Josh Cantwell: So, hey, guys, welcome back to Accelerated Real Estate Investor. Hey, it’s Josh, and I’m excited to be with you as always. I just want to say thanks before I jump into this show and just tell you I think was about two weeks ago, we had the most listens, the most streams, and the most amount of engagement the podcast has ever had. It’s growing like bandits right now, growing like wildfire. I’m hearing people reaching out to me saying, “Josh, I listen to your podcast whenever you release a new episode. It’s fantastic stuff. I love the structure.” So, I just want to say thanks to all of you who have engaged in the podcast, given us a rating, given us a review, shared it, gone into our social media pages, send us feedback, or even given me a personal email or phone call. It means an absolute ton to me. That’s why I do it to help you along in your journey. 

So, today’s show, I have a brand new guest. His name is Chris Prefontaine. Chris is a three-time bestselling author of Real Estate on Your Terms, The New Rules of Real Estate Investing, and Real Estate Investing for Women. He’s a co-author of that. He is the founder and CEO of Smart Real Estate Coach and the host of the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast. Some of the things that you’re going to learn on this episode, number one, what does it mean to buy real estate on terms where you do not have to sign for bank loans? Number two, what does someone have to do to get started in this business and pivot from part-time to full-time? You’re also going to hear, number three, about what Chris calls the 3 Payday system and how you can get paid three times on every deal you do. Now, I love this because on my apartment deals that we do, we get paid three times, the acquisition fee, cash flow, equity. Also, sometimes we get cash out, refi proceeds, and other types of compensation as well. But we love deals where you can make multiple streams of income. 

And also, I specifically ask Chris, how would you compare and why would you recommend investing in a term’s business where you make multiple paydays versus flipping, rehabbing, wholesaling, and those kinds of things? And why now is a great time to invest in real estate using terms, using payment systems like owner financing, rent to own, subject to deals, and sandwich lease options? Why is now after all we’ve been through with COVID and after seeing what’s going on with the market, inflation, et cetera, why is now the time to be a 3 Payday investor? I think you’re going to love this interview on the Accelerated Real Estate Investor Podcast with me and Chris Prefontaine. Take a listen. 

[INTERVIEW]

Josh Cantwell: So, hey, Chris, listen, so excited to have you on Accelerated Real Estate Investor today. How are you? Thanks for joining us. 

Chris Prefontaine: I am doing awesome. Better that I’m with you now. 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. No, absolutely. Appreciate you saying that. That’s great. So, Chris, I know that you are working on some deal structuring events. You got some stuff going on like coming up very soon, super successful investor and coach. But I’m always curious when I meet someone new and talk with somebody new kind of what they’re passionate for, what they’re geeked up about, something that they’re working on like right now, like today, next week, a deal, an event, a book, something that they’re really excited about that they’re working on right now, even in the middle of COVID, in the middle of all this chaos with inflation, people are talking about all these crazy things. There’s so much exciting stuff going on for entrepreneurs. What are you working on today? 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. I couldn’t agree more, Josh. First of all, just to put some context to this that during COVID and all this crap, we have two decisions. We can bury our head or we can double down and we decide to double down a long time ago, like over a year ago. So, right this second, we’re working on two things, hot and heavy. One is in two days we’re going to be doing a deal structure event where we just lay out deals all day long. I’m talking eight hours. And we’re going to talk, you and I, a little bit later about what types of deals but we show the good, the bad, the ugly. I can’t stand when I see people doing marketing and things on TV showing you all a good, floppy stuff, all the easy stuff. We lay it out. Here’s the challenges, here’s the headaches, here’s the wins, everything. So, we’re working on that event right now and we’re working on our big fall event, which maybe we’ll provide your listeners some links later on in the show notes. 

Josh Cantwell: That sounds great. So, tell us a little bit more about the event. So, if somebody were to attend, what would they learn? What kind of things do you cover? I know you’re talking about deal structuring. Give us just a little bit of taste. If they were to attend that, what would that look like? 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. So, I kind of do the day in my head. So, we’re going to talk about scripts for us because everybody says, “Okay. Great. I got your course but how do I actually get into it and learn how to talk to people?” Then we’re going to talk about where to generate the leads once we get through that because now the base is laid. We’re going to talk about the three ways we buy and then how we exit. We buy only the leased purchase on our financing and subject to. 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. 

