From Cars and Classrooms to Cash Flow: The Bold Journey of Jennifer and Joseph Delle Fave

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Mattias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent. I wanted to talk a little bit about being the go-to person.

[Mattias]
I think that is something that I didn’t realize would be such an important piece of what I do that has now become such an important piece of what I do.

And when I was talking to Jennifer and Joe, Jen and Joe, they were explaining how they kind of look for realtors. They’re investors, creative financing gurus. They have some…

It’s a great episode. So definitely stay tuned for this one. They have some really good tips about how to look at and how to approach deals.

But they also talked about how they invest in multiple different markets and how they have to kind of find their people wherever they go. And they talked about how much value agents brought them by partially just answering the phone, being on top of it, knowing their business, knowing their craft really well, but also just knowing people and having that sphere, having that… You know, all the different people, all the connectors that you need in the community.

And I think that’s something that if you’re new at… If you’re a new agent and you’re not sure what you can do, start trying to find those people. Like maybe use ChatGPT to brainstorm a list of, you know, what is an important…

What are important service providers for the housing, for house ownership, home ownership? What are important key community players in the area that, you know, that you could start developing a relationship with? And then just start trying to find them.

You could ask other agents in your company, who’s your go-to roofer? Who’s your go-to plumber? Who’s your go-to electrician?

Who’s your go-to handyman? Who’s your go-to painter? Who’s your go-to landscaper?

Who do you call if you need your yard plowed, your driveway plowed? Who are those people that you can call on? Because soon, you will have people ask you.

And you can even tell people that, you know, you have a list of preferred people that if they ever need anything, just don’t… Feel free to ask. You know, I had a client turned good friend reach out to me the other day and asked, hey man, do you have a mechanic that simply would work on my van with me?

And I want to see what they’re doing to kind of like learn how to do these things. Myself, and that one actually stumped me. I don’t…

I think I have some friends that would probably be able to do it, but they’ve just been extremely busy that this life phase they’re in now or probably not doesn’t warrant the time to do that. And then probably, you know, official mechanics that are actually making money from it probably aren’t eager to have somebody shadow and learn from them. So, I actually couldn’t think of somebody.

But he, you know, he’s like, I figured you would know somebody if anybody would. And that’s the position you want to be in. Like you want people to ask you those questions and try to connect people as much as you can.

And I think that’s where you can provide a ton of value for your clients moving into town, but also your clients in town. And so now, you know, I have my go-to contractors whenever we’re going to go to get a house ready for the market. I’ve got my go-to people.

And, you know, we work together enough that we are… I have a really good working relationship. We can kind of move quickly if needed.

They know that I give them consistent business. I’m fair with them, all that kind of stuff. And we will…

Yeah, they’ll help me out in a pinch if I need it. So, yeah, I think that’s one area that you may not think about right away, but something you could create as a newer agent or seek to always improve upon. And maybe go as far as, again, like actually making a list that you can actually, you know, you could create a website if you wanted to.

And you could give that only to people that are in your sphere. You could send that as like, you know, hey, by the way, I’ve developed this list of people that are excellent service providers in their community. You know, go to this.

This is only for my clients or only for my, you know, top people. If you ever need anything, just go here. I personally think it’s better if they ask you directly because it gives you some more engagement with them.

But I think having that formal list written down and again, use ChatGPT to come up with that list as far as what you need so that you make sure you have something for everything. You know, I don’t know if ChatGPT is going to come up with the mechanic that will let people shadow them to work them out of a job category, but they’ll come up with a good list. So, yeah, that’s a quick tip here.

I thought that was a good thing that came out of this conversation. There’s many other good tips that come from this conversation with Jen and Joe. They encourage people to think through things creatively, what other options there are for selling houses that if somebody’s in a bind, you know, terms can make a big difference.

If somebody really needs a certain purchase price that nobody’s willing to pay, terms can really help. So all awesome options and they go over that stuff in great detail. So all to say, check this out.

This is a really good one. Without further ado, here we have Jen and Joe. Welcome back to the REI Agent.

I’m here with Jen and Joe De La Fave. Did I say that right?

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah, you got it.

[Mattias]
Yes. How are you all doing in sunny Florida?

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
We are good. The sun is shining, blue skies, and that’s why we moved here.

[Mattias]
Yeah, yeah. From New York, that’s probably a big difference, right? Yeah, it’s the first week of kind of pretty nice weather.

I’m hoping that we don’t get kind of kicked in the teeth with some snow or something in the near future because I think everybody’s pretty done with it, especially after this year.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
I’m telling you, it was snowing on Mother’s Day 2020 and I was like, there has got to be a better way. This is getting ridiculous.

[Mattias]
You figured it out. So tell me a little bit about your journey in getting into real estate.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah, that is all thanks to this guy here to my left. I was an English teacher and thought I was just going to go about my merry way, do my 30 years or whatever it would be and retire and get a little gold bell. But I met him in 2008 and he had big master plans.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, when we met in 2008, the market was crashing.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
And so, I mean, you could just find deals right on the MLS.

And we’re from Rochester, New York, so upstate New York. And we were finding these houses in the suburbs that were, you know, fixer uppers, but they’re really nice neighborhoods for like $30,000, $40,000 back then. Yeah.

And so Jen had her own house. I had my own house when we met. But then here we are, like, I’m dragging her to all these junkers.

In the beginning, she really was like, I love doing this.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
No, I was like, this is kind of a gross hobby that you have here, but I love you. So I’ll support you. I’d bring a book and read, right?

It was before, like, iPhones are what they are today. And, you know, he started kind of painting that vision. Well, you know, if we have enough houses one day, you know, this would really help us with our retirement.

You could walk away from teaching. I could get out of the car business. And so that’s what we started doing.

