Welcome to The Deal Pen, a podcast that digs into the details of untold stories from crafty real estate investors. And now here's your host Avi Rosowski.

Okay. We are live with Will Cannon. Will, it's great to have you on The Deal Pen podcast.

Avi Rasowsky

Hey, Avi. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

Will Cannon

Of course, of course. Very excited to do this interview with you today. I know we've known each other for a few years now, and it's funny, we'll talk just a little bit about your background before we dive into some of the specifics, but I feel like this owner financing space is, you know, it's a small network. You kind of get to know the players in the space. And I think we have several mutual friends in the space, but I think we probably first connected in person at one of, I think one of David Alexander's Tennessee Mastermind meetings. And then we know, you know, we know Brad together and we know several other people in the space. But but it's good to reconnect as always. We haven't talked in quite a while.

Avi Rasowsky

Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, I remember we met at David's event and just just a lot of really high performing people there. So it was great getting to hear more about what you're doing as well and love to see how far you've come along with this thing.

Oh, thank you so much. Well, it's it's really cool to watch your progress. And I think from my standpoint, you have a really relatable story. because you, and I don't, I really don't know a lot of the story yet, but, and we'll dive into it, but I think you basically built your entire portfolio from scratch and really just a small handful of years. Is that right?

Yeah. I mean, it, you know, timing's relative. It's been about four years since I went from having a dream, you know, leaving my job to, you know, haven't worked a job in a couple of years. And, you know, now we're trying to figure out what to do because we, we just live on our, our passive income now.

That's, uh, that's very cool. And it's something that most people can't actually say. Um, so, so maybe let's go back to that a little bit. Cause I think if people can hear how you did it and how you went from working at W2, first of all, what was your W2? Like, what were you doing full-time and, and talk a little bit about your, your transition into what you're doing now.

Yeah, sure thing. So I started as an engineer, you know, I was in a cubicle, you know, doing my thing, was running the corporate route. I'm pretty competitive. And so man, they just, honestly, I have nothing but respect for any person I've ever worked for. But it, for me, it started to become a distraction from being able to learn for myself of like how to create value and how to be financially free and so was doing the engineering thing transition to outside sales. that's what moved us to Tennessee and then you know I just had a conversation with my wife, I was like. you know, this thing is like feeling more and more like a noose around my neck. And if we don't do something about this, like I just, I don't like this trajectory. And so I read pretty much like everyone else read rich dad, poor dad decided, you know what, this makes a lot of sense. You want your income to come from your assets, not from your time. And so from that, it was just a matter of, uh, taking people out to lunch, learning what other people are doing. And when we started, we were going to try and make rentals work. So we would buy a house. We would live in it. I mean, we would do everything to try and make a hustle like we were like the textbook, totally green hustlers, like people would drop their dogs off at our house and we would literally babysit like dogs in our backyard. we would like, um, you know, we would rent out rooms on Airbnb in our basement. Like we were doing everything. And it was like, uh, I had one rental property at the time from when we moved and we kept it. And I was making $169 a month. We were making like $20 a day, watching dogs, like a hundred dollars a week on renting our space out. And I was like, Oh my God, this is going to be impossible. Like how are we ever going to get out of this? And then I finally connected with a friend who, you know, we're both familiar with, and they were like, yeah, there's a different way that you can do this, right? You can actually sell the property, and then you don't have to worry with maintenance, vacancy, taxes, insurance, you know, all this stuff, and your cash flow between like a note that you write and what you might collect on a rental, is at least four or five X, at least for what I was looking at in my market in Nashville. So I was like, oh my God, if you could teach me how to do this, man, if you could show me how to make this work, I will commit the effort. And that's what it was, man. I mean, it just was one deal at a time, delay, delay, delay on taking your paychecks, put it back into the business. And then eventually we hit a point where I was kind of test piloting what it was going to look like to leave my job. And so I was letting my W-2 income flow straight into my business account. And then I was paying my family. We were taking our monthly distribution from our portfolio account that we were collecting our monthly notes from. And so I basically put myself on training wheels of what it looks like to pay myself from a cash flow account for about six months before leaving. And that gave me the sort of nod of good faith that, you know what, we can do this. I haven't even taken a W-2 check in six months. It's OK. It's time to go.

That's awesome. That's very smart. Cause I'm sure a lot of people have that same question. It's like, well, how do you do it? When do you jump? And it's, I'm sure it's different for everybody, right? Everyone's got their own risk profile. Some people are like, I'm out and start with nothing and build it. And other people want to completely replace their income and then everywhere in between. But that's awesome. Congrats on making the leap, which probably seems like forever ago, but you, so you left, When were you doing the rental income of 169 a month and the $100 per room and all that? Was that while you were working as well?

Yeah, that was while we were working. And then, so I had a handful of different job changes, you know, again, was constantly optimizing for, you know, the first optimization was I wanted location freedom. So I went from moving to, I have to be in my territory to, I could be wherever I want to be. That was a huge, that was a huge jump for me. Yeah, I would say it was just creating as much space and flexibility to be able to learn and educate myself, right? Because this is a kind of a nights and weekends pursuit until you can make the jump to be full time because you have a job to do. And so, yeah, that was kind of how it started.

That's awesome. So if you can remember back to, and it's, it may be hard for you to do this, but I'm sure you have vivid memories of, you know, your first deals and kind of building it up from scratch. There's so many people, you know, I'm sure you talk to people all the time that are just trying to figure out how to get started. And if you can kind of shed some light on what did you do when you had nothing, right? First of all, did you get the rental property, just like a normal employee that used a bank loan? Or how did you get the first property that you ever kept?

Man, we did nothing clever. We literally bought something small for my wife and I, and we used bank financing, and then we moved and we kept it.

Okay, so you owned it, lived in it, and then moved.

Yeah, and that's how we were planning on building our empire. And I was like, Oh, my God, we're going to be 2 million years old before this amounts to anything.

Okay. So then you realized, okay, there's, there's other ways to do this thing called investing. And, and you started to just dig around for answers or tell me about what your, what your mind was going through during that point.

Yeah, okay, so not that not to get too far out there. But, you know, I did, there's something powerful and unexplainable when you like really, really commit your mind to doing something. And so I, I had just committed my mind that I was going to be a real estate investor. And I'm talking about if you could go back and look at the notebooks and journals that I was writing in over and over and over again, I will be a real estate investor. I will be a real estate investor. I will close my first deal this month. I will close my... And just literally obsessively writing this stuff out. I don't know if that had any material impact on it or not. It just seems like anytime in my life I've really dialed in and focused on something, there seems to be some correlation there. So for whatever that's worth, I had dialed in, made up my mind. Because it was so much on my mind, I was just talking about real estate. Hey, I'm trying to learn. I was at my neighbor's Super Bowl party. This was back in I want to say that this was back in 2020, like literally right before COVID hit. Right. And I was talking about real estate. Oh, I'm trying to get into it. I want to learn how to do this. And he's like, hey, man, you should meet my friend, Doug. And then I called Doug and I was like, hey, hey, Doug, I talked to this guy. Can I take you out to lunch? And he was like, hey, man, you should meet my friend. So and so. And so I think it was just a matter of taking people out to lunch, trusting the process, and just, okay, every time someone had somebody next I should talk to, eventually made it to the guy who's like, hey, I hear what you're doing, and I can help you do that. I was like, really? He's like, yeah, I actually can work with this. I can use your energy, and I can point you in the right direction. So it was like six launches into it, not knowing where it was going to go or what was going to happen, but it was ultimately finding the connection of somebody who was like, yes, I can, I can guide you, I can coach you. And, and that was just extremely impactful for me. I mean, that I needed to work with somebody who had a plan who could give me the plan. And when I got nervous or I didn't really know what was next, you know, they were that sort of backboard of like, nope, you're good. Keep going.

