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It all started with 25k to buy 4 loans. This is how Chris Seveney built his note investing portfolio that now has grown to over $5 Million and includes another $7 Million in real estate portfolio. Chris has been in real estate for more than 20 years and has developed over $750 Million in real estate. Originally getting his bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering nad working on a Master's degree in Real Estate Finance from Georgetown University, Chris is enthusiastic about teaching others how to build what he built by investing in first position performing and non-performing notes. He is also the host of the Good Deeds Note Investing Podcast. Outside of his job and real estate investing, Chris loves spending time with his family and is an avid Boston sports fan.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro of Chris‘ career
2:37 - Inspiration in the real estate industry
6:36 - Finding properties in Washington DC
8:46 - Performing notes vs. nonperforming notes
9:11 - Goals in the mortgage process
11:20 - Risks
15:43 - Process of a mortgage
18:14 - Chris' strategies of growth
20:12 - Chris' work schedule
22:32 - The future
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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. Welcome everybody to another episode of The REL freedom podcast. And today we're gonna talk about mortgages, mortgage notes and investing. And so today, I've got Chris Seveney here, and he has Seveney Investments, and he's been a real estate professional for more than 20 years, developed over $750 million in real estate. As the son of a lifelong educator, you now want to share note investing in your knowledge of that four first position, performing a non performing notes. So you have a master's or getting your master's degree from Georgetown University, been able to build your investment portfolio to over $5 million for notes and your real estate portfolio to over $7 million. Lots more for us to talk about. But thanks for coming on the show, Chris. So excited to have you.
Chris Seveney
Yes, excited to be here, Mike. Thanks for having me, I've been investing in the mortgage note space for the last five years, as you mentioned, I've been in real estate and construction development for over 20 years. And the one quick little story I'll say about how I got into notes is I stumbled upon them. And I was actually upset at the time because I had been in real estate it for over 15 years at the time and never knew mortgage note investing was around. And then I got heavily involved in it because of the ability to be able to do it from anywhere in the world and any point in time. And I started doing it and one of the things I want to do is start sharing a lot of my knowledge that I get from that and you know, so forth. And we've launched podcasts as well, that at the end I can tell people about from that perspective.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, the good deeds note investing podcast. Yeah. So you know, one of the things that I like to share with people, you know, we talk about building wealth, gaining, you know, time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. And another big part of that is I want to share where people have come from, because what I want to have happen is, you know, there's so much opportunity in the real estate industry, I want somebody to say, you know, based on my skill set or knowledge, like maybe I haven't quite found my fit. But now I heard Chris' episode and Chris' background that really clicked for me. And that makes sense, you know, so why don't you just share a little bit about your background and kind of how you got to where you're at today, to maybe inspire somebody who's listening to say, yeah, that path makes sense. I like that.
Chris Seveney
So the first thing I'll tell people about inspiration is it does not matter how old you are. I'm 46 years old, I'll be 47 later this year, and I didn't start investing in my own portfolio till about 2013. And several reasons why I do come from at a civil engineering degree out of college, I graduate in the late 90s. And I was working for large general contractors, doing a lot of commercial projects. And anyone who's ever been in that business, especially back in the 90s 2000s, when the economy was good is you were working at least 60 hours a day, you it was expected to work Saturdays, the work life balance back then compared to now is significantly different. And it also kind of handcuffed you where you weren't really had the time or the energy to want to do things on your own, especially if you're working that many hours, you know, family time and everything else. It truly was almost impossible.
Chris Seveney
So in 2000, in, in 2008, you know, I'll share a story about where I was at in my life was I was a week after Lehman Brothers collapse, I was working, I had switched jobs a year prior, because I was overstressed and wanting to be close work closer to home. So I took a new job with a different developer. In a week after Lehman Brothers occurred, the crash. I walked into the office on a Monday morning, I was usually the first one there. But all the executives were there. So something I'm like, what's going on? The cars were there, but they weren't there. And all sudden they come in at like 915 and come in my office, close my door and say, essentially, hey, look, about two thirds of the office is getting laid off today. You're not one of them. But here's a contract that basically extend your employment till Thanksgiving essentially, to finish up your projects, and then basically go on your way and there's a potential, it could be extended, but they never told you like how long and for people around that time. You know, the market kept crashing. And about two weeks later, my wife at the time came to me and said she wanted a divorce.
