"How can you CONQUER as a Private Money Lender in 2025?"

If you haven't heard of him, you will today. Phenomenal real estate investor. One of my favorite shows ever. I got five pages of notes. I'm not kidding. I took notes the whole time. I got five pages of little handwriting notes. So if you're listening, folks, you can make some dough.

Can anybody get into this? Who's motivated? 1000%. Why aren't more people flocking into this? This is the formula right here. It's called subject here, bro, you're making me sick right now. Why would the bank let me do that?

But this guy seemed to come out of nowhere. And he's got an unbelievable following tribe. He's got a top podcast, he's got the most popular TV show on A E called Triple Digit Flip. But what's even more impressive is is his heart to serve.

Pace Morby is the guy for all things real estate, and he does it all with something called creative financing.

It's going to be everything and anything you could ever want to know about creative financing. When I watch Pace, you know what I see?

I see a guy who got a.

Whole universe of humans who told him.

You can't do it that way. And he said, watch me.

Watch me. How about watch Get Creative podcast every Sunday night. We are back live, my friends, so thank you so much. Back when I took a pause on Get Creative was about a year ago, my son Phil was born. We were getting probably 1200 to 1500 live viewers coming in on YouTube every Sunday evening. Thank you guys for all the loyalty, all the love, the support, and all the questions, all the questions you guys have had along the way. We've had so much fun. I've done over 350 episodes of Sunday service, my original podcast, which then morphed into Get Creative. And man alive, we've had so much fun. This last year was all about me focusing on the first year of my last child that my wife and I are going to have. And so now that year is up and I told myself I'd wait a year. Get back to the live podcast on Sunday night, hang out with you guys, get to know new people, talk about their deals, what they're up to, how they're making money. And today we've got a special guest, our first guest in over a year, live on Sunday. And Laila will not disappoint. We will be talking about private money lending, AKA Gator method. And so she is in the Gator community. We'll be talking about those deals. A couple of things I want to let you guys know as Announcements number one. I do see the live chat. So guys, thank you so much for the love, the appreciation, the support. Remember, we will be back here every Sunday night probably for another five years until maybe I do have another child. I don't know, maybe I'm lying to myself saying that I'm going to have another, I'm not going to have another child. Who knows? I got a lot of text messages today, Sunday going into the week before Christmas and you get a lot of people that get, you know, they're wrapping up their year, they're talking about their year end goals, what they accomplished this year, what were their transformations. And I got a amazing text Message from a 26 year old friend of mine. I actually see him in the side chat. Joey Milanazzo, son of Angie and Dom Milanazzo. This young man, 26 years old, engaged, has done hundreds of sub two deals. Hundreds of sub two deals. He's a leader, a closer inside of our community, the sub 2 community and amazing guy. And although he's done hundreds of sub 2 deals, he's wholesaled them, he's wrapped them, he's fixed and flipped them and he's kept some of them in his portfolio. He just closed a $750,000 personal home with only $5,000 down to the seller. What an amazing deal. $750,000 purchase for him and his fiance as a 26 year old kid, guys. I even feel like a kid at 41 years old. Freaking amazing. $750,000 purchase. Shout out Joey Milanazzo. Proud of you brother. So proud of you. And guys, please let everybody know we are back. I will see you guys on Get Creative every Sunday night going forward. Six o' clock Arizona time. And I sure as hell hope that Donald Trump gets rid of daylight savings time. My word. Are you kidding me? This daylight savings samples. I got to tell you guys, Arizona time, they got to google it and figure it out. Arizona is one of two states in the nation that does not change our time every single year. Everybody else does. And so I say the same everybody else has to adapt. So sometimes it's East Coast 8 o', clock, sometimes it's East Coast 9 o'. Clock. So look it up. If the Trump presidency hasn't changed the game by this point, the only thing I care about is look Trump, it's easy. Just get rid of and abolish daylight savings times. We're not farmers anymore. The robots are taking over. If you're not jumping into real estate and lending money, you're going to get left behind man alive. And I continue to think about that over and over and over. And I feel like I have a duty to get back to this podcast, talking about the things I'm doing on a weekly basis. This week what I did is I worked on 11 of my team members, flew in from all over the country and we had our year end meeting and then our year beginning meeting talking about what do we want to accomplish in all of our individual businesses going into 2025. So I'll be releasing a YouTube video this week talking about what were those goals, what goals are we setting, what assets are we focusing on, what is our portfolio doing and what am I excited about? What am I afraid of? And honestly guys, I am so damn afraid of AI. And I know it sounds crazy, but the more I research, the more videos I watch, the more articles I read, the more everything I get into, I start realizing that it is so much more advanced than I thought it was originally. And I am so grateful that I am not in anything else but real estate. I am so grateful that I'm in real estate because I feel like it's the one safe harbor is either you're A owning real estate, B, you are lending on real estate, or C, you're fixing and flipping real estate somehow, some way. It is one thing that the robots cannot take over right now is they cannot own real estate. But I can promise you in five years from five years ago, guys, my podcast was actually a 1-800-call-in number. I'm not joking, I'm not exaggerating. 1,800-call-in number. The only way you could listen to this podcast was calling into a 1-800-number. Things have changed. I can just livestream. I've got cameras all around me, I can switch it up, I got iPads, all these cool things. In five years it will be impossible to comprehend the changes that are going to happen in regular nine to five jobs, regular finance. I think the rich are going to continue to get richer as it always has historically been. I think the people that are not playing the game of real estate are going to get left behind in a big, big way. And I'm grateful that I have the knowledge of creative finance that I can impart on you guys and show you guys how to get into the game. Multifamily, single family, land development, whatever it is that you want to get into without banks and without credit and without any of that stuff. So thank you guys for tuning in to get creative. We will be having an Amazing next 12 month run. Thank you, thank You. Thank you, thank you. So today we've got a special guest. Layla Zayed is with us today. How you doing? Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So today we've got a special. She's got two devices playing right now. One for speaker, one for something else.

