Joe: Alright, welcome everybody. This is the Real Estate Investing Mastery podcast. Hope you're doing well. We've got a special treat. This is, I think you want to call it part three but it's the second time I've interviewed Bob Zachmeier. The first interview we did, it was over two hours long… It was crazy, but it was so good. We were talking about investing in real estate, creating small notes, create, not buying, discounted notes, but creating small second notes and making big profits out of them. And we talked a lot about owner financing and how Bob…   

Joe: I mean Bob is one of the most creative guys I know in the real estate investing business and it was just a pleasure talking to him. So, I asked him if he could come back and do a second interview talking about how he's doing lease options with notes, which is crazy. I've never heard anybody talk about this before. So, we're going to be talking about that on this podcast.   

Joe: I want to first, guys, just a couple of housecleaning things. If you like this podcast, I want to ask you to subscribe to it and leave a review. I know it's not called iTunes anymore; it's called what, just Apple Podcast? I think Apple has now an app called Podcast. And so, I would encourage you or ask you guys to leave a review if you like this show and really appreciate it. In fact, Bob, one of the last reviews I got was a five-star review from somebody complimenting the podcast with you and I'll look it up here because I thought that was pretty cool. Hopefully it doesn't, it's not opening. I'm going to pause this for one second here because I want to read this. It was so good.   

Joe: Hold on. Okay, so I found it and it was a review last, a couple of three, four days ago from a guy named Kenneth702 gave us five stars. He says, "Great show, Joe. The episode you did with Bob Zachmeier. Great info, 20 stars, excellent interview. I read his book, he has a wealth of knowledge and he makes it sound simple to understand. Thanks for the interview” That's awesome. I love that!   

Joe: Pollyboyd left a five-star review just a week ago saying, "I came across Joe's podcast about three months ago and I've consumed nearly all the episodes available here on iTunes. If you want to truly learn the strategy for real estate investing, I feel that this is the podcast to listen to. I've purchased one of his courses, but in his episodes, he tells you what you need to do” Well, I also tell you what to do… I tell you what you need to do in the in the courses too, but "talk about providing exceptional value” Thanks for the kind words.  

Joe: Brevity Consultants also left a review about a week ago. Five stars. "Successful Real estate investor, always sharing his methods and processes. It's great to learn from guy who genuinely wants the best for everyone” Kevin A Tried, I believe. Five stars. "Joe's Information is incredible. If you're interested in investing in real estate, you need to listen to this podcast. The guidance is gold” I appreciate you guys leaving the reviews.  

Joe: So, if you can please go to, well I don't know, it's not called iTunes anymore, but go check out the podcasting app from Apple. That is the most popular way for people to listen to podcasts. It's not the only way. It's becoming less popular actually because there's so many other options available. But that is the main place where you can go and leave a review and subscribe and tell us more about what you guys are, what you guys think of the show.  

Joe: Also, I wanted to tell you guys something pretty cool. We just released volumes one and two of all of my previous episodes. Apple doesn't let you show more than I think 200 or 300 episodes on each podcast you do. Right? So, I took all of my old ones, the ones that I've done from 2011 and released them as volume one and volume two. So, if wherever your podcasting app is, do a search for Real Estate Investing Mastery, Real Estate Investing Mastery, and you will find volumes one and two, and then this current one will be just the regular ones.   

Joe: So, pretty soon I'll probably have to create a volume three where you can listen to, you know, the next 200 or so episodes. I think we're at episode 815 or 820 now. It's been an awesome wild ride. I have no interest in slowing down. I'm going to be doing this podcast for the longest time. My goal is to be the longest running real estate investing podcast. And so I've got a, I've got a ways to go.   

Joe: There's, there's some guys that do a really good podcast, the Real Estate Radio or the Real Real Estate Radio or the Real Estate Guys. What's that show called? They've been doing it for longer than anybody. Sean Terry's been doing it a little bit longer than I have, about six   months longer than I have. So, as soon as those guys retire, then then I'll be the longest running. But I'm not, I have no intent of slowing down. I love doing this. I love interacting with you guys and teaching you awesome stuff and so… Please leave a review on iTunes or whatever it's called now and subscribe. Let us know what you think of the show.  

Joe: One more final thing. Okay, and I'm sorry Bob. I just want to get, I got to tell everybody about my book. Oh, I'm so excited about that. Getting a lot of good feedback and reviews and people excited about it. It's called REI Secrets: Daily nuggets of real estate investing wisdom to help you get more leads and close more deals. Each chapter is like two or three pages long and I'm just giving kind of daily inspirational things. I mean, there's no pattern or tie in to all of the chapters. They're just things that I've written, kind of like a devotional where it just reads something, read something about real estate to give you some ideas, maybe a little bit of inspiration, a little kick in the pants to get out there and make it happen.   

Joe: I'm looking at this one chapter right here. It's called Three Questions, Three Answers. First question is, should five offers that you make every day be emails, phone calls, or letters? The answer is yes. The second question on your postcards, do you write on the postcards? What do you write on your postcards that you send to tax delinquent homeowners? And the third question is, what do we look for when searching for deals on the MLS? Three really good questions that were sent in to me and I turned them into a chapter and I gave really, really simple answers to those.   

Joe: And so another chapter here is called stop doing that. Start doing this and it's just good. You can get this book for free at REIsecrets.com. REIsecrets.com. You get it for free and just pay a little bit of shipping handling and I'll send it out to you. Okay, good enough of that. Bob, how are you sir?   

Bob: I am great Joe. Thanks for having me back on.  

Joe: I'm glad you're here. The, again, the feedback I've been getting on our last podcast has been really good. And on there you talked about your story. How you got started in real estate. I love your approach. I mean, just simple things that you do, where like you don't go to sellers’ houses, you make them come to your office, right? Like you tell people you know, yeah, so, I'm available here in my office. I mean everybody else does that in their businesses. Why is real estate the only one where we have to go to the seller's house,  right? Doctors, dentists, insurance agents, you know, financial planners and advisors… You have to go to their office, don't you?   

Joe: So, okay. Anyway, at the last episode that I interviewed Bob at, he kind of teased me a little bit with, Hey, we should talk about doing lease options with these creative type of notes deals. And so I wanted to talk about that, but, Bob, how's it going since we since we talked last?   

