In this episode, Anderson attorney Clint Coons, Esq., sits down with real estate investor Gabriel Hamel to explore creative financing strategies for building wealth without traditional bank loans. Gabriel shares his inspiring journey from working minimum wage after military service to acquiring nearly 400 properties using seller financing and no-money-down techniques. They discuss how to structure creative deals, overcome the misconceptions about creative financing, the importance of cash flow over appreciation, and strategies for analyzing deals that work in any market. Gabriel also explains the power of building relationships, finding motivated sellers, and creating win-win scenarios that benefit both buyers and sellers. Clint and Gabriel emphasize the importance of taking action, getting involved in investment communities, and pursuing time freedom through real estate investing. Tune in to learn how you can start building your real estate portfolio even if you have little to no cash!

Gabriel Hamel joined the military at 17 and deployed to Iraq in 2003-2004. After returning home, he found himself working 30 hours a week at minimum wage with dreams of financial freedom. When the 2008 financial crisis eliminated traditional lending options, Gabriel discovered creative financing and seller financing strategies. Starting in 2009 with his first no-money-down deal, he systematically replaced his minimum-wage income and eventually built a $60M portfolio of nearly 400 properties. Today, Gabriel co-hosts the Zero to 100 Real Estate Podcast, helping investors build wealth designed around freedom, family, and choice.

Highlights/Topics:

• (00:00) – Introduction to Creative Financing with Gabriel Hamel
• (02:08) – First Properties and the 2005-2007 House Hacking Strategy
• (06:08) – The 2008 Financial Crisis: When Banks Said No
• (07:38) – Debunking Creative Financing Myths and Misconceptions
• (10:08) – Finding Motivated Sellers and Structuring Win-Win Deals
• (20:15) – Cash Flow vs. Appreciation: Building Sustainable Wealth
• (30:45) – Analyzing Deals and Making Offers That Work
• (42:49) – The Zero to 100 Tribe: Community and Time Freedom
• (45:46) – Taking Action: Final Advice for Aspiring Investors

Resources:

Connect with Gabriel 👇

http://www.zeroto100tribe.com/

https://www.instagram.com/the_real_gabriel_hamel

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Full Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] This is the Anderson Business Advisors podcast, the show for real estate investors, stock traders, and business owners. We help you keep more of what you earn and protect what you’ve built. Let’s get started.

[00:00:11] Clint: Have you heard real estate investors talking about buying real estate with no money down using what is referred to as creative financing? Well, if you want to learn more about that then watch this video because I’m going to be interviewing Gabriel Hamel. He is an expert in the field and he’s going to tell you how he built a portfolio of nearly 400 properties by using this one technique. Alright, let’s get started. Alright Gabriel. Thanks for joining.

[00:00:35] To start off, you know for people who haven’t heard of you yet, who are you and basically what are you doing in real estate?

[00:00:41] Gabriel: I mean, I’m just a guy who thought that real estate investing made more sense than the typical W2. I got my background started a lot of motivation. I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad back in like 2002.  But a few years prior to that I joined the military while in high school. So kind of going back to my father I joined the military at 17. I joined the Army National Guard at 17, I was not what you call a studious kid I stayed in school really for high school wrestling and the social aspect.But I had a buddy that said hey Army National Guard infantry unit one week in a month.

[00:01:15] You go play in the woods and I thought alright this makes sense a couple years later. I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, I’m living in my friend’s attic at the time for $100 a month and I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. And I’m like this makes sense. This is not the stuff they teach in school. I’m going to build this financial freedom, this financial future of mine through buying cash flow real estate. Shortly after that, I got a phone call and I was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and 2004. On that deployment. I had all this motivation and very little information.

[00:01:47] But I knew that real estate investing would be my path. I had all this excitement and really on that deployment. My goals were to come back alive not to messed up and come back and start buying real estate. That was really kind of the beginning of kind of where the motivation came from.

[00:02:01] Clint: You didn’t come back with a whole bunch of Dinar and think you’re going to turn that into USD and that would be the way. 

[00:02:07] Gabriel: I did buy some Dinar. I looked the other day because I was telling my kids this story. I looked at the value for the first time in years. It’s worth about the same as I got it for you know, 20 something years ago. I do have some Dinar, but that is not that is not where I built my wealth.

[00:02:24] I came back from the deployment in 2004 and got completely out of the military in 2005. And in 2005 is when I bought my first property and back in 2005 anyone could qualify for a home I had no money. I had no job, I had no income but I wanted to buy a property and I had a lender that approved me.

[00:02:44] It was a 100% financing back then it was a an 80/20 loan, 80% lending from one bank 20 from the other and I bought my first single-family house in ’05 and run it out to the bedrooms and live for less than I could anywhere else now now. They call it house hacking back then they’ve made good financial sense. I did that in 2005, 2006, and 2007 and honestly, I remember thinking back then I’m like this is easier than what the book say. I’m just going to go to the bank every year and buy another property.

[00:03:15] In 2006. I opened up a small nutrition store. Never really made a lot of money. Sometimes we’re talking hundreds of dollars a month. That really wasn’t enough to support myself, my wife, and eventually my children. In 2008, I shut my store down. I had no degree or no, high-paying job that I could fall back on it. So 2008 was really kind of my oh shit moment of like hey, what do I do? How do I have this dream of owning real estate and being financially free?