One rental at a time.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, we were doing the BRRRR method in the beginning. You know, just buying them cash. We would renovate them, rent them out, refinance it.

Go look for our next deal.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Total pain in the neck, if you haven’t ever heard of that before. But it’s a lot of paperwork, a lot of, like, back and forth with the banks and this and that.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Contractors.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Oh my gosh, it’s nuts.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, but we were doing it and it was kind of slow, but we were kind of chugging along. And then I think the big thing is when you got to quit your job teaching. And now I work in a car dealership.

We have some rentals. We’re married now. We have two kiddos.

And this is now 2016 when the bank was like, hey, guys, at 10 mortgages, we’re going to cut you off. I knew we wanted more than 10. I didn’t know they even cut you off.

I was really kind of, like, taken back by it, honestly. So I was home. I was on YouTube watching all these videos, like how to buy real estate without banks and credit.

And then I stumbled upon, like, these ways to do it. And so it was like, oh my gosh to me. And we learned about how to buy real estate with seller financing or even with, like, doing wrap mortgages and subject to and all of these other kind of things like that.

And it kind of just piqued my interest because this was a way that we could actually pay full price for a property, which every single time before that, unless I found a property that I just could get at a huge discount that needed a bunch of work, like I couldn’t do anything with them. Right. And so then when we learned this method, I felt like, oh my gosh.

So our very first deal that we did, we found a seller who inherited his grandfather’s home, Steve. And he wanted to sell it. He lived a hour away, had it rented to a co-worker who, you know, wasn’t making any money on it, but he was just having to do the repairs.

And he’s like, I want to sell it. I want good money for it. I’m not going to take one of your lowball offers.

I’m like, I don’t have to. It doesn’t need any work. It’s turnkey.

It’s like 10 minutes from my house. So I mentioned that we could pay his price if he’d be open to doing it with seller financing. And he didn’t understand what that meant in the beginning.

So I just said, I’ll buy it. We’ll close on it with an attorney because New York is an attorney state. And instead of me paying Bank of America every month, I’m just going to pay the bank of Steve every month.

His name was Steve. And he’s like, got it. So you’re going to pay the full price, but you’re just going to do it in payments.

I’m like, yup. He’s like, I’ll do that. So what we agreed on, I’ll pay the price, cover closing costs.

And then I just paid him 500 bucks a month and that went towards my balance. So I didn’t end up paying any interest on that deal.

[Mattias]
Oh, seriously?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah. So he was thrilled though, because, you know, if he were to list it, he probably would not have got as high, especially not if you had to take out commissions and closing costs. And he didn’t really want to deal with any of that.

It was too much for him. And he had a lot of sentimental value to the house.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Super attached. His grandfather would pass it down. So even in the basement, we went over to go with him.

He was in there, kind of tearing up. But he’s like, I just don’t want a bunch of people walking through it. And I don’t want to have to change anything about the house.

I just want to know, I’m passing it off to good people and good hands. And so that, for me, was a game changer because it made real estate more about people. Because when we were buying off the MLS, the Junker properties, it was like, he didn’t really know who was selling or all of that.

But once you really start talking to your sellers and you hear their stories and you find different creative ways that might work best for them, that was really kind of a big aha moments for me. That was really cool.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I love it. And I think, you know, it’s always good if you’re an agent, if you’re an investor, to have different tools in your tool bag. And there are times where people, you know, prefer to break up their capital gains tax by, you know, selling it that way.

And sometimes they’ll want a chunk of change for it, you know, as a down payment. And sometimes they don’t. Did you have to do a down payment in this scenario or did you 100%?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Well, we did give him $100 down for that deal.

[Mattias]
You really opened up the wallet for that one.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
He had to fight him on it too.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, I had to argue with him about it because when I met him to do, like, the purchase and sale agreement, we might’ve McDonald’s. And I’m like, well, you have to take this earnest money deposit and it’s $100. So you have to take it.

And he’s like, no, you guys are awesome. Like, I don’t want your money. I’m like, yeah, I know.

But if you don’t take it, we don’t have a deal. So you’ve got to take it. And he’s like, no, we’re good.

You got a deal. I’m only selling the house to you guys. I’m like, Steve, you’ve got a beautiful wife.

Just take her out to dinner. Here’s the $100. Jen and I are paying for it.

And so.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah, he didn’t, he was, that was not his hot button. He just really didn’t want to have to worry about getting the house like market ready and all of that. And he just wanted to, I think, you know, get his friend out because he was kind of like, you know, freeloading almost.

At the price that he was paying. And, you know, still having to take care of maintenance and taxes and all of that. So just so like walk away stress free.

And he knew like when a couple of years down the line when we would cash him out, he would, he’s going to be able to have that money to help pay for his daughter’s wedding. I think it was. So he had his game plan and we were able to help him.

[Mattias]
That’s cool. Yeah. I was going to ask then, did it balloon in a few years?

What was that? That, what did that look like?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
So he knew what we do is we work with renters and with our renters, they’re going to need, they’re going to want to buy the property at one point.

[Mattias]
Oh, okay.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
So we do like a lease option, lease with the option to buy.

[Mattias]
Okay.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
And so we use a great screening company and the screening company, the folks that moved into that house, they actually gave us $10,000 to move in. They paid rent for a few years. And we knew by the screening company that they were going to be about 18 to 24 months before they were mortgage ready.

They went a hair over that because of COVID happened, but they got it shortly after COVID happened. And then once they did, they bought the house, they took ownership of it. So we helped turn a renter into a homeowner, which is awesome.

Steve got his big old check at the end, which he was great because that went paying for his daughter’s wedding. And then Jen and myself, we did get $10,000 of that money up front, which is nice. And we, our cashflow was like 500 and something a month on the door, which is nice.

