Money Matters Top Tips with Adam Torres interviews Scott Carson CEO at WeCloseNotes.com

I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Money Matters Top Tips for Success where each and every day I bring on new business owners, entrepreneurs and executives and have them share their top Tips for success with you. My name is Adam Torres. You can follow me on Instagram @AskAdamToras to keep up with my book releases, book tour schedule, signings, all that other good stuff. Always love to connect with you there. And as always, if you'd like to apply to become a co author of one of my upcoming books, just head on over to the website Money Matters top tips.com and click on Become an Author to apply. Alright, so today is a very special reunion 2020 episode where I bring on guests that I've had on in the past, but I just couldn't get enough of them so I brought them right back. Today I got Scott Carson on the line and he's a president and CEO over at We Close Notes. Head, bottle washer, a whole bunch of other things he told me he does over at We Close Notes. But he's also host over a podcast host over at the Note Closer show podcast, which we're going to get into that and you're definitely going to want to follow up and listen to that also. But first, Scott, welcome to the show.

Hey man, Happy New Year. I'm excited to be here. And everybody, let's give Adam a big round of applause for doing such a great job with this podcast, everybody.

I heard him, I heard him. Well, hey Scott. So again, welcome back and I'll say a lot of the things in the tips that you helped me with. For example, telling me to to add video to the format and some other things that we've done. I can't wait to get into podcasting and what you're doing there. For all the podcasters out there, the people that want to launch podcasts, all that great stuff, we got a great show ahead of us. But before we do that, I don't want to assume everybody listen to the first show. So first just get into a little bit of what you do over at We Close Notes so everybody knows your background. Yeah, no problem.

Thanks man. I'm a golly. I've been a banker, mortgage banker and financial guy since I graduated College back in 2001. But for the last 10 plus years I focused on the niche of buying distressed debts, distressed mortgages or distressed notes. That's why we have we closed notes because we actually buy and sell distressed mortgages and work with different real estate investors across the country to teach them how to do the same thing from different banks and hedge funds across the country. So our goal as we go in, we'll, you know, get a portfolio of mortgages where the borrowers haven't been paying anywhere from 90 days to six months, you know, 36 years, and we'll buy that debt at a discount, we'll become the bank and then we try to work it in a variety of ways to, as I like to say, to rehab the borrower. A lot of real estate investors want to focus on the property. Yes, we do look at the property, but our biggest goal is actually to keep the borrower in the house if possible and get them to re perform, as we say, like a rehab the borrower. So instead of being a lien lord or a renter, we're a landlord, we're a lien lord, basically. So our goal, like I said, is to buy debt, work it out and keep them in the house as possible. We buy this discussed debt at big discounts, usually at 50% of current market value or less. I've been like, I've been doing it for over a decade now. I'm known across the country as a note Guy, was the 2014 Note Educator of the year, was a runner up last year and just really enjoy what I do. I'm most proud of the fact that we have helped thousands of homeowners stay in their house and we've also helped educate thousands of other note investors who closed on thousands and thousands of fields. And as I make the ready judge, make America great again, one distressed borrower at a time.

That's awesome. So Scott, what's the right type of. So there's some people listening right now that are curious about notes. They've heard of them, they don't know it's not your typical asset class. Just because it doesn't get as much attention, in my opinion has nothing to do with the validity of it as an investment. But it's not, you know, it's not. Doesn't get all. It's not on CNN all day. We're not talking about notes. Right. So that being said, what's the type of investor and or client that's the right type to kind of follow up and learn more about. We close notes just so they know if they're the right type.

So we get a lot of fix and flippers that can't find deals anymore. You know, the REO markets kind of dried up and gotten expensive. We deal with a lot of landlords that are tired of dealing with toilet pendants and Trash outs that select the cash flow side of things. So we work with investors that want to be very active, that go and target non performing because the bigger discounts and the bigger returns and the bigger yields. But we also deal with passive investors who've got somebody sitting on the sideline in a maybe a 401k that's now a 101k or a certificate of disappointment. They're making nothing. And those would be great investors for performing notes that are looking to make, you know, 6 to 10% on their money. So the note gain is a variety of things. Many people are familiar with owner financing. That's one aspect of the note business. You have wraparound mortgages, that's another aspect. I mean, everybody was familiar with happening back in 2008, 2009 and 2010 when we had 15 million homeowners underwater and foreclosures out the wazoo. And we've been very lucky the last 10 years of the market rebounding. But we still see a lot of debt out there because of all the originations and all the growth in the housing market. We're still sitting in about a 2 to 3% default rate, which leads to a lot of opportunity for us to come in and buy this debt. So a lot of people, it's a lot of moving numbers. You approach it from a banking mindset versus a fix and flip mindset. And so kind of original answer back to somebody who likes numbers, somebody who's okay being flexible in the exit strategy. I mean, every time we buy a note, we don't know if it's reperforming or we're gonna take it to foreclosure or do a short sale. You know, there's a lot of moving parts to it. So. But the beautiful thing is in the Note business, you're six to 12 months ahead of your traditional investor who's, you know, waiting at the county steps or waiting for a foreclosure notice to go out. You know, we're further up the food chain and closer to the sources. That's why we still see so many deals coming in. The majority of our deals though are going to be outside of our neighborhood, unless you live in a state like Ohio, Michigan, the Carolinas and Florida. I'm in Austin, Texas. And while we've got a great market here, I don't see that much debt on a discounted basis or defaulted basis. So I buy, I'm buying those in 30 different states. But the beautiful thing is there's vendors everywhere, there's realtors, there's servicing companies. There's attorneys in every state that can help you out with your due diligence. So you don't have to worry about going out and touching it and rubbing on it and picking out paint, color and carpet. If I end up doing that, I hate what I'm doing. Our goal is we look at the debt, we look at the mortgage, the numbers behind that, the loan application. What were they doing when they got the mortgage? What are they doing now? Consider some social sleuthing, as you like to say. But our business is really numbers based. What kind of discount do we get and what kind of options do we have if they get performing or not.

