Jonathan Green: Break into real estate with special guest Chris Prefontaine on today's episode of the ServeNoMaster podcast.
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Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now then you've come to the right place. Welcome to ServeNoMaster podcast where you'll learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by bestselling author, Jonathan Green. Now here's your host.
Jonathan Green: Everyone welcome to amazing episode ServiceNoMaster podcast. We have an amazing guest, Real estate expert, Chris Prefontain. Thank you so much for being here. In 2008, a lot of people were jumping out of real estate, but that's when you kind of doubled down, what did you see as the big opportunity?
Chris Prefontaine: Well, okay. Couple of things. One is I, I sort of, my life had been Real estate for about whatever it was at that point 18 years was so it wasn't really do I stay in the business, although there was doubt there, the opportunity was the market was at sort of an all time low at that time and in hindsight, it certainly was everybody in their brother and sister told me, what are you doing? You're crazy to go back into real estate, especially after what you went through, because I got crushed and coming out of the oh eight crash. That was an opportunity, uh, that, that was like 2012 for me, believe it or not, not eight because it took me four years to wind out of all the crap I went through. And so the opportunity was when everybody's running the opposite direction on purpose, running the opposite direction of them. For sure, for sure.
Jonathan Green: So we're seeing a really tough time in real estate right now, where house prices are just getting really high and a lot of people are going, I can't afford house anymore. You know, houses that used to be 50 or a hundred thousand dollars or millions of dollars. What do you think is happening to the market? And do you think it's gonna readjust to where people will be able to afford houses again, like regular people?
Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. So you, you used the word affordability twice, Jonathan and that's super key. Let me, let me tell you why. And I'll hit a few things here and of course I'm not an economist. Uh, the billionaires don't know where the market's going. So I certainly don't, but I, but I do have an opinion. So you use that word affordability for the third time in 50 years. 50 years for the third time, the real estate market is not about supply and demand. That's not the problem right now. The problem is what you said, the word affordability. That is the issue. So here's, what's scary. If the rates are what they are now, we all know they're still pretty good in, you know, looking at the last 50 years and it's already an affordability issue what's gonna happen when the rates go up just a little bit in the last four months, the market flushed out hundreds of thousands of buyers by raising the rates the way they did. Right? There's nothing they, we can do. They, they are now not able to afford. And so as it gets, as the rates go up even more, it's gonna get worse. Now, what does it mean for the real estate investor? That means enormous opportunity. To be able to help buyers, help sellers, both of which are stuck now. And quite frankly, realtors are coming to us in droves now why? Because they're losing buyers and sellers, it totally changed their world. And so we have an opportunity now in the creative real estate niche. Sort of like we did in the eighties to really date myself, to do creative real estate outside of banks. And the demand is enormous. There's never been a better time than now, since my, in 31 years of real estate coming up in a few months, it's 31 years for me, this will be the biggest opportunity, the biggest window. For people to create a decade of income. That's a strong statement. Like if you can get after this for the next 12 to 24 months with proper guidance, you can set up a decade of income. Is it easy? No. Is it simple? No, I'm not saying that. What I am saying is if you work your but off and you align with the right niche, creative real estate, is it right now? You can create a fortune.
Jonathan Green: What's always interesting about real estate is that you kind of have to climb your way up, but a lot of people, they get really big and then it's one deal that takes them down. What are the red flags or the things you look for to say this deal might have a huge upside, but the downside there's too many risk factors; like what are the key red flags that you look for or that people especially because I think people find that dream deal and they get really emotionally invested. And that's when I get really worried when people have an emotional feeling about a deal. So what are the signs that people should look for and go, no, it might look good, but the downside there's too much risk.
Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. Well, first of all, what you said again, key word emotions. Here's the best thing I can say to you visually, if you're sitting in front of a piece of paper, draw two lines, parallel on a piece of paper, leave, leave little space in between, and then draw squiggly lines stay within those two lines. That's you keeping your emotions within lines. The second you step out to Jonathan's point, you're gonna get bit. Now to go back to the main crux of the question. What are the sort of parameters? So you don't get crushed? Because I did it. I did the opposite come out of oh eight. It's really simple. It's what I learned coming out of. Oh eight. It's what I range into the business to be. It's what I've trademarked all our systems now to be and that is, do not, do not, do not sign personally. With your personal signature on a bank loan, the only exception would be if you absolutely have to buy something for you and your family, and you can't find anything else and you can keep the loan to value real low, okay. Sign personally. Other than that, you do not need to sign personally on any bank loan to buy property. We do not do that any longer. So number one key is so you don't get crushed, don't sign personally, when the market goes down and you're not signed personally, you have leverage to renegotiate. Second you, there is no need for you to put in large, large amounts of cash on most of our deals, no cash, but on some, a little bit. So there's no reason for you to do that. And frankly, in my world, there's no reason for you to go out and try to solicit money from people, you know, or don't know either, because I think that can be a nightmare if you do that incorrectly, if you stay away from those three things, those are the things that we changed coming out of the 2008 crash. And then the, the last one, Jonathan, this is a long answer. Sorry, is. We've trademarked a what we call a three payday system. Now that means when you having deal, it's no longer about doing a real estate deal and getting a check. Although the there's been some great deals to your point, but doing a deal and getting a check is more like a job. It's more like a treadmill. I didn't get that at first. I redesigned it and trademarked the three pay days so that I get money now up front, great. I get money monthly, awesome. I can pay my bills and I get money long term like the wealth building aspect of real estate, all three profit centers. Again, what we call the three pay days. Is critical for you surviving all the markets and last but not least is long terms. In other words, if you're gonna do seller financing with an owner or lease purchase with an owner and you structure 5 or 10 year terms, you won't be concerned about what the market's doing in between because you have 5 or 10 year terms. That's critical. We bought our building on a 20 year term, our office building, um, I don't care the market does in the meantime, we've got a great building and we have time for it pay Itself down and all kinds of other things we structure. So sorry for those super long answer, but that was a very good question.
Jonathan Green: So you brought up a couple of things that I think are really, really interesting. The first is that I wanna ask about is how long was a real estate cycle? Is it 5 years or 10 years? It seems to me like every about 10 years. We have something that happens to the market. Like in the late eighties, it was junk bonds. Then in the nineties, we had a downturn then in, we had a 2008, then we had the pandemic surprise, sounds that to me, it's like every 8 to 12 years something happens. So if you have a term that's longer than that, that gives you wider than the length of the cycle. Cause I know a lot of people that are tried to say, they're trying to guess when the market's at its peak or at its trough. And I think that's the hardest thing to guess thing with stocks. So how long of a term should they be that they know they're gonna be there for the length of a full cycle?
Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. To your point for us, not only is it, is it tough? It's, it's kind of foolish. It's not a stock market. You're not gonna time anything. So if you're sitting on the sidelines now waiting for a crash quote, unquote, or you're in the wrong spot, let me explain why. Yes. I think you're right. A, about that timeframe a decade or so Jonathan, something happens there's some lying in between, so for example, oh, eight to 12 was sort of a lag in my world and then 12 to now we're talking 10 years.
Oh, so that, that goes right to what you said with some lags in between. Let me tell you something that's even more applicable to every single listener though. Don't be concerned about the market do get real good at how to pivot in structured deals in any market. So when we came out of the crash, I had one goal in mind, one goal.
Structure a niche within the creative financing world, which is what we did, that'll thrive in all markets. So when the market was steaming hot, we did deals. It was harder to find sellers, but we did plenty of deals. Now that the market's turning, we are just gonna, it's gonna be like fishing in a bucket because people need us more than ever. And so the whole more or less story there is get really good at structuring. Understand that this one constant real estate and that's changed. It's going to keep changing. So why not get really good at navigating in and out of these markets, not waiting for peaks and valleys, you're gonna be waiting forever and you're not gonna time it, right? Cuz the billionaires can't do it. Get good at operating inside of a changing real estate market, cuz it's never gonna stop doing now.
