Chris Prefontaine - Becoming Wicked Smart At Real Estate Investing
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON:
Chris Prefontaine isn't just Wicked Smart when it comes to real estate investing. In fact, it's also the name of his company! Chris has been in real estate for over 30 years. He's worked on the construction side, agent side, done commercial transactions, and also coaches others. He's a 4 time best-selling author and the host of the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast, and has also completed over $100 Million in transactions. In this episode Chris talks about building and growing his companies, how to buy and sell real estate on terms, and how he helps people escape their 9 to 5 job by helping them have 3 Paydays with each property that they work. If you want to learn more, you can pick up an absolutely free copy of 2 of Chris' books by going here: https://wickedsmartbooks.com/rel/
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Learning how to recognize the opportunity and take action.
- Tips to Get Started
- Find a niche gets you excited
- Find someone in that niche that you like
- Put the blinders on for 3-7 years and focus on action
- Entrepreneurship and businesses take time.
- Run with creative real estate opportunities. This is how fortunes are created.
- You don't have to convince anyone when making offers on properties, you have to find someone who has a problem or a goal and help him accomplish it.
- Put the blinders on and not get caught up in shiny object syndrome.
- Know your numbers. Do the math on all investment interest rates to find good solutions.
- Work smarter, not harder.
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro to Chris’ Career
2:07 - How He Got Started
4:06 - Market Crash
6:48 - Tips to Get Started
13:41 - Affordability Problem
18:13 - Three Payday System
20:33 - Escaping W2 Job
24:00 - The Quick Script
27:03 - Strategy and Time
28:21- How to Find Chris
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL Freedom Podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together
Mike Swenson
All right. Welcome, everybody to another episode of The REL Freedom Podcast where we talk about real estate leveraged freedom, building wealth, gaining time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. And today, I'm so excited. We've got Chris Prefontaine here and he's going to share with you a lot of building wealth in real estate and how that works. Very experienced. And so a little bit background about Chris here before we get in 4 Time Best Selling Author books, real estate on your terms, the new rules of real estate investing and sell with authority for real estate investors, founder of wicked smart companies, and host of the smart real estate coach podcast. So you've been in real estate for 31 years after the crash reengineered your entire business to weather all storms and economic cycles.
Mike Swenson
Today, you guys run your creative financing business and in the trenches every day, helping people plan their escape from their W2 jobs, get in the trenches and doing deals with them. So, you know, Chris, I think that's a big piece of kind of why I got into working with investors is I came into residential real estate eight years ago, I just assumed I worked for a nonprofit, I assume people are making money hand over fist in real estate. And I saw so many people struggling. And you know, coming in on the residential real estate side, I saw regular agents that couldn't pay their bills couldn't figure things out, they're sitting on a goldmine of opportunity here and just don't understand the value of what they're in. And so obviously, you're somebody that's taken it, run with it, and has built a large business for you, but also helped a lot of people who don't have real estate as their full time job, build wealth and grow. So excited to see what you're going to share with us today. So welcome to the show.
Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, thanks, buddy. Glad to be here. And hopefully we'll we'll drop some nuggets for them for sure.
Mike Swenson
You just kind of want to share a little bit about why real estate, how you got into it, how that build, built and developed. And then we'll dig into some other stuff from there.
Chris Prefontaine
I'll sort of fast forward as I said to I'm following on so I go fast. But I also want to go fast just because it's 31 years. And not only that, that age may thank you. But it also is a lot to talk about. So I was a realtor broker owner as well. I was a builder. First. I didn't know how to build but I teamed up with someone, we bought land on terms I didn't know it back then I was naive, I was in my 20s. And then we I bought a brokerage built that sold it to Cole banker, there's a good experience, I just didn't know back then how to do what we do now creative real estate. So you and I will dive into that I wish I did because I would have crushed it. I think as a realtor. Back then when I was an owner, I did like 100 homes a year my peak for like three years straight before selling but I could have created some wealth. Instead, I felt like I was spinning plates if I knew how to do this.