But I think I'm doing great. Pace. I'm so happy to be here. There we go. I was listening to you on the other line. Are you there?

How are we? Can you hear me right away? No lag.

There you are. Can you hear me now?

I can hear you. Yes.

I can't hear you at all.

Well, you got it. You got to change it up. Everybody can hear me. We're good. So you got to just change your speakers and whatever you're doing. So, guys, while Layla figures out her audio, we will just. I want to give a couple of shout outs. Tracy Koa, good to see you. We got Larry Parsons in the house. Eric. Are you kidding me? You know, it's interesting. One of my favorite emails I received this entire year was actually from Alexis Jimenez. Alexis Jimenez sent me this amazing email. I read it. Alexis, believe it or not, I read it to my team this week in our team meeting. I was telling the team, guys, I know that you don't see all of the things that you're doing. You know, you're doing the job, you're working hard, you're doing what you believe is the right thing all the time. But sadly, I'm the lucky one that gets to talk to everybody that we get to change their lives. And Alexis, Amanda sent this amazing email just talking about how his life has changed and transformed so much by being part of this community. And he sent me a three paragraph email talking about how amazing his life is today. He was, I don't know what he was doing. I think he was doing like a year end planning thing and he was just reconciling how he had changed. Wrote me this amazing email and I was able to read it to my team and I had a couple of girls on my team cried and were like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing. Thank you so much. So shout out, Alexis. I appreciate it, guys. If you ever want to send me those messages, please DM me. Please send me anything that you want. I will read them out loud on Get Creative. Would love to do that. Now while Layla's figuring out her technology, this is. I'm going to give you guys a little business tip. It's much harder to run a live podcast than it is to just record a podcast. Right. When these kinds of things happen, you've got a live audience that you've got to entertain. And so what I've got to do is I've got to make sure that Taya on my team, for people that are not podcast savvy, I've got to make sure that Tay on my team sits down, walks through with our guests, because our guests are not people that are out there actively podcasting. Our guests are people that are actively doing the business and they're newer. Right. I think in a lot of ways, you don't necessarily want to learn from me. I think in a lot of ways, you want to learn from people that maybe have learned from me in the last couple of months or maybe the last year and have transformed and overcome some of the things that you're currently faced with. Right. Maybe fear, maybe. What's that next step? What did they do? Oh, I should do that, too. Those types of guests typically are not super savvy on the tech side, and so you're going to run into those types of issues. So as I'm waiting for Layla to come back in here, I want to talk to you guys about a couple of things. I'll be focusing on going into 2025, and we'll talk more about this maybe on next episode and the episode after that as well. But my team, some of the best deals we did this year were one, I'll tell you two quick stories. One of them was.

I did a loan for a seller that was in foreclosure, somebody that was actively in foreclosure, and we were dealing with, how do we make money on this foreclosure situation? How do we make money on somebody who wants to keep, you know, living in their house, doesn't want to lose, they don't want to sell their house because they don't want to leave their house. It's their forever home. We made 137, $138,000 on a deal where we helped the seller stay in his, not buy the home and keep it. And so I'll walk through that structure today while we're waiting for Layla and help you guys out with a little bit of knowledge. And then I had another deal this year that I really enjoy doing. We're going to continue to do more and more of them. I was doing tons of them back in 2015, 16, 17, 18, and 19. And then I changed it up. And what that was is that strategy is buying properties subject to or on seller finance, owning those properties, and then turning around and Selling those on lease options. And so I'm going to talk about that today. Break down some whiteboard videos for you guys so we can have some fun. And if my screen goes black, just so you know, it is my whiteboard, not just my screen going black. So here is a deal that I did this year. I'm really proud of and really happy with the fact that my team will probably do 50 to 100 of these next year. So we'll talk about how do these deals get structured. Okay. And how do I make money on them more than one time? Multiple. Multiple times I make money on these deals. So check this out. Have a seller. The seller's name is Doug. And the seller, Doug, decides, hey, I'm gonna sell my house. I bought it in 2022, which means he does not have a lot of equity, which means he owed 406 on a property that was worth basically 406, right? So when he sells that property, he's actually gonna have to write a check to get rid of that house. And so what we ended up doing is I came along and I worked with the real estate agent. I said, hey, real estate agent who's representing him? Her name is Heather. Some of you guys have heard this story. A couple months ago, when I got this deal done, I said, hey, Heather, I'd love to buy this property subject to. My name is Pace, and I buy properties just like this, and I can take over that property mortgage. Heather says, okay, well, I want my commissions paid. Great. Well, what's your commission? She says, $7,000.