Bob: Well, we are just cranking out deals. Even though we're coming up on Christmas, it has not slowed down. There are still people out there that want to buy and the banks won't let them. And there's just a tremendous amount of opportunity. I've never seen a year so… And it's, I think in 2020 is going to be even more difficult for buyers to find homes and it depends again on the market of where you live. You know how… California, West coast kind of markets. I think there is going to be a little bit of a downturn, but definitely not where I live.   

Joe: So what, let me ask you that. You know, let's say the market does slow down a lot right now. Over the next two or three years we started really seeing a slowdown, a drop in prices. I doubt we will see a huge recession, but it'll probably be, definitely can't go up like this forever. It's going to be start going down again. The stock market probably started going down. The housing market prices have probably started going down. I mean I'm just guessing. Right? So, what strategy works best in a downward trending market?   

Bob: Well, actually there's several strategies. I mean, if your market is turning down the time to own a bunch of properties is past and it's time to actually get out of owning the properties. Let someone else eat all the depreciation. That's where you actually want to jump into notes and have your notes paying. And if you can get a note that was created properly, which means they were qualified by a licensed loan originator, they had a substantial down payment of at least a minimum of 10% down and that the total payment on that home is less than it would rent for… I mean that note is, the likelihood of it failing is very, very small. Just because the opportunity to or to not pay me means I'm going to, you know, if you decide not to pay me, you're going to move across the street and pay someone else more to rent than you're paying me to buy.   

Bob: So, I mean there's, there's still going to be people that you know, get in car accidents or die or you know, the other things that might cause someone not to be able to pay their, their   note. But it's not going to be a decisionary process where they just choose not to pay because the alternative would be to pay someone else more. So, I think, you know, notes in a, in a receding market. And then if a market does do a major correction and it drops down, then it's actually time to sell the notes at the bottom of the recession, jump back in and ride the appreciation back up when, when the market comes back. So that's kind of the strategy. And actually, John Schwab has a newsletter and I subscribe to his newsletter and he's just a been around 40 years. The guys just down-home wholesome, you know, investor and just some really good little nuggets of wisdom from him.   

Joe: You know, that's really good. He's still active then, isn't he? Yes. I'm looking at his website right now. Those of you that don't know who John Schaub is, you need to get his book. What was his main book? Real Estate Building Wealth One House at a Time. I think that's him, isn't it?   

Bob: Yes. And it's Schaub with no w.  

Joe: This is such a good book. I mean, he wrote it probably 20 years ago and he's updated it since. This newest update I have is from 2016 and Building Wealth One House at a Time. And I love how he, he's a, he's not one of your traditional real estate investors. He teaches a lot of creative real estate, was what I'm trying to say, which I think is really cool. And he talks about creative real estate a lot in his books. And, I'd love to get him on the show. Do you know, do you know John, by the way?   

Bob: I do. I mean, I see him most of the years… He doesn't speak a lot. I mean I speak all over the country at different conferences and the only one that I know of that John speaks at is the Paper Source in Las Vegas in April. And this past year he didn't, he didn't, he had a conflict, but he normally is at that one. And then he does an event every… Well, at least once or twice a year with, with Pete Fortunato. And that is also something that would be very good to take in, if you get a chance. Just, you know, go to his website and you can find where he's speaking.   

Bob: You know, John's one of those guys, like I say, he, he's been around the block through how many different cycles and you can just learn a lot. And I try to, you know, pick up information. I'm a lifelong learner. I can learn, you know, from everyone. And that's what I really like is, is people that are willing to share their success with others. And John does it very, very inexpensively. He doesn't have some, you know, expensive coaching course or   anything. He's just very grassroots. You can buy a bunch of his CDs for a song. I mean a few hundred dollars and it's really a good education.   

Joe: Yeah. Good. He's doing an event early February; it looks like here. But anyway, we brought him up because we're talking about the market and the, what's going on with the direction of the market. And I think it's super important that people understand how to do creative deals, especially as the market starts shifting. And I, you know, some people might ask, Bob, well, you know, the market starts shifting, you're going to see an increase in defaults, aren't you? I mean that's what happened last time when the market started going down, started seeing a lot more foreclosures. Isn't that like the worst time to start had to have a bunch of notes and do kind of those creative owner financing deals? What would you say to that?   

Bob: Well, it's again, if you're just, this is why I want to be creating my own notes and having a hand in how they're done. If you get someone that has this significant hand in, in the down payment and they have a lot of skin in the game and also you make their payment cheaper than rent, then the chance of that node failing is going to be a lot less. So, notes had failed. If you look back at the recession of the 6 million notes that failed and the properties were foreclosed on, the first thing there's pointing out that there are 130 million households in the United States. So, to have six of them failed during the worst seven years of the great recession is less than 5%. And when you take out the number of investors that had dozens of properties and just, you know, made decisionary foreclosure, you know, options, they chose to be foreclosed on.   

Bob: And not very many homeowners at all, less than 3 million homeowners lost their home. That's like barely 1% of all the people in the United States. And 3% of all the households in the United States failed during the absolute worst downturn in 75 years. So, I mean that, that's a pretty good testament to notes. And when you factor in the down payment and the notes that failed you know, of the subprime loans that were done in 2006, almost 50% of those loans failed because they were letting people that never should've gotten loans get them. And you know, every American deserves a home kind of mentality that came out and obviously it was proven wrong, but that now those corrections have been made in that irresponsible lending and coaxing borrowers into borrowing more than they should have borrowed is, is pretty hard to find. I just, I don't think any of us, no matter how old you were during the great recession, I don't think anyone is going to ever see that again in their lifetime, a recession that bad.    

Joe: One of the good things about what we're talking about too is we're, we're targeting the bread and butter, middle income, median priced homes, right. And if anything, we are more protected because you're not going after the nice big high-end luxury homes. Right. And you are not going after the cheap rundown beat up homes where you going to have to worry about a lot of defaults no matter what market you're in. But like these are bread and butter homes that people need and people always will need a house to live in. And when you're providing payment that's less than what they could do with rent. Yeah, it's, it's really good. It's brilliant. Okay.   

Joe: So, Bob, let's talk about lease options. How do you make, my first thing that came up in my mind was like how, what, how do you do…? How do you do lease option with owner financing? It doesn't make sense. So, explain to me what, what it is?   