Chris Prefontaine
And then from 2009 I was coaching mostly high earning relatives back then it was before creative real estate kicked in, then then the crash happened. And that was ugly. I call it the debacle in my book. But that was an ugly time. And from that point on my just a fast forward. That's when creative real estate came about because I basically said okay, I almost didn't get back into business, I get beat up so bad in the crash. And when I did I said right, what are sort of the rules we're going to operate in what's the box look like that I'll that I'll that I'll be able to operate within and that was no signing personally on bank debt ever, maybe an exception of your personal residence.
Chris Prefontaine
No borrowing from investors and buying everything on terms creative real estate. So that's lease purchase owner financing, or subject to existing financing. And so just to tie this together, then I'll throw it back to you. As a realtor. If I have a real to hold on back then I knew how to do this. There are not too many homes that I'd have to walk away from. So if I didn't get a listing, I could buy it. If they didn't want to go short sale, I could buy it. There's so many ways I could help the seller and been a much better guide and as a result made a whole bunch of money. So that's that's as short as I can go for 31 years. How's that?
Mike Swenson
Well, in talking about the market crash, kind of my experience going through that is I was newly married, my wife was going to school to get her master's degree. And I worked for a nonprofit. And we bought a townhouse. The townhouse crashed I was excited. We got it for a couple $1,000 less than what the previous owners got it for crashed, and I watched all my neighbors and the townhouse complex go foreclosure short sale, you name it. Yeah. And at that time, I had done a little bit of construction. I was interested in real estate but I wasn't in it full time. And I see the opportunity that was out there and I remember thinking like Gosh, I wish I could have a way to scoop up these properties for for half price.
Mike Swenson
And instead we just were underwater on our own for a long time, ended up renting it out, bought a short sale and kind of recovered but you know, those are the opportunities out there for people that know what they're doing. And so, you know, we You're obviously in an interesting spot in the market right now with where rates are at. And so there's a lot of opportunity here where I think a lot of people just feel like, oh, rates are so high, I'm just gonna crawl up in a ball and wait till rates go down. And no, there's there's a lot of opportunity here. So I think it's knowing to recognize the opportunity and knowing to be able to take action on it.
Chris Prefontaine
Well, a couple of things you said that were really interesting. So in no particular order. One is, people think, especially them in around a long time that rates are high, quote, unquote, right. And they are relatively speaking, but I 50 are average Mike is 7.7. That's our 50 year average. And we're not quite there yet. Unless they bumped up more than eight. Last time I looked, they were like, I don't know sevens are high sixes. So whatever they are now, they're not 7.7. I don't think so what's the tide of the opportunity with that, when the rates kept doing what they did, they were buyers on the cusp, right? Clearly that could buy the thought they could buy. Now, sadly them and their families can do if they're on the cusp of credit worthiness or qualify, now they can't. So you just pushed hundreds of 1000s. I don't know if the numbers of buyers to the sidelines.
Chris Prefontaine
Therefore, clearly the sellers aren't selling like they used to in most markets, and it's starting to trickle out. So that just created an enormous opportunity for creative real estate, because that's exactly who we help, who we buy homes from. And I don't want to make it sound like it's just people that that need help. We buy homes that are free and clear. That's one of our best theories we kind of fish in. And that's debt free homes. This building I'm sitting in right now speaking to you, we're recording this episode. This is an office building, I bought owner financing free and clear. This is what this is who we like to go after that niche. And so it's not just people that need help, but it is a lot of both sides of that that makes sense
Mike Swenson
For sure. So for people out there that have kind of said, I've always wanted to get into real estate, I don't really know how to get started. What should I do? What advice do you have for those folks?
Chris Prefontaine
Well, okay, so I'll give you a non bias comment that'll be more direct. So my non bias comment is, I'm very biased, I've recruited real estate that time has not been better than 31 years. But let me just be general, find a niche that you get excited about. Like in our niche, it's a lot about helping people. So I see we tend to attract that type of person, then once you find that niche that you can get behind and again, I personally think it's create a real estate, no better timing, and 31 years. Second, find someone in that niche that you like. And this could be any business person, by the way does have to be real estate, find someone in that niche that has weathered a bunch of at least two market cycles, and maybe even some personal challenges too, because that person can then guide you and you need a guide.
Chris Prefontaine
And then the three is the toughest, put the blinders on for three to seven years. Like I used to just say three, but I know businesses take time entrepreneurship takes time. So you got to put the blinders on and not get caught up with the shiny object syndrome. So for example, we're sitting here you and I recording in almost November last day of October, and right the second, if there'll be people then the next day, six months that say get it, I want to run with this creative real estate opportunities there. This is how fortunes are created. And they'll create like a decade of income in the next nine to 12 months if they do it right.
