Unlock Your Financial Freedom with Private Money Lending Techniques by Diana Rosett

Hey, what's up you guys? Welcome back to the podcast, The New and Experienced Investor Podcast, the podcast that brings real estate investors from all walks of life together. I'm Alex Barnett. I'm one of the new— I am the new guy.

You are the new guy.

I am the new guy. And that makes you?

Uh, let's see. Oh, I'm Joe Homs. I'm the experienced guy.

That's right. Yeah, over 40 years experience as a broker, mentor, investor.

He keeps getting older and older and older.

I know.

40, 43.

When are you going to hit the big—

Don't even talk about it. Let's move on. Let's move on.

Anywho, we have an awesome guest, um, I've had the pleasure of working alongside with Diana Rosette is here in the studio. Before we bring her in, we're gonna talk about our meetup really quick. And you wanna kind of give us a brief description?

End of the month, um, Hangar 24 on March 25th. Yes. And I'm having representatives from PropStream.

Yeah.

Like If you really, really want good software and the ability to get good information, reach out to good leads, PropStream is your man.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, I think I get like, what, $1 or $2 for every referral that I make out there for PropStream?

Yeah, and they can get $2 off.

You know, I'm raking in the money doing that, right?

Yep.

Yeah, no, but this guy who's coming, um, The representative from PropStream. I've known him for a long time. He does a fantastic job. He goes, he goes so fast over, you know, hey, if you're a real estate agent and you're looking for leads, do this, you know? And it's like, wait, wait, wait, I'm back at number 1 here, you know? It's like, slow down. But he is, he is really good. He is really good. And we'll record it.

Yep.

Yeah. So in case you miss something, you can stop the recording And say, oh, that's what he said. Okay, sounds good.

Yeah, people are always asking you like, how do you guys get these leads? How do I look up these properties, these distressed owners? And this is exactly how you do it. This is the software that pretty much everyone is using. You can pull comps. So if you don't have access to the MLS, I'm pretty sure they have access pretty much nationwide.

Yeah, that's the nice thing I like about it. It is nationwide. It's not just local here in California. But you can look up properties throughout the United States.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's good.

You know, I don't know if they do other than the 50 states. I've never asked.

I don't think so, actually. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's just Puerto Rico.

Uh, do we know?

I don't know. No, that's a good question.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Joe's got those international properties on his mind.

Yeah. Alaska, Hawaii.

But oh, Alaska, Hawaii.

Those are Within the 50, so they should be okay. But yeah, I was just curious about Puerto Rico. Why not?

That's interesting.

I don't know.

That is interesting. We'll find out, and so will you on March 25th. Um, so yeah, come and hang out. There's a lot of great people that are there, all different types, um, new and experienced investors. So looking forward to it.

And next week will be dark.

Yeah, next week we won't be here. Joe has to take a vacation. He's He's got to go on his cruise. If he doesn't, he gets angry. So, you know, we're all, we're all happy for him that he gets to go out.

I could call in. Oh yeah, like I did last time.

Okay, we'll talk about it. Yeah, maybe Lauren and I will host it.

Yeah.

Oh, there you go. That's a great idea.

I have to host and produce?

Yeah.

How do I do that?

I don't know. Figure it out.

Okay.

We can just—

we'll have Michaela produce it.

Put a camera back that way or something.

Yeah, just As I'm interviewing, getting interviewed, pressing all the buttons.

Yeah.

Okay.

Not that hard.

I'm just kidding.

She's wrapped in 100 cords. But let's go ahead and jump on into it. I'm really excited. Diana Rosette is here today. She's a new and experienced investor. She doesn't like to toot her own horn, but she's had experiences that most people haven't, that if you're just joining in, you'll be like, wow, how did you do that? From Airbnb host to private money lending. You know, she's, she's done a lot in a few years. So everybody, welcome to the podcast, Diana.

Hello.

Hi.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well, let's jump on into it. Why don't you let people know kind of your history? What were you doing before real estate and then what got you into real estate?

Yeah.

Long story. As you, You read, but I'll try to shorten it.

Okay.

Yeah, I was a music person. I was a conductor. I played for shows. I was a musical director. I loved conducting choirs. That was great. But I also worked for my husband. He's a physician, and I worked in his office. I did the money. I always did the money.

Yeah, that's the Italian side.

That's it.

I guess.

Take care of the money.

Yeah, I heard it was my grandmother. She was the entrepreneur.

There we go.

But anyway, at one point, we were refinancing our house, and we decided to pull some money out and buy a couple of properties in Beaumont, Texas, because I'd started reading Robert Kiyosaki. And I thought, we need to start making our money work for us.

There we go.

I've had those 2 properties since about 2006. We paid cash. You'll— when you hear the price, they were $35,000 for 2.

There we go.

That's what I like to see. One was $15,000 and one was $20,000.

Amazing. What year is this?

About 2006.

Okay. See, I should have been investing in high school.

You should have.

All right. So then, you know, mostly I always wanted to keep going, but, you know, raised 4 kids and doing all these between the music and working for my husband. And I didn't really— I got books. I got all Robert Kiyosaki's books. I got somebody else's books. tried to keep studying. But it wasn't until I moved down here, lost all of my music jobs, my— you know, we moved from Salinas, California to Westminster, and I didn't really have anything to do. And so I was on the internet, I was on Facebook, and I saw this— a master class for $17 for a week And it was gonna be run by a woman. And they were gonna tell you all about real estate. So I thought, oh, $17, a few hours a night, what the heck? And it was when I did that masterclass that I realized everything that I'd read from Robert Kiyosaki, all like Other People's Money, OPM. Well, where do you find them? I just never understood a lot of what he was talking about, you know? So it all started to make sense. I joined that network in February of '22. And being as old as I am, and not very adept at the computer and all these different things, I found it so overwhelming. They also had the thing where you— they didn't use Prime at the time. They were using Anderson. Anderson. For setting up your LLC, so your money went to the LLC. It took me three months to think of a name for my stupid LLC. You know, I mean, I mean just and where do you go? Who do you you know where do you find the the state of California? I mean, how do you find if it's used? I mean, all that stuff took me such a stupid long time to figure out. And then, as you got on with different coaches. they all had their favorite platforms. You know, most of them we were using— Burton taught us, you know, we were using PropStream.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, but everybody was talking about other ones too. And then VAs and this and that. It's like, oh my goodness. So because we had sold our house in Salinas, we had had this money sitting in the bank, which I thought we need to do something with this money. We did buy another property in North Carolina, but I did everything wrong. I paid cash, you know. So we bought a condo in North Carolina, and then we bought another house in Michigan, which my husband wanted to use, and we do use as a house that any money we get from there, we tithe on it. So there is— that's, uh, the only house that we have a mortgage on. Everything else we own free and clear. Um, so yeah, so after all is said and done with that, we can send a lot of money to different organizations. And then quite a few years ago, I got into tax liens.

