Getting Started as a Note Investor in Q4

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.

All right everybody. Hey. Welcome to this episode of Note Night in America. Glad to have each and everyone on here tonight. Hope you are having a great week, had a great weekend. It's a beautiful day here in Austin, Texas. It is an interesting chaotic time in the markets right now in real estate and mortgage industry for realtors and all the stuff with the NAR and MLS and the announcement that there's 722 banks that are facing bankruptcy or insolvency can be pretty scary. But also works in our favor for what we're going to talk about tonight. But anyway, we're glad to have you. If you're joining us for the first time on Note Night in America, we are honored. We do these basically every Monday night. You can catch the replays by going if you like the video, you can go to our YouTube channel at WeCloseNotes TV to watch all of the replays from, I don't know from going back there. I think there's, there's a couple hundred videos on there that's weclosenotes tv. And then of course you can listen to the podcast because we turn our Note Night in America into a podcast as well. So anywhere that you listen to podcasts, Apple, Spotify, whatever it might be, you can listen to all the episodes there. But we're honored to have you here guys. Rock and roll along. I want to let you know we do have a couple new episodes for the Note Closer show podcast. We did a, a ten thousand dollar case study on a deal basically investing with small funds and small notes. It's a great way to get started if you get limited funds in our intimidate with raising capital. Check out that episode 793 of the Note Clutch that came out last week. And then coming out tomorrow is the newest episode 793 which is dumb note money. I don't know if you've had a chance to see the movie Dumb Money. It's worth going seeing. And I basically voiced my opinions on Wall street and how the money, how that movie really reminded me of what our opportunities lie here right now with what's going on in the industry. Actually streaming that video right now, I think also on the YouTube channel. So when you finish up with this, you can jump over there and watch that video and kind of chuckle a little bit, I think. But love to know your comments. Love to know what you think about that. You've seen the movie. Great. It's. I think it's, it's pretty hilarious movie based on true stories. But leave your comments. Let me know because I think we do have an opportunity to tell Wall street to go F itself and take advantage of what's going on right now. Especially note investors as a whole here. Not so much real estate investors or traditional real estate. A lot of folks are struggling right now. We in the debt space have the opportunity that really is, you know, we're. We're seeing stuff right now. It's gonna make. That makes sense and we're gonna see a whole lot more for it. So anyway, but let's get into nitro here to talk about or how to learn how to get started as a Note Investor in Q4, 2023. That means right now, I mean, we're literally in Q4. We're what, nine days into the fourth quarter here you've got November, December, 20 more days in October. If you think about it, you really only have two months left. When you look at the holidays, when you look at Thanksgiving, the last week, two months left to get started. And I'm a big believer this is not a get rich quick. Obviously it takes time, but if you start now, you will be more prepared for Q1. These things that you do can lead to success. Now, if you will take action, but that is up to you to be the one taking action. So anyway, what would I do? And this kind of came in. Steph was asking me last night. We're sitting outside on a beautiful evening, smoking a brisket and a chicken in the grill. And I always tell her, ask me what's my topic going to be about? And she can, you know, she's asking, what are you gonna talk about? So you know what I would probably talk about? I had a lot of people ask me questions about getting started. I said, well, I'll probably share. What would I do if. If I had to start all over again? If I had to start right now, what I would do. And that's what really this episode is all about for you. Okay, this edition of Nightmare. So one of the things that the five points that we'll discuss is focus on. First thing is you want to focus on what's working now in this market. Where can you have the most impact? Not something that's worked in the past or what's really working in today's market right now. Okay, we're going to talk about leveraging social media to help you along. And some of you, especially see me on here, aren't doing any of that. Third thing is start connecting with note buyers. We'll talk about the importance of that. We'll talk about start connecting with note sellers and immediately start contacting investors. Those five bullet points we'll talk about tonight. Okay, but those are the five things that would immediately start doing that. Now, this isn't a 40 hour work week kind of thing. This is a couple hours a day. You know, I'm not talking eight hours, I'm talking an hour or two at night, a little bit each day to get the ball rolling. You can really pick up and say, 1, 2, 3, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or something like that. What's the most difficult thing is going to be the first thing. Let's focus, you know, focusing on what's working now on this market. Let's talk about that now. What's working in this market? Here's the things that are working. It is not going out and doing apartment syndication because you're not going to get cheap financing. It's just not the case. Buying commercial real estate really isn't the case right now because it's hard to get financing. Especially when you look the fact that so many banks are struggling right now.

Tom.