Chris Prefontaine
Let's just say conservatively nine to 24. Because we have we've trademarked our three paydays system. So when I was a real estate to get a good house, so we'll get a check, right? It's normal, build a house, get a check. Three Payday system is get a check now get a check monthly and get a check three for five years in a row. Well, that's pretty cool. That's what I mean by setting up a decade of income and not being on that proverbial treadmill. Yeah, and
Mike Swenson
just to clarify, you said three to seven years for blinders, not three to seven weeks, yeah, three to seven months. You know, being in real estate, it's shiny object syndrome chasing right. And so it's just knocking down that nail time after time after time. So So for somebody who's looking to get in, they hear about creative real estate, we're talking about, you know, trying to take over for people that are owners, people who maybe have mortgages, and you can can do that. So why don't you just kind of walk through for folks that maybe aren't that familiar with what kind of the seller financing this creative pieces, just give us kind of the quick nuts and bolts and then we'll dive in deeper from there.
Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, I'll give you a thumbnail of each technique and, and I'll answer more specifically your last question, which was how can I get started I think for a new person, the first technique I'm going to explain his best and I'll say why, and that is a sandwich lease. You can't do that in Texas but you can do it everywhere else it's just you're gonna type a home under a lease purchase you're gonna then as an equitable interested partner in that home you're gonna then have the right to go ahead and put a buyer there we tend to put rent homebuyers in there who just need time during during this climate they a whole bunch of in the time to get qualified again or, or to build up cash.
Chris Prefontaine
Now I said it's easiest for you if you're new because all you are the sandwiches the seller, the buyer and you're in the middle, and you're not taking title to the property. Our agreements are pre built with a $10 deposit, literally, student after student but Brian in Chicago recently at one of our events, explain to the audience his first eight deals because it was easy. He did $10 deposits and create a little over 100 grand and three paydays. I mean that's just that's It's almost money out of thin air. And I don't mean to water it down, there's a skill set he learned, but tend to deposit that's lease purchase. Owner financing, like the building right here that I'm sitting in those for us are more free and clear properties, as I alluded to earlier. And we structured principal only payments to the owner as the bank.
Chris Prefontaine
So if you're not familiar with owner financing, it just means when you close there's no new money by way of a bank coming to the table in your settlement statement, the owner steps in and they are the bank and you make payments to them. So every single month, the the widow of the gentleman or somebody is building gets a check from us, instead of a bank, I did not have to go through underwriting, commercial underwriting even worse, in deal with all that crap that you have to go through for underwriting, I just cut a deal to sell. And it's a it's a huge recession, sort of hedge Mike because think of that principle only payments, no interest, there's usually an inverse relationship, when you buy a home, you have all interest. So that's owner financing. And then the last one is a little bit more advanced, not for the brand brand new person yet that is subject to existing financing.
Chris Prefontaine
So that is more for someone in trouble on like free and clear. And that is for someone that says look, I just can't afford it, or hey, I got I can't do the second home anymore, or hey, I've got COVID We buy the home, and then loan stays in their name, they still stay as the guarantor, but I own their home. Those are neat, right now we just got one, I forget what state it was in with a student with an underlying interest rate of 2.2%. Imagine that 2.2. So you buying homes now where rates are in the sixes and sevens, you're buying them for two, three, and four, if you use that third technique, so that's my short answer and give you on those three, I can go back to any one of them if you want.
Mike Swenson
Let's talk about subject two for a little bit. For those people out there. Well, number one, I'm going to kind of fly up to 30,000 foot here and change people's perspective. You know, a lot of people think I want to get a property, I gotta go talk to a bank, you know, and so just kind of breaking from that the way that we've been programmed is the banks have money, I have to go get money from a bank. And you know, the stuff that you work in is, it's really just putting together I have a need, and I have I have I have something over here and I have a need and you're trying to work creatively to marry those two things together.