Right.

Everyone goes down that hole.

Oh, gosh. But I did it the wrong— I heard there's another way to do it. I did it not in a very good way. I joined a tax lien buyers club. And then I paid all this money and got all these liens in Florida. Some of them came to fruition, and I got paid for them. And then 3 of them, then I found out that if no one paid it off by a certain date, that I would lose all my investment. So, I said, well, what am I supposed to do? Well, you can apply and pay for it.

Mm-hmm.

So, I mean, thank God I was a saver, because it cost me another $25,000 to pay all the liens. And then I acquired the properties, and they went to They sold, they were going to auction. And maybe one sold, but I ended up with 3 properties. So, here I have 3 properties now that I'm paying taxes on every year. There's no house on the property. It's just the swampland.

Oh, okay.

I was like, well, maybe you could get a renter in there.

No.

Someone pays some—

People and ducks.

Yeah, really. Ducks, Maybe. So they were in Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda, Florida.

Oh, interesting.

So a couple of years ago, my husband and I took a trip there. We wanted to actually see what we had.

Was that anticlimactic rolling up on it? You're like, here it is, honey.

Yeah.

It's like a gator in the—

So one of them was a double lot. And it was actually in an area that was getting Um, developed.

Nice.

So we knew that that was good, but I should have held on to them. So we ended up selling those 2 for $30,000. Today I probably could have gotten $60,000. I don't know, but okay, sold them for— I made money on that. And then we had another one that— there's this thing, scrub jays. So in Florida, if the land— if your land has scrub jays, you have to pay the city or something, and they have to come out and they have to save the scrub jays. I think it's a— wow, is it a turtle or a bird? So, somebody— we kept getting offers. So, I get all the postcards that we were taught how to send out. You know, I was getting those every day. You want to sell your land to us? You want to sell your land? So, I told my husband, I think maybe we better get rid of that one, because we might have a problem. But we, you know, we sold that one for $10,000. But I kept Punta Gorda. Mostly, it was the worst one. The street that it was on wasn't even paved yet.

Mm-hmm.

So, anyway, I still have that one.

Oh, nice.

And we're trying to think of, you know, something smarter to do with that one. Yeah. So anyway, I got into the private money lending. I really regressed there with all that stuff. But so because I was not— it was not easy for me to figure out all these systems and how to get going. And I did a little bit, you know, with PropStream, I pulled some lists and I sent postcards. I mean, I did a lot of cold calling. You know, I just didn't do big enough lists and all that stuff. But I thought I can lend money. So I started doing that. And I've done about 8 deals, right? I think I'm up to my 8th loan. And many of them went well. And then the last couple, I had some big problems with. One, fortunately, I was a first lien holder. on the property. And I did get a lawyer to make sure all my paperwork was in order because she stopped paying me my interest every month. And then she couldn't sell it and she couldn't refinance it. It was a condo in Canyon Lake and she wanted it as a short-term rental. I knew from the beginning, talking to her, that she was a difficult person and I should have walked away then. And then, um, It was not a 70-cent, it wasn't even an 80-cent deal. She paid full retail price. That's a no-no. You know, don't do that. Um, and, um, anyway, long story short, I ended up doing a— she did a deed in lieu of foreclosure. I had to get it. I had a great lawyer, and she worked to make sure I had everything in case we had to foreclose. But fortunately, she did give me the property. I had to spend more money to get it fixed up because she hadn't done that well. And my agent didn't like the way it looked. And not only did— I mean, there was black mold in the garage. There were dents on the outside. She had painted— she liked Santorini. So she had painted the cabinets that really bright blue, and the stairs going— everything was this blue. She said, I just— no, we've got to change them. So I had to— and she hadn't paid 2022 taxes.

Mm-hmm.

So it cost me another bunch of money to do all that. And then we tried to sell it. Very shortly after we put it on the market, another one next door came for sale, and they dropped it like $20,000. And I thought, oh, I don't want to— I don't know. Anyway, ended up keeping it because we couldn't sell it. We tried for the whole summer. I think I finally got a renter in there in October. So, and I have a very good management company for that one. So I'm making money on that one now because I own it.

There you go.

I paid for it.

I own it.

Exactly.

And so now I have 3 properties in Texas. I have the one in North Carolina that's doing very well. And yeah, it just came up to market rent in that one when somebody moved out. So that was good. And then we have our property in Michigan and the piece of land in Florida. So right now I just have a loan out for to a local person who was on your show not too long ago. And I'm glad to be working with somebody local. I think that's going to be, as you told me, Joe, when we met, keep your money in California or near you.

That's exactly what he sounds like, too.

So, I'm glad to be working with him. I hope that he had to just extend. But I think he's okay. He's a nice guy anyway. He's a nice guy. So we'll see how that goes. And another deal has not worked out very well in Massachusetts. It was a really big— it was a teardown. Don't— newbies, don't do teardowns. Big, big mistake.

Yeah.

Got hung up with the Historical Society. It got hung up. Then I guess there was this other year hold period, which my partner tells me that she informed me of. But I thought, why would I have stayed in this deal if I knew I had to pay the hard money lender $9,000 a month without anything happening?

Oh my gosh.

Wow. So, so I'm into it, I'll tell you, $332,000. And it got foreclosed.

