Real Estate Underground

New Investor Roadblocks? Smash Them with Private Lending - Jay Conner Reveals How

• Clark St Capital • Season 3 • Episode 117

Share episode

Send us a text

Welcome to The Real Estate Underground Show #117!

In this episode, we're joined by the one and only Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority. Buckle up for a transformative journey as Jay cracks the code on real estate success, equipping you with the knowledge and strategies to thrive in this dynamic market.

Here's what you'll gain from this episode:

  • Private Lending Strategies: Learn how to identify and connect with private lenders, structure loan agreements, and leverage this approach to fuel your real estate investments.
  • Creative Financing Blueprint: Discover a step-by-step approach to creative financing, including meticulous planning and effective marketing strategies that lead to successful deals, particularly for flipping houses.
  • The Art of Negotiation: Negotiation is a key skill in real estate. Jay unpacks his tactics for engaging with sellers, emphasizing the importance of active listening and understanding a seller's perspective to secure the best deals.
  • Building Relationships with Sellers: Go beyond the initial asking price. Jay discusses the importance of building rapport with sellers and uncovering their true motivations. This can lead to win-win situations for both parties.
  • Seller Insights through a Robust CRM: Explore how utilizing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help you ask the right questions, understand seller motivations, and identify profitable opportunities.

Resources:

New outro for Season 4 (2024)

Additional Resources:

Ed Mathews:

So the big question is this how do real estate investors who don't have a ton of free time, don't have access to off-market deals and didn't start life on third base, how do we conservatively grow our real estate business to support our families, finally leave the corporate rat race and build a legacy? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Ed Matthews and this is Real Estate Underground. Greetings and salutations, real Estate Undergrounders. It is Ed Matthews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today, like always these days, we've been on a roll with our amazing guests, but today is a special one indeed, and that is someone that I have known for probably about a couple of years now. I discovered him a while ago, actually four or five years ago. But, jay Conner, welcome to the show the Private Money Authority. I am so excited to have this conversation with you and it's good to see you, my friend.

Jay Conner:

Ed, thank you so much for inviting me along to visit with you and talk about that subject that I'm most passionate about, that being private money, and that's because private money has had more of an impact and difference on our real estate investing business than anything else we have done in all these years since 2003.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, indeed, and the thing is is that whenever I meet a new investor or someone who's kind of just getting rolling, they stop me. There's folks who stop me in the grocery store, right. It's like, hey, I saw you on Facebook or I heard your podcast or something, and gosh, I wish I could do what you do for a living. And I ask the same question every time. It's like well, what's stopping you? Right, and invariably it's one of three things. It's oh, I don't have the time.

Ed Mathews:

I work 60 hours a week, I've got a family, I've got this, I've got that All valid, but time right? Second one is always I don't know where to find the deals. And the third is your wheelhouse, sir. And that is, I don't know where to find the money. And so my answer typically is well, I'm a cheap date, feel free, I'll meet you for a cup of coffee. I'll even buy the coffee if you want, and I'll, you know, ask me any questions you like and I'll tell you everything I know about the subject you want to talk about. So I am grateful for the opportunity to do the same thing with you, jay, and I can't wait to get into this. So welcome.

Jay Conner:

Absolutely, I'm excited to be here. We've been raising private money ever since 2009, when I lost my lines of credit at the bank, and I can share what to do and what not to do.

Ed Mathews:

So for those folks who don't follow your podcast which, if you don't, you're out of your mind it's an excellent podcast Private Money with Jay Conner. Why don't you just give us a little bit on who you are, what your background is, and then we'll get into this?

Jay Conner:

Sure, my wife Carol Joy and I. We live here in eastern North Carolina. We're in a really, really small town, moorhead City, north Carolina. Population, 8,000 people. Our total target market to where we invest in real estate is only 40,000 people. So we started back in 2003,. And I mean we're not a high volume. We do two to three houses a month. But as of right now, averaging in the last 12 months, our average profit per deal is $82,000 per deal, per house, per transaction.

