What to Know BEFORE Lending Your Money – Mitch Stephen | 442

We are joined here today by a special, returning guest, Mitch Stephen.

Mitch is a self-employed investor for over 25 years, his real estate career started when he was 23 years old while reading nothing but Robert Allan. He purchased 2,000 houses in and around San Antonio, Texas and also produced a lot of books.

“When you are at the bottom, it’s a great place to reinvent yourself.”- Mitch Stephen.

This experience has become his wake up call to study, to find where he fit in this world and to learn how to obtain financial freedom.

But the question is for a “passive” person who is looking for ways to make their money working for them to achieve financial freedom, how would that person know if it is a good idea to invest their money in someone like Mitch Stephen?

Tune in today as Chris Miles talks with Mitch Stephen.

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Chris Miles (00:00):
Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles, your Cash Flow Expert and Anti-Financial Advisor. Guys, I’m welcoming you out for a show that’s for you and about you. Those of you who work so hard for money and you’re ready for your money. Start working harder for you. Now! You want that freedom. You want that cash flow. You want that prosperity today, right? Not 30 or 40 years from now, but right now, so you’d be able to have that life that you love, doing what you love with those that you love. But on top of that, it’s about creating a Ripple effect through people’s lives. Because as that Rippler. You’re here to do much more than just sit on your butts and do nothing and just make money. You’re here to make a difference in the world and bless people’s lives. So you leave the world better than when you came in. And guys, I’m proud to be a part of that with you.

Chris Miles (00:51):
Thank you for allowing my Ripple effect to continue through you guys. Thank you for allowing me to be able to teach and be able to share and everything else, here’s a quick reminder. Check out our website. WWW.MONEYRIPPLES.COM There’s not only great podcasts and blogs on there, but you can also check out the Beyond Rice and Beans, Seven Secrets Free Up Cash Today. You can download for free. So check that out. So today guys, I’ve got a special guest here. I’ve got a returning guest, actually Mitch Stephen, who I’ve had on two years ago, but maybe some of you guys didn’t get to that interview. So I want to kind of reintroduce him and bring him on because it was so much fun having him on last time that we just had to do it again. I remember being on his show. We laughed. So I think we laughed half the show, Mitch.

Chris Miles (01:29):
It was awesome. I loved it. So it’s one of my most memorable interviews I ever had. So Mitch, just so you guys know about him, he’s a self-employed real estate investor for the over 25 years. His real estate career started when he was 23 years old. When he read nothing down by Robert Allen, you guys remember good old Bob, right? He purchased well over get this guy’s over 2000 houses in and around the San Antonio, Texas area. He’s also produced lots of books. He like, we got 1000 houses and books and we even talked about last time as well. And we’ll even talk about here a little bit too. Like guys, this guy is a master of it. This guy is seasoned. He’s true and true. He is the real deal. So Mitch, welcome back to our show.

Mitch Stephen (02:10):
Wow! I’m going to have to like frame this recording or something. That’s pretty good.

Chris Miles (02:13):
Well, Hey, it’s all yours, you know, you can have it.

Mitch Stephen (02:18):
Well, thank you. I’m glad to be here, Chris. I’m excited.

Chris Miles (02:22):
Absolutely. Well, tell us a little bit about that journey. Like what happened? Like what got you down the path of real estate in the first place?

Mitch Stephen (02:30):
Well, I started, I got, I lost a relationship that was important to me, to a man who had a lot of money and I couldn’t even blame her. You know, like I would have went with that guy too, you know, like a had a lot of money.

Chris Miles (02:51):
if they ever broke up, you’re like, I’m next in line. Right?

Mitch Stephen (02:54):
So, but I couldn’t even blame her. I looked in the mirror and blame myself and I just said, you know, this is never going to happen to me

Mitch Stephen (03:00):
Again. It starts right now. And you know, when you’re at the bottom, it’s a great place to reinvent yourself because you know, usually if there was any entourage, it’s all gone and you’re just there by yourself and you just reset a new set of rules for yourself. And I decided to reinvent myself from the ground up. And that meant that I had to be alone for a long time or whatever. So, I went basically did the proverbial time in the woods and I started studying, trying to find out where I fit in this world and how financial freedom could be obtained by yours truly. So I did try a lot of different things, but you know, I accidentally did some real estate things and I bought some books, you know, like Robert Allen’s, Nothing Down which, you know, that guy had the audacity to suggest that I could get in the real estate game with no money.

