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Wendy Sweet (00:00):
I was thinking,
Bill Fairman (00:07):
Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Passive Income, Active Wealth. I'm Bill Fairman. This is Wendy Sweet and Jonathan Davis, over in the corner.
Jonathan Davis (00:17):
How's it going?
Bill Fairman (00:19):
We are Carolina Capital Management. We do make loans in case you people wanted to know.
Wendy Sweet (00:26):
Yeah. That's why we're here.
Bill Fairman (00:28):
We also have a fund that people can invest in. If you are interested in borrowing money, we land in the Southeast, mainly in the Carolinas, but throughout the Southeast CarolinaHardMoney.com is the website go to the borrower tab and click on. Actually, you don't even have to do that as soon as you get to the front page, click on apply now. If you're interested in passive returns, click on the investor tab and that'll take you to some explanations, right?
Wendy Sweet (00:57):
Yeah, that's exactly right. Lots of explanation.
Bill Fairman (01:00):
Don't forget to subscribe, share, like hit the bell and we want this to be the show to be as interactive as possible. If you have any questions, we have a comment section depending on the platform that you're using, it's either on the right hand side of the screen or underneath, okay? So you're welcome to ask a question. If we can't get to it, we'll certainly get to it later and bring it up in an upcoming show
Wendy Sweet (01:29):
Right. And you may notice our tagline across the top. It says the most trusted voice in hard money.
Bill Fairman (01:35):
You have to say it like that.
Jonathan Davis (01:35):
Is that Bill's voice or your voice?
Wendy Sweet (01:40):
Who's voice would that be? You know, it's almost like saying that a used car salesman is honest. When you say a hard money loan and trusted voice in the same sentence, it's kind of like an oxymoron. And we're very cognizant of that. It's important to us to, you know, we've got the program Answer the Ugly Questions and it's important for us to make sure that people that are in this business know not only the good, but the bad and the ugly too, cause there's a lot of bad and ugly about it, right?
Bill Fairman (02:17):
Well, not only that too. I mean, we want people to get the best benefit they can and we are always telling people the best way to get money. The least expensive way to get money is to do it with a private investor. The thing about it is though that private investors don't have infinitely deep pockets. Not that we have infinitely deep pockets, but we have bigger pockets than most individuals and that said, you always need a relationship with a hard money lender because a private lender isn't always going to be available for you or maybe they're taped out. But as a matter of fact, I'm getting ready to do, I'm going to be the keynote at a REIA meeting and part of my presentation is on how to find private lenders.
Wendy Sweet (03:11):
Yeah, yeah. Which is kind of like telling people to go elsewhere for their money.
Bill Fairman (03:15):
That's right. But that's because we always know that there's a need for us. That said, we have a wonderful guests. We're asking questions to a private lender.
Wendy Sweet (03:29):
Yeah. Some of our, and so maybe we should start off by saying this, we got into this business, not by starting a fund. We got into this business because we started lending other people's money. In fact, we got to a point where we had like $23 million of other people's money. It wasn't ours, we wished it was, but we lent money out for other people as hard money. That's what we did. We were kind of like we're brokers on it. We still do that. We still broke other people's money. And one of the things that I think is really, really important is, you know, when you have a fund and you're lending money out of a fund, you've got all these documents that has to be done with the SEC You're, you know, you've got a lot of guidelines and parameters and people watching over your shoulder and that's not the case if you're just lending other people's money, you know, on a what we call a one-off thing. That's where you have to be trusted in what you're doing and the people that you're working with have to trust you and like you and know you and understand what you do and really, the only way that we could get them to that point was to educate them as much as we possibly could. So they knew not only, excuse me, not only about the loans and the deals that we were doing and the borrowers that we were working with, but, you know, what's this person gonna do when the poop hits the fan and everything kind of goes crazy. How are you going to handle that? You know, cause it's going to, right?
Jonathan Davis (05:14):
I was sitting here thinking is like, you know, whenever, you know, appreciation is when everything's going right and you're doing what you're supposed to, people appreciate you. Like yeah you're doing what we're supposed to. Trust is built when things aren't going like they're supposed to and you're still doing what you said you were going to do. You're still doing what you're supposed to do. That's when the trust is built,
Wendy Sweet (05:35):
That's right. That's right. And things are gonna happen. They happen all the time, you know good things happen or bad things happen to good people all the time and.