Jay Conner:

And I don't say that, ed, at all to brag, I say that to make a point. And the point is, if you know how to find the deals and you got the funding for the deals, you can make significant income in a very, very small area. And there's an argument really to be made as to how investing in smaller areas is advantageous over big areas, because I don't have that much competition around here where I am and you can really, you know, dominate the market. And so we went prior to single family houses and we've done commercial deals as well. I mean we've done shopping centers from the ground up, we've done condominiums, but my focus is single family houses.

Jay Conner:

And so we started way back in 2003 here in this small market and from 2003 to 2009, I just relied on the local banks to fund my deals. That's all I knew to do. In fact, I had never heard of hard money lenders. I'd never heard of buying creatively and subject to the existing note and all that stuff. I just thought you just had to go to the local bank. So in January 2009, after being in the business for six years, all that came to a screeching halt. As far as going to the local bank, I called up my banker. By the way, ed, you may find it funny to know that we actually still have handsets and cords attached to them here in North Carolina that are attached to an actual landline telephone.

Ed Mathews:

But anyway, I called up my banker. If I showed my kids that phone, they wouldn't even know what to do with it. They wouldn't know what it is. Wouldn't even know what it is.

Jay Conner:

But I called up my banker, steve, in January 2009. And Steve and I had done a lot of business for that first six years. And I called him up, ed, and told him about these two deals I had under contract to purchase. They represented over $100,000 in profit. And I learned on that phone call just like that that I had been shut down at the bank, my line of credit closed. They hadn't even told me about it.

Jay Conner:

My first thought was I sure wish I had known that before I put earnest money down on those houses. And so I hung up the phone, ed, and here's the first writer downer for your audience. Whenever you got a problem, here's what I recommend you ask yourself. And, by the way, these people running around saying, oh, every problem is an opportunity I want to throw up. I didn't have an opportunity, I had a problem, right, so who's going to help me with my problem? So I sat here for a moment and here's the magic question I asked myself Jay, who do you know that can help you with your problem? And when I asked myself that question, I immediately thought of Jeff Blankenship, who lived in Greensboro at the time. Really good friend of mine, and Carol Joyce know each other through church and singing events. And I called him up and I told him what had happened. He said well, welcome to the club. I said what club is that? He said the club of getting your line of credit shut down? My bank shut me down last week. I said the club of getting your line of credit shut down? My bank shut me down last week. I said well, jeff, how are you going to fund your deals? He said, well, have you ever heard of private money? I said no. He said you ever heard of self-directed IRAs and how people can use their retirement funds to loan money out to you, tax deferred or tax free? I said no. So I hung up from Jeff and I went to studying about private money and self-directed IRAs.

Jay Conner:

And, ed, I put my program together as to how I was going to teach people here in our own local area people I go to church with at the Rotary Club that I hang out with how they can earn high-rich returns safely and securely. And you know what's interesting, ed, since I started, I raised over a couple million dollars in the first nine days. I've never asked anybody for money. And they said Jay, how do you have all that private money and you never ask anybody for money. And here's the secret, right here I put on my teacher hat which says private money teacher, and so I started teaching people the kind of interest rates I would pay, how they're protected, how they can get their money back in case of an emergency, without pitching any kind of a deal, just the program.

Jay Conner:

And then once they told me how much they had to invest, or if they had retirement funds and I would introduce them to myself, to a rented IRA company that I recommend for people using retirement funds, then here's the second way I get all my deals funded without asking, and that is I call them up with what I call the good news phone call. What's the good news phone call? I call them up and let's say Ed, you're one of my new private mentors and you've told me you got $150,000 you want to put to work. So I call you up Ed. I say, ed, I got great news, I can now put your money to work. I got a house in Newport with an after repaired value of $200,000.

Jay Conner:

The funding required for the deal is $150,000. And closing is next Friday. You'll need to have your funds wired to my closing attorney by next Thursday I'm going to have my attorney email you the instructions. End of conversation. Notice, I did not ask you. Do you want to fund the deal? Of course you want to fund the deal. You've been waiting for the phone call, and even more than that. If you have moved your retirement funds over to a self-directed IRA company, you're really waiting for the phone call for me to put your money to work, because you're not earning any money on that money while it's just sitting there in the account. So it's all about getting your mindset straight first. I tell people all the time it's going to be very hard to own real estate until you own the real estate between your ears. So it's all about serving, teaching, educating and none of this chasing, begging, selling or trying to persuade anybody into anything.

