Creative Financing in Real Estate: A Talk with Best-Selling Author Chris Prefontaine

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:00:12 to 00:00:42

Hello, everybody. This is Mike Mills with the Texas Real Estate and Finance Podcast. And coming to you today with a very interesting topic in that I deal in real estate every single day, buying and selling and helping people get loans. But there's a whole other world to this that I'm really not very familiar with. And my next guest is going to help kind of clarify and explain to us how there are multiple ways to buy properties and build wealth through real estate that I'm not familiar with.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:00:42 to 00:00:50

And so I got a ton of questions for him, and he's a best selling author. He's a real estate coach. And let's go ahead and bring on Mr. Chris Prefontaine. Hello, Mr.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:00:50 to 00:01:03

Chris. Hey, buddy. How are you? I'm doing awesome, man. As we talked about when you initially hooked up before we started going live here, it's 105 degrees here in Texas, but I'm wearing the hoodie.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:01:04 to 00:01:14

Someone sends you merch, you got to make sure that you represent right. Love it. So you are in the Northeast, you're in Rhode Island, right? I am, yeah. I'm in Rhode Island.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:01:14 to 00:01:26

Been here since 2008. Grew up in Massachusetts, not too far from here. Okay. So I'm here in Texas, so we're a good little distance apart, but in the same industry, doing the same things. I'm very curious.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:01:26 to 00:01:41

How did you get to the place where you're at right now? You got into real estate probably when you were pretty young and have developed what you've developed kind of what was the roadmap to get to where you're at? Yeah, I started in fall of 91, so I'm coming up on 32. Freaking, I can't even believe it's. 32 years.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:01:41 to 00:01:50

I really can't. I started building homes. I wasn't a builder. I hooked up with a gentleman that was a builder. And I heard, I'm going to date myself here.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:01:50 to 00:02:05

I don't even know if you've heard these, but I heard way back then, I was traveling to a family company. We weren't in real estate. My family was a welding company, welding supplies. And I heard an old Earl Nightingale tape. He's long gone now, but it was literally a cassette tape.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:02:05 to 00:02:26

And he talked about the Depression and how nobody would buy or sell, but he had this guy that he knew of during the Depression that went around and put signs on people's lots, sellers lots, and then attracted buyers and then built a home farm. So that's a cool idea. So we started doing that. We built hundreds of homes after we got it rolling, and we did it all on creative franchise, and we let me know. I was naive.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:02:26 to 00:02:36

I was in my twenty s, and I said to the owner, you'll wait till the house is built and sold. It said to the contractors, you'll wait until the house. Everybody waited till the end. Did that all the way till 95. 95.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:02:36 to 00:02:43

Till 2000. I built a brokerage real estate brokerage was never a broker. Sold out to Colwell Banker in 2000. That was a good experience. Okay.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:02:43 to 00:02:58

That led me to coach throughout US and Canada Realtors at the time, not investors. And that led up to the crash of eight. And I had my own investments going at that time. Obviously, that's what got me in the crash. So the crash was miserable to me, to the beginning of one of the books I wrote.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:02:58 to 00:03:26

But financially, mentally, everything but coming out of the crash, I said, what the heck are we going to do to be in real estate if we even want to deal with it? Because I was spent, and it was how I up right now. It was only buying without banks, without using my money, without pledging credit, because I had none at that time. And that's how this whole thing was born that I'm doing right now. So you mentioned the crash, and I've gone and watched some of your stuff and some of your talks that you've done over the years related to the coaching and the business.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:03:26 to 00:03:53

And one of the things you bring up from time to time is the crash and how that kind of reshaped everything that you did. And especially I think it's very apropos these days because what we're experiencing right now is not what happened in 2008. And anybody that wants to compare the two is just ridiculous. Because I agree. The two things that we're going through, whether you want to call it a recession if we're there yet or whatever the financial crisis is occurring.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:03:53 to 00:04:22

Back then, it was specifically related to real estate, and it was specifically related to loans given out on real estate. Today it's not. There's many other pieces to the puzzle that are causing issues now, but one of the things that I always heard you say, and I think is important, is come coming up with the resiliency inside of you to be like, look, this happened, but there's nothing that I can do about it. So the only thing that I can do is react. And I can try to reshape my business accordingly and not just try to throw in the towel and say, oh, this is too hard.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:04:22 to 00:04:47

Can you speak a little bit about that? Just what shifted in your brain to realize, like, hey, I just got to muscle through it. A couple of things come to mind when you ask that. One is the direct answer is, I had no choice. I don't know if you heard this story, but we went from a beautiful two and a half acre property here in Newport, Rhode Island, overlooking the harbor, which is impossible to get in hindsight, to a 900 square foot bedroom apartment for $900.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:04:47 to 00:04:58

That's what we had to do. So it was a humbling experience. But then I said, okay, it was miserable. I don't want to stay there. So I had to rebuild and no choice but to let go, but I don't want to act like that was easy.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:04:58 to 00:05:05

It took four years. Yeah. February never easy. There's nothing yeah, none of that stuff is easy. No, it takes longer than you think.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:05:05 to 00:05:19

Like anything else. Right. So February of eight to February of twelve, I was toast. And the only thing that got me out of it and I said this to one of my clients this morning because he was whining about something, and I hit him with a message. I said, look, and basically I was trying to tell him is your problem is not as significant as you think.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:05:19 to 00:05:43

And how I realized that was I flew to a gentleman I looked up to business wise, and I did this in 2012, about January, February. That's what got me out of it. And I told him I was whining and tell him what I went through. He laughed in my face and started to list all the things he's been through. He was like 20 years my senior and it made my stuff look like nothing and basically told me to get out of my way, get my own way.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:05:44 to 00:06:10

So I started back right then. Yeah, there's always this thing out there and there's two sides of it because I've heard this said before, where the worst thing that's ever happened to you is still the worst thing that's ever happened to you. Right. And your reaction to such is, yeah, I understand the emotion behind it and where you're at with it, but at the same time, there are way worse things that could happen to you. And as long as you still have your health and you're still breathing, then you can fight back and get what you want.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:06:10 to 00:06:36

