How To Acquire Profitable Properties Without Loans or Personal Money

What You’ll Learn in the Podcast:

• A look at Chris’s background and why/how he decided to get into real estate.
• How does Chris buy properties without getting loans and without using his own money?
• A breakdown of the 3 ways in which you can invest in property basically without any money down.
• Where Chris sees the market going in the next few years, and why it getting chaotic could be a good thing.
• The multiple ways that Chris finds the properties and deals that he decides to invest in.
• Why it’s important for first time investors, within Chris’s space, to give it three years before you can expect to see any real results. 
• The daily productive habits that Chris employs, and you can to, to empower him to find success. 
• Examples of how to make a proper first time sales call and how to react to it afterwards.
• How a lease to purchase option works and what asset classes it works with.

 Summary and Highlights:

If you want to invest in a real estate property but lack enough funds, you have found the right place! With the development of new technology and the help of professional real estate agents and investors, you can now acquire profitable properties without using your personal cash or applying for loans.

With the number of effective ways professionals share, real estate investing with no money involved upfront is now possible. You don’t need to boost your dying credit score to be granted a loan or ask your relatives for some cash to make a deal.

All you have to do is familiarize yourself with the critical steps of acquiring and making money from a property without using your cash or loans.

Steps to Acquire Properties Without Money

The real estate industry features several investment deals almost every year. Most of these properties are acquired through conventional institutions and lenders, such as banks because most investors have low credit scores or cannot accumulate enough capital.

Before we proceed to the three steps to acquiring properties with no money, it is worth noting that even though investing in properties without cash is beneficial, some cashless deals may be risky.

Suppose you are one of those potential investors with neither the financial capability nor credit score to use for buying real estate properties. In that case, it is essential to know many options you can still use. Some of them are the following:

Lease-Purchase

The first and most effective way to earn income from properties without investing money is to lease purchase. If you are still unfamiliar with lease purchase, a contract signed by a seller and a renter combines the elements of a rental agreement and the right of first refusal.

A lease purchase allows you to acquire a profitable property as you work on increasing your credit score. The good thing with lease-purchase agreements is that they cover cross-default provisions that protect the property owner and buyer until the contract ends.

Owner Financing

Another way you can do to acquire a property without applying for a loan or spending money is through owner financing. All you have to do is find someone selling his property and agree to provide either complete or partial funding to the buyer, and in this case, the buyer is you.

The owner financing agreement works well as a mortgage loan. The only difference is that the debt will be under the property owner’s name rather than you, the lender, or the bank. Moreover, the debt associated with owner financing will not reflect in your credit report, which is a good point, especially if you are working on your credit score.

Subject to Existing Debt

You can purchase a property without spending money by subjecting it to the existing debt of the property seller. In other words, you will be the one to pay off the current debt or mortgage of the property owner. The remaining debt balance will be calculated and considered as your purchase price.

The good thing with buying a property by subjecting it to existing debt is that you can acquire it without putting the loan amount under your name. But remember, the property owner still has the responsibility to pay off the loan. However, you should agree to make the payments on behalf of the original property seller.

Final Thoughts

Those are the three essential steps of acquiring profitable properties by spending little to no cash. Mr. Chris Prefontaine shares those tips during his interview in a podcast entitled _How to Acquire Profitable Properties Without Loans or Personal Money. 

You may contact JLM Multifamily Real Estate if you are interested in acquiring real estate properties in San Diego County.

Episode 40: How To Acquire Profitable Properties Without Loans or Personal Money

Watch the Podcast | Read the Transcript

Transcript

00:00

[Intro] Welcome to the multi-family millionaire podcast. The show that interviews multi-millionaire real estate investors and top producers in the real estate industry. If you’re looking to create passive income and achieve financial freedom so that you can do what you want whenever you want, you’re in the right place. Our goal is to simplify and make real estate investing easy for you. For more information, you can find us at www.JLM.realestate.

00:30

Jason Lee: All right, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have my friend Chris Prefontaine with me, Chris, how you doing?

00:37 

Chris Prefontaine: I am doing awesome. Jason, thanks for having me, buddy.