That's awesome. And we're going to fast forward into what you've been able to build, and we're going to go into specifics on that. But before we do, you're now on the other side where I'm sure people would love to meet you for coffee, meet you for lunch, talk about how you built it. What were you doing differently, if you can think about it, when you were approaching people in those six lunches, for example, that made them want to commit their time to actually help? Because, you know, because if, I don't know who those six people were, but I'm sure that you weren't the only person that approached them. And sometimes they happen to be busy, right? When somebody asked for lunch or coffee, did you do anything specific? Like, you know, everyone says, oh, bring something of value or do something to differentiate yourself. Was there anything unique that you were trying there or were you just being totally genuinely yourself and being curious? What was that all about?

I think I think part of it is just a humility of, you know, hey, I would love the opportunity to take you lunch. And then, you know, I think there's an affirmation piece of like, I heard, you know, I just had lunch with Doug. He said, you're an incredible mentor friend that you've been an amazing resource for him. And I just think affirming where they're at, what they've accomplished, and then acknowledging, hey, I'm coming in humility here. I have no resume, I have nothing really awesome, but I'm hungry and here's where I'm headed. And I just think having really clear vision and energy, I think it makes it easy for people to come alongside and be like, man, I can help this guy. Yeah, that's awesome. I think coming with an air of entitlement or presumptiveness before you've really done anything, or even after you've done anything, it's just like, eh, this week's pretty busy. I don't know, maybe I'm reading into it, but- No, it's exactly right.

I mean, you seem to not have an ego, right? And obviously you have to have a level of confidence to do the business, but you're not leading with an ego all over your forehead. And I think people appreciate that. And from what I heard you say, is you weren't just sporadic with your six lunches. You were compounding your efforts by saying, okay, well, Doug said to meet with this guy and this guy has done this. And then that next guy isn't going to say no to Doug because they have a relationship, right? So it's truly the whole, the strength of the network and it's building blocks, right? You're not just doing one at a time.

100%, yeah, the borrowed credibility from a referral or an intro from someone else is, man, that breaks down doors for sure.

Okay, perfect. So now, because I don't really know the next major steps in your journey, you got into not only wanting to do investing full-time, but somehow getting into this, secret little space we call owner financing, right? There's so, so few people that ever kind of peek into it. And then once everybody peeks into it, they're like, Oh my God, I'm never turning back. Um, how did you like, tell me about that sort of, um, learning process for you. Uh, cause, cause for me it was totally eyeopening. I didn't know anything about anything. I didn't know what a, amortization schedule was, I didn't know anything about bank loans, nothing. How did you get your eyes open to this space that so few people ever really learn about called owner financing?

Yeah, it's a great question. So when I first came into it, I finally connected with a mentor that was going to, you know, kind of show me the ropes, if you will. It was really a tandem approach of we're looking at creative entry. So there's a lot of talk about creative financing. And a lot of that is just on the entry point, right? But we were also going over the creative exits as well. So, um, you know, David Alexander, who you've had on this podcast, awesome friend, um, to both of us, but he, he, he and others have kind of been that guiding light of like, it's not just creative financing on the buy side. It's creative financing on the sell side and look what the amazing thing that happens is like you said, when you look at. amortization schedules, or there's a whole world of amazing things you can do if you have an income stream. You can trade it. You can borrow against it. You could do all these awesome things. And so just the abundance of options that were available and the lack of perceived hassle of like, wait, I don't have to own this house. I don't have to upkeep it. I don't have to do all these things. There's a lot of really attractive things in the owner finance pitch deck, if you will, of like, OK, this looks sweet. I want to do this.

Yes, absolutely. For people that have not really had any context at all, which is probably most people in this world, about owner financing. I think you're very gifted in articulation and communicating your message clearly. Can you just give your view of, okay, well, somebody who has no idea what it is, what is owner financing and how does the business even work? And then we'll kind of dig in from there.

Yeah, so I think in its simplest form, owner financing is the seller's willingness and ability to carry the mortgage on behalf of the buyer. So in the traditional space, you know, buyers are going to a bank and giving them a promissory note, and they're securing that note with a mortgage or deed of trust on the property to then pay off the seller of the property. Owner financing is eliminating the bank and saying, I as the seller am willing to carry the mortgage so that you don't have to go call the bank to be able to buy my property.

Perfect. And in terms of your business, you're, you're actually doing both, right? You're selling with owner financing when you're the seller. And when you're buying, you're also buying, you're not, you're not, you're not just paying cash. You're not just coming in with a bank loan. Uh, talk about a little bit of how you buy, and then we'll get into your selling as well.

Yeah, I mean, I think you got to have every tool in the toolbox. There are situations where it makes a tremendous amount of sense or it's the only option to be able to purchase in cash. Ideally, we really want to be purchasing these things with either seller financing. So I'm asking the seller, hey, Mr. and Mrs. Seller, I can get you what you're looking to get out of this property. But for me to be able to do that, this is sort of what I would need to happen. And so I will go through what it would look like to bring a down payment and then to have them carry the payments for me so that I'm not having to go and bring a lender. So I'm basically initiating a seller finance transaction or it's a scenario where the seller of the property already has an existing loan with a lender and what our agreement for me to be able to purchase the house from them would be is, you know what, Mr. Seller, I can get you what you're looking to get here. The way I'm going to have to do that, though, is I would need to be the one to take over making payments on that underlying loan, OK? And so we can sort of initiate these creative transactions on the buy side that tee us up perfectly on the sale side for a creative exit as well.

Perfect. So when you're looking at a deal, let's say you're deciding whether or not to buy it, Talk about how you analyze a deal. Are you starting with the exit? Are you figuring out what you can sell it for and then backing into what your cost of money is? How do you think through it in terms of when you make that decision on how to buy it and for how much?

I think a couple of things initially is we're looking at what is this thing truly worth? And do I know the buyer pool that's willing to pay that price? Is there an interested user for this thing? Because you can find amazing deals in Nowheresville or something, and it may be amazing, but you might not have a user or you're going to have to wait a year to find them. I think part of it is, where is the value for me? Does this hit my minimum threshold? of profit or cash flow or whatever to be interested enough to do this. Because I'm just not in the business of spending my time doing deals because they could be done. If I'm going to do something, I really just want to make sure it's worth my time and effort to do that. And I didn't initially have that filter. So now I'm looking at, okay, where's the spread? Is the spread in the pricing? Is the spread in the interest rate? Is it something where I know something like there's a massive buyer pool in my market for this thing. And so while the retail market might not be willing to pay what I think it's worth, I know from my buyer pool, because I understand my market, that there's a tremendous amount of demand for this thing. And so I think that I actually have a knowledge discrepancy of what the pricing really is. Because ultimately, price is whatever someone's willing to pay. It's not what an appraiser says. It's what somebody is willing to sign on and guarantee that they're going to pay.

