Today’s guest is Zachary Beach.
Zach is an Amazon Best-Selling Author of The New Rules of Real Estate Investing and revised edition of Real Estate On Your Terms. He has been an authority in real estate for 8 years now and has personally completed hundreds of real estate transactions and mentored investors to complete thousands of transactions.
Show summary:
In this podcast episode, Zachary Beach, CEO and partner at Smart Real Estate Coach, shares his journey in the real estate investing business. He discusses the challenges of traditional financing options and highlights the importance of creative financing and direct negotiation with sellers to achieve better cash flow. Zachary emphasizes the value of personal development and mindset in his success and shares insights on acquiring properties through creative financing.
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Intro[00:00:00]
Zachary's journey into real estate investing [00:00:53]
Adding value to a business relationship [00:02:39]
Becoming a Virtual Assistant and Acquiring Real Estate [00:08:49]
Determining Good Deals in Creative Financing [00:11:10]
Buying Commercial and Multifamily Properties [00:14:25]
The importance of positioning in real estate deals [00:18:59]
The seven steps to acquiring a property [00:19:56]
Free book [00:21:29]
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Connect with Zachary:
FREE BOOK:: https://wickedsmartbooks.com/sam3/
Website: http://www.smartrealestatecoach.com
Podcast: https://www.smartrealestatecoach.com/podcast
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/smartrealestatecoach
Google +: https://plus.google.com/+Smartrealestatecoachchannel
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/smartrealestatecoach
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smartrealestatecoach
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharyrbeach
Connect with Sam:
I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/
Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Zachary Beach (00:00:00) - You know, if you're looking at it through a traditional lens and you're either going to go raise a bunch of money or you're going to go get, you know, institutional financing, there's typically a lot higher of a monthly payment that you're going to be dealing with. So you're not gonna be able to cash flow as well compared to if I approach a seller and I say, Hey, I need my payment to be here, but I'll give you your price then, Now all of a sudden we can walk into a lot more cash flow versus having to raise the debt. Welcome to the How.
Sam Wilson (00:00:27) - To scale commercial real estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big. Zachary Beach is a three time Amazon best selling author of Real Estate On Your Terms. He's also the CEO and partner at Smart Real Estate Coach. And lastly, he's the co-host of the Smart Real Estate podcast. Zachary, welcome to the show.
Zachary Beach (00:00:53) - Sam It's a pleasure, my man.
Zachary Beach (00:00:54) - I'm excited to be here with you.
Sam Wilson (00:00:56) - Absolutely. Zach. The pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now and how did you get there?
Zachary Beach (00:01:06) - Hundred percent 90s You're talking like Massachusetts here now, so we'll fly through this. So I was a bartender and personal trainer, um, just a short nine years ago and was burning the candle at both ends and was getting extremely exhausted and tired because, you know, as you can imagine, late nights and early mornings. So actually approached my father in law, who is now my business partner in multiple business ventures. And at the time he was he was revamping his his new real estate business as he got crushed in 2008. And he was, you know, coming out of the crash and got involved in this thing called creative financing and real estate investing. So I ended up joining him. And then about six months later, I was able to get my first my first property under contract, my first creative financing deal went ahead and burned the candle at both ends or burn the bridges, I should say, dropped every other job except for real estate investing.
Zachary Beach (00:02:01) - And from there on out, just continue to build up that local buying and selling entity. And then also grew a real estate coaching business at the same time and kind of brings us to where we are here today.
Sam Wilson (00:02:12) - Man, that's awesome. I love that there. I guess there's a few things here that I would I think some of our listeners would would pertain to them. When you said, Hey, I'm going to approach my father in law and say, you know, can I work with you? Can we learn how to, you know, kind of learn to do what you're doing or can I add value to you in some way? What was that conversation like then? Sure. And then how has that changed?
Zachary Beach (00:02:39) - Yeah, well, the relationship's dramatically changed. Right. So was 24 years old. Um, it was December of 2014, and. And I was approaching him because I just was exhausted. Me and my wife were. Remember, it was one morning, it was like 4 a.m. because she was also a bartender at the time.