Cool.

Happy to pay the commission. I'll tell you guys where that money came from in just a minute. Then I had. Doug wanted $17,000 to walk away from his mortgage. So what's cool is I got a $406,000 house with a 4% interest rate, and I did all the magical things. I had no cash in the deal. I know this seems weird for people listening to this for the first time. They say, what do you mean, no cash pays? You gave the seller 17,000 and you gave the agent 7,000. How did you do that without cash? Well, we'll talk about that in just a second. Believe me, I'll get to it. Then. Number two is I had absolutely no credit check. Nobody on my team had a credit check. Nothing whatsoever. I had no bank records. Nobody asked for my bank records. Nobody said, hey, give me your W2 income. I want to see, what does it look like at your job? What's your W2 look like? All of those types of Things. Nothing, nothing, Nothing. Now I. Then also. Ooh, this is great. I love this. We'll get to this. Kevin Coleman, I'll answer this question for you a little bit later. Thank you so much. I appreciate this. I promise you. I like, I. I like this. Julia. Maya Moya, I will answer that question for. For you as well. Okay.

Thank you so much. I don't know that Lila will actually be able to make it tonight. I think her technology is not working, so I'm just going to end up going on without her, guys. We'll have her come back as a guest another night, and we'll make sure that she'll come back. We'll tell her story. So again, this house, no cash, no credit, no bank records, no W2, none of that stuff. And the other thing that blows me away is that I can do this without any tax returns. Like, I can literally go years and years and years and years and years without actually filing my taxes. I'm not saying that I don't file my taxes. I definitely do file my taxes. I just don't need to show tax returns. I don't need to show a W2. I don't need to show credit history. I don't need to show any of those things to take over somebody's mortgage. Subject to. Now, of course, I have lots of other videos on the YouTube channel. So you guys are watching this for the first time. Feel free to go in there and go. What is subject to. I've got full white whiteboard breakdowns of everything that that that is. So what's cool is I was able to come in, help this seller out, get them paid the $17,000. They needed this. The agent got paid $7,000 commission. Okay, great. So I went and I got a private money lender. So pace right here goes to a private money lender. Actually was somebody inside the sub 2 community. You guys are ever looking for private money lenders. Our sub 2 community has a lot of people that all they do is lend money as their main business. So I go to my private money lender and I say, I need $57,000. I'm going to pause for a second and let you look at that number. Like I said earlier, the agent, okay, and the seller only needed seller wanted 17,000 and the agent wanted $7,000. So what the heck did I borrow $57,000 for?

Well, this is how that breaks down. I paid the seller 17. I paid the agent 7. I then added a third expense, which was closing costs. So I hired a company named Creative Title. That's where I go to get all my real estate transactions done. You can go to just email mollyacemorby.com and say, hey, Molly, will you help me open escrow on my Creative Finance transactions at Creative Title? And she'll help you make sure that the right branch, the right person you're talking to can help you out with your sub two, your seller, finance, your lease options, all of those types of things. This is who I use. But it did cost money. Obviously, closing costs cost money. I'm hiring a title company to close escrow for me. That costs money. So Creative Title was my closing costs, and that was $5,000 to close this transaction. I then also, number four, I paid myself an acquisition fee, meaning I borrowed $15,000 from my private money lender to pay myself up front. This is how I build a portfolio and pay myself up front. Okay? So I paid $15,000 to myself. Now I'm at a total, okay, of 24 plus 20. So we're at $44,000. I have $13,000 left. And where that $13,000 went was just kind of miscellaneous. I paid for two months of payments. I paid for two months of HOA and utilities and all of those types of things. Basically just call it buffer. Now, what did I do with this house is what's so fun for me? What I love about this business is not only did I acquire a $500,000 home for $406,000, and I also got into the deal and got paid up front by bringing a private money lender to the table. So I'm all in. 400, let's say $63,000 on a $500,000 house. Now, here's what's fun. I turned around and I sold this house to another family on a lease option. So here I am now the owner of this property. I turn around and find a family that is less fortunate than me. Maybe somebody who gets paid under the table, or maybe somebody four years ago that lost her husband and is now a single mom with only one income. And even though she can afford the payments, her credit maybe is not so great. And so what I did is I ended up selling this property to her on a lease option. And the payment difference? Okay, My payment is $2,300 on the house. She pays us $3,000 a month. We make $700 per month cash flow, which is awesome. So let's talk about the benefits I get on this property. Number one, the first benefit is I got upfront fees.

