Adam Torres and Chris Prefontaine discuss buying and selling real estate.
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Show Notes:
Is buying and selling real estate with little to no money down possible? In this episode, Adam Torres and Chris Prefontaine, Chairman and Founder at Smart Real Estate Coach, explore the Wicked Smart Community and how it’s helping individuals achieve their real estate goals.
About Smart Real Estate Coach
At Smart Real Estate Coach®, we empower individuals and families to create the life of their dreams. They encourage aspiring investors and entrepreneurs to take the first step towards creating REAL income with real estate.
After many years of coaching and constantly doing deals himself independently, Chris Prefontaine founded Smart Real Estate Coach in 2014, bringing in his son Nick, daughter Kayla, and son-in-law Zachary as the company began to grow. The family team coaches investors on how to properly scale and automate their businesses throughout North America — all without using their own cash, credit, or taking out bank loans to buy property. Our team buys and sells homes in our own market every month. They then mentor, coach, and consult students and Associates all around North America to do the exact same thing. They stay current because we’re in the trenches ourselves.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right, so today is a very special Eppo episode. We have a returning guest, I believe the last time I had Chris Prefontaine on the show, who’s the chairman and founder over at Smart Real Estate Coach was back in 2021.
It’s been a while, man. Chris, it’s good to have you back, man. Well, thanks for having me back. But time flies. I know I was just thinking about it. I’m like, I still, I was looking back at some of our previous work and I’m like, thinking about what’s happened between 2021 I’m like, man, we went through a pandemic.
We went through a whole bunch of stuff since then. Right. We sure did. We sure did. So, Chris just to get us kicked off here one of the reasons why I wanted to invite you back on the show is I, know of course your book, Real Estate on Your Terms. Also, I’m, super interested in what you’re doing with the Wicked Smart Community.
So we’ll talk about that as well, but we’ll get this episode set up, Chris, the way that we do them all with what we like to call our Mission Matters Minute. So, Chris, at Mission Matters, our mission is to amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. So, that’s what we do. Chris, what mission matters to you?
Well, right now, the company side of things. We are on a three year new mission that was rewritten at the beginning of 24. the just of it hasn’t changed. I mean, that we really care about our students doing deals. Whereas a lot of education companies care about what selling stuff.
we care about getting attention doing deals. So that that mission is lock and loaded for 2425 and 26, and it’s all about shortening the time to deal for them. We call it time to first deal and actually getting them in the trenches. Yeah, it’s awesome. And for those that maybe don’t know your background, I mean, I know you for podcasts.
I know you for books. I know you obviously for being a coach and also for your real estate platform overall. Maybe just talk a little bit about how you got started in this. Sure, so I’ve been at this 33 years this year, believe it or not. And I started back building homes with a partner who ran the field and I ran the office, so to speak, side of things and secured land.
I then owned a brokerage and then I started coaching after I sold the brokerage in 2000. I started coaching realtors, not investors back then, who had GCI of like 2 million bucks always over a million, but mostly closer to 2. Their lives were a mess, but they were producing. So I coached them. And then that I worked on my own investments and that led me up to the 2008 crash.
And the reason I gave you that backstory was after the crash, we were forced, I was, it was just me then, to re engineer the business because I got beat up during the crash. And what do I mean by re engineer? Never signing personally on bank loans again never taking out investing money, never using gobs of your own money.
And the logic was simple, Adam, I had no credit and I had no cash. You have to go into the crash. And so now what we have today is a family company still and it’s my son and Nick and my son in law, Zach, and then a great support group around us. Obviously, we’ve got 20 plus people, thanks to cobit all around the country, no longer in 1 office.
And in addition to our own deals that we buy the creative real estate space, we also help students do the exact same thing as I alluded to earlier in the trenches all over the United States, I’ll say North America, but primarily in the U S yeah. What’s your vision with smart real estate coach?
Like, like what’s your goal there? The goal is to constantly, I kind of alluded to the mission. The goal is to empower individual investors. To become wicked smart real estate investors and that is done by shortening that time to first deal and getting them success because let’s face it, I don’t care what niche you’re in, when you can work your way to a deal, you’re not leaving, right?
