August 9, 2022

(WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE)

The aspiration to be a professional real estate investor at the age 28 put me in a world of in-betweens:

• Had higher living standards compared to my student days from a good paying job yet lack actual resources to create momentum at building a real estate portfolio
• Acted like a professional but still looked young-ish and was often taken less seriously when raising capital and seeking joint venture partners
• Acquired the knowledge and yet was shy about asking people for any sort of real money (in the beginning)

This led me down a path that was challenging and yet incredibly rewarding later on. The path was short and filled with skills and experiences that continued to serve my journey as an investor today. That path is creative financing.

Thank you to your feedback and suggestions — this is the first ‘interactive’ topic that I’m taking on. Gladly 😃

Creative financing was one of the things that really put a smile on my face during my initial real estate investing Bootcamp back in 2010. Like many, one of my biggest worries was asking people for money. Better yet, it was “appearing like I was begging for money”. Let’s just call a spade a spade now first — the former worry is from lack of confidence, lack of experience and lack of data; the latter is just ego.

Today, I focus on helping the students at Trust Your Talent understand the essence of “money will follow good deals”. This means that, as professional real estate investors, our purpose is to find opportunities, analyze them, determine whether they are good and viable deals, and structure them into win-win situations (some strategies such as Lease Options can create win-win-win-win-win situations!).

Before going any further, I want to kick start by building some context and foundation for understanding:

• “Your exit strategies determine how you make money and how much money you make.” Every deal would typically involve 3 main phases — acquisition, holding and exit. The acquisition phase includes obtaining financing. This means, more frequently, seller financing happens at this stage more than any others.
• Seller financing is great and can be flexible when executed properly. This comes from knowing what it is and the different ways to leverage seller financing.
• Seller financing is also commonly known as vendor-take-back or VTB, or owner financing. They will be used interchangeable throughout to help you absorb and comprehend them better.

Seller financing is an umbrella term that includes several different types of “legal paperwork” to facilitate depending on the mutual solution the seller and buyer agree on:

• traditional (or some would call it typical) mortgage documents,
• option contracts,
• agreement for sale, etc.

To me, these are the 3 most commonly heard and used ways to leverage seller financing. The rest will simply be the different “instruments” or, as mentioned before, “legal paperwork” (I would be using air quotes if you could hear me talk about this in person) that you will use depending on the suggestions of your lawyer and/or the different names certain government authorities name them. For example, in parts of the US, VTB is facilitated as a “land contract sale”.

While the idea of leveraging seller financing is very exciting, it truly is not built for everyone. More importantly, it’s not built for every deal. As much as we all like the sound of putting little to no money down to acquire properties, keep in mind that professional investors are performance based investors still. If taking on a VTB is going to hurt the performance of your property tremendously, don’t do it. In Part 1 of the Cashflow Management articles, you’ll remember that seller financing will fall under the debt servicing portion of the equation — either adding to the primary cost of borrowing or be a complete replacement. Regardless, it’s debt.

Also, often times, seller financing tends to be pricier money than other sources of debt we can leverage. Note that I did say “often times” — meaning that there will be situations where it could be the opposite. We will look into that as this series continues.

Today, I simply want to provide some food for thought here between the pros and cons of seller financing. However, I do want to stress this first: this list is my opinion and is formed based on honest transactions. Malicious and ill-intentioned seller-financing scenarios will be addressed later on during story time (sad, I know…but good learning lessons!).

Pros for Seller—

• Potential tax advantages
• Quicker closing time
• Cashflow from debt repayment
• Flexible negotiation

Pros for Buyer —

• Little or no money in the deal initially — this means that if you have some money, you can potentially acquire more properties with the same pot of cash (SCALE!)
• Anyone can leverage it regardless of income, credit, downpayment and any other common and self-imposed limiting beliefs like experience, age, market, etc.
• Quicker closing time — avoid the lengthy application and assessment periods with institutional lenders (especially these days) who seem to want your first born as collateral
• Flexible terms — it’s all about the buyers and sellers aligning on each other needs and financial goals on these transactions

Cons for Seller —

• May cash out less or nothing at all upon the initial closing of the deal/transaction
• Less flexibility to exit the agreement should life circumstances change after the agreement has been executed by both parties