Chris Seveney
So kind of worlds crashing down. Literally that December 1 I hopped in the car. I went back to my old company but drove down to DC and started from there. Since that time, I've gotten remarried, I have two wonderful kids. And like I said, in 2013, we built our primary residence. And then we had a lot of equity based on the time we built it. And my boss at the time, I was working for a different developer at switched jobs had rentals in San Diego, and he asked me how many rentals I have. And I said, None. He's like, dude, how are you going to retire? Like you need to get into real estate investing. So he sparked my interest. And I know kind of long story short, I started buying some rentals and don't fix them. Basically buy and hold rentals where we renovate them. But after two or three of them with a wife and kids, that kind of got squashed because our weekends were tied up. And I'm in the Washington DC area where it's very competitive. So I ended up stumbling upon note investing, because you can do that, literally, I do it at like 10 o'clock at night, or like six o'clock in the morning. You can do it anywhere, as long as you have a computer and anytime during the day. I know there's a lot there.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, no, it is it is. And I you know, because we've had folks on in the past where I remember an episode we did very early on, where he's an IT guy. And he's like, you know, I noticed that all the executives in my company had a rental portfolio. And I've got to get started, I've got to do something. And so he started with some short term rentals, he actually happens to be in San Diego now doing short term rentals. But that's the thing is, you know, who you are around matters. And in a case like this, somebody helped inspire you and kind of push you to get started in that. So so let's talk about just just kind of that beginning piece there. So you took the equity that you had. And you found now what were the properties in the DC area?
Chris Seveney
Yeah, there are two properties in the DC area. And they're actually condos. And the reason why I wanted condos and most people are gonna stay away from condos was, I want the least about least amount of maintenance possible. And we literally went and we replaced all the electrical in these units, and just completely renovate them. So I don't have to spend 100 bucks on an electrician to come fix an outlet, or whatever the case may be. So the nice thing with the condos is I didn't have to worry about anything on the outside. I know I was paying condo fees. But that peace of mind because the busy lifestyle we had, I was willing to pay that price for the peace of mind.
Mike Swenson
We had that we had a townhouse is our first No, it'd be our second rental. And I enjoyed that because I don't have to worry about snow shoveling mowing the lawn. It was new ish construction at the time. So you know, the the siding, the roof, we don't have to worry about any of that stuff. I think I would get a call maybe once a year, maybe every 18 months of you know, water heater furnace or something like that. But there was no maintenance. So I was able to self manage that. So there is a piece Yeah, you're paying the price. But you may have paid that to a property manager or you may have paid that to maintenance crew.
Chris Seveney
Yep. So after that, like I said, when we really couldn't scale anymore because of a cost. But also timing. I mean, if you didn't look at a property that day, like the market today is insane. It's almost always been like that the last seven years here in DC, because especially in certain areas or neighborhoods that people want to be in. So I stumbled upon on the website, bigger pockets, mortgage note investing. And I was like, What is this and I'm like, wait a second, you can actually buy somebody's mortgage from that was originated at a bank and pay it at a discount. And basically, you know, don't have to worry about the tenant don't have to worry or the borrower calling you to fix the toilet fix a roof leak. Because you know, if you own a house, you know, if something happens, you don't call your lender. It's like it's your house, you know, all you're doing is collecting those payments. Yeah, assuming that they're getting paid. And that's where there's a difference of this performing notes, which you know, people pay on a constant stream. And then there's non performing, which the one thing I'll mentioned that blows people's mind is most people think, Oh, if I miss one mortgage payment, oh my god, they're gonna come throw me out of my house.
Chris Seveney
We have borrowers who haven't paid in 3567 years, Emily and a mortgage payment. So when we talk about distressed, we're talking about serious delinquency. And our goal, throughout this whole process is always to try and keep them in their home. For you know, the social good. I mean, the name of my podcast, good deeds, now is putting on words because mortgage is a, you know, has a deed attached to it. But I mean, that's our philosophy. And it's what we've been doing. And it's a business that is actually very scalable if you have systems in place, and that's one of the things any real estate business, you know, if you put good systems in place, and being a civil engineer, not an IT guy, but I'm just very structured on everything. And that is something that allows people to be very successful in that space.
Mike Swenson
How did you move from, you know, I'm listening to the podcast, and now I'm in the game.