Chris Prefontaine: We’re going to literally do those deals and then show how we exit with a 3 Payday system, which we’ve trademarked in the United States. It’s very unique because I’ve been at this 30 years and getting paid once is good. Real estate’s lucrative. But getting paid three times is better per deal. We’re going to lay that out. 

Josh Cantwell: Absolutely, yeah. I love getting paid three times. We do that on a resi deals. We do it a lot with our commercial apartments. Now, we get an acquisition fee upfront, cash flow along the way, and then a big exit with equity when we sell or refinance. It’s fantastic stuff. So, Chris, tell us a little bit more about your money-making strategy. You kind of give us a little bit of a taste there, the 3-day system but help us understand. If somebody jumps into that, what are kind of the steps to be successful with it? Kind of high level, we can go a little bit deep, but we only have 20, 30 minutes. But tell us a little bit about what’s step number one as far as scripts and acquiring deals and then how do we structure them and how do we exit them for money, for profits. 

Chris Prefontaine: Okay. So, I’ll be 10,000-foot view. You tell me if you want to go back. Any one of those. So, we’re going to have virtual assistants generate leads, Josh, through a service that just dumps them in a portal every day and they’re going to call for sale by owner expired, for rent by owner, retired landlords. Now with COVID, there’s a whole slew of those. So, some niches that we segment down to. Then after we get to leads if the virtual assistant gets someone to go, “Yeah. I’m kind of open in terms in kind of how you guys buy,” which you’re not going to give them cash today, we then pick up the phone. We, ourselves or our investors, we do these deals too. Then we get the person on the phone. We’re looking to see or listening to see is this going to be a lease purchase? Is this going to be a subject to existing debt, which is usually a stressful situation they need to get out of? Or is this a free and clear property? They’re in great shape and we’re going to probably do it on a pricing deal with monthly principal-only payments. Those are great. So, we kind of listen for which bucket they’re going to fit in, sandwich lease, own a financing, or subject to. And then once we procure that property with an agreement, put on an agreement, we’re going to exit that with a rent-to-own buyer primarily first and that rent-to-own buyer is going to be prequalified so that we know they’ve got a 95 to 100 chance of being mortgage ready and cashing that deal out. 

But in doing that, we get 3 paydays. One payday, down payment. They’re a buyer. They’re not a renter. They’re going to buy so they’re going to put down a nonrefundable. Number two, the spread between what I’m paying underlying debt or the seller and when I’m collecting from the tenant-buyer. That’s payday 2. Payday 3 is the back-end markup, but also all of the principal pay down on the underlying debt throughout the term. Those paydays average for us, this is an important metric, around $75,000. Around the country for our students, 50 to 250. We’re in the lower end of that in our market. 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. Love it. So, help our audience understand when you say you’re going to structure a deal and offer somebody to they’re going to own or carry it, owner-finance it but you’re going to pay in principal-only. Like a lot of people will be like maybe a little skeptical that people will agree to that or they may be like, “Well, I’ve never heard of that.” Like, help us just understand some of the contexts around why does that work. Why would people agree to such a thing? 

Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. We just talked about this yesterday in Clubhouse because unbeknownst to me, most people say what you say like, “I got it. Why would they do that? How do you convince them?” We don’t. All we do if you remember what I said was we listen to the seller. Now, I’m sitting in our studio in our own office building. This office building was bought. It was free and clear. Okay. Perfect avatar for us. Owned by a real estate investor, very savvy, not new to the business and he specifically liked the way we structure deals because he wasn’t looking to get cashed out for tax reasons. He has an estate plan. He’s 71 years old that he wanted to go ahead and provide some long-term cash flow. He didn’t need the money today. And third, he wanted his price. A lot of these people that are debt-free, whether it’s ego or not or whether they’re just financially in a spot where they go, “Look, I want my number. I don’t care,” we can provide them their number. I could care less about price because once I get my term, we get 20 years here. I didn’t go through underwriting. I didn’t go through commercial. That’s a nightmare potentially. I just did a deal with him. And so, he was tickled pink. The other reasons they do it, it’s mainly tax, estate, and price. That’s why they do it. And frankly, the only people we can’t help is someone that says, “I need money tomorrow to go buy my family another house,” or for building cash out. Other than that, we can structure a deal that works. As long as we get the right term, I can get them their price. That’s the main thing. 