Jonathan Green: If someone wants to start getting into real estate, I notice, every time there's a bunch of downsizing in a company near where I live or there's a downturn, a lot of people lose their jobs cuz market drinks suddenly there's a ton of new people that are real estate.
It seems like people find that as an easy career to jump into, of course it only lasts less than two years for most of them, but what's the right way to learn a market because I've heard from some people who talk about real estate, like never invest outside your region, cuz you don't know there's different rules like you go to Arizona and you start grabbing all these two bedroom houses before you realize that no one wants two bedroom house because if air conditioning issues, that's why they're all one story houses in that environment. And if you don't know that. Suddenly you get caught in a surprise or other people I know are like, oh, I always go far away, I've never seen any of my properties. What's your approach to regionality? What's the best way to learn about the real estate in your area? Is it about specific type real estate nationally, or is it more regional that you can really kind of develop relationships?
Chris Prefontaine: Okay. So I'll answer that. It's a good question. I'll answer it from our standpoint and how we operate, but then I'll give you a broad answer for all the listeners, no matter what they do. So my answer is simple, the way we operate and we have people from, uh, all over north America and some outside the country. And I tell them the same thing within 50 miles of where you live.
I promise you there are enough creative real estate deal. Where you will be busy for a long time, meaning unless your goals are, you know, multiple seven figures, you might have to reach outside that area and expand your radius. But if your goals are six and maybe approaching seven figures inside this creative real estate space, you'll be quite content within a 50 mile radius. Now that's cuz I know our niche.
Now the broader answer is this. Cause I'm not so naive to think that everyone's gonna navigate to our niche. I get that there's other options in real estate. There's a lot of cool niche issues out there. I have them all on my podcast. I, I bring in different niches, not just ours.
So the broader answer is this. If you are looking to do real estate part-time, full-time, doesn't matter. Most people come to us with a job and they have, they, they only can be time at first, uh, do three things, simple, one pick a niche that you can get by hand . Like in our world, our community tends to like helping people. It's a very positive environment. We're helping buyers and sellers. They tend to like that. So we attract that type of person. Okay. So if that's an niche, great. Second, this is key. Pick someone in the niche who will teach you the answer to the question that Jonathan just asked and make sure that person, that you're looking to a coach, a mentor, someone you can lean on, make sure that they have gone through at least one market cycle, or you're gonna get yourself in trouble cuz they don't know how to help you navigate. And on top of one market cycle, make sure that morally and ethically you can attach to them. So I say that because there are some people that have built some fortunes in real estate and screwed up their family life or lost a spouse. That's no good. So make sure in my opinion that you can align with that person or coach or mentor or group and that way too, and they've done what you want to do. And, and lastly, they're still doing it like they're active in the trenches. Cause if you're not active in the trenches in real estate, you're already outdated. And third step out of the three is once you do that, put the blinders on for three years. There are too many shiny objects in real estate that you can get distracted with they're all great. But each one is a business in and of itself. And to come back to the question to close this out. Each one of them, whoever you're learning from will teach you the question. Jonathan asked if it's me, I'm gonna tell you to stay right where you are. If it's a gentleman who teaches a lot of multifamily, he's gonna teach you how to go outside your market. In times, certain markets relative to large multifamily. If that's what you like doing raising money and doing. They're each gonna have a different answer to that question. So, um, again long answer, Jonathan, but very good. Good question.
Jonathan Green: So for someone who's thinking about building an online business or building a business with passive or long term revenue streams, what are some secondary skills that it's really good for them to already have? Is it better for introverts or extroverts? Should it be someone who's really good at spreadsheets? Does that help or does that not matter? So what are like the kind of skills that people already have before they thought about real estate that can be good assets to going into this type of industry.
Chris Prefontaine: I think this is really cool. I don't think anyone has asked me this. Okay. So the general answer again is real estate. No matter how much we can automate for you, cuz we've got some really cool automation that we do and we just show you what we do and you duplicate it but eventually it's a people business. So have we had some introverts come in and be open to co being coached and learn how to get good at this one skillset there's actors that are introverts, for example, that are amazing once they get into that mode of a script, right?