Ed Mathews:

Right, begging, selling or trying to persuade anybody into anything, Right. The thing that I find and it was a dramatic change in my own mindset was I don't ask for money, right, I provide an opportunity and you either want it or you don't, and if you don't, that's fine. I've got a bunch of other people that do, and I tell my team if you're on the phone with a potential seller or an investor and you have any sort of inkling that you're trying to convince them, stop, take a deep breath, thank them for their time and hang up the phone. We are not in the convincing business.

Jay Conner:

Well, and you're exactly right, Ed, because there's a whole lot more money out there available that people don't know what to do with. I mean, they're depressed over not knowing where to put their money. There's more money available than there are deals. To tell you the truth, in fact, right before we started this show on here with you, I just went through my list of private lenders and the amount of private money that they've got available. Well, I got a problem. It's a good problem, but I got a problem. I've got almost $1.5 million in liquidity from my private lenders just sitting there waiting for me to put back to work.

Jay Conner:

I got a call from one of my private lenders yesterday and she called me up and she says Jay, I just got a $200,000 payoff check in the mail. She knew it was coming. We inform our private lenders of what's going on. But she said just got this 200 000 check in the mail from uh selling that house at 4 500 highway 24. How soon are you going to be able to put this back to work? So you better be ready to answer that question, of course. I told her. I said I should be able to put it back to work for you within 30 days or so, no problem. She says okay. Well, I'm going to sit here on the money. You call me soon. So you see how the private lender is chasing us and we're not chasing them.

Ed Mathews:

Right. Again, it comes down to providing an opportunity to help them grow their own retirement funds. Right, exactly. And the thing is is that I meet people all the time that all they want is to get off that stock market rollercoaster.

Jay Conner:

Particularly in this market. Oh, my lands. One of my favorite questions to ask. Someone like to start a conversation about private money. I'll say, by the way, are you investing in anything these days? If they say the stock market, I ask a question and I know what the answer is. I'll say, well, it doesn't matter what they're investing in. I got the same question. I'll say well, how's that working out for you in this market right now? I know how it's working out for them. It's like and that's what they love about the private lending program that we offer and teach, and that is, they know exactly what their rate of return is going to be. They're going it's just like putting the money in a CD at the bank and you know exactly what that's going to print back to you.

Ed Mathews:

Right, and without asking specifics about your deals. Right, because we shouldn't do that. But I'm curious with regard to private money what's the range of returns that folks can see out there?

Jay Conner:

8% to 10%. So no origination fees. And you know it's interesting, ed, I've been paying my private lenders the same exact thing 8% in first position, 10% for junior lien positions. I've been paying them the same things as 2009. They said, jay, that don't make any sense because interest rates have gone up and down and all over the place since 2009. For example, prior to COVID, the average 12-month certificate of deposit yield got all the way down to 0.17%. Well, you can go down to the bank right now and get 5%, maybe 5.5%, on a seven or eight-month CD. They said, jay, why are you paying still the same rates? Here's the answer and here's a big clue because we make the rules. We make the rules. The lender doesn't make the rules.

Jay Conner:

When you're borrowing institutional money or you're borrowing money from a bank or hard money lender, they make the rules, they set the interest rate. So in this world, we make the rules. We put on our teacher hat and this is the program. And they say well, jay, you were paying 8% when it was 0.17. And they say, how can you still be paying 8% and then get five or five and a half down to the bank? I said, it's real simple 8% is still a whole lot more than five or five and a half yes, it is or 10. And plus it's backed by real estate. We're not borrowing unsecured.

Ed Mathews:

Right, and I mean even. All you have to do is go in and use the law of 72 to figure out how fast you can double that money at 5% versus 8%, and you realize very quickly that it's a lot more money Absolutely, and time is your friend when it comes to compounding interest, or interest Absolutely. So in terms of the properties that you buy, so, single family, you are flipping them or you're holding them. I think you hold right.