Jonathan Davis (05:44):
And good things happen to bad people.
Wendy Sweet (05:46):
That's right. And I don't understand that
Bill Fairman (05:52):
That said, one of the advantages of being a lender direct lender versus being in a fund is that you still have the final say whether you're going to put your money into that particular deal or not. When you're in a fund, you don't have that choice. You're still trusting that the management knows what they're doing. They're investing in the property.
Wendy Sweet (06:15):
But you have more responsibility. So you're just lending yourself too.
Bill Fairman (06:18):
Excuse me, it's not as passive.
Wendy Sweet (06:21):
Right. Right. And it really depends on how, how much you want to work, how deep you want to get into it. And again, hopefully as a lender kind of doing it on your own, you're lending to the people that you should be lending to, which are borrowers that, you know, like and trust, that you know are going to pay you back. So there's all sorts of different levels of investing as a lender that you can get into, depending on how much time you have and what you want to do and that kind of thing. So one of the things that we're blessed with is we have several people that, that lend money to us, not only in our fund, but also on these one-off deals that, that we have available, which means they might buy something out of our fund or they might come alongside us and do a loan with us together with the fund. There's a lot of different options. But, you know, during, you know, doing these type of loans, you build a great relationship with these people that you're working with and you get to know them really well, they get to know you really well and there are several that we've just not only built great relationships, but they've become very dear friends of ours and one of those is with us.
Bill Fairman (07:49):
Yeah. So why don't you introduce her before she fills up on all the buffet items that are green room?
Wendy Sweet (07:56):
So we've actually invited a few people and we've got Don Harris is one of our lenders. He's actually in a closing cause he's a real estate agent in real life. That's what he does during the day and hopefully he'll be out of that closing soon. He's a dear friend. But another person that we have here is a dear, dear friend of all of ours, but especially me, she's my bud. It's Susan Jensen, her and her husband, Dale have been lenders with us for a long time and we're gonna, she's in the fund too, right? So she's in the fund too. She does one off lender lending, her kids do IRAs and her kids are grown up. They do IRA lending with us as well. And Sue's been through the good, the bad and the ugly. So I thought, and so has Don Harris. So I thought it was really good for them
Bill Fairman (08:52):
The more you've been in real estate, the more you see.
Wendy Sweet (08:54):
That's right. So I thought they'd be great people to bring on so we can share their stories. Sue, have you returned?
Sue Jensen (09:06):
I have.
Wendy Sweet (09:06):
Yes. So,
Bill Fairman (09:06):
Welcome by the way.
Sue Jensen (09:07):
Thank you.
Bill Fairman (09:07):
Thank you so much for being on.
Sue Jensen (09:07):
Sure.
Wendy Sweet (09:10):
So Susan is just, she's a dear friend. She's an awesome person. But Sue's been through the ringer. She's done. You told me yesterday, how many deals you've done since you've been lending. How many?
Sue Jensen (09:24):
74 now.
Wendy Sweet (09:26):
Isn't that amazing? And that's in your retirement, which you completely flunked, right?
Sue Jensen (09:32):
That's right. Well, have four retirement accounts for IRAs and we also lend out of our LLC. So yeah, we are in retirement. We're supposed to be in retirement.
Wendy Sweet (09:45):
And you're probably working more now than when you had a real job, right?
Sue Jensen (09:48):
Sometimes I wonder. It doesn't seem fair.
Wendy Sweet (09:53):
Yeah. But you created it yourself.
Sue Jensen (09:54):
I know, I know. I can't blame anybody else.
Wendy Sweet (09:57):
So Sue, you have a really neat story as to how
Bill Fairman (10:02):
I'm sorry. Wait a minute. I have to say this last week we had a guest on, he was in the self storage business, but he was from Saratoga Springs, New York.
Sue Jensen (10:15):
Oh, that's where we came from.
Bill Fairman (10:15):
Yeah. Anyway, I thought I'd bring that up cause you're the only other one I ever moved from there.
Wendy Sweet (10:20):
Few horses.
Sue Jensen (10:20):
Yeah. Few horses.
