How to find creatively financed deals - 100+ seller financed rentals

Hello YouTube, it's Christian. I know I'm wearing my Cody Fink shirt, however it is in fact Christian. Cody is elsewhere. I think he's actually in Renton today, but I don't see him. So I am here with Brandon Vukelic.

I'm wearing my Freedom shirt.

There we go. That's Michael Blanc, right?

That's a $30,000 shirt I just paid for with a Michael Blanc program a couple years ago.

There we go. Well, money well spent. He has some great events. We like him a lot.

It was, yeah.

But Brandon Vukelic, best broker in Washington State. That is a fact. You can check that online. Verified. We are talking today about how you actually find creative deals and just creatively financed. If you're using money that's not your own, it's the most common question we get. Now this segment is Multifamily 101. This is probably more of a 102 topic, but there's 3 steps to this. Uh, you can do this online, just find properties that have been listed and are available to find, and we'll talk to you guys about how to do that. You can network with brokers and find the right person on your team to go find you deals. Or you can go direct to owner, and we're going to cover all 3 of those in today's video. So I'm going to open with online. If you're just looking for what's listed and out there, Brandon, when you see stuff available to creative finance, what are you looking for?

Yeah, so a couple things. I have a little, you know, benefit being licensed. I have access to our MLS, and I, I search a lot of public record stuff. So I kind of watch for things that have been sitting on the market a while. They may say cash out. They won't— in our MLS, it can say cash out, conventional, FHA, owner financing. But even though it doesn't say owner financing, it doesn't mean that they wouldn't consider it. I had a deal last month that I was watching for a while. It was waterfront. This was not for clients. This was just something I thought would make a great family vacation spot. And you know, it said cash out, and I saw, I looked up, like you said, public record, and I saw they paid cash for it 3 years ago. They live in Texas. Their plans failed. They just wanted to unload it. And I called the agent and said, "Hey man, do you think they'd consider seller financing this?" you know, it's got some challenges. And I pitched them something and they accepted it. And I'm actually not really going to probably move forward on now because my family's not super hip on the property like I am. It's kind of a selfish purchase actually. But I was looking for stuff that had been sitting. I looked at the public, there's no mortgages or liens. So I knew this is probably a good potential property that I can make, you know, present some seller financing terms. And they went for it. And they didn't really counter either too much.

So Which is really cool. The debt is actually public record. You can look up when a property was last financed. There's a lot of different tools to do it. If you're a broker, it's a little easier. That doesn't mean you can't do it yourself online.

I'm happy to teach people how to do that too. I mean, I do it every day so many times a day that it's like this, and it really, it doesn't take much effort to find that information out.

His channel is Multifamily Momentum, by the way. Thanks. There's a link below. Check it out. Brandon is a master of this. If you need help, Brandon will help you one-on-one. All you have to do is just find properties that have low to no debt on them. Because they have low debt, as long as your down payment's enough to pay off that debt, they can just conventionally sell or finance. There's a lot of other methods to get around that. That's not the purpose of this video. If we're looking for low-hanging fruit, I'm looking for properties, no to low debt, and something that's been on market for a while. When you buy conventionally, you have to go through appraisal to buy with a bank. If there's no bank, appraisal doesn't matter. Now you can afford to overpay for a property, and that might sound crazy, you can afford to overpay. However, if a property is, say it's worth $1 million, I will pay $2 million for that property if I get 50-year debt at 1% interest and the property cash flows. Why not? I'm pretty comfortable in 50 years, if I'm alive, that that property is going to be worth more than $2 million. I am very comfortable with that. I've also— it's more than enough time to pay off the debt. Uh, if you can get it in long-term fixed rate debt and you get the right terms, you can do anything. It's been on market for a while, people might have tried to beat up price. If you go after terms that make sense for you and allow the property cash flow, you can find a ton. LoopNet, CREXi, right? Smaller multifamily you can still find on Zillow.

Yeah. And we should probably specify though what's been on market a while, right? A week is not a while. I mean, maybe a few months ago when everything was hot, we would say, you know, we could make a lowball offer after 10 days because everything was moving like in the first week.

Mm-hmm.

Now, kind of that 30, 60, 90 days, you start to watch and see. Definitely something that's been there for months, you— all gloves are off, I think, in that point.