Zachary Beach (00:02:58) - It was like 4 a.m. And we looked at each other and we were like, we got to figure out something else. And right. We were in bartending for about four years. Of course it was. It was a blast. It was like my second college. But there was a time and a place and now it was the time to to make the transition. So I said, Hey, I don't know if I'm gonna like real estate investing, but maybe I should talk with your father and see if, you know, we could fit into his current business and and see if we can create something bigger. Because I'm extremely ambitious, and I know he is as well. And let's see how we can take this to the next level. So when approached him, I said, you know, I don't know if I'm going to be good at this or not, but, you know, if you'd have me, I'd be interested in doing some things in order to generate, you know, some value to the company.
Zachary Beach (00:03:40) - And, and, and I got the sexiest job in the world, but I when got was a list of names and numbers of expired listings people that had a property on the market at one point in time and it didn't work out and he said call these people. I'll, uh, I'll work with you on your sales scripts and let's try to generate some, you know, some warm leads. And once we start moving those leads to the funnel, then we can go ahead and start making some offers and trying to do some deals together. And that's kind of where it all started. And really at the end of the day, we kind of ate what we killed. So it wasn't like he wasn't that he was going to take a massive risk on his end, but eventually, you know, ended up taking a big leap as I started to learn it and then eventually said, you know, if I'm going to really be a real estate investor, then I got to I got to really focus and I got to cut everything else out.
Zachary Beach (00:04:28) - And, you know, did that after about 4 to 5 months in the business and can hit the ground running from there.
Sam Wilson (00:04:34) - Wow. Okay. So you made an important point there. You said eat what you kill. So you brought value in father in law or not, this would pertain to any business relationship where you're looking to learn from someone who's ahead of you. And I think that's the name of the game is how to scale commercial real estate. And I certainly have employed that tactic where it's how do I add value to you? What can I do now? Maybe that isn't asking you to write a check so I can come to work for you per se, but yet I want to work directly with you. So I love I love the way you approach that and say, hey, you know, eat what you kill. You went six months and you got your first deal under contract. So what? And he handed you a list of names and numbers and said, Hey, call them up and just see where it goes.
Sam Wilson (00:05:17) - What was that process like in I guess, you know, it sounds like you had success with it six months in. So tell me how you stuck with it.
Zachary Beach (00:05:26) - Yeah, it's it's mindset is everything, right when it comes to real estate investing. And the interesting thing is I still use that skill set today, right? Is the it is the building block of real estate investing in in my perspective, which is communication. Because once you communicate properly with people and solve their problems, understanding their motivation to understand the financials, I don't care if it's single family or commercial. Once you are able to communicate and solve people's problems, well, that's where the real estate deals come into place. Any brand new real estate investor that I communicate with am always like, This is not a real estate business. This is a communication business, this is a people business. And once you're able to solve people's problems, well, now, now you're going to be able to really start to be able to build some wealth in real estate.
Zachary Beach (00:06:09) - So that's what I built upon consistently. And that's why I say, like to this day, I still use that skill set because if we enter into a new market, I just say, give me a list of expired listings and let's start let's start talking with some sellers in order to get some deals done, get straight to the source. Um, so during that, during that process, I mean, it, it was hard. I mean, for the first 2 to 3 years, real estate investing for me was hard. It wasn't natural to me, although, you know, it may say, well, you had a bar, you were a bartender, you know, you should be able to speak with anyone. And that may be true, but if you have zero real estate experience and you don't understand how the dynamics of a real estate investment deal, whether it be a traditional mainstream deal or, say, a creative off market deal, that's still a huge learning curve that you get to take on as well.
Zachary Beach (00:06:55) - So it was it was hard and it was challenging. And the only way I was able to really stick with, you know, building this out. And as I started doing real estate deals, I started to find the love for for business in general. And the only way to be successful in any type of business is to consistently work on personal development. So I found myself, you know, listening to, you know, why I was setting up the bar, you know, And I just started, you know, doing real estate deals. I was listening to Jim Rohn, not music. I had my headphones in listening to personal development. So what I noticed, though, was as I continued to work on myself personally from a mindset, from a personal development, from behavior standpoint, that my my real estate career started to get better and better and better. So then I start to make that connection that said, All right, if I can control what's up here in my mind, then you know the business is going to grow in itself anyways.