00:39 

Jason Lee: Yeah, of course. You know, it’s great connecting with you. You’re across in the east coast of Rhode Island. I’m in San Diego. I’m super excited to interview you. Kind of kick off the show, can you just give the listener a little bit of an intro about yourself and what you do?

00:54 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. So, at the risk of dating myself this is my 31st year. I hit 30 years in September. I run a family company, my son and son-in-law and a great team. We buy and sell homes in the new England area, up in this neck of the woods. And then we go out in the trenches and do the exact same thing with students all over the country. We’ve got students right in your backyard. We’ve got students all over the country. 

When I say we’re in the trenches? I think it’s important when you and I can talk about this, but we’re about doing interactive real estate. Okay. There’s a lot of great marketers out there. That’s not us. We’re about doing deals. And so, you and I can talk about what that might mean, but that’s what we’re all about. So, we’re still buying and selling ourselves and when we teach it, and when I say buying and selling one caveat, we buy without banks, we don’t sign personally on loans, and we don’t use our own cash. 

And that was all a result of me personally, going through the crash of 2008, and saying, okay, I got to re-engineer this not to do that again. And so here we are, that’s 30 and a half years really quickly.

01:50 

Jason Lee: Got it. Let’s start with this. What made you want to get into real estate initially?

01:55 

Chris Prefontaine: Again, we’re going way back, but I grew up in a family business that was not real estate. My dad had a welding supply business, but when he built those, he had branches. And when he built those branches, he built his own buildings and he leased them back to his company. Now, as a young kid, I remember specifically saying to him, what do you mean you’re you? And you’re your company. I didn’t get that, that’s how you can lease to your company and all the advantages. So anyway, I watched him build those and I watched him flip some land and I just started getting an itch for real estate. 

So, when he no longer ran that company, I think he sold it in like 91. I started in real estate. I had some friends and we just started doing deals. So, it was a long time ago.

02:32 

Jason Lee: Got it, got it. And fast forward to today I kind of want to talk about your business model. So how are you for those who are wondering, how are you buying properties without getting loans and without using your own money?

02:44 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. Well, first of all, some context. So, when I came outta the crash, I went into the crash with credit and some cash, little bit built up over the years, I came outta there with credit that went down. I don’t know how low it can go, but it’s probably, you know, five and a quarter or whatever low is. It was bad. And I had no cash, cashed out retirement funds, kids called everything wiped out. And so, I said, okay, if I’m going to go back in the game, what’s it look like literally. And it took four years for me to get outta my way mentally to get back into the game in 2012. 

And so that’s where the, all this tenure came from then said, how can we buy well, lease purchase, owner financing and or subject to existing debt where you can buy it still without putting the loan in your name. Those are the three ways we started buying in 2012 and 13. And the way we are still due to this day, either exceptions to the rule where we might put that little money, or we have to pay for transfer tax or something like that. Yeah. But if you’re a new investor most recent story is a gentleman in Chicago with me, did his first 10 deals. He’s got like 14 now, but his first 10 deals on a lease purchase. JC did that with 10 bucks, cause our agreements are written 10 bucks in a lease purchase and he amassed about 800 grand in what we call all three pay days. 

So long answer short answer is those are three ways you can buy with no money, and you can do it forever and you can do it in every market.

04:05

Jason Lee: Can you go more into detail about those three ways? Just more context on them.

04:11

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. So, start with this purchase only because there is no fees or transfer tax, or down payment needed. It’s $10 built into my agreements. They’re all available for you. And so, what happens is let’s say Jason, you have a house and you tried to sell in the open market. For whatever reason didn’t sell. You might have been asking too much or whatever. And you asking 300 grand. 

Let’s say you owe 250. Let’s use round numbers. I’m coming to you now. Of course, there’s different scenarios. You could be in debt. You could be behind, but this scenario where you have a little equity and you want it all and you didn’t get on the open market, I’m going to say to you, great, I’m going to take over your underlying debt only after I have a buyer in your house. And we’ll talk about that later, but I’m going to take over your underlying debt of 250,000, let’s say the payment’s 5,000 bucks. 