Josh Cantwell: I love it. I love it. Most people might not know, Chris, that about a third of all the homes in the United States are indeed paid off. And people don’t realize so many people have their homes paid off. They paid cash for them. They bought them. They’ve just mortgaged them and paid that mortgage off over time. And that doesn’t even count the people that have owed very little on their mortgage. Those are just the homes that are actually paid off. So, it works for about a third of the market. And especially for people who are older who want like the question is, what are you going to do with the money? If I buy your house and you cash out $100,000, $200,000, what are you going to do with the money? Well, I’m going to reinvest it for cash flow. So, if they could get cash flow from a transaction, it makes perfect sense. Chris, I know a lot of people, there’s so much going on today with the residential market regarding flipping and wholesaling. You hear so much about those strategies which are great but there are some challenges to that, too, the competition, people overpaying, the cost of construction is going up with the cost of the material. You’re not really dealing with any of that. So, I’m sure you get the question from a new student, new member, somebody that listens to your show, your podcast, comes to your events. Why these strategies that you’re talking about versus, I guess, the traditional kind of real estate 101 flipping and wholesaling?

Chris Prefontaine: Well, the main thing that comes to mind is why get paid once, right? 

Josh Cantwell: Sure. 

Chris Prefontaine: I don’t want to belittle. I’ve got friends and I’ve got guests on my show that have $10 million and $20 million wholesaling businesses. So, I’m not belittling any of the niches. They’re all great. It’s just that I’ve done many of them and you get paid once. To me, it feels like every January I got to get back on the treadmill and do it again if I want to produce the same. 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah, I’ve done that. And that’s exactly how it feels. It’s exactly how it feels. 

Chris Prefontaine: So, that’s the first answer, three paydays versus one. The second thing is that maybe we’ll talk about a little later is we do not take out debt and sign personally on bank loans ever. 

Josh Cantwell: That’s great. So, let’s peel back the onion on that. So, a lot of people, you see comments on Facebook that are like, “How many houses do you own free and clear? How many houses do you need to own free and clear in order to retire?” And then other people, I just saw a post on this yesterday, a guy is like, “I love debt. I love leverage. You know, I could buy more houses. I can buy more properties.” Great. Like, I love commercial real estate specifically apartments and most of those deals were either buying them with Fannie, Freddie loans. We’re trying to get nonrecourse financing. We’re doing larger deals. We can get nonrecourse or we might sign for a bridge loan in the short term with the goal of refinancing at a nonrecourse. I love non-recourse because I don’t want to put my family, my assets, and everything that I have accumulated on the line. So, I’m with you on that concept of not signing for a bunch of debt personally. So, just peel back the onion on that. So, not having a lot of debt, not having the risk because, obviously, the economy seems really weird and fragile right now. Nobody really knows what’s going to happen. I don’t think anybody wants to have tons and tons of debt, especially debt they signed personally for. So, just peel back the onion. What’s your opinion on that? What’s your thoughts? 

Chris Prefontaine: Well, it’s real simple. I only go from experience. I don’t want to talk fairy. And when I hit ‘08 and the values dropped from a third, in one of my projects, two-thirds dropped in value, where do you think the bank came? They came to me because I was cocky. I had good credit. I signed on loans. I’ll never do that again so I can sleep real good at night knowing I don’t have that. And I get calls from students recently. A gentleman said, “Well, I only have four in my name and when that’s paid off, I’m going to do a loan.” I said, “Why are you doing that?” We have 15, 20, sometimes as many as 30 deals a month with us and our students around US and around North America and we don’t do any down payments or very little and we don’t sign personally. So, why would you? I just don’t understand why you’d want to put yourself, as you said, and your family, in jeopardy. 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. I definitely feel like there’s probably a preconceived idea that I have to sign personally because that’s what people have been conditioned to believe. The banks do a really good job of marketing. Mortgage brokers and bankers do a really good job of selling. And that’s what people are conditioned to believe. You got to sign personally. So, just talk for a second more about these three strategies and how and why you don’t have to sign personally on a subject to deal. Let’s assume we’re talking to a new listener that maybe doesn’t know what a subject to is or owner finance. How does that work? Talk a little bit about the logistics and how you don’t have to sign personally for those deals. 