Our first big deal, Cody and I, our first sizable deal was a 38-plex that was on market for 13 years. Did not list seller financeable, it just said, please buy this. Mm-hmm. Funny enough, 13 years ago, the listing price was $2 million. They never even changed the price. It was too expensive back then.

Right.

Today's dollars, not even close. $2 million for 38 units in Washington State, insanely low price. Tons of problems with the property, wasn't bankable. There's too much deferred maintenance for a bank to even take the property. So you have to either write a cash offer or creative financing. So that's how you find those online. Next thing I wanted to cover is working with a broker. Now we have two people who are occasionally on the channel, um, Some of our original mentees, Caleb and Chuck. They're 19 years old. Yesterday closed on their second deal, an 8-plex. They have another 8-plex in the works as well. Some really big things that I think they might not want to do just yet.

Wait, so they listened to what you said and they did it and it worked?

Turns out we have some idea what we're doing. Yes, they applied exactly what we said to do with brokers. Our course, themultifamilystrategy.com, we actually have a whole section on how to script and talk to brokers, build your network. But we're in the room with the best one in Washington State, so I wanted to plug Brandon here. If you're here, you can skip this section and just call him.

So if you help—

yeah, yeah, if you want to buy here, Brandon Vuklich, this is your guy. His contact information is below. But when you're trying to find a broker, we have a few rules. One, I usually look online for people who've listed the type of multifamily I want to buy.

Perfect, that's a great start.

Yeah, you're looking for— you're looking for the person— there's usually one or two people who have a majority of the listings. So if I'm on LoopNet, for example, and I see the same name 1, 2, 3, 4 times, that broker and that firm are probably the ones I want to work with. The other rule of thumb I have, I like to get a small boutique firm and have a broker who I can work with on a personal level, who might not have as many clients, because they can do stuff for you that other brokers might not be able to do. I also want to have one broker contact in a bigger firm because they're going to have more resources, more data, and they typically have more deal flow. If you can get those two things, what I don't recommend is meet 600 brokers and try to work all of them, because then all of them are just gonna be frustrated because there's no loyalty from you and they're not gonna be loyal.

Speaking from experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you are working— and I'm a broker, I broker maybe two deals a year, it's not my main thing. I'm almost never gonna work with you because I don't like brokering. When I do, it's because it's a very unique deal, there's a challenge behind it that I don't think another broker can take out, and Some of my deals have been stupid, and then Brandon has to edit them so I don't screw them up. But I like the really creative stuff. If you want to work on a crazy deal, you could call me. If you want to just get a deal done, you find someone like a Brandon, right? And we're a small boutique firm. Yeah, this is your guy. Then get one broker that you work with at like a CBRE, JLL, any of these big national brands, because they're gonna have some access to resources that we don't have. Right. That's how I put it together. Brandon, what do you look for when you're looking for the right broker?

Yeah, I like someone that's gonna send me deals, first of all, right? And I gotta reciprocate and show them that I'm serious, I'm not a tire kicker. So my broker in Idaho, right, I've done 2 deals now with him over the last 5 years, and I'm on his list. I feel like I'm moving up that list, that VIP list. Same with clients reaching out to me. There needs to be a buildup, some trust that's being built there, right? I'm going to commit my time to those clients that I will never get back. And so if I feel like I'm getting burned, right, you're going to drop down that totem pole kind of a priority. And that's just the bottom line. In fact, you know, I can only spend so much time sharing great deals with so many clients, right? And I try and tell people too that I'm not— you don't have to worry about me cherry-picking anything. I'm looking out for my clients' interests. I'm not even looking in Western Washington right now. I'm looking in Idaho and other states. Keep building my portfolio there. So I give priority to those people first and foremost that have bought something with me before and they're looking for their second, third, or fourth deal, right? They've obviously proven they're gonna pull the trigger. Second is people that respond quickly. Christian, if I send you a deal and you tire kick it for a week, like, that just doesn't work in my plan. You know, speed wins, right? We need to try and lock up that property. And there's still a lot— even regardless of the economy, there's always gonna be competition out there.