[00:03:45] I have these three houses, two of them cash flow a few hundred dollars a month. But that’s not really enough to live on and I started taking all these odd name jobs. I was qualified for nothing. Even in the military I was infantry. There wasn’t a lot of job options. I was literally like Craigslist help wanted ads. I was mowing lawns. I was literally like riding my bike to do landscaping. I’m doing everything I could to get by and I eventually landed a 30-hour a week minimum wage job in a high school special education class.

[00:04:13] It was about three months into that job that I’m like, this is not what I want to do forever and my heart goes out to these kids. This was not my dream, 30 hours a week barely getting by barely a minimum wage. In 2008, I went back to the bank and said hey, I want to buy another house and they said you don’t qualify and I remember I said, well, what do you mean?

I asked them directly, what do you mean? I don’t qualify. I’ve purchased the home every year for the last three years.

[00:04:37] I’ve never missed a mortgage payment and they said, yeah guidelines have changed a lot. You actually have to have income, a down payment, a real job, and I’m doing the math thinking like to save for a down payment, I’m going to need three or four jobs and there must be another way. I remember reading about seller financing, private money, hard money, and at the time I knew nobody with money.

[00:05:01] I knew no one in business. I knew no one in real estate and I just kind of fell on hey, seller financing will be my path to financial freedom and I made a goal that year in 2008 that if I could replace this 30-hour a week minimum wage job by buying cash flow real estate seller financing then I would at least be financially free. I could quit that job and really focus on just taking down more deals, I spent a year looking every night, after work kids were in bed. 

[00:05:28] I would just get online and start looking at off-market deals. Mostly on Craigslist and I talked to hundreds of people and analyzed hundreds of deals and I eventually about a year later, 2009, bought four units no money down seller finance it cash flowed almost to the dollar that I was making at that low-paying job. I stopped working and now I was financially free, but I was poor. My expenses were low but my income exceeded my expenses and I spent the rest of 2009 through 2013 buying all, no money down, seller finance deals, and my only criteria back then was these properties had to be cash flow positive.

[00:06:08] Clint: Yeah, you see that’s the thing is, people that are watching this right now, if they didn’t go through 2008 and with the mortgage crash. They don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. We’re used to be able to walk into a bank and you would try to get a loan and they would say well in order to meet this loan you have to have X amount of income and maybe $100,000 a year and they would ask you how much do you make?

[00:06:29] You’d say I make $100,000 a year, you’d walk out with a loan and it didn’t even matter what you were making and so it was kind of I’m going to call it the wild west it was so easy back then. That’s what you were saying you were doing you and I’m not saying you were misrepresenting your income. But you could walk into banks and they were just throwing money at you.

[00:06:47] But then we had the mortgage crisis of 2008 and everything came to a screeching halt and the banks tightened up. their lending standards and one of the major issues or impediments that I find for people who are just getting started in real estate investing is they think that. The only way to buy real estate is to go about and get a traditional loan because their parents did that. They’ve talked to other real estate investors who are using traditional financing to purchase real estate. 

[00:07:18] But there’s this other side that’s out there and it’s called creative financing and the thing about it now, I’d like you to speak to this is that, investors will tell me sometimes that they think it’s kind of sketchy or illegal to engage in creative financing that somehow that word has taken on for some people a negative connotation. If you run into that and then if you could address that.

[00:07:37] Gabriel: Yeah, I have heard of the people that seller financing to create a financing this negative connotation. But what I’ve seen more more often is people say oh, it’s just not a thing people do anymore. Even when I was buying in 2009 through 13, which is when I built up my initial portfolio. I had agents, brokers, other investors, people in my circle that at the time looking back. I realized they were not, they had maybe never bought a real investment property in their life, right?

[00:08:03] Be careful who you take your advice from. But I had all these people that as I started building relationships and kind of growing my network that said, oh sellers don’t do that anymore. I had sellers laugh at me. I had agents and brokers laugh. I was committed to finding seller finance deals and I really was really out of necessity. At the time I had no money and I just had a big dream.

[00:08:28] I thought this is how I’m going to get into real estate and what I found is, I wasn’t talking sellers into caring financing that year of talking to potential sellers mostly off-market. These were mom and pop owners, mom and pop investors, great people that were just tired landlords. Oftentimes they had owned the real estate 25-30 years they were self-managing, they were tired landlords. They were doing maintenance repairs property management.

[00:08:54] They’re dealing with the tenants. Oftentimes they had the property paid off so they didn’t have the advantage. They weren’t able to write off the interest anymore. They’ve already depreciated the property and they were good people but tired landlords and it created a scenario where these sellers wanted to carry financing. Instead of me going and trying to convince or talk sellers into caring financing. 

[00:09:17] I found sellers that already understood the advantage of caring financing and it was almost like an annuity for them. They wanted true mailbox money. I was able to walk into these properties that were poorly managed under rented,  had some deferred maintenance and the seller became the bank. They got true passive mailbox money. It was a win for them and it was a win for me. A lot of times these properties the upside value that they had just been poorly managed and under rented for so many years.

