Get ready to delve into innovative investment strategies that could transform your business in this episode with Chris Prefontaine, where we explore creative investing. You’ll also learn about Smart Real Estate Coach and how it’s paving the way for investors to attain success. So press play now!
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources mentioned in this episode
To learn more about Chris’ FREE masterclass, visit https://bit.ly/3reMejB. You can get Chris’ books for FREE at https://bit.ly/45MokuO.
If you want to keep in touch with Smart Real Estate Coach, go to: https://bit.ly/44OQiVI.
About Chris Prefontaine
Chris has been in the real estate industry for over 31 years. He is the Chairman and Founder of Smart Real Estate Coach, a four-time best-selling author, a Forbes Business Council Member, and a 2x Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Company.
Connect with Chris
Connect with Us
To learn more about growing your wealth through multifamily investment opportunities, visit Monument Real Estate Capital and schedule a call!
Follow our social media pages!
Facebook: Monument Real Estate Capital
LinkedIn: Monument Real Estate Capital
Get ready to delve into innovative investment strategies that could transform your business in this episode with Chris Prefontaine, where we explore creative investing. You’ll also learn about Smart Real Estate Coach and how it’s paving the way for investors to attain success. So press play now!
Key takeaways to listen for
Resources mentioned in this episode
To learn more about Chris’ FREE masterclass, visit https://bit.ly/3reMejB. You can get Chris’ books for FREE at https://bit.ly/45MokuO.
If you want to keep in touch with Smart Real Estate Coach, go to: https://bit.ly/44OQiVI.
About Chris Prefontaine
Chris has been in the real estate industry for over 31 years. He is the Chairman and Founder of Smart Real Estate Coach, a four-time best-selling author, a Forbes Business Council Member, and a 2x Inc 5000 Fastest Growing Company.
Connect with Chris
Connect with Us
To learn more about growing your wealth through multifamily investment opportunities, visit Monument Real Estate Capital and schedule a call!
Follow our social media pages!
Facebook: Monument Real Estate Capital
LinkedIn: Monument Real Estate Capital
[00:00:00] Chris Prefontaine
Once you find the niche or you determine, then you find the community or help system that you want. Third is put the blinders on for three to seven years. This is the hardest thing because I said if someone can commit to three years to me, it doesn't take them that long to do a deal. But I know when they get a curve ball, they won't go, Oh, I quit. I was just trying it. Cause if you try in real estate, you'll fail. You got to commit.
[00:00:18] Podcast Intro
You are working professional but struggling to balance the workload of your career, family obligations, and preparing for your financial future. If so, this podcast is for you. You've spent years learning your craft, and now it's time to focus on your financial future. This podcast will teach you what you need to retire wealthy and happy. Let's dive in.
[00:00:39] Roger Jacobsen
If you have ever wanted to learn creative financing options for real estate investing. Then today's episode is for you. This show is for working professionals struggling to balance the workload of their career, family obligations and preparing for their financial future. Welcome to the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. We created this podcast to provide financial tips and tricks to help you build up your passive income and also provide methods you can use to protect your wealth so you can plan a better future for yourself and your family. We're grateful to have this podcast sponsored by Monument Real Estate Capital, Monument Real Estate Capital. Helping retire 10 years early through real estate investments. On today's episode, we are super excited to have Chris Prefontaine with us. Welcome, Chris.
[00:01:21] Chris Prefontaine
Well, thanks Roger. Good to be here.
[00:01:22] Roger Jacobsen
Chris, you've got multiple careers within the real estate industry spanning over a 30 year timeline. During the nineties, you built over a hundred single family houses from 1994 to 2000. You've owned a realty executives franchise in Massachusetts. You're also the founder and chairman of smart real estate coach since 2014 host of smart real estate coach podcast and three time bestselling author. Chris, why don't you start by just kind of giving us a little bit of your background and story?