But the minute you let your brain decide that you're not going to try anymore, that's when you lose. And I really think that that's a lot of agents these days, especially in Lenders and all of us in what I would call inside the box world, they're struggling with that. And sometimes when you have these market resets like we've had recently, and what you experienced in eight, it kind of culls the herd a little bit. Right. All the people that were in the business that never had to work, their phone just rang.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:06:36 to 00:06:52

They did all these things. They are getting out because they can't sustain. Right. They can't keep going. Now, one of the things because of the way the world has changed in the last twelve to 24 months that people get into, which you yourself are is coaching, has all of a sudden exploded.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:06:52 to 00:07:10

Everybody's a real estate coach. Everybody is going to tell you how to do this stuff. So you yourself are a real estate coach in a different way, obviously, because of the method you guys use. But tell me about that journey and what your thought on coaching is. Yeah, so in 2014, we live in Newport.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:07:10 to 00:07:22

I said Newport county has a war college here. So Navy gentleman reached out to me and said, look, I've done three tours to Afghanistan. This kid was like in his late 20s, early thirty s, and he'd already been through all this. And he said, I'm done. I'm going back to civilian life.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:07:22 to 00:07:38

I heard about you. Could you coach me? I wasn't coaching it, but because I coached in the past, I'm like, yeah, it'd be cool to do this in the investment world. So he came to my office, what it wasn't like today, where most people around the country with us, he was right in town. So he came in and we did calls together, and I showed him how to get his first three properties.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:07:38 to 00:07:47

And that really got me the itch back again to coach. And then I wrote a little ebook. It was called. Eat that sandwich was what we called. It was about sandwich leases.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:07:47 to 00:07:56

You can't do that in Texas being do it everywhere else. And after that, we sent it to this little list. A friend of mine had this VA company. She sent it out. About 300 people opted in, and we said, oh, that was cool.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:07:56 to 00:08:18

So we just started building it like that. And that was I think that first year we did like 10,000 of business, and then the next year we did quarter of a million and doubled for many years, or at least 25% a year now in the bigger years since then. And I just love two things. I kind of alluded this to you earlier. I love to help people, but I love to see them do deals.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:08:19 to 00:08:35

There's a big difference between between marketing a product and go, good luck. Good luck, Mike, I hope you can do it. They go in the real world and there's all this stuff that happens, what's supposed to happen, so we tell them ahead of time and we help them through it, and we actually do deals with them in the trenches. That's how I get into it. And that's kind of where it is today.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:08:35 to 00:09:07

Yeah, I mean, that's the big separation, I think, a lot of times with the coaching world is there's a lot of people that will tell you how to do stuff. They will instruct you, they'll give you videos, they'll do all those things. But then when it actually comes down to actually doing it and going through the trenches with you, that's when they kind of disappear a little bit or don't have enough to really skin in the game or experience or whatever you want to call it, to be able to really set you on the right path. So at least you guys are helping people. Once you explain how your program works, what you guys do, you all are holding their hand through the process and helping them get those deals.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:09:07 to 00:09:21

Because at the end of the day, the results are what matter, right? It's not the motivation and all the stuff that comes along with it. It's like, what's the bottom line? What can I actually get out of this? And I think that sets you guys apart a little bit from what we typically see.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:09:21 to 00:09:32

I remember Mike, if I can say this. I remember our first event. I remember saying to my son and son in law, hey, we got to get like, there's like, 17 students or whatever. It was small. I said, we got to get one of them to do a deal.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:09:32 to 00:09:42

Like, we're coming up on an event. That was a big deal then. Now we do. Man I think this month of June, we have under contract with the students, like, ten new properties, right? So it's just a norm now.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:09:42 to 00:10:01

Back then, it was like, we got to find a deal for one of these 17 people. So, yeah, we're all about the deal, for sure. And I had a guy in my podcast I won't say his name, but I was talking to the podcast, and I get done. I said, hey, when you sell your product, he's somewhat in my space. I said, Said, who coaches him after that?

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:10:01 to 00:10:13

Because you could refer him to us or do you coach? He said, I don't coach. He said, I can market, Chris. That's why I came up with that when I was telling you earlier, he said, I can market. And I think he's doing like, 8 million a year in sales, just marketing product and not coaching.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:10:13 to 00:10:24

What that does to people like me or you or someone who cares about doing deals is they come to me and they go, I bought these courses, Chris. How many? Ten of them. I have some people spent seven, six figures excuse me. Before coming to me.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:10:24 to 00:10:33

And so you got to get through that roadblock of, hey, it's okay. You had some education. It wasn't your fault. Now it's the deals, and it's hard to break through that sometimes with people. Yeah, it's tough.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:10:33 to 00:11:00

I mean, you got to go it's trial and error with anything else, right? You got to learn, and you start gauging on people and experiences and what you feel from it and all that. So I think that's pretty standard. And when you're looking to try to start something new and you're getting help and advice and you're paying for it just how it works. Now, these days, whenever I talk to at least in my world, whenever I talk to buyers, there's not a lot of people that are looking to invest in real estate, right, because prices are high.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:11:00 to 00:11:24

And now this is all perception. They are, but home prices are high. You see right now, especially in the commercial real estate market, not necessarily I wouldn't say maybe multifamily, but certainly like office space and whatnot due to the work from home. You've got a lot of resetting loans that are coming with some of these commercial properties that may have some issues in the near future. We'll see.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:11:24 to 00:11:41

It hasn't happened yet, but there's some stuff that could possibly be on the horizon. But even on single family homes, multifamily units, what would you say to somebody who came to you and said, how am I going to find a deal right now? There's no deals right now because everything's expensive. Money is expensive. Everything's expensive.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:11:41 to 00:11:55

How do I find a deal? This is by far the best time in my 32 years to be in creative real estate. I didn't say commercial creative. Prior to the crash, as a Realtor, I had no clue what I do now. I had no clue about it.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:11:55 to 00:12:24