Zachary Beach (00:07:47) - I think I can't quote the exact person I used to say it, but they said, you know, your your income will never outgrow your development. So then I just started focusing on how I can develop better in order to increase my income and increase my wealth long term.
Sam Wilson (00:08:02) - I love that. I love that. And that's so true. That is so true. Your income. Well, I couldn't have said it that way, but I like it. Your income. What? How'd you say your income will never outgrow your development? Yeah. So that's. That's really cool. And you and you've transitioned. I think, you know, even in your roles inside of the company, I mean, the company obviously is not what it was nine years ago when you came on board knowing nothing about real estate. So what have those role in kind of transition's been for you as you've grown the company along with your father in law?
Zachary Beach (00:08:36) - Yeah, what's interesting is it's like I would say day one, but since probably about the first year that I started investing in real estate, I've always been simultaneously growing two companies at the same time.
Zachary Beach (00:08:49) - So it wasn't like I've ever just invested in one. So we've we have our own personal buying and selling entities, so we still buy and sell real estate with the exact techniques that, you know, we teach our students. So we have our own portfolio in southern New England. And then at the same time we have a real estate coaching company that teaches people the exact same strategies, tools, techniques, you know, process systems, tools to grow and scale their creative financing business as well. So we've always had those two business simultaneously growing. So I've evolved in both, right? I've evolved from being, you know, from day one, being a virtual assistant, basically, right? Somebody that's prospecting consistently. And then eventually I became a very well paid virtual assistant and then eventually get to a point where then I was heading up all the entire acquisitions. And at one point in time, me and my brother in law and father in law with a couple support staff were doing four to, you know, 4 to 10 deals a month, you know, with with creative techniques that most people either aren't aware of or say that it doesn't exist, like owner financing and subject to's and lease options.
Zachary Beach (00:09:59) - But then at the exact same time, I was also, you know, the CEO of our coaching company and a coach teaching people how to do this and helping them acquire real estate into their portfolio. And eventually, as that started to evolve, became more in a deal structure mode. On the on the investment side and CEO of the coaching company, which happened over the past 12 months.
Sam Wilson (00:10:24) - That's awesome. What so you guys so let's go back to this very first deal. You're looking for commercial real estate or even maybe at that point, residential real estate, I don't know. But what's your.
Zachary Beach (00:10:36) - Residential at that.
Sam Wilson (00:10:36) - Time? At that time. Okay. Primarily residential. So let's fast forward maybe then to now, like when you're looking for commercial real estate for, you know, because you have two companies, you're running there for your own personal investing, What's your buy box on other finance deals and why?
Zachary Beach (00:10:55) - Yeah, I actually got this question asked for me like just yesterday because I'm communicating with this with with a gentleman and he's been providing, say, leads because he does wholesale fix and flips, but it's trying to get involved in the creative space.
Zachary Beach (00:11:10) - So he's been providing leads and I've just been sharing with them how I've been doing it. So he said he asked me that exact question. So he goes, How do you know that this one is a good deal? And I said, Well, first and foremost, the seller said that he's open to creative terms mean that automatically jumps to the top of my list. Um, considering considering that the the challenging part of the conversation is, is asking the right questions to understand motivation but then understanding the the challenge that can be solved with a creative financing technique. Um, because everyone I mean, literally everyone has been taught one way of buying real estate. Typically if you're brand new and that's through traditional means, you go, you, you work hard, you get 20%, 25% in your pocket, you go put it down on a piece of property. Then you go ahead and you go get the rest of the rest of the financing from a bank or an institution. And then now you have doesn't matter if it's a single or a multi or commercial.
Zachary Beach (00:12:10) - Now you have a property, um, and that's how everyone's taught. So most of creative financing is an education process for the seller, so it's okay. Mr. Seller I understand your problem. Here's how we can solve it, and here's some techniques that we can utilize or some different strategies that we can utilize in order to get you to their end motivation, whether it's they want tax or estate planning benefits, whether they want a higher price, whether they want cash flow on the property. Um, it's just now providing that solution. So that's step number one. That's what I always want to know. Number one is I know it's a good deal if somebody's open to it. Um, at least I know that that's the hot lead. Then from there, it's what types of terms can I create with that seller? Because just because they're open to it doesn't mean it's a good deal, but it's definitely at the top of my list. So now I need to understand it's typically five terms that are involved in, say, an owner financing deal.