Mitch Stephen (03:51):
You know, being broke was a way in. Man I could buy the whole town overnight cause I was so broke. So, you know, he gave me hope and but you know, there’s sometimes a kind of a time lag between when you read concepts or read books before you’re ready to accept them. So I read nothing down, but it was about seven years before I owned the concept to my heart that I didn’t need any money. And it actually happened to me by accident when I bought something and then someone wanted to buy it. And I bought it with a credit cards and a seller financing deal. I didn’t have any money in it. And then I made the money and then, you know, the light bulb goes off and I said, that’s what Robert Allen was talking about. And so I didn’t really get it until I experienced it almost on accident.

Mitch Stephen (04:40):
And then it clicked. I can buy the whole town. I don’t need money. I need negotiating skills. And I need to understand how to write a contract that gives me a little time to find partners or money and I can buy anything. I can buy things way over my head. Cause I don’t have to buy it with my money. I just have to tie it up. You know, when we’re broke, we’re professional deal finders and contract writer uppers, that’s all we are. And then when we have contract writer uppers, is that a word?

Chris Miles (05:13):
It is not.

Mitch Stephen (05:13):
And then once I possessed that contract fully executed, now I have time before I have to close. I’m in control of a lot of things. And then I just stand in the middle and go around and offer people a piece of my pie, keeping a piece for myself.

Mitch Stephen (05:29):
And you know, I start out making half or 40% depending on the issue, the nego, you know, the partner or the circumstances. And then with that 40%, I worked my way out of a hole and worked out to where, you know, eventually I really didn’t even need partners. I elected the key partners because I really did realize the value of one plus one equals three or four or 10. But, and so I kept my partners, even when I didn’t need them, because there was a multiplier effect to it and we got along good and we could combine resources and networks and I could grow much faster with these partners that were much more experienced and much further down the road than I was. So I elected to keep partners for a long time, even though I didn’t need them. And that’s kind of how it started.

Chris Miles (06:17):
Yeah. And it’s kind of built from there, right?

Mitch Stephen (06:20):
Yeah. the hardest concept for people to grasp because they think it’s cliche or they think it’s bull that you don’t need money to be in real estate. And you really don’t. And the prime example, if you find a $200,000 house that you can buy for a hundred and you can get that contract signed by the seller, then you’re in possession of a contract. That’s very valuable. And there’s a lot of people out there that can’t find houses, but they have money and they want to be part of your deal. And you just carve yourself out a piece and you know, half of something is way better than a hundred percent of zero. So.

Chris Miles (06:55):
yeah.

Mitch Stephen (06:55):
So, you know, I never looked at what the other person was making. I just looked to see if that satisfied me. And if it satisfies me, I don’t care how much anybody else is making.

Mitch Stephen (07:04):
I don’t care how much the seller is making. I don’t care how much my partner is making. If I’m happy with my piece, then I do the deal.

Chris Miles (07:11):
Right.

Mitch Stephen (07:12):
And worry about getting all the deal later, you know, when you mature, you’ll be able to get all a deal if you want. I actually, like I said, came to the conclusion that I was much better off having these three or five or six great partners and mentors, right in my room, you know? Right with me because I was learning so much from them. I was actually getting paid to gain very valuable knowledge. So,

Chris Miles (07:45):
Yeah.

Mitch Stephen (07:46):
And part of that was probably from the Kiyosaki book, you know, Work for Knowledge, you know what I mean? I, you know, I was starting to read things and I was starting to be ready to own the things that I was reading.

Mitch Stephen (07:57):
You know, I was coming of age in my mind and my maturity of how this all works. And so I could read something five years ago that didn’t really stick, but I could revisit it. And then I would say, that’s I get it now. And then that’s what I’d like to say. And I’m tapping my heart right now. I like to say, that’s when you know, reading a concept and owning it in your heart is two different things.