Oh no.

And because I JV'd on the deal, it wasn't a PML. I was a JV. And so she tells me she doesn't owe me a penny. And, um, we're still trying to figure out what to do. She was trying to refinance, she was trying to find another partner. She kept telling me, if we don't hold on to this and you don't keep paying the hard money lender, you're going to lose everything. So I kept paying over the amount that I said I was going to loan. And so I made a lot of mistakes on that one. And I'm very fortunate that my husband isn't going to kill me. He still loves me anyway. Said, we're going to die and not take it with you anyway. So what are you going to do?

Yeah.

So just trying to move forward with all of that.

That's it. And this is one thing that's like, I love about Diana is like, so many people come in here and they're like, oh, I want to try this. I want to try that. And they never do. They just talk about it and pontificate forever, forever, forever. They'll call me like 8 months later. I'm still thinking about it. I really need to start doing it. She's just going out there gung-ho. Like, okay, you're making mistakes, but that's literally the only way to learn. I mean, you can educate yourself and all that kind of stuff. And maybe it comes down to vetting people now and all that kind of stuff.

Yes.

But the hard part about that is you're meeting these people in these meetups, And they're supposed to be a part of these groups. And so, you're taking people's word and assuming they're good. I've learned from Joe never to trust anyone.

Thank you.

So, that's—

how long ago did we meet? Because I remember we met in Mission Viejo, I believe it was.

I took you to lunch. Yes.

How long ago was that?

You know, it could be— well, it was after we got started together. Yeah, it could be a year ago, but a little less than a year ago. Okay, eight nine months ago.

So are you wiser after you met with me?

I'm gonna say yes to that.

Thank you, Joe's fishing for yes. That's the correct answer.

Ding ding ding.

Yeah, because I remember the conversation you just had. I remember that. I remember your husband being a doctor and stuff, and. Yeah, I was very impressed, like Alex is, that you were actually out there doing things. You know, he's right. It's so many people, you know, I want to do this, I want to do that. And then I don't hear from them again. It's like they're gone. You know?

Well, I didn't get in. I didn't do a whole lot of the— I mean, I was still overwhelmed. And I still had these 2 big things going on last year. So, I can't say that I listened to a lot of the— or I did read some of it. Like, you sent me a lot of stuff. Like, wow, this is amazing, you know? But once again, it was like, oh my gosh, I need to concentrate on this first. And then, of course, I started calling for Alex. And I thought, well, I'm doing it. I don't need to keep reading about it. I need to do it and get firsthand information from Alex and Chad, like how to improve and what to do, how to talk to these people. So, that's been really helpful.

Good. Excellent.

Yeah. And she's good. You're good on the phone, just talking to people. Talking to sellers, talking to agents. Like you've done it all now at this point.

So do you do you talk for hours and hours on end like he does with the people on the phone? Yeah.

I I probably have those half-hour conversations.

Yeah.

Because you know that's the thing that I the reason why when I got in with this other group it's called Reine R E I W R E I N Women's Real Estate Investors Network. The woman who led it and who still leads it, she really talked about helping people and how when you're in these— when they're in these situations of these, you know, pre-foreclosures, and they're really going through a rough time. And even the girls I helped fund their flips in Ohio, one of the first ones they did was this man who was about to lose his house entirely. And he was disabled in some way. His house was—he was a what do you call it? A hoarder, and it was a real mess. So they went in; they helped him find a place to live. He did like an ovation with them. They promised him a certain amount, but then when they sold, they gave him more. And so I thought that's what it's all about—it's helping people. And so really, the last the last few calls that I was on, these people are going through divorces, and this one man's his wife was deployed, and she cheated on him, and he's still living in the house with her, and. I mean, just real sad stories. This other one, the wife ran off and the mother now wanted to sell her house so she could go move in with her son and the kids to help him with the kids.

Like, so I talked to these people, you know, and Alex does try to let them— Alex is really good.

Yeah, I like listening to his conversations.

He talks and talks and talks.

But he knows the right questions to ask.

That's why we're musicians, you know, we have that sensitive side.

We do. Yes.

Yeah.

So a little bit about Airbnb.

That's right.

I did that when we lived in our house in Salinas. You know, once the kids went off to college, I had some rooms. And I found out about Airbnb. I thought, oh, this might be fun. And it was, it was really fun. Had people from all over the world come in and only had like 2 really bad things that happened toward the end. And then, of course, when COVID hit, everything stopped. But up till then, it was just really nice meeting people. Almost everybody was very, very pleasant and enjoyed talking and having breakfast together. And it was like my fun money. It was like, whatever it was every month, it was just my fun money. So that was—

Tell the one, the family-friendly one. No, the family-friendly one, the other one. Not the one that you're thinking of, but the other one.

I want to hear about the one she's thinking of now.

Wait a minute, with all the guys in the room? Okay. Yeah, so, okay, one of the bad ones was, one guy booked the room. I don't know if he said there were 2 coming, but I knew one guy was coming. And so we had gone to bed. I left the key in the mailbox. And the next morning, my husband was gone to work the next morning, and I was home. And when I got up, and they were coming out, like, one came out, and the second one came out, the third one came out, and a fourth one. These were big guys, like Iranians, or I forget. I mean, they were like from the other part of the world, you know.

Mm-hmm.

And I thought, where did they all— this small bedroom? It was a double bed. They— and I— Unfortunately, I had kept all my sheets and blankets, like, in the room in drawers. And they pulled every sheet, every blanket. They must have been on each side of the bed and 2 of them in the bed. So, I, as they were walking out again, I said, what's going on here? And they wanted to come back. I said, you're not coming back to my house. How dare you do this? Anyway, they never came back. And then I thought, oh my gosh, did I get the keys back? I mean, who knows what they'll do? Fortunately, they had stuck the key back into the mailbox.

Nice.

And this is a polite sleeper cell.

Oh my goodness. 4 men in the one tiny bedroom.

Wow. And just one night?

One night.

Oh.

And they had to pass by our bedroom down a hallway. But of course, you know, if we were sleeping, we didn't hear it. Yeah. Wow.