Cons for Buyer —

• Higher cost of borrowing as mentioned before — we often say that “we buy houses — cash or terms”. Seller financing falls under terms and can sometimes weakens the Buyer’s position to negotiate.
• May end up taking more time educating the seller on the benefits of VTB than going the traditional financing route (but it’s still worth it in the end most of the time I’ll say)
• Potentially higher closing costs especially on legal fees to structure it properly for both parties as buyers tend to be the one fronting the legal bills other than paying for the seller’s independent legal advice

Acouple of quick tips here for my fellow investors on using VTB:

• Whenever possible, offer VTB when you sell — unbelievable tax saving potential and cashflow. My perspective is this: I’ve put in the work to build, renovate, and maintain all my properties to a quality standard. When I’m selling, I’d like to continue to make money from it as much as possible because I’m not putting garbage properties on the market to sell. In other words, I back my own products. Plus, cashflow!
• Ask for a VTB with every offer. Yes, EVERY OFFER. It doesn’t matter how big or small the property or price tag is. This will often times provide some insight as to how motivated the seller is. If for nothing else, it plants the seed at the beginning of the negotiation process that may come in handy later. (Side note: I frankly call this an alignment process. The word ‘negotiation’ tends to have a yucky negative connotation attached to it.)

I’m wanting to share this because I’m seeing many amateurs getting half-ass trained on the idea of seller financing especially when the ‘downturn is happening’. The result is often the sellers getting hurt and us “investors” getting a bad reputation. Listen — no deals are perfect at all times. However, amateurs f*cking sellers over intentionally and accidentally are equally bad in my opinion.

Excited to continue with this series with everyone and I hope to continue to add value and get feedback from you!

Tomy dedicated readers, I thank you for your support and feedback. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my publications, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.

If you’re wanting to be a part of a community of real estate investors from around the globe, here is the T.A.L.E.N.T.ed Investors Facebook Group. It’s a place where people come together to share experiences, knowledge, successes and challenges, and money making opportunities!

For those of you who prefer watching videos, here is the YouTube channel where some of my work (very raw) has been shared.

If you prefer the live interaction and delivery to help you build some foundation, our next live in-person real estate investing Bootcamp is on September 24 and 25 in Toronto. Go ahead and speak to a Strategy Coach on how you can attend.

Lastly, I just want to say thank you for your continuing support.

I aim to be authentic and adding value to your life.

I invest to build a life. I build business to create better life experiences.

It’s ultimately about LIFE and I appreciate you coming on this journey with me!

(Written at the Four Points Windsor Hotel in Windsor, ON)

August 16, 2022

Some of you have asked from Part 1 of this series: what is a good deal?

That is truly the essence of every investment opportunity. If you’re also asking this question — Congratulations, you are on the right track!

I seldom speak in absolutes these days and that has been the result of my conscious effort to avoid that kind of trap and thinking. After all, all the ‘good investments’ that I was brought up on failed me (if you’ve been following the articles, you know what I mean). Some of them failed me BIG TIME, including real estate — before I was financially educated to leverage real estate to create income and wealth.

Through years of getting coaching and mentoring, I’ve adapted the idea that the world mostly works on spectrums. And this has helped strengthen my mindset tremendously as an investor and a business owner. There’s a Chinese proverb that loosely translates into: “If nobody was selfish, the world would end.” I remember thinking: Wow, this is such a horrible saying! As I grew up and life experiences built up, I simply realized that it’s actual a beautiful and insightful piece of timeless wisdom.

You see, like almost everything else in life, what’s a good situation might be a bad one for others. Vice versa. This is why, speaking more generally, seller financing is not always a good thing for active investors when the conditions aren’t just a fit for the deal. I have seen many over the years that would put through a seller financing deal just to say that they have done one and it ended up dragging them through court because the buyer didn’t know any better.

In short, seller financing becomes available when the necessary criteria align for both the seller and the buyer.

Inthis article, I will go into the first way of the most basic form of VTB. And that is VTB as a tradition/typical mortgage.

This is likely the most common way and really, the easiest way, to facilitate a bona fide VTB.

Since it’s a mortgage, this means that all typical criteria would apply: rates, length, payment frequency, etc. What’s more important to note (in my opinion — or IMO as the kids would text these days) is the position and the total LTV (loan to value) the VTB would be on the secured collateral.