So I'm not saying introverts can't do this. All I'm saying is it's a people business you're solving real estate challenges. You're not convincing. You're not selling, you're looking to either solve a challenge or help someone accomplish a goal that they otherwise couldn't accomplish. So, number one, it's a people business as far as other skillsets. Quite frankly, if you're, I, I just wanna know that you're coachable and hungry. That's what I want to know. When I came out of the way crash, I was hungry was an understatement. So I Seeked mentor, as I said, just tell me what to do and I'll follow. And I put the blinders on. So if you have some skill sets around entrepreneurship, believe it or not, that would be more key than just a micro skill. Cuz we teach what's called the genius method. Jonathan. It's three pillows. And the reason I'm gonna share this is relative to your question. I wish it was as easy as, Hey, I can show you how to do a deal. You can go on YouTube and watch about 150 deals that we expose, like the good, the bad, the ugly, we show everything.
So if it was just skill set, in theory, you could go do that and go do deals. But the two of the pillows, our skillset to your point and system. All three things have to happen. And if you're coachable, we can teach you that it's not easy, but it's simple. And so that's a, again, a real broad answer, but the net is wider. As long as you're coachable, you can come in through that net and learn what we do
Jonathan Green: In my industry, like the pure build, an online business industry. There are certain signs. That someone's like not on the right path. And the most common causes of failure are shiny object syndrome. Like they keep buying different courses that are totally disparate.
Chris Prefontaine: Yeah.
Jonathan Green: One week they're trying to learn Pinterest, the next week they're trying to learn TikTok, the next week they're building a blog, the next week they're launching a podcast and they just keep jumping the next really exciting thing. And the second thing that throws people off is they're treat it like a hobby like they don't take it seriously. Like they don't track how much they spend on courses. I went to, went over to a friend's house and he had a second bedroom full of DVDs that he'd ordered online. All of them were unopened. And I said, how much did this cost? He had $60,000 of information that he hadn't actually absorbed. Because they were still wrapped in the shrink wrap. And so I saw that. I said, whoa, that's what happens when you everything's exciting. And the third thing mentioned, lack of teachability. So sometimes I'll someone will ask me a question and I'll give a really specific answer. I'm gonna do what I wanna do anyways.
And so those are the three things that I notice. In my area of building a business that are signs or like the things that trip people up, what are the most common things that trip people up when they're starting out in real estate or cause a distraction or cause them to make a mistake. That means they don't last or don't go the distance to hit to that success point to overcome the dip.
Chris Prefontaine: Yeah, this is good. This is a big nugget, easier for me to say this than it is for people to do it, including myself. One is these not in priority order, but what came to mind when you were talking is one is mismanaged expectations because unfortunately you have some really great marketers in the real estate space that if you watch their commercials or they're marketing material, you will think that tomorrow you can become wealthy. And it's not the case. It takes time. We have people to do a deal in 30 days, we have people to take, do it to take 365 days. Why is that? To go back to the question aside from mismanaged expectations, once they're past that, it's the mental game. Now this is probably gonna surprise the listeners because you come to us in theory, if you, if you coming to look at our wicked smart community, you come with with certain skill sets, certain baggage, certain mindset.
I didn't form it. You came to me with that. So sometimes we have to peel back some of those layers and then get you to the point of the other items, skill systems, real estate. But there's some, there might be some self-doubt. There might be some like when I went through the crash, I thought, oh, I must have did it. I must not be good in real estate. No and nothing do with me, but it took me four years to figure that out. So the mental game is bigger than you think. That's why we have courses around those three pillar. So mismanaged expectations in the mental game and you being patient with what you come to the table with.
