How I Bought an Off-Market Property with Zero Down

Hey, um, this is Shauna from She's Got Assets. I'm gonna do a quick live stream, just gonna do a few things in the background. So if you can see me and hear me, please let me know, make sure that my mic is working, all that fun stuff. Always love to know where you're calling in from and what part of the country you're in. We're going to talk about off-market deals. It's a really creative deal. I'm going to do a case study and talk about the marketing and how I found it. I just need to do things, a few things on the back end, so So, um, just give me a second here and I'm gonna— if anyone's here, just bear with me while I do a few things on the back end. There's a lot of things I have to get done. So, um, just let me know if you can see me and hear me, that would be super awesome, just so I know I'm not talking to myself. I'll just feel like a late night DJ when I do this. Um, just, um, bear with me here and I'm gonna get everything going and we'll start the, um— I think, I think this is gonna work. Okay. Yay! Okay, if you're there, let me know. Almost great to know who's watching. Really appreciate you guys tuning in. Okay, so we're almost there, and I know for anyone on Facebook, we're a little bit late because I had to do my daughter's pickup and traffic was kind of bad. So, um, I'm gonna give the algorithm a few minutes to let me know, let everyone know that I'm live. And if you can just put a chat in the comments, that's super helpful. It kind of lets everyone know that we're live. Um, so I'm just going to do a comment here at everyone, actually, which I can't do that now because— okay, all right, we're just going to do this. Okay, all right, if anyone's there, let me know. If you can see me and hear me, please let me know because I can't tell otherwise. I see a few people on, just say hey in the chat, let me know where you're calling in from. I super appreciate it, really means a lot, and it kind of lets the algorithm know They're giving me some love. So, okay, really fun topic tonight. Hey, Brandon, I know this is your favorite topic, seller finance. Okay, so I'm going to launch into this really soon. Again, let me know if you're here, if you can see me and hear me, just type a 1 if you're feeling shy. Um, and I'm going to share a presentation with you and talk about marketing and some fun stuff and my latest really super creative deal. It's my most creative deal to date, I think. So, all right, let me get my presentation going. So one second, I'm going to add I'm going to present, um, share my screen. Oops, let's see, get the right screen up here. Okay, okay, I think this is the right— no, all right, hopefully this is the right screen. Um, okay, again, let me know if you can see me and hear me in the comments. I super appreciate it. Otherwise, I don't know. Hey Monica from South Carolina, thank you! Hey Ali from Redmond, Oregon! Hey Kim! Hey, thank you guys! Super appreciate it. So I'm not talking to myself. Okay, next thing. Can everyone see my screen? I don't think you can see it because I'm not seeing it. So let me— maybe there's a delay. I'm hoping there's a delay. I'm going to give it a second and refresh so you can see my screen. Hopefully you can. I don't— let me try removing it. I'm going to try adding it just page again. Can you guys see my screen? I think there's a delay. Okay, awesome. Okay, I think that worked. All right, so I'm gonna go into presentation mode. Thanks everyone for letting me know you're out there. If you were looking for me at 5:30 PST, I— again, I was dropping— picking up my daughter from tutoring and traffic was really bad, so I raced over here. All right, so I'm gonna go into presenter mode and I promise we'll get into the juicy content, so just bear with me here. Thanks for your patience. I'm going to share, um, present. I'm gonna go into presenter mode. Hopefully this works. If not, um, just, just tell me. Okay, I'm gonna assume that this is working. Um, lots of things on the back end, so just let me know. Okay, Ali, awesome, thank you. Okay, we're gonna kick this off. Um, for anyone that's just joining us, um, thanks for your patience. So we're going to talk about my latest seller financing case study. It was 100% seller finance with zero down, and that comes at the end, so just hang in there if you really want to get to the juicy part. Um, and we're going to talk about how to find off-market properties without door knocking or cold calling, which— like, everything works. I know Brandon's a big door knocker, if you're on here. It's not my jam. I would— it's not something I like to do, so I don't like door knocking or cold calling, and you have to do it in huge volume, which is not my thing. So That's not what I teach. But so just a little bit about me kind of before I dive into the content. If you haven't come across me, it's really nice to meet you. And if you've heard this before, just hang in there. So I'm from Northern California. I like to say I was raised by Capitol Tippies. I helped run a family vacation rental business, which was why I really think I love midterms. Originally from California. I know I never thought I'd be in real estate because it was so damn expensive. Then way back when I house hacked my way into real estate and I've been a landlord for a very long time. And I used to be really private about being a landlord because landlords are kind of a little bit villainized, but I'm one of the good ones. I really care about properties and providing comfortable, stylish housing. Before I kind of got full time into real estate, just so you know a little bit more about me, I've been like a forever serial entrepreneur, forever an outside cat, kind of feral at this point. So I have— I do a couple things. I'm the founder of Two-Fat Assets, of this group. I'm the podcast host. You can find my podcast on