But then when we sold it, we got a really big backend check because over time when our renters bought it for, compared to what we bought it for, a pretty good gap. Plus our renters were paying down our balance so quickly because we weren’t paying any interest. The gap grew pretty quick.

So when we got that big backend check, now we could reinvest that into buying one or two more properties instead of just losing one. We could pick up two, sometimes even three more because we buy a lot of these this way.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s two, just two strategies all wrapped up in one. Because I think, I’ve heard some of the lease option strategies before. And I think it’s actually, there could be an agent that would base their entire sales business off of that strategy.

Like if there is a good population in their community they serve that are on the cusp of getting financing. And does appreciation need to happen for this strategy to work? Is it appreciation based, the rent option kind of thing?

Is that the way it works the best for you all is if the property value goes up? Tell me a little bit more about that.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
I mean, ideally it always is great when property values go up. So yes, what we’ll do is with our renter though, they’re not buying it today. They’re gonna buy it usually in about two years.

So we kind of just do a rough forecast of what we believe the value would be worth in two years. You can’t overcharge them because it still has to appraise. So you can’t do anything like crazy, right?

But however, we wanna make sure that if values do spring up we wanna be in a good spot because you could always drop it if you need to but you can’t go any higher. So I price it, not at today’s price because they’re not buying today. They’re gonna be buying in about two years.

So what do I think it’s worth in two years? About X, right? And I’ll figure that out, usually with some calculations and research.

And then also too, if they don’t buy it out in that say two year span, I just renew it again. I’ll give them more time. I don’t kick them out but we might have to revisit the price again because they might get another one year, right?

But that’s really easy. And we disclose everything right in the beginning. And we find out before our renters move in, like we just had one over the summer.

Lady is great. Nobody else would take her in the world. Her credit score is like a 496, which is pretty low if you don’t know credit score.

Seven, 800, it’s really where you wanna be. So her credit score was low but the reason why there was a story behind it, she’s a nurse, been on the job for over 20 years, makes really good money, like 80 something thousand a year. Her challenge was though, her husband left her, house payments got behind, credit cards got behind, car payments got behind, used to have great credit.

Now it’s down in the drain. But when the divorce was finalized, they sold the house which paid off that mortgage, paid off all of her credit cards, paid off her car, and she gave us $30,000 to move into our rental. So with it being a 496 credit score, a lot of landlords are like, I would never take her.

But she’s a nurse who makes 80 something thousand a year with no debt and been on the job for 20 years. I’m like, and she’s got 30,000? And when she moved in, cause she’s in the same neighborhood and wanna stay in the same neighborhood, really great school district.

But she wanted a spot where she could put her garden. So she’s like mapping out, like no renters do that. She’s like, this is where I’m, and it’s a beautiful house, beautiful neighborhood.

So she’s thrilled. And she’s gonna probably need a couple of years to get her credit scores back up there. And so the fact she can move into a home now, make it, put the garden, do all of the things, and then a handful of years she could buy it.

It works out really well for our renters and it works out well for us too.

[Mattias]
Yeah, it’s a really good win-win. I do really like the strategy. And they, do you all offer like some advice or put them in touch with people to improve their credit score?

Cause obviously you want them to be able to perform at the end. How was that look like?

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah, it’s really cool. Cause the screening company that we use are actually out of Pennsylvania, Paul and Diane Ritter, screenthetenant.com. They’ll do the full like 100 page background check and give you all of the behind the scenes information.

But they also offer the credit repair. So depending on where they’re at, we can definitely encourage them to enroll in credit repair. But also if they just want to, you know, move in and cause it, that will cost them a little bit extra money.

But if they need some time to, you know, get on their feet again and be able to enroll, like we give them time, you know, as long as rent is being paid and we have a long-term link with the seller, like we were chatting about earlier when we bought the property, then we just love just getting them in there, collecting the rent. And then when they’re ready, they’ll reach out, get their credit repaired. And then also we’ve got some amazing mortgage guys that help us out just to help on the creative way of that non-refundable option getting applied and getting them to own a house.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s cool. And sorry, you were still in your story. We kind of went down the rabbit hole there a little bit, but is that your primary focus now with your investing or is that one of the tools that you all implement?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
It’s one of the tools for sure. One of my favorite tools because we do fix and flips. And today I’m talking to my contractors because we live in Florida, but we’re still doing a lot of our properties in New York.

But we do them in a lot of other states too and we do it virtually. And so we had a fix and flip in Pensacola, Florida. We were on the phone with the agent this morning.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Well, just to kind of like finish the story, I guess too. So 2017, we went all in on the creative, taking over either seller’s mortgage payments or doing direct to seller, seller financing, offering lease options. And then what really happened was in 2020, he literally five years ago.

[Mattias]
Today.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Today was his last day, March 12th, working at a car dealership. And with the whole COVID thing that happened, he was able to walk away because obviously we were in New York state, everything got shut down. So we all hunkered down to flatten the curve and we went full time.

We decided to go all in on us. It was our dream to work together full time. So in 2020, we took the little part-time real estate business full time.

And so when you go full time in real estate investing, it’s really important to have all of the tools. So yes, fix and flipping is a strategy. Wholesaling is a strategy.

And of course, buying hold is definitely one of our favorites.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Bam, five years anniversary.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
I know, it’s crazy.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Thank you. Yeah, because when COVID happened, Jen, she was the voice of reason because I was like, oh, I’m going back to work in two weeks. I just got a big raise.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah, he did.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
She was like, yeah, we’ve been wanting to do this full time and now’s the time to do it. So if I didn’t know how to buy real estate without banks and credit, where I needed a W-2 to buy, I’m going to the bank asking for a loan every time. If I didn’t know that there was other ways, I can never have done that.