Chris Seveney
So, it was a typical engine Your analysis paralysis, I did about six months of studying, I built like this crazy financial calculator that took me like, I probably put, like, over 100 plus hours into it, which was so overkill, but I wanted to make sure I covered every single base. And I look back now and because I've looked at so many assets, I don't even kind of need to use it anymore. It's more of a reference. But it allowed me to think a lot about that process. So after about six months of studying, I finally pulled the trigger, and I took money from my solo 401 K, so did my own money from my own retirement account, which was a whole nother animal that I never knew, when you left a company that you can actually roll it into an IRA or, you know, manage it yourself, the only options they ever tell you is keep it or move it to your new company. So I took it was probably 25 grand, it wasn't a lot. And again, the numbers might fluctuate up or down a few $1,000, I can't remember the exact number, but roughly around 25,000 to buy these for loans.
Chris Seveney
And they were one of them was performing one of them was actually in bankruptcy, which they are paying in bankruptcy and two of them are non performing. But they had very low balances. So the balances on these loans may have been like 10 to 15,000. But the house values were like 100,000. So the house has had equity. So from a risk perspective, okay, what's the worst thing that can happen is basically you get them on repayment plan, or if they just completely ignore you, and you're foreclose, you will get paid off that balance it for closure. So I viewed it as a very low risk, you know, type of investment, that so I would kind of make sure I wouldn't lose money or my initial investment.
Mike Swenson
Okay, so then just just to clarify, and for somebody that may not be tracking this, yeah, you're basically taking the four loans that were on the four properties. You're saying, hey, instead of XYZ bank, or XYZ lender, having the the mortgage on that you're buying them out. And now you own that. And so then yeah, if the property goes into foreclosure, they sell it. Now they cut a check to you versus where they would check for the same, but because there's equity there, the likelihood of getting your money back is strong.
Chris Seveney
Yeah, correct. So think of you're just stepping in this is what blows everyone's mind. I'll just use Wells Fargo. No, no, no association with them. I do have an account with them. But you know, so Wells Fargo might be like, okay, they own the loan. So you're paying Wells Fargo, and also Wells Fargo will do an assignment. Most people probably have had this happen in past where your payment where you send your payments might get changed or something. Basically your loan is probably getting sold to from one bank to the other. So Wells Fargo might sell it the PNC PNC might sell it the truest ones other banks have. But if they see that there's a potential for any risk on it, that sometimes will make its way to Wall Street which will go into securitized and then it might work its way down like anything, it funnels down to Main Street. So eventually, I'm just stepping in the place of simple example, Wells Fargo.
Chris Seveney
So instead of basically, you cutting a check to Wells Fargo every month, you're actually cutting a check to me. And people will take questions people always ask her why would you buy something that they're not paying on? And why would a bank sell? So to answer the first question is because you're buying at a significant discount. If somebody owes $20,000, you're not paying $20,000. For that note, you could be paying anywhere from five to 15,000, depending on the state and many different factors. So by buying it a discount allows you more negotiation to work a new payment plan out with that borrower, because the amount of skin in the game is less. The other is why banks sell and when you look at loans, or hedge funds, as I'll use more are the ones we buy from, it costs the same amount of money to manage a loan on a million dollar house, a million dollar loan as it does a $20,000 loan. What do you think the bank's going to pay more attention to? Now in, in look at every employer in the United States today, and what is their biggest problem? They can't find enough people. So why did these loans almost get forced that we don't have time to manage them? And it's such a low balance, why we bother with it, it's going to cost us more money to manage it, then basically if we sell it at a discount and just take the money upfront.
Mike Swenson
So they're just essentially just cashing out, right? Like,
Chris Seveney
they're just cashing out,
Mike Swenson
let's just say just for random numbers, you know, hey, it's gonna cost us $10,000 To figure this out, or manage it or deal with the headache. Hey, Chris, why don't you just take it for five? And now I can be done with it. And at least I got something for it. Yeah,
Chris Seveney
that that's a lot of the mindset and from a lot of the people that, you know, we buy from because what also happens is these large institutions, they're buying 10s of 1000s of loans. They break them up, they'll bring them into what's called tranches, buckets. And they're like, Okay, here's the top bucket, these are the ones we really want. But we were forced to buy all of these. So these aren't our cup of tea, and maybe it's a certain state they don't like, they'll carve those out, and then they sell them off. And then they don't make money typically when they sell them, because they were at the top of the food chain. But then also, they'll keep the ones that they want at the top of the food chain. And like I said, spin off the other ones. It's no different than say, you're buying a portfolio of rentals from one person in seven of them one town and the eighth one was in another town, it was a little further away than your property manager wanted to go, like, you know, because I'm getting such a great deal. I'll buy it, but then I'm just going to turn around and sell it to somebody. It's the same theory.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. So then what happens when you acquired those? Are you calling up the homeowner and saying, Hey, I'm this guy, Chris. I've now got the mortgage here. Let's talk how did how does that process?