Two-Fat Assets. Author of the REI Playbook and MTR Playbook. We run Senior on Porch Properties and Shona Buys Houses. Just a few hats, right? Um, I've been seeing an uptick in leads lately. That's really interesting. It's an interesting market right now. Um, so I live with my family in Portland, Oregon, and we own a mix of long-term and midterm rentals. On a side note, I'm obsessed with coffee, baking, design, love treasure hunting, and I'm really obsessed obsessed with real estate, which probably you are too, and why you're here. So, all right, and if you're interested in hearing more about coaching or need some hand-holding, just reach out. I do offer coaching. So I just want to always kind of talk about marketing and how to find deals. There's lots of ways to find deals. I know when I first started this, I did a pretty traditional route. Like, we've been longtime investors, like very traditionally, 20% down, leveraging equity, right? Pretty basic. But I started learning about investing and what you're typically taught is like this kind of distress burger, right? That's what I like to call it. It's you're going after foreclosure and divorce and probate and tax liens. You're doing driving for dollars, right? It's just what people that are going through hard times and yes, we can totally help them. It works. But everyone else is kind of going after the same avatar and I think they're kind of hounded and they are distressed and yes, we can help them. But to me, it just wasn't really my jam. It didn't feel right. Felt like we were harassing people. Um, so the other things that were taught, I think traditional marketing— and this is all leading up to how to find off-market leads, so just so it makes sense, I don't know if I really tied that together. Um, I'm curious if anyone in the chat has like tried door knocking or some of the more traditional things that were taught as investors to find off-market deals, right? I mean, I think there's like cheesy postcard mailers, they say things like fast close, cash offer, no repairs, as is, right? It's kind of like screaming at you. Um, Automated SMS campaigns, you know, for distressed motivated sellers. You have to be careful with that around the laws. Cold calling is very traditional, right? What they don't talk about when you hear about cold calling is you have to pull a list, you have to skip trace. It's actually really expensive and you need a huge volume of leads to actually get a deal, right? And everyone else is going after the same list. RVM, ringless voicemail, bandit signs, those signs that you see on like telephone poles, like ARV fixer, whatever, you know, those kinds of signs, those are called bandit signs. Like everything works, but they're typically not legal to put up and they get taken down. You have to spend a lot of money and time putting them up. So again, everything works for me. These are things that I tried that I just didn't like, didn't resonate with me. So if anyone can relate, let me know. And then there's like the really cheesy postcards, right? They're kind of, they feel like they're really aggressive. Fast cash, you know, no repairs. And this is all— it's, you know, we're typically using hard money. It's not even really that accurate when we say cash. We're all using hard money or private money. We typically don't have a pile of money sitting around to buy off-market properties, which is what these are kind of implying. And they're just kind of aggressive and they don't feel authentic. Like, they were— everything works. These at scale work. For me, they didn't. I didn't like them. I wasn't consistent with it. Um, This is typically the seller response, right? When you're cold calling, they're going to tell you off. This is why we have to do so much volume with this kind of marketing. Sellers typically don't like being harassed, right? Even if they need your help, even if on paper they look really distressed because they're going into foreclosure, they don't necessarily always want to hear from you. Um, so this is a typical response. And like, how does that make you feel, right? Like, for me, it was kind of, uh, it felt kind of yucky. Like, again, it all works for me. It wasn't the kind of marketing I liked. My background is in marketing, and it was very much inbound marketing and leading with kind of value. And that— so that marketing just did not feel authentic to me. Um, so yes, I believe there is a better way, and there's a better way to connect with sellers for sure. I think there is. That's how I found my latest deal. So here's an example. I like the response that I get from the kind of marketing I send. It's always like, I got your letter. I never call back on the mailers, they go right to the shredder, right? But there's something different about the marketing. I get this consistently when I'm sending out my marketing. It's always like typically a voicemail or a phone call. I'm like, hey, I never call back, but something about your marketing made me call. And that's in marketing, right? We've got inbound and outbound. Inbound is like leads coming to you, people picking up the phone and calling you either from like your website or your marketing, um, versus outbound, we're like making calls and calling people and doing all these outbound things like postcards and things like that. And so we're kind of trying people to get to call us, if that makes sense. Um, so here's some more examples of kind of messages that have gone from this kind of marketing. So this person says, um, 'Maybe we can make a deal. I have other houses for sale too. And by the way, we're getting old and we need to sell our rentals anyway. Goodbye and thanks for sending us the letter.' I just realized I didn't do something. Okay, I am live. Okay, I see a few people on Instagram say feel free to chime in there, right? So this is the kind of response, and this is like