Zachary Beach (00:13:08) - So owner financing would just mean that we're going to take out the bank and we're just going to go direct the seller. The seller is going to be your bank. This is going to finance the property for you. So there's typically a handful of terms that are involved purchase price down payment or not. We have lots of deals where we put no money down. We have if there's an interest rate or not, there's lots of deals in which we do that are 0% interest rates. We have, you know, length of time and if there's a monthly payment. So those are like the the generic terms that we're that we're going to be now crafting. So once we've established those and now those terms make sense for us to buy, meaning the terms look good, we're going to be able to acquire what we're going to be able to cash flow it. We're we're going to be able to either have our exit in mind or know that we can keep it for a certain period of time to improve the value of the property.
Zachary Beach (00:13:59) - Now, once I have that, now it's okay. We got ourselves a good deal. The motivations in line, the finances are in line. Now let's just figure out the best way to go and close on this.
Sam Wilson (00:14:07) - What type of assets are you buying right now? Assuming purchase price down payment, interest rate term, which all of those then equal of course your final payment. Yeah. But what type of assets in the commercial real estate space are you acquiring right now? That makes sense.
Zachary Beach (00:14:25) - Yeah, it's a good question. So we've acquired our own commercial building that housed all of our offices, also housing all state and a couple other local businesses. So mixed use, but we also will acquire multifamily, typically up to ten units. And and it's not because like we're not willing to buy bigger units. It's just because usually up to ten units or mom and pop jobs. So they're more open to doing a creative strategy like owner financing because it's usually if we get a hold of it, it's been either inherited or they've owned the property forever.
Zachary Beach (00:15:01) - Or talk about what happened with Covid. You know, you have a certain amount of vacancy or you have a certain amount of people that are not paying and you're going through evictions for a mom and pop shop if that's their only building or they only own a couple of them, that's a big hit for them. And now that creates a big fear factor. So we'll go ahead and buy properties just like that as well. And so we'll just accumulate them in in those lower lower unit ranges because typically if you get past ten units and above, you're starting to deal with more of an institutional or other investors like ourselves. And it's it's just not as likely for you to go ahead and get good terms that you want to go ahead and acquire owner financing.
Sam Wilson (00:15:40) - Right. And you may you made a good a good clarification there on typically who the owner financier. Financier. Yeah I don't know whatever who who that is right. It's like, oh okay. It's going to be a mom and pop. They're not going to they're not going to have a massive portfolio, probably.
Sam Wilson (00:15:57) - Maybe they do. And they just can't get rid of it. But let's but so like the kind of clarification of who the type of potential owner finance seller is, how do you not wind up with dog assets? Because if something's inspired listing like or maybe I could ask that a different way, which is what are things that typically lead to an expired listing that then make it a desirable acquisition for you?
Zachary Beach (00:16:23) - Yeah, and I'll give you some clarification. So if we're buying commercial, it's typically off market. They more than likely weren't on the market at this point. So single families we we acquire a lot from expired listings. Um, so, so typically if we're going to go up to a multifamily, we'll do a specific mailing to a free and clear list. Man, you can grab those on prop stream or whatever database you're using. Debt free houses, usually they own at least one, if not multiple buildings or attached to them. And of course, I mean, you love and out of state owner as well, especially if they're a tired landlord.
Zachary Beach (00:17:03) - So just approaching those and then we'll send out a mailing. And if we get one deal out of each mailing, which you know, cost you, you know, a couple thousand bucks and in succession, then that's a we're in a good spot. And to tell you about like dog listings or things like that, again, the two things that we tend to care about are are the motivation of the seller and the finances on the property. Because if you're looking at it through a traditional lens and you're either going to go raise a bunch of money or you're going to go get, you know, institutional financing, there's typically a lot higher of a monthly payment that you're going to be dealing with. So you're not gonna be able to cash flow as well compared to if I approach a seller and I say, Hey, I need my payment to be here, but I'll give you your price then, now all of a sudden we can walk into a lot more cash flow versus having to raise the debt and the equity on the property in no way have to pay a more people or an institution so we can actually walk into properties that you typically wouldn't be able to cash flow as well.
