NOTE INVESTING
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I got a very special guest with me today. We're actually going to be talking about a little different niche in the real estate market called note investing. As you've heard me talk about real estate offers you lots of opportunities to profit and benefit. And today we're going to talk with Chris Seveney, who's going to bring us a brand new subject for the channel, a note performing and nonperforming notes.
Uh, so with that I'll bring Chris on. How you doing today, Chris Good. How are you doing today I'm doing very well. I'm really excited about this topic because I don't think there's a lot of people that talk about it in, in more specifically. I think there's a lot of very busy professionals which sort of gravitate to my channel that only thing buy and hold or these other things. And hopefully in this conversation we can at least show them that, you know, what, maybe note investing, performing are nonperforming, uh, is an important thing. So why don't we, uh, why don't we just open and sort of educate the audience on what it is your company does in and we'll go from there.
NOTE INVESTING
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, my company, 7E investments, we're boutique investment firm investing in like you mentioned, performing a nonperforming notes and most people don't know what a note is a or didn't know you could invest in them and just like the major banks, like a wells Fargo or bank of America, you know, you go to them, you get a mortgage, a lot of those mortgages eventually may get sold off and they'll get sold off possibly to a hedge fund and then eventually down to investors.
And uh, so that's what we invest in. I work full time in real estate as well. And uh, I didn't after 20 years of being in real estate, I didn't even know this niche existed. Most people know, most people don't know that it exists, uh, because it is a very small niche market. And like you said, a lot of people will do the buy and holds or fix and flips.
Speaker 2: And what we like to talk about is we don't deal with tenants, toilets, termites, when you're acting as a bank. So now you know, a few things that people will typically ask about when you start dealing with things, especially on the nonperforming side.
When you're starting to get involved in notes, and this was the hardest and then grasp for me was, you know, how do you make money off of something that isn't paying you and a lot of times you get to buy those at a steep discount, so allows you to work with the borrower, which you know, that's really the end game is you know, the individual investors or investment firms like mine, we look towards working with the borrower to keep them in the house and keep them paying.
NOTE INVESTING
Speaker 1: Got It. So I just want to make sure just sort of peel back a lot there so the listeners don't sort of. So your company, again, just to be clear as never, or at least usually not creating the note originally, right You're, you're in the secondary market buying something either at a discount of it's nonperforming, I guess always at a discount, but a gradations of discount, is that fair to say
Speaker 2: Correct. There are a few occasions where we may end up having a property you've got to gets vacant and we take it back and we'll make a note as well, but I would say that's probably just a very small component of that thing. It's typically we're buying from the institutions is it makes its way down onto the secondary market.
Speaker 1: Okay. And I'm just curious because I don't know the answer so you know, we, if you were investing in. Oh eight, which I was, I started in 2003, so I saw this run up and then I saw the market rollover and it really was the mortgage market or the lending market that caused the steep decline.
NOTE INVESTING
I'm wondering how many steps or layers or whatever you want to call it, between a, you know, a Wall Street firm sort of bucketing these notes into some bigger thing then your company buying it. Is it like six, seven, eight layers or. I mean how far does it have to go from this monster thing to an individual house
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question and it also depends on the size of your firm, but sure, there's a lot in the news of Goldman Sachs right now buying a lot of these up from Fannie Mae. I'll start with Fannie Mae will start. They'll sell them off often, billions to Goldman Sachs may sell them off into the hundreds of millions and there'll be another stack of investors who might buy 50 to 100 million and I would say probably table down to 25 to $50,000,000 funds or investments and then everything under, I'd say probably $25 million is where they used to call it cherry pick where I may get a list of 100 assets to buy all of them. I can buy one or I can buy 10 God and you're dealing with $100,000,000. You got to buy all of them.
NOTE INVESTING
Speaker 1: That makes sense and I never want to assume so I'll ask. I'm suspect these are all or at least predominantly first mortgages.
Speaker 2: Yes. I only strictly deal with first there is a. There is a segment of investors who in deal with the second mortgage as well and like you mentioned, this really started I think around 2008 this market because of such that major meltdown that occurred that everyone's trying to get things off their books and you know, like anything with real estate, the markets have started getting better over the last decade.
So a decade ago you may have been able to pick these up for ten cents on the dollar we're in nowadays. You know, the pricing has gotten much more competitive and you know, it can be anywhere from I'd say 40 to seventy five cents on the dollar.
