Jay Conner - Raise Millions Without A Bank

Jay Conner is a seasoned real estate investor who transformed his business by walking away from traditional bank financing and mastering the art of private money. After starting out in 2003 relying on banks—bringing large down payments, paying hefty fees, and signing personal guarantees—Jay found himself stressed and controlled by lenders. Everything changed after the 2008 market crash when his banker cut him off, forcing him to rethink how he funded deals. That turning point led him to develop a powerful, repeatable system for raising private money, allowing him to secure over $2 million in just a few months—starting with a single $250,000 commitment. Today, Jay consistently generates seven-figure profits while working less than 10 hours per week. In this conversation, he breaks down how investors can fund deals without banks, scale with confidence, and create true freedom through real estate.


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Transcript

Why “The Money Will Show Up” Fails

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Have you ever heard the gurus stand on stage, particularly the newer real estate investors, and say something like this, quote unquote, oh, just get the deal under contract. The money will show up. The money will show up. Yep. That makes me want to run into a brick wall like the Kool-Aid guy. That's the most stupid thing I ever heard in my life.

Mike Swenson 0:22

Welcome to the Real Freedom Show. We inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Real Freedom, Real Estate Leverage Freedom, where we talk about different ways that people build time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenton. If you want to get started on your real estate journey, check out our website freedom through real estate.com. It's where we put all of our content, articles, podcast episodes, you name it, really with the goal for you to be able to connect with someone, connect with the story, find a path, and get involved. There's so many great things to do in real estate and real estate investing. And we want you to be able to have the resources to be a part of it. One of those is today. So we are going to talk a lot about private lending, raising capital. And we have the private money authority here, Jay Connor. He's a leading expert on raising capital, private lending, and author of the book Where to Get the Money Now. And so you are one of the best when it comes to uh talking about raising capital and money and that sort of thing. So we're excited to have you on the show, Jay.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Mike, thank you so much for inviting me to come along and talk about what I'm so passionate and excited about, that being private money, private lending, because just this one strategy, this one strategy of getting funding for your real estate deals has had and still does more of an impact on our real estate investing journey than anything else we've done all the way since 2003. We started investing in single-family houses all the way back in 2003, been doing it full-time ever since then. I didn't know anything about private money back then when I started. All I knew to do was go to the local bank or a mortgage company. But all that changed, Mike, in January of 2009. And uh I'll be glad to share that story.

The Bank Closes The Credit Line

Mike Swenson 2:30

You know, my background in thinking about, you know, raising capital and private lending and all that. You know, I used to work as a real estate agent. I still still am licensed as an agent. And I remember five years ago, so a little bit less time than you, but I had investors coming to me and saying, hey, Mike, the interest rates are going up. I think I'm just gonna wait. I'm not gonna buy any investment properties right now. And as an agent, I was like, Well, that's great that you don't want to buy more properties right now, but that doesn't help me sell properties as an agent. And so then I started to figure out, and I was kind of running into the same objections, I guess you could say, from other agents on my team, where they're like, hey, these investors don't want to invest because the interest rates are going up. And we just had this kind of never-ending question of how do I say yes to deals I want to say yes to and not be essentially, you know, burdened to an investor saying yes on a deal for me to earn a commission check. And so that's where we kind of started approaching looking into larger deals and apartment deals and eventually syndications and different things like that. And so, yeah, I would would love to hear for you how that all got started.