Bob: Well, so it's a very similar process and I'll actually give you a real-life example of one that we recently did. And I'm sure that anybody listening to this that is a flipper is finding that there's how many deals do you get on your desk that don't have any meat on the bone to do a full-blown flip on them. And you know, right? And so, when I look for is homes that don't need a lot of repair, but they're dated and are clean, they're, you know, well- maintained. They just, they're old and they don't have modern amenities in them.  

Bob: And you know, for an example, this home that we found on Grinnell Street, it's $185,000 ARV. That's what the neighborhood comps say the middle median home price is going to sell for. And we got that on a wholesale mail list for $165,000.   

Bob: Well, $20,000 bucks isn't enough to get out of bed, you know, for most wholesalers, they're going to spend that in resale costs. And if you look at, you know, the flip model and why it doesn't work any longer, the fact that most buyers don't have their own closing costs, they want a ton of repairs. They, you know, they want, you know, anybody selling a home is going to pay 10% to 12% of that home's value to resell it. And that just took all the meat off the bone for the flip. So, the idea is to find a property and put an end user in it rather than you know, someone that you're going to sell it and you avoid all of those closing costs. And if you're really good, you can actually find that user before you ever even acquire it and put a note on it.   

Bob: That's what we talked about the last time. So, in this case, we are actually buying that property for a $165,000 asking price. And by the way, when you start getting wholesalers   that are sending you deals at a price that no one else can pay, and you pay it in closing less than two weeks, I mean they will start sending you all of their deals. So, those that think there's not deal flow out there, there's tons of deal flow out there. So, what we did on that home is we basically put it in the calculator and said, how much of the value of the Zillow value is 75%, because I don't like for the homeowner or the investor to invest much over 75%. So, this was $185,782 in Zillow. We offered $165k. I had an investor in that funded…  

Joe: Can I… I'm sorry, I'm going to rewind you a little bit. Can I? I'm gonna write down the numbers as you're talking about this. So, this a wholesaler brought you a deal, right? And what was the what was the ARV or the after-repair value of that?  

Bob: $185k and Zillow said $185,782. So, I just put in like $185k.  

Joe: And did this property need work?  

Bob: It's, it's dated but it's functional. It's livable or there's not anything disgusting, no active roof leaks or, or anything like that. And it's not like totally filthy. It's just a very dated 1960s or seventies kitchen. You know, the house is in okay condition, but just not updated.  

Joe: Good. Okay. And so, a wholesaler brought it to you because they couldn't buy it, they needed it, you know, at a, well, let me look at a calculator here. If they're going to buy it for, if it's worth $185k, they're going to buy it at 0.7%… 70% of that, and they're going to subtract, you know, say $20,000 for repairs and then they're going to subtract $10,000 for their wholesale fee. They're going to want to offer like $100,000 for that house. Right?  

Bob: Yeah. And they'll never get it. Right? And I, you know, obviously when we bind these, we see what they got 'em for and a lot of these wholesalers anymore are happy with between five and $15,000. That's pretty much the standard of what we're seeing in this market. And if you can make that for getting something under contract and selling the contract, I mean, that's a pretty good profit.   

Joe: Okay. So, what did the, what were the other numbers then for this house?  

Bob: Okay, so we actually paid $165k for it.   

Joe: Okay. So, you offer $165k… I'm sorry, I'm just going to go to the calculator here. $165k divided by $185k, you're buying it at 89 cents on the dollar, right? Okay, so about 90% of ARV.   

Bob: Correct. And how many flippers, no, no fix and flip guys, are ever going to pay anywhere  close to that? So, so then I financed $140,000 from a retiree…   

Joe: So, financed $140,000…  

Joe: And put $25,000 down…  

Joe: …minus, if I do $140k divided by $185k, that's at about 75-76% of ARV. So, you put a first position note with a private investor in that deal for $140k, right? And what did you sell it… I'm sorry.   

Bob: Well, yeah, let me kind of stop there. Most of the people, the retirees, I always use the word retiree, not investor because, retirees are comparing you to the, you know, the bank of what interest, you know, 0.2% they're making at their Chase or Wells Fargo or Bank of America. And if I wanted an investor, none of them would be able to do the terms that I got on this loan. I got a 6% rate for a 120 a month term, interest only.   

Joe: Wow. 120 months, interest only. Nice.  

Bob: So, when you go to someone in their seventies, most of the people that I find are in their seventies, and they're starving to death with what they're earning in bank interest. And when you go to them with a 30-year amortized loan, they say, Bob, I'll be dead. You know, they're, you know, there's not, I don't, you know, I can't do a loan that long. When you go to them with a 10-year loan, they're like, Oh, this is awesome. And then the part about loans that a lot of retirees don't like is that it's depreciating assets. Basically, every month that their payments made, their equity is being eaten away because principal's being paid down.   

Bob: So, when you do an interest only loan, okay, let me tell you how this is going to work. You're going to give me $140,000. I am going to be the borrower. I'm going to pay you $700 a month, so just keep in mind that $140k at the bank, it's 0.2%. You would make $280 bucks a year, right? I'm going to pay you $700 a month for 10 years. That's 120 months.  You're going to make $84,000 in interest payments and then I'm going to give you back your $140,000.   

Joe: Okay? How much was the interest payments again, total?  

Bob: $700 bucks.  

Joe: $700 bucks a month.  

Bob: And then over 120 months, 10 years, it's $84,000 they're going to make in interest.  

Joe: $84,000 in interest over 10 years.  

Bob: And at the bank at 0.2%, they would make $2,800 on the same money in 10 years.  

Joe: Yeah. Very good. Alright. So then, on this deal, you're staying in the middle, like you're borrowing the money. Why were you, why are you doing that on this deal? And not like what we talked about before where you're just creating a note. You're, you're getting out of the deal except you're creating a second note.   

Bob: So, it's kind of funny. Everything, you know, things happen to you every day that seemed like problems and they're really leading you to a new solution. I had a, I was out of town at a conference and I flew in the night before the Super Bowl this year and I landed and turned my phone on at the airport and an email came in from a flipper or a wholesaler in Phoenix and said, Hey, I got this property and I looked at the address. It's real close to the airport. So, I drove by on the way home. It was already kind of dark, but I could pretty much tell the neighborhood was pretty good. And I took my, one of my, fix and flip contractors to sell it to them the next day. They looked at it, you know, saying, Hey, it looks good. You know, let's run the numbers on and see if it works.   