Chris Prefontaine: Great. Great point to bring in. So, on a lease purchase, our agreements are literally set up about putting your homeowner agreement. It’s built-in with a $10 deposit from a lease-purchase agreement. No deed is transferred. I cloud the title with a notice of option so that I’m protected and I am truly on title. And then when I turn around and put a tenant/buyer in there, I’m just in the middle. That’s where the term “sandwich lease” comes up. You can do that everywhere except for Texas right now. You can’t stay in the middle like that. 

Josh Cantwell: I can’t believe Texas, of all places, especially with the huge homevestors, home-based franchise, that they would let that pass in Texas. I think that happened about ten years ago. I’m still baffled that Texas, such a big state, especially with such a big real estate presence, that they’ve kind of outlawed the sandwich lease type of situation. Anyway, I don’t want to go down that tangent. 

Chris Prefontaine: No, it’s okay. That happens because you have idiots that abuse a particular strategy and then that happens and it wrecks up for everybody else. But that’s okay. So, the other two strategies are great there. Owner financing, this building, a single-family, we don’t sign it personally. The deal stands on its own. So, the owner becomes the bank with a promissory note and obviously secured with the property, with a mortgage, and we don’t sign it personally, period, end of story. There’s no discussion. I’ve been challenged maybe twice out of hundreds of deals where an attorney called me and I said, “I don’t do it.” So, that’s a deal-killer. Tell to the seller, “Tell your attorney we’re not doing it.” And both deals we did. They were both multis, actually. 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. 

Chris Prefontaine: For the single-family, it’s never, ever, ever an issue. That’s the owner financing. On the subject to, just for those that don’t know that, so I buy Josh’s home. It has an underlying debt of $200,000. He needs debt relief or he went through COVID or he’s going through a divorce. And so, we buy that property and transfer title. We do a regular closing instead of new money coming to the table on the settlement statement. It says existing debt and it stays in place, stays in Josh’s name. I don’t sign personally on it. We have 50 or 60 properties as a family we control at any one time and we are on one single solitary loan. No reason to be. So, all three of those strategies don’t require you to sign personally. 

Josh Cantwell: Love it. So, Chris, help me understand like let’s back up a little bit to more of your start and maybe talk a little bit about that. And also, for some of your newer members and new students who are kind of getting their start, what does a typical start look like? What does some of the challenges that people face look like and how do they overcome those? 

Chris Prefontaine: Okay. So, I’ll be brief on my end because it’s 30 years. We don’t have all day. But my start was in new construction. I was doing spot building. Then I transferred into owning a brokerage. Sold that off to Coldwell Banker in 2000 and then from 2000 on, coaching and doing my own deals. What the pivot for me was the 2008 crash caused me to reengineer what I do to what we just talked about, not signing personally, all that good stuff. For students, I’ll give you a couple of examples. We had Brian O’Neal recently in Chicago just get to his tenth deal. He did so in 17 months because that’s the learning curve. His next ten will probably come in six months but with the 3 Paydays, he amassed just under $800,000, Josh, in the 3 Paydays. So, some already paid, some are coming, scheduled. So, I don’t want to say why he does that. Brian has been the most, to-date with me as a student, coachable. He said, “Chris, tell me what to do,” and he executes. And then you get everything in between. You get the person, does a deal. It takes him a year. Why? A lot of it’s a mental game or distraction. So, I’ve seen a year and I’ve seen I think our record is like 42 days they did their first deal. And I teach the same thing so it becomes just the mental piece of the game. That’s all. The third piece of that, that question, third piece, what would you ask me for the third piece?

Josh Cantwell: Just some of the challenges that they face, some of the things that you had to face, some of the things that you faced when you pivoted in 2008 to doing this type of strategy. What are some challenges and how do they overcome those? 