Bill Fairman (10:25):
So tell us how, you know, what were you thinking? How did you get in to this business in the first place? Give us a little background on that
Sue Jensen (10:36):
So we knew that we were, my husband was going to be retiring. So we knew that was coming up. And I just knew that if we were going to be able to handle retirement, which we didn't have a whole lot saved, we needed to start doing something and I knew it had to be in real estate if we were going to make any money. So I took a course. I did a course with Robert Kiyosaki, the rich dad, poor dad, mentorship course, and learned about real estate, started buying a few houses. We were living in upstate New York then, on Saratoga Springs. And we were going to move down to the Charlotte area because our son and his family was already there. Our daughter and her family was going to move down. So we knew once they started having kids, this is where we wanted to live. So I started buying a couple houses in the Charlotte area, and I met Wendy. She was, I was looking for a property manager and called the president of the REIA was JC Underwood at the time, asked him to give me, if he knew someone who would be a good property manager, gave me the name. I said, can give me somebody else's name who uses him and he gave me Wendy's name because I think Mark had done some appraisals for you or something. Yeah. So I called both of them. But when I talked with Wendy, I was just fascinated with what Wendy was doing, because it was in the lending business and I had never really learned about that end of things. I was just fascinated by it thinking, so I would call her up and we talk sometimes for 45 minutes at a time. And I'd say, now, tell me again, what you do, just trying to wrap my head around it all, because it was just so different. I had never heard of anybody being the bank, a private lender. So after several struggles with we, I think we bought four houses, eventually sold them all. It was just so much maintenance and headache and one of them was just a bad purchase. A couple of them were good, but we were just not cut out for that kind of thing, being a landlord and especially from long distance and trying to maintain a property and get renters and then losing money. We had one that had mold and mildew and wood rot and all kinds of stuff that we were trying to keep up. So then Wendy turned me on to lending and that's when I really found my niche. That was just, this is just the perfect thing for us at this time and place in life.
Wendy Sweet (13:32):
That's awesome. Now you have a really neat story too, about going to, or speaking at the equity trust. I want to call it a seminar, webinar. Their big event, their educational event.
Sue Jensen (13:50):
I forget the name of it too. Their expo, some kind of expo they had.
Wendy Sweet (13:54):
Expo. Yeah. So you were the speaker there and Don Harris who I'm hoping is going to be able to come on a little bit later too, tell that story.
Sue Jensen (14:05):
So I was on a panel, it was called newbies that rock. I actually had made a lot of money. I also got into tax lanes in the beginning, and I made a lot of money on this one, two tax lanes and so equity trust wanted me as one of the panelists to share about that and then I also was breaking into the lending scenes. So while I was up there, I was sharing about the tax lien and I said, but you know, what's even better than the tax lien is lending money, especially out of your IRA and I started telling the story about how I was using a service, a service provider called Carolina Hard Money, and they were doing all the heavy for me and how much better that was for us at this point in life, you know, where we didn't need to do, be doing all the due diligence and, and all that. But this trusted friend was finding me the borrowers that I needed and putting us together and started telling the crowd how well we were doing with that. Well, Don was in the crowd. I didn't know it, but this was back in, I think, 2014 and anyway, what happened was later on, I moved to Charlotte, Don moved to Charlotte. We got involved in Sonrisers with Wendy, but still didn't know, Don didn't remember. It was me that was telling the crowd. He just wrote down Wendy's name, CarolinaHardMoney and started working with Wendy. And so one time we were at Sonrisers, Wendy was late and she called me and said, Hey, can you start the meeting? I was sitting having breakfast with Don right across the table from him and so Wendy calls says, can you start the meeting at Sonrisers? And we always do a devotional. I was talking about how God puts people together sometimes when you don't even realize it and you might realize it later on in life and Don speaks up and he says, yeah, you know, that happened to me. He said, I was at this Equity trust conference, and this lady got up on stage and she started talking about CarolinaHardMoney and this lady, Wendy Sweet and as soon as he said that, I knew it was me. I mean, what are the odds? And so I just let him talk. And he says, yeah. And she's telling us all about Wendy Sweet and Carolina Hard Money and so I knew I was going to be moving to North or South Carolina ended up, I made sure that I got to know Wendy and started working with her and now coming to Sonrisers and so he pauses and I go, Don was, yeah. I said, that was me. And he goes, what? And I said, that was me. And he goes, no, it wasn't. And I said, yeah, that was me. Go back and check your notes. And he did. He goes, I can't believe that was you, but it's just so funny how God puts people together and here we are having breakfast right across from each other. We're really good friends now.