And then we’ve wholesale fixed, done complete renovations. So I felt like we are not just like one different way. We’re a real estate investor and there’s many different ways that we can do deals.

So we’ve got some wholesale deals going on right now. We’ve got fix and flips going on right now. I’m buying some of these properties on seller financing.

We’ve got one in the city of Rochester and Rochester, New York is rated number one in the country as far as like hottest market right now. You put something on the market, they’re still getting over asking there because there’s no inventory. Monroe County has, I think it’s approximately 750,000 people.

And if you look for a single family homes for sale, there’s like 280 available in the market for the entire county. That’s crazy. We live in Manatee County where there’s like 450,000 people and there’s like 8,000 single family homes on the market for sale.

So everything in Florida right now is definitely dropping. Places like upstate New York are going through the moon still. And just because there’s no new builds, it’s really none of that stuff.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Really building relationships, building a team, having some great real estate agents and other investors. How many people can you just like buddy up with and help each other along the way? I think that’s been like the huge thing I’ve realized too is how many people like abundance mindset, you can really make so much more happen than if you’re trying to compete.

And so if anyone’s listening and they’re like, I want to go full time, just start networking and getting around those people that are doing the real big things and stay inspired by them and work with them.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, and I know there’s a lot of agents that listen to this. And I’m not trying to be like, but we work with like one of the best agents in upstate New York, which has been making our journey so much better. So that’s why we love working with great agents because my gosh, I’ve talked to two of them today.

And the one guy, because we have a property we’re doing in Buffalo, New York, which is like an hour from Rochester. And he’s like, I got your back. I got the guy who’s going to do this.

We’re going to do this. I may have it listed here. This is what’s going to happen.

Like when you work with a great agent, they make this business so much more pleasurable and easy. And then my other agent in Rochester, he’s got a couple of deals. He’s actually an investor himself.

So one of the properties that we were going to buy and fix and flip, we just put it under contract. I’m like, hey, Mike, can you take a look at the house? We’re going to flip it.

Can you run some comps? I want you to do a walkthrough. So he does the walkthrough and he’s like, hey, I know that you could do this and I know you’re going to do it, but if I give you $25,000 for this contract, would you just wholesale me the deal?

And I look at Jen and I’m like, well, we can make 25 grand in like three weeks. We can make probably 50, 60,000 if all goes well by like September, October. And she was like, yeah, that’s an easy one.

Yeah. So to your audience, everybody listening, what would you do?

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, finding the deals is hard and I get why that stuff happens. And there’s definitely been a number of times where one of my coworkers and investing partners has just quickly sold the deal off really fast just to make a quick profit on it instead of taking on all the risk. I mean, there’s a lot of risk involved with taking on the whole flip.

There could be things that you don’t expect that happens, delays, all that kind of stuff that would cost you time and money. And so there definitely is, like if you look at just the rate of return on how long you’ve held the property or it’s really good. So, I mean, I get the temptation there.

I assume you guys took it?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Oh, yeah.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Oh, yeah. We were in the middle of a couple other flips, like he was saying. So we’re in Florida, everything’s done virtually, adds an extra layer of fun, I’ll call it.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
And my contractor is just completing one now. And I’m like, you know what? There’s a few other things I need them to do if I can wholesale this deal.

So we’ve actually got one in Montana. We’re wholesaling the same thing. One in way upstate New York next to in the Adirondack Mountains in a town called Governor.

We’ve got a fix and flip going in Buffalo. We’ve got one in Rochester right now. And then we’re wholesaling this other one.

We’ve got, I mean, it just, we have so much things that, it wasn’t like this in the beginning, though. I gotta tell you, it’s been exciting, but it was just generally so, yeah.

[Mattias]
I’ve learned a lot. Yeah, seriously. It’s amazing how that first deal can be anxiety provoking and like also feel like this is never gonna happen again and how it can all kind of blossom.

I am curious as to if you were to recommend or what you would say you would look for in an agent, you know, being an investor friendly, whatever, what would be some qualities you’d look for that you would wanna build a long term relationship with if you were going to a new market and you didn’t have a connection already?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
So I’ll tell you, like, the one we did in Connecticut.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
I was thinking about her, yeah.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Oh my gosh.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
So first and foremost, I think having an online presence because that’s how you found her, right? Like she had a Google review.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Laura, yeah. So she’s in Connecticut. We found a property in Connecticut.

We bought it. We’re gonna do a fix and flip. I went on Google.

This lady had like 490 five star reviews. I’m like, well, I don’t know anybody in Hartford, Connecticut, but I bet you she does. She’s probably sold everybody in town a house.

It looks like something. So I call her up. I’m like, hey, I introduced myself.

I’m an investor. I work with investors all the time. What do you got?

I said, I have a house. Here’s the address. She’s like, I’m two streets over.

I’m pulling in the driveway now. I’m like, oh my gosh. So I guess the answer to your question, she was very in tuned with her business.

She knew the attorneys. She knew the contractors. She had a great online presence.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
She was like going right over, like on the answered her phone and like went right over. So I think maybe sometimes if people are like shy, hesitate, they don’t answer. They don’t get back to people quickly.

Like, you know, it’s always speed to lead. Time is of the essence in real estate. So I feel like that’s a really big quality that was helpful.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, I say the biggest quality, honestly, right now, and this is going to sound crazy. It’s just answer your phone and call people back.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
And it’s not like you’re calling them at like 9pm on a Friday night. Like we’re, you know, we do working hours, even though we do work off hours too. But, you know, it’s just.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
You’d be surprised how many agents that I do reach out to that. I mean, I’ll leave voicemails. I’ll text them.