You're pretty brave to let 4 men—

I was having 4 men. I know they could have Whatever.

Wow.

I am, you know, even when I was teaching, I remember as little as I am at 5 feet, when some kids were bothering other kids, I'd go get in the middle of it. You know, I just didn't care. I was like—

Yeah, that's right. Wow. Yeah, that's right. I love that.

I had to take her to do the door knock.

I know. Yeah.

Yeah, she'd be good.

Oh, I like door knocking.

Yeah, yeah. This is this is a renter that's not paying.

No, I have a daughter who can do that. She's really good. Oh yeah, she's tough.

I take Alex. He loves it. He loves it.

Yeah, he loves it. It's fun. It's fun. So another another program that you joined was was Gator Lending, right? Okay. So we've been at the meetups and at Joe's meetup, people are standing up now. They're like, "I'm a gator. I'm a gator." And like somebody stands up, they're like, "What?" They're like a Florida fan or something? Like, what?

I don't get it.

Like, what's, what's going on? Um, can you kind of explain what is that term? Where did it come from? Why do we care?

Yeah, it's a term that Pace made up, and he has all of the different types of lenders he's given a name. So there's Gator, there's Dolphin, there's Whale, you know, there's all these different, I guess, mammal, sea mammal names, you know. Um, and so I did join Gator because I As I heard about that, that was for short-term loans, EMD, double closes, those kinds of things. Oh, you can get your money back the same day. You can get your money back in 2 weeks, you know. And I thought, I'm tired of these 6 months and a year and waiting for my money to come back, and some of it's not ever coming back and stuff like that. So, so I decided to join Gator. I did all the trainings. But because I was in these other 2 things last year, I was trying to clear up the Canyon Lake and the Newton, Massachusetts thing. I couldn't do all the work to connect, to find Gator deals. It's not so easy to find people who need $5,000 for an EMD. You know, you have to, you have to put the work in. So it's either calling title companies, it's calling lawyers, you know, in the states that have lawyers that close. And you need to find ways to have people find you to do AMD. I really like the closes, the double closes now. So with Gator, you have— you are not a PML, you are a JV with the wholesaler. And so a gator is you're taking a big chunk. So they couldn't close that deal without your E&D. And so for lending that, like he'll say, if you lend $1,000, get $1,000 back. So you get $2,000 back, that kind of thing. And it's a lot of money when you think about it, especially if it's for a very short period of time. And so the other good parts about it is that there's something called paceandabraham.com. So if you don't want to use your own money for the EMD, you can use Pace and Abraham's money. You submit your deal to them, and they will fund it for a fee. But they'll also go over all your paperwork and make sure everything is correct, you know, that kind of thing. So you could do that. And, and they'll do, they'll do the double closes as well. So that could be a whole lot more money, but they'll, they'll do double closes. And then we have something called Alpha Gator Funding. Where it's, it's like we're— what's that word when you hook up with Amway or Amazon and you affiliate? An affiliate? Yeah. Yeah. So it's really kind of an affiliate program. So I have my own landing page for that. If anybody wants like a hard money loan, they also do like 30-year hard money loans. Yeah. Like a—

Like an investor loan, like DSCR or whatever.

Yeah, they do all of that. Okay. And Or for flipping or for, you know, but it's much bigger, bigger loans. You get a very small percentage. But once again, once they use— somebody uses you, if they ever need a loan again, your name is attached to that. And so you'd always get this little fee.

Oh, that's cool.

A recurring fee.

Wow.

I have not done any Gator deals in this last whole year. Because I had a lot of other things going on. But now I'm starting to— I have all the paperwork, but I need to set it up in some kind of manageable way. So if somebody wants a loan from me, I can say, go to my website, fill out the paperwork, you know, I'll review it and get back to you, whatever. So I need to get those kinds of things set up now. I'm ready to do that.

Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. So I mean, I bet you it would work pretty good out here because the EMDs are usually pretty You know, pretty fat and pretty hefty. Yes. Um, I'm only putting down a dollar, but, uh, no, I'm just kidding.

Some people get away with it. Why not?

Yeah, some people do do that. Um, but it's kind of an interesting concept. So it's like mostly working with wholesalers, right? It's like wholesalers that need to lock up a contract, so they have to put this EMD down.

So then they borrow the EMD Because they may have many deals going on, right? They might have some of their own money, but they don't— can't fund all their deals.

Yeah, yeah, you got— yeah, you think about it, it's like if you have $1,000 tied up in, you know, 10 deals, that's 10 grand you got just tied up. Who knows how long that's going to take. It's really interesting how everyone's like putting it together, and you can do these deals without using any of your own money, right?

They also teach us and got us started with Prime to establish our own credit, a business credit. So that we wouldn't ever have to use our own money.

Wow.

So, I'm in the process of that. I had kind of— I got to the point, I got to like stage 3 or something like that, where I needed to get now the bigger credit cards with no interest for a year.

Okay.

But since I hadn't started lending as a Gator, I thought, I'm not going to waste that time. I want to, you know, wait to get those credit cards until I was set up to To really go. Right. But I started the whole process and I have my score up. Nice. With Dun Bradstreet and all that kind of stuff, you know? Wow. There's so many parts to all this.

There's a lot. Yeah. Honestly. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, people think private money lending is, it, it, it can be passive, but it seems like it's, it's pretty intricate. Like, you know, you've got your money on the line, you have to underwrite the deal, and then you also have, there's like this element you are lending to the person. So you have to trust this person. That they're not going to be a complete scumbag.

That's true.

So, how do you get those skills in determining if someone is a scumbag or not?

Try to vet them as well as possible. Oh, I've been reading more about it. I'm taking the safety class now. PACE is offering a safety badge. And I thought, I better go back and do that. Even though I had a lot of training on how to be safe, I obviously got myself into some trouble. And so I'm taking a safety class, and it's all about those kinds of things. What do you look for? You know, how do you run a, you know, a credit check or a background check? Um, ask them. I think now I would say, let me know who you've lent or who you've borrowed from.

Yeah.