Yeah, no, it's a great point. I think appraiser, people forget an appraisal is an opinion of value and you could have a very different opinion of that value and so could another buyer. And yeah, I totally agree with you on that. It sounds like when you talked about not having the filter at first, because I think I went through some probably similar challenges myself. buying in a bunch of different locations where people didn't really want to live. So it's like, oh man, here's this great deal in Riverton, Wyoming, or some other town that you've never heard of that has about 600 people that have ever lived there and their ancestors. How do you look at it now? Because I think what we'll get into is where you're targeting now is it sounds like a pretty nice sweet spot markets with rural buyers where you know there's demand. Talk about some of those earlier challenges that made you realize how to put the filters in place.

Yeah, so I'll just do a quick snapshot on like two learning lessons for me. I came across a mobile home and it was actually in a park and that it needed to move. But the lady, she just wanted to be done with it. She didn't know. And honestly, it was not in great shape. She was willing to sign off on this for a dollar. So I met her at the DMV. I bought the title right there, handed her a dollar, registered it. And I ended up selling it to this nice couple for like $12,000 or something. So I was like, okay, that was cool. But I spent all this time I was driving around, I was going to DMV, I was doing all this. I was like, okay, this isn't going to work. it barely like even it just wasn't worth my time. You know, it's just all this hassle. And so I was like, OK, I don't like this. You know, if there's not a minimum profit threshold, it's just there's other opportunities that this is going to distract me from. And so now I think I've gotten better at saying this is a distraction. This is an opportunity. And so that's where I was kind of saying, like profit filters, like if I don't stand a reasonable chance of at least making, you know what, whatever it is, X, then I don't, I don't do it. It's a deal for somebody. It's just not a deal for me. Kind of like you, not Riverton, Wyoming. I had one in RJ, Kentucky, mobile home on two acres. And I've been crushing it with mobile homes on acreage in Tennessee. And I was like, Oh man, this is like right over the line. This is going to be awesome. And I made that huge mistake like you made where it was like, um, I got it really cheap and with good seller financing terms. And I was sending I was sending buyers out there to go see it. And the neighbor had barricaded the driveway. It was like kind of a shared driveway thing. And I was like, Hey, man, I'm why did you barricade the driveway to my property? I'm like sending people out there and they can't go up because there's a barricade. He's like, man, if I don't barricade it, like all the meth heads are going to break in and live in your house. And since I'm your neighbor, I don't want a bunch of meth heads next to me. And I'm like, wait, what are you? He's like, dude, there's, this whole town is nothing but just drug addicts and meth addicts. And I'm not, listen, this is not a shot against RJ Kentucky, anybody out there that's listening.

We do have a large percentage of listeners on The Deal Pen from RJ Kentucky, so be careful.

But, but I mean, seriously, like I, dude, there was like, that population is like 713 people. I knew nothing about what I was doing. I got in front of the skis and just, I didn't, I didn't know like, hey, too rural or, you know, like, I just didn't know. I let the deal, like, oh, it's like, oh, I only got to pay a little bit to get in and I've got great monthly seller payments. This is a, but I didn't, you know, take the next step of thinking, who wants this thing?

And so. That's a great, great realization. Cause it's like, David Alexander talks about this all the time. He's like, you can, you can become a really good buyer, but if you're not good at selling, you just become a house collector. You're like, oh, well, that's not, that's no fun to collect a bunch of houses that don't have any income. Like, let's solve that. And so I also kind of had some really tough lessons to figure out like, man, there are certain markets I don't want to touch. And so do you have a specific sort of proximity to metro area or population size? Like when you look at, and are you only looking at certain states or just your own state? How do you look at markets that you will touch now?

Yeah, I love man, I think an amazing thing of the owner finance space, and especially, you know, the niche down within that space is, you know, I've kind of dialed in on rural on rural properties. Okay. Seems like most most investors are focused on the urban and suburban markets. You know, these are the sellers that are getting texted, mailed, called, you know, whatever. And I'm talking to people who literally haven't heard from an investor ever. And so there's just a tremendous benefit to me. The additional piece to that is actually knowing your market. So like if you're in Charlotte, and if you come across an opportunity in Middle Tennessee, you may or may not know what you have. The fact is, I know what the owner finance market is willing to pay, how much demand there is for this thing, and I'm willing to move quickly and to connect. If you and I talk to the same seller on the same day, if you don't know what you have and I know exactly what I have, there's a decent chance that they're going to be interested in working with me for just Now, like I said, I've never even competed against another investor in the rural space, but I think there's something if you want to go into owner finance, it's a wide array. If you want to go to owner finance within rural markets, it's like even a smaller niche. But what I would say is just understanding your market, what the buyer pool is willing to pay, how much demand there is. And so in my mind, it's less of a nationwide approach and more of like understand your target market. I haven't yet started bursting at the seams. I think the moment that it's like, nah, I've outgrown this, I need more opportunities, I will start honing in and specifically trying to learn particular markets. But right now, I'm honestly just fat and lazy because I know what I'm doing and it's flowing relatively easily.

Oh, that's great. I mean, it's a, it's a good problem to have just you, you're, you're not, you have not run out of deals yet and you probably won't for, for quite a long time, if ever. What, what, um, so what is your, what is your business look like now? I mean, you have a bunch of notes, it sounds like coming in. Are you rentals as well? Like, are you a, uh, are you doing a bunch of strategies or what, what is your, your mix of your portfolio look like? Whatever you're comfortable sharing.

Yeah, no, I it's notes and rentals. The rentals I like to keep. So, you know, I guess, you know, just kind of an aside for why the portfolio the way it is, is I kind of have broken up my strategies into creating cash, creating cash flow and creating wealth. And so in my mind, I've got really low interest rate debts on amazing rental properties in Nashville. And that's in my wealth column. I don't even look at those so hard for cash flow, even though they do really well, because I've kind of allocated those. These are these are wealth creators. And then in the cash column, you know, it might be flips, it might be wholesales, you know, I'm starting to look at a couple other things. I've got a development project of mobile homes in middle Tennessee. Um, so I'm pursuing other projects for the cash generation piece and then the remainder is cashflow. And I would say predominantly that comes from notes.

Okay, nice. So when you look at a deal, well, I guess even back before that, before you start marketing, you kind of know, if you're going to market in a rural market with a bunch of double wides, Those are going to be your notes, I assume?

Yes, 100%. Yeah, not interested in keeping those for rentals.

Okay. Where do you keep rentals? Just inside a metro? Like in Nashville, for example?

