Bank on Your Neighbor: The Audiobook Podcast
Building wealth doesn’t have to mean Wall Street. In this exclusive audio series, Mel Dorman brings you Bank on Your Neighbor — a practical, people-first guide to seller financing. Learn how to create ethical, win-win deals rooted in relationships and strategy, and start building financial freedom right in your own community.
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Bank on Your Neighbor: The Audiobook Podcast
Bank on Your Neighbor: The Audiobook - Introduction
In the Introduction to Bank on Your Neighbor, Mel Dorman opens up about the turning point that forever shifted her relationship with money. From her father’s battle with Alzheimer’s to her own leap from social work into real estate, Mel shares why she stopped resisting wealth and instead chose to rebuild it differently—ethically, collaboratively, and on her own terms.
This chapter sets the stage for the movement ahead: reclaiming financial power from Wall Street, keeping wealth local, and learning how seller financing can open doors for anyone shut out by traditional banks. If you’ve ever felt like the system wasn’t built for you, this episode will help you see money, freedom, and community through an entirely new lens.
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Hi, friend. I'm Mel Doman, real estate investor, former social worker, TEDx speaker and financial activist. And this, this is Bank On Your Neighbor, the podcast. You're probably here because you felt it too, that the system wasn't built for us. That building wealth shouldn't mean selling your soul to Wall Street or crossing your fingers every time a bank says no. That there has to be another way. Well, there is, and this podcast is my free gift to you. That's right. Free, no paywall, no audible subscription, no gatekeepers standing between you and the knowledge that can change your life. Because here's the truth, just because something's free doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Sometimes the most valuable things, clarity, empowerment, freedom, don't come with a price tag. They come with purpose. I created this podcast because I'm on a mission to decentralize wealth, to take power out of the hands of billionaires and put it back into our communities. Each episode is a chapter from my book Bank on Your Neighbor. Read by me. It's my way of making sure this knowledge reaches the people who need it most without a single algorithm getting in the way. We'll walk through the real strategies I use to go from dumpster diving in my twenties to building a multimillion dollar portfolio in my thirties without banks, without credit, and without compromising my values. We'll talk seller financing, community centered investing. And creative ways to build wealth that actually serve people, not exploit them. But this isn't just a podcast, it's a movement, a radical reclaiming of power, a blueprint for creating more community-minded millionaires and fewer billionaires extracting from our neighborhoods. Every chapter builds on the last, so I recommend listening in order. I'll drop links, visuals, and extra resources in the show notes to help you take action. Not just absorb information and if something in an episode strikes a chord, send it to someone you care about. That's how we spread financial literacy. That's how we grow a movement. That's how we rise together. Welcome to Bank on Your Neighbor. Welcome to the movement. Let's build something together. Introduction, a turning point. We do not see the world as it is, but as we are a nice nin. Have you ever gotten to the end of a long day, eyes glazed from back to back zoom calls or back to back shifts and wondered, wait, is this what being a grownup is supposed to feel like you're doing everything, quote, right? Paying the bills, checking the boxes, climbing some version of a ladder, and yet a tiny voice inside is asking, is this it? Here's the thing, it's not you. This exhaustion isn't just emotional. It's economic, and it's not a personal failure. It's a symptom of a financial system that was never built for our wellbeing. That's why I wrote this book. Not to teach you how to play the game better, but to help you change the game entirely. In the pages ahead, I'll show you how an unconventional but powerful strategy called seller financing can unlock ownership, generate income, and give you back control over your time, values, and future. At some point, most of us inherited a vision of adulthood that went something like this. Work hard, be responsible, stay busy. Don't ask too many questions. If you're lucky, you get a couple weeks off a year and maybe if everything goes according to plan, you retire before your body gives out. But whose idea was that exactly? This isn't the system most of us would come up with on our own. It's been passed down from imaginations of those who came before us, maybe what we've been calling quote. Being an adult is just an outdated idea of what a human is good for, a means of production. Maybe that creeping dissatisfaction, that feeling of being stuck in a life you never consciously chose isn't a personal failure. Maybe it's a clue. Maybe you've been climbing the corporate ladder with your head down only to realize it's leaning against the wrong damn wall. Or maybe you've got three jobs, two side hustles, and zero time to breathe, and you're wondering why after all that effort, you still feel financially stuck. Creatively drained and just plain tired. Or maybe you're doing quote, fine, good job, decent salary, but deep down, you know, your one emergency or one existential crisis away from watching the whole house of cards wobble. If any of that