[00:01:52] Chris Prefontaine
Sure, sure. So I'll try to fill in a few of those blanks, but I'll do so in a little bit condensed. So because 32 years, I've put these guys to sleep. Yeah. So in that story, after I sold the franchise, the realty executives franchise in 2000, I sold out the Coldwell Banker. I remember everyone telling me, you don't sell a brokerage, like you can't do that. You just have your deals. And we ended up selling it at my age, a decent price, like a quarter of a million or so back then. It was a windfall. It was the biggest thing I ever had done. And then, fortunately and unfortunately, that brought us into the realm of coaching realtors, not investors like I do today, realtors all over the U.S. and Canada. And that was mostly not on the intricacies of the skill set, because they already were high earners, all GCI of like a million or two million and above. It was working with them personally to get them more efficient, more effective. Then we also worked our own investments from that time up to the crash.
[00:02:41]
That's why I said, fortunately, and unfortunately the crash, like a lot of people, you were around Roger during that. And so it taught a lot of ugly lessons for us. We had about 23 properties. I'll say me when I say us, my wife and I at the time. I had 23 properties going into that crash and it's like February of 08, you flipped the switch. You couldn't sell these things at near the value. You couldn't get financing. So we went through an ugly time of being personally signed on all those loans. That was the impetus to go, okay, what are we going to do if we ought to go back into real estate? If, what are we going to do? And we defined some rules. And one of them was no more bank loans. Real simple. I'm not going to sign personally on bank debt anymore and have that happen in any type of real estate market. Second was, can we develop something that we don't feel like we're on a treadmill? Cause there's a builder and a realtor and investor and a coach that was all transactional.
[00:03:31]
We get paid very well. I have no complaints about my lifestyle back then, but the fact is every January I had to reset the clock and do it again. It was very transactional. And so that was the second criteria. Let's figure out a way to get paid multiple times on a deal and still stay in what we love doing, real estate. And third was to never go out, have to go out and borrow money, whether it's bank or someone else, just don't borrow money, period. And so that's the 99% of our deals are done by owner financing, subject to existing financing and lease purchase because what we went through in the crash. So when I say we only just wrap it up with this thought, and you can go back to any piece of that if you want family business, we buy and sell in New England, three or four different states, my son, Nick and I, and a great team. And then we go out and coach that smart real estate coach you mentioned, then we hit ink 5, 000 3rd year in a row now for the fastest growing companies. And we do deals all over the country with students. So we teach him and do the deal with him. That was a mouthful. Roger, if you want to go back to any of that, that's kind of my 32 years.
[00:04:26] Roger Jacobsen
I have a note in here that. You are Zachary's father in law.
[00:04:30] Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, so it's Zach Owens Spiros. They coach with me and my son Nick Owens both of them with me Well, we had him back on episode number 28.
[00:04:36] Roger Jacobsen
Oh, wow. Good deal. So you're doing all three of those types These are typically lease with the option to buy And then you put somebody else into the place and either sandwich it or get paid out.
[00:04:50] Chris Prefontaine
Is that correct? We do the sandwich leases. That's one of three ways. In this market, I like the other two, frankly, that the sandwich lease is great for new people. And we can talk about why newer people, but the owner financing and the subject to existing financing is huge right now, because let's take subject to subject to, if you're new listening, just means I'm buying Rogers home, the loan staying in his name. He's the guarantor. I'm going to own the house. That's more prone for someone that needs financial relief, right? That's why they will not do that like immediately. Well, what's going on now is we're buying homes that like 2. 2 to 4. 2% cause we're buying them with these old underlying loans. That is enormous right now.
[00:05:26]
Who knows when that'll come back, right? Those kinds of rates. So that's why I like to sub two and we sell them the same way. Rent to own just like if we bought on a lease and the reason I like the owner financing is we do those with free and clear properties mostly Roger free and clear meaning that they're debt free on that property the building I'm standing in today that I'm talking to you this building was bought from a free and clear owner on owner financing didn't have to go through commercial underwriting and all that grueling stuff you'd have to go through if you took out a loan so I like those two methods best you
[00:05:54] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. And I'm in a house that's bought subject to, and honestly, I know that the payment is higher. Then the payment that I'm making, plus I also have an Airbnb, so I'm not paying anything and I'm winning both ways on that one.
