In this group coaching session, host Speaker A interviews real‑estate investor Raj Keller about a recent subject‑to/lease‑purchase transaction in McDonough, Henry County, Georgia. Raj, a serial entrepreneur originally from Canada, explains why he entered real‑estate investing, how his two virtual assistants generate leads from expired listings, and the specifics of the deal: a $297,000 purchase price, $265,000 existing mortgage, a $23,000 seller‑financed balloon due in 48 months, and a projected resale price of $321,000. He walks through the cash‑flow model—$1,490 monthly mortgage payment (taxes & insurance included), $1,950 rent (tenant pays insurance), yielding roughly $410‑$488 monthly cash flow, a $32,000 “payday‑one” profit, and an estimated total profit of about $68,000 over four years after accounting for principal paydown and the seller‑note payoff. Raj also details operational expenses (approximately $300/week for the VAs), his lead‑generation metrics (≈240 calls/day, 5‑10 follow‑up calls, 4‑5 appointments weekly), and the budgeting process used to scale the business. The conversation ends with Raj sharing three key takeaways—own the driver’s seat in negotiations, stay organized with paperwork and follow‑ups, and conduct property walkthroughs to boost closing chances—followed by audience questions about premium pricing, VA costs, and deal timelines. The session serves both as a case study of a profitable subject‑to strategy and a practical guide to building a repeatable real‑estate acquisition system.
Chapters
Awesome job, Raj. Let's go ahead and give him a nice round of applause. That's— I know that's why you do it. You do it for the applause, Raj, not for the money. We do it for the applause.
My name's Raj Keller. I'm, uh, what we call outside the perimeter of Atlanta, Georgia, uh, a little town called Marietta-Kennesaw, the suburb. And, um, joined here recently, Well, I did. We did our first, uh, meeting with you guys in June, right? And, um, I'm 6'6 and I've got several of my own businesses. Actually, I'm sitting in my brewery right now. That's why you see the, uh, the rafters behind me. So, um, several own businesses and we got really interested in getting into, into the real estate side and we love what the Wicked guys were doing. And so we kind of got aligned with them and, you know, we're looking forward to making this successful.
Love it. Love it. Yeah. I mean, Knowing that you have a bunch of other businesses. Let me see if I'm going to get feedback. You're echoing again. Yeah, I know. It's all good. So I muted you, Rise. I just, I have to mute you when I'm talking. So knowing that you have a bunch of other businesses, why did you decide to get into real estate?
So, you know, I've been doing this a long time, businesses in general. to buy and sell businesses. And I— the ROI on real estate, the way you guys have it structured, is really off the charts, um, for the amount of time and effort. And everything's hard when you start because it's new, but the return on investment is really, um, exponential. It's really hard to match it. So yeah, based on kind of what we're seeing. And I'll be quite honest with you, you know, United States is a country of real estate. Real estate and sports, they love it. And I don't think it's ever going away. And I think this is a great time in our economy, even though there's a headwind to be in this business. So checked off a lot of boxes.
Got it. And if you guys don't know, right, you're not from America, or at least how long have you been here in America? So I think that we actually have a couple people. Yeah. So I grew up.
Yeah, I grew up here. Yeah, I grew up in Canada. Been here since '98. So came down here on a merger. We merged two companies and yeah, been down here since '98. Fell in love with Atlanta and never left.
Love it. Love it. Very good. Very good. Let's let's go ahead and dive into the deal that which you have. I'm gonna go ahead and pull up my screen and. While we do that, if you wouldn't mind, while I pull up my screen, just give us some background. Where'd you find this lead? Or yeah, where'd you find the lead? What's the motivation? And then we'll go from there.
Sure. So we kind of jumped all in on this thing, and I've got a couple of VAs that work the phones for us. And our VAs found this on an expired listing, and they gave me the feedback on the lead. We contacted this seller and had a conversation with him. And he just basically was a little overleveraged. And he was a little bit upside down, he said, on carrying this thing and needed to get out of the deal. So, you know, we kind of found it based on the processes and the steps that you guys had given us initially. So that was the motivation. The motivation was he had to kind of get Get the burden of the payments out from under him, and move on to his next thing. So that was his motivation.
Got okay.
Got okay.
So debt relief, right? So this guy's looking for some debt relief. It sounds like he's actually does he own multiple pieces of real estate? I forget. And and I keep muting you and unmuting you. So no, no, that doesn't.