They just never respond to you ever. Yeah. So I don’t want to work with those agents.

Sure. Like Laura, complete a plus, a player, knew her business. She’s you could tell she studied harder craft and was just that kind of person.

But also too, she knew the investors. She knew the things around town. She was very into it.

So for me, there’s nothing wrong. There’s different levels of being an agent, right? Sometimes we do it a little bit more part time and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But if you do this more part time, know who that one agent is who knows everybody. So then they’re a part of your village.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
And you could help everybody together. So if you’re not that person, but somebody in your brokerage, your office is, find who they are. Make sure that they’re part of your village and you could all do business together.

So I think that’s really important for an agent. Keep it really simple.

[Mattias]
Having contractors, I mean, that are ready, able, and reasonable, that’s a huge, huge thing for anybody trying to come in out of the air. I mean, anybody in the area. I have a ton of benefit I give to my clients by, yeah, just having contractors.

And also, I give them a lot of work. So they’re also willing to do things for me and kind of jump when I need them to. So that’s all a big perk of, I think one of the perks of doing both, being an investor and an agent, for sure.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah. Seeing the big picture, I think. Because again, with Laura, you were able to, hey, we have this deal.

This is what we’re doing with it. And if you could help us with all this, we’ll all make out, right? And so having that vision of, we all work together as a team.

You’ll get paid, we’ll get paid. The seller gets helped. And so I think just having that team camaraderie.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, and she was awesome because she was like, hey, here are three contractors. I’m going to get you three quotes. Here are the three quotes.

They’re all three of them are great. The one in the middle, they’re all within a few thousand dollars apart. The one in the middle, he could get started one week.

The other people are a little further out. I mean, the guy who did the work, A plus, and I talked to him because I don’t know him. And he’s like, well, you know, Laura knows everybody in town.

That’s why she’s on the billboards. I was like, oh, wow. But the attorneys got paid because of her.

Her contractors got paid because of her. She got paid. We did like.

So every time when we’re going to be going into a new area, because I find deals all over the country, I’m usually going on Google. So like John said, make sure you have a good online presence. Make sure if you’re a buying or selling agent, your clients are giving you five-star reviews, right?

And then when I go on there, I’m looking like, who are the agents in the area? I’m looking at that. And then I talk to them on the phone.

I’m like, hey, I’m an investor. I have this property under contract. I’ve considered fix and flipping.

I might even wholesale it. I’m not sure yet. What are the rental comps?

What can I sell it for? And then they start giving me some information. And some are great.

And like, hey, that’s not really what I do.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
I was just thinking about the tuggles too. Like there we had this one deal in Louisiana and we kind of put it out there to assign it, wholesale it. No one was really biting.

And man, these people are just in a jam. And I pulled my heartstrings. We’re literally moving from New York to Florida.

We had 45 days and I’m in the office on the floor. And he’s looking, he’s like, what’s wrong? And I’m like, we have to save the tuggles.

We have to help them. And so I don’t even know how you found that realtor.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
He was awesome. It was a recent sale in the neighborhood. I called him up and I said, hey, I’ve got this property.

I’m probably going to just buy it and then resell it as is. He’s like, I know the guy who will buy it. He’ll buy it from you for this.

I was like, totally let’s go. And he was like, well, then to make it easier for you, just give me this and it’s a done deal. And I was like, if I could set you like a steak dinner, I probably owe him a steak dinner because of how awesome he was.

But so getting around the right agents, we’ve done this all over the country.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
And investors kind of giving, getting over that hump too, because sometimes there is a bit of a clash, but like you can work together. And there are people that are not great in the business and that goes for any field, not just in real estate, but you got to find the right people that are your people. And when you do, man, like fireworks.

[Mattias]
Yeah, having that team can really, I think, you know, the one of the people, I’ve recently gotten a good attorney and I haven’t really needed one in the past or realized I needed one. But it is, you know, having the right person in your team, that just makes a huge difference. Like it is just night and day.

And so, yeah, it’s harder for you all if you’re going, you’re getting to be experts at finding those people because you’re going to different markets. But if you’re focused on one, you know, definitely getting those key players in your playbook makes a huge difference.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Well, and to add to that, we’re from Rochester and my one friend who is an agent, also an investor. And I have one attorney, but we keep them so busy. Sometimes they get a little behind.

I’m like, so do you know anybody else who works with investors? And he’s like, oh yeah, use this attorney. I call up that attorney recommendation from my agent, who’s also an investor himself.

So having your village, talk to this attorney, like a plus plus plus attorney knows how to do a seller financing and owner financing and wraparound mortgages and wholesaling. And all of the things he’s been doing for like 30 years, he’s an investor himself and knows all of the investors in the city. So I’m like, great, now I’ve got another attorney, right, that I can use, which is always great.

So surrounding yourself with your village is really important. And so if I’m new to the area, I’m asking that agent, who’s like the great attorneys who are used to handling this stuff. And if they don’t know, usually somebody they know knows.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that’s really good. That’s awesome. Let’s start defining some of these terms that you’ve been throwing around.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
I know, that was what gave my head spin when I got into this in 2017. I was like, I don’t even understand what these terms are. So this man over here, he would listen to them on repeat over and over and over again.

So he knows them inside, outside, backwards, forwards.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, it’s great. And a lot of them have been coined maybe since you started as well. Like I don’t know if BRRRR was actually labeled that.

But let’s start there. Can you describe what BRRRRing property is?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yes, so BRRRR means you’re, it stands for BRRRR, maybe one more R, which is buying, renovating, renting, refinancing, and then repeating. So that’s what it stands for. And generally what you’re going to do is you’re going to find a distressed property.

You’re going to buy it a big discount. You’re going to do some renovations to the property. Most of the time, you’re going to pay cash.