Speaker 1: Very cool. Is there any kind of difference, and maybe that's just in the pricing or the discount between states like California, which just go a nod versus some of the states like Florida I think that are kind of, you know, stuck in, in, you know, go into judges and all of that. I don't know what
NOTE INVESTING
Speaker 2: they're called but isn't a differences in that. Yeah, there's very big differences and that's part of when you're doing your due diligence process, knowing your states, because there's states like Florida that has a judicial foreclosure, which is you have to go through the courts and there's a state like Texas where you don't have to go through a courts and you can foreclose in Texas in like 45 days.
New York may take you three to five years. Oh Wow. So when you're valuing the asset, you have to take that in consideration because, you know, in Texas you may spend $2,500 bucks in legal fees and be out of it and you know, two months you're going to spend $25,000 in legal fees, be three to five years of your money being tied up. God, it got a big, big difference on the states. Absolutely. So, um, why don't we try, because again, this is so new to a lot of people watching this, including myself.
Speaker 2: I'll admit, why don't we, why don't we give a few examples. You don't have to give addresses or anything, but just, you know, asset, a asset, be sort of talk about how it comes to you and then how an investor watching this could potentially benefit. Why don't we just walk through one or two examples and sort of paint that picture for us if you don't mind.
NOTE INVESTING
Yup. So, uh, I'll get, I'll call it they call tapes, which is a spreadsheet of assets and typically on that, the, you know, there's a lot, there's tons of data on it. Uh, the major information that you typically look for is, you know, what was the monthly payment, how far are they behind, what's the balance principal balance on it. And the key with first is knowing what the property value is worth because that's very important because if you ever want to bid on the lower of the balance or the value, because if in any instance have take that property back, then you want to have some equity in that stake.
Speaker 2: So typically you'll get that. And the sellers typically we will put them out to a group of people and give you about a week's timeframe. For example, I've got a tape right now that bids are due today and I'll go through and do my due diligence, looking everything up and go through my protocols that I do and run numbers to run numbers, sort of calculator, just like a fix and flip or buy and hold guy, just a different calculations.
Then it's similar to, once you put your bid in, similar like putting bid in a house, it's a, it's um, you know, indicative because you haven't seen any of the files of the history or the pay history or you don't know the person's name or what their credit history like. Oh Wow. You don't know the condition of the house. Um, so typically you won't spend money when you're doing the bidding phase and that's kind of an understood.
NOTE INVESTING
Speaker 2: So you can do this anywhere. I mean I could sit on a beach literally and put a bid in and then if you're, you know, and then they'll come back and typically you'll counter. But if the big gets accepted, that's when you know the clock starts. So just like, you know, put an offering on a house, you know, you don't spend money putting an offer in on a house when you're buying it and that's the best example I can use.
Then once you do, it's like, okay, now I get the home inspection, now we're not allowed to do a home inspection because someone's typically living in the. And you're the bank. So you're not nuts when a hardest things is people is you're not actually buying the house, you're buying mortgage. And it takes people to think about that a little bit sometimes. Like what am I buying
Speaker 2: Because people think they're buying the house, but you're really not. You're buying a position. Yeah. Yeah. So you'll do, you'll send a realtor by the property to take pictures of it and kind of run a CMA comparative market analysis to give you an idea, hey, here's, it's worth. Typically you'll look at it as if the person hasn't been, um, you know, or if they're behind on payments, you know, typically they're not going to have brand new kitchen, bathroom and things like that.
NOTE INVESTING
So kind of discounted. Um, then the other big thing to look at it as you run a title report shows because there's things like back taxes that could be do sewer, city liens and also make sure you're actually buying a first mortgage. I've had some in the past where they've had so many title problems or irs liens or other types of liens on.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about jumping the line. Irs liens. There you go. Yeah. So it's very important that you do check the title, uh, and not only check it, but what I do is I ordered the title report, I send it off to an attorney in that state because each state is very different on their laws and how things are done.
NOTE INVESTING
So I have an attorney in every state, you know, take a look at that and kind of give me a thumbs up or you know, hey, here are the problems and here's what you would need to rectify. Very cool. So, so do me a favor. So you said you'd got the tape, I believe I heard you say you had a week to. So let's just say the tape had 100. You bidding on, you can bid on, you know, 17 of 100. You don't have to bid on a 100.
Speaker 2: Correct. To heard that, correct Yep. Correct. So let's assume you've been on 20 for easy math. Let's assume they accept 10 of your bids. How much time do you have to start When does the clock start and when does it stop for your due diligence Is it another week Thirty days. What is that It's typically they will send you a bunch of files called the collateral, which is a lot of the backup documents.