Give me those names and numbers. I want to talk to those people to see how, you know, if you paid on time. And—

Oh yeah.

You know, I had so many people who never sent me pictures of what was going on, and then I have these gals in Ohio that were fabulous. I mean, they didn't know how to borrow money, so I had to teach them. So they wanted to flip. They're the ones who helped that man find a place to live. And, you know, they renovated that house. They did a beautiful job. And so they said, well, what do we do? What do we— I said, well, call the title company. They will let me know how to wire the money. And, you know, so I kind of taught them how to get started in doing it. I did another little course that I found online, and I had all these checklists that I thought I did, you know. But, um, I found out with at least 2 of my loans that the person borrowing never told the title company that I was the lender.

Hmm.

And so the very first one I did, I was at my convention for this network, and the title company called me up. She was getting ready to pay me back, and they said, You know, you did not have a lien on this property. She actually really does not have to pay you back. I said, what? Yeah. And I don't think I even realized that. For that one, I didn't even know that. But I knew that she was a good person and she was going to pay me back.

Mm-hmm.

Anyway, they did send me the money that day. But they said— I didn't know how that happened. And then the next one that I got in trouble with, that's the one I did call the title company. But I did it after, right after, 10 minutes after I sent the money. And that's just a no-no. I mean, I really learned you have to call the title company, make sure they know who you are, make sure that you're the money, make sure that they're going to record it properly, make sure you're going to get the documents, you know, all of that.

Yeah. You need somebody in your life that thinks everyone that they meet is a scammer.

You're right.

That's why I have Lauren, because I would believe everybody. And she's like, no, that guy is psychotic. I'm like, really? No, he seemed like a nice guy. She's like, no, I don't trust him. I was like, okay, he's dead to me now. So it's good to have that, that, um, otherwise it's like, I'm gonna just take you for your word, which is the dumbest thing ever. Um, but, uh, you know, it's— you live and you learn. That's, that's, that's what they say.

I have a friend who said you just got a very expensive education.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I was telling her though, she could get that money back in one California flip, Southern California flip here in the land of The land of gold.

It's true.

So sign me up.

You just need to, yeah, get some Huntington flips going, you know, and then yeah, just make it back.

Yeah, get on the phone. What are you doing on the podcast here? You should be on the phone.

I know, trust me. I, I, well, I am on the phone. I'm texting on the side. No, sorry. Okay. But, um, yeah, we'll get it back. First, I need, I need the name of every single person that slid you. I'll handle it, okay? You don't need to know anything. You're not gonna like— I'm just gonna blacklist them. Yeah, we're gonna blacklist them. We're gonna handle it, and then, um, I'll make sure that they repay you.

Okay, that sounds good.

Yeah, because, um, I think it's just you're too forgiving. You're too nice. You're too forgiving.

I know.

You think everyone has the best intentions. And I know that because that's how I am. So, um, you know, but like, there's— you can just get it back, you know. You just start making profits and just get it back. That simple.

Do 3 wholesale deals a month for $30,000.

There you go.

A year.

There you go. You are— yeah, you've already like— you've already Plan it out. That's good. Um, I mean, what, what's on the horizon now? So you, you started, you've got, you got your, you got some, uh, private money deals going on.

I have one private money deal out of my, um, because I moved my Roth IRA into Quest Trust so I can have a self-directed IRA.

Nice.

And, um, I like, I like that. I, I should look around for other ones because they do have a lot of fees. But the one good thing is Before they release any money, they will look over all of your paperwork and make sure that everything is in order. So it's like another set of eyes. And I do want to get my Gator thing going. And so, because I really don't have any social media things out there, I'm working on now, I put out a request on a couple of my networks to, for someone to help me get something set up so I can be a little bit more organized with my paperwork. And if somebody wants to borrow, I'll have everything online. Fill this out for— they don't want to fill stuff out. I, I've done that with all the other people. I'd email it to them, please fill this out and send me, you know, a copy of this and a copy of that. Half of them do it, half of them don't, you know. It's just— so I need to get more hard-nosed. Okay, you don't want to answer all the stuff and send me what I need, find somebody else.

Don't chase them.

Don't chase them and don't do it. Don't do the deal. There's so many people who need to borrow money.

Right.

It's never a problem.

Exactly. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it's like, if you can't do step 1, this is all a vetting process in itself. You can't fill out a form, but you want to borrow like X amount of dollars, you're done.

Do you want to do what? Yeah.

Oh, I mean, well, how long, um, Because we got a lot of flippers that listen to this. Um, 4 months, 5 months, is that too long? Are you willing to—

Oh, to get started with the Gator?

Well, well, beyond Gator, beyond EMD, are you still willing to like fund on flips and stuff?

Well, if I can use these other 2 programs, because now all my money's gone, my personal money is gone. So unless I can Gator wrestle, Oh, which is— well, see, Gator, that's different. Gator, you know, you're not a PML. And I see so many posts in the Gator, oh, we need money for 3 months or, you know, it's not what Gator is. It's— they're short-term loans. But like I said, with the Alpha funding, Alpha Gator funding, I can do bigger things. So I would use— I would go that route. They might not be as easy as other hard money lenders. I'm not— I haven't investigated it. I had one person, I think, who was looking into it, but So I haven't compared a lot of hard money lenders to see what the fees are, to see if it's even worth it for somebody to go to use my program. So I need to investigate that a little bit more to see if— so I can say, oh, yeah, but with our program, you know, yeah, this. So, yeah, so just trying to figure out the best move forward. I hope to get, you know, my website up and running. I don't know how long that'll take, a couple of weeks. And yeah, but I can be found on AlphaGator Funding.

There you go. Okay, cool. I mean, where'd you leave it with these other people that are shysters?

Well, with the 2 sour deals?

Yeah.

Well, one, I got a property.

She's moved on.

Yeah, I have.

Okay, sorry, I'm living in the past.

Right.