[00:09:46] These sellers, one of the carry financing I would say I’ve never done a deal with a seller who didn’t already want to carry financing and understand some of the advantage of it. Just wanted more passivity to their to their investment because they were at a time in their life. It was mostly men and women 60s, 70s that did self-manage and we’re just ready to not actively invest like they had 25-30 years prior.

[00:10:08] Clint: Well, are you just in focus on seller financing or have you been doing any subject to novations, subject to lease options, those types of things or is it just that is the niche that you found is the best.

[00:10:18] Gabriel: Yeah. I mean initially it was you know a lot almost all properties that were free and clear. We would do a note and trustee and we would negotiate terms that made sense for me as the buyer and for the seller. A lot of people get hung up and I’ve done some subject stuff  but the majority of the stuff I purchased with seller financing. It’s been true free and clear properties.

[00:10:42] It’s a note and trustee and I think we’re a lot of people get hung up. They think they have to convince or talk a seller into carrying financing or they have to come up with what the perfect terms would be. I mean the question that I get asked probably more than anything.

[00:10:55] The two question is, how do I talk a seller into carrying financing which I already addressed.  I’ve just found sellers at one of the carry financing and then the other big question is what kind of terms are typical. There are no typical terms. I find that sellers are usually stuck on price down payment interest rate or some other emotional aspect of the deal. 

[00:11:16] I kind of found this by accident, I didn’t know and as I was talking different sellers. I would just ask the basic question of hey, what kind of terms would you be interested in just by asking that basic question of hey, what kind of terms would you be interested in? The seller usually told me, was down payment important was an interest rate? Was it the price was it some other emotional aspect of the deal and then I would always go home and go, okay.

[00:11:39] Can I give them the thing that’s most important to them and still make the deal work for me? If they’re stuck on price, for whatever reason they’re stuck on this price. Can I give them that price but maybe no down payment or a lower interest rate. Give them the thing that’s most important to them that they’re happy about and still make the deal work for me. 

[00:11:57] And a lot of cases that was possible. With other sellers,  We were so far off on terms and it was fine walking away from but I think people get really stuck on that. Maybe there’s some magical terms. I’ve done deals where it’s interest only or direct principle. I’ve done deals where it’s a 30-year fully amortized with no balloon. It really is as creative as you as the buyer and the seller are willing to get and what works for both parties. 

[00:12:21] Clint: Okay, a lot of times when I teach in events and this topic comes up with the students that are attending these events. We start discussing this. They seem to think that these are unicorn deals that there’s not a lot of individuals out there. I’ve heard people say I can’t find any seller financing deals. How would you address that person that’s a skeptic that will tell you these don’t exist in my market?

[00:12:48] Gabriel: Yeah, I think that’s common people do think it’s like this unicorn but the reality is like people finance property properties like this for years. I think before there was ever a 30-year fixed mortgage and before bank lending like this is how people transacted. I had people telling me the same thing than in 2009. I think oftentimes it’s it’s a numbers game. I’ve had people tell me that even in this last year going hey, there are no seller finance deals. No one wants to carry financing. I say how many sellers have you talked to? They’re like three, four, five. 

[00:13:19] I probably had 200 conversations from 2008 to 2009. I had about 200 conversations before I was able to put together a seller finance deal that pencil. Now of those 200 conversations there were a handful that were willing and wanting to carry financing and a lot of them wanted to carry financing of terms. It didn’t financially make sense. The property wouldn’t have cash flowed. It wouldn’t have made sense for me as a buyer but those 200 conversations where I was looking at deals as building relationships that was analyzing deals.

[00:13:47] Most people that I’ve come across that say these are not available they’re just asking an agent like hey, will the seller carry financing and then this the agent says no and they’re like, okay and I’m done. Oftentimes they’ve only asked like three, four, maybe five sellers and  they just think, hey seller financing just isn’t an option.

[00:14:04] I think it’s a little bit of a numbers game and then also getting to know what the sellers needs are. A great example I have is, I bought years ago probably, 10 years ago now. I bought this commercial property and there were seven multifamily properties attached with the sale and it was being marketed as a development project. The land itself long term does have some great potential for development. 

[00:14:29] Never sold and the listing expired and I walked around with the previous owner with the seller for like 15 minutes. And I said hey, I know some people had offered on this I see it didn’t sell, I’m just curious, why not and he said well, he goes I’m 75 years old. I’m a retired judge. He said I don’t want to be cashed out. I just want income. He goes, I want income for the next 15 years.

[00:14:53] And if I were to pass away during that time, there’s this nonprofit that’s really important to me and I don’t really have any family to pass it down to. But if I passed away during that 15 year period, I want to make sure these nonprofits taking care of and they would get the payments. Here’s a guy who wants to carry financing his own broker marketed this as a development project and solicited cash offers.

[00:15:15] His own broker didn’t even ask him what he wanted. He kept rejecting these strong cash offers because he didn’t want cash. He was 75, he didn’t want to actively invest. He didn’t want a big lump sum of cash. He did to go stick in the stock market. He didn’t want to actively go invest in deals. Here’s a guy, prior to that deal, I would have said, sellers are stuck on price down payment interest rate. He was actually flexible on price down payment and interest rate.