Jay Conner:

So I'm flipping most of them in this market because the appreciation is still just going crazy here in our area. However, I'll buy houses on terms subject to the existing note. So here's my rule of thumb when I pay all cash with private money, then I cash out. So I'm not wanting a bunch of money left buried in there. But if I buy on terms directly from the owner of that property, subject to the existing owner financing, then I'll turn around and sell it on terms if there's not any major rehab involved. My definition of major rehab is if I got to put more than $10,000 in repairs in it, then I'm probably going to want to flip it in this market, I mean in our market. Here, ed, there's no inventory. We just put a house on the market this past let's see tomorrow would be three weeks ago and we're cashing out on it today. As a matter of fact, went on the market on Friday and by Sunday we had 22 showings.

Ed Mathews:

Wow so very similar to this market up here in the Northeast. I'm in Connecticut, so same.

Jay Conner:

Oh, right, right, and, by the way, this has got nothing to do with private money. But here's a big tip If you're wanting to sell a house and put it in the multiple listing service, particularly if you've renovated it and it's absolutely beautiful, let me give you two quick tips on how to sell them fast. First of all, we get a professional videographer to do drone footage and professional photos and we make a music video out of it. So it's a tour through the house, through the property, with music playing. Now here's the big secret. That link goes in the multiple listing service with my realtor on Monday, on Monday of that week that we're going. It's in what's called coming soon, coming soon status, which means they can watch the video, they can look at the pictures, they can see the price, but they can't get in the house because it's coming soon.

Jay Conner:

Then we go active in the multiple listing service on Friday morning at 8 AM, and so we've already got appointments lined up. My realtor's already got appointments lined up. My realtor's already got appointments lined up. I want people to be parked out there on the shoulder in the driveway waiting for the people that are looking at the house to get out of the house so they can come in for those appointments. So those 22 families that looked at that house three weeks ago, they were lined up on the street waiting to get in. So you see what we're doing Urgency, we're building demand, we're creating scarcity and, as you said, we're creating a frenzy. So when they go to make their offer, they know there's other people making offers.

Ed Mathews:

Right, fantastic, yeah, it's brilliant. And that's the power of, first off, a really good realtor. And also, instead of doing open houses, stacking up appointments back to back, to back to back, there's nothing like a line of cars to pique somebody's interest like, ooh, what am I missing here? Right, exactly.

Jay Conner:

Yeah.

Ed Mathews:

Fantastic, all right. So when you are looking for properties, given the, I'm just curious about the single family business in your part of the world. When you are looking for deals, what are the two or three ways that you're finding your single family home deals?

Jay Conner:

Yeah, so almost half of our deals now are foreclosures and Carol Joy and I we started putting together our foreclosure system all the way back in 2004. So we track every open file in our county and target market, from the time the file is opened all the way up into the sale. So the magic window is to buy these properties directly from the owners and we put money in their pocket, help them get back on their feet, right. So our foreclosure system in addition to that I call it. So here's a couple of free methods on getting leads. People love free, right? So once a week here's what I recommend you do Go on your personal page, not your business page, but go on your personal page on Facebook and here's exactly what you want to type in. You know, put a colored background because you're just going to put text on it. And here's exactly what I want you to say colored background because you're just going to put text on it. And here's exactly what I want you to say. You say I am looking to buy two houses in whatever month you're in April, may, june, july, november I'm looking to buy two houses in April, say, for example, in Newport, moorhead, beaufort and Havelock areas. So you just put your area, whatever your area is, and then I put any condition, okay, all cash. Exclamation mark closing two weeks. And then the call to action is the language that Facebook people understand. The call to action is DM me, which stands for direct message. Dm me, don't put your phone number. No need to put your phone number Now. You look like you're chasing right. They're not going to call it anyway. They're going to direct message you. So there it is. I'm looking to buy two houses in April in the following areas. Put the areas down, any condition, okay, all cash. Close in two weeks. Dm me, that's free.

Jay Conner:

Now, I don't buy that many houses off of that post. I might only get one house in 90 days, but that's a house I wouldn't have had if I hadn't been doing that. So that's free. Let me give you another free one, and I love doing this. I love doing this.

