hell. It makes you wonder how long can it go on. It’s been going for so long, I thought it would’ve dumped a year ago. I don’t know how these people that are still in the stock market are sleeping at night wondering when is it going to break. I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about when it’s going to break. I got out at the top. I got out, I made my money. I’m in a place that I think now is even better than the stock market, but I don’t have to worry about that ticker ticking. I am relieved.” The guy is going to say, “I’m worried too. When is it going to break? I don’t know when it’s going to break. What are you doing? Tell me.” “I’ll tell you all about it. It’s really simple. It’s super simple. I can tell you in ten minutes,” and then we’ll just have a cup of coffee and a bagel.

I go to these guys as well. “This business that I have, can you take a look at it and beat it up a little bit?”

The problem that most people have in that whole course getting over is you’ve got to get their card. You can’t say, “Here’s my card. Call me when you want to have that bagel.” It’s never going to happen. It was too brief a meeting. It was too superfluous.

Not only that, but memories fade.

When I’m talking to the people, it’s like, “Did you get their card?” “No.” I said, “That’s the biggest mistake.” I listened to my students. It’s like, “You’ve got to get in the habit of getting that card. Remember, that’s the first thing you get. I know someone who might be interested in what it is you do.” You can’t always pull that off. “I’m an astronaut, I’m going to land on the moon.” “Can I have your card? I know somebody who wants to go with you.” That’s hard to pull that one off, so you have to come up with something.

It’s worked for me and I’m sure it’s worked for 1,000 of your students if you just execute.

Let’s talk about this. I don’t want to make a suggestion. You said you had someone committed to $400,000 and then they backed out. They got cold feet or they talked to somebody. You needed to send some of your deals that worked out or your over the top deal that’s still there saying, “I know it might not have been your cup of tea, but there’s got to be someone who needs to make X amount interest per year with this security. Who do you know that could use the help, sir? I know it’s not for you, but who could use the help? Here’s a picture of it. Here’s the cost. Here’s the whole thing.”

I even talk about how to make regular run of the mill deals into super deals, taking a piece of it yourself. If you need $50,000 on $100,000 house, put in $20,000 yourself and now I only need $30,000 on $100,000. That’s how I’m going to get in with this $400,000 guy. I’m going to give him a deal that’s so stupid that he can’t back out of it. This is a way to get back and say, “Not bugging you about this, but these deals are so good. Certainly you know somebody who needs this return for this minimal risk. The worst thing going to happen is they get paid on time, but the best thing ever going to happen to this person is that they get this property back.”

It’s true. Something happened to this guy because he was all gung ho about it. After my follow-up, it was like, “What happened? Let’s get some dialogue about this.” He was giving me the Heisman. I haven’t talked to him or anything like that.

You decide, but if you think it’s worth it, you send out that one thing, not asking him to do it. Say, “Some of these deals are so incredible. You’ve got to know somebody who wants a piece of this.” You got the guy with $300,000. That went through and everything and are you working with that guy’s money?

Yes. Everything is fine.

Casual conversation breaks the ice. Share on X

How does that change your world and your confidence? One person gave you $100,000, that would give you some confidence. Another person gave you $300,000, by now you’re thinking, “I can get $2 million. It’s just a matter of time.” You need a whole lot if you’re going in and out like a flipper. Hold the notes you need, you’ll need to get a little bit more.

My cashflow is tremendous. I’m not going to deny that. The money is great. I typically borrow at 5% to 6% now because of the interest rates. The arbitrage, I charge 8%, 9%. This woman in Walton is at 9.9% interest. You can see the numbers. I’m not going to go over the minutiae of it, but the cashflow is incredible.

Can I jump into coaching mode here again? This guy with the $400,000, he backed out. Were you talking to him about 5% or 6%?

No, we’re talking about 7%, I think he wanted.

There’s another way to go back to him. “I got to thinking, Mr. So-and-So. If the 7% is not aggressive enough for you, I can pay 10% if you’ll give me a fifteen-year fully amortized note.” If he says no to that, he says probably like, “Fifteen years is too long.” “How about if you gave me a fifteen-year amortized note with a seven-year balloon?” You can keep finding excuses to go back to them. “I can pay you more if you’ll give me better terms.” You use the next set of terms to reengage with them. You might say, “You’ve got to know somebody who wants to do this house. By the way, tell them I can pay as much to 10% if they’ll give me a fifteen-year am with a seven-year balloon.” You’re talking to him about talking to someone else. Make no mistake, you’re talking to him.

A lot of times, did you find that interesting in the course where I’m talking to my business partner but we’re not talking to each other? We’re talking to the guy next to us at the bar who we know is loaded because he’s got a $50,000 watch on his arm. We know this guy is loaded. We were talking to each other about Mary who loaned us $350,000 and she was happy with 8%. I said, “I thought she would have asked you for more.” He says, “We could have given her more. It was a little bit of a set of different terms.” We’re not talking to each other. Mike and I are talking to that guy right next to us and about 6 out of 10 times, the person that we’re trying to get their attention will say, “I apologize. I overheard your conversation. What do you all do?” We get into it 60% of the time. It’s a little tougher play but it’s fun to do it.

Coffee shops are an excellent place to do that. It’s happened to me twice already. I was talking to my brother about it and some guy who was some anesthesiologist. “I’m sorry guys, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation. Tell me more. Can I weigh in?” What do you think I said? I’m having some dialogue with the guy. He’s hyper-busy. I’m going to meet him at a coffee shop again.

Is there a presentation in that course or you just do it yourself?

I do it myself for the most part. I practice and practice makes perfect. After the commitment is made, you see the money going to the title company, it poops out and you can’t shove it back in.