not— you're not typically getting those kind of responses from those kind of traditional marketing channels like postcards and cold calling and door knocking, right? You're getting a lot of choice words and other messages, right? Um, so we're going to break it down, how to find off-market properties without all that, you know, quote-unquote yucky marketing. I don't like it. If anyone can relate to this, please let me know in the chat. It's really helpful to know this is resonating. Again, everything works, but you have to really do a lot of marketing and be very consistent consistent with it to get off-market deals. You have to find something that really makes sense to you. And for me, that was the kind of marketing I'm going to talk about tonight. Okay, so I have kind of a hybrid strategy. I have an online strategy and an offline strategy, and that these are what I use for getting inbound leads, right? The one I'm going to talk about tonight is very old school. Look, I love chat, I love technology, I love, um, I love tools, I love data, right? But there is something about old-fashioned direct mail done strategically that's very effective, right? So I'm not in— I love technology, but this is a different kind. Um, so the offline marketing, um, you're attracting potential leads, um, you know, kind of their pain points, and you're offering valuable expertise, right? Um, and I think in general, people really, um, they, they, they appreciate the thoughtful message and experience of how we're sending this. It's done in a very specific way. It's not kind of yelling at them. It's done very, um, it's just thoughtfully in the messaging is really crafted the way that people want to have a conversation with you. That's what we're doing here. So what we're doing is we're using a handpicked list done in a very certain way. And then we have a really specific, like, secret direct mail formula that we're using to send these letters out. Okay. So the first thing that we do is like we create a list. I think we all were all taught to create a list, right? The difference in what we're doing direct mail is when we pull that list, which you can get heads up from a title company, Any investor title company will pull a list for you. You can give them all the data that you want, the specific list that you're looking for. Um, you can also use software, but I think people don't realize that you can use a title company and it's always free, and it's called farming, right? And if they say no, go find another title company. But you can always pull this from your title company. You don't need to have fancy software. I like having software. I use PropStream, but just heads up, you don't need to. Um, and then you have to kind of process that list, clean it up in a very specific way, and then you produce it, and then you address it and you mail it. That's the kind of high level, but I think it really comes down to how we're, how we're picking that list of people that we want to reach out to. And essentially we're looking for, you know, tired landlords, but done in a very specific way, specific list. Um, so it's a really hand-picked list, hand-curated, right? Essentially based on zip codes. And something to really point out here is we're shopping for a person as much as we are a property. So I think a big secret here is, um, We're looking for off-market properties, and these often come with financing, right? That's— it's really great when they come with financing, which that essentially means no banks. There's a lot of opportunity for creative financing, but we have to do the messaging in a certain way and target a certain, certain type of avatar to find properties that come with financing, right? Like essentially seller financing. It's a beautiful thing. Um, so here's the secret mail formula, right? We need to have the right messaging, it needs to have the right and positioning, like the way it's sent, the paper that we're using. All of these things go into how the letter is sent and how, how someone's getting it. When they're opening their mail, they're seeing this message from us, and they're definitely going to open it, right? All this kind of goes into that presentation, and that's what really sets it apart. We're not sending out spammy postcards that are yelling, like, you know, as is, no repairs, all that stuff. It's a very different message, and it's really curated. To get a response and start a conversation. All right, so this is like an example of this direct mail formula. You can see it's a specific size of envelope, it feels like it's hand addressed, it feels very personal, right? It's actually signed. It's not— it is, it's at scale, but it feels like it's one-to-many, but it has a very one-to-one experience when you're getting this in the mail, right? So people will open it and read it and they will typically call you. Um, so yeah, it's done in a very specific way and it definitely gets responses. Um, so another example, um, and the other thing I love about this strategy, right, is like we're really planting seeds, right? Someone may not be really ready to sell, but they're going to hang on to these letters, right? I've gotten calls from sellers that have had the letter for a year. I've gone to seller meetings, like sitting in a living room, and the seller like pulls out their vanilla folder and, you know, there's the letter that I sent them. I don't know what other kind of marketing actually gets saved, right? Or gets put in the file for the property. This happened multiple times. People actually saved this. And to save marketing, it has to be pretty special, right? So that's the other thing about— I really like planting seeds for when someone— they would— maybe they're not ready to sell now, but when the time is right, they're going to reach out and they're going to have your letter. Messages like this, um, you know, you sent