EP 382 – Creative Financing Marketing with Larry Goins

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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 pennies 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 notes, Scott Carson. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the no Closer show. And we are honored to have my good buddy Larry Goins join us from the Goins group on this morning. Good morning, Larry.

What's up? How you been?

I'm doing great, brother. How about yourself?

I'm doing awesome. I was gonna watch you on Facebook, but I'm on it.

Good times. Good times. Will you, Larry, why don't you take a second and with those out there that don't know who the man, the myth, Larry legend is out there. How's that sound?

That sounds good. That sounds good. I'm Larry Goins from Lake Wy, South Carolina. I've been investing over 30 years. I bought my very first house in 1986, right before many of you were born. And I've done over a thousand deals. I still wholesale. I do seller financing. I've done wholesaling, seller financing, lease options subject to short sales. I'm a private money hard money lender. I've done residential, commercial, multifamily, triple net lease properties. I've owned dollar generals and Shoney's restaurants and mobile home parks and all kind of stuff. But I really stick to what I love. That's wholesaling and seller financing. Those are the two things I love. I've done deals in 12 different states right. From my office in Lake Wylie, South Carolina.

Like so let's talk a little about it. But you do in various states. But you love the Carolinas as well. That's kind of your home bread and butter area.

Right, right, right. I love the Carolinas. I do the majority of my business here, all over north and South Carolina. Written a couple of books about wholesaling called real estate day trading. Getting started in real estate day trading. And I also buy a lot of HUD houses. HUD homes half off. We bought HUD houses as low as 20% of the list price. And most of our deals are in the Carolinas.

Cool. So let's talk a little about owner financing. There's a lot of people out there, you know, this is an up closer show. So let's focus on notes. I guess you'd say a lot of people can you give some advice to those that are looking to get owner financing? Any marketing tips to attract buyers or tips for people out there when they're looking at maybe selling, they're having a difficult time selling their house conventionally. What are some tips to help them sell with owner financing?

Well, you know, that's a really, really good point. I have a model I call Filthy Riches. And it's all about buying really cheap, low price band properties and then you sell them for about three to six times what you paid for them. With owner financing, I've had returns, well, I've had infinite returns, but deals I keep my money in. I've had returns as high as 788% return where the buyer put down almost all I had in the property. Right. But I love doing this. You mentioned about some tips on maybe finding buyers. Man, finding buyers is the easiest thing there is. That's the easiest part of it. Because think about this. They see an ad out that says why rent when you can own payments less than rent? No bank qualifying needed. Looking for a deserving family with a reasonable down payment. Right. I mean my gosh, I just sold a house. We just sold one yesterday. Check this out, Scott, you're going to love this. I bought this house, no money down. The seller financed 100% at 5% interest, no money down, 20 year financing, no prepayment penalty and non recourse financing and financed 82,000. So I bought the house for 82, no money down, and I sold it for 99,900 and I got $18,000 down.

So you basically wrapped your mortgage, the owner finance with another mortgage or you just sold it traditionally?

Actually I just sold it and let them assume my loan also got 90 days till the first payment.

Very nice, very nice.

That's not the typical deal. That's kind of combining wholesaling and seller financing. I negotiated seller financing with my seller and then I sold it to a buyer and I collected the down payment. Now a lot of times I just sell or finance deals. I'll buy it and pay cash and then I will sell or finance it and be the lender myself. But this particular deal, we do a lot of marketing and we make the phone ring. We probably get 300 calls a week from motivated sellers. And if I can't meet their price, I always ask for terms. Right?

Right. It's either or. That way you get a winning aspect of things. Cause a lot of people get so fixated on price, they're willing to give you amazing terms below market stuff that's exactly right.

That's exactly right. And I've negotiated three of those seller finance deals this month. Well, last month.

Because November's a little early there.

Exactly. It's a little early. But the days are not over.

Exactly, exactly. We still got a few more. We still got two more two and a half weeks here. Month. So that's one of the things. Are you just, are you posting on Facebook to get the phone? Are you just doing it via mailers or are you doing it via like a classified ad in the paper? Where are you finding a lot of your buyers?

Majority of it is direct mail. We mail out about 25,000 pieces a month and we break that up into four weekly mailings, which is, you know, six to 7,000 a week. And then the phone rings in our office and the leads go automatically into podio. And then we have lead managers that will process that lead. And I gotta tell you, Scott, man, I'm a small team. It's not like I have five acquisition people, five salespeople. I've got one lead manager, one closing manager and one sales guy. And I am the acquisition guy. I have right now 28 deals under contract in our pipeline. And I am the acquisition manager on all 28 of them.