You’re not quitting on yourself in the community. So that’s sort of our, our big beacon right now is to make sure we’re shortening that timeframe and getting people the successful three payday deals that we do. Yeah, and I think you trademark 3 paydays, right? We sure did. Yeah, we should explain that.
So, the 3 paydays, when I came out of the crash, in addition to the no banks and no using gobs of my own money, I didn’t have any. The other piece was, I said to myself, okay. I’ve done transactions at that point for 18 years, and the transactions are good. Real estate’s been really good to my wife and I and the family.
However, every January, as you can imagine, I felt like I was on a treadmill and I had to start the treadmill up again, right? Because it was transactional. You do a deal, you get paid. You build a house, you get paid. You know, condominium conversion, you get paid. So the trademark, three paydays, allows you to get money now when you do your deal.
Sure, that’s what everybody’s used to. Then kicks into play a monthly cash flow stream and a longer term cashout that can range from two to 20 years. So you have all components cash now, cash monthly and cash and wealth down the road. And that’s the ideal business model, not just in our situation. So yeah, that’s what we trademark.
Yeah. And then something that interests me is, and I don’t know if I knew that part about your background about 2008 specifically, but I know just a little bit about your system and especially like the wicked smart community. So that, that concept of being able to control many deals with little to no money down and maybe not signing on loans, like give us some of that, that structure, like how that came about.
So specifically post pivot, you mean how that all kind of came into play? Yeah. Mm-Hmm, . Okay. Well, I mean, it came about out, out of need, quite frankly. So the, when I came out of the crash and I started saying, okay, first of all, I was brain dead from February of oh eight till February of 12.
I didn’t want do deals. I blamed it on me. Mm-Hmm. , you know, even though it was a national crisis. Yeah. So but each one of those things were put in place. Just because of the, the, the crash. So I started what I knew from the peripheral, but never did. It was the simple owner financing and subject to methods of purchasing.
I just never put it into play. Mm-Hmm. . And then the lease purchase and then I designed a fourth one which we call ao. It stands for a sign out. Because that allowed us to either buy without banks or tie up control. Without even buying these properties and that was critical for me with no money, no credit back then.
So I don’t know if that’s what you meant, but I can go deeper or, you know, I can go more micro on those if you want. Yeah, I mean, that is what I meant, but I do want to go more micro, and I’ll tell you why, by the way. So, and one of the reasons why I excited to have you back on as, as I’m looking at it, you know, post COVID, post pandemic, like all the things like, you know, a lot of people have been beat up over the last couple of years.
Some people won. I’m not saying everybody did. Some people pivoted, they made it through and otherwise, and some are, you know, looking for either that next career, that next thing, that next, and with your story I mean, you’re, you’re coming at it from another angle. So I think it’s, hopeful. you also have a nuts and bolts, you know, component to it where I know you’re going to be talking about your book a little bit later.
And I think there’s going to be an offer and you’re going to give some books to our audience as well, but I’m trying to provide some hope here too. So that’s why I’m kind of getting in the weeds on that part of it. So yeah, go a little bit deeper. Okay. So you said you want to provide hope. Let me, let me paint a picture for people.
So when I, I literally needed. To do a deal like I needed oxygen at that time So my mindset went okay if I tie up a deal this week I literally could can and should have a check in the next four weeks. Like that was just my where my mindset was Yeah I think I did my first deal. The 13 deals in my first six months and because I went out and hustled, that’s why I show people how to do so we can get them cash flowing quickly.
A lot of people come to us and need that. Not quite as bad as I did, but they need that. And then to give a bigger picture for everyone, the average of the 3 paydays for our family company hovers around 75 grand. But for the community, so you take everybody across the United States, a low of 45, 000 to a high of 250, 000 all three paydays.
And I share that just to say, as far as giving help, how many of those do you really need to get back on your feet? Or how many of those do you really need to replace your W 2, which we’ve been helping people do, gosh, since 2014? So, just to give you a picture of how big those deals are, this isn’t about a little 5, 000 deal.