Well, actually, I'm still trying to invest Investigate because this the lender on the Massachusetts property, he has not that property got sold and he has not recorded it with the new buyer. Hmm. He wanted to keep it in my partner's LLC because then he might not have to have that year-long holding period to knock the house down. So we were trying to find his name and number to see if he would work a deal like okay you can keep it in there. And use. But in the end, I need to get some money back for that. Otherwise, um, yeah, I don't know what recourse I have for that. But, um, so somebody ended up buying it, or they bought it, but the— they have not recorded it under the new person's name or LLC. It's still in my part. So it's— if you look online, it shows my partner, and so I still have a lien on the property. But it's been sold. Okay. So I don't know what's going on.

I thought you were trying to sell it and then there wasn't a buyer.

We were trying to sell it. She was trying to refinance it. She was trying to bring in a new PML. She said, would you be willing to wait till the end? Till, you know, if I can— and, and she had me remove my lien, release the lien on the property so that she could get a new loan for a lesser amount. And I agreed to that. And I sent that over, but they never recorded that. Because she needed to show that— she needed to show $200,000. And she wanted me to come up with that, to show it in a bank account for her, so that the new lender would see that she had some funds.

Hmm.

I actually started to make that happen.

Hmm.

And then Then it all— everything fell apart.

Oh, okay. That might be a blessing in disguise.

Yeah, I think so too. Oh yeah.

And she wanted me to take out a loan for $1.8 million.

Oh.

To try to hold on. It just kept getting worse and worse. And I thought, I don't feel good even bringing somebody else into this thing because she doesn't really know what she's doing.

There you go.

Wow.

And it's all a nightmare. But I have to say, one of our coaches From the other group that I was in, and I'm still in, um, was on this deal. So I thought, oh, she's in here. And she was like the queen of flipping. She had never done a teardown, but she knows her stuff. She's been flipping and in real estate for 20 years, you know, 30 years, something. And, um, anyway, she bowed out about 3 months in.

Oh.

And, um, yeah, everything just kept getting worse and worse.

Hmm.

But if you're ever buying a property that might be downtown somewhere, always check with the historical society. I mean, I didn't see that one coming. And then this other year-long hold period, I don't even know what that was all about. She never gave me any paperwork to show me. Anyway, big mess.

Okay.

I didn't know the right questions to ask.

Of course. No, but that's the part about— that's the bummer about, like, you know, you're joining these groups and these coaches are there and they're the queen of this, the king of that and all these like gurus that— how they, they didn't say like, hey, uh, Diana, we should pull out. She got out and left you there literally holding the bag. So I'm gonna need everyone's name and numbers and emails.

Okay.

Thank you. Okay, anywho, you're not gonna mess with Diana. I don't want to see it. Um, but on a lighter note, Let's check out some videos. What I love is that you just, you know, you just, you're keeping going.

That's a private money limit. I like it. You should never put your money into someone else's bank account. If God came down from the sky himself and say, hey Godfrey, take this million dollars to fund your next deal, I would say thanks, but send it to the title closing attorney office. That's a private money limit.

What are your thoughts on that?

That's, that's it. Never send your money to a person, a private person.

My follow-up question is, what if God himself said, here's a million dollars for your deal? Would you take it and put it in your bank account, or would you have him send it to the title company?

That's 2 different questions. I know, that's true.

Okay.

Yeah, I know. I don't even know how to do that. If God came down and said, here's a million dollars, I think anybody would take it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

You know, but then your million dollars—

well, to fund the deal. That's fine. You'd want to invest in this kingdom.

Yeah, but your million dollars going to some other person's pocket, that's— yeah, that's a no-no. Okay.

Yeah. And I actually did that stupid thing because on the deal in Massachusetts, the, the, the coach and the other partner said we have to have $30,000 because we need to pull these permits. But as soon as we get the permit, We'll submit that to the hard money lender and you'll get reimbursed. That never happened. I sent them $30,000.

Wow. I'm doing an investigation. That's it.

And then I don't know if we ever— I don't think we ever got the permits. I don't even— I still don't know.

Yeah. No, they're being watched.

I have to say something really funny. The person I was a partner with, she's from Nigeria.

Oh God. Is she a princess by chance? And she has one billion dollars locked up in an account, but she needs thirty thousand dollars in order to pay off the bank. Right. And as soon as she gets it, pay the guy off at the bank.

Yeah. Oh. But never, never, never. I mean, I always sent my money to the title company, but that I did send it to her.

Of course, because they're like, "Hey, Diane, we gotta get this." And it was the coach.

It was the coach.

Yeah, of course. Too. Yeah, it's they're losing credibility. They are. That's a bummer. So I'm going to join, dress up as a woman, and I'm going to expose everyone. What do we got next?

Here it comes.

Okay. Here are some of the worst houses to buy as a long-term investment property. Here's an example of property here that is way too nice and is also in a very expensive neighborhood. So in order to cash flow, you usually have to put down 50% or more to cash flow in this very expensive neighborhood. Here's an example of a property here that's still relatively very nice still, but it's in the area, you guys, that's actually the price point very lower. And in this area, the rent is also very low. So in order for it to cash flow, you're going to need probably 35% and more. Here's another example of a property in relatively good condition and is in an average neighborhood, but you can't add no value to this because look, usually people add ADU on their land. Well, there's no more land to this property, You can't add any more value. So this is why this deal is not a good deal either. Here are some of the worst houses.

Okay. Hmm. Interesting. Joe, do you agree or not agree?

I totally agree. He, he's obviously in California. Yeah. Yeah. Nothing cash flows here.

Mobile homes, maybe. Maybe a mobile home.

You think so? All right.

It's not worth the tenants, but—

Yeah, I was gonna say, let's, let's talk about your tenant situation.

Maybe the sober living ones?

Those are problematic as well with the neighbors and stuff. Yeah.

When you start involving people, it just gets messy.

But you wouldn't want to live next to a sober living house, would you?

Yeah, I don't think so.

No. Maybe a home for elderly people would be acceptable because there's not a lot of Traffic going in and out, you know. True. They're they're inside in their bed sleeping. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, not a sober living.

No. Sorry. Yeah. I mean, I know it cash flows really well. Yeah.

I don't know if I'd want the headaches though.