Zachary Beach (00:18:00) - And then then of course, the end result would be one of two things. Either we'll hold on to it. Secondly, if you wanted to, even though we typically don't, you could fix improve it and then refinance it and keep it and bring in some traditional financing or do what we've done with a couple of our multis, which are go buy them on owner financing, make principal only payments for say, 48 months on the property, improve the units, turn up the units now, improve the cash flow on the property, and then let you know some of the bigger investors out there that are looking for units. Go ahead and acquire your property at a higher price because you've established the rents and made the improvements on the property.
Sam Wilson (00:18:41) - Right? That makes a lot of sense. What do you do to inspire confidence in your sellers that you're going to perform?
Zachary Beach (00:18:50) - Yeah, that's a great question, right? Because that's at the end of the day, that's what every everyone's looking for, especially if they first got the first game involved in real estate investing.
Zachary Beach (00:18:59) - A lot of it is I mean, some of it I lean on, you know, we have you know, we got a history, right. We've we've been doing these deals. I mean, I've done or participated in pretty close to 500 creative finds. It deals at this point in time nationally so I can lead on that. Secondly a lot of it just positioning at the end of the day, if you if you want the deal, you know, you need the deal like you need water sellers can tell. Um, so just keeping a good positioning and don't try to ever force a deal because it's never one of my coaches said this really well and he said it's not your timing, it's the seller's timing. So it's all about following up and being consistent and being helpful. But most importantly, I think what I always try to do my best at and what we teach our students is to is to not prejudge the asset or the person. Um, so we have this thing called seven Steps to a Taken, which is basically seven steps to acquiring a property.
Zachary Beach (00:19:56) - And our, our comps and comparables is actually step five, not step one, a step five. And the reason why is because I want to meet the seller. I want to see the property. I want to have an open dialogue without any preconceived notions before I start negotiating, because usually the seller is going to tell you what they're looking for and what they're willing to do. Now, does it mean that that's exactly what you need to do? But they're going to tell you. And if you have preconceived notions of, hey, what about that property and what about that property? And you know, what's going on here? All of a sudden you're you're already on the opposite side of the table with the seller. So we always want to get on the the same side of the seller, same side of the table as a seller. That way we can now show them a solution. And if the solution works for both parties, then you got yourself a good deal.
Sam Wilson (00:20:43) - Man That's fantastic. Zach, Thank you for taking the time to come on the show today.
Sam Wilson (00:20:48) - This has certainly been enlightening. I've learned so much from you. I love your story. Going from bartender and personal trainer. Man, you were you were literally grinding it out, like you said, going to bed late at night and then getting up early morning and probably doing personal training and everything in between. And you've really just gone out and yeah, done some really, really awesome things. It's been cool to see the way you have grown both your personal investing business, but also your coaching company, the way you guys approach creative finance, finding deals off market, the types of assets that you buy. You've dropped a lot of really, really good stuff for our listeners here today, so I certainly appreciate it. If they do want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
Zachary Beach (00:21:29) - Yeah, absolutely. Sam, I appreciate that. So I want to make sure that anybody that's interested in creative financing, any of your listeners, that we're able to get the our Amazon bestselling book in their hands for absolutely free and don't mean like a PDF.
Zachary Beach (00:21:42) - I mean, we'll actually ship you the book to your house. All you have to do is go to wicked smart books.com/sam and the number three that's wicked smart books.com/sam three. Go ahead and grab our first Amazon bestselling book real estate on your terms. We'll ship it out to you and probably some other goodies in there as well that you can start diving into what it actually means. Become a creative financing real estate investor.
Sam Wilson (00:22:06) - That's fantastic. And if you're listening, yes, indeed, they will ship it for free. I got my own copies here in the mail about a week ago. I think there were several books there in that package. So thanks for sending those on. I haven't had a chance yet to dig into them, but they are in my in my queue of books to read. So Zach, thank you again for coming on today. I do appreciate it.
Zachary Beach (00:22:24) - Yeah, Thank you, Sam.
Sam Wilson (00:22:25) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen.
Sam Wilson (00:22:38) - If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.