So in this market with the interest rates going up, you just, as, you know, flushed out I don't know how many buyers, how many hundreds of thousands of buyers thought they could buy a year ago now and they lost hope, right? Yes. So our rental program does exactly that. It helps them become waited out for saving more or waited out to get their credit better or wait, whatever it is, anytime we put them in homes, that's key. And on the selling end, there's never been a better time because there's about a third of the properties in the United States that are free and clear.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:12:24 to 00:12:41

The building I'm standing in today talking to you, I bought in 2018, free and clear, mean there's no mortgage on it. And we structured owner financing. You mentioned commercial loans, for example, earlier. And I jotted that down because I have a 20 year loan here with a private party. The rate will never change.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:12:41 to 00:12:55

And if I had financed this commercially, not only would I have gone through the underwriting that I can't stand, but I'd be up for review every five years, typically right, on a commercial loan. So I'd be bumming right now. I'd be like, my costs are about to go up. Yeah, because you had a 3% rate. Now you're about go to nine.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:12:56 to 00:13:13

Yeah, that's to your point. It's going to cause headaches. Well, not in the creative financing world. So just understand that when there's chaos, like when code first hit, any change in the market, when constantly changes anyway, we know that then creative real estate is key because they need you, they need a guide. So we are busier than ever.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:13:14 to 00:13:32

I predicted it when things calmed down a little bit from the craze, and now our community is going crazy with deals. It's awesome. All right, so tell me then since we've said it several times now, this creative financing side of things. So give me a couple of examples. Now I know you'd mentioned one that I'm in Texas that you can't do, and Texas has a few different laws than a lot of other places.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:13:33 to 00:13:52

But tell me a little bit about what type of creative financing you're talking about, what options are available, and just an overview of kind of how some of them work. Yeah. First of all, let me comment on the Texas thing. So why is it that you can't do sandwich leases in Texas? I would render a guess that someone screwed it up.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:13:53 to 00:14:04

Meaning they did something wrong. Right. When investors try to push this envelope, it screws it up for everybody else. So it is what it is. The other two methods other than sandwich lease are my favorite anyway, because you own it instead of controlling it.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:14:04 to 00:14:17

And that is number one, owner financing. I mentioned it on this building. Why do I love free and clear properties? Because I structure principal only payments, Mike. And your bill, as you know, this is like so there's no interest.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:14:17 to 00:14:29

Monthly payments of principal only. We did a million dollar home in down Cape Cod this way. We've already exited out of it. But it was a realtor get this in Boston, who couldn't sell it and sold it to us. Owner financing.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:14:29 to 00:14:41

That meant I paid her $2,500 a month for her million dollar property. It was 945 purchase and it was principal only. So 30,000 a year coming off of principal. That's owner financing. You just don't have a bank.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:14:41 to 00:14:55

Just like here. I just pay the owner the second way. And this is really cool in this market to your earlier question, is subject to existing loans. So unlike the free and clear owner who's in good shape financially, this is complete opposite. Usually they're hurting.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:14:55 to 00:15:17

Like they have little equity. They got job transfer, they have little equity, they got new orders in the military, whatever, and they can't sell it without coming out of pocket. These loans are sitting out there with like two and a quarter to four and a half would say interest rates. We're buying properties now with those old rates, and the loans are staying in place and they're staying in the owner's name. So I'm never signing personally, although I own the house.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:15:17 to 00:15:32

That is a key strategy right now. Okay. All right. So on the owner financing, I'm familiar with it to some extent because people do it not to say all the time, but we know what that is. How do you find an owner financing deal?

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:15:32 to 00:15:56

Because that's one of the things I get calls from people all the time that don't have enough cash or can't find something in their price range or whatever the case may be, or their credit is bad. That happens a lot. And they're like, well, what if we do owner financing? And I'm like, well, it's not that you can't, but from the way I understand, the way I explain it is number one is you got to find a person willing to do it. So that seems to be number one challenge.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:15:56 to 00:16:34

The second thing is you have to be very careful how you drop the contracts, because in most cases, you can't just draw it on a napkin because it's going to heavily favor the owner of financing who's financing the deal, unless you draw it up appropriately to where you're at an advantage or at least on equal footing in that situation. How do you go about a finding the deals and then kind of generally structuring them to some extent? Sure. So a couple of ways we have virtual assistants or the student can call themselves, but I strongly recommend they hire a virtual assistant. Kind of knows the language so they can sift through the sort of the non qualified people.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:16:34 to 00:16:50

And what does it mean? It means they're calling expired listings that didn't sell the market. They're calling for rent by owner, for sale by owner. And those usually give enough leads by the way. But if they are aggressive or they want to expand how many deals they want to do, they can go to the niched list.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:16:50 to 00:17:09

Like I just said earlier, one would be my favorite free and clear absentee owner. So they own a property down the street, but they don't live in it as their primary. Really cool leads right now. Okay. Now if you are debt free, this guy here, he was advertising on a busy road that I'm on here, owner financing.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:17:09 to 00:17:26

And he had realtors giving him offers. He said no, I don't want to sell it because he had tax issues and estate planning issues. Okay. There are people like that you just have to know upon to fishing and those are six figure deals the way we exit and we can talk about that later. But those are six figure deals every time you find one.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:17:26 to 00:17:37

Really. And then what you guys do to kind of exit out is you just figure out a way to sell it later. Is that kind of the idea? Or we can go like basic in advance. I'll give the basics.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:17:37 to 00:17:54

I just mentioned options. Our basic exit model on residential is rent to own. Most educators will teach rent to own. And they'll even tell you don't care about the buyer, don't care if they're qualified, just stick them in the home, take a deposit. If they don't qualify, they leave.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:17:54 to 00:18:04

You do another one that might be okay for them legally, but it's morally and ethically it stinks. My son, Nick. It's awful. So my son Nick is the buyer specialist. They have to come in and get qualified.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:18:04 to 00:18:21

