Christian Osgood is the YouTube guy Ed admits to stealing from on a regular basis. He started investing in Washington State on the Dave Ramsey method while everyone else was reading Kiyosaki, save up, buy a duplex, save up again. Eight years in, his rentals were paying his mortgage. Then he met a 19-year-old named Cody in the same office who had 30 rentals on a couple of seller-financed deals and had never collected a meaningful commission check. Christian's first reaction was: how did you do this. The owner had said three words that broke the model open. Why don't you just buy it.

That was 2021. In December 2021 Christian put $300,000 of raised capital into a $2,000,000 38-unit on seller-financing terms with 15% down. Eleven months later the appraisal came back at $4,100,000. He did a cash-out refi, bought out the partners for $600,000, and walked away with $350,000 in his pocket having put $0 of his own money in. He still owns the deal. It cash flows about $10,000 a month. Today he has more than 330 rental units across Washington State and Texas. Seventeen of his last twenty acquisitions were seller-financed.

What landed in this conversation:

1. The opportunity dictates the money, not the other way around. When Christian focused on his bank account, he could only think in fours: four units, four years. The shift was treating the opportunity as the input. A 38-unit at $2M that can be worth $3M with the right financing is worth finding $300K for. Finding $300K to make a million is a deal worth doing. You tailor the money to the opportunity. The cap on his thinking was self-imposed.
2. Long-term cash flowing fixed rate debt is the only test. Christian's screen has four pieces and they are non-negotiable. Multifamily. Long-term debt of at least 10 years. Fixed rate. Cash flows on day one. If those four are true, the asset will be worth more in a decade, period. No 10-year stretch in US history has seen real estate down on average. So buy what makes sense today, hold forever, and the appreciation arrives whether the market is up or down.
3. Stop saying the words "seller financing." If you open a conversation with an owner by asking whether they would carry the note, you are signaling that you have no money and want them to give you something. Talk about the deal first. Map the goalposts of what they need. Then propose specifics. Not "would you seller finance" but "I will give you $200,000 down today, $X per month for five years, and refinance you out." Same deal, completely different psychology. On a 25-unit in Stephenville, TX, he bought at $2M, 85%+ LTV at 5%, but the rents were 50% of market. So he ran reverse amortization for two years (paying 3.5%, the rest accruing to principal), added $50,000 to the principal balance, and still bought $400,000 below value while cash flowing the whole time.
4. Ten phone calls a day, 52 owners a year, zero money spent on lists. Christian's only two sourcing channels are Google Maps and Crexi. On maps he scans residential areas for big roofs (almost always small multifamily), pulls parcel data to find the owner, looks up phone numbers (free sites like OpenCorporates for LLCs), and calls. Ten calls a day equals one coffee meeting on average. Fifty-two owners who know him, like him, and trust him every year. He has never asked a single seller to sell. Every deal was a proposal in response to either an owner's call or a broker's call. The other channel is calling brokers on Crexi listings, analyzing the deal with them, submitting offers even on deals that will not work, because the offer puts you at the top of their call list for the next listing.

The single line of advice Christian credits with the biggest impact came from the worst mentor he ever had. "Don't add steps." If your goal is to be a real estate investor, getting a broker's license is not on the list. Buying a property is. The detour into qualifying yourself is the difference between an entrepreneur and a credentialed employee. He pointed to Ryan Reynolds' marketing company going from concept to delivered product in 48 hours as the operator example.

His reading list is short and weighted: the Bible first, then Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss for negotiation and mapping every party's win, then Way of the Wolf by Jordan Belfort for the Straight Line Method (listen to the audiobook for the tonality chapter). Christian's hack: read the physical book and listen to the audio at the same time. Retention goes up significantly and you read faster.

Find him on YouTube at Multifamily Strategy (over 100,000 subscribers) or his Dallas-Fort Worth property management company at apexam.com.

Real Estate Underground with Ed Mathews. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, at clarkst.com/podcast or elevista.com/podcast

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