NOTE INVESTING
We're looking for a two weeks. Typically they want that deal funded in two weeks and you have every right to go. Hey, I found x either on the title or half the house burned down or whatever. You could object from any of them you want within that two week window. No harm, no foul, correct. As long as long as it's a legitimate reasons of why, uh, but I've seen ones where, you know, the house wasn't even there.
Speaker 2: The house had burned down. Yeah, exactly. No one looked like there was a hole on the side of the house. I've had ones where the back taxes were $30,000 that you couldn't look it up online for the taxes. So, but it's usually a two week. So it's pretty hectic process. I can only imagine. Yeah, it takes. And you're coordinating. Well you've already mentioned, right You're coordinating realtors likely out of state your court attorneys likely out of state and you've got to, you know, a 10 business day turnaround.
NOTE INVESTING
So that's, it takes usually three to five days to get the title report and by the time you get that then you know, typically, you know, you get your attorney on board early saying, Hey, I'm going to be sending this to you. So he knows. And typically a lot of people will use the same attorneys in the same states that specialize in this.
Speaker 2: So it's not just some attorney who's never looked at this before. And like, what am I doing now There's attorneys that deal with this a lot. So when they get that information they can turn it around in a day. Very cool. Very cool. Alright, so let's, let's pretend somebody watching this as a potential investor.
So clearly you have your processes wired, you're doing your homework, you're doing your due diligence. Yup. Um, let's just say the tape gave you a house at 100. I'm just going to make stuff up now you're going to, you're going to buy it at a discount. Say 50. Just for easy math.
NOTE INVESTING
How does a, how does an investor partner with you or whatever you want to call it, Jv or private or whatever. How do they make their sliver of that How does that work without, you know, I'll say making sure I'm not offering and breaking in the SCC hypothetically.
Speaker 2: Pathetically say there was a note that the house was worth 108, 100 and they weren't paying a lot for 50 years. Typically the investment may will at probably a 20 percent buffer for legal fees and things like that as part of the investment deal. Sure. Depending on how the, you know, how things go, but then it's a, you know, once the process starts, when you buy that note, now use a third party servicing company licensed in that state.
NOTE INVESTING
They'll do the reach out, try and work everything out and it's about a 12 to 18 month process on average for each. Each, uh, each note some can be quicker and it really depends on the state, the state and everything. But sometimes you may cause again, you're buying this thing at 50. Say the payment was going easy numbers a thousand dollars. Exactly, Yep. You could go to the person say, hey look, I'm going to go back and change it to $800 a month, you know, knock $200 off and all of a sudden you're collecting 10 grand a year on the $50,000 investment.
Speaker 2: Hey, there's a 20 percent return. And then the kicker on that is after they've been paying for 12 consecutive months, then you can turn around and sell it as a performing note. Uh, that's, that's the nonperforming say bite at 50 performing. You can sell it for around eighty cents on the dollar. So when you do the math after year, your collected getting rough numbers.
NOTE INVESTING
10,000, it'll be a year and a half because it takes time and everything. But simple numbers. Now you're turning around and selling $100,000 for $80,000. Yup. So all of a sudden you've just made your 10 plus 30, you just made 40,000 hypothetically. So that's a off the charts return when those happen. Oh absolutely. I just want to make sure
Speaker 1: I sort of have a chalkboard in my head. So what I see happening is let's just pretend it's me, right I'm a credit and all that nonsense. So I'm going to give you a fish being too technical. Yeah, that's right. So I'm going to give you $50,000. I'm likely not going to see an immediate return on that because there's this whole workout process going on that could take six to 18 months assuming.
NOTE INVESTING
Let's just assume it happens and we go from a thousand to 800. I then hold that paying note, which let's say is a year from now. Now now I get a year of payments, which is $9,600 bucks or 10 grand, then I could sell it. So I'm in this thing for about two and a half years. I've collected 10 grand and then I have the ability to sell a performing note on the market for 80 grand, making the Delta, which is 30 heads over two and a half years. I've taken 50 grand, turned it into 90 grand, right Forty plus 50. I have that right Yup.
Speaker 2: The one thing I say is it's not the two and a half. You could probably do in a year and a half because it takes about six save it took six months ago and then after 12 months, so 18 and but let's say two years to keep things simple.