Okay?

I have the upfront $15,000 that I made on this deal. Number two, I charged another upfront fee from this person who I sold the house to called an option fee. They paid us $7,500 for this kind of cool. Number three, I now make $700 per month.

Number four, when they actually execute and they actually buy the house for me, right now they're doing a rent to own or a lease option. I will make an additional $32,000. When they sell or they refinance or when they buy the house for me, I'll make another 32,000. Now, most of the time, those people actually don't end up buying the house. They lease it from me for five years or so. Then they decide they're not going to keep it and they hand the house back to me. I turn around and I resell it again on another lease option. Essentially, my average amount of money that I sell the lease option on a second turn is another $150,000 of profit. So all in all, one deal that nobody else could do will net me about $200,000 in my portfolio, in my equity growth, my net worth growth. Just one deal, one stinking deal will make you that kind of money. So it's super exciting to be able to be in this business. Super exciting to be able to see how we can make money doing this kind of stuff just on one deal. One deal. I made 15 grand up front. And so my team, we made a goal this coming year that we're going to do one of those deals per week. Okay? So, hey, look, Lila, we lost her. I don't know what's going on with her technology today, but we'll make sure that somebody gets on the team and kind of walks you through all of that kind of stuff.

Kimberly says, hey, I'd love to see if she could get back in the studio. I have not done anything, Kimberly, but make sure that I'm doing a live to make sure that she's promoted and we talk about her, we tell her story. I'm not in charge of her technology. I'm not charging in charge of what she was dealing with. I only have my two hands and they're controlling just the live stream that I'm in right now. Yes. This is so great. Frank on Guiano says, does the PML ask for cross collateral since the home does not have equity? So, Frank, the house actually we create equity, right. So when you're dealing with cash terms, the house doesn't have equity. But when you're giving somebody creative finance terms, you Create equity. I actually sold the house with equity involved. Those people gave us an option fee down. So technically the house does have equity. It has, after the PML it has about $32,000 in additional equity above and beyond. Now your question as well. Well, they can't sell it by cash. Well, that's not a problem. You turn around and sell it on another lease option. That's what we've done. This entire 11 years I've been in the game. So no. The answer is no. The private money lender did not ask that question. Great question though. Kevin. What do you think about AI making closings cheaper and less prone to mistakes? I think we're 15 years away from that happening. I own a title company, Kevin. Nobody's even remotely even touching this technology. It's not even remotely close. People are focusing on primarily dealing with customer service right now. Low hanging fruit like repetitive jobs. One thing I can tell you is there's not one real estate transaction I've ever done that is repetitive of another. That is not how it works. And so it's not even being touched. Nobody's talking about it. We talked about it like three years ago when NFTs were like a big deal and saying hey, we should tokenize this and we should do that. Nobody's done anything with it. Now. It doesn't mean somebody might not be in their garage working on this technology. But as far as I've seen and the conferences I've been to and the people I network, there's nobody actually working on this that would adopt this at any speedy rate. Because most of the challenges you're dealing with when you're at a title and escrow, you're at a closing. Most of the transactions you're dealing with that have problems are actually the quality of the data that they are pulling in a title report. So what is a title report? A title report is when I'm about to buy a property, the people who handle the paperwork transferring the ownership from the seller over to me. Those people are called the escrow officers. The escrow officer is going out and relying on data, public records like county recorder's office or hey, we're going to go and check out the corporation commission and see if this LLC has a lien on it. They're essentially checking and verifying ownership, they're verifying liens, they're verifying and reaching out to the irs. Hey, do you guys have any liens against this person? They're doing all of those things. That data is coming from multiple different locations and the county recorder's office is where the majority of that information comes from. So I'm going to say that again, the majority of the information is coming from the antiquated, barbaric county recorder's office. Now, the county recorder's office is not one system nationwide county. It is every county in the entire United States having their own system of recording documents. It is barbaric, it's antiquated and it's definitely ripe for disruption. But nobody's currently working on it at any large scale that would be adopted. Think about that. The federal government would have to adopt this nationwide for title companies to be able to catch up. So I think it's definitely going to change the game. But the adoption curve is probably five, seven, maybe even eight years out before we see any reasonable, not even reasonable before we see any meaningful change in the title and escrow game. Also, people make a lot of money. It's an insurance business. Basically title and escrow is actually selling insurance. A lot of people don't realize that the majority of the money is actually selling insurance policies. So I don't think they're going to change anything soon. And I think that there's so many other problems in real estate in terms of the affordability. I think there's problems with builders not being able to build properly and actually having problems with red tape at the county and red tape at the city and red tape in the state. I think the majority of the change and the disruption that's going to happen over the next four years is lifting the challenges that we all have as builders and fix and flippers from getting a permit. I'll give you a good example. Florida.