You’re talking about changing people’s financial picture there, so I hope that helps with that. that helps a whole lot. That helps a whole lot. And so now maybe go a little bit further into the, into the community aspect and like how all this works, like what you can say. And obviously there’s only so much we can do in a, in a you know, in a 20, 20 some minute podcast episode.
But but we, we do want people to follow up and to learn more, but tell us a little bit more about kind of the nuts and bolts of how this system works. Yeah, the community is key, so I’ll just kind of go through some things that are that are high points. There’s a black community for all the, what we call the associates and the group coaching people.
So, let’s say there’s 100 and I don’t know, 40 people in there that takes the onus off of, you know, just me, or just my son, Nick, or just that. And and let the new person, like, listen, right now, come into the community, interact with all the coaches is 5 of them interact with us and then interact with the other 100 and some odd students that are in there.
So, when you post a question, or you have a tough day, or you need support, it’s in flat. That’s where they live. 2nd, secondly, and I’m not putting these in priority. There’s just some things in the community. Yep. Yep. They all have a group call. It just depends what, what level of the program they’re in, but they all have a group call with the coach once a week.
And then every single Thursday for gosh, since we started the company, we have a 5 o’clock mastermind call with all of them. So all the levels, everybody in group coaching or private, they all come together and we usually have topics that are sort of like. You know, current challenges are going on the community, like the coaches keep their head to the ground and just bring all that stuff up on the on the next call.
Then for the person, it’s more kind of like more aggressive. Let’s call it the in between the calls. There’s a lot of interaction. I call it interactive learning. So, if you add them are in the community, you just get off your weekly call, but then you got a hot lead and you’re brand new. You’re calling your coach and your coach is likely, with you, going to call that seller.
And that’s how, that’s what I call interactive learning. There’s no faster way to learn. That model’s just terrific. You’re hands on in the trenches. It’s different to study it and then go do it by yourself. It’s a lot, it’s a lot different when you’re in the trenches and you go, Oh, I know I studied that, but what do I do next?
And the coach helps you. Pretty cool. Yeah, that’s super cool. And is now, I mean, I got, I got asked the question, is now still a good time to invest in real estate? Like, like with the market? Yeah, that’s awesome. I haven’t seen. In my career, and again, I’m going on 33 years, but about 12 years in the creative space, specifically, I haven’t seen it this conducive to creative real estate and the demand for creative real estate.
Let me give you an example. In the early 90s, let’s say, I can go back that far. There was like, 2 or 3 percent of the transactions in the United States were being done outside of banks. I have a hard time pinning a credible, like, here’s the exact number now. I know the demand has dramatically increased.
And so we have communities of wholesalers in different niche. Mm-Hmm , communities of fix and flippers calling us saying, Hey, we see the way the market’s going. Can you teach our community creative real estate? Because there’s one constant in real estate. And that’s what constantly changes. If we know that, why not get super good and proficient and skillful at structuring deals in any market?
Mm-Hmm. , the way I structured this coming out of the crash was. Up, down or sideways, this works tremendously well. It actually works better, meaning more demand, Adam, when there’s either chaos, that was COVID, or uncertainty, like right now with the media screaming, oh, it’s going to be a crash. No, this is perfect timing, especially if the media and everybody else is screaming in the other direction, to be in creative real estate.
And when you look at. Our community in particular how we operate in this market, we have with the coaches and myself and my son in law and son, we have 70, it’s approaching 75 years, just under 75 years of experience. That’s a lot of experience to throw at the students and allow them to talk to almost anybody to get that done.
One of the things you said kind of multiple times on this interview is that, like, one of the goals for your students is to get them, you know, as fast as possible to that first deal. Can you can you tell me how some of that’s accomplished? Yeah, it’s it’s really accomplished. I’ll call it bridging the gap.
I don’t know if I said this before, but I’ve said it for years, even had shirts for it and bridging the gap is. Taking the time from the first time someone sees a seminar or workshop or takes a course and then the time it takes to do a deal. And again, I said, when you open the show, most of them don’t care about that.