NOTE INVESTING
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So yeah, I, I double counted. You're right. Yep. Okay. So it's six months to kind of work out then a year, boom. Eighteen months, 24 months, somewhere there. Now I'm with you. That's pretty cool. All right. And typically two typically profits get split. Of course. Really
Speaker 2: the sponsor, the person will put in the money, know the company, will work out the deal, and then
Speaker 1: profits gets wet. So that would be what you would work out with your credit investors. That's very, very cool. All right, so this sounds really, really complicated. Sounds like a niche that not many people are in. So if you don't mind sort of a rewind the clock for me. How did you sort of uncover this niche What were you doing before this You know, you've been in real estate a long time, so sort of paint the vision that was your Aha moment that he needed to go after this, Chris
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, uh, my Aha moment was a little over three years ago. Actually, let me step back even further, five years ago, my wife and I, we built our single family home and being in real estate construction, uh, I'm in the Washington DC market. We built our primary residence and then after we built that we had a little bit of equity. So we use some of that and start buying some rentals.
NOTE INVESTING
And what we're doing is we're buying fine holes and we buy them needing work. We'd go in, we'd fix them, and then what we do after we fix, they'd have a higher appraisal. We refinance and get our money out of the deal so these with nothing and they'd be cashflow positive. So no, it's not a bad deal. But having also a, you know, the wife, two little kids, you know, I'm in Washington DC, which is one of the most expensive and competitive markets in the country.
Speaker 2: It's defined time because again, my wife and I both work full time and the kids on the weekends, there just wasn't, I mean it was impossible to do anything and scale it. So it was really challenging. I was on a website, bigger pockets you may have heard of and stuff and found this Guy Scott Carson out of Texas.
NOTE INVESTING
Uh, he's got a company called, we close notes and he does a lot of training and he's got a big online presence and he's considered one of the. I'll use the term guru, but I know a lot of people don't like that phrase. But to investors, yes, he's very experienced investor and he trains people and then continues to work with them, which is very beneficial. And uh, so it took me about six months before I could pull a trigger because it's such a new niche and I don't know what you don't know.
Speaker 2: Uh, and then again I'm an engineer so the analysis paralysis kicked in and it just, you know, I couldn't pull the trigger on anything. And then after taking a second training with Scott, I finally decided, okay, time to pull a trigger. So I pulled the trigger on a few assets that I did and then after working those out for a few months in kind of really get my feet wet and it truly is this business, um, you know.
NOTE INVESTING
I use the term like a hitting a golf ball, you can watch a thousand videos of how to hit a golf ball until you, until you step up there and swing the club and hit it. It's a completely different feeling. It's like note investing, I mean, or it's like rehabbing a house. The same thing, you know, you can read a book, but how helpful is reading a book and rehabbing a house because there's so many things that can go wrong.
Speaker 2: So after that, you know, I've bought a few, started working those out, then a few more after that and really started to get comfortable and really went from being kind of just a single investor to scaling a business. And once I started doing some marketing and some other things and get comfortable, that's when I started reaching out to um, you know, working with some local people, doing some webinars and having some investors come in the door and stuff like that.
NOTE INVESTING
And you know, over the last year, um, you know, I've pulled in a little over 60 notes. So, um, that acquired. And so it's a good amount. About five per month is what I try and target and again, because also working full time as well, it's got that challenge and that's also kind of the other reason of being in this businesses. Literally from 10 to nine to 11:00 at night.
Speaker 2: I can go through that tape of notes. I can send emails to my attorneys, you don't have, you know, I can have somebody on craigslist go drive by a property. It's not something that I have to physically be at or be somewhere to do. It's completely remote and online is where it can do everything. Yeah, I really liked that and I like how you framed that. Well, you know, the industry now or whatever kids are these days are calling that your side hustle.
NOTE INVESTING
Um, I think having something that you could do mornings or evenings and still be very good at your day job, if you will, is awesome. Right When you're flipping or you're wholesaling or any of those things in mass, you know, if you're doing five flips or five wholesale deals a month, it's a full time job, right It's going to cut into your, your daytime because you got to deal with people when they're awake.
Speaker 2: But when you're doing notes, notes are people, right They don't have pulses or you can do that work at 11:00 at night, at 2:00 AM just doesn't matter. So I love how you sort of worked that out and you found something that fits your need, meaning time you can set up your process and procedures and grow with this thing.
NOTE INVESTING
So I think that's a genius move and it's also slower business in the sense of like when you're doing rehab, they'll know you'll get a call from the electrician, what do you want to do You need to answer them now because there's 10 guys being held up on that. In note investing, there's the reach out and you know, it's, you know, people, if they're behind on payments, you know, how often are they answering their phone and how, you know, it's not a process. It's like watching grass grow.