Mike Swenson
And so that's where, you know, you don't have to go through application processes and submitting all your financials and all that because it's you're finding a need and you're trying to help somebody and so I think a lot of times yeah, there's there's a bad reputation out there where people think like, oh, you're trying to take advantage of people but really it's just you're trying to figure out how do I put one person on the box on one side one person the box on the other side? And how do we meet in the middle and find something that works for both parties?
Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, we actually okay two things in that yes, we all we do is solve problems. People say well, how did you convince like this buildings on a very busy street? If I look out my window, right, and people go Well, how'd you how'd you convince him? I didn't convince him anything he he wanted for planning reasons, estate reasons and cashflow reasons and tax reasons. All the above. He wanted owner financing. So I solved that farm. And as far as taking advantage, not only do we solve, we pay usually full price, like it's crazy all so you don't have to convince anyone you have to find someone who has a problem or a goal that trying to accomplish like this guy, he wasn't a financial problem, and help them accomplish it. And that's it. That's all we do. And the ones that aren't in that mode, then they can go sell conventional. It's okay.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, yeah, sometimes people are just looking for cash flow streams. Sometimes people don't want to have capital gains taxes and things like that. And so there's reasons why people do different things. So I think that would be another, you know, piece of advice is is don't come in assuming that you have to convince somebody or that somebody is motivated by the same things that you're motivated by. And so it's just asking questions and figuring out, yeah, what's, what's the need, you have? What's the problem that we can try to solve? And then we just reverse engineer? How do we go about and do that?
Chris Prefontaine
Absolutely. That's why I brought the buyer trend right now. This is the first time I'm sorry, not the first the third time in 50 years in our economy. Third time, where's an affordability problem, not just a supply and demand. And if it's an affordability problem now, and we haven't hit 7.7 or higher yet, what's going to happen when we go higher. So just a thought for the opportunity in front of you.
Mike Swenson
Let's let's back up here to the reason why we're doing these types of deals. Right? you know, there's this, like you'd mentioned the three pay day thing. And so let's talk about that as typically, you know, I was in real estate for as an agent selling residential real estate, that people that I, you know, first interacted with, when I got into real estate, it's, it's, I'm on the hamster wheel of sales, right? I have to make a sale to make another sale to make another sale, and you get to December 31. And we washed that production away. Here's how many deals here's how much volume and now I'm back to zero again. And I've got to do the same thing over and over again. And so so many people treat real estate that are in it full time like a sales job of I sell house, I get commission, I sell house, I get commission, and we need to think about building wealth.
Mike Swenson
We need to think about this longer term and like you said, figuring out a way where you can create something that yeah, as an economist ain't just things change, you have a tool belt that's versatile and you can adapt. But you're building wealth along the way versus just making sales. And you know, at the end of the year, I just washed it away, and I'm back at zero again.
Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, I have a metric fire. I love just giving you exact instead of theory. So I just thought this as you were saying that that statement about wealth. So we did a 12 month look back, right. And we said, Okay, how many payday ones and twos and threes that we create. Payday two just for the sake of this discussion is the difference between what I collect from my my tenant buyer while they're getting financing and their rent owning in what I'm paying the bank or the seller, that's it, it's a small spread. But in that 12 month, look back, we created 60, I think it's like 6400 and change, call it 6400, even in monthly net spread over the course the last 12 months just on payday to.
Chris Prefontaine
Now I don't know about you, but as well as anyone who's going to in real estate, to get that kind of passive income coming out of an investment. I do the math and whatever investment interest rate you think you can get, I think it's like upwards of eight or 10 million, you would need the bank to kick out $60,000 a month. Well, I don't know if I could do that next year. But I know how to tell you or show you how to create that kind of passive income. And then of course, you get the other paydays as well.
Chris Prefontaine
But that's just an analogy of how cool it is to not be on the treadmill. Because I agree with you, I'd get to January, it would actually be depressing after three or four years as a broker owner, because I go I gotta do it again. Like I get it. I had a point. Yeah, but I can do it again. That's crazy. In the three Payday system is is good for any business owner picture. If you said to a restaurant owner, Hey, I gotta wait for you to make money now. Make money monthly, and then make money down the road for wealth building? Who would say no to that? That's the three pay system?
Mike Swenson
Yeah, it's the idea of working smarter, not harder. And yeah, if you love working with clients, if you're in the residential space, and you love working with first time homebuyers, whatever, that's great, you can still do that. And how do you start to plant some seeds to grow this stream of income so that you don't have to be as dependent on those sales? I mean, what if you got to the point where you made sales, because you'd like helping people not because you have to pay your bills.
