Beyond the Deal: Essential Estate Planning for Real Estate Investors

Foreign this is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now, here's your host CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, everybody. Hey, welcome to this episode of the Note Closure show on Money Mondays here and hope you had a great Easter weekend. It's hard to believe that we are already halfway through April or two thirds of the way through April. Today's episode, you know, I'm a little, I'm not going to lie, I'm a little tired. The last week has been a little bit of stressful here. I didn't spend the last four or five days doing anything really fun. We were, I was basically assisting my better half who was in the hospital, had had to have a little bit of emergency surgery. And so we went in Thursday afternoon expecting to do a little outpatient thing and ended up spending four days in jail and checked out last night at 6 o'. Clock. So a little tired, but it gave me, gave me some insight because I've had quite a few friends in the note industry, investors and people that are struggling with health issues, cancer, death. And I didn't want this episode to be morbid, but I thought I would discuss some of the things that you have to do to prepare yourself in case if something happens to you or your loved one and stuff like that. And so that's what I wanted to talk about with this episode. Are you prepared for the worst and by the worst? A lot of us as entrepreneurs, we think about, oh, you know, a deal goes south, the deal doesn't make as much money, I've got to foreclose instead of being a loan mod or something bad happens to the asset. You know, there's a lot of people in the multifamily space who are struggling right now because of all the distress out there. And that's not necessarily what I'm diving into. I'm talking about the fact, I'll give you an example. We had an investor, a coaching, not a coaching student, but he was a monthly membership student. He'd bought a few notes, gotten old and was fighting cancer, is in his 80s. Wayne was his name, private investor in one of our deals and he passed away and lung cancer and passed away. And I get a, you know, he's note it let me know, notified me that he was struggling with this. And I was like, that's fine. We were paying him on his quarterly payments as we're working through this deal and he was happy with that and he bought some other notes and was doing well with that. But then I get a phone call from his wife about him Wayne passing and I'm like, okay, you know, and she's aware what he did. She wasn't necessarily the biggest fan of real estate. She didn't have that background. But it was kind of funny because she said, well, there's as many photos or images of me in his phone for taking screenshots or saving images of deals that of his grandkids, which is kind of nice. Wayne was just a great guy. I absolutely miss him in a lot of cases. And his wife is absolutely just a wonderful person. But she was knowledgeable that he was in deals but didn't know where everything was at. So we spent some time going through. So well, there's, here's it, here's his one deal he's got with us. Is there any other deals? You know, look in his email, look for any receipts or anything like that from like servicing companies. And lo and behold, he had already liquidated the other four assets. That was just this one. And. And she was completely fine with us, like, hey, just keep making quarterly payments to me. When you sell the asset, we'll do it. And so it was good. We went through the foreclosure, we fixed up and sold it. And she was very happy and getting paid off and it's moved on. That's a good thing. Where she's informed. Recently had another student of ours, actually a coaching student out of Houston, Joe, pass away from cancer. An older guy, but his wife and two kids. She really doesn't know what he has. She's not in the real estate space, she's in the nursing space. And I noticed that when I was reaching out to Joe because I saw that he had a couple notes available for sale on the platform because I recognize llc, it's unique. Known Joe for years. He went through our one on one coaching and we bought notes or we get some other coaches who's to buy notes from him, vice versa. Well, I saw those and I'd reached out to them and know we're friends in Facebook. And suddenly I see that his wife has posted that he passed away after his long fight. And I know that he was struggling with cancer. And I immediately think about, oh my gosh, you know, what about these four assets that are on this platform that he'd been Trying to sell. And we'd gone back and forth, exchan exchanged emails, me and Joe, back and forth on a couple of our students business stuff. And he's like, well these are three performing and one non performing, three contract for deeds and one mortgage and he's trying something at 12% yield. I was like that's fine, you know, let's find somebody help you move it or let's find an investor that was looking for that stuff. Well, I go back to the platform and they're not listed on there anymore, they're removed. And that's not a good thing. If, and I don't know how, how they got removed if he took them down