Well, that's why you know exactly ins and outs of that. You know what's, what's going on, how to best structure.

Exactly. And I do them all over the phone. All over the phone.

You're not out driving. Look at all these properties.

Get it, man. Forget about it.

So you're dropping postcards out. These are going to lower priced homes. Or you can mail the letters out. You've got zip codes that you're dropping postcards out to or what?

Yeah, we mail in about seven different counties in north and South Carolina. And like I'm in the Charlotte msa, I want to get out two or three counties out, right? So I'm not right in the thick of all the other investors. I mean, it's very rare somebody tells me, I get these postcards all the time. Right. Because I'm mailing out to small town USA outside of the msa. And I also want to keep the values. I only mail out to people where the values are 100,000 or less.

Okay, that's smart there. There you go. That's some good nuggets out there for those that are looking for some information. And then they're calling you and you're marketing out that house to your buyers, right? You're building a buyers list out there, Is that correct?

We're always building a buyer's list. We've got a list of about 10 or 15 things that we do to market every single property. Right. I mean, we're going to put it on Facebook. We're a member of all the Facebook groups in the Carolinas that have anything to do with real estate. We put it on Facebook Marketplace on the buy sell market groups on Facebook. We put it on connected investor. We put it on my deals, my house deals. We put it on Craigslist. We put them on our website. We send out emails and text messages to our buyers. So we're always, always, always building our buyers list.

That's smart there. You're blitzkrieging the different ways the market things going online. Facebook. I think a lot of people don't realize that there's so many different Facebook groups out there in different areas of the country. There's so many real estate investment clubs. I mean, here in Texas, you look at just Houston alone, there's a lot of groups there. Then you jump on LinkedIn or other things like you mentioned out there. There's so many ways to really get the marketing out to an audience and then collecting their information so you do something smart, like you said, where you can send them a text message direct with the details. This is the new TV of the decade, right? The cell phone, for the most part.

Exactly.

Now, why don't you share? You got started when you were two, obviously you're 10, you've bought in multiple states, but you like the Carolinas, you like North South. North Carolina's a shorter foreclosure state. South Carolina's a little bit longer foreclosure state. Are you running into issues when your owner finance notes where you're ever having to foreclose and drag it out, or are you usually doing like cash or keys? Just dispute the situation.

I gotta tell you, man, I've been doing this for years and years and years. It's probably been six or seven years since I've had to foreclose. I try to keep the kind of relationship with my borrowers where they know up front we established this, hey, if you don't pay, you can't stay. Come on, it's that simple, right? I'll try to work with them. I've done loan modifications. I've helped them sell their houses before. And I mean, I even had somebody a while back, a couple of years back, that they put $10,000 down and they eventually, after about two years, they had to move out. I did a loan modification. They failed out of that. And then they finally just said, look, Larry, we're gonna have to leave. But they brought me my next buyer. I was so good to them. They helped me sell the house to the next buyer.

That's pretty awesome when you can do that. Exactly the case. But it's always a good thing. Let's see here, we got some people out there, William B. Casey, saying, outstanding. That was good stuff. And then Aaron Murgis says, hey, Larry. Good morning, Aaron.

What's up, buddy? He's been to my office.

Oh, he's in your office?

He's been to my office. He's been to my office.

He's been to your office.

He's in Texas. He's in your neck of the woods out in DFW area.

There you go. Dfw, awesome. Good stuff there. Let's talk a little bit because a lot of people out there this year, they want to do something big. The next year, they want to leave their job, they want to get started. What's the best bit of advice that you can give somebody out there who's looking to get started?

Man, it's not really much different than you or anybody else out there is going to tell people, Number one, you got to get educated. Number two, you got to take action. Right? Education without action is irrelevant. Right. You've got to take action. Right? Just like I had a group of students come to my office, some of my high level students, students come to my office last week and they thought they were going to come here for me to train them, stand in front of them and write on the whiteboard all day. No, they got their computers out and they got to work, right. They got busy. So when they got home, their phone starts ringing off the hook just like mine does. Right.

Taking action is the most important thing. I totally agree with that. You can. I know you've got a bookshelf, not the one behind you there, but you got a bookshelf over there with a bunch of material, a bunch of boot camp books, stuff like that. Yeah, there you go. I've got one of my offices where too. Yep, there you go. Never stop learning. But that's unfortunate. Too many people go to a workshop and they're back on the shelf and they never take action. And that's just. I know that frustrates you. Like it frustrates me.