Either they’re borrowing it or you have it, whatever it is, but you got to pay cash for them. Most likely, not every time, but most of the time. After you buy that property with cash, you’re going to then renovate it.

And then you’re going to go to the, you’re going to rent it out because most banks want to see it’s rented for the income to come in. Then after that, you’re going to go to a lender and say, I own this house. I own it out, right?

And I want to do a cash out refinance on that. And so most of the banks would give you like a 75%, 70%, 80%, depending on the lender. I think ours is maybe 75% of the value.

So for fund numbers, your property appraises for $100,000, the bank will give you $75,000 back minus your closing costs, which are roughly, I don’t know why, but always about $5,000 to New York state anyways. So what happens is you are all into the property. Maybe you bought it for 40 and you put 20 into it and you got 60,000 out plus closing costs and holding costs.

So maybe it’s like high 60s, but you went to the bank, you refinance, pull all that money back out. And if you do BRRRR the real good way, you don’t overpay for the property and you don’t over budget. Cause what they do is you could actually pull extra money out of the deal.

Maybe you bought it for 40 and you put 15 into it and you’re all in for under 60,000, but the bank’s willing to give you $75,000 back. You’re actually able to take out tax-free extra money that you can go reinvest in your business. So that’s the BRRRR process.

It’s great for some things. Although looking back on it, it does put you at some risk because you’re having to raise capital. Like what you kind of mentioned earlier, when you’re doing renovations, I always plan for the unexpected actually.

If my contractor says it’s 25 grand, I’m like, oh, that’s going to be 30 cause they’re going to find something. And I’m more likely it’ll be like 31. So it just what happens when you do enough of these.

So you have to plan on.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
And then now the rates are really high.

[Mattias]
It’s harder to BRRRR now with those interest rates. So when I did a couple of those, those were a couple of my first deals. I had a bank that was willing to give me 80% of the ARV, but I had to close in cash.

They had some weird rule. I had to close first, but they would give it to me literally the next day.

[Mattias]
Wow.

[Mattias]
I don’t know why. Cause like often there, if you’re getting like a normal conventional loan, they’re normally going to make you have a six month seasoning period on these. So that’s something else to keep in mind.

If you’re looking to get that conventional loan, you’re going to have to usually wait at least six months before you can get that cash out. But yeah, so I actually had two townhouses lined up back to back to BRRRR. And I had to like close on one, quickly get the money back and then close on the other one and then get the money back on them.

And you can, every once in a while, find a local bank that’s willing to do this kind of thing. And they’ll actually basically fund your repairs as well. So like you could theoretically go to closing, have a really good deal on a property and get a check at closing.

You sign the papers, don’t bring any money, get a check back and then fund the deal with it. But like you’re talking about right now with interest rates being higher, it’s just harder to cashflow the property at the end of the day, which has been a bit of a bummer. We are currently doing one where we’re looking at the midterm rental strategy to try to make those numbers work a little bit better.

So stay tuned to see if that actually works.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, well, and that’s kind of why you maybe transitioned into doing some of what we call creative finance because you’re not alone. Everybody listening, we’re all in the same jam together. And I got to tell you, how many of our friends are like, I just can’t find anything that cashflows at today’s rates.

By the time you tack on taxes and insurance, in Florida, we have HOAs, right? And management and maintenance, CapEx, when you do all those things, and then you’re supposed to make money on top of that, which for me, if I don’t make money on a property every month from them, I don’t buy it. Because my favorite way to make money in real estate is I get monthly cash.

I think we average like 580 a door. But then our renters are also paying down our debt while our properties are going up in value. And then we get to write off, write it off on our taxes, depreciation.

So that’s why I love real estate so much. So when we started finding these seller finance deals, this is when things got to be excited because a lot of times the house is either on the market and it didn’t sell, or sometimes they don’t want to even list it on the market. And there’s always those sellers for some reason.

Sometimes it’s a speed and convenience. Sometimes they’re embarrassed. Sometimes they just don’t have the time.

I think of when we just did in Florida, the house was built two years ago. Well, 2022, so now three years ago. Wow.

But it’s in New Smyrna Beach, Edgewater, Florida. So the East Coast of Florida. New house, but they bought it, built it new.

Job transfer them to Texas. He’s like, we don’t really have much equity. And I know average time on market’s about 90 days, 80 something days right now.

And he’s like, that’s if it sells. We don’t have that time. I can’t make two payments.

Husband’s in Texas. Wife is back here, still packing up the house. So I said, well, I buy Fixer Upper’s cash, but I could pay your asking price with doing terms, which means I’ll buy it.

I’ll close on it. And I have attorneys and title companies in Florida where I could do this, but the loan will stay in your name. And the reason for that is because they have a 4.1% interest rate.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
So at 4.1%, the property cash flows. If I was paying seven, seven and a half, it wouldn’t cash flow. And so I bought a two-year-old house in Florida.

We gave them $12,000 down for that deal. So we did have to come up with some money for that. Plus closing costs 20,000 out of pocket, but $20,000 out of pocket.

We bought a two-year-old house in Florida, no credit checks, no bank approvals needed. And I got a 4% rate on it.

[Mattias]
So that’s the subject to a strategy, correct?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Well, it’s very close to subject to, but it’s, we use a wrap. It’s just, it’s more protection for the seller, honestly. And that’s more of like the attorneys do that.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
We are buying it subject to the existing loan. That’s where that comes from.

[Mattias]
Okay. What’s the difference? Can you explain that?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah. So subject to, it’s actually on the HUD statement. Line 203, 503 on a HUD statement shows how to do this.

So it’s nothing Joe and Jen are awesome enough to invent. Although we’re pretty awesome. We did not invent this.