And that’s all we focus on. So how we get it done is. We run as fast or as slow as they want. In other words, I gave the example of if you run a group call and then you had a deal in between the calls, we’re gonna be on the phone with you. Okay? Mm-Hmm, . Well, I also don’t want to push a, a wet noodle across the table either.
Meaning if someone doesn’t wanna run fast, we’re not gonna push ’em. We’re, we’re always gonna match effort for effort. That’s one of our values, is one of the values of matching effort for effort. Yeah, and, and your overall, so for example, your book, Real Estate on Your Terms for those that maybe aren’t familiar with it, I don’t want to assume, what does it mean to buy and sell real estate on terms?
When I did that in 17, then we revised it after Covid. Mm-Hmm. felt it was necessary for people to have the correct information. Yeah. When we did that, when I originally did it, the thought was coming outta the crash. The thought was, okay, well I wanted to, I want to live the life and do real estate on my terms.
That’s what literally meant that, and, and what it really is, is it’s creative real estate. Real estate’s been around. If you pick up the book Emerson Cooper wrote about the Vanderbilts, his family. I picked up just because his family was in Newport Island. That’s where our office is. So that must be a cool book.
In it, he talks about owner financing and what he called lease purchase back in 1600. 1600. So this has been around forever. And so the real estate in terms has just created real estate. Yeah, that’s awesome. I, I didn’t know that it’s been around that long. And you’re speaking of Rhode Island, you do a huge conference out there, right?
Like that you do a big conference. I don’t know if that’s yearly or often, but talk to me a little bit more about just some of the content of things you’re putting out there. Yeah, the biggest one is in September. It’s called QLS Live, and that stands for Quantum Leap System. We’ve run it since we had 14 people in a basement of a, of a Better Business Bureau building back in 16, and now it’s grown to local ballrooms, and I think this year it’s going to be in Boston, Mass.
And at that event, it’s a tremendous experience to immerse yourself. In the community, because it’s really like, okay, I hear this. I see this on YouTube. Let me just go see if it’s for real. That’s really what it’s about. I think, but while you’re there, figuring that out very easily, because in your face, you will get things like scripting deal structuring.
We do a lot of deal structuring, so people can see how we rip a pot of deal and actually come up with the 3 paydays. And then, of course, you talked about hope earlier. You get to talk with people just like yourself. If you’re a solopreneur, or if you’re trying to leave your job, or if you’re struggling financially, there’s someone in the room that accomplish that.
And that’s why those are so important to go to. And then we do a bunch of virtual. We run virtual gosh, workshops almost every week. Once a year in March, we do a what we call the Wicked Smart Summit. That’s virtual. So, yeah, there’s an awful lot of chance for you to get exposure to what we’re doing.
And then you also, speaking of YouTube and otherwise, I mean, you also host the smart real estate coach podcast too. Yep. Yep. I’ve been doing that. I think we’re up to 400 something episodes. I don’t, I honestly don’t remember how many, but it’s a lot. What’s your favorite part of doing the show? Meeting, meeting great people.
Like, like I thought you and I met, I mean, that’s how a lot of our relationships. Develop and then we get to meet some other awesome communities, you know, and, and, and likewise, like, they get to come meet our community. So at a live events, usually the people you see are people I’ve met on the podcast.
But when I say people, you see people, you see up on stage, usually people I’ve met on podcast. And I said, you know, you’ve had a lot to our community. Why don’t you come in? And likewise, Chris, why don’t you come to our community? So. I just love the exposure it gives us to meet and greet other people.
And then frankly, I, the other part I like about it is just getting the word exposed for creative real estate, because I think that these next, this next few years here, let’s just call it three to five years, has the ability to set up a decade or two of income if you want to get after it. For those that hear that and say, geez.
That’s for me. I want to kind of catch that way. Well, I think it’s perfect. And the podcast helps us get that word out. Of course. Yeah. And I feel like whatever the amount of time is going forward and everybody, I think everybody gets in real estate for their own reasons. Right. But for those that are thinking about.