It does. It used to really, really bother me, but now, I mean, it used to bother me and I wanted to get out of educating people. But then I started realizing all the people that I really Am helping. I mean I want you to check this out. This is my train. I'm going to show you my training room out here. This is my training room. And look, it's lined with pictures of testimonials all the way around, right? All the way around. The room is lined with testimonials of students who have gone before our current students. Right. And they've gone out there and done deals and made money and now we put them up on the wall of fame and that's just a small percentage. And I've got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those students.

Very nice. That's always a very nice visual there for it keeps you motivated when you're not doing. Focusing on those that are doing things, those that versus aren't. That's just. Yeah, that's one of the great things.

It's kind of like the people who, I mean, you know, Scott, you get this, people will email you and say why don't you just give me your course and I'll split my first deal with you. Right?

Yeah.

The people who get it for free, it has no value to them so they do nothing with it. Right.

That's definitely the truth out there. Where do you see the market going here in the near future? You see in slowing down your markets as far as values or days on market or thinking we have a big price correction in different parts of the country?

Well, I think we're already starting to see some slowdown. Even where you are, you're starting to see the high priced properties stay on the market longer periods of time. That's already happening. Right. I don't think there's going to be a crash like There was in 7, 8, 9. There's not going to be that kind of crash. Right. Because the lending is not crazy the way it was back then. Right.

I don't know, dude. I think 100% financing is back on subprimes or as they call it, the non prime now. All right. I had somebody call me Friday night who was like, oh yeah, in bankruptcy we'll do foreclosure, bailouts, 100% financing with a 480 FICO.

You're in that market a lot better than I am, so you would know. So maybe there is that coming. I hope it's at least a couple more years until it hits. But check this out, Scott. I'm a firm believer in buying value. I don't care if the market is here or it's here. If it's here, I'm buying here. If it's Here, I'm buying here. Right. So it doesn't matter. Plus the second part of that is I'm buying in the low price band, right. It's not unusual for me to buy. Like I'll buy a house for $5,000, right? I'll buy a house for 10,000, for 20, for 30. Most of my houses I'm selling for 15 for 29,900, for 39,900 49,900. Those price values aren't affected by the market. Right. A $30,000 house is always going to be a $30,000 house. It's just some of them I buy for 10. Right.

But that's what people think, especially in those price points too. It's easier for somebody to cash out or they'll stick around and ride it through the downturn where the most of the loss, you know, volatility happens in the higher valued areas, you know, the crazy areas. Everybody's fighting and slicing their grandmother's throat to buy a house.

Yeah, it's the median price and above, right. I don't even get there. I don't even get there. I stay under 100,000. Most of the properties I'm selling, I'm selling. If I'm wholesaling a property, most of the time I'm wholesaling it for 15, 29, 39, 49, 59, something like that. And if I'm seller financing it, I'm buying it for 10 and I'm seller financing it for 29,900 or 39,900 or I'm buying it for 30 and I'm seller financing it for 69,900 or 79,900.

Right. Are you still doing a little bit where you bring in IRA investors, help cash out your profits and still stay involved, where you're arbitraging your funds, giving them a good return on investment or.

No, I do that a little, not much. I only do it with my kids, esa, and my hsa because those are still kind of small accounts and we're building them up right now. So I do that only on those small accounts. But we have ESAs, HSAs. I've got a Roth, my wife has a Roth, I have a solo 401k or safe harbor 401k. And plus we have our LLCs that we do business in. So my goal is to eventually, within five years, I want to be doing all my business in a self directed type of account. All of my business within five years.

That's a really good goal. And as you Build those, grow those accounts. You'll be able to do more and more and more and stuff like that and be able then to do bigger things. But you're still not, not. That's still not stopping you from taking the opportunity now to put those accounts to work. And I think a lot of people, you know, they like to start an account, but they don't focus on putting those accounts to work. Whether it's a small account or a big account, there's multiple ways to put that money to work, right?

Exactly, exactly. I mean, you can do all different kinds of transactions. You can do like the transaction I mentioned earlier where I bought it for 82, no money down and I sold it for $99,900. I could have put my kids ESA or HSA in that deal with 500 or 1000 bucks and then wrapped it and collected a payment. But I elected just to make 18 grand in cash out. Right. So I did a deal in my kids ESA just last month where I made $10,000. And with the ESA, it's use it or lose it. You got to use it that year. It's not like an HSA where you can carry it over and get refunded or get reimbursed for medical expenses five years later. It's not that way with an esa. So I wanted to go ahead and turn a deal and get the money.

Out, put the money back in and it's good for another year then at that point. Correct?

Exactly, exactly.