[00:06:09] Chris Prefontaine
It's awesome. Yeah, subject to is super popular right now for that reason. But keep in mind, because some people say to me, well, you always looking for people that need help. Okay, so the 2 methods I talked about out of the 3, the owner financing and the sub 2. Sub two, as I said, yeah, they may be financially stressed, but the owner of financing, you know, a gentleman on this building, it's free and clear. They're not stressed. What they want, instead of solving a problem financially, what they usually want is, Hey, help me accomplish a goal that the regular conventional market's not allowing me to do. In this guy's case, he didn't want to get cashed out. For tax reasons and estate planning, he wanted owner financing. He put a sign out that said that, yet he had realtors calling him going, I got an offer for you. He didn't want a conventional offer. So if we just solve the problem or help them accomplish their goal, then creative financing works phenomenal.
[00:06:52] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. It's often a win win situation where a lot of the wholesalers and stuff like that have a very one sided win for somebody that loses their equity or something else.
[00:07:04] Chris Prefontaine
I agree. And that's what differentiates you when you're talking to sellers too. Because if you're not a realtor and you're not a wholesaler or a flipper. They're doors wide open. You feel the guard come down on the phone because they know you're not out to try to steal the property.
[00:07:16] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. So you make money 3 different ways that I see here. 1 is the initial payday at the down payment. Is there a ratio that you see a lot in that where you take a percentage and the owner that is selling takes a percentage?
[00:07:30] Chris Prefontaine
We don't give the owner a percentage on any one of those methods I gave you. Owner financing sub two will lease purchase. We have a fourth method that on occasion we'll do that has us find the buyer and assign it to the seller. And then we might give them a percentage, but we never give them a percentage. They only qualify never. I'm sure in the last 700 deals has been a couple like, Hey, I need 1, 800 to move or something small, but we typically do not give the seller any money. No.
[00:07:54] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. And then you make another payday in the monthly spread between the cost of the mortgage and payments and what you make above that.
[00:08:03] Chris Prefontaine
Yeah. Mortgage payments or as we alluded to earlier directly to the seller, perhaps like we did an oceanfront home here in Massachusetts. I'm in Rhode Island, but not too far as Cape Cod resort area. The woman, believe it or not, Roger, was a realtor. So she's a realtor in Boston, couldn't sell this house, almost a million bucks. We bought it for 945, 000. We broke the mold and put a whopping 8, 000 down. That's against what we usually do, but we did. And then we paid her 2, 500 a month, principal only payment. When you're dealing with free and clear property, you can usually structure what I just said. Give her her price, but it's monthly principal only payment. And then, yeah, we turned around and put someone in that home and we collected Delta. On payday
[00:08:43] Roger Jacobsen
2. That's cool. And then you also have a third payment method that is when the house sells, correct? Is that right?
[00:08:51] Chris Prefontaine
Yeah. So picture the one I just used. This is a good example. The 2500 a month on that house. So we mark that up to say 1. 2. I'll use round numbers from 945 to 1. 2. And inside of 48 months that get cashed out and we accumulated 30 grand a year in principal pay down. Think of that. 2, 500 bucks a month, 30, 000 years, another 120 grand pay down. The free and clear properties are magical because of that. I'll give you a metric actually that you could bank on. So if you're listening and you and your marketplace can find a home in your area for 200 grand or higher, I use round numbers. That's most markets you can do that and you can structure owner financing deals for at least 48 months or more and you structure a monthly principal only payment of 900 or more. You have a six figure deal all three paydays. Super lucrative, the three pages, especially on the free and quiet.
[00:09:40] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. And that amount of money, it sounds like a job that somebody would earn about 15 bucks an hour, but you're doing that 100% passively.