feels familiar, welcome. You're not lazy, you're not ungrateful. You're just waking up to the possibility that the life you've been sold isn't the only one available. But what if I told you there's a way to escape the grind by making money work for you? Not by playing Wall Street's game, but by flipping the board altogether, a way that doesn't require perfect credit, piles of cash or even credentials. What if there's a method of investing that lets you call the shots, helps your community? And challenges everything you thought you knew about money. I didn't believe it either. But life has a way of humbling you and revealing what you've been missing. And once I got curious, truly curious about how money could be used to build, not just distract, my whole life changed since then. I've built a seven figure real estate business. Founded the Seller Financing Academy and grown a portfolio of 34 rental units using seller financing. I've had the honor of being selected as an editor's choice speaker for my TED Talk on this very topic because this strategy is timely, powerful, and radically accessible. I don't share this to impress you. I share it so you know I've been where you are. Overwhelmed. Disillusioned, under-resourced, and full of doubt. I've made the leap. Failed forward and kept going anyway. And now I want to show you how to do the same. Years ago, I would've rolled my eyes at this book. I thought wealth was for other people, greedy people, selfish people, people who cared more about profits than people. As a social worker, I'd seen firsthand how capitalism choose through lives and discards them. I hated the system so much. I built my life around resisting it, and then my dad got sick. Alzheimer's crept in, slowly stealing him piece by piece. At first, it was the little things, misplaced keys, forgotten appointments. Then the confusion deepened the fear in his eyes growing heavier as he lost parts of himself. He could never get back. Eventually, doctors told us the care he needed would cost $7,000 a month. We didn't have it. I sat at his bedside. Holding the hand that once taught me to ride a bike, to stand my ground, to dream big, and I realized that love alone wasn't enough Money wasn't just some abstract evil. It was the missing peace between my father and the dignity he deserved at the end of his life. The helplessness I felt cracked me open. It forced me to face a bitter truth. Ideals alone, don't protect the people you love. I needed something more. I needed power, not over others, but for the people who depended on me. That was the moment that shifted everything. Looking back, I can see the roots of my complicated relationship with money. I grew up middle class, the child of two construction workers in a gritty, vibrant corner of LA where cultures, languages, and stories collided. Our church pews looked like a United Nations meeting filled with people carrying both hope and hardship. From a young age, I learned to listen with my heart and let's be honest, to keep a tight lid on my queerness in that world, fitting in meant serving others not getting rich. A memory I can't shake is from about five years before my dad's diagnosis. When I had traveled to a rural village in Uganda to teach English to orphans of hiv aids, my heart burned with purpose. One afternoon while sitting cross-legged with my host family scooping purple peanut sauce and mitoka with our hands. A 16-year-old cousin shoved a battered book in my hands. His grin was wide enough to power a whole village. You gotta read this, he said as if he'd just discovered the cure for cancer. I glanced at the cover, rich Dad, poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki, and my stomach turned. A book about building wealth. I scoffed and launched into an unsolicited TED talk about values, connection and how capitalism was the problem, not the solution. He smiled politely, probably wishing he'd handed that book to literally anyone else. I didn't read it. I tucked it away with a quiet certainty that I already knew better. I thought I was taking a moral stand, but looking back, I see what I missed. His recommendation wasn't about greed. It was about survival. It was about having options about building a life where when it mattered most, you could choose dignity over desperation. Had I opened that book five years earlier, maybe I could have changed the ending to my father's story. Instead, standing by his hospital bed holding his frail hand, I finally understood money isn't the enemy, his hands once strong enough to hold our family together. Now lay fragile in mine. Machines homed, softly counting down the time we had left, I'd spent my whole life fighting. A system I believed was broken, but in that sterile room filled with antiseptic and loss, I realized the very thing I had rejected. Money could have been the thing that helped him. Money could have paid for better care. It could have lifted the burden from my sister already battling addiction and homelessness who moved into care for him. When we couldn't afford a professional, it could have given my dad comfort, dignity, and peace in his final years. Instead, I'd thrown it away, not just the book, but the possibility that capitalism, this system I despised, could be harnessed as a tool to serve love, not just profit. I'd spent years believing that wealth was the problem, when in truth the lack of it was costing us dearly. In rejecting the system, I'd also rejected the power to change it, and in doing so, I lost precious time, precious chances, and the ability to give the people I loved what they needed. When my father passed, I made a promise I would never again, let a lack of financial knowledge