That's awesome up there. Now the ones that you're not using your accounts there, are you using other people's money to help you take some deals down as well?

No, actually what we're doing is we're wholesaling properties and then taking some of those funds. It's like sell one, keep one, sell one, keep one, sell 1, keep 1, right, or sell 2, keep 1, or sell 3 and keep 1, or whatever. Plus, we do a lot of hard money lending ourselves, so we're not really using a lot of private investors money. I probably should, but we're not really doing that. We've been doing lending long enough now. We used to broker loans, we used to use other people's money and we would make hard money loans and we would get the points and they would get the interest. But fortunately we've got to the position where we just loan out our own money.

Very nice out there. That's very nice. That's where everybody wants to get to be the bank.

There you go.

Exactly, exactly out there. Do you see opportunity as people come to the end of the year. Does your business pick up the end of the year, first quarter as people are moving or looking to change things any. Larry, or does it slow down a little bit in the holidays?

Well, a lot of people are focused on the holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas coming up. There's not near as many people that are wanting to move. So I would suggest keep your marketing up, but don't market to owner occupied buyers. Market to the vacant property owners code violation, foreclosure, whatever. As long as they're not owner occupant. Because the owner occupant people, they don't want to move during the holidays. Right. And even banks, a lot of banks will even let people slide a little bit until January. Right. Get past the holidays and then they'll foreclose on them.

We'll let you stay through the New Year's, but January 2nd, you're out of here.

You're out of here.

You know, stay.

Exactly. No, I was just gonna say, like I had a guy on the phone yesterday and he said, can I get my money before Christmas? People are motivated this time of year, right? They want to get their money right away.

Yeah. When I was in the mortgage business, Realtors, you had it delayed before, you know, a day or two delay to close. And all the realtors are coming out of their shoes and things like that. I need my money so I can go pay my Christmas gifts.

Exactly, exactly.

Ben Frederickson here says I do the same strategy as Larry and it works tremendously. Hashtag be the bank, which is good. Awesome.

I love it. I love it.

For those investors out there, people that are in higher end markets, let's say above, they're in the higher price aspect of things. Any advice? I mean, you talked about going out a couple counties and stuff like that. I know a lot of people are scared initially about investing outside their backyard. And we tell them all the time, like, listen, it's not that hard. Get a realtor, get somebody, go drive by. What are some tips for overcoming those fears of investing outside their backyard that you'd like to pass on?

Well, you know what, Scott? There's so many tools that people can use right now. So many tools that they can use. You don't have to worry about going outside your own market. I've got many, many, many students. Some of my most successful students live on the west coast where the prices look like phone numbers. Right. And they invest in the Midwest or in the Southeast or in the Northeast and they're buying the lower price stuff. And Number one, the lower price stuff is not as intimidating. And number two, you can get anything you want on the Internet. Google knows everything. All you got to do is ask Google and Google knows everything. Got to tell you, man, I've got this thing down to a science. Scott, you're going to love, love, love this. All right, When I get somebody on the phone, if I'm negotiating a deal, like right now, it's 10:30 Eastern, 9:30 your time. I get somebody on the phone and they agree to accept my offer. Let's say it's $15,000 and I don't care if the house is in Shelby, North Carolina, but they live in Dubuque, Iowa. It doesn't make any difference. I'm going to tell them, hey, you live in Dubuque, Iowa, right? I've got somebody that's going to be in your area in a couple hours. Do you mind if I have them swing by and get the paperwork started so I can get you your money before Christmas? What's your home address? And I've got a service, a mobile notary service that doesn't have to be a notary, but I've got a mobile notary service that has a network of notaries all around the country. They can be at any house anywhere in the United States within two hours. So I'll set an appointment of say, one o' clock this afternoon. And it gets better, Scott. I have a special number, a marketing number programmed into my phone, right? It's for the mobile notary to use and I give specific instructions. If you don't get the contract signed for any reason, you call me while you're still at the house, while you're still in front of the seller. My phone rings, it pops up and says mobile notary. And I know to answer it and I might have to reclose them or answer some questions over the phone so they can get the signature.

Nice. That's very important. I love the mobile notary aspect of things. I think it's a huge, huge win because you put it getting the paperwork started on your terms, not on somebody else's term. When they, oh, I'll get to it tonight or I'll get to it this Friday. It speeds up the closing time, your transactions. We use that with our distressed note business. We got a borrower, you know, we're talking on the phone modified or trial payment plan. We're sending out a mobile notary immediately to get them to fill that paperwork and sign it back into us and even a lot of times collect the first check out there to get them started and things like that. So then we'll smell that into the servicer to make. But we're collecting certified funds, getting things signed, because otherwise people are just gonna sit there and be lazy, not take action.