Learning Private Money And Raising Millions

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Well, I remember it like it was yesterday because it was very painful when it was happening, and we sort of tend to remember the painful emotions more than the uh joyous emotions, but nonetheless, I was actually sitting here right at this desk, right here at my desk, Mike, January 2009. I'd already been here in the business for six years, relying on local banks, lines of credit, mortgage companies, et cetera. And I had two houses under contract to purchase. And I thought I still had a line of credit at the local bank. And so I picked up my phone, I called my banker, his name was Steve. I called him up and I told him about these two houses that I had under contract and the funding that was required for the deals. And, you know, I learned immediately on that telephone conversation that my line of credit had been closed with no notice to me whatsoever. And I said, Steve, what in the world are you telling me my line of credit is closed? I said, we've been doing business transactions here for six years, never laid on payments. I got a great credit score. Why is my line of credit closed? And Steve said, Jay, don't you know there's a global financial crisis going on right now? I said, No, but you just gave me a financial crisis because I don't have a way to fund these two deals. So I hung up the phone mic. I sat here at my desk for a moment, and I thought to myself, and I and I asked myself a very, very powerful question. You know, the power is in asking the right questions because you can't get the right answers unless you ask the right questions. And um, you know, it's not how, it's who. So here's the question that I asked myself that changed the trajectory of our company, mine and Carol Joy's company. Carol Joy's my wife. And here's the question. And by the way, this question will help fix any problem anybody's got, whether it's financial, health, career, relationships, business, doesn't matter. And here's the question I asked myself I said, Jay, who? It's who, not how. Who do you know that can help fix your problem? And you know, these people running around saying every problem's an opportunity. I want to throw up. I didn't have an opportunity, I had a problem. Now the problem became an opportunity over time. If it hadn't been for this problem, I wouldn't be on your show today. So it's interesting. When I asked myself that question, who do you know that can help fix your problem? I immediately thought of a dear friend, Jeff Blankenship. He was living in Greensboro, North Carolina at the time. I'm here in eastern North Carolina, and he was investing in single family houses. And I said, Well, maybe Jeff can help me with my problem. So I called him up and I told him what had just happened with my conversation with my banker. And he said, Well, Jay, welcome to the club. I said, Well, I'm not sure I want to be a member of that club, but what club are you talking about? He said, Well, that's the club of having the bank shut you down. He said, My bank shut me down last week. I said, Well, Jeff, how are you going to fund your real estate deals? He said, Well, have you ever heard of private money? I said, No. He says, Have you ever heard of self-directed IRAs and how people can move their retirement funds over to a self-directed IRA company and then lend that money out to us real estate investors, and the interest that we pay them is either tax-deferred or tax-free for them. I said, Jeff, you're talking Greek to me. I don't have a clue what in the world you're talking about. What's private money? He said, Well, there's this gentleman down in Jacksonville, Florida, by the name of Ron Legrand, and he can tell us what it is. I said, Well, don't you have a guess as to what it is? He said, Not really, but Ron says he can show us how to get a lot of it really, really fast. So Jeff and I went to that conference uh to learn about private money, and oh boy, Mike, did I learn about private money? I came back here to Moorhead City, North Carolina, our hometown, and without asking anybody for money, without chasing, without begging, without persuading, without selling, I was able to raise and attract$2,150,000 in private money, new funding that I didn't have prior to learning about private money and self-directed IRAs. And you know, Carol Joy and I, we've had 47 private lenders, individuals, regular people, ordinary people, loan money to us from either their investment capital and or their retirement funds. And you know what's interesting, Mike? Not one of them ever heard of private money, private lending, or self-directed IRAs until I put on my teacher hat, which says private money teacher. That's the mindset. So again, no chasing money. I just started sharing and educating with people in my own network what private money lending is, how they can earn high rates of return safely and securely. And I just did it through educational methods. I put on a private lender luncheon. I invited about 20 people there that, you know, I already had a connection with, and um, you know, shared my PowerPoint presentation. That that luncheon alone accounted for$969,000 in private money, private lending available. And a big secret to that, Mike, is never talk about a deal that you need funded in the initial conversation because you know desperation has a smell to it. And if I'm talking about my opportunity, my private lending opportunity, and I got a deal that needs funding, I'm coming across desperate. Mike, I'm gonna take a little risk. I'm gonna take a little risk here. I'm gonna ask you a question. I think I know the answer, and then I'm gonna hand it back to you. Have you ever heard the gurus stand on stage, um, particularly the newer real estate investors, and say something like this, quote unquote, oh, just get the deal under contract. The money will show up. The money will show up. Yep. That makes me want to run into a brick wall like the Kool-Aid guy. That's the most stupid thing I ever heard in my life. Or they might say, money finds good deals. You ever heard that? Mm-hmm. Yep. Well, you know, I have I have mentored and coached thousands of real estate investors across the nation. And it just seems when they buy into that hogwash and baloney, they find out the money does not show up after getting a deal under contract in a lot of cases. So it just seems to me it makes sense. Get the money lined up first without having any kind of deals attached to it, and then just think how many more offers, how much more confident are you gonna be going out and making offers on real estate when you know exactly you've got the money lined up? They that you've taught them, they know the interest rate you're gonna pay, they know how they're protected, they know the maximum loan to value, you know, they know it's conservative, they know how they can get their money back in case of an emergency prior to the term coming due. And it just it just works out a whole lot better when you know where the money is before you make the offer. Back to you, Mike.