We'Ve. It's taken us about a year to get a demo permit in Florida. In fact, Florida is so hard to get a permit that there's full on companies that have been created to bring that service to people who are fixing flippers. Meaning, hey guys, I know how hard it is to get a fix and flip permit here in Florida. I will build a whole business that literally is just me sitting down in the city just jamming, jamming, jamming, jamming all their requests back down their throat. That doesn't exist in Phoenix, Arizona. Why? Because Phoenix, Arizona actually has a pretty good system for us going and getting a permit. If I buy a fix and flip today, I can have a permit to demo that property. Today it's $150 permit. I can get it over the counter. I don't have to have an architect, I don't have to spend A ton of money or time. It's 150 bucks and my team is demoing. We're good to go. I also, what's troubling in Florida is if you take six months to do a portion of your project and you don't, let's say you're waiting on a piece or you're waiting on a part and you don't have an inspection on your permit for, let's say six months, they will force you to go back and get all brand new permits even if you're a year into the project. Florida is. Those are the types of things that builders, flippers, developers are dealing with. Title and escrow is not the lowest hanging fruit. So will it change? Yes. Is it going to change anytime soon? No. And also what you're doing is you're barking up the tree of changing the way insurance companies run their businesses. I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. Okay, Julio, Julio says, what's the exit strategy to pay off the PML? The 50k? All Gators only want to lend on six months max, at 20 to 30% minimum. Julio, here's what I hear when you say stuff like gators only want this. Yeah, probably the four people you've spoken to, right? But when I'm building relationships with my lenders and I repeatedly do business with them, my lenders, a lot of them, there's categories, right? And in fact, I would give you guys one of the best videos of all time. If you guys go to YouTube and you just type in raise private capital, I'll do it for you guys to show you how awesome this is, it's one of the best videos I've ever created. I'll go to YouTube, I'll share this in just a second to show you guys which video it is.

But all you have to do, okay, is type in.

Pace Morby, raise private capital. And when you rate, when you type that in, you're going to get this really cool video that's literally four hours long. I know, I'm a lunatic, but I do believe in long form content because people really need the context. So again, Pace Morby, raise private capital. And you're going to see a video right here near the top that's 3 hours, 49 minutes. And what I do is actually break down the different categories of types of lenders. And so what you're doing is you're talking about gators. Okay, well, I don't just borrow money from gators, my friend. I borrow money from whales. I borrow money from dolphins. I borrow money from all sorts of people. Let's look at, see if there's another. Here's another one right here.

Dolphins. These are sharks. Okay. I also have swimmers, I have camels. I have all sorts of different avatars of different types of lenders. And so when you're just going after gators as your lender for long term stuff, this is one of your issues. Now if you guys want me to, what I'll do is I'll actually show you guys how to go out and find private capital. I actually have put together. I think right now I'm on class number seven. The average class. Class is eight hours long. Totaling right now I'm hovering around 50 to 65 hours of content that has been recorded for raising private capital. Course that I'm giving away for free. Now, that course, okay, that course is free. I give a. I don't. My community is paid. I don't want people in my community that haven't been vetted and haven't aren't committed. But courses, I'll give those away for free. I think information is not really the secret sauce. I think it's definitely one of the things that should inspire you. But information is not going to change your life. Action and collaboration and working with other people on a team is really what's going to change your life. That's really the biggest game changer.

In fact, one of the cool things we did the last couple of months, three months in a row, we built this thing called the no one Left behind challenge where actually took a bunch of newbies, thousands of newbies. I think it was 1100 newbies over the last three months and helped 1100 people get their first deal. How? Well, the way we did it is we actually put them on teams with people that knew what they were doing and closers like myself and people that knew how to generate leads, et cetera. So one of the things I would tell you to do is come in and join us in the no. 1 left buying challenge. I'm actually doing a training on how to join a team this coming Friday. So Friday night, I believe it's 5pm Let me give you guys the link in the side chat so you guys can also join a team. Okay.

Let me pull it up. Looks like we got Lila. She's back. Hey, are you back?

I am so back.

What was going on with your audio?

You know, blah, blah, blah, technology. Let's not even spend time on those shenanigans. Let's just.

Okay, cool. All right, well, good. I'M glad we caught you. Let's let me wrap up a couple of really quick questions and then we'll jump on all of that kind of stuff. Can you share with us how you find your buyers? Do you advertise or work with a realtor? So, Tracy Koa, who's also in sub 2 trace, if you go into my lease option class inside of sub 2, it's a 12 week class. You'll see in I think week 7 or week 8, I detail exactly how I find my lease option buyers. Now here's what's funny about this. I had somebody on my team, they were brand new and they were the one that was looking for the buyer. So I told my team member, I said, hey, you're gonna wanna be trained by me. Just go into the lease option course that I put together for the sub two community. Go in there and watch class six, maybe seven or eight. They said, okay, no problem. They said they did. And a month later they hadn't sold the deal. Two months later, they had not sold the deal. And I went back to them, I said, hey, have you watched the training in the lease option? They're like, no, I keep saying I'm going to. I'm like, you've wasted two months. What are you doing? And they're like, there's no way the answers are in the course. I go, yes, they're in the course. They go back into the course, they see exact steps, exactly what to do, exactly what to say, how to post, do all the things. And all of a sudden, two days later we found a buyer. So Tracy Koa, you have the answer to that inside of the sub two training. Go into the vault. Sub two vault or sub two course.com and you can go to the lease options training. But the answer is that particular real estate agent. Yes. Brought we, we found a real estate agent who represents buyers who are not traditionally financeable and we help them get into that home. So.