And we'll do a whole different episode about that, probably next Monday night anyway. But what's working in this market? Where could you be making money almost immediately? Well, not every market is worth investing in currently. There's states that you want to stay out of. I would stay out of California. I would honestly almost stay out of Florida for these reasons. Florida's got high freaking insurance going through the roof. California, San Francisco, I don't think I'd buy anything there just because it takes forever to foreclose. It takes forever. It's just not a friendly area. You want to focus in markets that are going to be worth it at price point. Still that, you know, really $500,000 and below, that's the asset class to look at most markets. Most of that could vary in the market. Like what $500,000 in Columbus, Ohio is going to be different than Columbus, Georgia. It'd be different. What's in Texas? Dallas, Texas versus Dallas, Georgia. You know what I mean? It's different. So you want to really state that I, I prefer $300,000 and less. Okay, now I say different strokes. For different folks. Because it's going to vary on what your long term and short term goals are.

Okay?

And only you can answer that. All right? Now if you want long term success or you have short term goals, your short term goals are probably gonna be more wholesale flipping and stuff like that. And that's going to be a pain in the ass to do and you're gonna get frustrated. You have to understand this is a long term game more so than anything else. And yes, you can make some short term capital. If you have a long term game plan, there'll be things that happen. But literally, if you're looking for cash flow and you need to get some cash flow coming in right now, buying reperforming notes is something that I would focus on. That's if you got your own money, 50, 100 grand or more. If you've got your own money and you're wanting to make at least, you know, 8 to 10, 12% return, you can do that. If you're looking for that and are having trouble doing that, then reach out to me and let's schedule a call, let's talk. We can help place your money, there will be some placement fees. We're not doing that for free, but we can help you and still leave you the lines then of the profits. Why not have somebody that's going to be overlooking your shoulder versus you going out there trying to figure yourself.

Okay?

But right now you can buy performing and reperforming notes and get cash flow. Okay, if you want to get some cash flow and with some big chucks missed in there, then buy non performing notes, mixing in some non performing notes that you're probably going to need to use some other people's money for that. Or if you use your own money, that's great. But if you don't have any of your own money, guess what? You're gonna have to go find some of your money. This is why I like the reperforming side. Because you can get an 18, you probably see stuff at a 12 to 18 yield. But if you can get somebody's money to pay them six to eight, you're doing well. Non performingness is probably not going to make cash flow immediately. You're going to need to do that borrower outreach and go from there. But it can lead to cash flow and big checks and a mixture of both. Also a prime aspect of it, which most people don't think is note investing, I think it is, is subject to deals taking over subject, you know, low interest rate loans from the last three years prior to this year. And either people that can't sell their houses or FSBOs, they don't have any equity or they gotta move, they're motivated. You could potentially take over some low interest rate mortgages and buy some and get some houses that we can hold for cash flow or big checks if you do a wraparound mortgage. I was literally just. It's funny. God plays interesting games sometimes. I was just thinking about my buddy Max Bailey. I called the underwriter and I was about to email and I get a LinkedIn message from him and I just chuckled. I was like, oh hey, hey, what is going on my friend? It's good to see you. He's like, yeah. I was like, I need. I've been meaning to give you a phone call for some things. I'll talk more about that later on what we have in mind for that. But those are some great deals that you can get cash flow but also get some big checks with deposits if you're doing lease options or rent to own or even doing some owner financing with non, non refundable deposits or a big chunk of the down payment. Like if it's here in Texas and you can't do a lease option but you can do it under financing, get some cash flow. I just did. There's another video on a Houston, Houston case study as well too where the creative financing you might want to check out on the note closer show too. We kind of break a deal down that we came across. But anyway, you can also look at. If you look at those aspects of things, there's a lot of things you can do. I. I wouldn't be looking at short term rentals. I know a lot of people looking at. Because short term rentals are really. They're kind of that precipice. Everybody's a lot of places are being overwhelmed with them. So saying you can't make it, you just got to be very careful on where you're at and what kind of things you have to do. Now with licensing, is there a limit or a, you know, the maximum that cities are allowing? Just got to be very careful with that in every city and states can be a whole lot different. You really need to research markets. That's something you want to do, but that's going to require your capital. Could you do that with Subject to deals? Yes, you could do that with subject to deals if it allows you for in those areas. Now here's the thing. What markets can I find these in? Well, you're going to find these in markets you can find subject to deals all across the country does mean it just depends on what's available and how many people are moving there and if there's a buyers buyers looking for that kind of opportunity. There is. A couple of weeks we're going to have Chris Prefontaine talk about some of the ways that they're finding buyers with large checks and down payments and stuff like that with their subject to deals and also owner finance stuff. So we're excited about that. But like I said, if you can markets that have really a $500,000 and less are going to be your prime. If you live near a military area with military coming and going, that can also be a really great place to find some two deals as military guys are getting moved out quite a bit. So stick to the markets. You can find stuff. If you live in a market that doesn't have a lot of stuff, guess what? Find a market that does. You're not stuck with just looking in your one market. And I'm always cracking up at posts I see on Tick Tock and Instagram and YouTube or people, well this isn't my markets. 1.8 million. You can't do that. Well then get off your ass and go find a market you can do it in because there's plenty out there.