I’m going to make those payments every month. And at the end of the lease purchase term only before three years, let’s call it for this example. I’m going to pay you off your loan, which is now lower. I benefited from that and I’m going to give you 250 grand equities. That’s how the seller is treated in the transaction. Now I go out on the buying end, and I say, okay, buyers that need time. People looking for seasoning, because they just get transferred to a new job or a new business with COVID, people that got hit and credit needs time or they need time to save. Any buyers that need time, they can’t get a loan today. And that number’s very high, like 82% of the population in some markets can’t get a loan today in their current state, we give them a vehicle to get their loan and we collect something higher than the 1500 that I’m paying on your underlying debt. 

And then we cash them out with a mortgage ready plan. That’s very specific, not some dream that they have to get to the end zone, but very specific qualifying to get them to the end zone. And so, we created, we trademarked in the United States, the three pay days and that is upfront, I’m getting a down payment. They’re a buyer. They’re not to rent it with a dream. Upfront payday number one payday two, I’m paying your loan of 1500. I’m collecting something bigger from them. That’s payday two. Payday three is at the very end. I mockup the home at the beginning, but I also have all the principal pay down. And so that accrues at the end. All three payday, Jason we have around 75 grand. Our family company. We’re actually low. Our students are high as 250 grand per deal. 

So, these are lucrative deals that for years I did sort of what I call one payday deals, flip, wholesale. I built a lot of homes. Those are all one payday deals lucrative, but one payday, three pay days better, naturally

06:31 

Jason Lee: Got it. Got it. So, what kind of people are you dealing with when they want to go into these kinds of situations? Cause from my experience, you know, a lot of sellers just want to be, you know, one and done, want to sell it, have nothing to do with the property. So, what kind of situation are these people in that you’re dealing with?

06:47 

Chris Prefontaine: I’ll give you a few that come to mind because what I described in the lease purchase also goes with subject two and on financing. It’s the same exit, just a different entry. I’ll think of recent ones. You’ve got a, you can actually buy list now of COVID distressed people, sadly who are either behind because of the kicked the can down the street mortgage modifications that went on or they just, you know, they lost the job. They are sick, sadly, whatever it might be, there are a lot of those people out there right now that need your help other than getting foreclosed on and wrecking their credit for 2, 3, 4, 7 years, we can Band-Aid it right away. That’s the person that’s in stress. Switch gears. The person’s debt free. A third of the property’s United States, A third roughly are debt free. They owe nothing.

That is a huge pond We fish in. The building, I’m at my home office today. But the building that we own was bought in 18 from a gentleman who was free and clear 71 years old, not a dime who wanted desired would not do any other way owner financing. Because for tax reasons and estate planning reasons, that’s the other thing we run into. So, you get the stress person, but you got the option of the spectrum where they go, I want to have my capital gain spread out. I want to have my cashflow spread out and I want to set up my family. Those are two things, The options of the spectrum that I run into whole bunch of things in between. 

I bought a house recently divorced couple fighting, they’ve got only 4,100 [08:07 inaudible] It wasn’t too bad, but we had to step in and solve that. And if we didn’t, the thing was going foreclosure. So, there’s the stressful and then there’s the people just looking to accomplish a bigger goal of getting more money out if they can wait. The only people we can’t help, this is probably easier answer to your question. The only people we cannot help are those that say, look, I’m selling this. I got X amount of equity and yes, I need all of that to go buy a property. Everyone else we can help. If that person I speak to, I just say, I’m not your best buyer. If it doesn’t work out, let me know. Because as interest rates go up, which it looks like they’re going inevitably, you are flushing out a lot of buyers out the market with even a tiny increase. And so, we can be a better guide at that point. That was a super long answer. But I hope I helped you.

08:49 

Jason Lee: It’s a great answer. Yeah. It kind of outlines everything really well. And then how does owner financing differ from that?

08:58 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah, so same exit. Just to keep it this in advanced strategies, but generally speaking, same exit to the buyer who needs time. However, when I go in and buy it, like my building, we’re going to structure principle only payments on most deals. So, we’re going to, we don’t mind paying a premium or even they’re asking price that they may or may not have been able to get openly, but we’re going to pay monthly principal payments. This is huge. So, we bought a million-dollar home. People think you only can do this with smaller homes, bought a million-dollar home on the water Rather. We just cash outta this last week. So, it’s fresh in my mind, we bought it for 945,000 and we bought it for $2,500 Monthly principal payments. Think about that 30,000 a year coming off a principle opposed to a loan that is mostly interest.