Day on day.

That's an interesting name. Deontay says, I want to join a team. Perfect. Let me give you, let's see, I think it's like join no lb dot com. Let me double check. Join. Yeah, there it is. It's joining N o l B dot com. I will give you guys the link in the side chat, but it's join n o l b dot com. That means join no one left behind dot com. And you can come in on the 20th and see how to join a team. All right.

What do we have? We have you. You can hear me perfectly Our audio's fixed. We're ready to rock and freaking roll, right?

Totally. 100%. You miss me, Pace?

Yes, I do, actually. You know, when we hung out in Maine, I was like, this lady's energy is so freaking dope.

I'm excited about hearing your story. So when we first talked in Maine, you came up to me and you said, pace, I just want to let you know I love being part of this community. I'm doing a ton of gator deals. I'm like, oh, my gosh, let me interview you. Let's talk about those deals. Let's talk about your business, let's talk about what you want to do in 2025. How are you expanding, etc. So let me ask the question that everybody wants to know. What does your business look like? What kind of loans are you issuing? What kind of deals are you doing? Is there any deal? You've been. You were super happy about the structure of it, the return, the timeframe, the communication of your borrower. Tell me a story.

I think, Pace, I've got to back that up a little bit, because what I'm really excited about is that I am a private money money lender. But that's pretty new to me as far as real estate investing goes. Private money lending is a new ish strategy for. For me, I have been. I done four HUDs before I got into private money lending, and it took me 14 years to do four HUDs.

So 14 years you were doing lending, meaning a HUD, for people that don't know what a HUD is, is a settlement statement or a closed transaction, meaning, hey, here's my receipt. Right. You'll see a lot of people on YouTube, me included. You should always ask for receipts. And the receipt of real estate. Is a hud, a settlement statement saying, hey, this person actually closed the deal. Here's public record showing that they did. Here's the document showing that they did. So in 14 years, you did four. Four deals.

Yeah, and I wasn't private money lending. I was buying properties on market. I was putting lipstick on them, and I was making great returns. 30 to 70% turns, but I want returns. But it was taking me forever. I didn't think it was taking me forever. I wasn't looking around and seeing anyone else doing it faster. I thought I was doing really good stuff. And. And I was. I was really. It was worth my effort.

It was. But today, when I am here in the gator community and hanging out with folks in sub two, I think about doing four projects in 14 years. And I think, man, that's. That's not what my pals are doing around here. They're moving so much faster than that. And that's why I got into private money lending, because I wanted to be involved in more deals. I didn't want to swing any hammers. And, you know, and I had some success with those projects. And, you know, and so I had money to put into real estate. I wanted a way to grow my capital, my investing capital more quickly. And that's what private money lending is for.

I love it. So you were doing. Were you doing slow flips where you're buying a property, holding it for multiple years, and then waiting for it to appreciate and then selling it, and that was essentially how you were getting the good returns. You were just waiting for the market to appreciate.

I'll tell you what I was doing. I was buying a crappy piece of real estate that nobody wanted that had been on market forever. And I was moving myself and my little kid into it, and we were living there, and I was slowly making the changes that needed to be made. I mean, the properties I bought, they weren't. I never took anything out of the studs. They needed furniture arranged in a better way. They needed better paint colors, they needed that yucky carpet to be ripped up, just this kind of stuff. And after, you know, making those changes, I was really able to maximize on that. Yeah. So I just. I just knew that real estate was the way I come from a blue collar family and background. And, you know, and I just knew that in addition to my W2, I was going to need to buy stuff. And, boy, was I right.

What did your parents do? What kind of blue collar stuff did they do?

So my father and my mother, they owned a diner when I was a little kid. So I was one of these diner kids that grew up, you know, pouring coffee and all that. The waitresses, they had those polyester uniforms, you know, with the like pastel blue and pastel.

Oh, yeah, I love that.

Remember those?

Yes.

Yep. And so in a small town in Maine, and then eventually they sold that. My father worked in a grocery store. My mother was a teacher. So it was a big deal, me going to college and, you know, and starting to get into the kind of work that I did, I came up the ranks on the sales side. And, you know, because I just love people. I want to know about business owners and business decision makers and what they're doing, what makes them tick, what makes them happy. So that's sort of been my path. But then I went through a divorce with a baby in diapers. And, you know, that was just financially annihilating. Forget what it did to our family. It was very difficult time, but financially, it was just devastating. I knew I had to do something. And that's when I bought my first five unit. I did it with an FHA loan, so I only had to come up with 3% on a piece of property nobody understood or wanted to take on. And that's how I got my start.