Chris Seveney
Hell no, first off. And the reason I say that is, you know, the CFPB, you know, consumer finance, Protection Bureau, and RESPA. And all the laws, like when you go to get a mortgage, you know, you sign like 4000 pieces of paper, all the disclosures and so forth. This industry is heavily regulated. And it's, that's one of the, I don't wanna say downsides, but something to be aware of, is you really got to know the rules. So the first rule in note investing is never service your own loans, which is never collect the payments, never call the borrowers. Now, if they reach out to you, because they know you own the loan, that's, you know, of course, you can have a conversation with them. But you pay a company to collect those payments, typically costs cost 25 bucks a month per loan. But they're also they're making the phone calls, they're sending the monthly statements.
Chris Seveney
They're applying when a payment comes in the principal versus the interest on the loan, they're sending out the 1098, to the borrowers, they handle that whole process. Now, I'm a big fan of working on your business, not in your business. So why do you want to be sending out monthly statements? And if somebody's late, you have to send a late notice. Because if you don't, it's a violation that you can get fined every time you don't do it. So, you know, in the software to use that stuff. It's you definitely, definitely, definitely
Mike Swenson
people that have gone before you and done that. Yes. So then, so then, how does that work on the back end? So they essentially now you're, you're hiring them, they service the loan? And then how does your money come back to you? Every month or quarter? Or how does that
Chris Seveney
every pretty much every month? You know, the servicer I've got right now a little over 250 loans under management. And I have them between three different servicers right now. Because of like different states, I like different ones in different areas. But yeah, every week, they take the remittance the payments from the prior week, they'll send me like your your payments from last week, and just deposited right into my bank account. And I can log in and see, like, you know, which borrower paid which one didn't, very similar to again, people have rental portfolios, you know, if you got 10 doors and use like app folio, one of those things, you know, you can log in and say, Okay, who's paid, who hasn't paid? And then they get paid? And then they just send me the money through back through to me,
Mike Swenson
how have you strategically, then what what have you learned from? I bought these first floor for to now you're up to 250? How are you kind of strategically improving as you go?
Chris Seveney
We don't have time for this, but in five minutes, or Yeah, no, I will say I mean, a lot of growing pains, a lot of lessons learned. And that's one of the things why I educate people is, hey, I can share with you the mistakes I made to kind of have you leap forward and jump over those. This business is very different than conventional real estate, like in your market it probably cutthroat for real estate. And note investing because most people invest across the country. I've got people I know who do this. And we like share information back and forth, or I have a deal I'm not interested. It's you know, there's a term that goes around called coopetition not competition, because there's so many assets typically, that you can't take them all down. Compared to, you know, if you're like, I think you're in San Diego, you know, it's like, hey, deal comes up, people are just scratching chomping at the bit to get it on a real estate deal.
Chris Seveney
But the biggest thing takeaway, I would tell from a scaling perspective, is choose your right partners. Don't go cheap. And that's where I made mistakes in the past where I'd have a company do something and it's like a one man show. And also in that one man show is a no man show. So then all sudden, I spent 1000s of dollars on them and then all sudden they're not providing the service I need. So then I have to flip and start all over again. And not only is it the you know, the cost, but it's the time and that time again I go back to I have to spend now on that, you know, in my business versus on my business. So that would be the biggest thing I tell people was build a kick butt team around you, that knows what they're doing. And basically, you still need to manage them. But it's so I'll say, a light management, not heavy management.
Mike Swenson
And how many hours per week are you working on this?
Chris Seveney
Typically, because I have systems and I have somebody who helps me as well. But before I probably see prob about 30, so I do have full time job, I probably spend a good 30 hours a week on this as well, would be a lot more, but I will say I have spent probably a little over $50,000, in software, to basically I bought software that the servicing companies use that is very handy to manage, it takes the place of probably two employees, so it was actually cost savings. Now people are like, Well, yeah, get started, nobody has 50,000 of the software. I didn't start with that I started with Excel. And what I did is, every time I make profits, you know, those profits would just go back to get reinvested and reinvest in the company, I reinvest in the systems to scale, because what happens is, you get to a point where you get stuck in retired to, okay, I'm in the spot. In order to make that leap. I need to spend x amount of dollars.