No, you're good, man.
Oh, I just muted you again. Tech, tech guide.
I said my honest answer is I think he wanted to be a real estate person and just realized it was a little more complicated than he thought. And when he got into it, he realized it's probably not what he wants to do. And I think he's trying to unravel it. So it's my personal opinion.
And I know that you've started in real estate recently, at least with Smart Real Estate Coach. What does your current business look like? I know you have— it's you and your son, I believe, as you guys are running multiple other businesses. But like, what's your lead flow look like? I really want to paint the picture of— and so that way people know, because there's some key point or some key metrics that people need to get to on a consistent basis if they want to find success. So where are you guys at? Like, on a weekly basis, how many leads you pulling in? Like, how many appointments? How many offers? Where are you at? And he's got a mute.
Yeah, so we have 2 VAs, they're banging the phones, um, they're doing 10 hours a week pulling lists from the various lead sources that we use for expired listings, for sale by owner, and pre-foreclosures. They're probably running 240 calls a day for us. Between James and I, we're probably doing follow-up calls of somewhere between 5 and 10 a day. Of which 3 or 4 are closer to a layup than hard work, for lack of better words, right? We're dropping them into our various funnels. Um, you know, we're going on 5 appointments this week.
I think—
I believe, knock on wood— we're gonna have another taken on Monday, and then we're waiting for one more I hope will drop. Um, so our goal is to be somewhere in the 20 to 30 taking range annually once we get our systems and processes up. But, you know, we're still learning, right? Um, we, we were still making some mistakes on our calls. Um, I don't think we're as aggressive as we need to be on the follow-ups. And as we get better at this, you know, we're getting more excited about it. So a couple hundred calls, uh, 5 or 6 to 10 callbacks a day, 4 or 5 appointments. That's kind of our run rate right now. So.
Love it. All right, love it. All right, let's walk through some basics. Uh, what's the deal? What's the deal type?
Um, so this is the 3/2 out of an area called, uh, in Henry County, McDonough, Georgia. And, um, we bought it for $297,000. Tell me what you would need. So yeah, uh, it was an expired listing.
Okay. What type of deal? What type of deal is it?
It's a subject-lease purchase. Yeah, it's a subject.
Yeah. Okay. Debt. How much is the debt?
$265,000.
How much equity is in this deal?
So for him, there's $23,000.
How is that being paid?
It's on the back end in the 48th month.
48 months.
Yeah.
Okay. So just so we get the breakdown of this deal so far, I know I apologize for the echo. So bought a sub-2, debt on the property is $265,000. He then had— the seller then has a $23,000 seller financing. Position on the property at no monthly payments, no interest, just a balloon due in 48 months. So just so we're clear, like, you don't have to— uh, Rise is not going to have to pay off the debt on the property in 48 months. He just needs to pay off the, uh, $23,000 seller financing note in 48 months. And that's just important because we're going to talk about the exit on rent-to-own. I know, I don't think we have a buyer yet. This is just taken. But to know down the line that $23,000 is the only thing that needs to be paid off and could extend this deal significantly further, that creates multiple other strategies associated with what Raj wants to do as his portfolio continues to grow. All right, go ahead. And what are we on the market for?
Uh, we're thinking $321,000. That's it.
Are you in the process right now?
Yeah, yeah, Nick's right in the middle of all this.
Awesome, awesome. Okay, so let's, uh, let's, uh, just do projected paydays then. What do you have projected? What do you have projected for payday 1?
$32,000.
Okay, so that's 10% over time. What's the monthly payment?
The monthly payment is $1,490.56 to the mortgage, which includes taxes and insurance. Got it.
How much is principal?
Uh, the principal paydown is $488.68.
Love it, love it. What do we have on the market for our buyer?
Say that again. You cut out. Sorry.
What are what are what are we renting the property for?
Uh, so we think we're gonna get nineteen fifty a month.
All in? All in. Including taxes? No taxes.
No, nineteen fifty, and they're gonna pay insurance.
Plus what? Plus what? I'm sorry.
Plus insurance. Okay.
Yep.
Yep.
Uh, so the expected cash flow is how much?
So we expect cash flow to be, uh, hold on, it is $400-something, $488. Uh, excuse me, I'm sorry, that's the equity down. Just a little over $410 a month.
Okay, that's $48. All right, expected cash flow, $19,680. Okay, okay. Bought the property for $298,000.