Mike. They can't just get in a home. They're not a renter or want to be. They are a buyer that went to someone like you, you qualified and said sorry you need two years seasoning or sorry you need more down or sorry your credit has to improve. Those are the three things right post COVID by the way, as you know, record number of people starting their own business now they need two years seasoning.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:18:21 to 00:18:31

But they came from corporate America. They got money, they got credit. Those are great rental and buyers. So our exit is they come in the property, they put a down payment down. They were ready to buy that's.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:18:31 to 00:18:46

Payday one for us, that's a non refundable down payment. Then payday two while they're in the property getting mortgage ready, we call it. There's a spread between what I'm paying the owner or a loan and what they're paying me. That little delta, that's our payday two every month. It's cash flow.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:18:46 to 00:19:11

And then our payday three is really cool because of all the principal pay down while we're doing that and they're paying it, that accrues to us, of course, and then any markup in the property. So when I said to you earlier, they're very lucrative, our three paydays around the country for all the students. West Coast, East Coast runs a low of, like, 40, 45 grand. It could be low, depending on price, all the way up to a quarter of a million. We're working on a deal in Maryland right now that could be almost a half a million on a cash out.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:19:11 to 00:19:23

So these are very lucrative deals. I'm not saying you do ten of these a month. I'm not saying we got to find it. The challenge, I would imagine, which is what you guys do and what you've mastered, is finding those deals. Right.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:19:23 to 00:19:53

Just with anything else. Because once you know the structure of how to put something together and duplicate it over and over again, then that's okay. But it's kind of like I tell realtors all the time that when you go to real estate school and you go take your classes and go to all the courses and all that kind of stuff that you're learning, the contracts, and you're learning how to structure the amendments and all that stuff. But you're not learning how to find deals or clients to sell real estate to. And that's really the game.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:19:53 to 00:20:09

The game is not structuring the deal necessarily. The game is finding the deals to be able to structure. You nailed it. Because if there was a harder part of that, once you get a property like that, filling it with a buyer, as you know, we have a mortgage broker in our community. He's been doing it for, like, 20 years.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:20:09 to 00:20:24

He said that his. You could tell me what yours is. He said, Chris, right now, about 17% to 20% of the people that are coming in my door to apply are getting qualified. Yeah, that's accurate. I'm not saying they're all good for us, but portia Mark?

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:20:24 to 00:20:51

Yeah, well, a number of reasons. It's not just credit, like you said, it's their income, because they haven't been self employed. And really, one of the pushes that's happening in the mortgage industry right now as a whole when you look at different companies, is that we are actually I don't say lobbying, but we're definitely pushing for guidelines to loosen up a little bit. I mean, you know, foreclosures are the lowest that they've ever been. We weren't under 1% again, when I see everything, like, all the foreclosures are coming, I'm like, Where?

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:20:51 to 00:21:24

Because nobody's even behind on their mortgage right now, or very few people. And you've got to have a certain percentage, one to two to 3%. And especially now that the federal government essentially has told the banks that all these forbearance programs when people that can't pay their mortgage are being allowed to stay. And that would help open up our supply issue if we just had a few more foreclosures. But everything's either being subsidized on the buyer side or it's being too strict on the loan side, where, again, if you don't fit in the box, then you're going to have a really hard time getting a loan.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:21:24 to 00:21:42

Yeah, it's tough. It's against my practice to go get a loan, but in 17, I got a small one, like 17%. LTV for a car I wanted to tear down. And where I live now, in a house, in a new house. And my wife said, wow, that was, like, brutal, and it's worse now, but she said, that was brutal.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:21:42 to 00:21:49

How do other people not in the business get through that? Because we're in the business. I said, I know. This is why I don't use banks. It was crazy.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:21:49 to 00:21:59

Yeah, we don't make it easy. We did have a question here. So Conrad wants to know, how much are you requiring as a down payment on your rent to own deals? Yeah. Great question, Conrad.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:21:59 to 00:22:13

If they go to our site, they'll see a video that explains Rent to own, and that video tells them they'll need 3% to 10%. Now, that assumes a lot. That assumes that job is going to fit. That assumes we like the longevity in the job. All that criminal sexual harassment.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:22:13 to 00:22:25

All that gets checked. Having said that, they can get in the door with three, but they won't stay at three. Cannot we don't say, okay, because you're eventually only going to need 3% down. You're good. We want to build them up to ten throughout the term.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:22:25 to 00:22:37

Or if it's a jumbo, 20. Now, it does two things. It puts them in a better position for qualifying with someone like Mike. Right. Ian invests them in the home more and more and more as a buyer.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:22:37 to 00:22:48

They're not going anywhere if they have all that. And third for you as an investor, improves your cash flow. Yeah, well, you have the money come in that you can do stuff with other things. All right, so we talked about the owner financing. I wrote down.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:22:48 to 00:22:59

Tell me a little bit more about because, again, I'm ignorant on all this stuff. Tell me a little bit more about subject two. Yeah, so sub two, again, is more for people on the other side of the coin. They need relief. I can give you example after example.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:22:59 to 00:23:08

Let me talk about one deal. I think it's always better to give an example. So we did a deal here. About an hour away from here because we still do this with our family, not just coaching people. And it was a divorce situation.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:23:08 to 00:23:21

They slipped behind. I think it was two payments. I think they watched HGTV too many times. They had like all credit cards maxed out because they rehabbed it. Nice home, nice area, nice community, but Realtor had on the market, couldn't sell.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:23:21 to 00:23:35

I think it was on for like four and a quarter. They owed around I'm giving you rough numbers. Kind of the deal in front of me, they owed around 375, I think it was. We bought it for exactly the loan balance plus the two months of arrears. And we didn't do that until we found our buyers.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:23:35 to 00:23:46

Another conversation we can have. So we're never out of pocket. The seller's name to this day is on the mortgage. That's how it works. It stays in their name.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:23:46 to 00:24:14