Okay.

And when you're looking in the market you got to figure out too what do I need to do to find these deals or marketing. Now if you're looking for long term, if you're looking for non performing performing notes, you need to start connecting with note buyers. No sellers, no platforms. We'll talk more about that later on. If you're looking for something to deals then you need to start looking at expireds, withdrawal listing, hiring an agent or buying a list from a company. We've got sources for all that stuff. Okay, well that's the first thing I know. Know what your goals are and know what is going to align to help you achieve that. Does that make sense? Everybody make sure that we're live streaming here. Somebody liked my video of dumb note money. That's good. Let's see here. Perfect. Yes, I am, I am tracking the YouTube so if you're watching live on YouTube guys, I'm make sure to leave a comment, let me know you're there.

Okay.

But how do you find out? We'll talk to people, they're doing deals in an area their expertise but asset classes to help you find that. And they should be able to tell you there's plenty of deal flow to go around it's just a matter of reaching out and talking with people.

Okay?

If somebody wants to charge you for every nickel and dime for helping you, you need to move on to something else. And we'll talk more about that, okay? Now second thing, you got to leverage social media. If you are starting off this is your friend. If you have failed to do this because you scared you're older or as we say, more seasoned, got more gray hair, or just don't know where to begin, guess what? Here's a very simple plan. Connect and follow with other note investors. Pretty easy. Go to LinkedIn, type in note investors, note buyers, note sellers, we'll talk more about that and look at their profiles. Some people are sharing great stuff. Actually, most, it's funny is most of the people that are sharing great stuff on LinkedIn are students of ours, our coaching students. I know four of my four or five my coaches have been solicited by two of the note platforms to help out with marketing. They're like, we love your stuff. I'm like, I, I chuckle because the stuff that we teach and stuff that we do on a regular basis, you know, that's the most important thing is it's just got to start sharing what they're doing. And you ain't got to be a rocket scientist, make this happen. Just see what they're doing and start sharing it in your own terms. Adding your logo, adding flip to okay, and then literally start doing what they are doing. Pick up the phone, hey, can you tell me how you're doing this? What are you doing? And if they're doing videos, short videos, do it. If they're doing blogs, do it. If they're sharing articles, do it. Infographics, whatever it might be. This is not meant to be difficult. Marketing is not difficult. If you will just get in the habit of doing it on a regular basis and start somewhere, something is better than nothing. Most of you are doing nothing. That's why you're getting nothing.

Okay?

But going LinkedIn, Facebook, even TikTok, all these platforms allow for you to search by note investor, real estate investing, and you will find plenty of people that can help you out with that.

Okay?

But then the most important thing is start sharing case studies, deals from some of the websites, investors that you're seeing. Most of these platforms will let you repost something. You may want to talk to them, do a short little video or ask them about the deal. Some, you know, specifics, plenty pretty. I mean, you can literally go to some trading platforms and pull some case studies off of There and start working through those deals and like you're making an offer. That's what I did to begin with, and it led to me helping create quite a buyer's list. Okay, now start connecting with note buyers. We talked about note leveraging social media, but start connecting with note buyers. Same thing. Note investors are similar, but people that are buying actual assets. These could all. The reason why it's important to start with these is because these could be potential wholesale buyers that you could flip a Note to or 2. It's better to make something instead of nothing.

Right.