Wendy Sweet (17:27):
Yeah. That was just the neatest story ever. I absolutely love it. Because it's just speaks to how really small this real estate world is, right? Yeah. So it's really, really important to number one, do the right thing and if your goal is to help other people, it's all going to come back around to you and everything you do, right?
Sue Jensen (17:56):
Yeah. For sure.
Bill Fairman (17:58):
Well, I remember at the same time you had another panelist there, and I don't know if he was part of your panel group, but there was a guy that was, and I'm bringing this up because it's not just about real estate lending. It was about lending your money out of your IRA and they had a guy that was lending to buy here, pay here at lots, that was speaking at the equity trust event that year and he, you know, he found a niche that was needed because at the same time, you know, the banks were calling the home equity loans due or canceling those lines of credit for people. They would stop doing these small car, lot loans too and they were called floor plan loans where they would give them a certain amount of money and then they would use that money to go out and back cars, wholesale, bring them in and then when they sold those cars, then they released those titles and that was kind of their collateral, but he was getting 18% interest on a revolving account from these car dealers. Sometimes they'd sell the same car four times and he would get a release fee of two or 300 bucks every time they released title on them. And he was only lending, I think, like $10,000 for a dealership.
Wendy Sweet (19:28):
Yeah, it wasn't much.
Bill Fairman (19:31):
That was amazing to me.
Wendy Sweet (19:31):
So Sue, let's hear about some of the deals that you've done. I mean, you've 74 deals you've been through it. There's no doubt about it and you don't just lend through us. You do stuff on your own, you invest in the fund. There's a lot of things you have your hands in. And, you know, we can all sit and talk about how great and wonderful things are, but what I really want people to hear is, you know, what kind of challenges have you had? You know, what are some of the things that may be red flags you saw, or, you know, things that other people can do to avoid it? There are just some things that there's no way you're going to avoid it. It's how you handle it once you're in the trenches. So can you think of some stuff you might want to share with us on that?
Sue Jensen (20:26):
Yeah, well, I do most of my loans through Carolina Capital because I really appreciate the due diligence that you guys do, I don't have to work quite so hard at making sure that all my I's are dotted. My T's are crossed because I knew I trust you guys that you've been in this a lot longer than I have, you know, what to look for, you know, the market and you're holding the draws for the, for the builders and all that and so I do, I would say probably 90% of what I do is through Carolina Hard Money and the rest I do private loans with friends of mine, mostly. I don't venture out too far when I do my own loans cause I want to know if there are people that I know like and trust. And I also know that you guys, you connect me with people that, you know, like and trust. So I've got that in my favor too. But we had a few that went bad and thankfully, they were ones that you guys handled for us, which I really appreciated it. I mean, there were more than me that were in some of these loans and we lost some money and you figure in anything in real estate, you're going to lose money at some point, especially when you're, when you do 74 deals, there's going to be, the chance is going to be higher, that you're going to lose some money somewhere. So we've made a lot of money. We lost a little bit of money here and there, but just on a handful so it's not a lot but it happens and what I appreciated in those, there were actually five houses that we lost money on. What I appreciated is, was that Wendy in particular worked really hard with those borrowers and those houses to make sure that they were ready to be sold and we got the best price and everybody got paid the most and I mean, if anybody lost money, it was you guys.
Wendy Sweet (22:42):
Yes, we know.
Sue Jensen (22:43):
You lost a lot of money too. So I mean, you know, we went through it together. I was with you when you were crying at times and, you know, there was nothing that we could do because it was just one of those things where the borrower was way out over his skis and it, you know, so I appreciated that you guys were in it too, and we did the best that we could and we recovered and, you know, it's going to happen in anything in real estate. It's from time to time.
Wendy Sweet (23:17):
You know, you said something, I think that's real important and I'd like you to elaborate a little bit on that as well. I'll let you said was great. But you said you like lending to people that, you know, like and trust, and you don't stray too far from who you know when you're lending on your own. So why is that important to you?
