Episode 573: From No Money, No Credit, to a Better Path in Real Estate with Chris Prefontaine

Welcome to the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast, your source for actionable, real-life, practical investing advice. Each week we help you make a quantum leap somewhere in your business, your finances, and/or your life. Subscribe, leave a rating and review, and learn more at smartrealestatecoachpodcast.com. All right. Welcome to the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast, where we cut through the noise and show you how to actually get deals done. In today's market. I'm Chris Prefontaine, and if you're serious about creating income and wealth at the same time through real estate, you're in the right place. I wanted to chat a little bit about what we have coming up, but also what I'm seeing as sort of a gap. What I mean by that is this: the biggest thing separating you from your next deal is not another strategy. It's not. It's not another skill set. It's none of that. It's clarity. You guys are going to go, okay, that sounds a little fluffy. Everything else that you can possibly get from us or anyone else is going to support the clarity, plain and simple. Think about this. What if I told you that you're probably, and I don't care what level you're at from a skillset, but what if I told you that you personally are probably not like 2 or 3 years away from total financial freedom? Whatever that might mean for you. I know that differs for everyone, right? And you're probably not even 3 deals away. You might be 1 moment of clarity away. See, we just got out of our Deal Lab, literally as of the day I'm filming this, it was the last 3 days before today. And I can't stress enough how people had the light bulbs going off going, yeah, like it's not the deal, it's not the skillset, it's not the deal structure. It's this clarity. And I can tell you after coaching literally thousands of investors over, I'm coming up this September on 35 years in the biz in some shape, form, or fashion, that that clarity becomes one of the biggest lessons I've learned in hindsight. And what the reason most investors stay stuck is certain you is certainly not because you're lazy and it's not because you're incapable. It's not. It's not because you picked the wrong niche sometimes. Now I'm super biased, especially in this economy, and that's another whole podcast, for creative real estate. But too many of you are trying to build a business with kind of like random pieces. And again, I'm not poo-pooing what you're doing. Please don't take this the wrong way, but I am being really clear, really blunt, and really to the point after 35 years of seeing this stuff. So get this, let me give you an analogy. Imagine buying like a 1,000-piece puzzle. We just bought— our daughter Kayla had a— just broke her femur in a horseback— terrible horseback riding accident. And we bought her this 1,000-piece puzzle. Can you imagine if we walked into her house? This just happened. And we did buy her a 1,000-piece puzzle. Can you imagine me going into her house, dumping all the pieces on the table, and then taking the top of the box and throwing it away, and then come back 3 days later and go, hey, how can you even finish it? Yet that's exactly how most investors approach this business. Can you imagine that? It sounds silly, right? But it is. And I know because I lived it. Let me bring you back there. If you haven't read my book, I'm going to give you a chance. Well, I'll give you right now. Go to 3paydaysbooks.com and get the free books if you haven't read it. And if you haven't, or as a refresher, when I went into February of '08, like you flipped the light switch, Shit hit the fan, and my ego was trash. My confidence was trash, and so, and I'd been in business seventeen or eighteen years already, but it still was. So for the next few months, which I thought it would be over, that led to four years. All I did was like I dabbled with pieces. I dab like I literally would go, oh, like does this look good? I don't know if I can do that. Oh, it's like I don't know if I can do that. And that went on and on and on. Now, during that time, I finally came out the other end, obviously. And I only had one choice. For me, I wish I could tell you it was some brilliant brainstorm, but it wasn't. It was, shit, I have no money. I have no credit. Definitely not financeable. They wouldn't want my personal signature. So I set up new rules and said, okay, this is how I need to buy. And then the word creative finance just hit me in the head because that's what I defined as my kind of my buy box, right? My rules. I could have gone back into direct sales. I had built some sales training programs for companies that wanted me to do that, traveled all over the world with my wife Kim and did that. It was fun, but it was definitely a gerbil wheel. I could have gotten a job. I hadn't had a job since my father sold the company in 1991 and I got fired. But instead I did this. From all the pieces I saw, I finally got my head out of my butt and said, all right, I'm going to just change the way I You know, it doesn't matter if you're brand new to real estate or if you've been doing this for several years or a whole bunch of years. I learned the hard way back during the crash that doing creative deals is much better. It's a much better path in real estate in general than, let's call it, the old way— getting paid once, using banks, signing personally. 