So you jumped into sales right after college. Is that something that you immediately were like, I'm already good at sales. I'm good at talking to people I'm gonna go crush.

Like, nobody says I wanna grow up and get into sales. Right. First I got into market, failed miserably. I got fired from my first two jobs. I just wasn't a good fit. You said when we met you were like, oh, you sorry. You got good energy. I'm gregarious, right? So are you. But, you know, I just. I didn't fit in in a market research firm.

So I got a sales job. It was totally by accident. Me and.

Selling. What was I selling? Yeah, I was selling ads. Advertising space. So, you know, you really kick butt at sales when you can sell an idea. And that's how I got my start. I didn't mean to sell. I thought, oh, I'll just get. I'll take this job for half a second and I'll meet some business decision makers, I'll impress a few, and someone will offer me a real job. I thought sales wasn't a real job, but, boy, I was wrong, you know? I mean, when you get to hang out with people and hear about what their goals are, and then find a way to help them, whether it's with your product or with someone else, you know, and just helping them find their way and grow their business. What a good time.

Yeah, I. When I learned sales is a service 15 years ago, I was like, wait, isn't sales supposed to be slimy and gross? And then you realize, like, if you actually have a product you believe in, it is a service to guide people down the appropriate path to get to their goals. And it honestly is not only financially the most rewarding, but I think when you realize you're good at is so emotionally fulfilling. Which is cool, right? You jumped into that. You did sales. The sad thing is you went through a divorce, then you come out the other side of that divorce going, okay, I need to buy something. So you get into a fiveplex. I imagine you were house Hacking, meaning you lived in one unit, you're renting out the other four, and you waited until that thing appreciated, and then you ended up selling that thing and rolling it into something else.

Or what did you do seven years later? 70% gain cash.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Did you roll that money into another project or what did you do with it? Did you live on it?

Yeah, so I cashed that out. I sold a few things that year. It was 2020, it was Portland, Maine, and boy, didn't everyone want to come live here. You know, folks were moving from New York, from Boston, they were just moving from major cities to Portland, Maine, for quality of life when everything shut down. So I offloaded some properties, I bought some with cash and, you know, and I just sort of threw some into some retirement accounts. And I didn't think twice about it, didn't think about it at all. I kept working my demanding W2 career. And it wasn't until a few years later when I was thinking I wanted to make a change at work, I started thinking about real estate again. And I started thinking about how much success I had had in this side hustle. The point of it was always wealth. What I was thinking when I bought that multi pace, I was thinking I had this sweet little boy, and I was looking at him and I was thinking, I'll be darned if this kid is going to be responsible for his mommy financially when he gets out of college, school and gets his, you know, career off the ground. Whatever he wants to do, I can't have him worrying about whether or not mom is eating cat food. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. I think sometimes the best catalyst for all of us is just being in that moment. Right. And I met somebody a couple of days ago that is struggling financially and not having the ability to find their purpose. And I said, your biggest problem is you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Everybody gave you what you needed. You've never had a moment of like a holy crap moment, meaning holy crap, if I don't change something, my son is going to have to take care of me. Holy crap. If I don't change something, you know, nobody's going to want to marry me or whatever it is. And thank goodness for that moment of realization of like, that jarring moment, that stark feeling of like, oh, my gosh, this little boy. I don't want to be one of those moms that is a burden on my child. I'm going to go and create wealth and I'm going to learn how to be a real estate badass. And so that's when you bought your first five plex?

That's right. That's exactly that, yeah.

Were you scared when you bought that first fiveplex?

No, not at all. I just. Listen, if I'm going to bet on a pony, it's me. You know, when I consider how far I've. I've come, I just look in the rearview mirror and I think about what I've figured out so far. And while I don't have the answers for what is in front of me, I'm not scared because I know that I. I'll figure it out. And if I can't figure it out, which is often the case, I come in, I get my friends. That's. That's what I love about real estate. And that's what really changed for me when I, you know, decided that I needed to get back into real estate investing but wanted to look into different strategies. I came out here looking for answers. I didn't know about these communities. I wasn't involved in them. I was a lone wolf out there. That's what my projects were. They were just a means to change my station. And it really worked. But I came out here to find other ways, and I'm so glad I did. I didn't even know private money lending was a thing until my 40s. I had never heard of it, you know, since I've looked into it and of course, private money lending has been around as long as money, you know, and that's, that's how banks begin. But we need it because.