But we bought the home regular closing. And if anyone's been to a closing table, most of the listeners probably have been. Where on the settlement statement, it says the new bank that's bringing the money to the table, it just says, subject to existing loan with the bank and the existing balance at that time, that's what you're buying the property for. Our deposit, quote unquote, was the two months of arrears that we had. Okay, so when you say you said we could talk about the found buyer, tell me about that.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:24:14 to 00:24:29

Sorry, which context did I give you? You just said we can talk about a little bit more, but you were talking about you found your buyer because. All of our deals so all our contracts are in our platform, right? All of them. All the legal contracts, they improve as we get better and better.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:24:29 to 00:24:50

All of them say these deals are contingent upon us finding our tenant buyer first. Now, with a deal like that's, underwater like that, there's obviously a rush. You can't go, yeah, I'm going to take four months because they'll get foreclosed on. So there's a fine balance. And when you get more experience, you don't have to put that clause in, but when you're brand new, you want the clause in that says, when I find my tenant buyer, then I'll start the payments.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:24:50 to 00:25:12

We found a tenant buyer with a payday one. She's an attorney, by the way. Unbelievable what stories you can help people with. She went through law school and got her credit beat up, so she came to the table with $41,000 on this house, like $425,000 house, non refundable. We had to pay 4100 in arrears to close the deal, plus some transfer tax, so let's just say 6100.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:25:12 to 00:25:26

But we got 41, so we're already ahead of the game, walking in the deal. She's still in the house to this day. Wow. So you actually go out before you agree to anything, or I guess you make offers but get contingent. You'll actually go find somebody who's going to buy it first, because then you're covered on both sides, basically.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:25:26 to 00:25:45

Yeah. If you remember what we said to your point earlier, you nailed it when you said, remember that it's harder to get the properties, but when you go to sell them, I'm telling you, the floodgates are open. You have to actually sift who the renters are and the ones that are going to waste your time, because 80% of them, no matter what you see in the ad, they call you and go, yeah, I was just looking for a rental. No, it's rent to own. You are committing to buy this property.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:25:45 to 00:25:56

Well, that other 20%, you stay busy. I'm telling you, hundreds of calls. Wow. So the people on the other side that are trying to buy in that manner, they're in abundance. It's just finding the properties to get it's.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:25:56 to 00:26:06

The 80% that can't get qualified. Right, conventionally. But then sifting through those 80% to find the 20% that good for rental. Yeah. Which, again, that's legwork as well.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:26:06 to 00:26:49

Right. I think with stuff like this, there's always when people see the short videos or read through maybe half of a book or a quarter, which we'll get to your books here in a second. But whenever they do that, I think there's this thought, like, everybody's looking for the easy way, like, oh, if I just do this, I'm going to get there. And I don't really have to try or work very hard, but there are ways to do lots of things, but there's always work involved, always. And whether it's finding the deal, finding a house that will fit what you're looking for, or whether it's sifting through 300 people that want to be your buyer, to try to figure out who's actually going to be a qualified, dependable somebody that's going to end up paying their thing that you're not going to have to switch out in a little while.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:26:50 to 00:26:53

That really is the core of what we're doing or what you're doing.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:26:55 to 00:27:13

It's kind of like someone says, why would you tell everybody this secret method? It's like, no, we tell them things because nobody's actually going to do it. You can say stuff all the time and give your secrets, but to find someone that will actually go through and complete it, that's a whole other ballgame. Yeah. Look, I say this all the time, Mike.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:27:13 to 00:27:26

I'll say two things about that, because you're spot on again, entrepreneurship is hard. I don't care what you're doing, it's harder than you think. And then real estate in general, creative real estate, is very lucrative. I just said the numbers that are in our community, but I never said it was easy. Right.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:27:26 to 00:27:38

So why do some people come in and do a deal in 32 days and some people take a year and then everyone else in between at all different times? Why? The same course material is taught. We have a same foundation platform. Everybody goes through it.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:27:38 to 00:27:45

What is it then? It's all this. It's all the mindset piece. It's all the struggle that you said, it's all the challenge. And you will be frustrated doing it.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:27:45 to 00:27:57

What you got to do is you got to surround yourself with either a person or a group or in our case, the whole community, the wicked smart community. So you can go to them and go, hey, Mike, I had this. Yeah, it's normal, just do this, this and this. You need that. It's not even a question anymore.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:27:57 to 00:28:16

You got to put the support around you at bare minimum, just to reassure you that this is normal and it's okay. And this is what everybody goes through. And you're going through challenges that have always been there and nobody ever said it was going to be easy. It requires work just like anything else. And there is no get rich quick, no fast scheme that's going to take care of it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:28:16 to 00:28:34

You have to work and whatever it is, but you have to work. Conrad had another question. He says, on sub two deals, since the seller stays on the loan, do you have a deed transfer? And if so, how do you avoid a due on sale by the lender? Yeah, Conrad, the most asked, like literally on interviews today and yesterday is all I got.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:28:34 to 00:28:58

So here's the deal, and please understand for the disclosure that I am not an attorney, I'm not an accountant, and I'm not giving you advice. I'm telling you what we do, what we do at the advice of our attorneys. And then I want to talk about attorneys, if you can remind me, Mike, because this is so important to do this right, we want to make sure that we purchase the property one of two ways. Conrad. We either do it with a land contract, contract for deed, which means the deed does not transfer.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:28:58 to 00:29:20

It goes into escrow, you get the same end result to own it. Most of ours, however, are transferred and we name them in a trust. And the trust is, if it was Mike's property and Mike needed financial relief and it was one, two, Three, Jump Street, it would be the One two, three, Jump Street millis Family Trust. Why? Again, not legal advice, just how we're told to do it.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:29:20 to 00:29:38

We do it because in 80, I think it was two, in 1982, the Garmin St. Germaine act was passed and that allowed families to transfer properties without triggering due on sale for trust and estate and planning reasons. So that's why we do it. It's never happened to me where anything got foreclosed, because what do banks want? Which I know Mike knows all too well.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:29:38 to 00:29:46