[00:15:40] But had this emotional attachment that hey, if he passed away during this 15 year term. This nonprofit that was important to him would be taken care of, walking with this guy 15 minutes and finding out what his needs are and what’s most important to him? We’re able to get a great deal together. He carried financing for me for 15 years. I still own the properties today, they’re worth more than double what I paid for them. Because what was important to him was that he had income for the next 15 years.If he were to pass away this nonprofit would be taken care of.

[00:16:11] And nobody, there wasn’t a buyer out there including his own broker that listened or asked him what he needed and what was most important to him. Spending 15 minutes with him, I found what was most important to him and was able to give him that. Then he gave me incredible terms on price down payment and interest rate. 

[00:16:26] Clint: Now see what you’re saying is I hope people are picking up on this because I’m going to break this down and interject if you think I’m off base here number one, you’re doing seller financing. The person you’re approaching is not the homeowner themselves or live it’s our personal residents because they’re not going to be interested in that. The person that I have approached and we’ve done several deals like this is, like what you stated, we approach investors that have a portfolio, they’re looking to get out of the market and sell.

[00:16:54] Those are the people that are going to be open to this. Because the homeowner they’re trying to sell their house, maybe go buy another house. They need that principal cash. Whereas they used to have the 75 year old individual. They don’t need $500,000 right now. In fact, if you gave them $500,000 it becomes more stressful for them in their lives because they don’t know what to do with it. Where am I going to put it? I mean, I loan money on, I work with developers. 

[00:17:20] Every time a property sells and I get say eight hundred thousand or a million dollars off that property deal. It becomes stressful for me because I want that money out there. I don’t want to sit on those funds, I need them invested to bring it in cash flow. The mindset, I think a lot of people don’t understand and they don’t know who to approach. If you’re looking at the avatar, what is your key avatar for a seller financing? If you just break that down for the viewers to let them know, Hey, these are the people you should be approaching. 

[00:17:51] Clint: Yeah, you’re absolutely correct. It’s never their personal property. I’m sure people have purchased personal property seller financing. It’s usually men and women in their 60s, 70s, even 80 sometimes. They don’t want a lump sum of cash. They don’t want to pay a huge capital gain at once. They don’t want to put a bunch of money in the stock market. They don’t want to actively invest.

[00:18:15] It’s usually men and women, 60s, 70s, sometimes 80s. Oftentimes they own the property screen, clear amazing people. They’re investors themselves. These are investment properties and they want passivity they want income without the headache of having to manage the property and hey become the bank.

[00:18:35] They just get to be on the other side of the transaction on an asset that they’ve typically held for a long period of time. Some of these sellers don’t, you pay them off a lot of people think like noninvestors.  I go get this, you sell a property for a million dollars, well great, but these investors are thinking, well five a million dollars just like you said, well, it’s a problem. I either have to 1031 into another deal and a lot of these, older investors don’t want to keep actively investing or they have to pay a huge capital gain at once and they don’t want to do that either.

[00:19:06] That really is the avatar the mom-and-pop investor. I wouldn’t even say mom and pop sometimes, as I’ve shifted towards more commercial properties, there’s a lot of reasons why a seller would want to carry financing and sometimes it’s the same reason. They just don’t want that big capital gains all at once. For them, it’s easier to earn interest on their money than have to place it somewhere else.

[00:19:28] Clint: Yeah, what I would tell the viewers as well, one place to go because it’s always well, where do you find these people? What we’ve done in our business because we flip property in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We have a lot of investment property there as well. The way we were able to tap into that market and scale quickly, is we aligned with the property managers in that market. We started then talking to the property managers who’ve been in that market for over 20-30 years and say all right, who are the retiring landlords? Okay, they know their clients and then we would tell the.

[00:20:01] Hey, if you know that they’re looking to get out then this is how we buy property. We buy it on terms. Go to them, run it by them or run give us the information if they want to talk to us, We’ll talk to them and we’ve picked up several portfolios that way. I found that was an easy way to break into a market that we really didn’t have any association with. Because I’m in Washington State.The first thing we went to actually was the used appliance store there.

[00:20:29] We started going down and said, who are the landlords in the market? We got some names from them, we would call them. When you started your investing journey, going down this road, are there any things like that that you would look at and say hey, this is a great place to go to find these landlords.

[00:20:43] Gabriel: It was interesting. We’re going back to 2000, 2008 but I was on Craigslist and I say people laugh at Craigslist. That was where you had owners that self-managed. They didn’t want to put a sign in the yard. They didn’t want to hire an agent and then I just kept it really human. I think a lot of like newer investors think way too much about the transaction.

[00:21:11] The transactional piece to real estate is the easiest part. I kept it really human. I was building relationships and I had a genuine interest in these sellers. I genuinely was curious, I would meet a man or woman or a couple who had multiple rental properties and I was just curious about their story. How did you acquire these? How did you buy these? Oftentimes they bought they had bought with seller financing.