Chris Seveney
And it's like, Oh, I do I spend that much money because it's considerable money. And that 50,000 was over time, the first bucket was like 12,000, then I spent 10 on an upgrade, and, you know, over time, but that's the conundrum because people get caught kind of in that middle space. And what I would tell people is, you know, save up for it, and it's worth taking that leap. Take your time to get there. But then you take that leap, and then it's kind of like moving the needle that okay, you're kind of you know, I'll say like, I'll use the federal government as an example, you know, the pay scales they have and stuff like you get caught in somebody's, you know, in between, like this bracket. Now, if you can make that leap, then you see you reset your floor, by resetting your floor, it can lead to continued growth, and it will be for your business. It's a hard decision. It's a scary decision. And it's a risky decision. But everyone I talked to typically, after you've been doing it for a few years, and you know what you're doing, it pays off.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, we often talk about in the real estate business, like breaking through a ceiling of achievement, like you've hit that plateau. And you know, to go from this level to this level, I've got to do something different. Otherwise, you're just going to continue on that.
Chris Seveney
I'm gonna steal that breaking through the achievement. Yeah, I'm writing that down and stealing that.
Mike Swenson
I didn't come up with a phrase, so I don't get credit for it. But where do you plan on taking the business from here? So you're up to 5 million, right?
Chris Seveney
Yeah, it's actually grown even since then, it's probably doubled since that time. Right now we are working on even scaling that significantly greater to greater lengths, we're in the process of starting to scale with additional team members to bring on board. And I'm a big proponent of you know, slow growth in the sense of No, just don't scale, and then figure it out later. I've been master planning for since 2020. I did finish my master's at Georgetown. And my thesis was actually on raising significant money for fun to invest in mortgage notes. So I wrote my thesis, which was my basically business plan that I was just going to take and implement it a later date. So that's what I'm focused on right now is looking to eventually scale this to a level where we're going to build out a staff of five or six employees, and really bring on a team of experts and to really focus in managed to allow for the growth we're looking for.
Mike Swenson
And then at some point, do you feel that you're going to kind of kick kick the day job and go jump in on this full time? Or do you always feel like you're going to be doing both buckets?
Chris Seveney
I'd love to, but also, hopefully, nobody from my day job listens to this episode. But no, eventually,
Mike Swenson
you don't have a large Massachusetts contingency.
Chris Seveney
yeah, so but no joking aside. Yeah, I mean, eventually, yes, it's my passion. I but my, what I do within my full time jobs, world of real estate, construction development. I love that too. So I'm fortunate where I'm not in a position where I'm one of those people like, oh my god, I hate my day job. I dread going to it every day. Just please. Calgon take me away. If you remember those commercials, you might be too young for those. But older listeners know what I'm talking about. So eventually, yeah, I mean, that's the master plan on things, when that occurs is still something that I need to map out and develop and, like anything in life, you know, whatever you plan, you know, make sure you have a plan A, B, and C because life always throws you a curveball.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, well, and I think too, it also speaks to the leverage that you've built through software systems and other things where you can do both. I mean, it's, it's taking time on both ends. And yet at the same time, you're able to do both because you've invested in in systems and that's where You know, we talked about real estate leverage freedom, you know, you couldn't do it without the leverage and the leverage for you is a lot of computer software, and you know, it stuff.
Chris Seveney
And the other thing I'll mention, too, is, you know, we've got a portfolio notes that say there's 250 of them, the average price was 40 grand, so we're, it's $10 million. Now, if we wanted to stay at 250, but then by $80,000, on average, you know, we just doubled our numbers by also, we're still and it goes back to that earlier comment, we're still managing the same amount of assets in the same portfolio, essentially, it's just the value of them increased, it's, I'd say, like buying a house in Arizona, that you have as a rental compared to San Diego, San Diego, you're probably paying four times that price, but it's still one house. It's very similar notes were okay, I can buy lower value ones. But then as I grow to scale, I can start replacing those with the higher value ones that allow for the exponential growth. Yeah, there's
Mike Swenson
there's a lot to cover here. And it was good to get an entry level discussion here on what it takes because I know listeners would be curious to hear, you know, how can I do that in? How can you do it while still still keep in your day job. So congratulations for what you've been able to build and how that's grown.
Chris Seveney
Thank you, Mike. And it's been a pleasure also coming on today. And if people are interested in finding out more information about me, they can email me at [email protected]. If you're interested in more about note investing, you can listen to the Good Deeds Note Investing Podcast as well. And our website is seven e the number 7einvestments.com to check out what we've got going on.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on Chris and educating our listeners on notes and how that works. I certainly learned a lot and appreciate so thanks so much.
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