Sue Jensen (23:41):
Because I know their character so that if they in trouble, they'll communicate with me. We can work together at it. If they do get in trouble so far, no one has, everybody's been very solvent and successful. So all our private loans have gone well, I don't mind, bringing the interest rate down a little bit if I know that I'm with a friend that I can trust. It just means a lot to me. It gives me peace of mind knowing that I know these people that I know that if they get in trouble, they're not going to just ditch and run and make sure that they're taken care of. They're going to take care of me too.
Wendy Sweet (24:26):
Yeah. And you mentioned, I think either yesterday or the day before we were together, that you've got some loans that have gone over their term that you originally set up, but they're paying on time and you have no issues with them. So how does that affect you if it affects you at all, that they go over their term? What's the good and the bad of that.
Sue Jensen (24:55):
Well, if they go over their term, we can always do a modification, a loan modification and if it's with the IRA, I just make sure that the IRA custodian gets that loan modification. I usually draw that up and we both sign it and we extend it. The bad would be that there would be no points that I would be getting if we go too long, like say, if we were, if we were going to go 12 months and we ended up, and I got a point or two points on the front of that, if we go further, I'm not getting those points that I would normally with a new loan. But on the other hand, the upside is that I don't have to try and place that money again, too. So it's always working. So with friends, I don't mind, you know, I don't mind going two years if they need the money for two years, so we work it out.
Wendy Sweet (25:52):
So what kind of due diligence are you doing personally on houses or people or both?
Sue Jensen (26:03):
So most of my due diligence will be on the people because they'll send me their paperwork and their appraisal or all of that. But I just want to make sure that the loan to value is like 65 to 70%, that they've got plenty of money in the bank that they're not, you know, stretched. I want to know what their history is that they're successful. That, the people that they've borrowed from before that they've got a good history there, they're paying back their loans so that's basically. Sometimes I'll get a recommendations from people that I know for somebody that have worked with them before so those kind of things are most important to me.
Wendy Sweet (26:57):
Good.
Bill Fairman (26:57):
Thank you.
Wendy Sweet (26:58):
I've interrupted him twice.
Bill Fairman (26:58):
I keep thinking my breath, getting ready to ask the question. I can't put it out there.
Wendy Sweet (27:02):
Just like normal.
Bill Fairman (27:02):
What are the, I want to go back to when you said you had 70, you've done 74 loans.
Sue Jensen (27:15):
One off.
Bill Fairman (27:15):
Five of them went bad. This is an important point for new investors getting into real estate, and it could be buying homes could be making loans, could be buying notes. The important thing here is if you only had seven loans and five of them went bad,
Wendy Sweet (27:36):
That's not good.
Bill Fairman (27:36):
And as a lender, we never wanted our customer's first loan to go bad on them either, because then they'll never do it again. So the point I'm trying to make here is as an investor, you can't do one or two deals. You have to have, you need to do 10 or 20, because you're never going to get, you're going to lose money on some of them and you're going to get number one, a bad taste in your mouth, and you're not ever going to come back. If you don't give it the full chance to be successful and fortunately, your first deals, didn't go bad. You went in for a little while.
Sue Jensen (28:28):
Yeah and that's back when we started, remember the interest rate was 15% and it was really high in the beginning.
Wendy Sweet (28:36):
Those were the good old days.
Sue Jensen (28:38):
And there were renewal fees and there was all kinds of good stuff back then.
Bill Fairman (28:44):
That leads me to the next question. What have you been doing a little bit differently than you did before based on, the new market normals? Anything?
Sue Jensen (28:57):
I keep a, I usually don't lend to one lender more than 150,000. I don't usually go higher than that no matter who they are and, I know with you guys, you've got your sweet spot too, which I like, because the reason that we got in trouble when we did it was those, those were higher end houses. So we, I think we all learned from that to stay away from those higher end houses that were harder to sell, especially when the market dropped and we were hanging on to them for two years trying to fix them. So yeah, probably just that market making sure that we're good with the market and I don't go too high in my lending with any one person, tried to diversify a little bit. And actually some of my, a lot of our loans now are split between among ,the last one I did was split among four IRAs, actually three IRAs and our LLC. So four funding sources so if any of them did go bad, not any one person is going to lose a whole lot. It makes it a little more complicated to do it that way but when we have money and we each want it to work and we've got little bits of money, we can do it that way, you're out of our IRAs.