So for example, if you've never done a real estate deal in your life, and you've never earned more than I'll pick a number $50,000 in your life at a JOB for you to come into our community and say, oh, I saw so and so I wanna make a million dollars my first year, and I wanna do my first deal in 30 days. That's just not realistic. Because you've gotta grow mentally to be the person that can do that. And sometimes that takes time. I recorded a program Jonathan, with, uh, Dr. Joe vital tally from the secret, the guy's written like 75 books. He and I got together and we, and we recorded a program called the 31 day billionaire. It's not to say you're gonna be a billionaire in 31 days. What it's saying is listen to this short five to 18 minute video every day for 31 days, and it'll help grow your mental capacity. That was not an easy thing to pull off and to get him and to, but we did it because the importance of this question you asked and that mental peace. So I donot makes sense if the, but those are, those are key things and they have nothing to do with real estate.
Jonathan Green: You brought up something that's really resonates with me. It, people have this, they think they're one deal away. People come to me sometimes say, Jonathan, I'm just about to finish my first book. I'm gonna publish on Amazon on be a millionaire next week. And I said, whoa, I wish that were true, but you have to sell a lot of books, even at $10 a book to hit a million dollars. but people, sometimes they have same thing for real estate. They think I'm what my first deal will be. The life changing deal.
And I think that's a really good point is that we have this expectation that the first deal will be massive. And then their first deal, they make $10,000, most money they've ever made in their lives. But because they thought it'll be bigger. They're actually down. I've seen that sometimes people have a massive success, but it wasn't as big as they were hoping. And so they actually get down on themselves. So I think that's a really good point that we have to approach. Because again, it's all marketing, push a button, become a millionaire, push a button, build the business, push button, business, install, business, one click business. Right? And that's what the marketing fuel always has. beacuse that's what people respond to unfortunately. But yeah, we come with these huge expectations of a massive result and the truth is I've been doing this for 12 years. I still work seven days a week. Like it's still a business, but sometimes people think, oh, I want something where I don't have to work hard.
I think they mix up those two things with you can be in control of your destiny. You can make a lot of money with you. Don't work hard. Like, I don't know anyone in real estate who doesn't work hard, whether you're running Airbnbs or whether you're investing, like you're constantly maintaining a business. It's not the four hour work week myth, even he doesn't work four hours a week. So I think that is a big point where gonna hit an expectation problem. They think I can make a lot of money with a little work. And so when it's actually even medium work, if they go 10 hours a week, I don't have that. I hear that pushback all the time. I can't invest 10 hours a week in a business. So how can someone approach that or fix that mindset? Like where does that come from and how can we better guide people who meet us and say, no, you do have to understand you're doing what you love, but you're still working. Like the whole thing, love what you do and never work it in your life. Obviously, that's not true because I still consider my work, work. But how can people get in between those two mindsets? If I don't have to do any work or I have to work a hundred hours a week, cuz there's something in between where the success happens.
Chris Prefontaine: Couple things come to mind. And again, no particular order. One is, I think if I were speaking with a person today, first and foremost, I just did this with one of my students. I want to know what the heck their, why is you're looking to join our community? What does it look like for you in two to five years and why? And they'll go, why I wanna make this much. Yeah.
But why? Well, because this will happen. Okay. But why, and I just try to drill down as deep as I can to, to the point where sometimes it's emotional farm. Then we start, we can start unpeeling what they're really about, and then we can make sure they're committed to running at this thing long enough to build a business to a point where then I can show you how to subcontract and layer and scale your business, but it doesn't happen tomorrow. You, I gotta get you in the right spot first again, I gotta get you from JOB it's a entrepreneur and that's not always easy. The other thing that comes to mind is this is a shorter answer is there are people that have done what you want to do. There are people who have gone through what you went through in worse. Example; I always like to give you examples. Uh, gentleman that speaks at a lot of our events and he's actually speaking at our event coming up here soon is David nurse. David's a high performance coach for NBA players coming out of college. And some not even going to college, making 10, 15, 20 million contracts to stock. He coaches them one on one. Now you'd think he has some secret sauce. Right. And he does. He's amazing guy. He's gonna, he, he, again, he he's in our community now. But what he said to me on a podcast on my show was amazing. He said, Chris, if you come in and you're gonna coach me one on one, I tear apart what your problem is, what your block is. If you had a divorced parents or whatever it might be. And then we go online and we find someone that did that, despite their challenges, they accomplished what you wanna accomplish. And then when you model the coaching, after that person That's not brain science that takes you the listener, finding someone it's out there on YouTube. It's out there online. It's out there somewhere finding someone who already accomplished what you wanna accomplish. Given some of your blockages, given some of your baggage, given where you are right now, my son had a head injury and was in a coma for a month. Now there are people we met that had it way worse than that. And so you can find people to help you through, regardless of how bad you think it is, they can help you through that and get you out of that stuck or out of that mental state that Jonathan says is, you know, you're in between,I, I don't wanna work a hundred, but I think I can do it. There's people that have done that and just seek them out and put the blinders on like I said earlier for three years, you'll have a great experience that the hard part is the execution of what we're talking about here.