Bob: I sent the comps to them actually during the football game and he says he'll take it. So, I contacted the wholesaler and said, we take the deal. And then the next morning he calls me and said, Hey, I ran the numbers. You know, I was kind of drinking during the game and I know I ran the numbers and there's no way… I can't do that. And he backed out on buying it. And I said, well, I don't know about you, but my word means something to me. And I told the guy we'd take it. So, I turned to my wife and I said, well, it looks like we're buying a   house. And you know, I had no intention of buying a house and then we ended up selling it in this manner.   

Joe: And I have a local guy that does lease options. He's been doing them for a long time. He's got probably 50 of them. And I didn't really want to deal with the tenants or anything myself. So, I just went and formed a partnership basically. And I find the money and he puts the people in and manages the lease option occupants and we just split everything 50/50. So, that's kind of how this evolved. So, so now we have very, very inexpensive money. $700 a month debt service. On that particular property though the taxes are $120 a month, the insurance is $40 a month. And the servicing at Stewart Title is $20 a month. That's escrowed in everything. I, anytime I get private money, I always have it professionally serviced.   

Joe: Sure. Yeah.  

Bob: So, so we got 40 bucks for insurance, $120 in tax. That's $160. Another $20 for servicing is $180. And $700 in debt service. So, our total in this thing is $880 a month. Our lease option fee on that property is $1395.   

Joe: All right, so you're renting on a lease option for $1395 a month. All right, so you paid $165,000 for the, you bought this house for $165k, you borrowed $140,000 so that leaves 25 grand you had to come up with. Did you come up with that yourself?   

Bob: I did.  

Joe: Okay, so you put $25k into it. Alright. I'm just trying to look at your ROI numbers here. Like,  what kind of return are you getting on this deal?   

Bob: I'm going to shock you.  

Joe: Alright, let's do it. So, then what? So, you put 25 grand of your own money into it.  

Bob: $1,200 in closing costs also.  

Joe: Okay. $1200.    

Bob: And this one we did absolutely no repairs and we actually had it leased in the same day  that we acquired it.  

Joe: Alright, cool.  

Bob: By the way, the market rent on that… If you go to Rentometer or Zillow, I mean it's like $1250 and so our lease option prices $1395 so a little bit higher. Right? So, our total invested out-of-pocket is $26,200.  

Joe: Okay. Total invested. And then…  

Bob: And we're getting through $1395 and with the $120k property tax, $40 insurance, $20 in servicing, that's a total of $180 and then $700 for debt service. That's $880 so our profit a month is $515.   

Joe: Alright. So, your cash cashflow is $515 a month… good. And we're just looking at…  

Bob: That is 27.71% ROI, cash on cash return.  

Joe: Yeah. And to get that, you just take $515 cash flow a month times 12. That's $6,180 a month. I mean a year, $6,180 in cashflow a year divided by the $26,200 you had invested. Right?   

Bob: Well it's $26,200, but don't forget we got $3,900 option fee. So. That comes off of the  $26.200.   

Joe: Alright. $26,200 minus…  

Bob: So, we're dividing by $22,300.  

Joe: Right. Okay. So, $515 times 12, that’s $6,180 a year in cashflow, divided by the $22,300…  So, that's a 28% cash on cash return your first year?   

Bob: Correct.    

Joe: Nice. Okay. So, you put a tenant buyer and then how much did you collect from the tenant  buyer again?  

Bob: $3,900.  

Joe: $3,900. And what was the option price that you advertised it for?  

Bob: $229,000.  

Joe: $229,000  

Bob: And the as is value right now is $185k.  

Joe: So, what was the term?  

Bob: 10 years.  

Joe: 10 years. You chose the 10-year lease option? Okay. That makes sense.  

Bob: We have 10-year financing to match it.  

Joe: Exactly. Okay.  

Bob: So, Joe, the average appreciation in the United States since World War II is 3.25% per year. So, that is a number and I can show you right now in Tucson, Arizona where I live since 1980, we are just on top of that. 3.25%. We are dead right where it should be. You know, we had this big run up in a big huge meltdown, but we are exactly where we should be using that price. So, if I apply a 3.25% appreciation rate on the value today of $185k you know, 782. Year one goes to $191k. Year two, $198k. Year three, $204k. I have a little calculator I built and it takes it out 10 years. So, the $229k purchase price falls between year six and year seven. Year six is $225k, year seven is $232k so they are buying it at, you know, less than year seven price.   

Bob: But also, if they buy it, we are giving them a credit of $100 for every month that they paid the rent on time. They have the opportunity, 120 months, to get $12,000 back. And then we also credit them the $3,900 option fee if they execute. So, when you take off $12,000 in   on time discount and $3,900 in option fee, that's $15,900 that comes off of the $229k… so their actual exercise price is $213,100, which puts them between year four and year five value. So, I mean, we're giving these people the opportunity. How would you like right now to be able to go back and buy homes at prices they were six years ago?   

Joe: Oh yeah. That's a good way to look at it. I like that a lot  

Bob: For a total of $3,900 I mean; you control this property for 10 years for $3,900. If it goes up,  you exercise. If it doesn't, you walk away.   

Joe: Okay. So, talk about you're doing it as 10 years because you need to ride that appreciation.  You want to get as much cash flow. Your big play in this is the cashflow, isn't it?   

Bob: Correct. That's, that's exactly what I'm looking for. And I mean we're finding these almost a deal every week. So, I mean, when you think about that, you're making 500 bucks a deal and, and you know, in a month, you find four of them. You just increased your monthly cashflow by two grand. And then the deal that I have with my, with my deal partner is that the money, it's all of the arbitrage until the money is repaid. Then we split 50/50.  

Joe: Oh, that's interesting. You're getting all the cash flow until you get your cash back. Correct.  Then it's 50/50. Interesting. I'm writing that down.   

Bob: So, like 43.3 Months it takes me to get, at $515 a month, it takes me 43.3 months to get my  money back. And after that, then we're 50/50.   

Joe: Okay. So, this guy who's doing this for you, what's in it for him? The first three or four  years,   

Bob: He doesn't need the cash flow. He's got enough to actually pay all of his bills. And what he's looking at is half. So, keep in mind that we acquired this home at $165k and during the first 43 months we knocked out a $25,000 down payment. So, our loan is $140k. It's an interest only loan so it stays at $140k but our strike price at the end is $229k. Yeah. So, so basically, we have $89,000 and he gets half of that. So, he's building for the future. I mean every, every one of these houses, I mean everyone we touch in the next 10 years is going to create over $50,000 each for us. We're going to make a hundred grand on every house that we touch.    