Chris Prefontaine: Well, my challenge is I hope you never have to get to because mine were the bank’s chasing the IRS, the credit cards. I had it all, repossessions. So, that caused me to go into this and reengineered initiatives that we’ve done and trademarked the 3 Paydays and all that. Students, what do I see for challenges? I’ll tell you, the biggest one is mismanaged expectations, unfortunately, because you and I can’t control what they see out there on the Web and they’re being misled. And so, they come in like, “I’ve got to make a deal tomorrow. I can’t do this,” or, “I’ll try it for 30 days.” Here’s the thing. It’s going to take you, just like I just said, in reality, anywhere from a month to a year to do your first deal. And you’re going to be okay with that because I don’t know you yet as a listener. So, if that’s you, just understand that that’s going to be the biggest challenge. Second is being okay with the speed bumps along the way. As one of my accountability partners said a week ago, he said, “Chris, business is hard like this is not…” But the payoff is enormous at $75,000 a pop, right? So, the biggest challenge is managing expectations, understand that business is hard, and we’ll get you through it. And success leaves clues. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel because people will show you. Not just me, any niche, you, others. Success leaves clues. They’re out there. 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. I think the first thing you said too, which was part of the last I think comment was I think you said his name was Dave. He’s the most coachable guy you’ve ever had. You tell him what to do based on your 30 years of experience. He just does it. He doesn’t second guess it. So, I coach a bunch of sports. My audience knows I coach club volleyball. The girls, the seventh graders especially, I’m baffled by how good they are, jump spiking, hitting, blocking, jump serving. Whether I’m their coach or one of these other coaches, a lot of these coaches coach Division One, all Americans, they don’t show up at practice and second guess the volleyball coach. They just do what they’re told. So, when they sign up for your program or my program, whatever it is, I’m baffled by how many adults, they hear the system, and then they’re like, “Well, why do I got to do it that way? Why can’t I do it this way instead?” It’s like just be a seventh-grader or a fifth-grader and just do what the coach is telling you to do because we’ve been there, done that and it works. But coachable is a big part of it. Obviously, looking for deals, marketing, and then the proper expectations, I think that’s big. 

So, Chris, now that you’ve had so much success with your deals, you’ve been through the wringer, the good, bad, and the ugly. You’re very successful at 50, 60 deals at a time, $75,000 a pop. It’s fantastic stuff. What is some advice that you would give your younger former self? I think I heard some of it like not signing for bank loans is probably one piece of advice. But what other advice would you give your younger former self or what advice do you give your students on entrepreneurship, leadership, real estate? What are some of the big things you’d like to pass back to our audience? 

Chris Prefontaine: Okay. Two things come to mind. One’s a 3 step thing but one piece of advice is if I look back to the two times in 30 years that I had major hiccups in real estate, I didn’t know this like three years ago, and I figured it out, and that was the two times I did not have a mentor or a coach. Because why? They get too cocky, “I got it. I got it. I got it.” I specifically remember doing that mentally, “I got it.” Well, those are two times that headaches. I couldn’t go to anyone that go, “Hey, Josh, what do I do with this? How do I pivot here?” Because again success leaves clues. I’m not the first one that went through a crack, right? So, I should’ve known that. Secondly, for anyone, because I’m not so naive to think that the term is business is for everyone. I mean, I do but I understand reality is people can choose nice niches out there, a lot of great ones. So, number one, pick a niche that you can get behind. We have a community, The Wicked Smart community, that’s sort of is all behind, “I want to help people. I want to create this niche where I can help people not have to deal with banks.” So, choose a niche you can really get behind. If it’s ours, yours, it doesn’t matter. 

Secondly, choose someone in that niche that’s already where you want to be but is still active. That’s why I specifically said to you earlier, we’re active. My son, my son-in-law, myself, we’re doing deals every day. That’s important. Things changed since COVID. You can’t pick someone that 20 years ago did deals because, unfortunately, they’re out there. They’re coaching still and it’s dangerous. And the third is this is the toughie now, put the blinders on for at least 36 six months. And in whatever that niche is that you’re adding to your life or business because it doesn’t mean it takes three years to do a deal, but if you come in with that blinders on, I know you’re committed for 36, I know you’re not going to step away with the first hiccup. So, that’s the 3-step formula that I think works, frankly, in any business but certainly what we’re doing here in real estate. 