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's not something where you expect a daily response. It's more of a weekly to monthly type of process of trying to gain some momentum. Not a daily, like on a rehab. Got It. I think that's a great point. So there, there are many people out there that don't have the time want to get their money working for them now. Now with the stock market doing what it's doing, probably pulled stuff out.
NOTE INVESTING
So this is just another avenue. I'm really happy to have you on this, on this interview. So do me a favor, let's paint the. So you sort of told us where you are, where you started, where do you see this go And you're doing $5 a month now. Where do you see this going in three to five years Still doing $5 a month or do you have bigger visions than that
Speaker 2: Uh, definitely on bigger visions, but I also love my full time job and enjoy that. So I have no aspirations at this time of leaving my full time job. Recently I have partnered with another note investor who does do this full time and in three to five years some of our goals are to, uh, expand it to start a fund, a five slash six accredited fund. So that allows us also to kind of move that step up the ladder, like I talked about earlier, where it started from Fannie Mae down, try and get moved.
NOTE INVESTING
One step there you go. As you move up, it's like anything you moving up the price chain so you can get things at a little better discount as well. That makes sense. And also really part of it is now expanding my brand over the next three to five years and we just started a podcast and doing some marketing and really just sharing our stories and looking to be a mentor to other investors who are getting started.
Speaker 2: I come from a family where my father was a teacher a and spent his whole career in a school system. So having that ingrained in me, it's something that I enjoy to also mentor others. I'm not looking to start training programs or anything like that, but I like to take people under my wing and uh, basically kind of show them what I have learned to try and make them successful as well.
NOTE INVESTING
Yeah, I've checked out your site, looked at a couple of podcasts before this interview and I really, I could see that in you, right It was kind of natural at this guy. This guy's going to be a mentor trainer, got some teacher and I'm for sure. So, um, why don't we to wrap this up in the next section is for you, you share whatever you want to talk about your podcast, talk about your website, you know, how people can get ahold of you if they want to ask more questions, go for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, uh, we, I am excited because we literally just launched our podcast. It's called the good deeds note, investing podcasts and kind of has played in double the pine because there's also a type of mortgage but also really about doing good deeds because like we talked about, you know, briefly beforehand, most people think of I'll say mortgage lenders as the big banks who if you're behind it's impossible to get in touch with and you know, basically you have to make all those payments back up. And you know, if you tried to do a short sale, it's like a 12 to 18 month process.
NOTE INVESTING
It's, there's so much red tape and is, it funnels its way down to the investors and you know when you can pick up things at a discount, it gives you so much more flexibility. And we wanted to just share our stories on the podcast of how we're helping homeowners and keeping them in their homes because that's our goal.
Speaker 2: Because that example we talked about earlier, where over that two year process, if you had to turn around and foreclose on that deal a year, probably just step back for a second. That 100,000, you're in it for 50, it probably spent 10,000 in legal fees, um, are numbers, but you're in it for 60.
NOTE INVESTING
Then the house probably when you go to sell it as an reo property would sell for maybe $90,000. Plus you get realtor fees, the taxes and all the carrying costs and stuff, you know, your, your, your margins get so much slimmer. So very beneficial. Um, from a economical standpoint and a social impact standpoint of totally. I'm trying to keep the people in the house and we try and start to use a term like being an impact investor because investing a lot in the midwest to where some of the house pricing is lesser expensive.
Speaker 2: And working with those people, um, is a narrowly focused on as well. And, uh, you know, for people who want to reach out to me, my website is seven. Eat investments.com. It's actually the number seven, the letter e in the word investments.com. You can email me Chris@7einvestments.com. Like I said in our podcast is live right now. You can check it out on itunes, stitcher, Google play, and that's a good deeds note investing podcasts. And we have a website for that that we just got up and running as well.
NOTE INVESTING
Very cool. Chris, I think you're going to do great things and I don't know if you watched my stuff. I actually think we're going to. The market's rolling over, uh, you know, you saw the yield curve go negative. So I ended up putting it in your car, you know, your procedures and processes.
Now it's great timing because I could see probably this time next year where that tape you're getting is longer and probably having a fun going one run up would be, would be a good thing. So I want to, I just want to say I appreciate your, you've brought something new to myself and into the my youtube channel, so I really, really appreciate your time today, Chris. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me on. It's been a great opportunity and look forward to watching more of what you got. You got it. Thanks buddy. Hold on. Thank you.