before everything happened or he just didn't renew the paperwork or something like that from the platform. I don't know exactly what happened with that, but I reached out to his wife, they didn't have a funeral planned yet. It was be about another week or two before the funeral took place. So I reached out to his sister in law and just introduced, I sent a message to his wife but we weren't friends on Facebook and so it was his message. So I reached out to like I said sister in law and she's like, no problem, we'll pass on your information, you know, you know, we're here to help. Course I couldn't make it to the funeral because I was sick as a dog with a cold. But about a week or two passed and, and his wife reached out to me and she's like, I'm not sure of what properties it is. I'm still trying to figure it all. It's all in probate. I'm like oh my gosh, is there you know, any instructions? And she goes, no, Joe didn't leave really any instructions about what he had, which is just oh, you know. So they're going through the whole process. There's no will. I don't believe there's a will. But there's nothing clearly outlined to his wife of what he had or has. And so I sent over the, the, the tape with the four asses of what I knew about and she's like okay, thank you very much. And I said listen, I'm here to help. If you need some help moving these assets, I'm glad to do it. You know, we're, you know, we don't need to make a commission from you, we can make a commission from where it buys it from to help maximize it because it's honestly about $200,000 in potential profits. Okay. To them that's A chunk of change, you know, somewhere between 100, 100 and well, it's over $220,000 in UPB. So depending on the performing, when you can get that's, you know, that's a sizable chunk of money to have tied up and stuff that you don't know about. Right. And she's not a real estate investor. She's got these. And like, I'm willing to, yeah, I'm definitely going to reach out to you to help, help. And that's what I want to do. I want to help. I want to help her get these things moved. I want to help put money in their pocket and help them out. And one of our recent coaching students, Sterling, asked me, exactly what do we have in place when something happens? And if you're brand new to real estate investing, you got one rental property or you get your primary business, you know, that's pretty easily outlined of what's going to go through, but you need to notify your spouse and your family of what exactly you have and have available. You know, hopefully you have a spreadsheet of the assets that you have available. You want to update that on an annual basis and, and Claire with them. And if you, your wife or spouse isn't familiar with notes or real estate, when something happens, you want to give her somebody a point of contact that can reach out to. And that's all that I was offering up. It's like, listen, I'm here to help you. Let me help you move these. Let me help you out this day. I'm not. You may if you know what you're doing, great. By all means, if you don't, I'm here to ask. Ask as a resource for you and Joe, especially now that Joe is gone. And what you should have in place is a will. You should have some sort of, you know, a file folder of something. Everything that you have, notes, performing point of contacts, some instructions on that. Like what I have my portfolio is if something were to ever happen to me, Steph is known, knows enough to reach out to Joel Markovitz, who's been a friend for years, knows the note business, stuff like that. And Joe will help her liquidate. That's the thing that Joe and I have already agreed about. Same thing. If something happens, Joe and Donna needs help. His wife needs help with liquidating stuff. I'm the guy that she reaches out to to help move that stuff, to help liquidate it, to help out, help the family out. Need. Sometimes they just, they don't need a casserole. They need somebody to help take action and take over things. One of the biggest things you can also have if you're using other people's money is having, you know, a life insurance policy. A lot of companies called key man policies. I have a key man policy on me in case something happens. It pays off everything and puts money in Steph's pocket so that she's a okay is taken care of and then can sell the assets off as need be and their investors are taken care of. And that's not too difficult of. It doesn't need to be a, you know, 40, 50 year policy. Maybe it's just a 10 year term policy. Mine's not a 10 year term, it's a term policy. But I believe it's 20, 30 years based on my age when I took it out. Okay. And that's actually acts as a important thing to provide to investors too, if you're getting older. Say, listen, I have a insurance policy that's in. Something happens to me, I die, I pass away, get hit by a bus or car, get sick and die. I've got a policy here that's not only going to take care of my spouse and family, but it's also going to take care of paying off any investors that are out there. All right? And that's, that's, that's a really important thing. You definitely want to have some sort of trust. You know, asset protection is very key and