Mike Swenson
And so I mean, and this is what baffles me being in real estate full time is there's so many people that are in other industries that are just scratching and clawing and trying to find enough time trying to find enough money trying to find and get that momentum going in real estate, because they see real estate as the path of their future success and wealth building. And then you have people that are in real estate, so full time, and they just don't see the value of of this pot of gold that they're sitting on.
Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, and if you're, you know, if you're, if anyone listening, and you listen, and database is in this, this relative mode that we're talking about, think of it this way, think of anything that doesn't fit inside your box, as far as a buyer or a seller, as good as I thought our team was back in the 90s. When I was very active real I did it for 18 years out of my 31 as good as I thought we were I lost listings, as good as I thought we were we didn't have buyers that could qualify as good as I thought we were we couldn't sell all you know, it's just it's just nature, the beast. So take all those things that don't fit in your conventional box. And now you can buy them if you want and be a authority in your marketplace, because how many sellers is going to stop flapping their lips very positively when you couldn't have a solution. But you morally and ethically said, I gotta I got one that I can buy your house. I'm an investor too. That's pretty cool.
Mike Swenson
Okay, see, we talked about the three Payday system, why don't you just dig into that a little bit deeper. Just to kind of tell folks how that works. You obviously covered that kind of on on a high level here, but but walk through that.
Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, cuz this is important because I listed a lot of podcasts. I'm on, you know, eight or 10 Shows a week and I hear people teaching the rental and system as well. You put a renter homebuyer in your home as an investor and who cares if they cash out type type mentality, morally and ethically that's awful. Frankly, it made me get away illegally. So I preface that to say the three paydays for this reason.
Chris Prefontaine
Payday one is a down payment from a worthy buyer that just can't get financing today, they might have a credit glitch, they might go divorce death COVID legitimate stuff, not like I've had bad credit for 30 years, right? So they legitimately just need time to fix their credit or with this whole COVID onslaught of people leaving their W two and moving into entrepreneurship. A lot of them didn't realize Ah man, now I need two years of what the bank called seasoning to report my income. And without that I can't get home. So we're giving them the opportunity to get in the home. So that's downpayment from a worthy buy. In that ranges from 26 to 30 grand my students can be a lot higher just an arm rocket, it's a little low. Then the payday too is that spread I said earlier between what I'm paying out for that property and what I'm collecting for us average around 308 bucks.
Chris Prefontaine
It's a lot higher in some of our other markets when students and then the payday three is down the road 2345 10 Whatever deal you structured yours. That's all of your principal pay down you accrued throughout that term of that property and your mockup. So average for us is around 75 grand average in our entire wicked smart community ranges from a low of 45 grand to a high of a quarter million. That's per deal, all three paydays and that's how they were.
Mike Swenson
Just to summarize that, you know, let's just call it 25 to 30,000 at the beginning, let's call it 75,000 At the end, and then 300 bucks a month. That's, that's pretty significant. So would you would you rather do that and find opportunities to do that? Or would you rather try to sell a home make $10,000, maybe $15,000 and then move on to the next one, I have nothing else to show for it. So talk about the students that you have that are trying to escape kind of the the nine to five job the W2 job, talk about how they can help make that transition. How does that work? I don't know. You know, in some ways, it's like, I want to be able to see a path from somebody. So I can follow that. So walk through what's a path for them? How do I get out of that w2 job?
Chris Prefontaine
Yeah. So first and foremost, let me again, broad love broad scope. We've got what we call a three year $1 million plan. And that doesn't mean you'll make 1,000,003 years it means that after the third year, using the following the metrics that I outlined in the plan, and we can give everybody a free version, this is the simple PDF. They'll have a business producing all three paydays and millenia now, well, some people go slower. Yeah, who killed it took five years if that's your plan. Some people in my company have done it in 18 months, that guy Brian I mentioned. But so what's your own pace? It's just a guide. So that's number one.