Chris Miles (08:20):
That’s right.

Mitch Stephen (08:20):
And I started to own things in my heart.

Chris Miles (08:24):
Yeah. That’s key because there’s a lot of people that will learn. Like even people I know that listen to our podcasts, listen to other podcasts too. Right? There’ll be almost constantly learning, but never applying. And like you said, like just take it a concept, even be a little, learn, just one concept and be able to apply. It is way more impactful than just learning a lot of stuff. And then doing nothing.

Mitch Stephen (08:44):
Yeah. You have to have action on the formula, but a lot of people are just paralyzed by fear or whatever. So that’s one of the reasons it was good to be with those mentors. Because when I was afraid, I would tell him what I’m afraid of. And then they will explain to me, and then I had to decide whether I believed them or not. But most of the time they were pretty smart, had very logical reasons why we shouldn’t worry to the level that I’m worrying. I mean, there’s always risk in a deal. There’s never, there’s no such thing as no risk. You know, there’s no guarantees, but they were so calculated. And these people were so sure of themselves and they would tell me about their experiences and go, look, I’ve done this before. We’re going to be fine. The worst thing can happen is X, can you live with that? And I go, well, yeah. And usually the worst thing is we’re not going to make any money, but we won’t lose any money.

Chris Miles (09:25):
Yeah. That’s key. I mean, I get that a lot too. When people come to me, they’re like, well, I’ve never done these kinds of real estate deals before. How do I do it? Like, how do I know it’s not risky? I’m like, it’s only risky if you have no clue what you’re doing, but just trust the process. And as you go through it, you start to realize this will get almost monotonous and boring to some level, you know, and boring is good. Boring is sexy to me, you know?

Mitch Stephen (09:50):
Well, yeah. So one of the things I realized was that private money or the ability to fund your own deals was the big key. Like, you know, I could have kept these deals and made a lot more money instead of accepting a wholesale fee or a 50%. You know, the partners are the most expensive money in the world. They’re taking 50% of your profit. It makes hard money look cheap, you know? But you know, and I could’ve went and got hard money, but I was not so naive to believe that I didn’t need their expertise because I knew that I didn’t know everything and that would get me in trouble. So I kept electing to get 50% or, you know, or wholesale until I got comfortable. And then I took some private money courses and I figured out, you know, that I was capable of getting private money.

Mitch Stephen (10:47):
That’s the big thing. It was the mindset. I haven’t been a long time in this business. I’m very young. You know, I didn’t have this problem, but a lot of the students I talked to, I have bad credit. I don’t speak the language very well. I mean, there’s all these excuses that you kind of brain screw yourself. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter about who you are. Cause Charles Manson should have been able to get money for these deals from prison. You know it was about the deal. Was the deal sound, was it lucrative because if it was, someone wanted happened, they would put it up. It didn’t matter who I was, what mattered was the deal. And when I figured that out, I just became, you know, a man possessed. And I right now have $26 million of private money out on the streets of my town, right this minute, I just cut checks, you know, a few days ago for, to pay my private lenders. And I was watching the checks spit out of the computer. It was over $225,000 worth of checks. And then I got to write every month and it doesn’t scare me because of the way I’ve set up my private lending arrangement. It doesn’t scare me at all.

Chris Miles (12:03):
Yeah. So a lot of the people listening right now, they’re kind of looking to be quote unquote, passive, right? They’re looking for ways to get their money working for them. You know, how would they know whether it’s a good idea to invest with someone like you? Or how would they find someone like you? Like, how would they, what questions would they need to ask or know that it’s going to be a good thing?

Mitch Stephen (12:24):
Well, like, well, my private investors come to me or they’re interested, you know, I plant seeds. I really have a way of talking to people. I don’t approach people say, Hey, I want to talk to you about loaning me money. Cause as soon as you say that they get on a boxing position, I just opened the door to the topic of house flipping and then they want to know how I do it. And I start to explain how I do it. And part of that explanation is how I raise the money and how the people that give me the money or loan me the money, how they’re protected and why it makes sense to them. And then they plugged themselves in. If it’s for them, they’ll let me know. You know, I don’t have to ask him when I show them what I’m doing.