Mortgage paid. That's it. Pay the mortgage like you said you would when you bought the property. If you go late, you can expect to be someone banging on your door. Yes.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:29:46 to 00:29:56

Now, the thing I want to say about the attorneys, this is important. We had a student we do calls for students. Like, we're in the trenches, right? I had this student go to Israel for a trip, and he said, oh, Chris, what am I going to do? I get this hanging deal.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:29:56 to 00:30:19

I said, I got it because I'm his coach. I coach the higher level peeps I called four attorneys, four and one after the other in New Jersey told me, no, you can't do that, and I know you can. So I finally called my attorney locally and said, you got to help me. You got to find me an attorney in Jersey. He found me an attorney, to this day, who's still with us, who's in 32 states and knows how to do sub two contract for the lease purchase.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:30:19 to 00:30:34

So she closed that deal in about nine days. Four attorneys there said, you can't do it argumentative with me. You've got to find some it's like calling a divorce attorney saying, hey, can you help me out with this criminal met no. Go to someone who just does it, please. Are you going to get yourself in trouble?

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:30:34 to 00:30:48

And you'll be frustrated because you'd be like, oh, they told me I can't do it. No, you can. You just need to go with we. Experienced that in our industry to a certain extent. I mean, this is a lesser example of this because you can do it, but it's just knowing the person that you're talking to knows how to do it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:30:48 to 00:31:07

I've just had a couple of transactions recently where the kids were buying a property for their mom and dad, okay? And mom and dad are not on the loan. They're not on there, but the kids are buying a property for them. Well, they went to others and other lenders and said, well, you got to put down 20%. It's an investment property.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:31:07 to 00:31:26

No, you don't. You don't have to put down 20%. You can put down 5% and buy it as a primary residence. We just have to demonstrate that your parent, mom, dad, whoever does not have the ability to buy the house on their own. And if we can prove that, and usually it's done through tax returns or income verification, whatever, then you can buy it, and you can put down 5%.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:31:26 to 00:31:42

You can get a primary mortgage interest rate. You don't have to get us an investment property interest rate, and you can do that house. We did two of those deals this month. Now, the thing about that is, it's not that you can't do it. It's just that I can do something that someone else can't.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:31:42 to 00:32:06

It's just how talking to someone who's gone through it and done with it, and whether it's an attorney or whether it's a doctor telling you that you need surgery when you don't, or whatever the case may be, it's not like you're fishing for the right answer. If you go through enough people and you can't do it, they'll tell you can't. But if you go through enough people, eventually a lot of times you can find someone that says, no, you can do it this way. If you structure it right, your business is no different. You brought it to light.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:32:06 to 00:32:20

Because I won't mention their name either. But the national company, whenever they get on the end loan of our buyers and us or our students, they always call my son Nick, and we know it's going to happen. We try to tell them, don't use that company. They call and go, we can't do that, can't do that. We need this.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:32:20 to 00:32:42

It's so crazy. And yet if I call Michelle, for example, our local loan officer, she'll be like, yeah, I'll get it done for you. It's insane to me. Yeah, you just have to know how to put it together. But even what you were saying earlier about the due on sale clause, one of the things that we experience and I've talked to multiple title attorneys on this here in Texas is people ask me all the time about moving a property from when they buy it, because they have to buy it as an individual.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:32:42 to 00:33:00

When you go the conventional route, you have to buy it as an individual, and then it's titled in your name. Right. Well, if you want to then transfer that title over to an LLC, there's nothing that says that you can't right. You're moving the title over, but the due on sale clause can play a role, and people get scared of that. And I tell them the exact same thing you said.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:33:00 to 00:33:22

I'm like, look, if you pay your mortgage and everything gets paid, then nobody's coming to look for anything. Not that it's legal or illegal. It doesn't make any difference. They're not going to dig and try to find the only time you run into issues when you try to get creative with things that you do is if the mortgage isn't paid. And if the mortgage isn't paid, then the bank is going to exhaust every possibility that they can to get get that property back because they want to get their money and they want to recoup.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:33:22 to 00:33:34

But if it's taken care of and it's paid, then you don't run into those issues. Yeah. Mike, you said something cool that you said legal and not legal is not the issue. Quick story. So the attorney we use locally, the senior partner, is in his 70s.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:33:34 to 00:33:58

Now, I've done some deals with him, but he's also our attorney. The junior attorney in his office, who's now done deals with us for about 14 years, said to me, I can't do these sub two deals because he's brand new. So Richard, the senior attorney, sat him down, and he called me and he told me what he told him. He said he told him, look, this is not a legal or not legal issue. This is simply a contractual issue between the bank and the seller, period.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:33:58 to 00:34:07

And this guy is ultra conservative, and he was schooling the junior attorney. Now junior attorney closes. He's like clockwork for us in a trust now. But he had to be educated. Yeah, you just have to learn.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:34:07 to 00:34:25

Well, look, again, not to keep saying it, but when I got into the business doing mortgages, right, I was brand new to the business. Didn't know anything from anything, just your standard deals. Well, everybody that was in the business would tell me over and over again anytime I'd get a deal on condos, right? A condo that don't do condos. Condos are impossible.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:34:25 to 00:34:33

They're so hard. They're unbelievable. And it's like, everybody that I worked with was like, oh, just stay away. Just pun them, get rid of them. And I'm like, wait a minute.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:34:33 to 00:34:39

You're just throwing away money? Okay, I don't understand. Well, I got to do one, right? I got to try one. It was the same thing with manufactured homes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:34:39 to 00:34:47

Oh, don't do manhomes. Manhomes are terrible. You can't do this, can't do that. They're so hard to complete, blah, blah. I'm like, okay, but let me try.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:34:47 to 00:34:55

Let me do one. I did a condo, then I did a manhome. And I'm like, are there differences between a regular single family? Yeah, of course. And are there, like, condos?