[00:09:50] Chris Prefontaine
There's people in our community that have. Like hands on and they just by themselves, solopreneur. There's others in the community that I can have them come on your show eventually, but they've built teams. So they have VAs, virtual assistants that call to screen, and then they're just getting the cream of the crop to go ahead and cut the deal, to make the deal, to structure the deal. So you can be as passive or as active as you want in creative real estate. The thing to know is this, especially if you have a lot of passive listeners, you've got a market right now that's never been so ripe for creative real estate. It just hasn't. This is phenomenal demand for creative right now. Wall Street Journal is saying it. Yahoo Finance, Google, like every report is coming out saying that. If that's the case, all you have to know is Creative will teach you how to get really good at pivoting in any market. So you're not thinking, Oh, I got to time it or I got to wait to the bottom or the top. No, none of that. Just get really good at operating in every real estate market because the constant real estate is it's going to always change. If we know that, how about we operate in any market? That's why I love the niche.
[00:10:43] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. Have you had to change strategies in this market or is it just?
[00:10:46] Chris Prefontaine
It's not so much strategy because those three sit the same. What it is is, okay, what do we emphasize more? On the those types of deals. In other words, sub two deals right now and what pond do we fish in as far as what types of sellers, right? So example, right before when COVID got announced and people are panicking, we grabbed the record amount of properties, like three times as much in two months, March and April 20th. Then, as everybody knows, May, June, July started getting crazy hot. So would I then fish in the pond of for sale by owners, for example, to find deals? Probably not. They were selling like hotcakes, right? But now you're seeing the for sale by owners come back and the expired listings come back. So it's just a matter of what pond do you fish in when you're looking for these deals. That's all. And we teach that, obviously.
[00:11:31] Roger Jacobsen
How long do you think this great market that's ripe for the picking is going to last?
[00:11:36] Chris Prefontaine
As far as creative goes? Yes. As long as there's chaos, election coming, high interest rate, like all this stuff is causing the media to scream incorrectly, but it helps us because it causes the consumers to panic. Right? You've got, people think this is awful with the interest rates, the 50 year average is like, I'm gonna be real close, it's like 7.2, I haven't checked in the last couple weeks, but we're not way over that, certainly, and if we're not way over that, why is there already an affordability problem in the country for the third time in 50 years? So, I don't know, I'm not, the billionaires don't know Roger, right, so you and I certainly don't know, but I see someone harvesting in the creative space, getting to work, rolling the sleeves up for a good two or three years to create like a decade or more of income with the three paydays because they go on the books, you know, for a while once you do that. So, who knows, that's a long answer to say, I don't know, but the urgency is now to grab some creative financing.
[00:12:27] Roger Jacobsen
Do you think we're going to see a drop in interest rates over this next few months as we get closer to the election?
[00:12:33] Chris Prefontaine
Maybe for that very reason, but my strength is not predicting or being an economist, but my guess would be with the election, you're going to have some pressure.
[00:12:42] Roger Jacobsen
Yeah, mine too. And I'm kind of hoping that we see a drop as we get closer into something like a five and a half percent interest rate so that we can sell some of our properties at a profit.
[00:12:53] Chris Prefontaine
And what's cool, I call it wealth stacking. So we'll take a student. That has, let's just say the first 10 properties and depending on how aggressive they are, that could take a year, could take two, whatever it takes, you take the 10 properties. People say, well, you guys always cash out these creative financing deals. And the answer is no, we don't cash out. We look at say the first 10 and we go, Hey, Roger, why don't you hang on to these three? Don't cash out quick with a tenant buyer. In other words, in the rent to home program, how about you want to finance them and make that a 10 or 20 or 30 year deal. And maybe these over here, we do cash out. So you can literally predict your cashflow on these paydays and decide to keep some. Long term and by the way, as you know, but so the listeners know it's every asset class Creative financing. If you read the book that Anderson Cooper wrote about his family, the Vanderbilt's here in Newport, Rhode Island, you know, with the mansions and all that over the years, they were buying real estate in New York in the 1600s, owner financing, and they called it master lease purchase 1600s. This isn't new. We just wrapped a system around it and support so you could get after it.