Chris Prefontaine
And let me just give two quick examples. So I mentioned Brian earlier, he's in Chicago, elevate a salesman 17 years no real estate experience except for pissed off. I didn't get enough for his house. I think he lost money on his first house. You know, personally. Second gentleman right here in New Hampshire, not far from me. I'm in Rhode Island. 20. Something he is working for the government does? Well, you know, six figures is that typical person six figures wants to make a change. He's leaving. I asked him this weekend. How are we doing on your escape? That's what we call it in our community. He said, I'm looking like July one of 23. Or maybe earlier, he just completed his third deal.
Chris Prefontaine
Number two, here's the big thing. Like here's the big connector. I think there's an enormous gap in the real estate industry, but other industries to where people see a course or go to go attend a course or go online and learn a course. And then they don't do a deal. It's like, and I think the biggest issue is I'm super clear. Now. I don't think there's no hands on interactive. Let me lock arms with you and do this deal with you. The seminar is warm and fuzzy. But then you go out and curveballs come and go man, they didn't tell me this. So we try to a tell you that upfront. And book does that too. We're gonna give one to your audience for free, no charge. But also, let's do it together. Let's be interactive is no better way to learn. And that's how we bridge that gap I refer to so for the new person.
Chris Prefontaine
All three deals were over 100,000 All three paydays. First three deals come out of the gate engineer, as I call them, an engineer brain. But think of that he's I won't say when he makes he makes good six figures, but he just almost doubled his income. With three of our deals. Well, that is pretty cool. And that's how helping them plan their escape if they're serious about doing it.
Mike Swenson
What are ways at least just some kind of basic tips for people? How do we find those deals? Where do we get started? And obviously, you know, learning from you is key. Being able that like you talked about how somebody that kind of can guide you and show you but for people out there, like I don't even understand how this works. And then we go find these deals?
Chris Prefontaine
Well, the cool thing, especially if they if they're relatives is we're not looking in many different places than you already are. We have a service my plus leads that kicks us out all the expireds for sale by owner that for rent by owner. There's other lists now too, but those three are our main lists, just like you wouldn't just like I did back in my relative days, I call them the difference is you have more things in your bag of tricks now to offer them, you can objectively morally and ethically look at it and say what do I want to do with it.
Chris Prefontaine
So that's, that's where we get the leads, then if someone's in a market where either there's not a lot of that going on, or their goals are bigger, and they want more leads, we then turn to niche lists like free and Claire, a third of the properties like in the United States, roughly, depending on what market you're in are free and clear, right now, a third, these are great people to deal with. And during COVID There's a whole bunch of dump and second homes, and they still are to this day in the doing so by saying I wanna do owner financing. So those are the kind of four main list we can go deeper with people that you know, get more advanced, but those are the main ones where we get our leads.
Mike Swenson
And then typically, how does that conversation start with somebody? What are some tips you can give for folks on that?
Chris Prefontaine
Yep, I'll give you a quick script. First of all, most of our students and we always have except for me, my first six months in the creative world, we have virtual assistants call they're trained by us, and they actually call first for you. So you're not doing that initial call. So you're only speaking to people that go Yeah, you know, I'm kind of open let them have your investor call me or your partner call me. The script is simple, though. If I was to do the initial call it whether it's a Fizbo expired doesn't matter. I would just simply ask, let's say it was you I'd say Mike, I see a price is x, let's say 300. Grand. Mike if I can get you to your price.
Chris Prefontaine
Now I haven't even seen your house yet. But if I can get you to your price, are you open to doing that on a lease purchase or owner financing? And most people say well, no, I want to sell it No kidding. I you know, 99% of the sellers I buy from do but and then I just give them reality of the market right now. And markets change. It's going to change again and again and again. So if it doesn't sell then use us as your backup plan. That's a simple script. Or I go to the simple three tier script Where are you going? By when that tells you if they're motivated, or they just kind of fishing? And what if it doesn't sell that tells me everything I need to know and what their problem may or might not be.
Mike Swenson
This is the this is the cool part. I mean it, it sounds so simple. And for those that are listening to this, that are outside of real estate and looking to get into real estate, it can be that simple. You've got the tools to be able to do that it just carving out the time, and then taking the action to make that work. And yeah, in 20 minutes, 25 minutes together here, we kind of talked about, you know, why would somebody be interested in doing this outside of a job? How do they go find those people? What do they say to those people?