[00:21:35] I wasn’t there, I wasn’t showing up in a suit and tie with a contract saying hey something your house take it or leave it sign this or sign that. I came with a genuine curiosity and started building relationships and just having conversations and asking really basic questions. I think sometimes with newer investors, they think that they have to know everything or they have to again talk to sellers into it or come with this.

[00:21:57] These are the terms that I’m presenting.  I just asked really, really basic questions and then I shut up and listened. I mentioned before I would say hey, what kind of terms if you’d be interested in and by saying that I have a seller talk in 30 minutes or an hour, just telling me about this property, that property, this tenant. I just listened and even to this day I built, I would say every deal I’ve ever done come from a conversation or relationship, the transactional piece of real estate. 

[00:22:23] That’s the easy part, I think people forget especially with technology and how easy it is to connect with people online. Autodialers and all these things people forget the human element of business and real estate. I’ve done my best deals again from relationships and conversations. I just make sure that there’s a human element to it. I genuinely like people, and so I enjoy having those conversations and building those relationships and some of those who knows.

[00:22:50] Some of those lead to great friendships or acquaintances some people 

we never talk again. Other relationships lead to great real estate deals and I’m okay with any and all of them.

[00:22:59] Clint: You said two things there that really resonated with me. And again, this is some people are watching this you’ve got to be picking up on this stuff because these are gems that he just dropped. Number one, Craigslist. My father’s an avid real estate investor. Have you heard my story grew up, helping them build these rentals up and where does he list his properties? Craigslist, right? For every reason you mentioned, that’s why continues to use that and the thing about it is my dad’s now 81 years old. If an investor like yourself were to call him up and start a conversation with them. They could probably buy his properties on seller financing.

[00:23:37] My mom’s been talking, she wants them out of it. She doesn’t want to continue to deal with the tenants. I hear this all the time when I’m with them. They’re lamenting about owning the property that they just want to dump it. Then the other thing is what do they do with the cash? That’s the problem, if they just had income coming in they’re really happy. 

[00:23:56] One other point about this, that I hope people understand, is that if you meet that person, say you met my father. He wasn’t ready to sell, he knows other real estate investors they run together. He’s going to introduce you, possibly to his buddy. Who’s the same age that would be willing to sell their portfolio? That was key and I hadn’t thought about the Craigslist angle before.  I’m going to keep that one for sure in the back of my mind because you’re spot-on.

[00:24:25] That is where the I think the older people tend to gravitate because that’s what they’re most comfortable with.You talk about the internet and AI no way. That’s not where you’re going to find them. 

[00:24:34] Gabriel: Yeah, I have another interesting story. I’ll share, I feel like sometimes, storytelling gives some good examples. I had a guy in town who started developing these big properties on campus. I’m in Eugene, Oregon, he started the bed and I grew up here.  I see these big apartments going up and all over campus and I am like who is this guy? Who’s building these and I’m just starting to get involved in real estate.

[00:24:59] But I’m fascinated by these developments and as I look into it, it’s like the same guy’s attached to all these. I reached out to him, not for any other reason than I wanted to learn his story. I was genuinely interested in who is this local guy is that’s just developing these, beautiful apartments. I reach out to him and I’m just curious about his story and he goes, hey, I was going to law school at the University of Oregon in the 70s and I started buying these small multifamily properties. 

[00:25:26] By 2010, it was prime area to develop. There was all these incentives to develop. He was buying properties. We’ll go to law school in the 70s and by 2010, he was ready to develop. I was sharing with him my story, I was just by 2010. I just picked up a handful of my first, few seller finance multifamily deals. We stayed in touch. It’s not like we became best friends, but we kept in touch. We’d go to lunch every once in a while and he’s probably 20 something years older older than me.

[00:25:55] Well a couple years later. This is like 10 years after we met right. I met with him with no intention other than to hear his story, fascinating story. This guy now owns thousands of units all over the country mostly in the Northwest. Ten years later he calls me up and says hey a buddy selling a single-family home the town over are you interested? I said, I’m not buying single-family anymore. I had just bought my first mobile home park. I’m really focused on mobile home parks and he goes that’s interesting. I own five and there’s one I’m thinking about selling and I said, hey, are you open to seller financing it?

[00:26:29] And he said yes, I am. He seller finance that property to me, 2% down, 60% cash on cash and I bought that property for. I bought this property for eight seven hundred eighty thousand and appraised two years later for 2.3 million. Ten years before I reached out to this guy just goes into the story and ten years. I had no other interest, right? Then ten years later it led to this phenomenal deal because we had already built this level of know and like and trust, right.

[00:27:06] He already had enough taxable income. He didn’t want a large down payment. He didn’t want to be cashed out. We already had this relationship and this level of trust and so he was willing to carry financing for me at great terms and even though he was an experienced investor his expertise was development and not in the mobile home park space. I still able to get a phenomenal deal on this mobile home park with great terms from a conversation relationship that I had built 10 years before when mobile home parks weren’t even on my radar.

[00:27:36] I think that’s the part that people forget is like that genuine connection and reach out because I wanted to hear his story. Led to a phenomenal real estate deal that netted me over a million dollars 10 years later just because of genuine interest in relationship not focusing on the deal itself. 