Oh no. You know. We have to have somebody that you can trust to run it. I don't know if that person exists. You want to run it? No, not me. Why? You're trustworthy.

I'm trustworthy, but I don't want to run it.

But I bet you. She would be on the phone all the time taking care of your problems. Sure. You know? Yeah.

He's not allowed to property manage anything. Oh yeah.

You know, you live and you learn.

Ability loss.

I lost my privileges to property manage. Wow. I day one was like, yeah, go ahead and call me with anything. Yeah. That was right there. Yeah. Done. Yeah. No, she's just like, Okay, I'll call you with anything. Getting calls like 3 in the morning. There's a sound outside, I don't know what to do, are you out there? Like, I literally got that text at like 3:30 in the morning. Are you outside right now? I can hear something outside. I'm like, uh-oh.

I think we have to cut the details there.

Yeah, okay.

Okay, yeah, we have another one.

Yes, we do.

It's a sensitive subject.

Yeah. Feel free to use the DVD player. I have Plenty of DVDs. Breakfast Club, You, Me and Dupree. It's fine if you have to wake up early. I don't sleep much these days. All I ask is that you please don't lock your door because it's a fire hazard. Let me show you the boiler room. No, I should really show it to you. Don't go near my lizard! He's in a very bad mood. Anything else I can get you?

Please don't go in there!

That's my private room. I wish you well in life with your husband, and thank you for staying with me. Feel free to use the beach.

Could that have been one of the four guys that spent the night at your house? No. No, you sure? Positive. That was creepy. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I. Oh, that's yeah. I just thought it was funny. I can imagine that, you know. Yeah. Really. Especially if you're staying in someone's house. I mean, I. I'd stay in Diana's house because you're probably like, you know, good conversation, talking about traveling the world with all these people. Then you show up at this guy's house the next day because you don't know who the host is.

What kind of medicine does your husband practice?

Well, he's family practice, graduated UCI. But then after— yeah, so then we went to Salinas for 3 years of residency for family practice. And then after that, he studied homeopathy. So now his, his great love was always homeopathy. But in order to not be a quack of some sort, he decided to get the MD. We did that after we were married and had 2 kids. He went back to school. I put him through school for 13 years.

Yeah.

To become a doctor.

I see. I'm glad you said the word quack and not me, because that's what I think of when I hear that word.

Homeopathy? But oh my gosh.

Yeah, if, if I went to your Airbnb at your house, I'd probably spend a lot of time with your husband just asking him, well, you know, my leg hurts here. You know, it's like, well, what about this? Should I like lift my arm up like this anymore? Yeah, that would be good. That would actually be therapeutic for me.

Yeah.

Just go there and just, here's the whole gamut of what I'm feeling right now. How can you help me?

He got a lot of people off a lot of medications and he saved a lot of people's lives by just doing homeopathic remedies, right?

Yeah.

You have a bruise, go use Arnica.

Yeah. How does he feel? How do you feel about that? I'm not gonna go there.

Oh, it's getting spicy. That's for after hours.

No, no, we'll do that.

Uh, no, no, no, I'm just saying chiropractors. Oh, okay.

Oh yeah, he likes any, any of the alternative kinds of things if they work better than taking a pill. Yeah, because I just don't like sometimes people touching my body. Oh, I don't either. I hate cracking. I don't do cracking. Yeah, no, I use— I can use a DO, but I wouldn't use a chiropractor. What's a DO? Doctor of osteopathy.

Oh, it's gentle manipulation.

It has doctor in front of the name, then I'm good. It's, it's more gentle manipulation. Got it. Yeah, doesn't hurt. Dr. Jill Biden. Doesn't get a crunch. Yeah. I don't like crunching. I know, like, ooh.

Yeah. Dr. Cosby. Dr. Bill Cosby. Yeah. I know who that is. Okay.

Sorry. We don't need to go there.

Alright. What do we got next?

We got one more. Okay.

I stopped buying real estate, and I wanna have an honest conversation about why and hopefully put it all out there. If you're a real estate investor, I think what I'm about to talk about is probably the most important thing I've ever talked about on this channel. And if you haven't bought real estate yet, then I think that this will shape how you approach buying real estate in 2024. But before I get into the reasons why I stopped buying real estate, let's just take a step back. If you're a real estate investor, if you've ever met other real estate investors, whether it be at a conference or at a meetup or maybe just out in the streets, maybe at work, you connect with another real estate investor that, you know, does real estate on the side. Then you've probably come across this point where you're talking to this real estate investor and one of you talks about door count, meaning how many doors you have in your portfolio. And if you're at places like meetups or conferences, that's sort of—

That's probably good.

The main introduction.

I just kind of wanted to like touch on, people have this idea right now of like not buying real estate in 2024. Because one, the crash is coming. And then 2, the interest rates. True or false? Are either of those true? Is the crash coming, Diana?

That's what I keep hearing. I see all these guys all the time are telling us or warning us, you know, about it. Yeah. But they always say those are the best times to buy.

They are. They are. And that's why everyone's waiting and that's why it's never going to come.

Probably.

Yeah. Joe, have you stopped buying real estate in 2024?

I have not.

Oh, okay.

I'm looking for more. Anybody out there have anything? Orange County, Riverside? Yeah, we're looking every day. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, and that's, I guess, one nice thing about flipping, you know, other than I love to do it, Is I'm in and out as quick as possible. You know, so three months down the road, if if I see that the crash is coming, then hopefully I'm out by then. You know, so I just you know kind of hedge my my money, my bets that way that I'm in and out of these properties as soon as I can. Yeah. So but I don't see a crash. Yeah. I mean, you know, don't get me wrong. I think Biden's doing the Um, a speech tonight, and he may crash, but I don't think anything else is gonna crash.

He might crash. Yeah.

Yeah, he may crash, but I don't know about anything else.

Crash on the stage?

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I mean, I'm talking to buyers, and some of them are like, they are hungry.

Oh, 4 properties?

4 properties.

Really?

Yeah. They're like, I got money.

Good for them.