steal from me or the people I love. I wouldn't just learn how to build wealth ethically. I'd shout it from the rooftops to anyone willing to listen. So in true burn the ship fashion, after my dad died, I quit my social work job in the middle of an existential crisis with $16,000 in the bank, a brand new mortgage and a determination that outweighed my common sense. I threw myself headfirst into real estate investing, not just to make money, but to do it differently, ethically, collaboratively, on my own terms. I didn't wanna win a game that crushed other people. I wanted to change the game entirely. There was just one problem. My bank account was screaming, girl, sit down. Having quit my job in a haste, I was unemployed, financially stretched, and fresh off my first duplex purchase, which had drained most of my cash. I had a will, but not the wallet and definitely not the resources to compete with investors who could drop six figure checks like they were buying a latte. But I wasn't about to give up, so I went searching, not for shortcuts, but for a different path, a way to build wealth without selling my soul to Wall Street, or waiting for some bank to grant me permission. What I found changed everything I found. Seller financing. Have you ever heard of it? No banks, no begging. Just two people, A buyer and a seller coming together to solve each other's problems. The truth is not every seller wants a big lump sum to walk away with. Some are tired landlords ready to retire without handing half their profit to the IRS. Some are grieving families sitting on an inherited house. They don't know how to handle. Some just need a creative solution and fast. And buyers like me. I didn't have a trust fund, a six figure salary or a pile of savings. Traditional financing wasn't built for people like me or for undocumented immigrants, self-employed entrepreneurs, creatives, or anyone buried under student loans. We're told we don't quote, qualify to own homes, that the American dream is only for those people who can check all the right boxes. Seller financing changes that. It opens doors that banks slam shut. It gives regular people a way to step into ownership and stability on terms built around human needs, not corporate checklists. Through this strategy, I bought 34 rental units in five years without generational wealth and without sacrificing my values, I built a six figure passive income using social capital, not stacks of cash. And here's what I realized. You don't need money to make money. You need creativity, relationships, and a willingness to see things differently. The key is this. Every property has a story. Every seller has a problem they want to solve, and when you know how to listen, connect and craft a deal that works for both of you. That's when real opportunities open up. One of my first mentors in real estate gave me a metaphor that changed my life. He said, Mel, we all walk through life wearing a pair of glasses, convince the world we see is reality. But those glasses, they're tinted by our upbringings, our beliefs, our experiences, and they limit what we think is possible. Mentors like him handed me a new lens, a way to see money investing and community differently. And once I put them on, I couldn't unsee it. That's what I wanna offer you. You've been taught to trust banks over people to believe you need the bank's permission to build wealth. That real estate is for rich white men in suits, not people like you that you're supposed to grind yourself into dust and call it success. But what if you could take off those old glasses and see a world where financial freedom is built through collaboration, not competition through connection, not capitalism as we know it. This book is that pair of glasses. You'll learn how to unlock seller financing, build wealth ethically, and more importantly, rewrite the story you've been handed about money, power, and possibility. Let's zoom out for a minute. Every month like clockwork, we write checks, whether it's rent to a landlord or mortgage payment to a bank. Most of us don't think twice about it. That's just the system, right? Just how it works. But here's the thing. Those payments aren't just covering your home. They're feeding a financial system that quietly siphons wealth out of your hands and into the pockets of Wall Street. Here's a number to sit with. Over $400 billion in mortgage interest flows out of American households every single year. That's hundreds, probably thousands of dollars a month from people like you sent straight to the coffers of banks and financial institutions. Not into your community, not into your family's future. Into Wall Street's vaults, where it's sliced, diced, and traded in ways that have nothing to do with you and everything to do with profits. It's easy to feel helpless in the face of that to wanna burn it all down and throw capitalism out entirely. Trust me, I've been there. But here's the problem. That's like deciding to stop using your home's plumbing because you don't like where the water's going. Trust me as someone who's lived in a third world slum, you don't want to live without plumbing. It stinks. We can't function without some system of exchange. But here's the good news. Just like plumbing, capitalism can be rerouted instead of sending your hard earned money into the pipes of big banks, what if you redirected the flow into your community? What if instead of writing a check to a faceless bank, you wrote it to your neighbor, helping them retire, pay off the debt, or fund a dream? What if you received that check, creating financial stability for yourself? Opportunities for others. That's what seller financing allows us to