Mark my words, they’ll give you more or bring you someone who has more. It goes in three months increments. You’ve got to pay them on time for three months and then another load comes or another, “Can I get out some more?” Good for you. I’m glad that you got out of the course. That course is the most under-bought, under-used. People don’t know or they don’t believe. They have so much limiting belief that they don’t even want to confront the idea of getting private money, which is a shame. If you just get into it a little bit, part of our job as a coach is to change your limiting beliefs. It’s to get you to a point where you believe this might have a chance.

Nothing is going to have a chance if you’re like, “This is not going to work.” Change that. I have $20 million worth of private money. It’s made me a multimillionaire. I didn’t start out with $20 million. I started out with $50,000, just like everybody else, from dad or from my Aunt Diana or whatever. I proved myself. My dad wanted to give me $35,000 and my brother $35,000 as a gift to start our careers. I said, “I don’t want you to give me anything. Loan it to me at 10%.” I ended up having hundreds of thousands of dollars from my parents. One time $35,000 or be able to borrow $250,000 over and over again. The $250,000 being borrowed is way better than the $35,000 one time.

You also have that hard money lending that you have as well.

One time in my career I had so much private money that I couldn’t get it all out. I started a hard money lending where I loan to my competitors who found terrific deals before I did. I loaned them the money in a first lien. The only amount of money that I loaned was the amount that I wish I would have paid for the property that I’m loaning on. I’m a collateral-only lender. I loan what I feel comfortable buying the house for. If they don’t pay me, I essentially buy the house. A loan $2,000 less than what you’re comfortable buying the house for because it’s going to cost you $2,000 to get through the foreclosure. By the time you get the house, you’re all in.

I actually average loaning only 58%. I trained my borrowers not to borrow the rehab money from me. I trained my borrowers to go get 0% credit cards. Put the rehab on that and don’t pay any interest on that $20,000 or that $30,000. That’s severely limited my risk because now I’m only paying for the acquisition, not the acquisition and the rehab. It dropped my LTVs down to where I don’t care if anybody doesn’t pay me. They can all not pay me. I don’t wish for anything bad to happen to anybody. I hope they do their thing, but if they don’t pay me, we’re fine. It’s a coup because I’ll pick up a bunch of properties that I wish I would have bought anyway.

You’re spot on. That’s the beauty of the course. It’s very versatile. It’s very direct. It’s very deliberate. It’s easy listening and easy read and the documentation and the resources. That’s the other thing. The resources that you give at the bottom of the page are unbelievable. The documentation, the assignment. I got to tell you and you know this better than anybody because you’re the one who graciously donates this course. There was a dinner at the NoteExpo. We have an auction type of thing and your course gets more bidding than any other course. To say that this course is underpriced, you’re spot on. It fetches a lot of money in donations, obviously.

Raising Private Money: Memories fade. When you go to a meeting, make sure that you get their card. Don’t be too sales-y on webinars; that’s not why people show up for it.

It’s $5,000, sometimes two people this time.

Is that what it was? That’s exactly right.

We did throw in the caveat this time. The two people that bought it got to spend the day at the ranch with me. They got the course and they’re going to come down and spend the day at the ranch with me.

I already had it and I didn’t pay anywhere near $5,000.

It was for the kids in Dallas that are down and out.

The Montage Orphanage or something like that.

It was a great cause and we were happy to donate it. By the way, I’m going to make you an invitation because you look so brokenhearted when I said that. Puppy dog faces like pulling my heartstrings right now. I’ll tell you, you get to Texas in San Antonio. You give me a little heads up. We can get you down there to the ranch for a day. We’ll go.

You got it. Thank you. That’s awesome. I will take you up on that because number one, I need to get out of this cold. That’d be great. I appreciate that.

I want to thank you for sharing your testimony about the Private Money Changes Everything course. I don’t like to be salesy on these webinars because that’s not why people show up for it. I’m telling you, I did the very best I could to change a whole bunch of people’s lives. It’s $997. You get one piece of private money, even $20,000, $997 is BS. I went through a lot in my life to get to the point where I could put these pieces of the puzzle together and have it work so effectively with such a small amount of work. It’s still work though.

You don’t sound salesy. Let me just say this. The money that you spend on this, you’re going to have to get the education. You get the education as I did with you. You get the education with somebody but you’re going to pay.

They can have it free of cost but you don’t get private money. It will cost you a fortune. It would have cost me millions upon millions if I didn’t learn how to get private money. If you’re a real estate investor out there right now and you don’t have private money, get this in your future. You’re going to have to set aside 6 months or 1 year to master it because it will change your life completely. Imagine if you could buy anything you wanted. You didn’t have to partner, you didn’t have to pay hard money and you could get the money within hours if not a day or a day-and-a-half or two days.

I say easy money. What would that do for your career? You close your eyes and say, “If I find two houses this week, I don’t have to worry about where the money comes from. I got a really reasonable rate. It’s all straight up and I got time with this money.” It’s not 6 months, not 8 months, not 1 year. I got five years or whatever we can make. Think how that would change your life. It’s the difference between being comfortable and making a great living to being way over the top successful and having cashflow like you can’t imagine. It made me wealthy and free.

I think the biggest takeaway for me, Mitch, was the fact that I was able to condense and lower my learning curve from your experience of so many years doing this to a short three-month gap.

You eventually will figure it out if you stay with it long enough because you go through everything that doesn’t work. Staying with it long enough is the big thing. That’s why I tried to short it down so you have minimal failures and you can get to it. It’s 1000Houses.com/privatemoney. Check it out. I want to thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your story.

Thank you very much for having me, Mitch. I enjoyed it.

I’ll see you in San Antonio.