Performing and go from there.

So there's a lot of moving parts. There's a lot of education that goes into it versus just going to your local RIA and deciding you're gonna, you know, or watch a few episodes of Juliana Gaines and flip this house or something like that. It's a different animal and kudos to them, but it's just, you're a bank, not a flipper is the best thing I want to tell people when they're looking in the note business. That's awesome.

Let's. Let's switch up a bit. Scott, I want to get into your podcast. Let's talk podcasting.

Yeah, don't we love that. We were just, just loving, you know, beforehand. So I'm. We've got, well, we've got one podcast. It's gonna spawn three or four other podcasts off it. We. The Note Closure show actually started off as a Facebook Live series. We started back November 1st of 2016 after hearing meaning saving Kevin Harrington in Vegas at an event. He was just bragging on how much video is gonna be important in the future. We all see that. So we started Facebook Lives, did 150 episodes and then started converted to a true podcast for the audio side and then uploaded to itunes and Spotify and all that stuff. And it just absolutely revolutionized our business more than I thought it would. I mean, I've been doing webinars for eight, nine years. Every Monday night, we. And we've branded that Note Night in America. If you'd like to take advantage of that, you can always text the word night to 72,000 and you can get registered for that for free, for a free education, you know. And that's turned into a podcast of its own. But in the no closure show, we focus on exactly distressed debt. So we Talk. It's basically 50, 50, 50% interviews of vendors, investors, and then the other 50% is on subject matter. With the. With the debt market, it may be owner financing, it may be due diligence, maybe raising capital, maybe case studies. It's a good mix. We just recorded episode number 550.

Congratulations. That's amazing.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. I want us to start a club together, Scott. This is the club I want us to put. I want it to be episode ranks. So meaning not like just quantity of episodes. So, like, for doing a hundred episodes, you become bronze or. I don't know, you're much better at other branding and name game than me. But we need some. We need. We need some big. Some big goals. Well, if we have some goals for us all to shoot for, then it keeps the whole. The whole community strong. I want to hear some people going for a thousand or fifteen or whatever, whatever the goal is. But it just keeps everybody going, you.

Know, I love that. It's unfortunate so much. We have 85% of those that start a podcast pod, fade off and don't follow through. I mean, we're at record numbers. I think they say 2,000 podcasts are getting started a month they're getting uploaded. There's over a billion episodes that have been uploaded, but only roughly about 80 to 85% of those that have stuff on there have recorded something in the last six to nine months. And so I think the number. I think there's the results. I see that you record 300 episodes. You're in the 1/10 of 1% of podcasters out there.

Oh, no, that's just on Amazon. We've got. We're going on 1100. We're going to. Or not Amazon. That's just on itunes because it doesn't show you. We're going on 1100. Yeah, buddy. Yeah.

That's awesome.

So I try not to go. I try not to go six hours without recording. That's my goal now. I'm just playing.

Well, but see, that's the thing that I look at. A lot of people ask me how we crank out episodes or do. And the thing I tell people, like, listen, the first hour of every day, you know, the first hour before noon for sure, is we're either recording an episode or I'm trying to be a guest on somebody else's episode. Because the way to look at it is it's your own audience. I mean, who would want to wake up every morning and talk to 500, a thousand people on a daily basis? Even 100 people have a meeting with 10 people. You know, if your message and content is strong, that Message will grow quickly and you'll have people listening all across the country in the world. I mean, this last March we were very lucky enough our podcast Nicholas show got picked up and is now syndicated across the country and 17am FM radio stations. So we're now getting millions of listeners each month on the radio station.

Oh my gosh. Congratulations. That's amazing.