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:34:55 to 00:35:21

You got to deal with HOAs and getting insurance and documents and budgets and bylaws and all that kind of yes, those things that are hurdles, okay? And they're a little bit more challenging than something else, but it's not impossible to do. And again, you're just throwing money in the garbage because you don't want to take a couple of extra steps. And once you know how to do it, then it's not hard anymore. Now it's just another contract and another deal, and it's that learning curve that just scares the hell out of people, I guess.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:35:21 to 00:35:31

I don't know. But we experience that all the time. Just on my side of doing regular. Loans, one of our top guys in the community is in Chicago. He came from corporate.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:35:31 to 00:35:44

A lot of them do. They want to escape their job, and he was nervous at first because he's brand new. So he did his first, like, eight deals or nine deals, sandwich lease in that area, a mastery. Paid his worth, like, just over 800,000, I think. It was very lucrative.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:35:44 to 00:35:49

And I kept telling him, no, you do subtit. No, you can't do subtuci. This slate. He told me, I can't do them. Now he does them.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:35:49 to 00:35:59

That's all he'll do. It's who you're exposed to. It's simple, actually. Yeah. By the way, Texas, if you have a lot of listeners from Texas, I'm sure you do.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:35:59 to 00:36:14

Texas of all states, have dealt in the attorneys there, because you don't do a lot of lease purchase. The attorneys there are very well versed with contract for D land contract and subtus. They do them all the time in order to finance. Wow. It's even easier.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:36:14 to 00:36:36

Well, so you brought up some of the new guys coming through, so let's talk about your coaching program then in general. So when people come to you and say, hey, look, I'm ready to get started in this, I want to learn how to do this, kind of walk me through the initial steps. How do people come to you? Number one. Number two is where do you kind of start them as little babies get into this world, say, okay, you need to start here.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:36:36 to 00:36:50

What's kind of the process for somebody new coming into the world? Yeah, we've refined. It used to be me getting on the phone with you and just doing deals. Now it doesn't matter what level they come in at. And when I say level, we call them associates, students that decide to commit to do deals.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:36:50 to 00:37:06

And there's either one, two or no, it's not one year, it's 18 months, 24 months or 36 month contract, in which time frame we're going to be revenue sharing on deals. As you learn, we're going to do them together. You're going to learn we're going to get them closed together and we're going to share revenue together. What level you guys share and the revenue on the deals. Okay.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:37:06 to 00:37:18

Yeah. So we're in it. I think that's great because that means that I'm not just left out floating on my own like I got somebody in the trenches with me. I think that's fantastic. And I promise you I don't care how good you get at it, most people go, what do I do now?

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:37:18 to 00:37:31

I don't want to leave you guys. It'll take family plus. I ask you a question. So we have a way, if they can stick around if they want, what level they pick mike depends upon how serious, depends upon if they want to go full time. Depends on resources, depends on a lot.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:37:32 to 00:37:46

But the splits, the revenue splits will differ. But to your earlier question, they will all start on a 90 day curriculum. All of them. Same 90 day curriculum, same coach brings them through that. And then what they do after the 90 days, there's actually a six month to that to an extension.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:37:46 to 00:37:55

After that, they can decide if they want to go to one of the higher levels or not. They might say, you know what? I got it. We have a woman that shows up on almost every week. We have free.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:37:55 to 00:38:13

We call it a wicked smart sit down. Denise is her name. Shows up all time, shows up to all events, has taken our course, only never joined to revenue share with us and does deals now. I kid her every time, she probably leaves a crap load of money on the table, but she's doing deals on her own and good for her. Yeah, she's doing it the way she wants to on the 90 day deal.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:38:13 to 00:38:35

On the education part. Are you trying to help them find a deal right out of the gate? Or are you making them go through the 90 days and saying, hey, let's learn this first so you know what you're doing, and then we'll start working on finding a deal. Great question. We obsess over the metric of time to first deal Ttfd again, because that's all we want to do is deals, because then that gets to our purpose of improving their lives and letting them live their life of their dreams.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:38:35 to 00:38:46

That's our purpose. So in the 90 days, do people start to do deals? Some are more and more. It's becoming more than norm. If you look at the entire community, our Ttfd is 158 days.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:38:47 to 00:38:56

So that takes the person took 30 days, and it takes the person took a year. Right. So to be fair, the entire community is 150 average. And it's good. We're getting it down.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:38:56 to 00:39:05

I want to get it under 120. We're getting there. It's come down dramatically. But the 90 days is meant to lay the foundation. They will start getting on the phone, like, literally week two or three.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:39:05 to 00:39:21

So, yes, they could, in theory, do a deal, and some do, yeah. Okay, so tell me this part, because you're a straightforward guy, so I'm sure you'll win every time. We know, right? You can't win all the time. You mess up, we all mess up.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:39:21 to 00:39:28

I make mistakes. We all make mistakes. Every deal doesn't happen perfectly. Every deal isn't won. Everybody doesn't make money.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:39:28 to 00:39:44

Okay, so give me some examples of some hurdles, roadblocks failures, things that have occurred that you're like, hey, we tried this, it didn't work, or we run into this often. These are challenges you're going to deal with? We could do, absolutely. And this is inviting myself back. We could do an hour, two or three show on this one, but let me give you a couple.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:39:44 to 00:40:11

So when my son in law Zach first started, he came from personal training and broadcasting business, and he was just doing the front end calls like a virtual assistant just to get his feet wet and give me the leads. Well, he found his first deal was not too far from here. And long story short, after we bought it, we bought it sub two from a school teacher who wanted to leave the town. And we found out it had a massive, not small, massive lead problem. We didn't inspect farm that ended up costing us $32,000.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:40:11 to 00:40:37

So luckily, I teach students because we teach them no money down, right? But we also teach them set up lines with, like, fund and grow and seven figures in these companies we have because there might be a vacancy, because there might be a headache like this. So he talks about to this day because he said if he was on his own, right, and not with us as a family team or a student with us, he would be broke, he'd be out of business on his first deal. Yeah, I've had many like that. But guess what we do after that, Mike.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:40:37 to 00:40:54