Jay Conner:

So I'm in a small area so I don't get to see it very often, but once in a while there'll be a bandit sign that shows up on the highway or the street that says I buy houses, and you all, of course, know what those look like. So that's not my competition, that's my free lead collaborator. They just don't know it yet. So I call them up and of course you're going to get an answering machine. I call them up and I introduce myself and say, hey, this is Jay Connor.

Jay Conner:

I've been investing here in this area ever since 2003, and I need your help. I have a problem. I've got a lot of cash burning a hole in my pocket to buy houses with, and when you get a house under contract and you want to assign that contract, they're all wholesalers. I mean, they just went to some seminar in Greenville, north Carolina, and all they know to do is put out bandit signs. So when you get a deal on the contract and you want me to cash you out, I can cash you out and buy it and pay you an assignment fee in only seven days to two weeks, and so I'll get free leads like that. And of course I'm not paying any marketing costs until I pay the assignment fee.

Jay Conner:

That's another free one for you right there. Here's another one I absolutely love. Ed, you might not have heard of this one Maybe you have but garage sales, yard sales, moving sales. So look in your newspaper. If you still have one in your area, look in your newspaper under yard sales. But even better than that, go to Facebook Marketplace and look for yard sale groups. Look for yard sale groups. You'll see where all the yard sales, moving sales, garage sales are coming up. Well, get in contact with the owner of that property before Saturday morning, because, guess what? A lot of people that are getting ready to move are having a garage sale because they got to get rid of all that junk before they move. Right, so you can get up with them before it even gets listed with a realtor or anything like that.

Jay Conner:

So now let's spend a little money, all right. So Facebook ads. So I spend $30 a day on two campaigns, so that's actually $60 a day I invest. I've got what's called a generic Facebook ad campaign. Then I've got a distressed property, both of them.

Jay Conner:

The ad itself on Facebook is a picture of me just holding a yellow bandit sign here in Moorhead City on a street in an average neighborhood saying I buy houses, any condition, all areas, and my phone number. That goes to one of my answering services. So that's just a picture of me. Now it takes me 15 leads to buy a house. So you'll get more leads with Facebook ads than you will say with Google pay per lead, but they don't cost as much.

Jay Conner:

So now let's move on to the other one that I get consistent leads on, and that is my Google pay per lead. No, not Google pay per click. Here's the difference Google pay per click you've got your own ad account with Google and you're bidding for your ad to get clicks, and so you're paying per click whether you get a lead or not. A Google pay per lead service that's a agency that's spending their money to run Google ads, and now you're only paying them money when you actually get a lead.

Jay Conner:

Now, what I love about Google paper leads is those people are looking for you In a Facebook ad. It's just coming up in your newsfeed. They weren't looking for you. They're just scrolling through their Facebook and they see your ad. But on these Google leads, that owner of that property has gone into Google and they have typed in something to the effect of buy my house fast, sell my house fast, something along those lines. So when you get that lead, that's a much more qualified lead because they have gone searching for you and I only need, as I say, five to seven of those leads to buy a house.

Ed Mathews:

Wow, Whole bunch of gold nuggets there. I hope you were taking notes because I certainly was. So. As far as when you go to meet with a potential seller, what's the approach? Obviously, first filter is kind of actually, I don't want to make any assumptions. What's your approach? How do you handle the potential seller?

Jay Conner:

Right. So I love it when people are raising their hand saying hey, I want to talk to you Right Now. I also have a full time outbound cold caller. That cold calls 40 hours a week. You got to make a bunch of phone calls to buy any of those houses, but in the last 12 months I bought four houses that I would not have had unless I had the cold caller. All the rest of my marketing people are raising their hands saying I want to talk to you.