That is an enormous recession resistant technique. One of many that we use, and the seller is happy because they got their price. By the way, she was a realtor to top this off, the craziest story, she couldn’t sell it. She’s a realtor from Boston. She sold it to us and owner financing. We solved some of her personal challenges that she had with wanting her mom to be in the home and things like that, that she couldn’t do in the conventional market. That goes back to your first question of who do you deal with? Like how do these scenarios come up? So, principle only payments monthly. 

Now if the seller says like my building, whoa, whoa, whoa. I want interest. She was a savvy real estate investor. I said, let’s do a win-win here. I’ll give you principal only for 18 months. So, I hammered down my principal and then we’ll start at that balance there with your amortized interest, Mr. Seller. That’s what we did on that deal. And I still own the building. And so, there’s all kinds of myriad things you can variables, you can scoot to a skirt to or pivot to, but that the gist is principal only is our goal.

10:35 

Jason Lee: Got it very interesting. And how much down did you put on that property?

10:40 

Chris Prefontaine: We did break the rule there Jason, we put money down, put eight grand down on a million-dollar home. I think that’s a good deal. Normally we don’t, but million-dollar home, you got to at least give them some money or you got to pay their transfer tax because you can’t expect them to pay that too. So, it wasn’t too bad.

10:56 

Jason Lee: Yeah. I’ve seen my clients do this too. The reason why I make so much sense, Chris is because if you’re buying a million-dollar home, even if it’s market value, you put eight grand on it, eight grand down on it. And the property’s technically yours. I mean the return on equity is probably pretty crazy as you know, fast forwards to today. 

11:14 

Chris Prefontaine: Bring up a huge thing. So, any of these deals, like I got a call from one of our best students yesterday. They’re actually one of our coaches and they said, what do you think Chris? They ran a deal by me. I said, well question, if you don’t do a rent home buyer in there and you don’t create three pay days, would you be okay with this house being free? And you renting it in part of your portfolio? Don’t exit the way we’ve been teaching. But how about you guys just rent this? And they went, oh, okay. It’s free house. Do you like the house? And so that’s infinite return. And to your 8 grand, good return. We cashed out last week, we closed last week. I think the net was 140 grand or something on an eight grand investment. Not too shabby, but although these purchases are $10 deposits.

11:52 

Jason Lee: That’s amazing. How long do you typically hold these homes for?

11:56 

Chris Prefontaine: Okay. So, we’ve been going longer lately teaching our students to do the same with the market changes that are sort of inevitable, right? Who knows which way, but it’s changing? And so, we try to push it out longer, but we won’t do at least less than three years and we won’t do it on a financing less than four or five, typically it’s five to 10. And then there’s different ways you can pivot within that deal. You don’t have to just do a rent own; you can do a rent own, let them prove themselves and you can actually owner finance that deal and become the banks. There’s a lot of advanced strategies that would be another two or three shows from now, You and I could do, but for now, just to suffice to say, once you learn how to become that transaction engineer, there’s all kinds of ways to pivot in this market.

12:36 

Jason Lee: Very cool. Where do you see the market going in the next couple years?

12:43 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah, this is, I was on three shows today and this is by far the biggest question. And the fact is if people say they know they run, because they don’t, if you and I knew we’d be on the beach somewhere, right? We wouldn’t be on the show together. My opinion is it’ll continue to be a little chaotic because of the COVID up spike again. And because of interest rates going up, to me in the terms world, that’s a good thing. My wife always says with interest rates going up, how’s it going to affect our kids? You know, they’re in their early thirties, how’s it going to affect them buying a house? How’s it going to affect us? How’s it going to affect your business? The answer is I love it because we are in the terms business and that’s going to bring more people to us that need us. So, the answer is a little chaotic in an interest rate, you know, gradual rise I would think. 

And again, that creates some serious opportunity, if you know what you’re doing with that.

13:28 

Jason Lee: Definitely couldn’t agree more. So, I mean, I’m wondering myself, how do you personally source and find your deals that you’re personally investing in?