Mitch Stephen (13:06):
And it’s particularly that one segment about how I treat my private lenders and why they’ve been with me for 10 and 15 and 20 years. They’ve been loaning me money. Then, you know, they kind of plugged themselves in, I don’t really have to ask them if they want to consider loaning me money, they’ll ask me, my job is just to present. And then the other thing is to always, you know, if I was a private lender, this is what I would do. And this is what I advise all privately is. One is be comfortable that your asset is worth. What they’re telling you is worth, you know, independent service, independent appraisal, or a professional broker. That’ll give you a professional opinion, maybe a friend that’s in the real estate business that run the comps. Just make sure that this they’ll never be exact, but you know, everyone’s assessment, a various attack, but make sure you’re well within the ball by, like really close and then get references.

Mitch Stephen (14:07):
You know, if you have to, or you’re still got this thing in your gut and do a background check, you know, when I go with my private lenders, I say, look, I got a list of about 44 people that have been loaning me money. Most of them for over a decade, some over a decade and a half and a few over 20 years, they’re not loaning me money because I haven’t done what I said for all this time. And you can talk to them, I’ll give you, you know, you can start with 10 or 15. If you want more, I’ll give you more, but call them and talk to them and ask them why they’ve been with me. How long have you been with don’t take anything. I think, you know, I usually send out that list with a short description. This person’s been with me 25 years.

Mitch Stephen (14:49):
I, you know, they’ve loaned me a substantial amount of money in anybody’s book or they’re new. And they’ve started out small with me, but they’ve been with me for eight months. You can call, you know, so they kind of know who they’re talking to, but then don’t assume that when they get on the phone, say how long have you been with Mitch? Check out against what I said. You know, I understand, you know, I wasn’t told the amount, cause I never tell people the amounts that people have with me, but they say, I understand you have a very substantial amount of money out with him. Is that true? And, you know, get verification because if you’re going to loan me or anybody money and then lay awake at night with a huge anxiety, it’s not worth it. The stress is too much, you know, so get very comfortable.

Mitch Stephen (15:31):
And I’ve even on some people that are, you know, a lot of people are very satisfied when they, after they talked to my references. But even then you want my driver’s license or you want me to have your private detective call me, I give him what he needs and do anything you want. I mean, I, I’m an open book on this deal. I’ve been good for a long time. I would have people that have loaned me money over 20 years, but they died, you know, and I’m taking care of like seven widows right now. And they’re in their late seventies and early eighties, they can’t handle any, they didn’t know anything about the business. The day we started 20 years ago because I was dealing with the old man, you know, with the band.

Mitch Stephen (16:15):
And now they’ve been now they’re in the catbird seat and they’re having, you know, front and center, but I know they don’t know anything. It’s up to me to just send them their check. And then when it was time to pay them off, to pay them off and make it easy for them because they’re not equipped and they’re too old to deal with it anyway. So I’m not all my people are old anymore. I have a lot of youngsters who kind of want to set it and forget it. Cause they’re like maybe 27 or 32. And they can’t get to their IRAs for, until they’re 59 and a half. You know, that doesn’t mature, right? So they just want, Hey, let me give you a 15 year amortization and just send the payments to my, to the IRA. And we’re good. You know, so, and I think, you know, I offer my private lenders a choice because there’s different needs.

Mitch Stephen (17:06):
People have different needs and different ideas about how long they’re gonna live or what they want to do. So I’m offering, you know, eight to 10%. I always offer a first lien on the property that I buy.

Chris Miles (17:20):
very important.

Mitch Stephen (17:21):
I always buy my properties with title insurance, you know, so I’m not, you know, I got insurance to make sure that I am the owner or we are the owners of this property. I never, one of my keys is though. I’ve policed myself for over, over 24, 25 years. I don’t borrow over 65% of what I’m going to sell this house for. If I want to buy it for 70%, then I got to put 5% of my money. I need my people be very comfortable that even in the worst case scenario, they get my property. There’s plenty of room. Now.