[00:27:54] Clint: Wait, okay. You keep saying these things and to you it’s just second nature and you just gloss right over it when you said. I probably don’t know what I’m going to refer to here. You said that you found this developer and you looked him up to see what deals he has. Basically you research to see that he has several pieces of property.

[00:28:16] This is something I think is important again. Correct me if I’m wrong here. If you’re looking to put one of these deals together, you don’t want that owner that has one rental property that’s going to be a harder sell for them because they’re used to getting that cash. Maybe they’re living on that rental income. But you find those people that have what three, five, 10, 15 rentals and you search the property records to see whether or not they have more property in that area.

[00:28:39] Then you can approach them fully informed and they got a portfolio if you’re 81 years old and you have 13 properties. That’s a headache that becomes an anchor around your neck. You’re probably going to be open to listening to what I have to say. Is that what I gathered from what you just said? Is that kind of the process you’ve gone through before?

[00:28:58] Gabriel: Yeah, I think every seller who’s ever carried financing for me. Has owned multiple investment properties. In fact the woman that carried financing for me on those first four units that replaced that minimum wage job. She sold multiple other properties to me with favorable terms because we did that first deal and we built that like and trust. I was making my mortgage payments to her on time.

[00:29:21] In fact that first deal for the first many years I used to hand deliver a check sheet to a brick-and-mortar business as well. I would hand deliver a check every month,not because I needed to but because I wanted to have that face time and genuinely build that relationship. Fast forward to 2014, I refinanced a lot of those early properties and some of those early properties were properties she had sold me. At the time 2014 I refinanced a lot of these properties.

[00:29:48] She has a big payday and she called me up and says, what am I going to do with all this cat? And I said you can lend it back to me and I had never borrowed private money at the time and she had never lent private money. I casually said that you can lend it back to me, I’m still investing a couple months later. I was in contract on a property. I had some other financing lined up. She called and said hey, were you serious about me lending you money?

[00:30:11] And I said I’m actually in contract on a deal if you want to finance it.  We had six years of trust, six years of me hand delivering a mortgage payment to her at least most of those six years I was hand delivering that. I bought multiple properties from her seller finance. I refinanced in 2014, she had a big payday, but most importantly.  The trend it didn’t end just because the transaction ended, the relationship still remained and we had all those years of trust.

[00:30:37] She became my first private money lender. I’m in contract on this property, she has all this cash because I refinanced her out of multiple properties and she had a big payday. She became my first private money lender. I think a lot of people think again, they focus on the transaction. They do a deal and think hey that ends. Well, she had sold me multiple properties. In fact, there were times she was like, yeah, I think this is the last property I want to sell then a couple months later and be a difficult tenor. 

[00:31:04] You know what, I have another property I’d like to sell you and these were always nobody down so I financed deals because I did what I said I was going to do by improving the property. And making payments to her on time every month. Then she became my first private money lender. It was a win for her. She had to continue to have income and I got to go take that money and reinvest it into new deals. Everybody  wanted that scenario.

[00:31:28] Clint: People get into these deals. You’re in the community. You’ve got this great community. You’ve built up zero to 100 and we’ll talk about that as well. I’ll have a link in the show notes to that. But having met with so many people who have gotten started in creative financing and seller financing. What would you tell people that they need to look out for where people get into trouble when they try to put these deals together?

[00:31:53] Gabriel: I think the biggest thing is buying property is not every seller finance deal. Just because a seller will carry financing doesn’t mean it’s a great deal. I believe that deals are made, not found. It’s rare that someone’s offering terms whether it be price down payment interest rate that always financially makes sense.

[00:32:12] I mentioned earlier in the show that I had 200 conversations. There were other sellers at one of the carry financing, but I did the math and the math would be backwards, they wouldn’t cash flow. At the time, I look back and I feel very fortunate that I didn’t have any money.  I don’t think I felt that way at the time but early on I felt fortunate, I didn’t have money because it forced me to be creative.

[00:32:32] I had mentioned that my only criteria in those early years were that the property had to be cash flow positive. It was because I needed cash flow. I needed the money to live to survive. I think that’s what really saved me, allowed me to hold on to these properties. Just because a seller was carrying financing the term still had to make financial sense. I would buy on terms that supported what the property was doing the day that I bought it and the previous couple years.

[00:33:00] I wasn’t buying properties, this has to go up in value for it to make sense, rents have to go up in order for it to make sense. I was buying almost every property I purchased had upside potential. The rents were low, it was poorly managed. But I always put together terms that actually supported the financials of the property the day that I bought it. Because my worst-case scenario, I was like, worst-case scenario, the property is cash flow and if I get to the end of that term and I can’t refinance it.

[00:33:31] I’ll give the property back now that never happened and I was able to maximize rents, improve the property and create a ton of value and refi out. I put myself in a scenario where worst case the property cash flow from day one. That allowed me to hold the property. Some of these properties I’ve sold off, because they’ve gone up in value and I’ve put that money other places some of these properties.

[00:33:54] I still hold the day, but I had a lot of people early on saying well, what if the values go down especially 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 you get people going, yeah, but what if what if the real estate’s worth less? I remember thinking I have nothing to lose and they’re going to cash flow the same or better. As 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 as I’m buying these properties, I never cared what the value was on paper as long as they were cash flow positive and the cash flow from these properties is what allowed me to hold them long enough to then refinance them.