3 paydays, getting paid 3 times on a deal, it's better. 3 ways, not one. Money now, money over time, and money long term. And I don't care if you're in an up, down, sideways market, it doesn't matter. You can and should operate with the utmost confidence. There's literally nothing I love more than helping people create systems and simple systems and processes to become massively successful with our 3 Payday System, and doing so in literally any market and doing it geographically literally anywhere. So if you've been learning and learning and listening and studying and not taking action, I'm telling you after going through it myself, it's costing you tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars by not taking action on the 3 paydays the way you should be getting paid. Many of the people that were brand new, just like you, that joined our community have fast-tracked their startup. Now, I mean, wouldn't that be ideal? If you said, okay, should I go fast or slow? Should I take action now or later? It's costing you too much money to wait. Each one of you are at a point in your life, I'm sure, where you want things to be easier. You want things to be better for you and your family. You probably realize that you not only want more, but you deserve more. In this life. So, to be able to give your family everything they want, build a legacy for you personally too, and to have time freedom to start enjoying life, frankly, whatever else you're seeking. And for some of you, now's the time, for example, to just focus on security. Maybe it's building a big solid bank account for retirement. We take these things super, super seriously, and it's my life's biggest reward to help you achieve them. I want to give you a free discovery session with our team. It's free. It's 15 or 20 minutes. You have zero to lose and everything to gain. And to understand how you might fit into the 3 Payday System that we've done now in over 80 markets as of this filming, go to smartrealestatecoachpodcast.com/discovery for a free call with our team. smartrealestatecoachpodcast.com/discovery. Because it's not whether or not you can do it or whether or not you fit. You can do it. It's whether or not you'll take action and do what it takes. And we can guide you through that process. That's smartrealestatecoachpodcast.com/discovery. We'll see you soon. And that's powerful. And that wasn't, again, I'm not taking credit for that. That was people I spoke to going, you got to just change your mindset on this. And I'll go back to Deal Lab now since we just came off of that for the last 2 or 3 days. The biggest lesson I learned from Deal Lab, we had small ones, 17 people in the room, sometimes we have as many as 30. And I can tell you, I heard something over and over and over and over and over again. This drives me nuts, by the way. So, if this is you out there, please, please, please never say it again and do something about it. But I heard things like, okay, I'm going to start when you fill in the blank. I heard things like, when I'm done these 2 seminars, when I'm done X coaching program, when my kids blank, when this, when this, when this, I'm not ready. I'll do it when. And then it's unbelievable because readiness doesn't come from waiting, guys. It doesn't. It's good. In fact, it gets worse, right? What I want to definitely get across today, if nothing else, in this solo, I wish you could have been at Deal Lab last week, but even bigger and better is being live with us at our live annual event, which we've done since 2016. And that's, I think it's the 11th year coming up, September of '26, 11. And I tell you, because we've been running this thing since 2016, it's a long time. You know how many lives we've changed? This is like at a deeper level for me and it really, really hits, it really hits home for me. Here's why I say how many lives. Every single time we As a family or one of our students does a deal with 3 paydays, even if it's 1 payday with one of our exits. But the fact is, every time we do a deal, we affect 3 lives. 3. Our own, the buyer, the seller. And if it's a student deal, because we do a lot of student deals, we participate in them, it's 4 lives because the student got affected. See, this isn't one of the— I bring this up a lot, but this isn't a predatory niche in creative. It's a win-win-win niche. And I've walked, I've literally watched people walk into our annual event in Deal Lab to the same, to the same concept, walk into that room, like literally terrified to make a seller call and leaving, believing accurately, accurately believing this. It's true that they could build a business. And that's, that's why we keep doing this, guys. I'm telling you, that's what keeps us rolling. That's entirely different than any other mentor out there right now. Yes, I know I'm being broad. I know them all. We're in groups with over 200 coaching companies. Most of them want to sell you a bunch of crap and move to the next person, right? And that's how we're different at our events. Let me be very clear with this. This year's 3 Paydays live event, there are no outside speakers. That means there's no pitches from 10 different people. There's not just going to be theory thrown at you. You're not