me a letter a year ago and I held on to it. That's really typical with this, right? So, um, So I know I'm going to talk about the case study. Are there any like questions so far on this? I see a few people here like, let me know if you have questions. Um, I'm happy to explain more things. Um, so, you know, and the beautiful thing about sending this kind of marketing is we often find sellers that are open to creative financing. And to me, what I really specialize in, what I love, is creative financing, seller financing, installment plans. There's lots of words for it, right? Um, and I think when I first learned about this, I thought, my gosh, this is like a unicorn strategy. Like, who would sell me their property and do the— carry the financing, right? Why would they do that? And hopefully everyone here understands seller financing. If not, it's essentially when you buy a property, sometimes it's free and clear, and so there is no bank involved. So you can make a proposal to the seller where they're actually the bank, like you're making them the payments instead of the bank. The benefits for them is they're able to defer capital gains, they're making an interest income on money they would have paid the government, um, and they're getting actual passive income, right? So they're not having to deal with the headaches of property management, they're getting that passive income, and, and their, their note is secured by the property, right? So it's really secure. So this is an example of what happened recently. So it says, good morning, after talking over with my friend Sleeping, I decided to accept your offer. And I made a couple offers, right? And then she accepted one one of them. I have a specific strategy that I use and how I'm making this kind of offers. Um, so like, what are the next steps, right? So in this case, it was a, was a specific type of the marketing I talked about that got this deal, right? So the deal source was a relation— I'm calling it relationship capital, but it was from a letter that I had sent out previously, and I bought a property from this person previously, and she was actually the note holder on this new property. So I hope that makes sense. It's a little bit complicated, but I bought a property from some— a local person. She had another property that she knew the owner wanted to sell, so she made the introduction, and I'd built up a lot of rapport and credibility, and so she essentially let me, um, take over her note, but we redid it, right? So, um, essentially it was a zero-down deal, so no money up front, right? 100% seller finance. Means I didn't have to go to the bank, I didn't have to get hard money or private money. Essentially, the— I was seller financed, which means they're actually— it's really a win-win because the money is staying locally. Um, they're actually making more money in the sale because it's seller financed, or they're getting the interest from it, right? So, um, it was a really creative deal structure. The first position loan was from the note holder, but we redid it, but I put the seller in second position. It's all secured by a deed of trust and a promissory note, right? And so essentially nothing down, 100% financed. Again, I didn't have to go to a bank. If I would have had to go to a bank, right, I would have had to put like $125,000 down, do all the prepays, all the things, right? But in this case, it was 100% seller financed, and it was really creative. This is kind of a really high level, but, um, it's like fully leased up. It's cash flowing about $3K a month. I think when we fully have it like stabilized, it'll be about $5K a month. You know, during our inspection, we came— we did find a lot of, um, as inspections go, right, we found a lot of things like a lot of some electrical issues and sewer issues. So, and typically, right, when we find those kind of things, we're negotiating on the down payment. Well, if it's zero down, like, what do we negotiate on? Like, what do you ask for? Like, you don't ask for credits because there's nothing down, right? So what do you possibly negotiate on? Well, what you can do is you can actually you can ask the seller, like, hey, I need to put a lot of money into this property, into the rehab. So is it okay if I, if I defer the interest payment? So you're actually postponing the payments on the, on the note to the seller so you can put that money into the property. So that's how you negotiate. So not, not only did I zero down, but we're doing a lot of rehab to the property and dealing with tenants, right, which is always interesting. Um, so we were able to defer the payment so we could do the necessary rehab on the property. So that's really high level. And again, like, I— it's really a true win-win because the sellers are getting true passive income, right? Um, that they don't have to deal with the headaches of the property, dealing with the tenants. We definitely took over a headache for them, right? Um, so we're taking over the property for them, taking it off their hands, and then giving them passive income because they're selling it on a note. So I hope that made sense. That was really high level. If you guys have any questions, I'm here for it. Um, but again, I think a lot of this comes down to like having the right mindset, having the right education. Like, I spent a lot of money in training and education and learning how to do this and how to deal structure and even kind of ask these kinds of questions, right, to go to a seller and, you know, really understand what they're looking to do, where they're trying to get to, and then making a proposal that really meets that. And that's how you get these kinds of creative deals. If you just meet someone and you see, you know, seller financing, if it's on market, typically there's like a game of telephone with two agents involved, and they don't understand— they don't