[00:13:51] Roger Jacobsen
Now, you kind of alluded to this, but why don't you give us a little more background on the smart real estate coach program you have and tell us what that looks like.
[00:13:59] Chris Prefontaine
I'll tell you what we've seen in the market, and this is why I've been screaming about our education program. Clearly, I'm biased, right? But the fact is, you've got a lot of great marketers right now in the education space for real estate. You also have a bunch of new people who may have taught wholesaling or something else in the past that now all of a sudden they're a creative financing expert because they know the demands here. What that all equals is you, the listener, are getting marketed pretty heavy. To buy a product, buy real estate products, you are. And the really good marketers are getting away with it. The challenge that we've seen, so we're coming in and bridging that gap, so to speak, is there's no deal, there's no deal making going on.
[00:14:39]
Very, very, very little. So who's in the field interactively coaching doing deals? We are. And there may be a program or two, I'm not so biased to say there can't exist another one, but I don't know of one this aggressive that's in the field. That's helping with buyers and sellers and doing deals, not just here you go, here's a program. Because that's all sounds great when you're at a seminar, go through a program, then you go out and real life happens, right? And so that's where we come in and our certified coaches come in. I still coach at the higher level student level. We call it associates. Roger, they're students that joined an associate program. The associate program allows them to interactively do deals with And then they revenue share for a period of time, not for life. Then they go off and do their own thing. If you went through our basic home study course, for example, and never did any dealmaking with us, you go off and have that course for life and could do your own deals.
[00:15:25]
Do I think you might lose, not lose, leave some money on the table? Sure. We've got to fine tune pretty, pretty, pretty tight, but you can go do deals with, with that and you can go on YouTube and see, I don't know how many now, maybe 250 deals on what we call deal structure Sunday. They're all there. We just whiteboard them good, bad challenge wins, losses, everything. That's a good learning platform for you for free.
[00:15:47] Roger Jacobsen
And for our listeners, we do have a link to that in our show notes. If you want to find the deal structure Sunday, is that what you call it? Yeah.
[00:15:55] Chris Prefontaine
Yeah. It's in that, at that PlayStation.
[00:15:58] Roger Jacobsen
That sounds exciting. I really want to check that out as a coach. I know you focus a lot on mindset. Can you spend a minute and talk to our audience about what the mindset needs to look like for them?
[00:16:07] Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, this is, believe it or not, and some people think this is, this is too loose or foo foo or gray area for them, but here's the fact. We teach the, uh, what we call a genius model, Roger, it's these three pillows. It's mindset, certainly, skill set, and systems. I can tell you, I just gave you the station on YouTube, you can, I can teach anyone to do a deal. And I mean that. What I can't do is. Rapidly progress people on the mindset piece unless they're ready. So here's the challenge you come from a job or you come from another niche in real estate and you've got so many people have false expectations because of that marketing I talked about earlier, right? Get rich quick tomorrow, make a million dollars in our system, blah, blah, blah. So the mindset piece is important there. The mindset piece is also very important when you're transferring from a job, if that's you listening to our space as an entrepreneur, it's entirely different. We've helped a lot of people escape their jobs.
[00:16:58]
But the challenge is not the deal. The challenge is the mental piece of that. So we tie into our community, people like Dr. Amanda, people that in big names like Dennis Whalen and other names that were in the past associated with why for the mindset piece, Brian Tracy was on our show. This is all for that piece. Again, that's 95, in my opinion, 95% of someone's success is that arena. And it doesn't stop. Right. When you get to Brian O'Neill in Chicago gets to eight deals, it's a different mindset than it was to get them to deal one. Now he's moving into wealth stacking, different mindset than the first two levels. So it's going to constantly evolve. If you're open to that, it's quite a journey. Again, there's a long answer to a good question. I don't know if you want me to go deeper than that.
[00:17:40] Roger Jacobsen
That's perfect. A lot of our listeners are already in a JLB. And they want to do something with a little bit of their extra money and start building the wealth and getting closer to retirement. What do you think is the best way for them to get started in real estate investing?