I have money. Well, I've talked to a few people. They said, I, you know, I put, I got the money from the hard money lender and I was gonna, and I made an offer and then for whatever reason it didn't get accepted. Somebody else outbids you. So they're like, I, I've got this money sitting here, so I need to buy a property like today. And so, so that's where I come in.

You know, real, real quickly, you have a buyer out there that's considering buying now or holding onto his money and buying 2 or 3 years from now. If the market crashes now, okay, then yeah, that's a good time to come in. But let's say it doesn't. Okay, so you go buy a property now, you pay 7% interest or whatever, and then the interest rates start going down. Well, what's that going to do? That's going to increase the value of the house.

Mm-hmm.

So now if this person over here is waiting 2 or 3 years, Now he's paying more for the house. Yes, at the end of the day, he's going to pay less interest, but he's still paying way more for this house than he would have gotten in right away.

That's it.

And then he could, you know, this person could refinance when it comes to— yeah, so it's always a good time to buy.

There we go.

You know, there's, there's those cycles, and I've been through 3 of them where you go up and down, and, and they're dramatic. They're dramatic. I, I just don't see that happening. Yeah, you know, just don't see it happening. That was a prediction too. I know, should have got my crystal ball.

That's right, we all usually have to wait till the end of the year to get those. That's right, that's right. Awesome.

Early prediction, early prediction.

You heard it here, folks. Any, uh, any feedback from the people?

Yeah, we got a few peeps in the audience. Nice. Our resident regular Liz says Hi.

Hi. It was Liz's birthday the other day.

Happy birthday, Liz. All right, Grant is in the chat. He says, sup fellas, tell Diana I say hello. And he also says she needs to EMD for Hawaii deals. Those guys are always looking for money.

There you go. Grant's the expert. Grant's your man. He's the expert. Yeah, tell him to call me. He's at OCJV. Oh, he recently got engaged. So congratulations, Grant.

Oh, congratulations. Yes. And you never updated us on that property. I got an update. Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay, so I won't say instant update.

Well, no, no, it didn't go through. He ended up, you know, there was like, uh, basically he found a vacant house and so he was gonna do the, what's it called? Adverse possession. Adverse possession where you go in and you pay the taxes and after you pay it for so long, it just becomes your property. 5 years. 5 years. So he calls the son on this house in Laguna. It's like this awesome house in Laguna, and the son's like, I don't want it, like, doesn't matter, I hate my mom, all this stuff. Yeah. So he's like, all right, I'm moving in, that's good for me. Apparently he found the daughter. Oh yeah. And then the daughter didn't know that the mom had passed. Oh.

And so he was like, had to break the news basically. Nice family, huh?

Yeah, it's unfortunate, you know.

So what is the daughter gonna do now? Is she gonna—

He was just like Probated, or— I guess he just kind of was like, oh, sorry.

Oh, well, there's— that's an opportunity there. Yeah, he should have done what you do. You, you know, you just keep asking questions.

I'm sure. Yeah, I think at that point he just said it was like a done deal, so it must have gone that way.

It's probably still sitting there vacant.

Yeah, for sure.

Tell him to give me the address. I'm moving in over the weekend.

Okay, I'm moving in. Just enough to where you can leave in the middle of the night if someone starts jiggling the door handle.

Yeah, remember not to invite 4 Airbnb guests over. Okay, well, she didn't invite him.

There's only supposed to be 2.

1 or 2? 1 or 2? Is it 1 or is it 2?

I don't remember what I told her.

Turned out to be 4.

4 big guys. 4 huge guys.

Big guys. With that, um, Stephanie says Diana is an inspiration. I can't even get one guy to stay the night at my house.

Oh, Stephanie, nice. The singers. Nice. She's good.

Yeah. Do we, uh, do we need to give them your number to give you a call or what?

Wow. Nice. Nice one, Stephanie. Oh, thank you for that. That's good. That was good. Thank you. Oh man.

Um, that is all.

Okay, perfect. That's a lively, lively bunch tonight. Yeah, I like it. Cool. Well, Diana, thank you so much for, you know, coming in here and being vulnerable and, and letting people know about your journey. And, you know, she's, she's made more calls than anybody that I've like helped in any way. You know, she'll just get up, just start dialing, dialing, dialing, and, and You know, you, you, you say that you don't really get this technology stuff, but I had her in the CRM updating stuff, making appointments. Um, so I don't think anything's holding you back and I think you have a bright future ahead of you.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Thank you for coming in.

Yeah. And if you guys are, um, you know, looking for EMD, uh, earnest money deposit, if you're a wholesaler and you don't have it and that's the one thing holding you back, you know, you don't have any excuses here. So reach out to Diana. Um, what's the best way?

Probably right now, either my regular email, dianarosett@gmail.com. Okay, D-I-A-N-A-R-O-S-E-T-T. Or, um, if they want to look at, uh, you know, a bigger loan, it's that dr.alphagatorfunding.com. Nice.

Yep, you can get— you can get funded. So yeah, money is not an issue, people. Cool. Yes. Yeah. And, um, we're gonna figure out next week, so I'll keep you posted on that. Joe will be gone. We might have a call-in show. Maybe we'll have you guys call in and do some, you know, like old-school radio show like that.

Maybe, maybe we can find a man for Stephanie.

Yeah, we should. We need to make that on our list of things to do, at least by Q4.

Yeah, I think that should be one of our goals.

Yeah, at least by Christmas, you know.

Maybe I'll bring one back. How's that?

There you go. Nice Mexican, man.

Yeah, there's like 8 million here, so it's like—

Okay, get a cruiser. Or are you thinking somebody from like the motherland, Mexico?

Yeah, motherland.

Okay, okay.

Well, that's where I'm gonna be. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, a nice tan.

I can stuff them in my luggage and bring them aboard.

Exactly.

He'll just pop them out.

You can just walk, walk over.

He can like walk around and be just like another crew member.

There you go.

You guys are way off the rails.

All right, yeah, let's wrap it up. Okay, thank you guys so much. We always love spending the afternoons with you on Thursday. Um, we'll be back next week and the following week, so thank you.

Maybe next week. Maybe next week. See ya. If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one-on-one.

949-625-4533.