So we had a broker when Cody and I were speaking in Dallas, actually funny enough, at the Michael Blank event. Cody, Cody took the stage there for, for 20 minutes. When we were in Dallas, we got a call from a broker. His name's Eric Bubble. He's from Seattle. Never met him before. He just reached out because we bought a triplex. Like, I have a 10-plex pretty close to it. I was curious if you guys be interested in buying. I already knew the 10-plex. Cody already knew the owner. Within about 3 minutes of the phone call, Our questions were, all right, is the owner willing to carry a contract? Yes, they are. And we already knew that because we knew the owner, but verified that. What are they thinking for terms? The terms were actually better than I would have offered. What are they thinking for price? The price was $100,000 less than I would have offered. We said yes on that call. Yeah. Cold call while I'm driving, listened to the deal. I knew I wanted to buy the property. I said yes, write it up, we will sign it. That came through, we signed it in 3 minutes. We were under contract within an hour of our first phone call ever with that broker. He's sending us more deals.

Yeah.

And we're doing more deals with him.

You're building a relationship, you're building trust, you're a resume of experience doing stuff with— yeah.

You need to be, one, in your first conversation, you build the confidence in your broker that you are ready, able, and willing to buy the property. If I know that you are going to transact and you can take these out, much more likely to work for you because it turns out I only get paid if you just act. That's, that's gonna be true of every broker. They want to help. Brokers want you to buy real estate. We love the game. We don't like wasting our time. If you're not going to play, we don't want to spend a lot of time there. So just be true to your word, execute, and build confidence. If you want the script for how to do that, that's also in the course, link below, themulti-familyadvice.com. There's 5 things you can say to build confidence in a broker on that first conversation to be the guy who is ready, willing, and able to work with them. However, that's it for brokers on my end. Is there any other advice that you have for finding the right broker?

I personally believe, especially in my sphere, so, right, I'm not dealing in the 200-unit space or 500-unit space. That's outside of my league right now. I am in the smaller multifamily space. And I tell people, whether you're gonna hire me or not, or work with me, try and find a broker that invests themselves. Oh yes. Right? Not just licensed and works that space, but do they help buyers, investors in that space? Do they do listings in that space? And do they own in that space? Like, I walk the talk. So a lot of clients, when they reach out to me, I ask them, be sure when you're asking, interviewing other agents, other brokers, ask them what they own, or what have they owned. Maybe they don't own anything now, that's fine, but have they ever owned anything?

Mm-hmm.

I mean, how do you expect a broker to help you be an investor, a success— successful investor, if they've never invested themselves?

An owner thinks different than an employee, and this is true for any company. This isn't just real estate, this is any business— property management, legal firm, whoever is in your network. Your broker sits on what I call your board of advisors, the people that you rely on to help you run your business. If they don't know how to run the business themselves, you're in trouble. That is actually We should open with that. That's the most important rule. They have to own real estate. That's the, that's the one thing. Everything else that we said comes after that rule. That is it. Okay, the last piece. So we talked about, um, finding deals online, talk about working with brokers. I want to talk about our favorite, and this is what Cody and I do a lot, a lot of.

This is where you shine.

Just meet with the owner directly. You want creative financing, you want to get around the bank, you want to work directly with the seller. Relationships are built in person. They're face to face. They're over coffee.

But you don't text them. Well, I mean, you don't, you don't, I text, I text. No, you're personable. You have coffee with them, right? You do.

The whole goal is to get in front of them.

Yeah.

Uh, your hierarchy of things are like, okay, uh, email's the weakest. Text is the second best. Phone call is great. Uh, Zoom calls the same as a phone call. There's actually no notable difference even with that face through the screen. I've read a bunch of studies on this. No benefit. I just pick up the phone because it's faster, easier. And then there's face-to-face, which is everything, because now you can communicate a lot more than just your thoughts via your voice.

Mannerism, tone, right?

Yeah, you actually can make a connection with a human being, and this is where the deals get done. This is where every mentor we've ever had in this space has come together. I've met with an owner who's done something I've never done, and we sat down and talked about how they did it. Your next step is you have to go apply it, and then you let them know you applied what you said. And you'd be amazed, so many people go to owners, especially in our sphere, teach someone how to do this, they talk to an owner, and they don't apply the advice. Or they do apply the advice, they never tell the owner like, thank you, I applied this. That's how you build the relationship. No one is going out there doing what someone tells you to do. And when you are the one guy who sat down, listened to their story, applied it, now they're going to be heavily invested in moving you forward. Now whether that's selling you their properties or connecting you with a friend, the cool thing about owners is owners know other owners. It's a pretty niche field. But Brandon, how do we find owners? I know I have some of my ways, but when you're just trying to find owners to connect with, where do you go direct to people?