Wendy Sweet (30:25):
Yeah. That's a great way to diversify, what you're doing.
Bill Fairman (30:29):
Well, plus to keep a small balance in an IRA, still working. That's one of the problems with lending money directly is that the two things happen. You get monthly payments and unless you're living on that money, you can't do anything with that money until you get enough money to make another loan with. So that money sits there lazily. And you know, if you're, if it's a 200 vent or it's $150,000 loan and you have 200, then you got 50 sitting around doing nothing.
Sue Jensen (30:59):
Right. Yeah. And what's been good lately. And I was just saying this at our mastermind the other day, all our money had amazingly it's been working this whole year pretty much, which is kind of surprising with COVID and everything and all the forbearance that's going on but I think in my, in all of our accounts right now in our IRAs, you've only got like a couple thousand dollars sitting in there and they're,
Wendy Sweet (31:28):
They're awesome.
Sue Jensen (31:29):
I know it's really been a blessing just to see that because there are times in the past where you've got, you know, 15, 30,000 sitting in account it's just not working and you just got to wait a couple of months until the loan opens up. So that's a blessing
Bill Fairman (31:46):
That reminds me of another question as an IRA person that is investing out of that IRA. There are certain investments that you get into like your rental properties, where you have ongoing expenses coming out of your account, which means you have to keep money in their lazy, not knowing anything because you have to pay these ongoing expenses. How much of that have you found on the lending side with ongoing expenses coming out of your account?
Sue Jensen (32:22):
There's hardly anything on the lending side for expenses. I mean, I've got, I pay our wires through a credit card. That's not that doesn't have to come out of your IRA and other than that, there's really nothing that comes at that I need to have in there for expenses from the IRA.
Bill Fairman (32:46):
Did you have any of those rental properties within your IRA?
Sue Jensen (32:50):
Oh, thankfully not. No, those were all in our LLC. So all those expenses were coming out of cash out of our business.
Bill Fairman (32:57):
I see if they were in your IRA, all those expenses would have had to come out of it.
Sue Jensen (33:04):
Yeah. That's another benefit of lending over having properties.
Bill Fairman (33:10):
Now, I don't want to discourage anyone from owning property in their IRA. You just need to understand the pros and cons of either lending or owning property within an IRA.
Sue Jensen (33:26):
Yeah. Having that responsibility. And I think it's kinda neat too, the way you've set things up for you and your husband is, you know, you, you have an LLC that you lend money out of and that's cash that you can live on. You can spend it and use it and do whatever you want with but you're still building your IRA. So you've got that, those tax benefits that come along with that. That's a lot of people are wondering, should I, you know, do do one or the other, but you've got it set up to do both and I think you've got that set up pretty sweet.
Sue Jensen (34:04):
Yeah. Our last property that we sold when we finally said we do not want properties anymore. Man! Did we get killed with capital gains, I could not believe that tax year. It was just horrendous, but you know, we don't have to deal with that with this.
Wendy Sweet (34:23):
That's awesome. Jonathan, did you have any questions?
Jonathan Davis (34:27):
No. Sorry. I missed some of that. I had some unruly children here in the house. So I had to take care of that.
Wendy Sweet (34:35):
Jonathan is experiencing the wonderful effects of COVID with small children that are not in school.
Bill Fairman (34:47):
Scott went to your screen once and all he saw was a chair.
Sue Jensen (34:53):
Beauty of being a grandparent. You can enjoy them and you just give them right back.
Jonathan Davis (34:58):
No. But to speak on what you all were saying, you know, you do need to have diversity, not like, you know, you own properties, you lend, you know, Wendy, Bill and I mean, I'm sure probably even Sue, you know, we have equity investments too, you know, you're not trying to swing and hit a home run, but you're trying to hit enough singles and doubles across the field that, you know, you're going to get home.
Wendy Sweet (35:28):
So one of the things too, so you talked about the deals that did go bad that we were doing, they were very high end properties. One thing that we, as a company learned from that as we stopped lending on high-end properties and everybody and their brother thought we were nuts, because these markets were doing so well, but you know, now, you know, the black Swan event COVID hit and we're thrilled that we're not in any big properties like that because the ones that we're in, you know, if anything should happen with them, we can rent them, get enough money back out of that, to be able to, you know, pay out the returns that need to be paid on that. Do you have certain things that you won't touch at this point? Certain houses or buildings or whatever.