Yeah, I want it to... Or sub-suburban markets. So if it's a good property, if I've got a low entry point, good interest rate on the bottom, then yeah. Or if it's a decent property and I've got 0% seller financing on the bottom in a market where I think there's a high likelihood of future appreciation, I might hold it and just put it in that bucket. But yeah, if I go out hunting and I'm looking for double wides on acreage, Um, then yeah, 100% I'm looking, I'm looking to turn those into notes.

Okay. Are you hunting for rentals in, in the higher competition areas as well? Or how do you come across those? Cause those are hard to find.

I imagine I'm really not on the hunt for it right now. I mean, I think just candidly between us, I think the better way to do it is to actually pursue portfolios and then to cut out the stuff that you don't want. And so you get a better, you, it looks a lot better on your pricing when you, when you have cut and sold stuff off. And I think sellers are more, uh, I think you've got a more opportunity to be creative and actually work a deal that works for both seller and buyer. If you can understand how to take on more of a bulk package, Because you're bringing more value, you're making it easy. you've got to do the work at separating and filtering things off and doing this stuff. But ultimately, the net result is you can keep the stuff that you want to keep, and your sales got you in what you wanted to keep at a price that you're comfortable with. Because the fact is, pricing, at least on decent rentals, is not great. It's not great. And a bare minimum, I'm not going to be upside down on a rental. I've heard old school investors say, you don't start making money on it till five years. It's like, Yeah, that might work for you. That's definitely not going to work for me. And so I think if if that that'd be my approach, if and when I get on the hunt to build more rentals.

Yeah. And what about, I know the cash column, you're talking about flips and maybe you're talking about down payments too, but, but where are you getting your cash from? Cause obviously a lot of people, and especially if they're in their earlier part of their journey need cash. It's not like, you know, everyone talks about, Oh, you know, stay away from the cash. But the reality is we need cash to live, right?

You have to have it to live, to grow, to grow your business, to invest in marketing. You absolutely have to have it. So for me, I would subsidize my note creation business with flips and wholesales. Now, I'm basically erring towards less transaction and just higher dollar amounts for lower transactions. So that's why I got interested in these developing mobile homes.

Talk about that, you're talking about developing actual subdivisions or?

Yeah, yes. So I've got one project right now where I'm purchasing, it's a house, a barn and 16 and a half acres. The plan is we're gonna purchase the whole, we're gonna immediately cut the house, the barn, the five acres and sell it off retail. And then I have six lots. I have six lots available on the rest of the land that we're going to bring in septic utilities and brand new double wides from the factory, set them down and then sell those retail.

And so, wow, you're actually doing new double wides.

That's the plan. Yeah. I mean the price. So, um, I mean, I'm not the expert, so if somebody else, you know, this is my first one. I definitely don't want to like position myself as, you know, I'm the guru here. Cause I know you're figuring it out though.

Right.

figuring it out, it looks like, you know, you can have a brand new, especially if you, you know, you're going to the dealers and saying, you know, I'm going to make a bulk order here. You know, you might be able to get a brand new pretty decent diva walk double wide, like 14 1500 square feet delivered for about 80,000. Okay.

And so, okay, keep going.

So then you got to factor in all right, well, I got to bring in utilities, I got to bring in septic, I get to set up a driveway, I got to do the install, I got to do all these other things. Okay, that's probably going to honestly, realistically cost you about another 60 between all the stuff you got to do foundation, grading, all the stuff, and then you've got your land costs left. But at least in this particular area, I've got solid comps all over the boards on this project at 250 plus. It ends up becoming kind of an interesting proposition because it seems like most developers are interested in the urban and suburban markets, right? The appetite for rural is less obviously because it's like, well, where are the people coming from? Where are the jobs going to be? It just seems like though, since I've been selling mobile homes in Tennessee for four years, that the buyer pool is asking for like, Hey, we want to live on a couple acres on a nice home under two 50. And so my belief is like, okay, if the buyers are asking for it, then I need to be providing the supply.

And so your buyers needs right now. So let's talk about an example. So if you can go through sort of an example, double wide deal, not, not this subdivision, but let's just say you get a deal in, in rural area of middle Tennessee and you can buy it for what and sell it for what?

Yeah, so I'll go through just a couple scenarios. Yeah, please. Ruralsville, Tennessee, this was one of my very early deals. Gentleman calls, says he wants to sell, he wants to move to Michigan. And he actually had two, these weren't even doubles, they were singles. He had two single wides, side by side, you know, separate parcels. He lived in one and he used the other as his office. He would just, you know, walk across the yard, go up to his office and he wanted to sell. And I'm talking about like, this was one of those scenarios where I didn't even know what I was doing or talking about because there was like no population in this town. Move forward on it. He owned it free and clear. And he wanted $125,000 for this package. And $125,000, I was not going to be able to raise private financing to be able to justify this. And these aren't financeable. You're not calling a hard money lender to get these taken down. There's a few people that would be interested in this deal or could pursue this deal. So I just asked them, I said, okay, 125. I completely understand why you would want that. You know, this, this one's really tight for me. I might be able to do that. But the only way would be, you know, if I could bring maybe like 25 of that right at closing, and then the remainder after closing, could we do something like that? And he was like, yeah, I mean, I Yeah, I think that sounds fine. He's like, how do you want to do the remainder? I was like, well, you know, oftentimes I'll just do that in a monthly installment. You know, when would a little extra mailbox money every month help you guys? He's like, yeah, how much are we talking? So honestly, I think I just divided the number by 120 payments, I think was just like a starting point. I took the remainder, divided it by 120 and said, you know, can we do 875 a month? And he was like, yeah. So what ended up happening that was interesting on this is I was like, you know, Mr. Seller, we've agreed we're doing 25 at closing and 875 a month for the remainder. You don't care how we stack the numbers, right? As long as you're getting 25 at closing and 875 a month. And he was like, yeah, no, I'm good. I don't care. So we ended up buying one for 110 I put 10 down and I pay 875 a month on that one. The other one, I just bought 15,000 straight up for cash. What was interesting about this one is, it was a long time horizon from when I had the agreement with the seller to when we were actually going to close. They needed some time to whatever. I started marketing these. Hey, these are coming soon. I've got two homes. Each are on like an acre or so. And I sold the one that I got for $15,000. I sold it for $115,000. She brought $15,000 down. I sold the other one for $150,000. She brought $15,000 down. And so, when the dust settled, the buyers brought my down payment. I think closing costs ate up the remainder. But I basically walked out of there for nothing. But I had a note for $100,000 at 10% to me from the cheap trailer. And then I had a note for $140,000 at 9% for the more expensive one. So all of a sudden, I've got, it's like 890 on one and a couple hundred bucks on the other. I make it like a thousand something bucks a month, but I'm also paying the 875 at 0% interest. I'm paying all principal on the bottom. The loans on the top are not amortizing hardly at all because they're at 9% and 10%. this is a deal that I think most people would have walked past or been like, yeah, no, I'm out. It doesn't make any sense to me. And man, if I could build a wall of like my hall of fames, this one would probably make it I feel really good about this one.

That's awesome. So just I'm trying to visualize the type of deal. How many acres do you remember about for the whole parcel or? Totally.

Like we're not talking about anything crazy. I think they were one acre.