[00:34:23] I think that was a long-winded answer long-winded answer to your question. I want to make sure the financials support the property on the day that I purchased the property.

[00:34:33] Clint: Well, the great thing about is, most time you’re going to find these deals. They already have a tenant in the property as well. It is currently cash flow and it’s just a matter of the rents getting assigned over to you. Then you start collecting that money. But what about the rehab side of it? How often you find properties and you look at them and you realize it’s going to need some CapEx to go into it. To make it what it needs to be. How does that factor into your investment decision?

[00:34:59] Gabriel: Those early years, I was just scrappy and then cowboy. I would say this is the best advice I had, very little reserves. I had really no reserves no money in the bank, but it was like I had also no plan B. I was working at a 30 hour a week minimum wage job. It was like I operated well not having a plan B because it was worst case scenario. What would happen I have to give the property back and go back to a low paying job.

[00:35:27] There were a lot of crazy time in those early years where it’s like, I self-managed. Today I have about 450 rental units and up until about 17 units, I managed myself. Those early years look, I didn’t have a bunch of reserves. I didn’t have much money to pour into it, but the risk of not doing the deal outweighed all the what-ifs that could happen in real estate. What if a tenant moves out? What if I have to renovate this? There were some crazy times like, you know a tenant moved out, I’m like, oh gosh, like this place needs. Something and I pull up the carpet. I’m like, thank God, there’s some hardwood under that under that carpet that haven’t been replaced in 25 years like and some paint.

[00:36:09] I didn’t have the money in those early years to do all these heavy rehab projects and heavy turns. Over time, I’ve been able to put a lot of money into some of these properties that previously had deferred maintenance. But for me it was a risk and reward. It was like the risk of not doing the deal way outweighed the risk of all the moments that can happen in real estate. I’’d rather own the real estate and have to find a solution to the problem that have the problem of not owning the real estate.

[00:36:39] Clint: In the last two years have you run into this issue because I’ve run into it with our investing. Is that you approached the investor and again, I started to approach some younger investors. You know 50 to 60 and what I found is that many times they wanted the price that they saw on Zillow. Okay, and you just couldn’t make them cash flow because the interest rates that they would want demand as well.

[00:37:05] It just didn’t work. A lot of that came down to the fact that interest rates have been going up and people realize they could just stick their money in the bank and get a good return. I was willing to pay to make that deal work at their price point. There’s no way I could do it. We end up what we walked away from so many deals because of that. Have you seen that and have you seen a softening now in the market because the interest rates are starting to go back down again, so the deals are getting better just curious. 

[00:37:34] Gabriel: I have seen a little bit of a softening but I’m not focused on multifamily anymore. I’ve really shifted, 2022 I really basically 2019 to 2021. I was really focused on buying mobile home parks picked up eight mobile home parks in RV park. But 2022 to present I really started focusing on triple net commercial deals.  I found banks that were actually willing to get creative up until that point. I always was like anti-bank, I use the bank for a refi.

[00:38:00] But get creative on the front end and as I shifted in the commercial properties, I found banks that were actually willing to get creative, I’m good deals.But to answer your previous question. I think we’re coming from a time where interest rates were really all-time lows. We’re coming out of 2020, 2021, early 2022 interest rates were low and money was cheap and it was easy to get financing. Everybody was able to buy real estate.

[00:38:26] I think that there’s a lot of syndicators right now that are getting there out kit because they were buying on slim margins with easy money. It was easy to raise capital, it was easy to give somebody money to do a deal and then all of a sudden, interest rates doubled and I think you know 2022, 2023 even 2024. We kind of had this period of time where sellers just like you’re saying they looked at Zillow or they looked at a neighbor. This is like all asset classes like family, multifamily, mixed-use, commercial, everything they’re going.

[00:38:58] This is what it did sell for well when interest rates were almost nothing and money was easy to get. Now interest rates have doubled and they still want what their neighbor sold their property for and then you have these buyers that want these crazy discounts. I do feel like there’s this period of time where buyers wanted, like 2008 pricing. They’re going well, hey, everything’s changed. We want a huge discount and you have sellers going yeah. 

[00:39:25] My neighbor for their property. It’s worth this much. It kind of felt like in a lot of markets. There was just this back and forth, I do think, now we’re in early 26 and it seems like a long stretch. But I feel like buyers and sellers are getting a little more reasonable. And I also think it’s a time to get creative like this is a great opportunity to get creative when banks start tightening and sellers can’t get what they want for a property. It creates an opportunity for a buyer and seller that are willing to get creative to put a deal together. That wouldn’t typically work with “traditional type of financing”.

[00:40:02] Clint: Yes, then what would you recommend people look at a single-family, multi-family, mobile home parks, commercial, in this current environment right now? If you had to start over knowing what you know now, what is the first? Product asset class you would look for. 

[00:40:18] Gabriel: Gosh, that’s tough. That’s tough. I have been asked that so much. I would focus on building relationships, building your net. We’re getting around people that are doing what you want to do. I’m invested among multiple asset classes and that’s worked really well for me. I don’t syndicated up raised capital. I don’t have a lot of partners on on deals. 