13:40 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. We’ve always done, the first three I’ll tell you. And then since COVID the market heated up, we added some more. So, we’ve always done for sale by owners. We have virtual assistants that call them, then hand them to us or our team in this case. Expired listings, they didn’t sell the relative for whatever reason. I don’t care how hot the market is. There’s pricing and functionality issues. And sometimes they don’t sell. We want those. And then for rent by owners, great, because you got some real tired landlords Now. You can buy a list of tired landlords or for end by owners. 

The three we added recently and those all cost just phone time, right? And a virtual assistant, we have uptick, spend a little bit. We are more established now. So, we’re doing some TV things now, just started. And we are also doing probate. Cause I think probate’s a space that I don’t care what happens to their market. It’s growing period. Nobody can argue that. And so that’s a cool space to be in. And then we added that COVID list I just told you about, I was surprised that they already have it, but it’s a COVID stressed homeowner. And so, we’re going out and helping be their guide and being their help instead of them getting in trouble and getting a foreclosure on their record. So super healthy relationship if we think about it’s a win-win.

14:44 

Jason Lee: Where are you getting these lists from?

14:46 

Chris Prefontaine: We have a bunch of different sources. So, the expired [14:49 inaudible] for sale by owners all come from a company called My plus leads, they’re on our websites. All that stuff we use, by the way Jason, we expose it. I don’t hide behind anything, whatever we do, we put on our website, you guys have access to it. So basically, they come to us every day in a feed, and we have our people call it. It’s pretty easy.

15:08 

Jason Lee: Very cool. It seems pretty simple, I like it. You keep it simple, and you stay true to your tactics and looks like it’s working pretty well for you.

15:16 

Chris Prefontaine: Simple, not easy, right? Always. I mean, I don’t want to candy code it simple if you fall it and or latch onto someone in a particular niche. I don’t care, it’s our niche, but latch onto someone that’s been there. That’s all, it’s not brain science. This stuff’s been done Jason, since I used to say the 1800’s, I was reading a book recently, the Vanderbilts and it talked about in New York in the 1600’s before banking, they were doing owner financing in master lease purchases. Imagine that. 

So, this isn’t new, go find someone who knows how to teach you and just do it.

15:45 

Jason Lee: Yeah, very cool. So, let’s say I’m a first time, let’s say I’m really excited about getting into this space. I want to find my first deal. What would you recommend for someone like me?

15:57 

Chris Prefontaine: In this space terms?

16:00 

Jason Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. In your space.

16:01 

Chris Prefontaine: Okay. I recommend this for everyone in any space and that’ll give, be more niched and that is find a space that you can get behind for whatever reason. Like a lot of our people really care about the buyers and sellers right now and the problems they have. So, they like our space. 

Okay. So, let’s say you’re past step one to your question. You want to be in this space. Step two is, I’m not the only one knows how to teach this. And I’m not so naive to think I am. So, find something that you can relate to from a business and personal, moral, and ethical standpoint. Like for me, I don’t want to hire a mentor that their life’s mess. I want to hire someone that I can get behind that I want to go where they went or they’re going. And then number three, put the blinders on for three years, three years.

Because if you come into this space or any space with the idea of, I got to have quick success, if not, I’ll go to this shiny object. There’s a lot of cool objects in real estate, but you’re going to stay with one for 36 months in my opinion, cause that commitment level will get you through some of the curve balls and the pivots you’re going to have to do. It’s not like it’s smooth sailing all the time. 

And so now to your question, if you’re in this space and you’re with us, I’m going to tell you to do the lease purchase first. The gentleman I mentioned earlier, he’s one of our coolest stories lately came in and right before COVID he had 17-year corporate experience, did his first 10 or 11 lease purchase deals in a mass like 800 grand in all three pay days. That’s pretty cool. $10 a deal to this day, He loves lease purchase no wonder why. And he is now passed a million dollars because he just did the simple thing first and he’s still with us. And what does that mean? It means he stayed with the three-year model, right? So again, long answer, but I hope that helped you.

17:33 

Jason Lee: Not a long answer at all. I think the topic you bring up about, you know, chasing a shiny object and real estate is huge cause I’m in a different space than you. I’m in the commercial real estate space. So, I’m a broker and you know, the first year is extremely hard. First year you go through a lot of struggles, it’s a lot of learning. You’re wondering why you’re doing this when you’re making no money. And then when you start getting, going, and doing deals, like everything changes, right? Year two to three things get better and better.