Joe: Nice. So, you know, you're also, because you're doing 10 years, you're able to get that much higher of a price. Normally when I do lease options, I set the option price about what it's going to be in a couple of years cause I'm hoping to sell it in two to four, four- or five- years max. But you're taking a longer time.   

Bob: It's a little different plan. I'm looking, I'm looking for the cash flow. And so, what's interesting is, is these people after discount are going to be buying it, the strike price would be $213k. If the 3.25% plays out for 10 years, the value of that home would be $255,802 so they're actually acquiring, they're highly incentivized to actually purchase the property because they're going to have $42,700 worth of equity if they exercise the option.   

Joe: And what will your spread be if they exercise?  

Bob: We are selling at $229k and our interest only loan is at $140k so we have a $89,000 spread.  

Joe: Right, but you're crediting back their original option deposit and the rent credit…  

Bob: Correct. Yeah. So, we're giving them back a credit of $15,900 so our payment arbitrage is $61,800. That's the $515 times 120 payments. And the price difference after the discounts is $62,800… So, we've got $61.8k in arbitrage that we collected every month for 120 months. We have $62.8k in price difference. That's a total of $116,500. $116,500 profit on this one property and that will split 50 50  

Joe: Nice. Those are good numbers. Real good numbers.  

Bob: Yeah. I mean, just like I say, I fell into this by accident and I just kind of worked my way out of this property. I had to buy that. I didn't really want to buy it, but I told the wholesaler that I would, and again, when you do that and honor your word, and I called the guy and said, Hey, my guy's falling out, I'm going to try to find somebody else, but if I can't, I'm going to do it myself. I mean, what kind of credibility does that give you with this wholesaler?   

Joe: I think they'll give you more deals, a lot more deals. So, okay. Why would you, why would you want to do a lease option on this deal instead of the creating a second note strategy like you did before?    

Bob: It's just a little different play. It's got elements of a rental in it. Everybody thinks that rents are going to increase and there actually is a 5% increase built into the lease that these people would pay, which I didn't even put into my numbers. So, so it's sort of diversification. I mean I, I have notes and I have this and you know, the note income we have coming in and actually we just reinvest it all the time. So, so you end up getting too many. You know, it's funny how notes sneak up on you, just all the payments come in and then all of a sudden you to look at your bank account, it's like, oh my God, I got to void some, some cash so…  

Joe: Got to get some more deals.  

Bob: Yeah, it's a good, it's a good problem to have, but I mean to profit $116,500 on a $165,000 purchase, that's… compare that to a rental property. And then the idea with these leases is this is your home. You can paint any room whenever you want, if you want to, you know, and we have a guy right now that's doing one of these deals and he's built a garage onto the property. Do you think he's going to exercise? If he doesn't it, we got, you know, pretty good collateral improvement there, but it's just a different play. And the whole thing to me, Joe, was I just absolutely, I, I've been a landlord since 1982 and I just really don't want to deal with tenants anymore, but to find somebody younger than I am, you know, he sees the long-term play in this. And it's like, oh my gosh, if I can, you know, do a house a week and end up making, you know, $50,000 profit in the next 10 years… I mean, what if we just did 20 years or 20 deals this year? Which isn't even one every two weeks, you know, that's, that's $1 million that you created of future value. How many people can say that in their life that this year I created $1 million 10 years from now?   

Joe: Wow. So, the key for you though is you're not involved with the day to day management. You've partnered with somebody on a deal by deal basis and they're going to be responsible for managing the property. Cause there is more management involved in a lease option deal compared to an owner financing deal, isn't there? But still, on a tenant lease option, there's still a lot less management than a regular rental. Nice. So, and just so I'm clear too, you're getting a hundred percent of the cashflow until you're made whole with the money you put into the deal. Right?   

Bob: Correct.  

Joe: Nice. Cool.    

Bob: And my partner basically has more time than money. I mean this is quite common with investors. They start off with way more time than money and experienced investors have way more money than time. So, it's just kind of a, a meeting of the, you know, the two and you take the parts that I don't want to do and I'll provide the money that you don't have.   

Joe: So, how did you find this guy that's doing this for you?  

Bob: He actually called on one of my listed note properties where the seller was actually carrying the loan and he is a student of John Burley who is this program that I'm describing to you is, is called the Burly Model. John Burley's a trainer in Phoenix and he has done this for eons and I have friends all over the country that have, you know, followed his model, it's a very good model. And this guy called on one of my listed properties and he said, look, I just want to do a roof inspection and a sewer line inspection and we closed it in two weeks. And it was one of the easiest on the MLS real estate sales that I've ever had.

Bob: And at closing, I said, Hey, I want to, and he called me and said, I want you to represent me as the real estate agent. So, obviously that's, you know, both sides of the sale and I took he and his wife out to dinner and lunch. And I just said, Hey, I want to understand your model. And the model had been to find all subject tos and get the financing subject to, and I just asked, you know, Hey, what percentage of all the homes sold in the United States would you say are subject to where the seller of the home is letting you just acquire their financing? And he said, well, probably less than 1% and I said, I agree. So, what if we could do take this model and just blow through the stratosphere instead of only focusing on the less than 1% that can afford to let you take on their mortgage? What if we could do it on any home that we find and the numbers work? And that was where this partnership came from.   

Bob: He's like, oh my gosh, you know, that would be awesome. And you know, when I can provide a retiree with $84,000 instead of $2,800, I got a line out the door of people that want that. Right. When you know, you think, how many retired people do you think could use an extra $700 a month? And then you know, for the properties that are, don't have enough meat on the bone to go for a full-blown flip. I mean that's, that's all of them. I mean, there's very few out there that most flippers are sitting on the sidelines right now. They're unemployed because there's just nothing out there that makes any sense for them. So, this is a model that we can use to pick up all the properties that everybody else is   turning away. And it falls also into play with, you know what if I find a nice home that's very dated and it needs an upgrade.   

Bob: So, most of the people buying these from us are contractors, same people that are borrowing on the notes except for these are all the people that didn't have the 10% minimum down payment that I require and these are people with 3,900 bucks plus one month's rent plus the security deposit, which actually if you figure it all out, it works out really close to what you would pay three and a half percent down for an FHA loan, but you're giving, you know, an option is the right but not the obligation. So, that's something you really have to demonstrate to these people.   