Yes, we're pretty stoked about that. But the thing everybody has to keep in mind, if you're listening to this, I don't care if you're selling tiddly links or houses or notes or whatever. In today's world, we're all in the media business and everybody's competing for eyeballs and earballs, as I like to say. You look at the number of cable channels, you look at everybody in the live streaming service from Hulu to Netflix to Disney. Now to everybody getting involved in that. Facebook and YouTube live and, and all this other stuff. Instagram TV and what the heck is going on with Tick Tock? I don't know.

But anyway, I just downloaded it. Everybody that's listening, don't download it because if you do, it's so addictive and it's bad. I wasted a whole day on Saturday on it and I did one video and it's just so much fun. I hate it. It's just a lot of people dancing.

Is all I see recently. I'm still trying to figure out.

And then, Gary, there's this guy the other day who was jumping in front. I don't follow any normal people. No, there's some people doing some really funny stuff. There's this, this accident lawyer who does like this 15 second video. One part of it's like step one, what to do if you're in an accident. And then the next thing it moves over real quick and it's like step two, what happens if you get hit by a bus? And you're like, oh my gosh, this guy's in the middle of the street about to get hit by a bus. No kids listening to this.

Don't do that to get.

But if you do that, I will botch it.

So.

He'S an accident lawyer. It was funny. It was actually on target for his.

Demographic when I was in high school. There's a movie came out when I was a senior in high school called the Program and great, great movie. James Kahn was the head actor and a few others named a college football team. And there's one scene in there where the quarterback, who's a height and trophy candidate, is talking about how the sports trade articles, because he's not good under pressure. So he lays down in the middle of the intersection with four of his buddies on a highway at night, in the middle of the intersection. Well, what happened? Some idiots went out there, did the same thing, and they got hit by a. But.

Oh, my gosh, they actually took.

It out of the movie. But it's funny that you say that like, oh, be careful. It's like the whole tide pod thing.

Oh, I can't. I can't. No, we're not going to digress here, Scott.

I review.

I see what you're taking me. We're not going there.

But the thing is, podcasting is great because it gets the message out. Everybody can start one. It's a lot easier than it ever was. I mean, if you got a smartphone, you can record it. If you got a camera, you can record it with audio. It's so much easier than it used to be. And that was the big thing that stopped me for a while. I thought it would be a lot of extra work, and it isn't. You know, we've got some sponsors for the show that help us pay for our editing, but the reach is what's amazing. I mean, every day I get emails, and I'm sure you're the same way, man. You get emails and contact people that listen and a tip that you gave them, you know, change their life or help them make some money or save some money or avoid a loss. And especially this time of year, you know, everybody's excited about the new year and new goals and stuff like that.

Well, there's a lot of people out.

There that are still sucking wind from last year that are having a hard time. So.

Awesome.

You know, keep. Keep sharing what you're doing. If you're starting a podcast, Great. Reach out to people. You know, there's a lot of successful podcasters that are glad to help you avoid mistakes that they made early on, but it's just. It's a great way to communicate with an audience and go from there. And I guess I'm always honored when people have me on their podcast. And like I said, Adam, thanks for having me for a double dose.

Absolutely. Hey. Hey. And we're gonna do a triple with you. I'm not worried. And I want you to start that club because. So think about it and let me know what we're gonna call it, because that's gonna be fun to keep and to keep everybody motivated. That's what I like to hear. So I'm going for another. Another thousand this year I want to be at 2000 by the end of the year. We all need to stay strong to do that one. But that being said, Scott, so if somebody's listening to this, it's all about about our time today. Even though, you know, I can talk to if somebody's listening to this and they do want to follow up and learn more about the We Close Notes or about your show, what's the best route for them to do that?

Easiest thing is just go to our main website, we close notes.com. you can watch all the podcast episodes there. You can listen there. Every podcast or what we've done is transcribe there too. You can always follow us on YouTube@weclosenotes.com where we've got thousands of videos and webinars and training videos that we put together for people. I'm just a big believer that if you give people, the real people that are really hungry, the tools to succeed, they'll go out, take those tools and put it to work. So, I mean, we've got educational classes there. We do three or four workshops a year. But my biggest thing is trying to help entrepreneurs that really want to do something. You want to put some work in. The note business is a great place. It's not a get rich quick. It's not the easiest thing, but it's a great way to build wealth and everybody out there. If you're listening, if you've got a mortgage, a car payment, credit card, student loans, whatever, when you're in the mortgage business, you're in the note game. You're just unfortunately wrong side of payment. So if you'd like to get on the right side of the payment stream, check out We Close Notes Calm.

Fantastic. Well, hey, Scott, really appreciate you coming on the show and all the great work you're doing on your podcast and over at We Close Notes to help investors and to the audience. As always, thank you for tuning in. Hope you got a lot of value out of this. If you did. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Leave me a review on the Apple itunes store. Share with your friends, your family, your co workers and do all those great things we do to support our podcasters. I really do appreciate it. And Scott, thanks again for coming on the show.

Hey man, so honored to be on here again and keep kicking ass and taking names, brother.