Right, exactly. But not only that, the other thing that happens is they end up talking to their parents or children or niece or nephew or Uncle Bob who is an attorney, and they end up talking them out of it.

Yeah, they start getting advice instead of seeking counsel. And advice is an asshole. Everybody's got one.

Right, right, right.

What are some goals that you've got set for 2019? Because I know you like to set goals just like everybody else out there. You have some goals for the new year?

Yeah, I want to expand my team and bring in a select few people to help me with the day to day as far as acquisitions. I love getting on the phone. I love negotiating deals, like for my partners, I have a partner program. And for my partners, I record all of my calls. Then the really good cause I put in a Dropbox folder so they can listen to them and they can hear me on the phone negotiating deals. But I want to get to the point where I bring in a couple of other people and have them acquiring deals as well. I mean, yeah, we got 28 deals and I did every single one of them. But there's only so many hours in the day. And, you know, I want to take a little bit of time off and do some other stuff and travel a little bit more. But I love real estate. I love it. I love being right in the thick of things. But actually I'm not traveling much anymore. Scott, I know we've talked about this a little bit. I'm speaking at Metrolina RIA in Charlotte, North Carolina, this Thursday in two days. And it was the very first speaking gig I ever had back in 2003, I believe. And it was because I was the president right back then. And so it was my first speaking gig and it's going to be my last speaking gig at a RIA group. I will still do a few conventions and expos and things like that, go to some friends events and stuff like that. But as far as rea groups, it's over. I'm done. This Thursday is my last one.

That's awesome, man. You and I have both been road warriors and looking to get off the road to be more focus on what we want to accomplish. Yeah, that's good stuff. Congratulations, man. Glad to hear it. You also have a podcast too, that you do on A pretty regular basis. Let's talk about the podcast man as well. Yeah, man.

I have. I actually have two podcasts. I do. The first one is called Brain Pick a pro. Right, Brain Pick a pro. And it's a podcast where I interview other people just like yourself. I have a different person on every single week. And so it's really, really good. You get a diverse audience, you get a diverse set of topics, but the whole premise of that one is to interview other people. And then I have another show. It's called bragging. Be rich and generous is what bragg stands for. And Candice and I are on it every single week. And we talk about we have a deal of the week. I mean, we're doing enough deals. We got a deal of the week. Right? So we got a deal of the week. We have show sponsor winners and we give away courses and do stuff like that and have a topic of the week. And then we also talk about how people can go out and be generous and help others. Because our goal is to really teach people how to invest in real estate and then go out and be generous, brag, be rich and generous and help others.

That's good stuff. Nothing more. I mean, it's important to be doing that year round. I know a lot of people love doing something this time of year and things like that. Which great. If we did it every year, every month, every week out there, be much more generous. But you also. I think it adds something when you have a cause behind what you're doing. Yeah, everybody could donate a little bit extra money or extra toys this time of year, but if you're doing something on a regular basis, it adds just more meaning to what we do as entrepreneurs and real estate investors. Right, Larry?

You're absolutely right. Absolutely.

What's the best way for people get a hold of you, Larry? Find out more about Mr. Larry Goins and what you got going on.

Sure, absolutely. Our website is really simple. Larrygowins.com L A R R Y G O I N S. Or they could call toll free. 8 7, 7 Larry go. 8, 7, 7, Larry go.

Very nice. I like that, dude. You go. Go, Larry. Well, hey, man, I want to say thank you for being guest on another close show. Gave some great nuggets out there. Love what you're doing, man. It's always great to catch up with you. Big plans for the holidays or just kind of hanging out there? Are you traveling anywhere or no?

Well, actually we've got a little place up in the mountains, North Carolina, and we're going to go up there and spend Thanksgiving and outside of that man, we're just going to be around just having fun, taking some time off.

Good stuff man. Well hey you, you and your well deserved a rest. Give a big shout out to Candace for me as well there. All right bud.

That sounds good man. I sure will. I really appreciate you having me on.

Hey man, anytime. Let it catch up with you and we'll see you around. Alright bud.

Sounds good. Take care everybody.

All right guys, that's gonna wrap it up for this episode of the no closers. Yeah, check out Larry at LarryGowins.com or 877- Larry, go love that customized number out there. Gave some great nights out there for those that are looking to dive in, taking some action or some things to help speed up your transactions out there as well. So go out, make something happen everybody and we'll see you off the top everybody. Bye Sam.