I made the same mistake you're making when getting started in creative financing, acquiring single-family properties.
Some of these properties became Airbnb’s. Some of these properties are rented out by individual tenants. One of these properties is my own home now.
I did a few multi-family deals and could see the value in it, but finding subject to or seller financing deals on multifamily properties involves a lot more work.
For the people who are trying to get involved in the real estate market, I usually suggest that you start in single-family homes to get a feel for it.
Even this week, the Wall Street Journal talked about how home buyers can buy subject to!
But I’ve been shifting my focus. I’ve gotten deeper and deeper into the multi-family space and seen a huge shift in the market toward the need for multi-family buyers and investors.
Where I used to be balancing multiple closings at once on single-family, I can close on hundreds of viable units at one time in multi-family. Just this year alone, I’ve closed on more than 7 hundred units in just a few deals.
So I see a huge opportunity for investment and return there. But where do I find these deals?
The key to finding the right properties is relationships.
I don’t just talk to a lot of people in real estate looking for deals. If word got out that I was buying up huge numbers of homes, but was shorting sellers, my pool of potential sellers would dry up way too quickly.
So, the key to finding and maintaining a seller pool is care. Do sellers believe I care about them? Do my tenants think the same?
If you haven’t created a culture of care that drips off of you when you meet people, it’s time to take a look at yourself.
Any time you’re looking at taking a deal – or even if you’re looking for a deal – you should start with the question, “Do people believe you care more about them or care more about yourself?”
I talked about this a bit with my friend Jamil Damji in this video.
You can close hundreds of deals a year if you prove to people that what you’re doing is all about them. I got into real estate investment to build generational wealth for my family and to be able to spend more time with them.
I approach sellers who have problems and try to offer solutions. I’m benefitting from it too, but if a deal won’t benefit my seller, I pull out of it. There are too many people looking to benefit off of other people and not enough people trying benefitting from helping others.
That’s the whole point behind SubTo. I teach students how to take care of their communities and create a group of people whose job it is to be better. That’s why I give them access to thousands of dollars of documents for free, offer countless livestreams and go into painstaking detail about how to close deals.
We’re building a better community for everybody.