18:00 

Chris Prefontaine: Can I tell you what Brian Tracy said, Brian’s in the eighties now. So, a lot of listeners may not know them if they’re younger, but Brian Tracy’s still out there speaking and running businesses. And he was on my show. I don’t know, maybe a year ago, six months ago you could find it on my show. But I said to him my three-year philosophy that I just told you and your listeners and he’s the first person that challenged it and said, no, no, no. So, I didn’t know where he was going to go with it. He said, it’s not three years. It’s seven years. He said, Chris I’ve been broke several times. I’ve been hugely successful more times than that luckily, he said it’s seven years because to your point, Jason, he said the first two or three years, you’re going to suck and you’re going to be frustrated the next two or three, you’re going to feel like you’re getting paid adequately and you kind of get it.

This is so true in real estate until you brought this up. I didn’t think of it. In the last one or two or whatever it is in that cycle you’re going to really do well. But so, the people that do the seven-year journey, you’ll see, they did really well if they stayed with a niche and the ones that jumped from place to place just never got the legs because they never could pass those for a few years. The only reason I say three is I know if you commit to me to three, when you have your first curve ball in month six, you won’t go look for another shiny object. That’s all. And I know it’s a process pastry, but that’s why I use three. And I love his example as well.

19:14 

Jason Lee: I love that. Yeah, I mean, in your book in the new rules of real estate investing, you talk about how successful investors have very good daily productive habits, right? So, can you kind of mention to the audience about what daily habits they could adapt for themselves in order to be successful?

19:33 

Chris Prefontaine: Well, I’ll just, let me give it from a bias standpoint because everybody has a little different routine. A lot of people in my show say, yeah, I have morning routine. And they differ usually. For me personally, I think the mental game is bigger than anyone thinks. I think it’s a whole other show to talk about this, but the mental game is bigger than anyone thinks because I can teach the same course material to everybody. Why do people have different results three months, two months, a year to do a first deal because it’s the mental game. 

So, in the morning for me, it’s important to number one, either workout or do yoga and meditate. So, one day might be one, one day might be the other, every day. If it doesn’t style like that, I’m screwed up. That’s just me. Then it is going to either verbally my own mind or in a journal spend about two or three minutes and do some gratitude, some thank yous. It’s very simple. You’ll attract some amazing things by doing this for several years. And that’s how my day particularly starts. And then by eating the right things to energize the body. 

What we did is we put together what I call a power of one daily discipline chart. Cause I think self-accountability is more important or as important as having an accountability partner. And so, you put the things on the left-hand side of the paper we designed this shot for you, but it’s simple. You put those daily habits down that, you know, will make you have a successful week, successful month, and successful year. If you did these every day and then you check off days one through 31 if you did them. But that simple exercise will help you plow through some of the tougher weeks. And we have that in one of many of our courses so that people can just download it and use it. 

And so again, sort of a long answer, but that’s my bias opinion of how the daily disciplines would start and the mental game would start on a daily basis.

21:09 

Jason Lee: Yeah. I preach to my team day in and out that meditating or exercising every day is, you know, key to starting your day. And if you roll out bed and you hit the snooze button three times that day’s already been lost. You started a day on a bad note.

21:24 

Chris Prefontaine: Couldn’t agree more.

21:25 

Jason Lee: I want to bring up another topic. Something you don’t like; you don’t like scripts when calling buyers or prospective sellers. Why is that?

21:33 

Chris Prefontaine: I like scripts for someone to internalize them and then let, them be them. Like I think learning scripts is super important when I became a realtor in 94, whatever it was 95, I remember eating breakfast reading scripts, but then you got to do them so many times ad nauseum, so that they become you. And it’s conversational. We critique calls for our students and I’ll hear someone literally looking for the next script to say it. That means they didn’t practice enough. So, I’m big on scripts, but you got to internalize them big time. And so that’s how you do that. You get role play partners, you tape your calls, you give them to your coach. You get better that way. 