[00:17:55] Chris Prefontaine
I'll give you something that's not even tied just to real estate. So three steps real simple, but important ones, step one, find the niche that you want to get behind. And I say that Roger, because. As you know, there's people that love sitting behind a computer and flipping land, right? There's people that love wholesaling. So, find what niche it is for you. If it's creative, fantastic. Number two, find someone in that niche that has been around long enough to have been through one or preferably two cycles in real estate. Ideally, also has some life events, right? That happen like in my world has been life events, not just in the economy. So why do I say that in the step 2 here before I move on to 3? Because you are going to hit this stuff. You are going to have an economy change or a pivot. You are going to have life events to happen to you. It's just normal or someone around you will. So find something that's been through all that that you can get behind.
[00:18:46]
And before I go to step 3, one more thing about that person or community, make sure that you align with them. Like I know, and I'm sure you do Roger, you've been at real estate long enough. I know people that have built massive businesses, had massive financial success and wrecked their life. I know a guy that his kid overdose on drugs because if he never spent time on him, he got a divorce, that's not someone that I can get behind. Even if everything else lined up, that's just me, I'm a little biased to that. Third step is the important one. Once you find the niche or you determine, then you find the community or help system that you want. Third is put the blinders on for three to seven years. This is the hardest thing. Because of that marketing that goes on, the get rich quick. Three to seven years. I used to always say three, Roger, always. Because I said if someone can commit to three years to me, it doesn't take them that long to do a deal, but I know when they get a curveball, they won't go, Oh, I quit. I was just trying it. Because if you try in real estate, you'll fail. You got to commit. Now, what do I say three to seven these days in the last like two or three years? During COVID, I had Brian Tracy on the show, and I've said to every guest when they come on, so what do you think, three years, right? And I'll go, yeah, yeah, three years sounds good. Brian said, no, no, no, you're incorrect. So it's kind of like taking it back.
[00:19:53]
He said, Chris, I'm 80. I think he was 82 then. He said, I've been broke. I've had huge success. He said, it takes you three or four years just to get Somewhat good at what you're doing for the skillset with the mindset and all that stuff. He said, then for two or three years, you'll feel like, okay, I'm more than adequately paid. This is working in the last two or three years. Y'all be breakthrough. And so I thought through all the businesses we've built. Right. And I thought that's so cool. Seven or eight years is usually when it takes off. If you stay committed, that's why I say three to seven. So those are the three steps. And I don't give you open in a restaurant that formula works, right? Not just in real estate.
[00:20:26] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. And the name of our podcast is Retire Wealthy and Happy, so item 2, that was really a big thing where it's like, we understand the. Money isn't everything and we really want to create the happiness that follows that because without happiness, it's pointless. I agree. Couldn't agree more. So how many deals are you involved in right now that are existing and going on?
[00:20:49] Chris Prefontaine
I would say between our family deals and the community. I don't have to touch them all, but we're probably juggling, I don't know, 60 to 80 million in real estate usually. Like our event's coming up in September and I'll say, what do we got for deals? And the room usually comes out to like 60, 70, 80 million that we're controlling in some shape, form or fashion. Going into COVID, I think our family team alone without the community had 70 some odd properties. And I think we only had two or three headaches, all of COVID. Now, you talk to landlords at that many properties, they had some serious headaches. The difference is we put buyers in there that need time. That's all, not renters.
[00:21:25] Roger Jacobsen
That's cool. Besides your two sons, how many people do you have in your, like the employee side of the network?
[00:21:31] Chris Prefontaine
For Smart Real Estate Coach, we're probably about 20, 21 people. Just hit, I think I said earlier, the Inc. 5000 for the third year in a row, fastest growing companies. On the property side, it's a little bit more like what most people would picture for a small team. My son and I, and my son in law, and a phenomenal team member that's been with us since 14, that runs all the properties. You don't need more than that. Now there are some, on the peripheral, there are some virtual assistants that call, subcontractors, but very small team on that side. And again, we keep our finger on the pulse, Roger. So if we're doing deals every day and we hit curveballs, we're bringing that to the Smart Real Estate Coach community, the Work It Smart community. Because we'll learn as we go, just like everyone else. One of the things that keeps me in real estate is no deal's the same, right? I think you'd agree with that one.