Josh Cantwell: Yeah. Chris, I think that’s great. I’m baffled by how many people are like, “Well, I’m in wholesaling but I want to learn about your apartments, Josh,” or, “I’m a rehabber but I want to learn about self-storage,” or, “I’m a new developer and I want to learn about apartments,” or, “I’m a wholesaler and I want to learn about the terms business.” Like, dude, the shiny object syndrome of just the attention, there’s so much attention. It just gets spread so thin in today’s world with all the social media and all the different options that we have. It’s great to have options but if you don’t learn how to take those options, pick a niche, go with that niche, and put your like you said the blinders on and stick with it, you don’t have to be great at a million things. If you think about the people that have been super successful in their lives, it doesn’t have to be real estate but any other thing. They typically do like one or two things really, really well. They don’t do 42 things. We’re not like G.E. that owns a television station, TV shows, we make light bulbs, and turbine engines all at the same time. We don’t have to do that. Just be good at one or two things at a time. Chris, this is great advice. Chris, let’s finish up with our final five. Are you ready for these? 

Chris Prefontaine: Absolutely. 

Josh Cantwell: All right. Chris, what’s your favorite way to find deals? 

Chris Prefontaine: Fishing in the owner financing pond. 

Josh Cantwell: Got it. What’s your favorite way to find capital, money, or JV partners to do deals? 

Chris Prefontaine: I don’t. 

Josh Cantwell: I thought you’d say that. That’s a good answer. Chris, what’s your favorite piece of advice that you’ve ever been given or your favorite book that you’ve ever read? 

Chris Prefontaine: It goes back to success leaves clues. Someone’s already done it. Find and model the same behavior. 

Josh Cantwell: Yep, I think that’s fantastic. Chris, where do you go? You’re busy. You’re successful. You got your whole family involved in your business. Sometimes you got to step away from your business and think about it. Talk about getting outside and slightly above your business. What do you do to decompress and think? 

Chris Prefontaine: For me, it used to be the Cayman Islands. Now, it’s still Vermont, which is a drive for me. It’s a four-hour drive. Recently bought a 10-acre piece of land there and it’s just my zone when I go up there. 

Josh Cantwell: Nice. Love it. And Chris, last but not least, who is your mentor? You mentioned mentors and the two times you failed, you didn’t have a mentor. Who’s been that mentor that’s maybe had the biggest impact on your life? 

Chris Prefontaine: You know, there’s no one, Josh. I’ve been asked this before because every six months, maybe 12 months at a time, I’m looking at not just me personally but our team and saying, what does the team need and what do I need in this next window, and then the next window, and the next window so that we can grow and scale? So, for example, it might have been lead gen five years ago. Now, as of the last two years, it’s total scaling and culture. So, it changes every year. They’re all phenomenal. I think every year I pick a great one and I have a great experience. 

Josh Cantwell: I love it. Chris, as we wrap up here on Accelerated Real Estate Investor, again, you’ve got this deal-making event that you do. You’ve got your big live events. You’ve got your own podcast. Where can our audience learn more about you and learn more about those events? 

Chris Prefontaine: Sure. They can go to SmartRealEstateCoach.com and then we’ll give you some special links for your audience in the show notes when this airs for the events. I want to make sure it’s special for your audience. And then I mentioned Brian, the guy who crushed it with us. He is also our strategy expert. I’ll tell you what I’ll do for your audience. You can say this link and you can put it in the notes but go to SmartRealEstateCoach.com/Action. We’ll give your audience a free 20-minute strategy call. 

Josh Cantwell: Okay. Fantastic stuff. Chris, listen, this is great having you on the show today. Love learning more about the terms business. Thanks so much for sharing and joining us on Accelerated Real Estate Investor. 

Chris Prefontaine: Thanks, Josh. Pleasure. 

[CLOSING]

Josh Cantwell: Well, hey, there you have it, guys. Thank you so much for listening to that interview with me and Chris Prefontaine. I love getting to know about Chris and his 3 Payday system. If you enjoyed it, leave us a rating and a review. It would mean so, so much to me. And also, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. And also, on YouTube and wherever you catch your videos, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

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