Start With Diagnosis Not A Pitch

Mike Swenson 11:14

Yeah, there's so much there. I mean, I I already wish we could have about a five-part episode series here on this. If I'm sitting in that chair, start I have money, right, and and you're helping to educate me. Let's say I've got fifty thousand dollars, hundred thousand dollars, something like that. How do you find out what they want to invest in, or kind of how do those initial conversations, or maybe I maybe the better question is what questions do these people ask you as you're helping to educate them?

Why Lenders Like The Deal

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah. One of the most common questions I get, Mike, is how do I even start a conversation with a with a potential private lender that doesn't even know anything about this world? Right. I mean, there's three categories where you find private lenders. People that are already in your cell phone, your warm connections, you know, you go to church with them, maybe you're in the rotary club, um, you play golf with them, right? That's your social circle, your professional circle, your service circle of connections. Uh the second category is what I call your expanded warm market. I teach and coach on how to grow your network very, very quickly because if you want to scale your business, you're gonna run out of your current connections sooner or later. And then there are existing private lenders, ordinary people that are already loaning money out. So, back to how do you start conversations with people that don't even know anything about this world about this world of private lending? So let me give you the definition of malpractice. Here's the definition of malpractice giving a prescription before getting a diagnosis. So, why in the world do I want to go around throwing up on people about my wonderful private lending opportunity when I don't even know if they got a problem? So, so I first want to diagnose if somebody I know in my network, if they are even happy with their investments that they've got going on. Are they happy with what their retirement account's doing? Are they happy with their investment capital? You know, are they happy with getting 0.02% in a savings account at the local bank, etc.? So, you know, I've uh I've got uh my million-dollar script collection. There's 12 different scripts, I'll share a couple right here. You know, Mike, let's say, you know, you and our friends were having a coffee or whatever, and you know, I I love by the way questions. We're in the midst of a little chit-chat, and I'll say, Mike, by the way, you know, with everything that's going on in the markets these days, are you happy with your investments? What are you investing in? Well, that's a very simple question. And, you know, if you if you come back and you say, Yeah, man, just last year I got 15% in the stock market. I just diagnosed you don't have a problem, at least in your mind. And so I'm not going to even tell you about my private lending program because you're all excited about what you got. But in answer to that question, if you say something along the lines of, well, you know, you sigh and you go, man, my 401k is going nowhere. Well, I just diagnosed that I might have a possible solution. And then I might follow up with something like that and say, Well, have you ever heard of the world of private money, private lending, or self-directed IRAs? In all probability you haven't, because most people haven't. And then we just start having a little, you know, simple conversation about what that looks like and and and how that works. So we start conversations by diagnosing if does the person you're talking to even have a problem that you might have a solution to. And um, you know, what are some of the common questions that they ask? Well, obviously, there's there's three big reasons why they why they love this private money, private lending opportunity. And by the way, we're talking about ordinary people. Doesn't matter what age they are, they don't have to be retired. I got private lenders, you know, all different ages. And so the first reason they they love this opportunity is because they're gonna earn a whole lot more money than they would in local bank. So I've been paying my private lenders 8% ever since 2009. 8%. Even with the markets going up, the markets coming down, doesn't matter. And 8% has always been more than they get even in a 12-month CD. I mean, you're lucky if you can get even 3% APR and your percentage rate now, and they're only going to give that to you for four months at a time because they think the interest rates are going to continue to come down. Well, 8% is a whole lot more than that. Uh the the second reason uh the private lenders love this opportunity is because it is safe and it's secure. So how's it safe? How's it secure? Well, it's safe because it's a conservative loan to value. So we don't borrow more than 75%. Now I'm talking single-family houses, I'm not talking syndication, I'm talking asset-backed debt, for the SEC doesn't even regulate it because it's asset-backed debt. And so we don't borrow more than 75% of the after-repaired value. That gives the lender a 25% equity cushion. Now, I didn't say 75% of the purchase price, I said 75% of the after-repaired value. We always bring home a check when we purchase the property using private money, taking none of our own money to the closing table. And that's because we're buying the properties at deeply discounted prices, because most of them need renovation to some degree. Um, they love the program because it's secure. We're not borrowing unsecured money. We back that promissory note with the real estate that we're purchasing so they get a deed of trust or a mortgage, depending on what state the property's in. So that collateralizes the note. And then the third reason that they love it is because the value of their loan or the value of their investment is not volatile. So I'm contrasting this opportunity to the stock market. If they invest in the stock market, well, they already lost money because there's fees and there's commissions, and the value of their investment can be less or it can be more tomorrow because of the volatility. In this opportunity of private lending, the value of the principal loan amount remains the same because we're paying or accruing interest only. That's a win for the lender, that's a win for the borrower. It's a win for the lender because if you're paying principal and interest, you're paying down part of the principal and they're not earning as much money. Uh if you're paying interest only, they earn more money because the total value of their investment is staying the same. And it's a win for the borrower because if you're making monthly payments, a lot of times you don't have to make monthly payments. You can just let the interest accrue if you're doing a flip and then pay them off the principal loan amount and the interest that's been earned while you were borrowing the money. So it's a win-win-win scenario for everybody involved.