[00:22:11] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. And a lot of times it comes down to actually being able to listen. Instead of pushing your agenda, you listen to what their needs are. And when you find the perfect fit, it's magic.
[00:22:21] Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, all the time. So picture an accountant, an attorney, a doctor, what do they do? They don't convince you to do anything, right? Roger and I go to an appointment. We don't convince anyone to do anything. What we do is listen, like you just said, and solve, right? Absolutely.
[00:22:35] Roger Jacobsen
I have a couple other things I want to touch base on. Ben wrote this, so I'm going to kind of read it a little bit better, but we've talked about buying on terms. What are the new rules of real estate investing?
[00:22:50] Chris Prefontaine
Hey, so there's two things I'll say about that. One is I defined the new rules for us personally coming out of the crash because I was so braindead and that was a mindset thing by the way. I was in my own way. I must have failed. I can't do this. You know, I was in my own way in a way. It took four years. Then the book that came out, The New Rules of Real Estate, that was built for one reason, that was put together and developed for one reason. We, I'm always open to letting people see all niches, right? I said this a couple times already in your show. Even though I'm super biased to creative, I understand people want good exposure. See what, see what's out there because real estate's really cool for people. So The New Rules of Real Estate that we wrote was a twist on why creative's perfect right now and why we developed it. But it also has a bunch of other niches in that book, uh, tax liens, uh, flippers, you know, everything is in that book. So you get a nice chance to study when you're going through steps one, two, and three, you could study that. Um, but we've defined them for the creative very specifically, like I said, the earlier part of the show.
[00:23:45] Roger Jacobsen
I think it's really important to say right now we're seeing... Some of the largest foreclosures that we've ever seen since 2007, 2008. There's another book I want to touch base on real estate on your terms. And I think it's super important that people understand the safety net that's created with owner financing. You want to touch base on the real estate on your terms book.
[00:24:08] Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, so that book was the first one I wrote back in 17. And then coincidentally, and by the way, we'll give everybody in your audience, just remind me, I'll give you the link to a free book. And it's a hard copy. It's not electronic. So we were just going to revise it before COVID and of course COVID nailed everybody really fast. So we continued the revision. So that's been revised coming out of post COVID. And what it does is it goes through A through Z, what we do. For those three methods we talked about earlier, it throws a fourth in. There's some students in there in the revised edition so that if you're reading it, you go, okay, but what about me? What about my geographic area? We try to cover all that in the book. As far as the safety net, I don't know of a better, let's call it an inflation hedge or a recession hedge, let's call it a hedge in general, than owner financing. Because if you take that deal 30, 000 a year in principal pay down. The market could get wonky during that, and as long as you had a long enough term, you're okay. So the only thing we're changing now is, and the book talks about it, is what kind of term should you do so you do have that sort of safety net that you alluded to. So the book goes into all that as well. Do you want me to give that link out for you to try? We specifically did it for you guys.
[00:25:12] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely, and if you want, we can just email that to us, and then we can put it with the show notes. We have about eight different links for you already, so we'll add it.
[00:25:25] Chris Prefontaine
It's under the Wicked Swap book link, you'll see it.
[00:25:27] Roger Jacobsen
There's another book here that I don't know how you're related, but Moneeka Sawyer's Real Estate Investing for Women. Can you tell us about that?
[00:25:34] Chris Prefontaine
Yep. She reached out to us to do a chapter on creative in there. So we did that with, there's an infinite banking gentleman in there, Mark Willis, who's tremendous and myself and a bunch of female authors. I think we're the only two guys that wrote in there, but we did a creative section in there just to open that up to her audience.
[00:25:50] Roger Jacobsen
For our listeners that don't know what infinite banking is, can you describe that for us?