Bob: Like what if you bought this home and we saw another market turn down and then now it's not worth as much as you paid. Well the cool thing about this is that you are actually putting down $3,900 and holding this house, reserving your right to buy it for 10 years and then you're only buying it if the price went up. If the price goes down, you walk away and $3,900 is all that you've lost. But now all of a sudden, all the leads I've been thrown on the floor for the last several years that didn't have 10% down, I can now put them to work.  

Joe: Well, I love that. Let's talk about what happens if the tenant doesn't buy the house or they  stopped paying rent and you have to evict them.   

Bob: Basically, neither of us make any money until it's cash flowing again. But again, my money, he does the eviction. Basically the $3,900 is a… When I first met with him, I was like, why don't we kick that up a little higher? I think we could squeeze them for at least $5,000. And the answer was, well, that $3,900 has been tested in court and it's anything, you know… Get much higher than that and you could have a judge that basically says they paid too much money down and this is, you know, they have an ownership stake in this home even though it's not deeded in their name because of a lease purchase. So, you know. So, that appealed to me. It's like, okay, they understand it's a nonrefundable option fee and at any time they can choose to leave and just, it's on a month by month lease with a 10-year option. So, basically the tenant moves out and we've had that happen. And not, not that often. Less than 10% I would say in this short period of time, I've been working on these pretty much most of this here, but he finds someone else to take the property and get another $3,900 down and started over again.    

Joe: Nice. Yeah. So, during the, if you had to evict a tenant, you're still paying the private  investor their monthly payments of $700 a month?   

Bob: Yes. Just like any rental property, if it goes vacant, you pay all your bills.  

Joe: Yeah. So, who is actually paying that…? Is it you or the partner that you're with?  

Bob: We have a joint checking account that pays that and we put the $3,900 option fees in the joint checking account and that's what covers for, you know, if it takes a little time to lease it up or if there's a gap in the middle, that's the account where we don't have to scramble to come up with money.   

Joe: That's really good. People forget that. I know. Ask me how I know, cause that used to be me, right? It's important if you're doing lease option deals or creative deals like this, you need to set aside at least half if not all of the option deposit money or the down payment money your buyers put in for unknown unforeseen things that are going to happen. Right? It's not a question of if, it's when.   

Bob: If you did 10 of these deals that would be $39,000 sitting in your checking account. That  can pretty much handle about anything.   

Joe: Exactly. So, isn't it kind of this nice feeling to know that, yeah, you know, I'm not worried about it. Not stressed. Cause what happens when you're stressed and you make bad decisions when you're stressed with money, you take the next tenant that can fog a mirror just so you can have the money to pay the mortgage, your private investor. But when you've got that money set aside, yeah, you can know if the tenant moves out and you need to clean the house up and throw away the trash and maybe you paint the walls, you've got the money for that. That's good. Nice.   

Bob: I gotta tell ya a quick story. So, you know, I'm on a lot of wholesale lists and the one thing that I see in it, as kind of as a real estate broker, I know that when, when people tie up a property, I mean, I mean they're basically putting it under contract with no intention of ever buying it, but they're going to try and get someone to buy it from them for a higher price right before closing. So this, this property came by and my business partner actually found it and he said, Hey, I went out and looked at this property and here it's active listed on the MLS for $172,000 but it came across on my wholesale list at $152,000 so if it's   under contract on the MLS at $172k and this guy is trying to sell it at $152k, what do you, what do you think he paid for it?   

Bob: So, we just kind of made the assumption that he, you know, probably $140k, maybe even less, but we ran the numbers on that property. It was a, had been on the market a long time because it couldn't go traditional financing. They had done a 90% remodel, but there's one room that was taped, embedded and wasn't finished and it had wires hanging out of the ceiling. And, and it just, that one room was keeping the house from going with conventional financing and apparently someone passed or had to go to a home or something. These people lived in this home for 22 years. By the time we found it on the wholesale list and went and looked it up, it was, it had gone off of active contingent back active.   

Bob: Guess how long after it went under contract… 10 days. So, someone canceled in the inspection period because they were unable to find someone to buy it. Right now, it's listed active on the MLS. So, we went in, wrote a $140k offer and they accepted and we bought that property for $140k and that particular one, because of buying it $80,000 below market value, that one we got leased up at $1695 a month. It's a five 2,800 square foot house. And that one will actually make twice as much as we make on a normal deal. It's over $750 a month positive cashflow.   

Joe: Nice. Okay. So, but this deal we were first talking about, you need to come up with the $25  grand, I think. How much did you come up out of pocket with $25 grand?  

Bob: Yeah. And then $1200 in closing. So, $26,200 out of pocket money.  

Joe: Yeah. So, if you don't have that kind of money to put into a deal, then that's when the you know, the strategies we talked about on the last episode might be better fit for you. But what would you reckon, what would you say to somebody getting started in the business who maybe doesn't have $25 grand to buy a deal? By the way, think about this. You're getting $500 a month cash flow… $515 a month cash flow and we're only putting $25,000 down into a deal. What other business model can we do that with? Right? That's 28% cash on cash on your money. So, what do you tell people who maybe don't have that $25 grand to put down into a deal like that?    

Bob: Be the other partner. I mean, in this case I'm the cash partner, but look at the other guy. He has $0 invested and then maybe work out, Hey, I need some of that cashflow. Maybe that's something you can negotiate that you do a 75/25 split on the money until you've received yours. Or actually, you know, you find an investor partner that if you're like doing a sub to deal is subject to your acquiring their loan, your investor partner would pay the difference between the acquisition price and the amount left on the loan, pay all the closing costs and then… Some of the guys doing this program, charge what they call a deal fee and for doing the lease up and managing this property for 10 years, they'll charge $10 grand up front and then they have a deal partner that they split 50/50 the equity on the, you know, the future sale price and 50% of the monthly payments.   

Bob: And those people, you know, maybe pay $20,000 out of pocket, but now they're earning, you know, half of the $515 a monthly fee. So, they're like $207 a month on a $20,000 investment. To them, that's, that's golden. I mean that's over 12% yield. But the future yield is, the big money is, is selling it, you know, down the line at a very conservative appreciation rate. And what if it doesn't appreciate, I mean, what have you lost?  