important to making sure that your family is taken care of and handling of the assets and keeping things out of probate as best you can. You know, putting your assets into a trust is good. You know, having some sort of living trust, medical power of attorney or power of attorney before now, I mean, in the case of somebody passing away, the power of attorney is eliminated. But having a medical power, attorneys making act on your behalf in case you're incapacitated and can't talk in the hospital is important. Having instructions of what happens to assets and things. You know, having somebody trust like with my mom, my mom's getting a little bit older. My sister is lives down in Corpus Christi and is on all my mom's bank accounts and knows where everything is at. And I also know where everything is at too. In case of an aspect of, let's knock on some wood there in case something happens. My mom, you know, we know exactly what's what, what's to do take place. And that's the most important thing is having those conversations. We've got another friend who's struggling right now with cancer and is Going through chemo and there's a little bit of Swiss cheese and he's in the notes space and unfortunately he's just not responding to emails and stuff to get stuff done. So I'm getting people that reach out to me and say, hey, do you know where he is at? Do you know, is he working still? Is he not working stuff? And then it's unfortunate because I reach out, I've reached out to him and not getting responses back myself. And I've known him for years, about 15 years. So I've reached out to his wife. His wife was very surprised to hear that he's not responding and trying to help kind of boot him giving a gentle nudge in the butt to get to respond to people. But when you're going through sickness, cancer, stuff like that, and doctors have told you, hey, this is not, you're not going to survive this. You know that you've got six months or a year or two years, you can get very depressed in that way. So it's important to share with your spouse exactly what is, what needs to be done. Where is everything at? You know, I know a lot of folks like all the man handles the finances, or there's one person handles finances and the other spouse doesn't want to know. You need to know. You need to share what's going on and who to talk to and the process and what needs to happen when you're no longer around. All right, who gets what? Is everything set up? And that's. I mean, this is not an ad for like magnify your wealth of lawfulness associates. But it really kind of is. This is important to have that stuff. You know, if you've got two, like many these days, you've got different people coming together, been divorced, they have different assets. I think you need a pre and that. But you do need something to say, hey, this, if this happens, this transfers to so and so or if this happens, this goes out to a B and C or this gets paid a B or C. You know what I mean? And if you don't have a plan, even I talk about that with your spouse. No matter whether you got one asset or 100 assets, that's really one of the most important conversations you can have. And it's unfortunate, it seems that I'm, I'm dealing with that right now. Not in my side, but trying to help friends, families, colleagues, investors, not only navigate that right now as they're sick, but also helping folks navigate it after the loved one has passed. And that's a It's a, that's a sad day. But it's also, it's a good thing that I'm able to here to help them. I take that as a very big responsibility and, and want to help them, you know, and that's the biggest thing. If you're a note investor out there and you've got a portfolio stuff, whether it's one or a hundred, and your spouse or loved ones aren't necessarily in that business, you need to put something in place of who they need to reach out to, who they need to talk to. What do you have? And put somewhere that's easy to get right next to those life insurance policies or, you know, your birth certificates and stuff like that. Here's what we have as of such date that would include maybe the foreclosure attorney, your estate attorney, your servicing companies that handling that, making sure that if something happens to you that they now have a second point of contact that will. They will allow to release information to. All that stuff is very important and relevant. And it seems like we are losing a lot of people with death and issues and cancer, stuff like that. That's a why that's happening. It's a whole different episode. And this is not meant to be morbid, but I just want you guys to know it, it needs to be said and you need to take the time, share. Hey, something happens to me. Here's where you go to find everything. And here's you. Here's who you reach out to to help you out with that. And if you're one of those folks that has a portfolio and you need help with it, you know, your spouse will need help with it and you, you know, don't know who to reach out to. Feel free to reach out to me. I'm glad to help talk with you, help, you know, help you move that stuff or be the point of contact to help you make sure that your family's taken care of and your assets are