Mike Swenson 18:39

So a lot of then, you know, it sounds like a lot of your lending is single-family home flips. That's right. That that that's how you're you're handling that. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

And I've sold a lot of homes on lease purchase or rent to own. You know, I recently checked the commercial rate at the local bank is over eight percent for a uh 30-year fixed single-family house that's going to be an investment property to be, you know, rented out. Over eight percent commercial rate. So, you know, right now I'm still paying 8% of the private lenders. That's less than the local bank is on a commercial rate.

Mike Swenson 19:16

Now, you touched on this a little bit, so want to want to hear your explanation. You mentioned about IRA accounts, right? And so I know a lot of people aren't aware that they can use these IRA accounts to invest in self-directed investments and in real estate. You know, so many people work at a job, get their IRA, switch companies, and have no clue who do I contact, what's happening with that money, what's it invested in. And so they've got all these little pockets of money hanging out there that they have no clue about. So tell me how you educate folks on being able to use that for real estate.

Self Directed IRAs Made Simple

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Sure. So it's um it's real simple, and that is there are self- there are IRS approved, self-directed IRA companies, right? I've worked with a number of them. And so an individual that has a current retirement account, maybe it's a 401k that is that you had with a previous employer, and it's still over there, and you haven't moved it anywhere, or maybe you've been with an employer for quite a long time. Ask your plan administrator, they might allow you with no penalty to pull out a portion or a percentage of your retirement account and move it to a self-directed IRA company. So a self-directed IRA company cannot give any financial advice. They can't give any financial advice as to what they recommend for you to invest in or anything. It's that's why it's called self-directed. So you can move your current retirement funds wherever they are. Maybe you got retirement funds in the stock market, right? That are dedicated retirement funds, and you're tired of the volatility. So without any kind of tax effect, no tax consequences, you can move that retirement money to a self-directed IRA company, and they will do it for you. You just sign a form, they can act on your behalf, and it's gonna take between two weeks and four weeks to get your account funded. Again, no tax consequence, no penalty whatsoever. So now your account is funded with your current retirement account, and now you can take that money and lend it out from your account to real estate investors and invest with them. And now you can be involved totally passively in real estate without having to negotiate deals, find deals, oversee renovation projects, or any of that stuff. Or if you want to be the real estate investor yourself, you can take your retirement funds and go buy a single family house with that with those retirement funds. And then you can flip that house, and then all the profit that goes back into your retirement account is either tax deferred or tax-free, depending on the type of account you've got. Or you can be real creative and take only$100 of your retirement account from your self-directed IRA account, and you can go find a real estate deal and get an option or an offer to purchase using that$100, right? Then you can assign that option to another real estate investor to take it down, and they give you a$10 or$20,000 assignment fee, all tax deferred, or if that's a Roth IRA, that's tax-free money. You just made$10 or$20,000 tax-free by leveraging that Roth IRA and getting an assignment fee. So there's all kinds of ways that you can use your retirement funds in a self-directed IRA account.