Mitch Stephen (17:55):
I’ve never in 2000 plus deals, I’ve never given a property back ever. I’ve never fallen. I’ve never been foreclosed on. I’ve never deeded a property back to someone. Cause I couldn’t make the payments. I never filed chapter 13 or seven or bankruptcy or anything, you know, knock on wood. Thank God. But a lot of it’s not just, you know, divine intervention, a lot of it’s because I don’t put myself in a position to get smashed. You know what I mean? Every deal and every deal stands on its own. So there’s one borrower, there’s one lender. And there’s one piece of collateral. Generally, if I need to put up two pieces, I knew, but generally it’s one 99.9% of time as one property. I only average borrowing 58% of what, what I’m going to sell it for. So on a a hundred thousand dollar house, I average borrowing 58,000 and that was over the last 300 houses.

Mitch Stephen (18:47):
I did, you know, I bought a house every four to five days for over two decades and I’ve done almost all of it with private money. I am very bankable. I owe millions to the bank too, and I’m very bankable, but there’s a lot of difference in bank money and private money. You know, banks tell me what, how they want to do it. And I present the options to my private lender and kind of tailor it to them. So when things are very matured and all my notes are matured, I can go pledge my notes to a bank and I can get a 4.25% 15 year fixed, no adjustment loan. But I’m more than willing to pay eight, nine or 10% to a private lender for the speed and the ease of it because banks do not move fast.

Mitch Stephen (19:42):
And in my business, we cannot get to these deals in slow motion because usually there’s some huge back pressure. And that’s one of the things I caution people that they say, well, I want to do one. I said, okay, so I don’t want you to be alarmed because when I need the money, I’ll need it relatively quickly because that’s the nature of the business. It’s the nature of the beast. I’m getting these things at discounts because they’re about to lose the house to the court system or to something and they’re not going to get anything. And they usually have their head in the sand till the last minute. And then they’ll call me. And then I got like three or four or five days to do something. So don’t be alarmed because you know, one of the three signs of a con, one is the deals over the top for you, like way good.

Mitch Stephen (20:28):
Now I don’t think eight or 9% is in that category. But for a lot of people, that sounds pretty damn good because CD rates now are 1% you’re offering 10. You know, that might seem over the top. It’s not really, but, and then the second thing is they have an angelic facade, they’ll say like they’re policeman or they’re a pastor or something very angelic. And so, and then the kicker that’ll make you start looking for the con the red flag that will go up is unreasonable time pressures. And that’s why, you know, whenever I got a deal in someone’s really putting unreasonable time pressures on me, I go back to say, do they match the other two requirements? Do they have an angelic facade? Is the deal way too good to be true? And if all three of those things line up, I start to back up. So that’s why I talked to my private lenders in advance and say, beware, I will need the money relatively quickly, but not so quick that you shouldn’t have done your research on me. You should have all your doubts or questions about me answered in advance. And that’s what I like to do.

Chris Miles (21:38):
Well, I think that’s key because a lot of times people will focus on the deal, right? And when you look at a deal like performance or whatever else, like people deal always sounds amazing, right? Like you’re saying sometimes even the deal has an angelic facade around it. Right? You know, but you’re really emphasizing, I think an important point that I stress with my one on one clients, which is, it’s not about the deal in and of itself, although that’s important, but it’s about who you’re investing with. And when you get that relationship, then you kind of dive deep in that relationship. You kind of keep investing over and over because you create that level of trust. You know, So you don’t have to be diversified among 50 different investors. You could have four or five people max, that you’re investing all your money with, but you’re just doing different deals at them, you know? And I think that’s key. That’s, it’s really about the investor, not just the investment.