Like one acre with a single wide and another acre and a single wide. And they're in a, you said it's pretty small population?

Very small, very, very small. Like I said, that was part of triggering me to learn my market. So that kind of tips me off, holy crap, people want this stuff. I had no clue, but then I started looking for it once I realized people actually wanted to buy this stuff.

So a couple of things on that, because I've run into some issues with manufactured houses, some great things and some not so great. I have found that they become delinquent, like by buyers that are in trouble now that are not paying me as they should. tend to be the ones in a couple of things that had lower down payments and the ones in lower value manufactured houses. Are your people paying you fairly consistently or what's your sort of default situation?

Yeah, so it's a great question. So I have no defaults. I've taken none back. Have I been paid late? Absolutely.

Like how late though? Within a few weeks or within?

I have one that has gotten up to two months late. We've got back on track, but I had one get up to two months late. That's the latest I've ever had anyone get. Um, and we got caught back up.

I honestly really good. That's phenomenal. You must be, you must be, um, definitely more organized than I am. I realized that that's one of my biggest problems is staying on people and sort of reminding, first of all, thanking them for the payment and then reminding them when they're a couple of days beyond. And it's just, it becomes a full-time job, you know?

Yeah, it's a huge pain in the butt. I'm working on outsourcing that to VA and just having built in, OK, three days before payment, payment day. If you see payment failed, like they tried to process but it didn't collect, send a friendly follow up. And we're working on that. I don't know why that has to be such a pain. But to your question of, am I getting higher lates and defaults, I'm really not. But it could be partially due to timing. I also believe in, and you already nailed it, the down payment is like, is like Like if we're talking about Batman and Robin, your down payment's Batman, right? If you don't have a strong down payment, I have very low confidence that you're gonna be a good buyer for me. The Robin piece of it is I, this is just me, but I will set up a Zoom call with a potential buyer and we can meet and talk face to face before we transact because you have to make it through my like sniff test filter of like, hey, we could be talking about a 30 year relationship. And I know in my gut that if things get tough, right, because things, you know, we all, you know, there's cycles, things get tough. Some days are good, some days are tough. But I got to know when things get tough. Are you going to get, you know, dig deep and dig hard to make the payment? Or are you just going to tell me sorry? Because if you're just going to tell me sorry, I probably am not going to be the right fit because I really want to work with people that are going to dig deep and understand this is an opportunity for you to own your home that you may not have ever gotten otherwise. And I just, we want to be on the same page that this is a really serious thing.

For sure. So you developed a pretty formal process for the sniff test.

Um, that that part's not super formal. That's like a, I kind of, you know, have a core value in my company. That's, you know, if it's not a hell yeah, it's a no, that could be deals that could be lenders that could be buyers. I could just kind of be everybody. I kind of, you know, we'll apply that filter if yeah. And pretty much that's, It's not science for me right now, but, um, it's, it's, you know, it's worked somewhat well. Okay. So far.

Yeah. No, that's great though. I mean, I, so you're meeting with everybody on a zoom or in person or no?

Uh, no, I really don't meet in person. Not that I'm opposed to it. It just, I'm not, I mean, I will go to Panera if you wanna drive to Nashville, but this is a remote operation, right? We're buying and selling mobile homes all over. And so if you're not willing to meet me like within a five minute radius of my house, like I'm probably not gonna do it. Not because I don't wanna meet you, I just, I'm not gonna take time off of my calendar to go do that.

Yeah, I get it, I get it. The other thing that at least I wonder about and I continue to sort of check in and I think others that may, wonder about the manufactured housing space may think about is the condition of the house, right? Are they, and I'm sure you bought stuff from way back, you know, decades ago that they're still standing and maybe have seen some that are not so good. Like they're more susceptible to water damage, things like that. What is your feel on the longevity of the actual structure for a manufactured house versus stick built or just higher end houses?

Yeah, so it's a great point. You know, a couple of things on that note. A hundred percent agree with you that the construction material is not as good as a site built house. I would say the back end of that coin is that it seems like the buyer pool is I don't know why, I don't have a theory for the answer to this, but it just seems like my buyer pool is more resourceful for taking care of things. Problems happen in regular houses, right? You get squeaky floors, you get termites, you get sagging roofs, you get all these things. That ends up really being a problem. It just seems like my experience so far in dealing with lower priced housing in a sales transit action where it's like, hey, you own this house, man. I've been surprised by the resourcefulness of this buyer bullet. I don't know if it's because we're just entrenched in blue-collar America or what, but there will be some rough stuff. And it's like, hey, well, don't even worry about it, brother. I'm going to take care of it. We're good. I'm like, really? They're like, yeah, no, no, no, we'll take care of it. I'm like, OK, guys, all right, let me know.

Yeah, it's cool. It's cool to see the kind of the heart and soul of America through these rural buyers. I've seen the same thing. It's like, wow, you come and see a house a couple weeks later after you sell it and it's like, oh my God, they turned that thing into a really nice place. And then of course, I've seen some others where it's like they haven't touched it and they're still... you know, there's still whatever issues there were. But, uh, no, I love seeing that when somebody comes in and I've had, I've had buyers come in literally the week that they bought it. And, you know, in a place that we installed new floors that apparently they didn't like, cause they ripped the whole thing out and installed their own floors. And, um, and so it's, it's just a testament to like, yeah, there's, there's people out there that are willing to, to put the work in to create their own, um, their own equity in their own property. So it's very cool.

Yeah, 100%. Man, I mean, I think just kind of building on that point, you know, there really is and I'm not trying to, you know, get on a pedestal here, but there really is an issue about affordable home ownership. And I think that, you know, part of the itch that we're scratching is like we're bringing affordable home ownership. to many places and buyers that it's unaccessible. I think that there is that reciprocity of like, hey, I get it. I probably couldn't have gotten this otherwise. This is home. I'm going to take care of it. That's honestly why I'd much rather work with buyers than renters. Anyways, for whatever that's worth, I think there's a reciprocity. It seems like there's been an understanding of We're providing value by taking the credit risk or whatever on this person and in exchange, we're seeing more people willing to come to the table and say, hey, I could take care of it. Don't even worry about it.

Absolutely. No, it's for sure. The affordable homeownership thing is a is a real. a real problem and, and addressing it is it's cool to see somebody that comes in, let's say they become a homeowner and they're actually paying you less to own a home than they were paying somebody else to rent a home. Cause that, I mean, I'm sure that that happens in some of your deals where you can, you can create that payment and now they're the owner.

Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, almost to a fault, you know, have, have sold stuff. I'm like, now, are you sure that this payment, you know, is going to be okay. They're like, Oh yeah, I'm good. I pay, you know, way more than that rent every month. I'm like, oh man, you know, maybe I should have gone up a little on the rate, but exactly.

No. No, it's very cool. If you are giving somebody guidance right now, and there may be some people that listen to this that are like, man, how do I, I want to go find myself a double wide on an acre or two and, or even a single wide and figure out how to buy and sell and create this, this type of a deal. I mean, where do you even begin? Are you, are you, are you scraping records from a County? Are you like talk about that process? Knowing that you may be, creating people that are looking at the same county as you are, but whatever you're open to sharing, you seem like you have a pretty abundance mindset anyway.