paying. You don't come to an event— by the way, I'm going to show you how to come to our event for free— but you don't go to events and get a ticket when you pay for a nut to sit through a bunch of sales presentations. Yet a lot of you guys do that. I don't know if you just get hyped up and you go to these events and you don't know they're doing it, or you go, I'll deal with that. Why do you do that? And why wait till you feel ready? Let me save you a bunch of years. Okay? I said I've been at it 35. I don't want you to go that long, but let me save you a bunch of years. Ready doesn't come first. As I said earlier, clarity comes first, then action comes second, confidence comes last. That's the order, guys. Let me say it again. So readiness doesn't come first. It's clarity. Okay. I'm clear that I can predictably and profitably and having fun do this. Clear. I see the path, right? Then you take action on that, and then your confidence begins to stack with our help. That's the order. And if you want to experience this, I'm keeping this short for you today. If you want to experience this for yourself, join us in September. It's Three Paydays Live. That's the number three. threepaydayslive.com/podcast. That's it. It's very simple, guys, because. I want you to be able to— uh, regular price is like almost $500. I'm going to let you get into that event for a seat fee that's refundable when you show up, and the seat fee is less than $100. There's a change for you by hearing the Center Podcast. Isn't that cool? You pay a refundable seat fee, so I know you're serious, for like $97 or $99, whatever it is, and you get that back when you come to the event. 3paydayslive.com/podcast. All right guys, I could keep going. Let me tell you something that I promise you, it will be the best time spent for you. And I want you to be able to come up and look me in the eye and say, you were right, thanks for having me come to this amazing 3-day event. And I promise you, you will. And if you don't, guess what I'll do? You're there for free anyway because we're going to give you your seat fee back, but I'll reimburse you for your travel if you do not Sincerely think that was the best 3 days that you could have spent in the entire year of 2026. To do what? To create potentially a decade or more of income. All right, guys, that's it today. No fluff as usual. Definitely no theory, just real-world stuff. If you're ready to implement what you're hearing, head over to 3paydayslive.com/podcast. And we're going to help you build this the right way. See you next week. All right guys, super cool announcement. On the 27th through the 29th of September, we have our 3 Paydays Live. I'm talking no gurus there, no fluff, just a proven system that builds wealth, literally. Join us on this 3-day event, guys. It's in person, there will be no virtual. We're going to show you literally step by step how deals are constructed, how we negotiate and solve challenges for sellers and how we close those deals without banks or credit. Super important when I came out of the crash. You'll see real deals, real numbers, and exactly how the 3 Paydays model creates multiple streams of income from just one deal. I'm talking averages of $45,000 to $350,000 per deal, all 3 paydays. Just one or a handful of these can change your year, guys, and certainly create a total breakthrough by the year 2027 for you. You're going to leave this event super clear and confident about how to speak with sellers, how to structure offers that are win-win, and how to think through deals literally in real time. We've made some really cool adjustments this year too. We've built in hands-on workshop learning experiences and extended the Q&A after each section and some other really cool experiences so you can actually do deals when you leave, not just conceptually understand it, but do deals. And lastly, we've removed all outside speakers, back to our roots, just the family team. You're going to hear from people who have recently closed deals and how they made it happen, and that's important because association with others and proximity really, really matters and can and will change your trajectory. If you're serious about totally replacing your income or adding a really cool supplemental income and building some long-term wealth, this is where it becomes real, guys. 3 Paydays Live. It's led by our family team and our coaches, all who are in the trenches every single day, every single week. Again, no outside speakers selling you stuff, none. Just go to 3paydayslive.com/podcast to learn more and to claim your spot. We'll see you there. All right, thanks for tuning in to the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast. If you got value from today's episode, guys, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a future future episode. It literally takes one nugget to access some of the things we're doing. And when you're talking the amount of the size rather of the paydays, it's an opportunity cost that you can't let go. So don't miss an episode. And for goodness' sake, share it with someone who needs to hear it. If you're ready to find your best path for getting started on your real estate investing journey in general, head over to smartrealestatecoach.com/getstarted. We're going to help you take the guesswork out of your next See you in the next episode.