But when you start connecting, start adding these people to your buyer's list. Creating a buyer's list. When I started off, it was just an Excel spreadsheet, but with keep and other things you can use, you got to start communicating with this. You get your buyer's list. Your, your database is one of the most important assets you'll have. If you're starting off brand new, that's okay. It's better to just focus on getting a few a day, get a few people, add to your database, and start marketing. And when you're talking to these people, you want to find out what kind of markets are they investing? Well, they're like favorite states, Three favorite states. I always like to say, what type of assets are they looking for? They're looking for single family, multifamily notes, non performing, performing, you know, kind of that stuff. And then also kind of funding them out. What are they looking to invest? How much do they average looking to invest? Now, we talked about kind of these questions a couple weeks ago on the 20 questions you should ask note investors. So go back and watch that replay to give them an idea. You're not going to ask all these questions on the first phone call or the first one. You're reaching out to these people. But it's good to ask, what are you buying? All right, what are you looking for? What can I help? And it's gonna be really easy. If you go to note investors, just start reaching, hey, are you a note buyer or note seller? Okay, can I add you to my database? Can I add you to my email list so when I get a deal in, I can start emailing you some deals. And that's what you do. Start emailing them weekly. With deals. This is exactly. I would get a listing from a hedge fund. I'd pick out one asset a week, and I would do a little case study on it, and I would send it out without the address. It'd be like San Diego or Houston. I would Use those hot buttons that people are looking to buy in and that help get people excited.

Okay.

And you can find these deals on note trading platforms or lists that you get from banks. All right, there's a whole list of note trading platforms. Just Google note trading platform and you'll find plenty.

Okay.

Just talk about the deal. Say, why does this look attractive? What kind of price are they looking for? I'm making an offer at this amount and I think I can get it this way. Tell them the story. You have to tell the story because most people are unimaginative. They see a piece of a picture of a property, they think you're buying the property. They don't know the deal behind the deal. Can we agree to that, ladies and gentlemen? Right, the next thing I do, start connecting with note sellers. We just talked about the note trading platform, but there's also plenty of note sellers out there because sellers are also, guess what, they're buyers. Okay, you can look at, you can look at your, the foreclosure list for private investors in an area. You can see all the funds that are foreclosing on different notes. Those are hot button things.

Okay.

Start creating a seller's list. Same thing. Email out. Hey, what do you have on your books this month that I take a look at? You know, it's individual investors, note platforms, bank asset managers. I would send an email out to my note buyers and I send an email out to my note sellers. What do you have this month? What do you have this week? I'm literally driving south tomorrow. I'm getting up before sunrise to go drive, look at two assets that I'm excited about. But these came direct from an asset manager that only sent these assets to me to give me first crack at.

Okay.

And email them weekly for deals. Like I said, what do you have in your books this week? What do you have that's new? Most of these sellers are not marketers. They have a few people and the person that reaches out to them the most will get a list. And you got to follow up with these people. This is the biggest thing right here. Start emailing your note sellers on a weekly basis. You have any new what didn't close in your last trade? You know, those are great questions to ask and will lead you to get deals that nobody else is going to see or that fall through the cracks that you can often pick up a sweetheart. Especially as we get to the fourth quarter, you get to the first of December and people haven't sold stuff off their portfolio. They will get motivated to Move. It always happens. Okay, follow up with a phone call, LinkedIn messages, email. Follow up with your note buyers and see if they're selling. Literally this is one of the most important things to do. And no, you don't need to be spending 50 hours. We do this, this is a couple hours. Once you get a list, just email what do you have on this weekend? Look to add, you know, five to 10 note sellers a week. I'd say a day if you had time. But don't worry about, just keep reaching out. Reaching out.

Okay.

And then of course the big one, start connecting with investors. This is going to take a little bit of time, but let's look my, my slides are. I knew when I get it. Okay. So first thing you've heard me talk about reaching out in the county record for self directed IRA investors. Pull that list is free to pull most areas. Those that have a weird names or you actually see that the the investors name skip trace them or jump on Facebook or LinkedIn to find them and reach out to them. Now you're going to need to create an executive summary, a pitch deck and then update your social media so it looks like you know what the hell you're talking about.

Okay.

But the fact that you have a team servicing attorneys, sellers, a network that adds to boost your credibility when most people have zero credibility. Most note investors, most funding partners want to know that their investment's secure. And we have that in the note space, unlike really a lot of others.

Okay.

So once you start building this list, start contacting, just start mailing them, start posting social media, start calling them, you know, same thing. What are they looking to invest in? Mart says markets, asset classes, funding amounts very similar like we talked about buyers. Same thing with investors. If I got a deal like if, oh, I only invest in Georgia or I'll invest in anything that looks good or anything that I can get like an 8% return on.

Okay.

Like I said, start emailing them. Weekly case studies and things that you do, you're doing very similar we talked about beforehand to grow their interest because 80% sales comes after the fifth contact. If you start marketing now to your database once a week, that's five weeks from now. What's five weeks from now? The middle of it's the 16th of November or the 17th of November. A week before Thanksgiving, you'll technically have less than 30 days at that point. Really when you look at the holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, people shutting down, that kind of stuff. But you've got to start this process and this is just guys and gals, this is gonna what you don't accomplish before year end will boost you into 2024.