Here’s a very simple yet important concept to be clear on — Seller financing is part of a bigger umbrella term of private lending. I’m sure some of you have already sniffed that out when I mentioned in the first article to offer VTB (as much as you can) when you sell your properties.

Many people are finding private lending deals these days to ‘park’ their money because they can generate double digit returns. These are also the same people who can get hurt without knowing how to analyze the deals their money is ‘secured’ on. Funny enough, these are also the ones who have been buying properties for the sake of buying them. Let’s unpack that a little bit more here, shall we?

From the Wheel of Wealth articles, we’ve learned that equity is like the piggy bank that we cannot open (often times especially with rental properties). Through offering VTB, you can automatically open that piggy bank and, often time, turn a non-performing asset into a performing one.

This example I’m sharing with you is hot off the press and a US-based deal.

After selling a few properties in May, the proceeds went into a 1031 Exchange as I had my eyes on a specific purchase (another story for later!).

Side bar: IRS Section 1031 — What is it? Section 1031 of the IRS tax code provides that taxable gain or loss shall not be recognized when property held for productive use in a trade or business or for any investment is exchanged solely to “like-kind” property. The term, “like-kind”, refers to the similarity in the nature or character of properties being exchanges, as opposed to the grade or quality of such properties.

I found a distressed seller who wanted to get out of her ‘leftover’ portfolio in the US. She was very motivated to sell and, as a result, open to 100% seller financing. Now, given that I had some funds in the 1031 Exchange to use, 100% VTB was not necessary in this case. However, whatever the balance of the total purchase price became VTB. Here’s the overview of how it came about:

• It’s a small portfolio of 11 single family properties with a total of 15 rentable units.
• The 15 units are split between 2 cities/states— in one city, all units are performing well and not so good in the other.
• The motivation for the seller to sell is that she did not want to stress over the non-performing units anymore.
• I negotiated for all 11 properties to be one package deal as they would be performing overall and giving me the time to stabilize the performance of the non-performing properties.
• The seller agreed to an 8% interest-only VTB on the outstanding balance — this is very comparable to most lending options through institutional lenders in the current lending climate for purchasing properties in corporations or LLCs in the US.
• The VTB saved both of us a lot of time because I did not have to go through the traditional qualification process (which can easily take 2–5 months right now after speaking to various mortgage brokers and lenders) for 11 properties in 2 states.
• The seller also agreed to the repayment starting 3 months after the closing of escrow to give me some runway to start to deal with the problem properties and tenants.
• We agreed to a 2-year closed VTB and can pay out the remaining balance anytime after that.
• The seller is now headache free, got a lump sum chunk of cash and will be cashflowing from her VTB. Meanwhile, I’ll be cashflowing and the cashflow can only improve.
• Best part about this: the seller did not lose money with the purchase price as agreed on and I still have money in the buy — VTB is funny like that when you structure it well!
• I also offered to pay for all closing costs as a gesture that helped with the negotiation process and shortened the closing timeline. This often times is a great tool to use as long as it still makes business sense.

Asyou have concluded for yourself, this was a process of alignment between the seller and myself.

And before some of you go and say “you’re lucky”, I want to let you know that I spent countless hours, spoke to 30+ people (between real estate agents, wholesalers, lenders and property managers) in 8 different markets before finding this opportunity. It also didn’t become a deal automatically just because the seller is willing to offer 100% VTB. All the necessary due diligence went into making sure it’s a viable deal.

For the conveyancing process and the mortgage documents, I simply commissioned a lawyer to create them. In certain cases and places, it’s perfectly acceptable for your trusted mortgage broker to help creating the mortgage documents or at least provide a template as your baseline. Upon closing, titles will be transferred and the VTB will be registered against hard asset. Her money is protected and I do not intend to default. Why? In this case, my 1031 Exchange — aka the downpayment — accounts for 55% of the total purchase price.

We have solved each other’s problems — she wanted to sell and I needed to buy (due to the 1031 Exchange requirements)! It’s a win-win. And that is the true essence of VTB.