[00:25:55] Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, it's, I am definitely not the expert, but I utilize it. It's um, it's bank on yourself. It's his section of this and it is utilizing whole life policies and places to store cash. Mostly tax free and be able to use it for your real estate deals if you use funds. People say, well, you don't use funds, Chris, in your, in your real estate deals. Well, look, there's a rainy day. Always. There's a hiccup always with a property, right? So we make sure we have that in the sidelines and we do that through the bank on yourself policies.
[00:26:19] Roger Jacobsen
That's awesome. The next thing, we like to do the final four questions. We ask the same four questions of everybody. So I'm gonna start with number one. What is your favorite business book?
[00:26:29] Chris Prefontaine
Business book would have to be Principles by Ray Dalio. I mean, there's a lot of great ones, but Ray Dalio's Principles I've gone through twice.
[00:26:37] Roger Jacobsen
Good one for anyone in any business. What brings you happiness?
[00:26:39] Chris Prefontaine
Family. Creating experiences. At my stage, I'm 57. We focus, my wife and I, on creating experiences for the grandkids and kids, and that's something you can't buy. So that's my answer to that one.
[00:26:51] Roger Jacobsen
Something that I am working on very hard myself. And creating the environment and place and... Situations where we can all get together and do that, because money doesn't mean anything if you don't have happiness, tell us what your future retirement is going to look like?
[00:27:08] Chris Prefontaine
More of what I just said creating experiences. We just get, we're not even done. We're almost done. 1 of our dream homes, 30 year goal up in Vermont overlooking 2 mountains. And it's just literally it was a 30 year goal of ours. And so we look forward to creating experiences up there with the kids and grandkids. And then more time with them and my wife. I wouldn't call it retirement, Roger. Because I'll always do deals. If I sold the company tomorrow, I'd be doing a deal with my son somewhere, right? But yeah, for the most part, that's what life looks like after I slow it down. I'll put it that way.
[00:27:36] Roger Jacobsen
When we created those questions, we didn't know how bad it was going to backfire, because all the people that come on here are so happy. With their career and the way things go, it ends up being, I don't want to sit on the couch and watch Oprah reruns. I want to go out there and do my thing and I'm happy doing it. I just want to also create the fun times that go along with it.
[00:27:57] Chris Prefontaine
It's it's quite fun. Yeah, I would do more deals with my wife because we don't get a chance to do as many because she's phenomenal. She's done raise the root projects. She's done rehab. She's built every house that we've. Moved into so we would do more deals on the side versus having to do a deal for business, right?
[00:28:09] Roger Jacobsen
Absolutely. What do you think is the best way to give back?
[00:28:14] Chris Prefontaine
I think pouring into anything that lights you up emotionally. And for me, for example, just, I always try to give a real story. My son, Nick, who you haven't had on your show, I don't think he had a snowboard injury in 2003. He was in a coma. The doctors told my wife and I had never walked, talk or eat again on his own. So that's what I mean by emotionally lights you up. He's doing phenomenal now. You'd never know. We give to that Franciscan Children's Hospital for that reason. So everyone has something like that that touched their life, either personally like me, maybe sadly for someone or someone else, you know, and if you can get behind that, I think that's the best way to give back because it's true passion right there and a true emotion.
[00:28:50] Roger Jacobsen
Awesome. Good for him. That's really a good story. You mentioned the YouTube channel. Where's the best other places for our listeners to find you online?
[00:28:59] Chris Prefontaine
Just the main sites, smart realestate coach.com. I think you have links to our free master's class and the free book and all that stuff. So with the show notes, you'll be loading 'em up, I think.
[00:29:08] Roger Jacobsen
All right. Well that concludes the majority of our show today. We talked about what does buying on terms mean, talk about market cycles, and we also talked about your coaching program, smart Real Estate Coach, thanks for joining us today on Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast.
[00:29:24] Chris Prefontaine
You bet, Roger. I appreciate you having me on. So hopefully we gave a nugget or two out there. Definitely.
[00:29:31] Roger Jacobsen
For sure. We'll see everybody the next time on the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. Thanks for joining us.
[00:29:37] Podcast Outro
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