Okay?

Now the final piece is you gotta get educated. You gotta understand what the hell you're doing. And here's the thing. Not everybody is created equally. There's a lot of people that have gotten in the note space the last couple years but have never been through a downturn. They didn't go through through 2008, 9 and 10, 11 and 12.

Okay.

It's important to learn from someone buying in today's market and someone who went through last market change so that you know how to adapt and tweak things.

Okay.

Where the opportunities lie. It's not the same opportunities that line the same spots they did two years ago. You can find great people on YouTube and podcasts are great starting points, but it's not the same thing. And you're not going to have the same learning curve to help you get further and faster that you will by taking a class. Now, I'm not here to pitch you on our three day note Buying for Dummies workshop. It's great. We still don't know exact the dates we were going to do it at in the next couple weeks. We'll have it figure that that out by Friday. But I do want to invite you to my one day class.

Okay.

And a class, especially my one day class will give you a Cliff Notes version of how to find fun and flip. It's about six hours.

Okay.

You get the ability to ask questions of me. We'll go through stuff. We'll talk about mistakes to avoid. We're tweaking it because I'm changed up the slides on some stuff there so it's new content for you. And we'll show you what to do in this market and know what to do and what not to do in this market and how to really take that get your note business off and running. It's a great starting class. It'll be recorded. If you can't make it live, it's okay. And it's this Saturday and the most important thing it is free. I'm doing a free class. No, it's not one of these classes or it's a pitch fest. Buy my, buy my, buy my. I don't do that. Yes, you'll have the opportunity to sign up for my three day class. My monthly membership, that's totally fine. But note weekend, it's very easy. Go to noteweekend.com to get RSVP for. It's not going to cost you anything, whether you're watching here live or watching on YouTube or catching the replay or listening to the podcast, this comes out noteweekend.com you go there, get registered for it, you can get the replay sent to you. It's a good starting point because we've helped teach more, we've helped make more successful note investors than anybody else has successful. We may have not had as many people go through our classes as a few of the other old horses, but I guarantee we have more successful note investors, people that actually pulled the trigger, closed on deals than anybody else. I will gladly state stake my reputation on that and I'm proud of that. So once again, if you go to noteweekend.com we just type it here in the chat roll. So if you guys want to join, you can.

It's.

It'll take you to a website, it'll ask for your information and take you to Zoom. You're going to have to do that. It's not asking. There's no, no credit card.

Okay.

Which is great. Make sure you're a real person. Let me try to sign up the other day with fake stuff. So if you go to note weekend.com it's not going to cost you a dime. It'll help you get rock. I know some of you guys have been through that before and I think and cur. Do you have a question? Looks like somebody's got a question on here. I guess we start at 10 o' clock central. That's Austin time. That's 8 o' clock in California time. And we'll probably run to three or four.

Okay.

And you can't make it for the entire time. Guess what? Go ahead and get signed up and you'll get the replay sent to you.

Okay?

But that's it, guys. This is not rocket sign. It's all about connecting with buyers, connecting with sellers, leveraging social media, connecting with investors, getting educated and figuring out what the heck you want to do. What do you want to do when you grow up? When. How does that work with what your goals are and where the opportunities these, the opportunities in today's market that will allow you to achieve those goals.

Okay.

Don't have to have a ton of money. There's still plenty capital out there. We'll show you how to do some and I will show you how to find, fund and flip them on Saturday. So if you want to join us, I'd love to have you. And if you're listening to this in the Future, go to noteweekin.com, get RSVP it'll probably take you to new class, stuff like that. Just take the opportunity. Get yourself educated. One of the most important things you can do. Okay, any questions, comments, concerns from the the peanut gallery here, live or online for everybody. If you are watching this replay, feel free to type it in the YouTube video or drop me an email at talkwithscottcarson.com or that's that'll book a call with me. Or you can go to scottclosenotes.com to send a direct email to me. But I'd love to have you, I'd love to answer any questions to help you get on the right track in Q4 so that 2024 is even better for you than this year.

Okay?

A lot of people struggling. You can do a lot of good turning a lot of lemons and eliminate everybody.

All right.

And that's all that I have tonight for you. Hope you have a great night. Hope this was helpful for all of you. If there's any other questions or comments, dive in. Let's have you. Let's make you a successful investors. Let's help you understand where the opportunities lie, what you can do to take the most advantage of it and go out there and answer people's questions and help solve a lot of issues for you. All right, everybody, thanks so much for joining us here at Night America. And we'll see you guys at the top.

Bye.