Passive Investing Invitation From Mike

Mike Swenson 23:03

Are you looking to get started or scale in real estate investing but don't know your next step? Are you overwhelmed thinking about finding deals, analyzing deals, doing due diligence, and managing properties on top of it? Go ahead and push the easy button and invest with us. Real estate investing is what we do full time. We've done dozens of deals with hundreds of doors. We have the knowledge and experience to handpick the best deals that most investors can't find. We've at large off-market deals all the time where you can hopefully find returns and economies of scale that you just can't find on your own. The best thing is it's 100% passive to you for less capital than you put down trying to acquire a property on your own. Don't let this year go by where you don't make the leap, add to your portfolio, or you just sit in analysis by paralysis. To find out more, visit freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest. You can book a call and learn more there. So get to scaling your portfolio now with us by your side. That's freedomthroughrealestate.com and click on invest. It's great information for people out there. And I the the reason I like the self-directed IRA stuff is people aren't expecting to have that money back, right? It's not like, hey, I'm putting a down payment on my own house or we're having a baby or we've got a wedding coming up or college, whatever it might be. It's I wasn't planning on having access to that money until retirement age, anyhow. And so I'm less concerned about the liquidity or lack of liquidity for something like that.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

That's exactly right. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I mean, the high majority of people walking around never heard of self-toire IRA accounts, you know? And the reason they haven't is because there's no money in it for financial planners, right? Financial planners are brokers. They are giving advice on stocks, mutual funds from their brokerage. But a self-direded IRA account, there's you're you're making your own decisions as to what you want to do.

Mike Swenson 25:00

Now, for somebody that's looking, because you had mentioned, you know, you had 47 private lenders and you've you've you put on that educational hat. How are you finding these folks, or how do you recommend folks start? Obviously, you've got the the different buckets of people with your warm connections, but how would you recommend people start um having those conversations?

Free Book Scripts Events And Wrap

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Well, first they got to know what in the world is the opportunity that they're offering. First they gotta learn, well, what in the world am I gonna educate people on? And and you know, so it's not a negotiation conversation, it's an opportunity that you're offering. And I can tell you the easiest and uh one of the quickest ways to learn, learn what to educate and share with is um just get a copy of my national best-selling book, which is called Where to Get the Money Now, How and Where to Get Money for Your Real Estate Deals without relying on institutional money or hard money lenders. And um, I mean, you can give 20 bucks to Amazon, but don't do that. Let me just give you the book for free. I'll autograph it, I'll express mail it to you, uh, just cover shipping and handling. And you can pick up my book at jconner.com, and I'm an E R, not an O R. So www.j-a-y-c-o-n-n-e-r.com forward slash book. Jconner.com forward slash book. I'll rush it out to you. Um in addition to that, how do you learn? How do you get started? Well, the the the in addition to the book, uh, I do three live events a year called the Private Money Conference, and it's in person here in Eastern North Carolina. It's three intensive days with me Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And there's not another conference about it, learning how to raise capital very, very quickly without ever asking. And uh you can check out the upcoming event at www.jayconnor.com forward slash event. Jconor.com forward slash event. And then one way to start conversations, in addition to that, is uh you can download uh one of my uh private money scripts. It's called the Curiosity Opener Script. Starting those conversations, and you can download that PDF absolutely for free at jconor.com forward slash scripts. jconner.com forward slash scripts. So there's three ways right there that you can get started right away.

Mike Swenson 27:31

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jay, for coming on. A lot of great information. I think for people that want to do things in real estate, right? Being able to connect with money sources is an amazing opportunity. You can't do it yourself, but providing opportunities for other people, I think that's the thing that people don't realize is your private lenders like making money off of the deals that you're doing. So you're adding value to the conversation, you're giving them higher returns, more security, all that stuff that you mentioned. And so people are excited to do it. And it's finding the right fit of those people that like to do that. So thank you so much for coming on, sharing Jay. Appreciate your time, appreciate your wisdom. Yeah, go check out those websites for those resources, and best of luck as you continue on your real estate investing journey, Jay. Thanks for having me on, my goblet.