Some quick tips for you to prepare your VTB offer:

• Build a financing track record to show your investing experience and existing portfolio.
• Include a snapshot of your financial statement — both corporation and personal.
• Demonstrate that you have some sort of expertise and knowledge in the strategy, market and or property type that you’re asking for VTB on.
• Be clear about your initial ask on your VTB terms and the reasons why.
• Remember that it’s often cash or terms — VTB tends to fall under terms and that means you likely will not get the cheapest rates but it will buy you the time you need to get your affairs together to buy out the VTB at a later date.
• If you do not have the experience or track record yet, showcase your financial/investing education (most people overlook this) and leverage your real estate investing mentor to help you in the alignment process.

More stories and examples to come with this series. Not to mention other ways of seller financing!

Tomy dedicated readers, I thank you for your support and feedback. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my publications, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.

If you’re wanting to be a part of a community of real estate investors from around the globe, here is the T.A.L.E.N.T.ed Investors Facebook Group. It’s a place where people come together to share experiences, knowledge, successes and challenges, and money making opportunities!

For those of you who prefer watching videos, here is the YouTube channel where some of my work (very raw) has been shared.

If you prefer the live interaction and delivery to help you build some foundation, our next live in-person real estate investing Bootcamp is on September 24 and 25 in Toronto. Go ahead and speak to a Strategy Coach on how you can attend.

Lastly, I just want to say thank you for your continuing support. I aim to be authentic and adding value to your life.

It’s ultimately about LIFE and I appreciate you coming on this journey with me!

(Written at home in Edmonton, AB)

October 18, 2022

This is a question that I get asked a lot during podcast interviews and Q&A at stage events. Plus, some of you have started asking me this very question over the last few months now so I thought it’d be fitting to share, not to mention timely in today’s world.

Before I get going on this, I should clarify that I’m cheesy as hell when it comes to viewing all versions of the word “fail”.

I do not believe in failures.

I believe in growth and learning.

I believe in never giving up. I believe in “fall 7 times, get up 8.”

So, let’s dig in!

Here’s the first and BIGGEST reason that I’ve experienced and witnessed:

. Old & Outdated Money Blueprint

I remember half-way through my Real Estate Investing Bootcamp back in June 2010. Having made the decision to get financially educated, I just needed to pay the tuition now. The only challenge is: I had just lost all my hard earned savings (as shared in previous articles). We had just moved to a brand new city and house 4 months prior and incurred a lot of surprise expenses through bad debt. How are we going to make this happen?

Both of us started calling our family and friends to share this new “business venture” that is real estate investing with them, and how we would treat them as our very first angel investors and pay them back tenfolds when we made it.

A couple of 28 year-olds went nowhere with those conversations.

Side Bar

If you’re reading this and you are a young entrepreneur, I’d love to hear your business ideas if you’re looking for private funding/angel investors. I have a soft spot for you because I was you. Over the years, we have backed and supported various small ventures to get started — some went well, most went bust and it fuels our souls to see how they all grew from the experiences.

Asa last resort, I called my parents who have been wanting me to pursue a MBA (Masters of Business Administration). I gave them my best“accomplished 28 year-old, middle-management title, earning-6-figure-income, and managing-50+-people across Canada”pitch at the time. Their response was the most awful and the most awakening.

During the Bootcamp, I had so many ah-ah moments that directly targeted at the heart of all my limiting beliefs when it comes to money. These ah-ha moments ripped many of the limiting beliefs out of my mind and my heart like poisonous weeds preventing a beautiful, fertile garden to blossom.

First thing I do have to say is this:my parents didn’t know what they didn’t know. They were only wanting the best for me. And here I am already thinking:If I want something I’ve never had, I’ve gotta do something I’ve never done.This includes breaking free of so many outdated money blueprint given to me by my parents. They refused to support my journey to be financially educated and yet were willing to remortgage the house to send me to grad school. The two people that rarely agreed on much and THIS they aligned on. This madness had to stop.

I refused their offer to get another degree. The bank of love was no love at all — or so I thought. I was angry — at them and at myself.

For people my generation especially, the last 2–4 generations all were raised in the industrial age where if you work hard, budget excessively and save, life will work out just fine. And it did — for them. I was born in 1982, the year where mortgage interest rates in North America were documented at 18% or higher. THINK about that! As a real estate investor and Mentor today, I teach everyone to conduct extra due diligence when someone’s offering double digits on a private lending deal.