I have a simple acronym. Jason for this it’s called ACAA, ACAA it simply stands for taking action. That’ll be making the call after you know, we learn your scripts, C stands for critique. So, they give it to you, and they get critique that they give it to me, and they get critiqued. And then the next day is adjust. So, you take action, you critique, you adjust, and then you take action again. If you do that cycle with anything in your business or life, you’re going to have a great experience. It’s just painful sometimes to do that.

22:35 

Jason Lee: Yeah. So, on an opening sales call, can you give an example of, what’s a good thing to say? Like the first line or how to open a call?

22:43 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah, my first line. I want to know why they’re selling, right? Always, always, always, always, always. I can’t solve a problem or help them achieve a goal if I don’t know why they’re selling. So the first question before I find out that is this, If I called you, you’re an expired listing or if FSBO doesn’t matter, my first call would be, hypothetically, Jason, if I got you to your number, I don’t know your house yet, but if I got you to your number, do you need all your equity out to go buy something else? Or could you wait over time if you knew you were getting a little more? Now they just say, no, I’m going to go buy a house tomorrow with my family or tell me more. That is my opening line. 

The next thing I want to know is where are you going by when?

So now I got the motivation matter. How they answer that. And then third, what if it doesn’t happen? Bingo, that tells me the motivation again, right? So, well I’m going for a job transfer, I got to move to LA. Oh cool. When do you want to be there? Well, I got to be there for March. Oh, that’s awesome. So, if it doesn’t sell because Mr. Sell a lot of the loans are tough to get now, 82% of the people in your market can’t get a loan. So, if it doesn’t sell, I’m curious, what are you going to do? Well, I’d probably have to call you then, or I’m going to lose my house. I can’t afford to pass that or whatever the answer is, Bingo! That’s what I can solve for. So, if I just know those two things I can solve for it, make sense. 

23:59 

Jason Lee: Perfect sense. So, you’re trying to solve a problem. You’re trying to help provide a service so that the prospect feels like you’re helping them and helping them move to the right place where they want to go. No matter what.

24:12 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. Like to seller selling the building that I bought said to me, I do not want to be cashed out. Like he was pretty clear. I said, okay, how long do you want to go? He said, 20 years, like his, that was his goal. Not his stress. Right. Whereas another one might be that job transfer. They’re going to stress if they can’t sell that. And there’s no relo package or whatever. So yeah, you’re always trying to solve a problem or help them achieve a goal. They can’t otherwise do.

24:35 

Jason Lee: Got it. And just curious, can someone do a lease to purchase option on any kind of asset class in real estate or is it only for single family homes?

24:43

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. No, that’s great. They look since the 1600’s people have been doing lease purchase in owner financing on planes boats. Well, maybe not a plane back then, but anything now cars, boats, planes. It doesn’t matter. They do it to this day leases and owner financing. I know a guy who bought a jet multimillion jet on owner financing. It’s done all the time.

25:07 

Jason Lee: Very cool. Very cool. Chris, it’s been a great show. Any last words of advice for our listener before we go?

25:16 

Chris Prefontaine: I gave the three-step formula to, you know, to enter any niche. Well, I guess what I’d say is, if you don’t mind listening to me, bla for another 55 minutes, go take the free course. I’m big on free. There’s 140, maybe 50 now 150 deals on YouTube that you can go watch for free where we go here. Here’s what we sucked at. Here’s what we’re really good at. Here’s the profit. We whiteboard it for you. It’s free. Go look at it. And if you want to listen to me a little bit longer as a free class, it’s just go to www.smartrealestatecoach.com/mastersclass, masters with an S class. And it’s not to teach you how to do this and go off and make a million, it’s to bring this conversation that Jason and I had to the next level to then see if you like, and you can attach to the niche. That’s also just a disclosure there it’s meant to bring to the next step, not to teach you other than to go off and go crazy and make a million bucks tomorrow.

26:04 

Jason Lee: Fantastic, Chris thanks for coming on today. It was a pleasure having you on and yeah. Thanks for your time.

26:10 

Chris Prefontaine: Thanks buddy. Appreciate you.

26:11 

Jason Lee: Yep.

26:12 

Thank you for joining us on the multifamily millionaire podcast. The show that interviews, multimillionaire real estate investors and top producers in the real estate industry, we’re here to help you create passive income and achieve financial freedom so that you can do what you want whenever you want. We’ll catch you next time on the multifamily millionaire.

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