It’s been going on for decades. Subject to means loan stays in the seller’s name. They deed you the property.

We’re from New York where everything’s an attorney state. And they get two attorneys to agree on doing a subject to deal. They’re like, no shot.

Because what happens if the buyer stops paying for it? Seller can’t get the property back. So what happens is if we do what’s called a wrap, which is almost identical.

The only difference is now there’s a new note created. I don’t have to apply for a loan. It’s just paperwork.

It’s a promissory note. It actually cost me more money to do this because it’s a mortgage recorded. Just paperwork showing Joe and Jen are making the payments.

And if they don’t make the payments in the default, you could get the property back.

[Mattias]
So this would be basically equal terms. So you’re essentially just, it’s a wash. You’re like paying them the exact same.

They would be paying the mortgage essentially, right?

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah. And so that’s what it does. It just shows now there’s a note created showing if Joe and Jen don’t pay, they could actually get the property back.

So it protects the seller this way. And when one of these sellers wants to qualify for a mortgage later on, because that happens a lot. We show that the closing docs in that note and now that wipes out their DTI, so then they could qualify for that other mortgage.

So it doesn’t hold them back by having that in their credit report still. By doing it with a wrap, we’re subject to, there’s no note. Right.

No, that makes a lot of sense. And we don’t do the notes. Like attorneys do all that at closing.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah, just some paperwork. And then just to kind of clarify too, we pay the mortgage company directly.

[Mattias]
Yeah. Okay. Well, that makes a lot of sense.

And I mean, just to kind of further clarify, so this kind of promissory note would be the same thing that you’d be doing with the owner financing deal. So if they had no mortgage on it at all, they were simply being the bank for you, like Steve, right? Yep.

You would be creating the same kind of instrument. You’d be creating the same kind of promissory note only that you would actually be paying Steve. In this circumstance, it’s just there to kind of outline the terms if you were to default.

And the money doesn’t actually go through the former owner. It just goes directly to the bank.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah. Yep. And the reason why, I’ll give you another example.

We just did one in Cape Coral by December. But the guy lives on the water. He’s got a 3,000 square foot house.

Gorgeous. Pool, boat lift, the screen and pool area. And he wanted 1.2 million for it. And that was if it was like a remodeled home, but his house was built in 98. So he put it on the market. It didn’t sell.

It was on the market for like over a year. It didn’t sell. So he reached out to us asking if we’d buy it.

And I told him we could buy it. But the way I would do it was with owner financing. Well, over time, by showing comps more realistically, his house in the condition it’s in, it was so clean, it didn’t need a thing.

But it just wasn’t 2025. It was 1998. So, but it was a great house.

So we agreed on 800,000. But his deal was he was moving back up north. He’s like, I’m gone.

I’m moving back up north because of a divorce. He’s like, I just need $40,000 to give my ex-wife a part of the divorce. So we agreed on, and the reason why I love the deal is because he had a 2.8 interest rate on his mortgage. Wow. So he’s got a 2.8 rate, and he just needs $40,000 down. Guys, this is almost a million dollar home.

And if he spent some money putting in the new kitchen and the bathroom and the tiles- Joanna gains it up. Joanna gains it up. Right now, even, you would hit the 1112 for it.

So because of location, all that. But 800,000, $40,000 down, 2.8 rate. Guys, those deals are still happening out there.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
And so this is a great strategy for real estate agents to think about is if somebody does have a little bit of an outdated house. Like, is the seller open to terms? If it’s not selling outright on the market, would they be willing to take, like, let someone take over those payments until you get the renovations done so they don’t have to come up with all the cash for this property up front?

And that’s been really helpful for a lot of situations we’ve had.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I love that. That’s what’s so much fun about creative financing and investing in general. I mean, I think it’s just you really- I mean, we’re so used to what the bank has determined is the way to do things.

And, like, when you take that away, when you just talk to another person, you can really come up with all sorts of different strategies that work. Like, I think, you know, the other day, I was interviewing somebody who- they really wanted a higher interest rate than they could pay at the beginning to make the numbers work. And so they just said, okay, look, you’re going to get that interest rate.

But instead of me paying that full amount in the first two years, that additional 2% or whatever it was is just going to go to the balance of the property. And it’s just going to increase. And, you know, it was just- then they’re like, yeah, that makes sense.

Let’s do that. And, you know, it was a way that it worked for everybody. And it’s just, you know, when you can get creative, you can really find solutions that work for everybody.

Yeah, like, I had a creative deal, an owner financing deal that had a lot of ins and outs and intricacies and three different parties. And it just kind of was- it kept me up at night a little bit. It kept me- my juices flowing.

I was, you know, like, trying to think through all the different scenarios, all the possibilities. And it was so much fun.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
It was so much fun to do. It’s like choose your own adventure.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
It really is. Yeah. I mean, there’s- I was thinking about that.

Like, there’s never two days the same, no deals ever the same. We kind of came up with the playbook, right? It’s like literally, okay, what play are we going to run on this deal?

And we’ll start running down the field with it. And we’re like, let’s call an audible because this isn’t going to work. And we switch gears.

And so it’s definitely not for somebody who likes the ordinary, right? You got to get creative. You want to be able to be outgoing, ask the questions, talk through situations and be a problem solver.

And like you said, like, everybody should win. And that’s what we really pride ourselves on is making sure, like, everyone walks away, like, high-fiving.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, totally. Like, it’s this one I’m referencing, you know, I don’t think- I think I overpaid for the house overall, the quad. But we had somebody that basically bought one of the quad, one of the units in cash and provided all the cash needed pretty much except for like $30,000 that I brought.