$298,000.
$297,000. Yep, $297,000. Paid— we sold for $321,000.
Yep.
So, so, $23,000, correct? And equity, equity premium, premium, principal paid out, principal paid out, $488,000. That's $48,000.
$23,456.
Okay, okay, we already collected $32,000.
Which gives us a back-end profit of around $47,456. It may be a lot lower.
Let's do it. Let's do it. We get $23,047.
Yeah, we added that $104,128 all in.
Well, let's do the math here. All right, so you got— we got $23,000 premium, right? Because we got, uh, $321,000 minus $297,000, that's $24,000 in premium. You're $24,000, and then we're going to go ahead and add $4,000 plus you get 2— another $24,456 in principal paydown, which gives us $48,000— uh, $48,456. Now we're going to subtract the $32,000 as we've already collected it, which gives us $16,456 on the back end. Now we're going to go ahead and we're going to add them all up. So we collected $32,000 As a payday one, we got $19,000 as cash flow, and we got $16,000 on the back end. So if we add it all up, $19,680 plus $3,200, you get $68,136 on a A 48-month deal. Nice little 68. So not, not too shabby little deal. And if we can make some adjustments later on, uh, on this deal to create longer term, and we get even more profit. Um, out of curiosity, let's— I'm going to ask you, Raj, um, a question or two, and then anybody that has questions, just go ahead and click raise your hand. With a button that we can go and ask Raj specifically about. How do you got the deal? Where you got the deal? And how is the process? Like any questions in regards to— this is why we do this, so that way you guys can see how the process works and how to get further in the deal. So Raj, now you've gone through this process, out of curiosity, like what was your biggest learning lesson or aha by going through this?
Um, so a couple, a couple of, uh, answers to that. The first one was to remember you're in the driver's seat. There's a reason why they're calling you back or connecting with you. Couldn't sell their house, whatever the motivation is. Don't forget that. The second part is be really organized in your process, sending them the purchase and sale agreement, doing the follow-ups. It just builds a high level of confidence. Between you and the seller. It really shows that you know what you're doing. And then lastly, if you can get the walkthrough in the property done, it probably will double your ability to close the deal.
Love it. Who has questions for Raj?
Gotcha.
Gotcha.
Roger, what was it listed for? So he was originally listed for $315,000.
Okay.
Yeah.
Any other questions? Go ahead, Stephanie. I just was curious, you dove in right away with 2 VAs, and I'm just wondering, for 10 hours a week, What is that running you, if you don't mind? Uh, you just got— you're muted, Raj. I feel like they're like, you have feedback coming from there.
I got you. Um, it's around $300 a week is what I pay those VAs. So my attitude going into this was it's a full-time business for us. So as part of growing a business, you have overhead and expenses, right? And we just run it like we run our other businesses. We set up a budget, we did a forecast. Plug the numbers in and said, all right, what's it going to take for us to scale this business to hit the numbers that we want? And that's kind of how we came up with those numbers initially. Not sure where to get started? Go to smartrealestatecoach.com/getgoing for free books, strategy calls, and a whole bunch more.
We're going to help you get going the wicked smart way.
We've been after this for over a decade doing exactly that.
Rico asked, what is premium? So when you purchase a property, Right. You're going to buy it for a certain price. And because our buyers are willing and able to pay a premium on the property because you're selling it on rent-to-own, somebody that can't qualify for a bank loan, we're able to then raise the price. We then sell the price at a higher purchase price. And with this deal, we sold it for $24,000 higher than we bought it for. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Awesome.
Very good. Good to see you, Enrico.
Yeah.
Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well, Raj, awesome job. Looking forward to seeing that second taken. And let's shift gears. Hey, Raj. Hey, Raj.
Yeah. How long was this before the listing expired?
I had to mute you again. It's coming from your end.
No problem. A little over 60 days, I believe it was on the market. And what was that? And what was that monthly mortgage payment? I'm sorry, cut out. Say that again. What was the monthly mortgage payment? The monthly mortgage payment including taxes and insurance is $1,490. Got it. Got it.
Okay.
Okay.
Hey, Preston. Good to see you.
You too, buddy. You too, buddy.
All right, awesome job, Raj. Let's go ahead and give him a nice round of applause. That's— I know that's why you do it. You do it for the applause, Raj, not for the money. We do it for the applause. Thank you.
