I Bought a House with Zero Cash and Zero Credit. Here's Exactly How | Steve D. Valentine

Everybody wants to know how to buy your first flip with no money down or no money at all. Does that exist? I'm going to tell you exactly how I did it in 2015 and how I'm still doing it in 2026 with the same theory. So here's what it is. It all relies on your relationships and your ability to plant seeds and your ability to showcase your expertise. Because your expertise and your knowledge in real estate will build trust and confidence in the relationships that you have with your clients. So let me unravel this for you. It's 2015, my dad had just passed. He was a massive investor in the Phoenix market, and when he passed, he died broke. And it always bothered me that he made so many other people money. And I'm like, man, I worked with my dad, he was super creative, why is this happening? I need to change it and learn it. So in the 9 months he was sick, I learned what he was doing— flipping houses, buying homes at the trustee sale, and understanding the theory behind it. And then I just put a little twist on it. So if you're a real estate agent, this is exactly what it looked like, uh, when this happened in 2015. A Zillow lead came in and I went to that house. It smelled like smoke. The guy inherited it from his grandmother. And I walked him through all the things it would take to get it to repaired value. And then on the way out the door, I was just scared to death to offer him $60 grand less than what the house would be worth after repairs. And he said yes. I didn't have any money and I didn't have any credit, but I did know I wanted to buy a rental property and I didn't know what I was going to do with this. Sound familiar? Some of us get in these situations and we want to, but we just don't know what's possible afterwards. Right? The worst case scenario for me would have been I lost a $3,500 real estate commission. The best case scenario was making $250,000 on appreciation over a 10-year period of time and selling that home in '26, 10 years later, after refinancing, pulling money, all the things that we were able to do with that property over time. Here's the best part about it: you can do this. Anybody can do this right now. It actually has— it hinges on the relationships that you have in your life. So where did I get the money? And where did I get all of the money? So I had a mentor that I planted seeds with from the time I was a kid. And we were having coffee. He's an elderly gentleman. And we had lots of conversations about investing and retirement and different things and what I was doing. And one day at coffee, I said, "Hey, I bought a house." would you loan me $110,000 at 10% interest to buy this house? I'm gonna need it for 6 months while I make the repairs, get a tenant in, and then I'll refinance it and get your money back. And he thought about it and he drove by the house and I explained to him the values, what I was buying it for. I borrowed $110,000, the house is worth $160,000. He was a family friend, so I had trust built and rapport, and we had a personal relationship. But I wasn't asking him to borrow money in the form that most family and friends do, like, hey, can I borrow $10 grand because I'm going to buy a boat or do something like that? This was a business proposal. I'm trying to accomplish this and I'm willing to pay above market because I don't have the credit or the cash to do it. Does that— is that a win-win for us? That was what started it. It was a very simple conversation of being able to show The value of the house is $160,000. You're going to loan me $110,000. You're going to get a note and a deed of trust. The deed of trust secures you in first position on the house, and the note is the instructions, the 10% interest, when I owe you the money back. And if I don't do those things, you can foreclose on it. That's the honest conversation and exactly how investing looks. Because when you understand that the elderly population above 60 Buying rental properties and selling people rental properties that have money probably doesn't make much sense to them at that stage in their life because it's complicated. You have tenants, you have the up and down market, you have people not paying their rent. Those are all things for us young guys to take on. You don't care, right? It happens. It's part of it. The older generation is trying to outpace inflation and make sure that their principal isn't touched and they're earning money that is safe and secure with somebody they know. I'm like, man, this is really interesting. So that led to another conversation with other clients, and then what it led to was helping people in my sphere, in my community, invest in real estate without having to own it and getting a better rate of return. So my investors get somewhere between a 7% and 10% rate of return depending on what we're doing and how long we're doing it. And you can absolutely do the same thing. It's based on your expertise, your knowledge of the market, and your ability to create relationships. And remember, like, this is a tricky game. This is not, you know, go out and get a bunch of people's money and move things around because you will get in trouble. And then that's where older people, like, really get pissed off when you lose their retirements and do stupid shit. So if you're gonna do this, do it very cautiously with people that you know And if you're lending money, be cautious with who you're doing it with, honestly, because I've seen a lot of fly-by-nights where it just gets messy. So you really want to ask the hard questions and really know who you're lending money to and if they have the experience for it or they don't. So if you're new to this, you absolutely can buy a home 100% financing with relationship capital. Relationship capital is formed with seeds that you plant with people in the business that you currently operate in. So in real estate, I'm a real estate strategist. So I will show my clients with money how to invest with me. And then I have clients that also need problems solved. I'll give you an example of how this works, whether we're utilizing it to buy a home from a client to solve their need, or maybe we're solving a foreclosure process. So this is the investment principle. Like, this is the bonus tip here. If you understand how this works, that you can buy houses with no money based on the relationships with money that you have, it also changes the trajectory of your real estate business if you're a traditional real estate agent, because those same people are the same solutions that you have to help your other clients who are trying to accomplish things in life. So I'll give you an example. I have clients who have quite a bit of money that is open for investing with me at an 8 to 9% annual rate of return. I had a client recently that was going through foreclosure, and they needed to stop the foreclosure and be given an opportunity to buy the house back over time. They had a lot of equity in it, so they were willing to give up some of their equity for the opportunity to buy it back in a couple of years. So this client lent another investor money to buy this house. So this investor is making a 9% return. This investor owns this house and solved this person's problem because what they did was they bought the house before it went to foreclosure and they leased it back to them for 2 years with the ability to buy it back over that 2-year period of time with a different price and covering costs and different things. Right. So that's a whole nother topic. My point is, is that once you understand the relationship gap that you have here with people and money, it allows you then to connect the dots and create business that you didn't have before, to where your business no longer relies on sales. It relies on your ability to connect the dots and solve problems. This is exactly where I started 10 years ago, buying houses with no money. And it has to do with the relationships that you have with people with money and understanding. Everybody you meet has some money, and some of the people that you meet that you're judging have a lot more money than you think. And the deeper those relationships are, and the more you're able to present those opportunities in them, not in a sales way but in a business way, the more loans and lenders and people you will have in your corner to work through and help. Because remember, It's a win-win situation when you're helping your friends and family and clients increase their income with the liquidity they have safely through real estate, and I get to help other investors increase their wealth while solving problems for other clients that might have a life-changing circumstance that we need to solve for. The investment principles are so amazing once you learn how to apply them, and this is just one small tip here, so I don't I'm Steve D Valentine, real estate strategist with Real Broker and The Rigg here in Phoenix, Arizona, and I've helped hundreds of investors create millions of dollars of passive income by lending us money to buy properties to solve problems, which has allowed me the experience of owning more than 1,000 homes, flipping those homes, and keeping a pretty sizable portfolio, all at the power and the strength of building solid relationships with people with money that have become friends and family and we win together. Keep following. This is what we do here on this channel. Hey, if you're enjoying this episode, hit the Built Not Bought button below and join my community. I'm Steve D Valentine and I am the founder of the Built Not Bought community. This is a community built on scars, failures, wounds. We are building, breaking, and making you more successful through your story and vulnerability. Let's dive in. Let's keep going.