understand this, and you don't really understand what they're looking to do. So can make a proposal that meets their needs. That's why I love working direct, um, direct with sellers. Of course, we go through escrow, right? But there's typically no agents involved if it's— you're doing your own marketing and getting in front of sellers directly. So I hope that made sense, but I just want to let you guys know there's a lot of opportunity right now. I think things are sitting, um, people are open to creative stuff, but you got to do the marketing, or, you know, however you're doing it. There's definitely opportunity out there. So I hope this inspired you. Uh, let me know in the comments what your takeaways were, and if you have any questions, I'm happy to hang on and answer those. Um, and then I do— if you, if you're interested, um, I do teach this in a course. It's called the REI Playbook. You know, I walk you through, um, how to pull your list, how to do your marketing, how to deal struct— creative deal structure. We don't always get amazing deals like this, but I— you teaches you how to do it, really opens your mind up to the possibility. There's a lot of other creative things that we go through in the course. Um, so, but yeah, if you're interested in that, just type a note in the chat and I will follow up. But, um, this stuff is really possible. Like, zero down creative financing. And let me tell you, going to escrow and like not having all those bank documents— like, your escrow file is so thin, right? And you have different, different, um, paperwork, but it's not like a bank, right? There's no underwriting. Um, so there's a lot that goes into it, but it's definitely doable. So I hope you guys got something out of this. I'm just checking, um, Instagram here. Yeah, if you guys have any questions, there might be a delay. I'll hang on for a few more minutes. Um, hopefully this inspired you. And my plan for the property is, um, we're probably going to go midterm with it. We have— it's like mixed use, right? So we're still kind of I feel like when you get a new property, you kind of have to sit with it and like figure out what the best use of it is, right? So we're still kind of working through that. But let's see, I'm just seeing if I can see any comments here. Okay. Yeah. Any questions? I'm all ears. If you have questions, I promise I don't bite. Don't be shy. Let me know any feedback. Maybe you can't even hear me. I don't know. I don't know if you don't talk to me, so let me know. But yeah, it's definitely a creative deal. We're kind of, um, going through our inspection report now, making all the fixes, right? Doing painting, doing cosmetic stuff, all the things that you do after you get that big scary inspection report and you're like, okay, let's make a punch list, right? And just get after it. So there's been a few really nice fall days, so we've got some painting in. I'm still kind of sore from that. Um, but yeah, just kind of spiffing it up a little bit. Um, yeah. All right, well, I don't see any questions. I see a few more people on, so feel free to ask me anything. Um, I'm gonna check here. Um, but yeah, just know that solar financing is a— it's a really great— money stays in the community. You're not dealing with banks, you're not dealing with underwriting, you're not dealing with debt-to-income ratio. You know, with conventional financing, you do reach kind of a limit with that. There's just a lot of things you can do with creative financing, um, that you can't do with conventional loans. And, you know, it's You're building relationships and staying in the community, and it's just nice to know you're paying an individual versus a bank when you make those payments. So it is a beautiful thing. All right. Well, I don't see any comments. Let me know if there's any other comments, and I will keep you guys posted. I'll share some photos in the future as we kind of figure out our strategy for the property. But so far it's been pretty smooth sailing. Had a few hiccups. But, um, yeah, it's always fun to onboard a new property. It always feels like a new kid or something, right? That's how I see it. Um, all right, well, um, I'm gonna probably sign off again. If anyone is interested in learning more about coaching or about this deal or about how to market, or if you're like, yeah, I've tried all that kind of marketing, I don't like it, doesn't feel right, definitely reach out because I've tried everything in this too. To me really works, the inbound leads and then the direct mail. So it is, um, it definitely works. All right, well, I don't see any questions. Um, last chance, any questions? Okay. All right, well, thanks for tuning in. I know it's a little bit late, I apologize, I just had drop-off. But, um, I'm gonna try and get back on my regular cadence of these live streams. If you— there's any topics you want me to cover, like, definitely let me know. I feel like I talk about this stuff all the time, so Sometimes I'm not quite sure what you guys want to hear about. But, but yeah, let me know what would be helpful and I will put that into the editorial mix. So yeah, thanks again for taking the time. And if you're watching the replay and you have questions or have comments, just drop them in the chat and I'll get back to you. If you're watching it, I know a lot of people can't watch the live, so you watch the replay. Just let me know. I'm definitely available for questions. But just know, like, seller financing is not a unicorn. It's out there. Just takes the right kind of marketing, and I really believe the right kind of mindset too. And it's very much relationship-based, right? So, but it's really a great thing. You're welcome, Becky. Thanks for tuning in. Awesome. All right, you guys, um, thanks for tuning in. I will, um, catch you next week. Have a good evening. Why am I stalling? Hold on, let's just—