Jay Conner:

So one of the first things we do, of course, is over the telephone. We're going to establish rapport and we're going to get information on what we call our property lead sheet, so we get the information about the property, et cetera. But one of the first questions that we ask the seller and this is one of my favorite questions because it's so open-ended the question is, I'll say, is one of my favorite questions called it's so open-ended. The question is I'll say well, tell me about your situation. You see that they're they're calling us in most cases right, responding to our advertising or direct mail and we'll say tell, tell me, tell me about your situation. Now, the reason that's such a good question is because ever how the seller answers that question is typically what is their hotspot or what is their main motivator? So if I say, tell me about your situation, they might be talking about their personal situation of someone passed away they inherited the property, or somebody's sick, or somebody's lost their job. Now they're talking personal stuff. Well, that answer to that question is what we want to circle back around to in conversations throughout the relationship as to how the service we're providing is going to help soften that difficulty that they're having. Now, if I say, tell me about your situation, if they start talking about the property, then I know immediately they don't have the money or don't want to spend the money to fix up the property. So if they talk about the property, that's their hotspot. If they're talking about a personal situation in their life, that's their hotspot. So that's how we begin the conversation.

Jay Conner:

Now, since we buy a lot of property, subject to the existing note, when we get to the mortgage information we don't ask well, do you have a mortgage on the property that you owe money on? That's a yes or no answer and they're immediately thinking well, why do you need to know that? So the way we get the mortgage information is just we don't start out with that. We get them to tell us about the property. We've probably been talking on the phone for 15 minutes before we actually get around to the mortgage information. So when we get to that, we'll say something to the effect of well, I assume you still have a mortgage on the property, how much do you owe? Boom, it's just like part of the conversation, right? And so we typically get the mortgage information where we can see if we can possibly buy the property subject to the existing note. So we've got the same acquisitionist Kim is her name. She's been with us for 19 years, so she's been talking to sellers for years and years and years. So in talking with the seller she'll get their asking price.

Jay Conner:

And so something that's very, very important in the success of our business is the CRM that we use customer relationship management software, and so all of our communication goes in that software. I tell you, ed, there's no telling how many hundreds of thousands of dollars I have lost, maybe in excess of a million, when, years ago, I tried to run this business on sticky notes and yellow pads, keeping up with seller leads. Well, my lands. We just closed on a house that we're almost finished with the renovation right now. We started talking to that seller a year ago and just closed on it like six weeks ago, and so it's so important for all of your leads to go into software that's keeping up with all the information and all the conversations.

Jay Conner:

So my acquisition is Kim. I'll be notified in the software that, hey, I've got a deal to review. So I'll look at the numbers. At that point in time I'll decide if I want to get our realtor's opinion. I'll have some sort of idea, but our realtor will give us the after repaired value, typically within 24 hours. At that point we decide whether it makes sense to go out and look at the property and see what kind of repairs are needed, or estimate repairs et cetera, and then at that point in time we'll make an offer. By the way, don't ever pay any attention to what the seller is asking. Here's why I've learned over the years a seller has got really no idea for sure what they will accept until you make the offer. I mean even when they say I won't take a penny less than X my lands. I have bought countless properties for tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars less than when the seller said I won't take a penny less than X. Well, here's the bottom line advice. If you want the property, make the offer.

Ed Mathews:

Right, and the thing is that the worst thing they're going to say is no.

Jay Conner:

And look, how can you lose what you don't have?

Ed Mathews:

Correct and you're going to go home. And if they say no and it's a real no, you're going to go home. Your kids are still going to think you're eight feet tall, your wife's still going to love you, your friends are still going to love you. You know your dog probably still love you and everything will be. It'll be okay.

Ed Mathews:

Right, but here's the thing the, you know the, the way that we approach it is similar in that when we start to talk about, you know what do you need to get? Or, or you know making our offer, we make two offers. You know one if we are buying it cash and one if we are assuming the mortgage. And you know typically they're. They can be different, right, in terms of of the number and, but here's the thing I'm I'm always looking for, you know, like you were saying, the hotspot. What is their hotspot? Are they trying to close a project or close the sale in two weeks because they really need the money?

Ed Mathews:

Okay, well then I'm a potential solution. So are you, jay? If they are looking to max out top dollar and they aren't looking to, they don't care about speed, they care about the top line number then I'll refer to a realtor that I trust, because I'm not a good fit. My solutions are focused on speed and paying you as much as I possibly can, fair, but not necessarily top dollar, because there's got to be space in there for us to do what we need to do. More importantly, we don't know what we don't know. You get into the mechanicals and the roof and all that, and every property has a curve ball and you've got to be able to plan for it.