Bob: Let's say you go 10 years and it didn't appreciate it at all or, and even lost some money. I mean, that's what I like about this is the exit strategies. And during this 10 year, you will have collected $61,800 and you only owe the retiree $140k, which is 75 LTV. So, what if it falls by, the market falls by 25%, and actually it would have to fall further that because we're at $185k and there was no appreciation at the end of 10 years or anywhere in the middle. It fell by 25% our loan was $140k, we're still flat and we just collected the payments every month that it was occupied. And then we turn around and sell it and don't make the big markup at the end. But we made the $515 monthly, every month that we had it.   

Joe: Well, that's good. Alright. So, what advice would you give to somebody who wants to find that guy to partner with on a lease option deal? You know, I've got the money but I don't want to manage it. How do you find that guy?   

Bob: Well, money comes with trust. So, you don't advertise for money. First of all, it's a securities violation. Unless you have a license to sell securities or you're a licensed lender. But money comes with trust. You find someone who you believe has money for real estate agents. That's easy. I mean, people have, if they've ever listed their home to sell with you, these clients that you have trusted you once. It's very easy to reestablish that trust.    

Bob: And I would say, you know, especially for a real estate agency, if, if you know of someone that recently sold a property, I always ask my clients, Hey, when you get your money, when I sell your house, what are you gonna do with the money? And you know, they walk away. You know, people that are downsizing, they sell a big house that they had paid off and they just got a check for $200k, $400,000. I just add them to my mailing list and they didn't ever say one thing about you know, whether or not they would, they wanted to invest and I just send an email. It's like, Hey, if you know of anybody that would like $700 a month, let me know. So, I don't specifically ask them. I just, you know, if you know of someone and they're like, well, hey, what am I, chopped liver? I mean, how do I get that money?   

Joe: Nice.  

Bob: Yeah, and so that's the… And then, you know, if you have a mom or a grandma or grandpa, you know that that's sitting there making nothing at the bank and the best way to bring up this topic and you never want to try to sell money. Money doesn't go to people that are trying to acquire it. Money chases. You just got to keep that in mind. Money chases you.  

Bob: So, what you have to do is present someone with the opportunity. And the best way to open that conversation I've found is to just ask people, what is the, you know, you're pretty smart guy, Joe. What is the best investment that you have right now? And then just shut your mouth. And you know, you just wait and people start, almost every time they're going to start complaining about the bank and then you just say, Oh, well never mind, I'm, you know, my guys, the investors that invest with me are getting 6% and 7% interest and then you just walk away and, and it's kind of funny… Some, you know, most of the time they're going to call you like, wait a minute, six or seven, what are you investing in?   

Bob: You know, but sometimes you just plant that little seed and I've had it take over two years to come up and I, you know, people call and say, Hey, I, you know, I've been thinking about that and I'm ready. I want to invest now. Are you still doing that? Can I, can I do that? And then the best, you know, people… Everybody eats every day. Right? So, so basically, I like to use a grocery analogy and you know, just when you've talked to people about money, what's the best investment? Never mind, I'm getting, you know, six or 7%. And just remember, you know, if you're making 0.2 at the bank, if they paid you 1%, that would be five times more than what, but if this loan pays 6%, that would be 30 times more than what you're getting at the bank. So, the next time you go to the grocery store and you're   unloading all the bags of groceries onto the car, just remember that for every one sack of groceries that you have, you could have had 30… And you walk away.   

Joe: Yeah, simple. You're not chasing money, you're letting money chase you. I love that. My original question was more along, how do you find the guy managing the lease option deals for you? So, but you answered even a better question is, how do you find the private money guy? And this is something…   

Bob: So, so the lease option guys, I mean just look at the ads in the, in the, on Facebook marketplace and on Craigslist and for a rent to own kind of guys that are advertising. Those are the guys doing lease options and then approach them with the same thing that I did. What if instead of only getting the subject to deals, you could get all of the deals?  

Joe: That's good. And you find those guys on, they're advertising lease option properties on a,  on a Craigslist, Zillow…   

Bob: In Facebook marketplace. Yup. Yup. Yeah. Zillow too. That's, that's absolutely right.  

Joe: Do you have any more recommendations or resources? Do you have any books yourself  on? We talked about your book…  

Bob: Who Needs the Bank is my latest book.  

Joe: Who Needs the Bank… That's a book you give to your… A lot of your students give that to  potential private investors.   

Bob: Yeah, I've got students that are buying them by the case and handing them out to everybody they know. That's the most relevant, you know, to the seller finance model or even to this model just to, you know, show the investors how private lending compares to the stock market, how it compares to being a landlord, how it compares to keeping your money in the bank. I mean, those are the three most common places that most Americans invest their money.   

Joe: But I do have, I mean, that was my sixth book. I've written five others. Probably the most relevant, I mean, for a brand-new investor, I made a lot of mistakes when I first started. I bought my first rental property when I was 20 years old. And since then I, you know, I did,   I'm really proud of myself. I took action, but I just did all the work in the wrong way. So, my very first book was called Upside Up Real Estate Investing instead of upside-down real estate investing, like I had done for the first 10 years of my investing career. And it just basically chronicled every mistake I ever made. And for somebody just starting out, if you can have someone who's willing to admit all their mistakes and teach you not to do those things right up front, you know, it'll shorten the path to success.   

Joe: Yeah, that's good.  

Bob: And then for the real estate agents my second book was called Sold on Change. And that's basically how I went from six houses a month to 60 houses a month in three years. And the way I laid out my teams and organize my advertising and did all that stuff. And there was, you know, a lot of REO in there during those days. But anyway, it's still a lot of relevant information in there. Just how to organize teams and, and turn on your leads and how to compensate your team and just all kinds of things like that. And then you know, one of the biggest things that I think I attribute to my success is that I'm always trying to find a win, win, win deal. I mean, how many investors leave $42,000 worth of meat on the bone for the buyer of their, of their lease option?   

Bob: But that's a win. You know, the retirees are getting 30 times more than they make at the bank. The buyer, it's an awesome deal for them. The seller of the property got a faster sale for higher than anybody else would pay them. The neighborhood values, you know, didn't take a hit because of some discounted property value price and so anyway, just a win, win, win kind of kind of a deal.   

Bob: I have a book called A Daily Difference and it's probably my favorite book that I, that I wrote it just, I went and interviewed a bunch of my friends that are real estate brokers across the United States on how they have integrated charitable giving into their business. And we started a group, it's called A Daily Difference. And that book, it's just fascinating and it isn't to brag, it's to say, look how easy it is.   