Mitch Stephen (22:23):
Yeah. You know, you can, you can paper up a deal. All you want to. If you’re dealing with a dishonest person it’s just trouble, you know, there’s just, you know, it’s not worth the anxiety to have to police someone so much find someone that’s got a proven track record that you don’t have to police. That’s been around for a long time or has done it. And then you always start small. None of my investors walked up to me and said, well, today at my reputation is big enough that a few people, they do the research and they just go I’m in, here’s a million bucks, but not many, most of them start out with as little as we can possibly find, you know, 60, 70, $80,000, they put their little toe in. And this is typically how it goes. They’ll receive payments for about three months on time.

Mitch Stephen (23:06):
And then they’ll call me and go, can you do a little bit more? Can I do one more deal? What would I need? And I’ll find them one. And then they’ll see two payments now for another three months. So six months come with me now. And then around month, six or month nine, either on, after the second deal with about three payments coming in, at least on each one. And then the third deal, they call and drop the mother load on me like, okay, I got six or $700,000, or I got 500,000. Now. Remember no one sends me the amount in whole. Like if someone says they have 400,000 to get out, no one sends me $400,000. I send them one deal at a time. Here’s a deal on one, two, three main street. Oh, I have it valued at about, you know, 170,000.

Mitch Stephen (23:53):
I need to borrow 80,000 in the first position. Here’s the address. And, we do it. We get that 400,000 out one deal at a time till we get close to the number, it might be a little less, or it might be a little over. Sometimes I put in my money, if it’s just a little bit to compensate so we can hit exactly the number they want to get out. But.

Chris Miles (24:15):
Yeah,

Mitch Stephen (24:16):
You know, and every deal is backed up by collateral. You should have a, you know, you should be able to get on the Bear County Courthouse records or wherever the County is. I’m in, you know that I bought the house and see your lien, you know, within a week or so, it’ll show up at the courthouse. You can get on the computer and you can see the private lender can see their lien on my house.

Chris Miles (24:36):
Yeah, that’s great.

Mitch Stephen (24:38):
That’s the other sign of a con is people, they’ll bring these papers and they’ll sign all these papers and they’ll pledge a first lien and everything, but it never gets time stamped notarized by the County Clerk. You never that’s what a condo is. He’ll take the piece of papers. He’ll get all sign. He’ll hand them to you. But they were never filed at the courthouse. And the lane was never really registered. And then they go to the next town and they get a loan on the same house. And then they go to the next town and they get a loan on the same house. That’s, you know, more than a handful of times, I would say a lot of times I have had my private lenders watching American Greed, and there’ll be a real estate scenario like this. And they’ll call me. And I’ve learned to recognize the tone in their voice.

Mitch Stephen (25:20):
I’ve actually like, they’ll be asking me some questions. They seem a little skiddish and I go, have you been watching American Greed? And they go, yes, I go, okay, just drop all the, just tell me what you’re worried about. Let me help you get this anxiety off your chest. Is this a pyramid scheme? Or is this a scam? I said, no, the difference is go get your papers, look at them. But you can see that colored ink on the side that has a time date stamp. They said, yeah. I said, you see the notary that embossed, a notarized signature with this embossed stamp at the bottom, with the County Clerk signature, do you see that at the bottom? He says, yeah, that’s what that guy wasn’t giving you. That’s what that guy. Wasn’t given those people and you have a true first lien. You can even Mrs. Smith, you can even get on the computer right now and you’ll see your lien. You know.

Chris Miles (26:11):
Yeah.

Mitch Stephen (26:12):
So that’s the difference.

Chris Miles (26:13):
That’s a huge difference. So man, this has been awesome. This has been great advice. So if people want to be able to either follow you or learn more about your deals, how would they go about doing that?

Mitch Stephen (26:25):
Well, everything about me and the podcast, and the blogs, and, you know, if you’re interested in education, I have all that 1000HOUSES.COM If you’re interested in loaning private money and really being passive where you just get your checks at the end of the month just email me MITCH@1000HOUSES.COM Express that you’re interested in having a conversation about loaning private money, and we’ll talk, there’s never any pressure. I’ll answer all your questions. If you have a CPA or lawyer that it’s in your corner, that’s looking over your shoulder, bring them to the conversation. Let’s get them involved right up front, because I don’t want someone else trying to explain what I’m doing. Let me explain what I’m doing. Cause I know how it works. And I know how to explain it. Let me explain that to your professional licensed CPA or your attorney, and make sure that he understands exactly what I’m doing so that he can give his true opinion based on what I’m really doing.