sold or transitioned off or sold off or whatever it is, or help explain what you have to your spouse so that they feel more comfortable and aren't missing out some things. All right? And that's, that's the biggest thing I want this episode to be about, ladies and gentlemen. Is it, you know, when you, you know, when you're sick and you're, you know, everybody, everybody feels good. Oh, I don't want to talk about death. You need to have those conversations. I can remember having the conversation my dad, 15 years ago before he passed about, you know, he was sick, his Last two years he was kind of sick quite a bit, didn't feel good. He was, you know, he knew his, his life was limited. But having those conversations are some of the, not only some of the hardest conversations, but also some of the most fulfilling. Knowing that everybody's on the same page. And that's one of the great things about it. When my dad passed, obviously everything just went to my mom, which is fine, but we were there, my sister and my brother and I, to help out as best we can. And when he had a store and so helping get the store closed. But my mom was fully aware what of asks they had and you know, because they've had that conversation and we knew which route we wanted to go and we were able to do that pretty, pretty effectively. A lot less grief, a lot less family drama. That often seems to happen when you have a death in the family drama in some cases. Luckily, some of the folks that we're helping out, they don't have a lot of family drama. They just need help and moving the assets and that's what we're here to do. But I just wanted to let you know, guys out there is make sure you cherish your loved ones. If you respect somebody and they're going through a rough time, don't be hesitant to pick up the phone and tell them you care about them and that you're there for them. There's a lot of folks struggling out there right now. I'm not talking financially, health wise, stuff like that, with different things. Just pick a phone, call somebody. We always love to hear that and hear from people. And if you are, you know, like I said, if you've got a portfolio, you're looking to move some stuff and you need a point of contact that somebody that can reach out to your spouse or family to help you move or liquidate a portfolio or help them move it, operate it, whatever, feel free to reach out to me and I'd be glad to be that guy. And you can always book a phone call with me at talkwithscottcarson.com or you can reach me directly@scotteeclosenotes.com so, you know, usually Easter is a pretty happy holiday for everybody. I hope everybody had great, great time with family and church and fellowship and stuff like that. We had something planned, but obviously it didn't happen, so. But we're just glad to be here with our health and rock and rolling and getting back, back in the saddle again and often and rock and roll here as we get through the rest of April here and move on into the rest of the year. So we are here to help you guys. We do have our upcoming class this coming weekend. This Friday, Saturday, Sunday, get signed up at Note buying for dummies.com that's not buying for dummies.com and let's look, let's get you rocking and rolling to the top. And like I said, have that conversation with your family, your loved ones. It's better to have it now versus them trying to figure it out after you're gone. All right, so go out, take some action buddy and we'll see the top. Bye. Hey real estate investors. If you have ever wanted to dive into the sexy side of real estate and become a note investor, not just somebody that owner finances properties or buys and sells on terms, but somebody who's actually buying debt from lenders, mortgage bankers, hedge funds on distressed real estate on both residential and commercial properties, now is the perfect time. And guess what? We have our upcoming three day workshop here in just a few days on July 25th, 26th and 27th. That's right, that's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. You can join me live on Zoom on our Note Buying for Dummies workshop. We'll go through the Fs of how to find, fund and flip non performing notes at huge discounts without having to use your own money. And we'll show you all the different ways that you can make money being a note investor. Day one's all about how we find these deals from banks, hedge funds and how you can automate the process of connecting with these people and get tapes and listen to you over and over again. Day two is all about raising capital and marketing. We'll show you how to tap into thousands of IRA investors who are looking for deals to fund and how to communicate and how to contact them and get them to fund your deals. And day three is all about the flip the exit strategies putting deals together. We'll mix in due diligence. We'll mix in the marketing side along with the structure side. So much stuff in three days. Live on Zoom with yours truly, the Note guy, Scott Carson. Make sure you get signed up by going to Note buying for dummies.com or click on the three day workshop tab on our workshop. Get signed up today as we're still running discounts and you too can soon become a no buyer.