Yeah, 100% abundance. And the fact like a couple things I have had, this isn't a pitch for this at all, but I've had multiple people approach with a deal in hand. And it's like, Hey, can you coach me through how to do this? We'll share on this deal. Totally, you know, so whatever, whether that what I would say, if you're looking to get started, um, I, I think part of it is to the degree that you're able picking a market. Understand to the degree that you can, what are people who are looking for owner financing, what are they looking for? Is it a 3-2 on more than an acre? Is it I think you just gotta kind of dial in and pick your niche, right? Of like, okay, I'm looking for mobile homes because I know whatever happens, I can sell a mobile home for 100,000, whatever it is, right?

Not all markets are the same.

RJ, Kentucky, this would be a horrible strategy. Sounds like Rivermont, Wyoming would be bad. But I would pick a market and I would get feedback from the owner finance buyer pool on what they're looking for. The best way to do that is in Facebook groups. So find groups where, you know, people are saying, Hey, I'm looking for owner financing for this kind of product. And if you start to see trends or correlations of like, Oh, okay. It seems like a lot of people are looking near Kingsport, Tennessee, or Raleigh, North Carolina, or whatever it is. It's like this. And And so one, people are looking, and two, it doesn't necessarily seem like a hotspot for investor activity. So a lot of these posts might say, hey, I'm looking to be within 45 minutes of Knoxville. I'm looking to be within 30 minutes of Winston-Salem, or whatever. But if you start to see a trend of what people are looking for, and there's sort of a range guideline, that could be a really good indicator that that could start maybe becoming your market. And so I would say, understand the buyer pool, pick a market. And then, man, I would just do something seriously simple. I would pull a list of mortgage late. I would pull a list of mortgage late. I would have a plan for if somebody calls, I would mail it. I would have a plan if somebody calls, what am I going to say? If they take my offer, do I know how to do the paperwork? I would just try and map what are the steps that I think, based on the abundance of education that's available for me to do this thing, and where am I missing knowledge at how to cross that gap? I would have a rough plan, and I would have a friend, a mentor, a guide, somebody who's done that thing that you want to do. Just on call, I would just say, hey, man, if I get into a thing, is it OK if I call? Can I shoot you a note or whatever? I just think for me and my experience, if I didn't have a backboard of somebody with experience to kind of look over my shoulder, I think I'd have been too scared and too nervous to ever actually do anything.

That's good. I mean, that right there, you just gave people a goldmine of information to take. So mortgage legalists, I've never personally pursued. Do you use any particular companies that you suggest or options of companies that are out there for people that are late on their mortgage payments?

There's a handful of providers. I don't know if any are necessarily better than the others. I don't know that I have like a great vendor that's like, I've tried a handful, I think they're all okay. You can also find mortgage lates like publicly as well, right?

Like, I mean- So you're talking about somebody that's got a substitute trustee filed on a deed of trust, for example. Yes, exactly, 100%.

All right, so very late, like- If you're very late, you're in distress, it's a great opportunity. And again, if you've picked a market that's not saturated with investors, and you have a pretty good understanding that there is a buyer pool for this thing, the likelihood of you being able to bring a creative solution on the buy side That lines up pretty well with your backend thinking of like, ah, I think that I could probably make this work, you know, on the backend. And all we're trying to do is bring value to sellers, solve a problem, bring value to buyers. We're offering liquidity where they don't have it. And then we're just trying to keep the spread in the middle. That's all, you know, it's, we're, we're not overthinking this thing. That's, that's really what we're trying to do is connect the dots.

So you met, yeah, absolutely. You, you mentioned before your remote operation, um, are you buying over the phone?

Yeah.

Okay. Talk about that a little bit. Cause I know that that seems unachievable for so many people until they see that you can actually do it. So you're, you're not actually going to the property yourself, but do you send someone there after you sign or before you sign?

No, I personally don't. I do have a due diligence process where we will send an inspector to give us a home inspection report just to get feedback on what we're getting into. I go into it with eyes wide open. I know that there's going to be problems. There's going to be issues. The question then becomes, what of this do I need to fix and deal with? What of this do I need to see if I can work out on the sales side? Like, hey, I know that it's these things, and either I've priced it accordingly, or I've built it into my model of like, Hey, typically we would want to get X down, but I understand we've got to replace the windows and some other stuff. I'm just going into it like this is probably going to be a negotiating point. Somebody is definitely going to say the windows are broken or you know, the gutters are hanging low or whatever thing. And if it's a non-issue, I might just do it. I try to just keep that as a negotiating tool. I completely get it. You're 100% right. The gutters are hanging. The windows need to get replaced. Why don't we do this? And we'll try and work it out either on the price or some other thing, because I would rather trade. It's honestly monopoly money. The price is whatever we imagine. Like, in no other scenario can you create money the way that we can, because Money comes into the American economy as a figment of my imagination when I decide, hey, the price is this, and then we sign on that line. It's like, OK, that that amount is now owed. Those dollars have now been created and are owed. And someday, if there's a sales or refinance event, those dollars will come to me. And so it's just kind of cool the way that it works.

It's amazing. And it's, it's actually, it almost seems like magic before, before, you know, it's possible. Cause I remember hearing that concept and then it kind of came to fruition. You're like, wait a second, that note that was on paper now just turned into a wire from a payoff. And it's, and then you're like, Oh, I want to do that again. And again, and again, and again.

And those dollars didn't exist. Like, like it just, yeah, it really is amazing how the whole thing works. I mean, if you really want to go down a rabbit hole, You look into the banking system, you look into like the Federal Reserve, it's just a whole thing of how the game works.

It's all made up essentially, right?

It kind of is, man. I mean, we're honestly trading in promises. I promise to do this thing for you, Mr. Seller. I promise to pay. And then I find somebody else who promises to pay me. We're trading in promises, and then it just manifests itself in dollars. Like you said, it's like this note is just a promise on a piece of paper until it converts into a wire into my bank account. You're like, oh, my God.

Well, it makes you realize the value of your word, right? If you're just trading promises, then your promise better be trustworthy. And unfortunately, I'm sure you've seen it in this space, specifically in the real estate investor space, there's no shortage of scumbags. You know what I mean? Like it's part, I hate seeing it too, because it is such a small community. And then you have, sometimes you'll see a headline of somebody that, you know, was Robin Peter to pay Paul or whatever. It's like, God, it makes everybody look bad. Not to shine a light on the negative, but I think it's important to still say like, you know, someone that actually keeps their word is worth keeping around the business, you know, because we need to get rid of the bad apples.

And both your sellers and buyers are lead gens. Don't ever forget that every person you transact with, whether it's a seller, a lender, or a buyer, is a lead gen opportunity. I can't tell you that leads come from sellers, leads come from buyers, leads come from lenders. And eventually, if you're doing this business well, you know, you get a couple years into it and you've started building, like you've made your life easier. So in a perfect world, when you start, it should be the hardest it'll ever be. And then it progressively gets easier as you get more leads from referrals as you, you know, more people want to work with you. They want to lend you money. They want to buy a house from you. Like it should start to get easier. And if you're not doing those things, then you're going to find yourself four years from now and you're like, damn it, this is just as hard as it was, you know, when I first started.