Mike Swenson
And how can that build and grow to get out of your nine to five job and to get into real estate and, and I think for a lot of people, real estate really can be the solution, you know, you don't have to try to work your way up the corporate ladder, you don't have to try to make 200 300 $400,000 in a sales job. It's just this this way you can build passive income that grows into active income. And on top of that, and it's just a great spot. And so real estate's a fun spot to be it's a great spot for people to build their wealth, and I love how you're helping people get there.
Chris Prefontaine
Yeah, it's awesome, I guess I'll add one thing to what you said they should do. And that is manage, manage, excuse me, their expectations. There's just too much crap ads out too many crap ads all day going, Oh, get rich tomorrow. On the first day, it's not gonna be tomorrow, but it'd be very predictable. And you can see the pathway once you work with a CIO or someone in your in your space.
Mike Swenson
Just final topic I wanted to touch on here for today is, you know, obviously, we talked about how you're building and helping people in terms of building. So now, you know, for people that are successful in real estate or have done some things in real estate or even entrepreneurs and other areas. You've obviously built a business around, you know, training, coaching, mentoring, social media, live events, talk about how that piece, those pieces of your business books, podcast, how those pieces have evolved, over the last handful of years, as your company has continued to grow here. How do you how much strategy time do you put into all this other stuff? And eventually it comes down to you've got somebody who's just saying, Go here, do this, do this, but but I'd love to hear kind of how you build these other arms on top of your business.
Chris Prefontaine
Well, they morphed from in 2014. We have a war college here. They go for training and whatnot. And one of the guys going back to civilian life, literally call me and said I heard about you, I'm going back to civilian life. I think it was Cleveland, can you show me what you do? I mean, that's literally how it started. And then we wrote a little ebook about sandwich leases. And then that built our list a little bit. And now fast forward. We hit Inc 5000 last two years in a row, because we're just our footprint is so big now Mike, because people haven't success. It's not it's not you can't hide that it is social proof is everywhere now. So then then now you get to market that the best time in 31 years, it's feeding us. So it's not hard to let those organically grow. As far as how I do it. I mean, we've got a great team that started with myself, my son Nick and my son in law, Zach, and my daughter, Kayla, and now we've gotten to know 19 people that run the coaching side of things.
Chris Prefontaine
And then the property entities has always been right here in house with my you know, small group of team members like four. So they run concurrently though, here's why I say that when you coach and help people, a lot of stuff comes from the field, right? We've got 140 people out there, say doing deals, all kinds of curveballs come back at us to help them with that means we're sharpening so a big time, and likewise right back at them. So we're in the field doing deals. And after 31 years, I still get surprised here and there with deals. And then we bring that to the community on a weekly basis. So it's like a give and take, if that makes sense. So there's no better thing than seeing someone go from A to Z and leaving the job. And it's no better thing than sharpening your sword constantly. As you teach people. It's pretty cool.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Chris, for coming on. Appreciate your time and appreciate you sharing your wisdom so much here that we couldn't cover. So how can folks hear about you and learn more about what you're doing?
Chris Prefontaine
I'll give you two free things. I'm big on free because there is so much opportunity in real estate and you you choose but two things you can do. One is go to smart real estate coach.com forward slash masters with an S class, you'll get if you don't mind dealing with my New England speed, you'll get me for about 55 minutes and we give you a Thursday. How do we do this, and then I'll send you off at some resources free. And if you want to get into it further, you'll know how. And then the second thing I mentioned in your show, let's give your audience a book. And when I say a free book, I don't mean they're going to put a credit card in for shipping. I think those are bogus free offers. We literally shipped downstairs Sue does it. She'll ship you a couple of our best selling books and maybe some goodies in there. And we pay for it. And so just go to wicked smart books wicked smart books.com forward slash r e l and then I know it's your tribe and we offered everybody in your tribe that free package.
Mike Swenson
Well thank you so much, Chris for coming on and sharing just like I said a wealth of information there's so much that you've accomplished. I wish we could always cover more in our in our limited time together but appreciate you taking the time and sharing all your knowledge with us. And yeah, go check out the website, go get those books. And you know, I think the key is is you got to start somewhere. You got to start building that passive income and real estate's a fun place to be. And if you're not here yet, you should get here.
Chris Prefontaine
Keep spreading the word, buddy. Good job.