You know, and want to think about how they can build that real estate career to then go full time. Like, you’ve been in this game long enough to see, I mean, you’ve seen people do it, right? Like, it happens. It’s not this mythical dream to be able to acquire real estate and over time, you know, retire.
Like, you can, you can make that happen, right? Yeah, like I’ll give you, I always have to give you examples instead of fluff or a theory and all, all of our coaches did exactly that. And I’ll give you, I’ll just give you two off the top of my head. So Rick, who’s coming in here tonight because we have some students coming in.
He’s one of our local coaches, probably a few hours away from me. Rick worked for the government. For 30 years, Adam, 30, and he was with us and inside of two years left his job, replaced a super strong, you know, multiple six figure income. Brian was an elevator salesman for, gosh, 17 years, maybe more, and in nine months replaced a very strong income.
And I could keep going. Mike in California did it. So all our coaches How to have gone through the system, and coincidentally, because they don’t have to do this, they all had W 2s that they exited. Yeah. That’s pretty cool to say to your coach, okay, then show me how to do it. And with some predictability, you get to do that.
Yeah, that’s great. You know, it’s a great story. It’s one that I’m happy to bring to my audience and to see the community continue to thrive. I know I’m on your newsletter, so I get it, and I’m always interested and excited to see the things you have going on. That being said, Chris, if somebody’s listening to this or watching this and they want to connect, learn more about what smart real estate is all about.
Like what’s the best way for people to do that? Well, let’s give them the book first of all, so I don’t forget that. And that just go to wicked smart books. com. Forward slash mission one, the number one. So we know it came from your show. So what could smartbooks. com forward slash mission one.
And then I’d like to give these guys a chance to get on a free call with me. I started this this year. All they have to do is go to smart real estate coach. com forward slash. Chris pre, so it’s C-H-R-I-S-P-R-E. Call Chris pre call. Mm. And that way here’s the goal of that. I’m not in our sales department.
I have nothing to do with the advisory calls. What that is, you heard me on a show and I would love to get to the point where I can say to you, okay, where you now, where do you ideally want to be? If you were there, we wouldn’t be having a conversation. And then what’s in the middle? What’s in the way?
And I can help you with that. Nothing else comes outta that call. You’re gonna get some direction on what to do next. That’s wonderful., I was planning on ending it right there, but what are some of the things that you’ve seen help people? Cause you, cause I’ve never done a real estate coaching call.
What are some of the things that sometimes gets in the way? I know everybody’s going to be a little different. I’m just curious. Well, it’s what they think is in the way, right? Because we can dissect it. But what they think is in the way is time. Okay, so that’s easy because every 1 of our coaches had a grueling work schedule and we helped them around it to get the full time.
Another 1 is they created real estate is misperceived and sometimes in people’s minds, they think they have to have. All their experience first, like, well, I must have to know how to wholesale for us or whatever. No, you don’t you want to. In fact, I could argue that I’d rather have you come in with their experience so that you’re fully open, like a clean whiteboard, a clean slate and I can and I can coach you.
So that’s that’s 1. The 3rd 1 would be. mismanaged expectations due to all the mocking that goes on for real estate programs, frankly, or business opportunities in general, meaning people come in and go, well, I, I, you know, I need to do a deal and I’m going to try this and I got to do a deal in a month or two.
It’s just not realistic. So I want to, I want to help people understand what is realistic, given your background, your skill set, your mindset, which is huge. all that has to come into play. And so mismanaged expectation is, is sort of a blocker without people even knowing it. Hmm. That’s great. And I think that is a, a great way to end it.
for everybody listening, I will be putting the links to in the show notes and all that good stuff. My team will do that. And if you haven’t hit the subscribe button, definitely hit that subscribe button. Also, don’t forget, go over and check out Chris’s podcast. So smart. Real estate coach podcast ranked top 0.
5 percent globally. Not an easy thing to do. Definitely. If you’re interested in real estate or otherwise, check that out. Smart real estate coach podcast, Chris, man, great catching up with you. And thanks again for coming back on the show. Thank you, buddy. Thanks for having me.