do. It doesn't dismantle the whole system, but it changes the direction of the flow. It reroutes wealth from the few back to the many, from institutions to individuals, from corporations to communities. You don't have to be rich to change the system. You just need to understand the valves and the tools and have the courage to use them. This is about more than money. It's about power. Right now hedge funds are buying up neighborhoods like it's a real life game of Monopoly, locking us out of ownership and into a lifetime of renting. Remember, occupy Wall Street? Well, wall Street is now occupying our homes, literally, but we don't have to accept that through seller financing, we can reclaim the flow of money, keep wealth local, and empower everyday people to step into ownership on both sides of the deal. Because before there were FICO scores, there was trust. Before there were underwriters, there was community. This isn't just about personal gain, it's about redefining who's allowed to build wealth and who isn't. It's about breaking down the gatekeeping and creating a system where everyone gets a chance to thrive. So how do we do it? That's what this book is about. It's a roadmap, a guide, not just to understanding seller financing, but to understanding yourself as someone capable of wielding financial tools for the good of your own life and your community. Here's how we'll do it together. We'll start by exposing the myths and the money stories. We've all been handed, the invisible lenses that keep us small, scared and stuck. We'll explore who benefits from the status quo and why. Breaking free starts with seeing the world and yourself differently. Next, we'll get practical. You'll learn how to find sellers, negotiate ethical deals, and solve real problems without needing banks perfect credit or piles of cash. I'll show you exactly how I built a 34 unit rental portfolio through seller financing and how you can too at your own pace in your own way. Nearly a decade ago, I spent$8,000 on a real estate bootcamp. Want to know how many people in that program actually used what they learned? About 10%, but I was one of them. Not because I was the smartest or savviest, but because I built a community of divine troublemakers who refused to let me fail. And because I had a secret weapon, I used all the tools. I once taught my therapy clients to change their lives on myself. And because I want you to have those same tools, I created the level of playbook, a free workbook designed to help you bridge the gap between knowing and doing. It includes practical exercises to guide you through the transformation process step by step. And it's actually a sneak peek into the curriculum. I teach my coaching students inside the Seller Financing Academy. Because reading a book is powerful, but building a whole new life. That's next level work@meldorman.com, you'll also find free resources and a community of bold, brilliant disruptors, walking the same unconventional path. People who like you are done waiting for permission and ready to take action on their terms, in their communities, and with support that actually gets it. Here's the truth. Financial freedom isn't a solo sport. It's not about grinding in isolation or trying to figure everything out alone. It's about surrounding yourself with people who won't let you play small, who challenge you, cheer you on, and remind you that what feels impossible alone becomes inevitable together. If some of the ideas in this book feel farfetched right now, trust me, I get. I used to believe the same. It wasn't spreadsheets or logic that changed my mind. It was seeing people just like me break free, rewrite their stories, and build wealth in ways that felt aligned, ethical, and real. That's what we're doing. Not just chasing freedom, but creating it deal by deal, step by step, side by side. You don't have to go it alone. All those years ago in Uganda, when that teenage boy handed me a worn out copy of Rich Dad, poor Dad. I didn't just reject a book, I rejected a possibility. The possibility that money could be more than greed, that it could be a tool for connection, dignity, and freedom. That wealth didn't have to come at someone else's expense. I didn't see it then. I was too caught up in what I thought wealth meant, too. Convinced that having money meant losing my values. I wish I could go back and shake my younger self and tell her to stop preaching and start listening. Tell her that money in the right hands can change lives. Not just yours, but everyone around you. I can't go back, but you don't have to make the same mistake this time when someone hands you a book that could change everything. You have a choice. You could set it down, dismiss it, tell yourself this isn't for me. Or you could get curious and ask, what if This is the tool I've been waiting for. What if, this is how I reclaim power, not just for me, but for my family, my community, and everyone who's ever been told to stay small in the pages ahead. I'm handing you the very glasses that changed my life. Glasses that reveal a new way of seeing wealth, of building freedom, of transforming capitalism from the inside out. Once you put them on, you won't be able to unsee it more than a financial book. This is an invitation. To build community until it disrupts systemic power to find the courage to trust another person instead of a faceless corporation, to look into the eyes of a neighbor and say, let's do this together. When we do, the fear starts to dissolve. Our hearts expand, and we rediscover the strength to step out of the old and into something new. To take a risk, to be brave to belong. More than a book, welcome to a movement.