As soon as that happened, we call attorney and go, hey, how can we avoid that? Well, if you buy it, then you should have A, inspected it, but B, you can tie and at least purchase tie the owner to anything with mold or asbestos or lead. So we do that, our agreements change, right? Then the students learn from all our crap we went through. There's a chapter in my book.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:40:55 to 00:41:07

It's titled What Can Go Wrong? And another mentor in our space, his name is Not Important, said to me, Why do you do that? You're going to scare people away. I said, no, I'm going to tell them what's going to happen. So when it happens, they don't panic and they stay with me.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:41:07 to 00:41:29

That's called trust. Yeah. I think this is a thought that's dying away in that. When I was growing up, my parents age or whatever, there was this don't ever just put up the front, right? I wear a suit and tie and my shoes are polished, and I say all the right words and I do all the right things and everything works out.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:41:29 to 00:41:52

And I think that's gone. I think that authenticity and realism is way more important to people than anything else these days. And to be able to go to somebody and say, hey, look, I have this thing that I do, and I do it like this, this, and this, and it works, and we can make money and I can show you how to do it. But we also screw up a lot. Okay, we've made mistakes, but the reason that I can tell you how to do this is because I've had all these mistakes and I've messed up many, many times.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:41:52 to 00:42:12

Now, does that mean I'm never going to mess up again in the future? No, because we always are going to be on a constant learning curve. It never stops. But just if anybody's ever looking and say, oh, well, that's part of my issue with politics, right, is politicians get up front and they want to tell you all the stuff I believe, and when you ask them a question, say, well, what about this? Nobody can just say, well, you know what?

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:42:12 to 00:42:25

I don't know that very well, or I'm learning about that or how I feel about it. Or they just twist it away. And that's why people get sick of it. So I think it's so important to be able to be authentic with people say, no, this is what we do. This is how we do it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:42:25 to 00:43:05

But we screw up, we make mistakes, and we're not perfect on it. But just like if my toilet breaks at my house, okay, I can go and try to fix my toilet. I can go to Home Depot, I can get parts, I can go to YouTube, I can look up reasons and ways to do it right, but something could occur that happens in the middle of that process where I just floods the house, whatever, right? Or I could have paid the plumber 50% more than what I would have spent with time and everything else to do it, to make sure, because all the experience that he's had in doing that job, I am paying for. I'm not paying necessarily for him to come in and tighten a screw or do whatever.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:43:05 to 00:43:18

I'm paying for all of his experience for the last 20 years or 15 years or whatever it is to come in and handle that. So I don't have any major catastrophes occur in my house. And it's the very same thing. Absolutely. So, last thing you mentioned, the book.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:43:19 to 00:43:24

We got three of them here. This is what I got. So tell me about these guys. Let's see if I can get them up there. Right.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:43:24 to 00:43:35

We got the new rules of real estate investing. We've got I believe this was the first one, right? Yeah, well, it was revised during COVID so it's actually very current. Yeah. Real estate on your terms kind of glow in there.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:43:36 to 00:43:57

And then the last one here is deal structure overtime. I think this is the most recent one here. So tell me about those guys. So what we'll do is we'll give them a link just for your tribe, Mike, and then I'll tell you about the two they'll get wicked smartbooks, wickedsmartbooks.com mills, simplemills. In that you'll get the real send your terms.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:43:57 to 00:44:15

That is the more prevalent to what you and I talked about, A through Z, kind of what we do. Will it cause you to go out and make a million dollars tomorrow? No, it'll open your horizons to what you can do right. And then in that, we do throw the deal structure over time, because that talks about the deals and the nuances behind when this goes deeper and deeper. I'm big on free.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:44:15 to 00:44:28

I told you before the show, free is good because you can do your due diligence before you pick what niche you want to be in. And if it's ours, great, and if it's not, it's okay. You can also go to YouTube. I mean, there's over 200 deals we post. We give you the bad, the good.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:44:28 to 00:44:37

Like, Mike, when you ask me, hey, what else went wrong? Go look at it. We tell you what could go wrong. There's over 200 there. If you just put smart estate coach in YouTube, you'll get them all.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:44:37 to 00:44:59

Well, I know you're pressed for time a little bit today, so I really appreciate you hopping on here with me and kind of going through all this. And we went through a ton of information in a really short amount of time. But I do encourage anybody that's interested in this, go check it out. Go to their YouTube channel, go to their LinkedIn. And Facebook research it, look into it, just like I did before you came on.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:44:59 to 00:45:32

I went and dug through some of this and learned some stuff that I wasn't aware of, and I was really interested to get your take on it. I just got the books the other day, but I can't wait to kind of hop in there and really kind of dig into that because I do think that in the world of real estate, with what we're dealing with right now, there's so many ways and so many opportunities to make money in this world. I mean, the wealthiest people on the planet that we know of right now, the vast majority of them have a great amount of their wealth in real estate. It's just what it is. And so if you want to get to that point, this is something that you need to learn about and get familiar with.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:45:32 to 00:45:48

And like we said in the beginning, are you going to become a billionaire, a millionaire overnight? No. It takes time, it takes work, it takes knowledge. But it is a place where you can be your own person, you can have your own business. You're not subject to some corporate whim, and you can get out there and do something with it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:45:48 to 00:46:07

But you need some guidance, you need some help. And that's where guys like you, Chris, come into play to kind of help hold people's hand. And again, I'll say it again, I love the fact that you guys are partnered up on the deals with people up front because that gives you a little bit extra if it's me, that's a little extra warm, fuzzy to know. Hey, man, I agree. Guys in here with me, and if something goes wrong, we're on it together.

Chris Prefontaine (Guest) | 00:46:07 to 00:46:21

Yeah, couldn't agree more, budy. And I really appreciate having me on and thanks for mentioning the books and you and I can interact again later. I know we're going to do some things together. Hopefully we connect at our events, but love to help anyone in your tribe to go ahead and pour into the industry here. Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Mills (Host) | 00:46:21 to 00:46:28

Well, Chris, thank you very much for hopping on with me today and look forward to talking to you again soon and everybody that stuck around. We'll see you soon.