We pretty much, if you're looking for seller finance opportunities, right? So I'm scouring actually like Zillow and Craigslist for for sale by owner opportunities. I love those ones actually. Because a lot of times they are kind of turned off by agents in general, right? And if you call them up as an investor first versus an agent, you can start that conversation much easier. Hey Christian, this is Brandon. In transparency, I'm an agent, but I'm also an investor. Just like your property, thought about selling, or I see it's for sale. What kind of terms you're looking for? That kind of stuff.

So it's a great way to do it. Just make the call and talk about it. Now, how Cody and I do this— Google Maps. We found this amazing map that has every single property that we could ever buy. It's just a satellite image of every property that we could ever buy. I'm looking for roofs that are longer than a house in residential areas. If you're looking for small multifamily, look for properties that look like a fourplex. If you're looking for a 12-plex, look for a building that looks like it could be a 12-plex.

And how do you get the owner's info off of that?

So what you're gonna do, and we have a whole video, man, I have a lot of links on this, don't I? Yeah, you do. We have a video, it's probably our second most popular video of all time, I'm gonna link it below, it's how to find property owners.

That's a good one.

The nuts and bolts though is you're going to, Find the property, you're gonna plug that address into public records. You're gonna go to the county tax assessor. You can do this different website, but available everywhere in the US. Public record is in fact public. So you can figure out who owns it. Now, if it's an LLC, you're gonna plug it into a free site like OpenCorporates. You can Google it and figure out who owns it. Your next and last step is take their name and the city the property's in and the word phone number and plug it into the Google, and it will spit out phone numbers for you. Um, yeah, call through them. If you want a real cheat code, most people— not everyone, but most people— have an iPhone. If you plug it in your text and it lights up blue, you know you have an active line and it's a personal cell. And call that number, you almost always get their personal cell. But without getting super deep into it, it's a few Google searches. Search the property, search the ownership, search the individual Search their phone number. If you don't find it the first time, find new clues in the Google and plug them in. That's all you do. But once you get them on the phone, they are an owner. They're not a seller. Take that vocabulary out of your head. We don't care about that for this phase. You just want to learn how they did what they did and form a connection. You don't know that they're selling something, and that's not why you're calling, right? So you just reach out, hey, It's Christian. Something about you that is relatable. I own a duplex right down the street from your 12. I don't own any 12-plexes. I wanna know how you got to where you're at. They'll probably think you're trying to buy something, which is great if you're like me and you're broke when you're starting this. Like, I just bought the duplex down the street. I don't have any money. I couldn't buy it if I wanted to. I just wanna learn how you got to where you're at. Start that connection, and your goal of that phone call is just to book the meeting. If you wanna find people online, To me, that's the way to do it. Another way, you're pretty good working the—

No, you guys, you guys are brilliant and techs, more tech savvy than us older guys. So that's a good thing. But yeah, you know, also meetups, Facebook groups, other things like that. I believe in just putting that word out there and letting people know what you're looking for. You know, you'll be surprised what comes out of the woodwork.

I should be more active on BiggerPockets. I appreciate they had Cody and I on. Cody's their most watched podcast ever, which is crazy. But I'm not as active as I should be in the community. I know you've had some more luck there. Have you met people where it's turned into face-to-face meetings through BiggerPockets, or is that a channel that you recommend people—

Oh no, I have a lot of interaction with face-to-face people reaching out, basically investors looking for my help trying to find properties in Western Washington. So yeah, it's a great community as well.

Awesome. But those are your main pieces. You can find them online yourself, work through a broker, and I recommend doing all these, by the way. This is all part of your strategy. And just meet the owners yourself. I don't think anything's stronger than meeting the owners yourself. Every mentor I've ever had has taught me something new about the game. I learned how to buy zero down from the first person who ever sold me something zero down. They taught us first, we put together a presentation for a property I knew they wanted to sell based on exactly what they taught us. They would have sold that to anyone else 25% down. They did 10% down and it was funded by a second on another property. So they taught me how to buy a property with another property. If you can apply these things, you build trust. Trust will get you terms that no one else can get. So I want to leave you guys with that.

Excellent.

If you made it 18 minutes through, congratulations. You are a vast minority of people, so thank you for watching. If you haven't liked and subscribed yet, I don't know what's wrong with you. But if you have a friend who wants to learn the basics, Multifamily 101, give us a share. We appreciate the like. We'll see you guys next Tuesday, Multifamily 101.