If we don't have money, then I guess we're all just fighting to survive. But when we can loan money, we can do projects faster, we can do more projects. And that's what I love the most about what I've found out here. I've found community. I found people to work with. I've found that the more people there are in a deal, the more quickly the deal can move, the more money everyone can move, make, and we can improve communities and properties. And it is just a beautiful thing. I love the way you say it, Pace. You say I'm doing business with my. I'm not. I don't feel like I'm working. I'm hanging out with my friends. I'm doing deals with my friends.

Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, even like back in my construction days when I realized that I did my first private money loan, it was just covering somebody's payroll. And I was hesitant to give Reuben this guy a loan. And he says, pace, what's the difference? You loan your tools to me all the time. It's just another tool. I was like, dang it, that's so true. Like, whether I give you my paint sprayer or I let you use my generator, I'm giving you a tool that's valuable to me that I have accumulated, and there's no reason I wouldn't be willing to give you money to help you out with that particular thing. Okay, cool. And you'll pay me a return? Wow, this is insane. Like, why am I not doing this full time? It was the simple thought process of, you're already giving me loans with tools and equipment and all of these other things. Why wouldn't you just give me a loan with capital? It's just another tool. And then I started thinking about money as the most powerful tool of all. Because, of course, if you have money, you can buy all the other resources to the generator, the paint sprayer, all of those types of things. And so it then made me realize when I did my first loan, I didn't have to be the one. I actually felt incredibly lazy. The first time I did a loan, I was like, wait. I didn't have to find the construction job, I didn't have to manage the people. I didn't have to deal with the customer and collect the money and do all of those types of things. I just get a return. Like, what the heck? Which I imagine you probably felt similar in the sense that you went and did your first fiveplex. You waited seven years for your return, you had to find the deal, you had to deal with the tenants, you had to collect all the payments, you had to do the repairs, you had to go and sell the property in order to get that 70% return over those seven years. Your first private money lending deal. To deal with the tenants, you had to collect all the payments, you had to do the repairs, you had to go and sell the property in order to get that 70% return over those seven years, your first private money lending deal, I imagine you did not have to find the deal, is that correct?

I mean, I didn't have to get my hands dirty at all. I was talking to people who I had already met at Squadup, who I had hung out with more at the PML Mastermind in Houston. I was just again talking to my friends who happen to be real estate investors who happen to be in these communities. And I was looking for deals, but I was also learning. And so I was asking a lot of questions about how did you find your deals and how did you decide what kinds of deals are right for you and how do you secure your loans and how does all of this work? And so it was pretty organic, really. When I finally made my first loan, I was doing it with people that I knew and who were helping me to become a strong lender. Because I think that's really important to be a strong lender and to be responsible for understanding how to assess the viability of a deal as it relates to my own financial goals and also its security and borrower as well as any co lenders. It's just completely my responsibility. But, boy, I don't feel alone in that at all, Pace. I am just completely surrounded by folks who are so thrilled to help, as I am thrilled to help. And so my first deal and my second deal, none of my deals have been done all by myself. I mean, how could anyone even do a deal all by themselves?

I have no idea. I've been trying to figure it out.

I don't know how to do it by yourself, Pace.

I've never done it. It's the craziest thing. It's like the simplest things break my brain when somebody says, name one time you've made a dollar on your own by yourself. And I'm like, okay, I'm sure there's been a time. There's gotta be. And the reality is there has never been a time where another human being was not involved in the process of me making money. Okay, then that simplifies the equation. The equation is more people I know, the more money I'll make. And then on top of the more people I collaborate with, the more money I make. But then more importantly, the quality of people and the type of community and the culture that is inside of that community is really where that amplifies, right? Like, I'd rather have one quality person than 25 kind of mediocre people. And so where I think we all got really lucky, you know, you reference Squad Up Summit, by the way. Coming up in five months, guys, Squad Up Summit, we officially have landed Jordan Peterson as one of our main keynote speakers. For those of you guys are big fans of Jordan Peterson.

Man alive. Squad Up Summit is such an unbelievable event. How was that event for you? Who did you meet? Who were some of your friends? What was your experience like at Squad Up Summit?

All right, so I joined the gator community by word of mouth, right? I started reaching out to other private money lenders just at the beginning of 2024. I was like, I've got to figure out this private money lending thing. Who do I need to be talking to? And I kept hearing everyone say, get into Gator. Get into Gator. Get into Gator. Get into Gator. So I got myself into Gator, like April 1st, and I had no idea where I was or what I was doing. But I decided I was going to take down the content in the vault. It's going to educate myself as quickly as possible and find a way to provide value to other people who knew more than I did. So that's what I did. And it was only a couple weeks later that I heard about Squadup Summit. And I realized that meant that a couple thousand people that I needed to know were all going to be in a room. I knew I had to go. So I booked my plane, I booked my hotel, and, you know, you couldn't keep me away.

What's crazy is you joined Gator April 1st.

Yeah.

And then you were at Squad Up Summit three weeks later.

Hey, you know, like, I'm committed. I'm in. And I know that this happens with people. And if the people are going to be in a room, I am there. If you're on the fence about Squad Up Summit.