Myconversation with my parents was one that burned me deep. Watching them struggle their whole lives to have a semblance of a comfortable life was the biggest lie they fed me growing up — unintentionally. Fortunately, my fears and self-doubt in the moment also got torched and turned into the fossil fuel I needed that night. The fuel that gave me the courage (or perhaps temporary blindness) to take the leap of faith to bet on myself.

I’m sure there’s more to this list as I’m only sharing some of the points they made that I still remember (honestly, a bit fuzzy now). If you have more to share, please feel free to comment as it may help others relate to this topic better:

• Money is the root of all evil and you don’t need much to live.Misquoted by them and I didn’t want to just live and survive through this lifetime, I wanted to thrive and have options in life — especially after 2 heart attacks at a young age, a heart surgery at 20 and an autoimmune disorder that I have to manage daily.
• You have a good job (good pay, ok benefits, company stock options, pension, extra play money) and just keep climbing the ladder.I just knew I was made for more. If for nothing else, I want to build my own ladder in life, not just for a job or career.
• You need money to make money. You’re just a kid, who’s going to give you the money (after sharing with them the idea of OPM — other people’s money).I was now armed with knowledge — and soon support through mentorship — that would prove anyone at any age can succeed with a strong why and proper guidance.
• It just sounds too good to be true (how to create cashflow and higher returns than savings and stocks was a subject them and I had never heard of).Maybe…and what if it isn’t? Numbers don’t lie. I love the saying (forgot the actual quote): “All you need is one way to make it work.”
• How are you going to find time to learn and do this?I would time block. I would cut out some bad habits (notice not all). I would do whatever it takes.
• The market in Edmonton is bad right now, isn’t it?Financial education through real estate investing goes beyond the city/town we live in. Educated investors are performance based investors. Most people that buy stocks in Tesla, Amazon, Nike, Facebook or Google care if they are going to yield good returns. This is not different.

No offence to my parents. To be completely clear — I love my parents and have a lot of respect for them. They did their best based on what they knew. And I remember this thing my Bootcamp Trainer said: “Often time, the people who love and care about us the most are the ones that stop us from achieving our full potential the most. They also tend to share the same last name.”

I took it all in.

That night, I decided that I needed to break the mold.I needed to break free of my old money blueprint.

The next day, my husband and I invested ~CAD $50,000 in our financial education. 3 credit card transactions and a promissory note on the contract later, we walked away with a used Cashflow Game and a branded padfolio.

Did we just get hyped up?

Could we do this?

Were we just young and naive old hanging fruit for these ‘seminar people’?

The overdosing amount of self-doubt and fear crept in night after night like an excessive daily binge on junk food. In 2010, CAD $50,000 was a nice Mercedes-Benz PAID IN CASH. It was a healthy downpayment for a condo in Metro Vancouver and Downtown Toronto (yup, you heard that right).

Our only antidote at the time was a concoction of believing in ourselves and the new tools that we had gained at the Bootcamp. Interestingly and unsurprisingly, these tools are the same that we still use today when we experience the same two emotions that have destroyed more dreams and aspirations we know: fear and self-doubt.

Today, I know my parents are proud of what I’ve accomplished. For that, I’m grateful. Grateful for their rejection and grateful for their limiting beliefs. From that, I got stronger and better.

All along, I’ve wanted to create something timeless with my writing. This is not about the market conditions, or interest rates or even inflations. Yes, they are important facts to know and they are not the first thing any of us need to know.

Proper financial education allows any of us (yes, you heard that right again — ANY OF US) the ability to expand our means through growing our income streams and wealth in any market conditions. Even the perfect sh*t storm that we are all living through right now.

I hope this is offering some light for you. This ‘reason’ does not need to be as reason as long as you choose different. So that you can become different.

Tomy dedicated readers, I thank you for your support and feedback. If this is the first time you’re reading one of my publications, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned a thing or two.

For those of you who are ready and or curious about how to create your personalized financial success plan, you can visit the Bootcamp page or talk to a Strategy Coach from Trust Your Talent Academy to learn more. Take action now if you’re serious about thriving through the tough times and come out better at the end of all of this!