Jay Conner:

Yeah, I say Murphy lives in every house. Sometimes Murphy's cousins, sometimes Murphy's aunts and uncles show up. If you're listening and you don't know what I'm talking about, you know Murphy is. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong.

Ed Mathews:

Well, hey, look after rehabbing over 500 houses, I've yet to have one come in on budget ever or time, right Never never, never, never.

Jay Conner:

That's why the secret sauce is in the offer, cause we, we, we put in what I call Murphy factor money, murphy factor money. So even when my formula that I use as to what I'm going to pay maximum all cash I'm going to subtract another 10 or $20,000, depending on how big the rehab is or how much money the rehab is costing just for the Murphy factor, because I promise you, the unexpected is going to show up.

Ed Mathews:

Right, without a doubt, I wait for the first two to three weeks. Invariably, I get a phone call from my contractor and say hey, we got a problem. Can you come on down Every property? I haven't done as many as you, but I've done probably a hundred and I don't remember one that didn't happen. That's right, all right, well, jay. Hey, this has been a lot of fun. I'm going to move on to the final four, and I could talk to you for days about this stuff, and I have a feeling you're a willing participant, so let's talk about the final four. So finish this sentence for me.

Jay Conner:

My purpose is Well, I've come to a point in my life to where my purpose is to make a difference or make an impact, and that's why I've written a book on private money. That's why I teach private money. I mean we make a lot of impact and difference on people, on the houses that we renovate and sell and you know a lot of families are impacted with that. However, when I'm teaching and I'm here on Zoom, and you know I'm on the podcast, et cetera, at our live events, I'm able to impact so many more people, other real estate investors, just by sharing. You know what I've learned to do and what I've learned not to do.

Ed Mathews:

And it's amazing and I did want to bring up the book, so thank you for doing that. It's amazing what you can learn. I can't remember who said it, but basically when you buy someone's book, when you buy Jay's book, you're basically living with him or her 10 years of their life and the lessons they've learned and the successes they've had and the mistakes they've made and how they've recovered and all the things that they had to battle through in order to get to where they are in their station of life now handing it to you for 20 bucks and it's an amazing exchange of value. But, jay, you actually mentioned something before we started recording that you have something special for our audience today.

Jay Conner:

I do so. My book that I recently wrote is titled when to Get the Money Now, and the subtitle is how and when to Get Money for your Real Estate Deals Without Relying on Traditional or Hard Money Lenders. So in this book by the way, it's not an ebook, you can't download it we actually mail it to you priority mail, three-day shipping, and on Amazon it's 20 bucks, but here, since you're listening to Ed's show, you can get it for free. Just cover shipping and handling and I'll autograph it for you. I'll ship it to you. It's got the whole program lined out as to what we teach our private lenders and how they can get high rates of return safely and securely. Here'snorcom forward slash book and we'll rush it right out to you. Jayconnorcom forward slash book.

Ed Mathews:

That's wonderful and incredibly generous, and I have ordered mine already, so I'm looking forward to reading it. I can't believe I missed it, but so I can't wait. So hopefully mine will arrive in the next day or two as well. So, jay, let's keep going on the final four. So I'm curious. You've done a lot. You've met a lot of people. I assume you've had your own coaches and mentors. You mentioned Mr Blankenship earlier. What's the best advice you ever gotten? Who gave it to you? What's?

Jay Conner:

the best advice you ever gotten. Who gave it to you? Best advice I ever got? Wow, I've gotten a lot of good advice, but the best advice I got and I took them up on it and that was do not, whether you're brand new or whether you're a seasoned real estate investor, do not be out on an Island by yourself. Continue to surround yourself with like-minded people. You know, napoleon Hill came up with it in his book Think and Grow Rich, and that's the mastermind. So hang around, be intentional. Be intentional. Be in a group with other people that are moving towards the same goals that you are. Carol Joy, my wife and I we're in two different masterminds right now. Carol Joey, my wife and I we're in two different masterminds right now and I can tell you the relationships are phenomenal, but what I have learned and what I've had the opportunity to give back and to serve in those mastermind groups is just priceless. Don't do this by yourself.