Bob: I mean, just start donating $100 from every sale. I mean, we're almost 4,200 sales that we've had here and you know, $100 per sale, that's $420,000 that just went to charity without even, you know, feeling it. And then most people, you know, their whole life say, well, someday when I'm rich, I'm going to give to charity. It'll never happen. You'll never become rich because you're not. When you give money away now it sends a message to   your brain. I have plenty and more will come. And now your subconscious mind is looking for that more constantly. I wake up in the middle of the night and, and with these awesome ideas and Hey more is supposed to come. Is it that? Is it that? And if you don't do that on a daily basis, give something away, be it your experience… And you know, my books are a great way to do that.   

Bob: Being on calls like this is a great way to share what I'm doing. I mean, I just laid out all the inner workings of my business model. Do you think there's other people in my town that might listen? Am I threatened by that? It's like, no, there's no way I can buy up all the houses. I mean you have knowledge, share it. I mean it's actually a, you know, you're going to prosper because of sharing it and you'll find more deal partners because of sharing it.  

Bob: But that's my favorite book just because it's, and I'll tell you, Joe, during the recession, the only business around… Our market fell by 50% and nobody couldn't afford to sell their home because very few people had 50% equity. And if you didn't get into the REO business with the banks, I mean, you were going to be out of business as a real estate agent for about four years and would go to these conferences.   

Bob: And by the way, Five Star is the name of the conference. I couldn't remember on the last call. But when you go to these conferences and there were like 6,000 real estate agents running around and maybe 200 or 300 asset managers at the banks. So, I came up with this idea and it's like, Hey, why don't we get a booth? And instead of chasing around these asset managers, let's get a booth and they'll come to us. So, we started this group called the REO for Kids and each of us put up $500 marketing expense. We started with 11 of us and ended up having 32 but every one of us agreed that for every home that we sold, we would give $100 to a kid's charity in our town. And believe it or not, in four years, our group donated over $1,200,000 in four years just from doing that, $100 a month.  

Bob: And we had maps made up of, these are the brokers in all these different markets that, that are doing this. And these, these companies would come along and just say, Oh my God, I love this. And, I mean we got so many accounts because of that. And you know, it's just kind of funny. And all the money, you know, we each paid $500 and that's what bought the conference booths and stuff. But when you divide it by, you know, 32 people, it was, you know, we could, we could go to every conference there was, and then any money that was left over in the account each year, we would just donate it to charity at the end of the year and everybody put up $500 new for the next year.    

Joe: Okay. Yeah. There's such power in networking, isn't there?  

Bob: There is. And the other biggest thing is Joe is always… One of your guests said, you know, it's kind of, you know, worn out. Or maybe it was you that, you know, how can I help you? It's kind of overdone and everybody, it's kind of almost a lame question anymore, but, you know, what can I do to help you? I mean, that's the best way to get attention and, you know, and when you help someone, it's sort of sort of intrinsic in human nature that when you help someone, they just automatically, most people look for ways that they can help you back.   

Bob: And if you just do that every day, I mean you're just going to have so many deals and opportunities land on your lap. And then if you can't find a partner, go to an investor club and ask around, Hey, who do you know that does lease options? Go to your local REIA meeting or go to a meetup group, get on meetup and, and you know, and find out groups that are doing what you want to do and just go partner with them.   

Joe: Very good. Well, good. Awesome. Bob, we need to go and you've been so gracious with your time. This has been really good. I love the idea of just thinking outside the box, being more creative. With the last podcast we did talked about creating second notes, right? This one is more about just getting a… By the way, it's easy. You've got to first believe that it's easy to find somebody that's willing to put down a private investment first position note at 75% of ARV at 6% interest. That's easy money, right? And you can find that, right?  

Joe: But then turning around and doing it as a lease option. And if you're not, if you're that guy or girl that maybe doesn't have the money to put into the deal then you can be that person who then manages the lease option or let's say you have the money to put into the deal. It's, it's, it's easy to find the person who can do the lease option, manage it, by just networking, talking to local real estate clubs and going and seeing who's advertising lease option properties. I love it. And so, Bob, again, best way to reach you. We talked about some of your books on Amazon, but you've also got a website where you have a lot of amazing education and some really good calculators.   

Bob: Thank you. That's NoteCarry.com. By the way, my lease option calculator that we've just been talking about this whole show will be up in the next couple of weeks and I am constantly building new calculators. But there's all kinds of tools there. NoteCarry.com and then Bob@notecarry.com is my email. Just reach out and be glad to walk you through what   we do and how we do it. And if, whether or not, you know, you'd be a good fit for our group.   

Joe: Nice. Bob@notecarry.com is your email. NoteCarry.com is your main website. And if you go there, you'll see a lot of the resources that Bob has and just really some good, amazing…. you got a lot of awards there. That's good. Yeah, that's right. Love that.  

Bob: Yeah, I actually got two Educator of the Year awards, which was pretty much of a privilege and especially in the company in this, in this space for as short of time as I've been in it. You know, to be recognized with the same guys like John Schaub and you know, Pete Fortunato and guys who have been around for decades. I mean, that's quite an honor.  

Joe: And you're doing an event coming up in the spring or the summer of 2020. What is it  again?   

Bob: I do one event a year in Tucson and I donate all the money to Make a Wish foundation. And that's the first or second week of October every year, but I'm planning on a mastermind in a motorhome kind of event this summer, and I want to go up and do the four corners of Wyoming in Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Devil's Tower, Mount Rushmore, down the Cheyenne Frontier Days and across the Dinosaur National Park. So, big old square around Wyoming. And then, you know, very little driving in a day, but just kind of going out and having fun in the day and then sitting around a campfire and talking notes and stuff. I think that'd be an awesome way to learn and take your family on a nice vacation.   

Joe: Yeah, that sounds a lot of like a lot of fun. Okay. Bob, thank you so much for being on the  show. I really appreciate it and I'm look forward to connecting again real soon.   

Bob: Alright. Thanks, Joe. Good to hear from you again.  

Joe: All right, guys. You can get the show notes of everything that we just did and the transcript at RealEstateInvestingMastery.com. RealEstateInvestingMastery.com. You get the show notes, the transcripts, the links that we've talked about, the books we talked about. It'll all be in there. You can also, again, check out Bob's sites and his stuff NoteCarry.com. Shoot him an email, Bob@notecarry.com and I appreciate you all. We'll see you later. Thanks a lot.