Mitch Stephen (27:32):
You know, and I love it when they bring the lawyers in the because actually the lawyers and the CPAs, once they see how it’s working with their client, they’ll get me other private lenders because they go, you know, this guy is the real deal. And I know some people that need, I know some, you know, a lot of CPAs know a lot of elderly people or retired people, but they don’t have enough money to live nearly comfortable at one and 2% at eight or nine or 10%, they can actually start living more of a retired dream life, you know, or at least a reasonable life at one or 2%. They’re not even keeping up with inflation. And so these CPAs and attorneys know a lot of people like that. And once they do their research and they watch how I handle that one client that brought me to them. Then they start to open up. So I actually love the fact that people bring their CPAs or their attorneys, because you know, when you’re doing the right thing it doesn’t take long for the word to travel.

Chris Miles (28:37):
That’s right. That’s absolutely right. Oh man, this is awesome. But yeah, I definitely Mitch, this great advice, great information. Like I wish people, you guys really need to listen to this episode over and over just to get some of the key points, because a lot of points he mentioned are the same things I teach my one-on-one clients to look for, for their own deals. So wise counsel, I really appreciate it, man.

Mitch Stephen (29:00):
And while we’re on the topic, if you’re an active investor and you want to learn more about raising private money, like I said, I have 26 million on the streets. It didn’t happen overnight, but I also have fine tuned it and fine tune it. Cause I have such a long list of experiences that I started to tweak it and tweak it and tweak it. And I have a course called Private Money Changes Everything. It’s not a thick or bulky course. It’s really about six or seven steps that you need to get in sync with. If you want to do it, how I do it. And I always say, make it your own, but you kind of stay within the parameters. And then but it’s not thick or bulky, but it’s very rich. It’s like every word counts. And how you talk in the position that you take.

Mitch Stephen (29:49):
One thing we never do, we don’t beg for money. We are helping people. Well, I’ve helped, you know, a lot of elderly people live a much better life. I helped a lot of people that couldn’t get out of the rent cycle own a home. I’ve helped a lot of neighborhoods that were had a bunch of junky crack houses. And I converted my friends and I have converted neighborhoods into very decent neighborhoods now because of the work that we did, we get the property taxes on these houses back up where they belong and consistently paying so that the school districts and the fire departments get money. The list of wins in this industry is long. Like maybe 10 or 15 things I could rattle off. I won’t do it here, but the secret to a good business and a good deal is that everyone involved has to win.

Mitch Stephen (30:38):
They have to get what they need out of this deal. And they need to be protected in as much as you can protect them. All of them, whether it’s the seller or the buyer or the whoever, you know, the lender, it’s all gotta be square. And that’s when you have a good business. And that’s why I’ve been in business for 25 years. I keep it really square and everyone knows, you know, if you think good news travels fast when you’re doing the right thing, just start screwing up. I say that that bad news travels fast, but we all know a bunch of bad investors out there that were bad 10 years ago, and they’re still doing it. And they’re still bad now. So I don’t know how that happens. I don’t know how they don’t get shut down, but some of the bad players seem to hang around a long time too.

Mitch Stephen (31:22):
So just be careful. Do your due diligence, get references and call them, get in touch with them. It’s hard if you’re not a good person, it’s not that hard to find out.

Chris Miles (31:37):
Right? I agree, man. Amen to that, Mitch. Appreciate it, man. Well, everybody be sure to check out his website WWW.1000HOUSES.COM When you hear more about Mitch, or if you want to get to know him or ask him some questions personally, shoot him an email MITCH@1000HOUSES.COM So Mitch, again, appreciate your time. It’s been awesome.

Mitch Stephen (31:57):
Man. I appreciate you, Chris. Thanks so much!

Chris Miles (32:00):
You bet everybody have a wonderful week and we’ll see you later!