Ed Mathews:

This is a team sport and you know, as I've said and Jay just said so, jay has his own mentoring program as well as coaching curriculum, and I'm a cheap date. So if you ever have a question, hit one of us up on social media and I'm sure we can probably help. So, jay, I'm always curious. You know leaders like yourself tend to be readers as well, and so I'm curious about the book, whether it's a physical book or however else. You consume information. You know what's the book on your nightstand and who are you paying attention to these days?

Jay Conner:

There you go. Well, let me answer that two different ways, because I do want to share the book that changed my mindset and changed my life when I was in my 20s, and the name of that. I was in a very, very bad place, a very, very dark place. The name of that book is University of Success. It's still in print. It's by Ogmandino. It'll get your head right. You got to get your head right first, university of Success. The book that I am rereading, one of my favorites, is titled the Go-Giver. I'm sure you've heard of that book, ed.

Ed Mathews:

I'm reading it right now.

Jay Conner:

And, in fact, the co-author, bob Berg. I've had on my podcast as a guest and he is phenomenal, but I love the Go-Giver. It's a short read, short book, fantastic.

Ed Mathews:

Fantastic, that's great. All right, sir, last of the final four. Finish this sentence for me.

Jay Conner:

Success means. Success means being a 3D person. What in the world is a 3D person? A 3D person is someone that I learned about from watching my dad, and he actually said it. So a 3D person is someone that dictates, delegates and disappears. Dictate, delegate, disappear.

Jay Conner:

So why is that successful? Well, you can't do everything in this business yourself, running around with your hair on fire. And who wants to get into real estate investing or be a real estate investor? And you just bought yourself another job, right? And so if you're going to do the things that you want to do, when you want to do it, with whom you want to do it and for how long you want to do it, then you got to be focusing on just doing what you love to do and dictate, delegate out the rest and outsource it.

Jay Conner:

And you know when I started getting out of my own way and just focusing on these skills and well, or the, the, the task that I enjoy doing, which, by the way, is the marketing. It's still my job and I enjoy to keep the marketing machine turned on that we talked about earlier, having all those seller leads coming in, and then the rest of the team takes care of the business. As a result, I'm actually working in the business less than 10 hours per week. So success is you running it and not letting it run you.

Ed Mathews:

Absolutely, because if you are, you just bought yourself a job, and that's not what entrepreneurship is all about, right? So, jay, when you're not talking about real estate and saving the world from a lack of funding for real estate deals, what else do you like to do? How do you spend your time?

Jay Conner:

Writing music playing piano in our living room Carol Joy and I, in fact, we're working on three songs right now that we're writing. We write music and songs for the church. We do secular songs as well, and so music is a big part of mine and Carol Joy's life. In fact, back during COVID, when COVID first came along, we went live on Facebook live streaming every Monday night at 7.30 and we played Name that Tune and Christmas that year we had 1800 people show up on Facebook live stream to play Name that Tune. All organically, we have a lot of fun.

Ed Mathews:

That's a lot of fun. So I'm sorry I missed you on COVID, but hopefully there are videos of it somewhere.

Jay Conner:

Oh, there are. There's a lot of them on my Facebook page.

Ed Mathews:

There you go, all right. Well, jay, I know you dropped your website earlier, but if people want to get in touch and learn more about you or your programs or your books or anything else you're doing, what's the best way to get ahold of you?

Jay Conner:

Sure. So the main website, jconnercom, contact, information resources et cetera, j-a-y-c-o-n-n-e-rcom. You can contact us there and again, you can pick up the book at jconnercom forward slash book.

Ed Mathews:

Well, jay Connor, the private money authority. Thank you, sir. It's good to see you and I am so glad you came into my life because I've learned a ton from you and just in this 32 minutes we've been talking, I learned even more. I filled two pages of notebook pages just sitting here, and you and I have talked a bunch of times before. So every day, every time we talk, it's something new and I appreciate it and I appreciate you, thank you.

Jay Conner:

Ed, thank you so much for having me come along. God bless you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Ed Mathews - Clark St Capital

Host