And then I got, you know, 5% interest on, you know, this whole deal. So like, if any of those different pieces didn’t happen, we also did something else. Like, it was actually two duplexes put together.

And so we actually put all the financing on one of the units so that we had one free and clear. And that gave us more options if we ever needed to refinance that party out. And so it’s just, yeah, it’s just totally different when you’re just talking to people and trying to figure out what they need, what you need.

And it just, yeah, it’s awesome.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Well, and I think that’s what’s happening because we’re on a walk, our morning walk, we take our dog for the walk. And one of the deals that we did in Pensacola, Florida, it’s like about eight hours from us. We did a fix and flip.

We’re talking with that agent who helped us with that deal. It’s been sold and we’re chatting about something different. But I’m like, you know, I’m explaining what we do more.

And I said, you know, do you ever have any of these where they’re not selling? And like the real asset on some of these deals isn’t the property, it’s that interest rate. Yeah.

And he was like, you know what? I’ve actually got a deal. I’ve got to sell it right now.

They’re getting a divorce. This property has been on the market forever. It’s not moving.

It’s gorgeous. It needs nothing. And they have a 2.3% interest rate on it. How’s that possible?

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
I know. And I’m like, well, yeah.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
So I’m like, well, you know, would your sellers be open to this? And he’s like, I’m texting with them now. He said, yeah, give you his number.

So he texted me his number. I’m like, okay, good. Let’s connect and see if I could buy your house.

I’m definitely interested in buying. And the agent explained to them, if they do it, they would want to be able to buy it, but still pay that 2.3% rate of yours. And he’s like, I just need to get this thing sold.

And it’s been forever. And the challenge is, it doesn’t work for everybody. But for the people it does work for, it works for them really well.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
It’s so true.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
And so why would any seller do this? Well, I mean, here’s a good example. A guy’s house has been on the market for a year.

It’s not selling. Why would I go in there, buy this house, pay off a 2.3 rate just to have a 7% rate? Like the only one that wins there is the bank for getting that 2.3 loan off their books, to where they could re-lend at a much higher rate. But unfortunately, when I do that, the property goes from cash flowing to non-cash flowing. And so if you’re going to invest, are you either going to wait on the sidelines or maybe have a couple extra tools up your tool belt to help you put some of these deals together for either your distressed sellers, if you’re an agent, if you’re an investor agent, well, maybe these are some opportunities for you to pick up some really nice rental properties where you could actually help these people and still get a good deal overall. And it’s when you’re able to pay full price because the cost of borrowing the money is so much lower, it doesn’t make that much of a difference to me because if rates were still 2.3, everybody would still be paying 50 grand over asking and the market would be on fire and everybody would be still buying because rates would be at 2.3. Well, those deals are still out there if you know how to do it. And so what we do, rates are always twos and threes. Or four, we’re 4.1. Yeah, that’s awesome.

[Mattias]
That’s so true, I love it. I have to ask if there was a fundamental book or a favorite book that you all have that you think everybody should read in relation to this or just mindset in general?

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
So many great books. I was an English teacher, so I could talk about books all day.

[Mattias]
Rates of Wrath.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
I’ve actually never read that. Oh gosh, but I would say the one I always start off with newer investors or people who are just like looking to get into the creative spaces, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. It’s a really simple but very impactful read and anyone who reads it, it’s just like what is easy to do is also easy not to do.

And it’s just very applicable to anything in life. But especially when you’re getting going with real estate and you’re starting to talk to sellers and it’s like the fear of, oh, but I just don’t want to, but just do it, right? And so it just really walks you down that path of doing the thing that you’re hesitant to do.

So I just love recommending that simple one.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
I know you have a favorite. I mean, I love Think and Grow Rich Overall. It’s been my favorite book by Napoleon Hill.

I absolutely love that book. I think even when it comes to how to talk to people, I think that’s a challenge as humans. How do we communicate?

Because that’s really what sales is. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Love that book.

It’s taught me so much. I was lucky enough to have a mentor that in the late 90s, I got my hands on that and really helped change my life of how you’re thinking when you’re interacting with people. So I think those are some of my favorites for sure.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
And a couple new ones I just read, Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell. So you can’t do everything, right? Like you’ve got to start outsourcing whether it’s your groceries, your lawn care, your childcare.

That’s what we’ve started in 2017 on his day off on Fridays. We started hiring a babysitter every Friday so we could start pouring back into the side business that eventually took over as our main gig. So that’s a great one.

And then Mel Robbins, Let Them. So if you struggle with mindset, Let Them is a must read. Very simple, great audio book.

Definitely recommend that.

[Mattias]
I’ve got to get that one. That one’s been mentioned a couple of times now. I think I had a different approach.

I never actually read the book, but The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F was kind of my mantra. I think that what Let Them is actually trying to say. So like, yeah, if anybody slights you or things are whatever, it’s, you know, you let them.

Yeah, I got to read that one. Yeah, no, so but if people are interested in learning more about what you all do or that you can plug the Creative Finance Playbook, that’s something that you all offer, right?

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Yeah, we are all over social. So creativefinanceplaybook.com. If you head over there, you’ll find our Instagram, our YouTube, our Facebook group for free.

We’ve got an awesome community over there. I love Instagram. So it’s just Jen Delafave.

But yeah, we are just so passionate about showing others that there is another way to buy real estate. You don’t always have to go to the banks. And so if you want to come hang out with us, we’ve got our podcast episodes you can catch up on and reach out if you’ve got a deal or questions that are coming up.

We’d love to give back.

[Mattias]
Awesome.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Bam, bam. There we go.

[Mattias]
That was good. Yeah, thanks guys so much. Thanks for being on.

[Jennifer Delle Fave]
Thanks for having us.

[Joseph Delle Fave]
Yeah, absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having us on.