Yeah, no, absolutely. For sure. Um, yeah, run into several situations where you have a buyer that, you know, multiple family members were involved in, in helping them or whatever it might be. And then, and then a few months later, they're like, Hey, my aunt or my uncle or my brother is looking for a property. Do you have anything else? And it's, it's really cool because you can earn someone's trust. And then, you know, a lot of people, especially on the buyer side, a lot of these buyers think that, how could this possibly be true? Who is this person that's offering owner financing? And how do you overcome that when you see skeptical buyers or even skeptical sellers? How do you, not necessarily convince them, but how do you earn their trust over time? Is it just by one action at a time or how do you think about that?

So right now, eating my own dog food I'm very, you know, with a buyer, it's like, hey, I've worked with all these other owner finance buyers and they've all given me permission for anybody to call them. And if you want to call any of these people, ask them if they've worked with me, what's their experience like? Am I easy to work with? Is this real? Call any of them. Honestly, I don't care who you call. Just give them a call and ask if this is the real deal. So borrowing credibility is huge. Honestly, I've only had a few people actually call and every time that they've called, it's been a done deal. But the people who don't call, they're like, nah, I'm good. I believe you. Like if you're that willing to borrow credibility from other people you've worked with, I'm good. Like it already passes the sniff test. I would say I've been really borrowing credibility from past deals that I've done. That's really smart.

Yeah, very good. And that's awesome that they're willing to do it. I mean, do you ask that when you're closing? Like, how do you get them to sort of agree for the long term? Are you signing with them and saying, hey, if somebody asks in the future, are you willing to talk?

I had, well, I basically used the same handful of people. So I did this a while back and then I just haven't kept adding to the list. So all of my buyers that I've worked with, handful of names, I just basically just keep filtering that list out. Call Rachel, call Martisha, call Carlissa, they'll tell you, ask them what their experience is like. And honestly, I want you to call. It would be a benefit to me if you would call them.

Yeah, right. Yeah, you'll realize. Very cool. I think the one other topic and totally wide open on anything else you're wanting to share or open to sharing one topic we didn't really dive into yet was private money, which was totally another world of opportunity that I didn't really understand before I get into owner financing. Cause in my, in my journey, I was, I was basically wholesaling everything before I started to owner finance. And so I didn't have private money and I didn't, I didn't look for private money. And then I realized, wow, if I could, if I could borrow someone else's money and pay them as agreed in order to buy the property, I can actually maximize the profits on the property. How do you think about private money? Are you constantly looking for more private money and what's your general process for that in terms of growing your business?

Yeah, it's a great question. So again, we want to be constantly, or in my opinion, we want to be constantly sharpening all the tools in our toolbox. The fact is, is like you to have a successful real estate business, you have to have a network of private lenders that you can call upon that, you know, that trust you to steward their capital as you deploy into, you know, real estate ventures that are going to, you know, you're making money with their money. So they got to get paid and we got to take care of it. And then if we do a good job, we're able to make profit beyond what we're paying them. So how do I think about it? Man, honestly, it's kind of a lifeblood to a whole channel within this niche. So, again, we talked about the deal on the buy side may or may not present one of three scenarios. You can either buy it with seller financing, you can buy it you know, taking over existing financing, or you're buying it with cash, right. And so this is like kind of a, you know, one of three ways that you can buy a house. So it's like extremely critical that you have this tool ready to deploy when the opportunities like this is a cash transaction, this is how it has to go. And so to for me, I think one thing, at least you know, like I said, my strategy has kind of been dialing in on rural homes and on mobile homes. And so part of that is outlaying like, hey, I'm not I didn't just, you know, come up with this. Like I've kind of backed into this. Like I've shown this model. Here's the portfolio. Here's the notes where I've had this exact same scenario. You know, I've sold I know this market. I know this area. And I can I'll give you a deal that that I did here recently. The guy, kind of long story, I'll skip a lot of the details, needed to sell it. The home was no good. It was like, it could have been made okay, but the guy had just some issues. The inside was like, Basically, my inspector said it was a thing of nightmares. He would go in, come out, hold his breath, come in, come out.

This was manufactured or stick built? Manufactured.

But I knew this area, I knew this market. I was a little nervous about this one because it was a little rougher than I would typically take on. But the guy needed to close, his underlying was foreclosing. So this was a textbook pre-foreclosure late on payments, and it was happening super fast. The payoff was 35, he wanted to walk away with six. I had very little time to get this done. So at 41,000, I sent the inspector out there, And what had happened was the inspector told me how horrible the inside was. But he also said there's holes in the floor, which is very common and manufactured. The flooring is just really soft. But he said the problem was the sewage line had burst. And he didn't know. But probably years ago, the guy was was smell. He couldn't smell. And he was a very heavy smoker. So the crawl space like underneath had been filling with human sewage. It's like, oh my gosh. I was like, oh my gosh. I don't, I was like, I don't, even for 41,000, I don't know that I can do this. And I had very little time to make this all work. And I never want to let somebody down. Like if I tell a seller, like, Hey, I could take care, I'm going to take care of it. But I did not know this going into it. And anyways, it was like, this was a Monday. The auction or the finality of the foreclosure was on, let's say, Friday. And I think our closing was on Thursday. So it's extremely tight. I found a sewage removal company to go out there and quote it. And they quoted it over the phone. And they told me $8,000 to take care of it. And I'm like, hey, man, I hate to be that guy. But I need you to see it and confirm that your quote stands. Because if I close and then you tell me, oh, my God, it's so much worse. This is like twenty five grand. Yeah. Right. And I'm not going to do it. So if there's any way you guys can get out there, they went out there, checked it out, said, yeah, buddy, no problem. We can take care of this. So I was like, OK. So then I went to the private money lender. and gave them the full story. Here's my inspection report. Here's the pictures. Here's the number. Here's my past experience in this area. Here's what I think I could sell it for owner financing. What I'm trying to drive at on the private money thing is that for me to take it down in cash on a deal like this, my personal preference is to be able to 2.5x my owner finance price. That, for me, justifies putting an investor in at like 40%. Their mortgage is like 40% of what I think my mortgage will be. So they have tons of coverage. And two, just the nature of private money on a deal like this, it's going to be a little bit more expensive. And I'm happy to pay that. I've got no issues with it. but was able to work with a lender, make it happen at 41, got the treatment taken care of before I even had time to market it. So this one never even hit the market. I had people reaching out, do you have anything near there? Do you have anything near here? And I said, hey, I do have one. but it's bad, it's no good, it's gross. And I understand that, do you understand that? They're like, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, we're good, we're good. And we go see it. So I just sent them to it, having done nothing.

Before the 8,000 sewage job was done? Had fixed that. Okay, so that was done, then they saw it?