[00:40:39] Some people really focus on a beat, be an asset expert. The guys I run zero to 100 with, they exclusively almost exclusively buy mobile home parks. They’re experts in the mobile home park space. They raise capital that serves them. They should be experts if they’re raising capital in that space. It’s always tough, I get asked all the time. If you were to go back, when you do it? How you did it and start small and then scale or would you just start with bigger properties?

[00:41:06] I kind of hold two conflicting beliefs because those first couple deals gave me the confidence and experience to do the next one in the next one. The first seller finance deal, the confidence and an experience to the next my first big commercial deal gave me the confidence and experience to do the next of the next.  I think you find what works for you. I’ve met people that start with single family and they slowly scale up.

[00:41:29] I met a guy once that syndicated that 300 unit apartment complex for his very first investment deal. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong. I think it’s important. Whatever you’re investing in, get knowledgeable. I think young and new investors do it all until you find your niche. Find what you want to niche down on. I wish I had a better answer for your listeners.But I think everyone’s investment philosophy is different and there’s a lot of ways to. Build wealth and financial freedom through real estate.

[00:41:57] Clint: Well, I think, what I would add to that is, associate with the community, get to know other people who are doing what you’re doing. There’ll be a mentor to you and they’ll help you walk you through where you’re trying to get to see you don’t make a serious mistake. What I’ve seen with investors, I’ve been doing this now for gosh. What has it been 27 years and you see those investors that are excited.

[00:42:24] They want to get out there and start investing and they hit a wall and they lose money and then they never go back to it because they never took the time to invest in themselves, invest in the education, to find the people that have already done it, learn from them. Or have a support group of individuals that can help walk them through it. I think you’ve created something there. I’d like you to talk a little bit about, for those people about zero to 100 what that can do for them. If they’re just thinking about getting started in this. 

[00:42:48] Gabriel: Yeah, I think getting involved in the community and building, I say relationships, relationships, relationships. I think it’s one of the biggest hacks because you can compress timeframes. If you have people in your network that are one to ten steps ahead of where you want to go. You don’t have to bang your head against the wall for 10 years figuring out a problem that somebody else has already solved. Zero to 100 it started with myself, Mitch, and Travis.

[00:43:17] We met through another mastermind, but they started zero to 100 before I got involved and it was really asking themselves the question of why is it that some people spend 20 years, you know trying to invest in they own a duplex? While other people are building thousands of units in a short period of time. It started very organically that way. 

[00:43:36] I got involved because we really aligned on not just financial freedom through real estate, but time freedom through real estate. We all value our time.My own journey was I had this innate desire and and you know to become financially free and really questioning why is it that I want to be financially free? It really came down. I wanted to own my time, I wanted autonomy. I wanted to spend time with my wife and my kids and I wanted to travel.

[00:43:59] I didn’t want to show up and have a boss. I didn’t want people telling me what to do.  Travis and Mitch who I run the zero to 100 podcast with and we have our zero to 100 community. Aligned very much, through a lot of conversations with other investors, we realized that a lot of people talk financial freedom, but one layer deep it’s not always that they’re excited about real estate, but it’s what real estate can do for them.

[00:44:22] Oftentimes one layered one layer deeper, why is it that you want financial freedom? Usually the answer was like well, I want to be able to quit my job or I want to spend more time with my family, I want to travel, I want to give back to this cause. Zero to 100 started very organically with people. The people within our tribe are men and women that not only want financial freedom. But they want to buy cash flow in real estate to give them true time freedom so they can live life on their terms.

[00:44:52] Clint: Yeah, I mean that’s exactly right and that’s why, when you get started in real estate, you stated your journey, you started small and you didn’t make a lot of money at first.  But over time you stuck with it and look where you’re at today.  As you stated, spending that time with your family being able to travel to Hawaii or Europe and you’re still earning money. There’s no price you can put on that. To get to that point through real estate is where I think a lot of people that are watching this want to be. 

[00:45:22] They should take advantage and go to your site. Check it out as I stated in the show notes I have a link there go there get involved. Alright, don’t just stand there and watch another one of my videos and think alright this is magically going to happen. It’s 2026. I’ve got my one property. I don’t even have anything yet. But if I just watch more it’s going to be there. That’s you need someone kicking you in the butt and forcing you out there. Anything else in passing you want to leave or say to the audience? 

[00:45:46] Gabriel: I think the last thing I would say, if you want it bad enough you find a way. I’ve been fortunate to be around a lot of successful folks. If you want it bad enough, I think it starts with that desire and then you go and take action you go and you make it happen. You get around the right people, you make offers, you build relationships, you take down deals. No, you’ll talk about one in it. But I think it does start with that desire, that strong why, but where I see people become real successful is they have that strong why, that strong desire. They actually go take action on their goals and they make their dreams a reality.

[00:46:20] Clint: Yeah, well said hey man. Thanks for coming on and taking the time. I know we went way over on this but the topic just flowed so well. I know it’s going to get a lot of eyeballs. I appreciate it and I wish you the best. 

[00:46:34] Gabriel: Thanks, Clint. Appreciate for having me on.

[00:46:33] Outro