Jonathan Green: I think you've brought up some really good points on this call and I do appreciate your time. I know your time is so precious and. It does remind me that I always tell people when you're looking for a coach or mentor, make sure they have a life you want. As you mentioned earlier, sometimes people follow someone who their marriage has fallen up, how their kids don't speak to them anymore. And they have massive parts of their life that are flaws. And I say to people who follow me, make sure you want my life. I live in a foreign country. I live on a beach. I live a remote lifestyle. If that appeals to you, then I'm the right person for you. But if you wanna send your kids to college, pay off a mortgage, live in your house and stay in your village. I might not be the right person because my lifestyle is part of it. You know, a big part of my life is that I have four kids. They're probably, you heard them in the background, cuz they're always making noise when I'm recording, but that's part of the package and I think sometimes we follow people, deal without first checking to see if they have a life we want. And that's so important. I remember someone I'd only been married for about two years. They asked me for marriage advice. So I said, well, how long you bear? They said six years. I said, how can you ask me for advice? You married three times longer than me ask someone who's been there before. I can give great advice on how to be married for one year. Now, of course, I've been married a little bit longer, but that's a really, really great lesson is to look for a mentor who has been through what you've been through has overcome your big problem and who their destination is, the destination you wanna get to. Sometimes we admire these people and some of the richest people in the world have the most horrible family lives, their kids change their names, never speak to them. Their ex-wives hate them and despise them. And there's all this loneliness. I don't think you have to be lonely and wealthy . Hopefully not, but sometimes we admire people who have massive parts of their lives that we don't want. So exactly I love what you've been sharing. That's been very, very helpful and amazing. I appreciate your time. Where's the best place where people can find out more about you. We can learn more about getting into your form of real estate and finding the right mentorship for them.
Chris Prefontaine: Yeah. Thank you, Jonathan. I appreciate that. I set up a link. Specific for your tribe and we'll get books out to them physically. If they're out of the country, it'll be electronic. And that is wickedsmartbooks.com/nomaster. Uh, that's one year you can go if you want to get. And I mean, there's no shipping or anything. We'll send it to you our costs. It's not one of those it's free, but put in shipping. Uh, secondly, there's a free, I'm big on free because I want you to dip your toe in and see if this is something you want to. Go to smartrealestatecoach.com/master'sclass. That's me going over the types of deals we do to thrive in any market. 10,000 foot view of course, for about an hour, uh, and it's free. So I invite you to go do that. Take advantage of it, have a ball. If you're in, in the United States, you're welcome to come to our event and now I'll even give, this is gonna be my team's not gonna be happy here. I just thought of this, but anyone that wants to make it to the event, I'll give you 90% off the ticket and just use smartrealestatecoach.com/podcast20. That means that the events 20 bucks we're live again this year, Jonathan and I'd love to see people in person.
Jonathan Green: That's amazing. Thank you so much for giving Mr. Time. I'll make sure to put those notes right. For all the video, write the podcast, show notes and write in our blog post. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate this was really informative for me.
Chris Prefontaine: Love it. Thanks Jonathan.
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