Then they saw it, but I'm talking about like feces buried in the carpet, like gross, nasty, you know, the hole was still in the floor that, you know, had been letting in nasty fumes, heavy smoker, all the things. I was real nervous. Honestly, I probably shouldn't have even sent them out there, but they really, really wanted a home. They called me and they're like, well, we love it, we'll take it.

I'm like, okay. You already have a price range in mind or did you let them tell you what they would pay?

Yes. In my mind, I'm thinking, I don't know, what can I get out of here for? If I don't have to touch it, 100, 120, what am I thinking? I was like, hey, you know, I'm selling it as is just, you know, what, you know, if I fix it, the price is going to go up. So you could get it now and, you know, have a good opportunity to keep, you know, keep the price where you would like it to be. What is it worth for you guys to own it today in its present condition? Could you do 150? I mean, it's, it's tight, but if you'll take care of the repairs, I think we can make that one work. And, uh, and they've been great, man. They love it. They've taken care of it. They fit, you know, all these things. It's like, should I feel bad about that? I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, they're, they love it. They they've called it home. They fixed it up. And it's not that I'm withholding information. I fixed the sewage. I haven't had an opportunity to fix anything else. And you've seen it in all of its glory. And it is what it is. And so this is a double-edged or single-edged. That one's a single.

That's amazing. So, and this is a population that's close to any civilization or no?

Yeah, this one was in the suburbs of Knoxville. And so, yeah, it just, like I said, what I told you earlier is a hundred percent true. If you can dial in on where others aren't looking, but like other investors aren't looking, but the buyers are looking, I think that's kind of the sweet spot.

That's awesome. And it's actually a good thing for us, right? That most investors are like, Oh, I'm not touching manufactured because number one, there's, there's less competition. And number two, your seller is, doesn't have tons of options. You can, they can, they have to flex, right? They can't get bank financing usually, um, especially in that condition. And they're, they're not getting flooded with cash offers and postcards and all this other stuff.

And you nailed it. I mean, the financing's not there. So the retail pool, typically you'd have to borrow money to go buy things. Lenders are not willing to lend the money to buy it. So then the only people that are left are retail buyers who have cash to go buy it. Those are few and far between.

Very few and far between, yeah.

The investors don't want it. So it's just a blue ocean out there of like, man, if I'm the only person who's willing to take this on, then I guess I'll just cut my teeth on this and call it a day.

Do you ever just blanket neighborhoods? So one example I'm thinking is I've gone into a few different deals that we've done. I'm like, man, every house in this neighborhood, specifically single wides and double wides in rural parts of Charlotte, just look like the perfect deals, right? And some of them are vacant, some of them are not. I think it's obviously a lot harder to deal with a house that's occupied. But do you ever just kind of grab a bunch of addresses from an entire neighborhood that you know would be deal worthy and hit it with as much marketing as you can?

So I don't because I'm lazy, but I love this strategy. And I think it's smart because those aren't showing up on the list that I'm pulling or that I'm telling other people to pull. Right. It's like this is where it comes back to, you know, your market, you know, it's awesome. It's not showing up on a list that I can just pull down from some website. There's like you're the only person out there. Why would you not do it? I mean, the only reason I don't do it is because like I said, I'm lazy, but if I wasn't lazy, I would definitely do that.

No, and I know, I know you're poking fun at yourself. You're obviously not lazy, but you work, you work very smart and you figure out ways to minimize your effort and maximize return. And that's why you're doing so well.

Yeah. It's just not terribly scalable. I mean, everything I do, I want it to be tied to a model. I'm not going to build a model on driving neighborhoods. So I just, I don't spend a lot of time on it.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Well, that's awesome. Look, I don't want to go too far into this, but it's been tremendously valuable for me personally. And then I'm sure for anybody that listens to this, I mean, you're basically telling people how to go create a portfolio from scratch, which is very generous of you to kind of give away some of these gems. Is there anything else that would be sort of critical that you think that we didn't really touch on or that you want to share that we haven't gotten to yet?

I mean, I don't know that there's anything critical. I think just, man, it's a blocking and tackling kind of game. Know how to buy. know how to buy great deals, know how to understand and look at what a great deal is, and then know how to sell a deal with the most profitable exit. If you could pitch it, like you said, that's your background. That's an exit, but it's not the most profitable exit. And so I think to the degree that you can understand the problem that you're solving, if you're finding leads for an investor, it's a small problem. If you're bringing liquidity to a buyer, who can't get bank financing, man, that's a bigger problem. You can get a better paycheck. So I think just the Xs and Os of what we're doing, and then having some sort of backstop or friend that you can call or reach out to just look over your shoulder, I think that's most of it. And then just taking action, just looking, understanding it's going to be messy when you start, You're not going to know everything you're going to run into stuff you don't know. That's fine. Just muddle your way through it, because eventually, you know, it'll start to stabilize out.

I love it. I love it. So do you enjoy this life more than an engineer working for somebody else?

Yeah.

Yeah, I would say I do, man. We love to travel. We love the time freedom that collecting notes affords us. So yeah, man, I would say things have progressed in the right direction for us.

That's awesome. Well, congrats on the amazing growth and just honestly the last four or five years or however long it's been, it's been amazing. And it'll be awesome to watch sort of how your trajectory comes from here, because I mean, I learned a ton from you just through this conversation and other interactions that we've had. So thank you for being so open and transparent with how you built your business and how other people can sort of try to replicate the same for themselves. It's really awesome.

Sure, man. Yeah, thanks again. Yeah, seriously, really appreciate you. You've been a mentor and a guide for me, you know, in previous conversations. And yeah, just really thank you for the opportunity to get to, you know, have this conversation with you on your new awesome podcast.

Oh, thank you. No, it's it's it's my pleasure. What's the best way to reach you if somebody has a question? They're like, hey, I got an amazing deal in Middle Tennessee, but I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Will can probably guide me. Like, do you want? First of all, do you want those kind of calls? And then how do you how do you want people to reach out to you?

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think I think the best way right now is just to reach out on Facebook, I'm doing this, this group, it's it's free for anyone to join. Okay, money, mastermind. That's really the best place. That's where we're building an army of people who, you know, are able to go out and do this and get access to knowledge or guidance or whatever. You know, people are posting deals in there and just getting feedback. So that's, that's probably the number one best way. And then I would just ask for anybody who found value. I'm trying to get going a little bit more on Instagram. So Will Cannon Jr. is where to find me on Instagram.

Okay, perfect. On Instagram, Will Cannon Jr. and then Facebook is just Will Cannon, right?

Yeah, Will Cannon and Facebook might be easiest just to look for manufacturing money mastermind.

Okay. And it's a group. So if you search in the groups on Facebook, manufacturing, money, mastermind, and they can, anybody can go in there and just ask to, to go into the group. Yeah. A hundred percent. Cool. That's awesome. I've seen little snippets here and there of stuff that you're putting out. That's very cool. So thank you for sharing content. And anybody that checks it out is going to, I'm sure, love it. So thank you again, Will. And I look forward to staying connected on all the things you're doing and building here in the owner finance space. Cool. Thanks again. Of course.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of The Deal Pen. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way we'll get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. And remember, there's always more deals to be had in The Deal Pen. Until next time, friends.