Sue Jensen (36:23):
Well, most of the loans that I do with you guys are in the Carolinas and the private loans that I do are in the Carolinas, and this is a great market right now. I just read an article that place Charlotte at the top of the list, as far as hot markets and rental markets and all that so I think we're all in a really good place, just keeping our money invested in the Charlotte area, the greater Charlotte area. So I'm happy with that. I'm happy that our market is doing so well. You know, like, like I said, we only had a couple, well we had a movie theater that we had a forbearance on. I think the, I just saw a monthly payment come in just recently on that.
Wendy Sweet (37:12):
They're back and running.
Sue Jensen (37:12):
Yeah. Yeah. They're back. They're back and running. But other than that, you know, the Charlotte market, we haven't been too hurt and because you guys were smart and you got into a really good niche of what do you don't go over like $250,000 houses or somewhere in that meeting.
Wendy Sweet (37:29):
Yeah. We stay in the 350, or actually we like for the after repaired value to be under five, but our sweet spot is in that 200 range that you're talking about.
Sue Jensen (37:39):
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm happy about that. I'm just really happy with how you guys are investing right now. I think we all, we took our bumps in. I think we all learn doesn't mean that we can't make any mistakes in the future, I'm very content with how you guys are running your business right now.
Bill Fairman (37:57):
No, we're going to be perfect from now.
Jonathan Davis (38:02):
I wish, I wish.
Bill Fairman (38:02):
Mark asked a question and he's talking about private lending and the private lending opportunities. And he's correct. The opportunities for projects with us are a little limited right now because we're focusing more on lending the money out of the fund, doing the private stuff, but Mark, to find these opportunities, I think the first thing you should do is get with equity trust website, camma plan's website and.
Wendy Sweet (38:38):
American IRA's.
Bill Fairman (38:38):
American IRA's website.
Wendy Sweet (38:43):
And Quest.
Sue Jensen (38:43):
And Quest.
Bill Fairman (38:43):
All of those websites allow for educational opportunities and so they're going to have webinars constantly with different investment opportunities that are, now, they're not going to recommend anybody, but they're going to have different players in the markets that come in and talk about how you can get a good rate of return with what they're doing and then you can get a relationship with those folks. Doesn't mean you have to have an account.
Wendy Sweet (39:15):
They're all free.
Bill Fairman (39:15):
Most of those are webinars free for anybody for free. You get an account with them, but you don't have to, but that's a great way to meet other people that are doing business and for the most part, they're not going to be invited to be with those custodians unless they have a good track record anyway.
Wendy Sweet (39:33):
Well, they get the other thing, I think that's important and I'm going to let Sue chime in on this as well. You need to get involved with your local real estate investor association and the groups that come along with that. I mean, would you say, Sue, that's really where we're getting your placements from?
Sue Jensen (39:57):
That's are all my sources. All my sources are from there. For us, we were, a lot of us were involved in Metro line area. I was the executive director for a number of years. So I got to know a lot of people there, got to know about a lot of people there. Their history and their reputation and all that and then in summarizers and the subgroups, you really get to know who people are and like you said, it is a small community. You hear a lot of things and when someone is not a good investor to work with, you hear about that. When someone is a good investor to work with, you hear about that too.
Wendy Sweet (40:36):
That's right. And that's on the lender side. People tell you don't want to borrow money from them because they'll make your life a living hell. But it is an excellent way to get to know people, especially if you're at a subgroup meeting when you're sitting there and you're breaking bread and across the table with someone you can't help, but get to know them, right?
Sue Jensen (41:02):
That's right. Yep. You can ask them all kinds of questions and you can sense where somebody is coming from. And also you can, as you get to know, meeting a lot of people at the meeting, you can ask them, have you ever worked with this person? How did they do? Did they make all their payments? You know? So we're gets around. I think reputation is a biggie for when I take on another private investor.
Wendy Sweet (41:31):
Absolutely. And I'm going to go ahead and myself a shameless plug on Sonrisers. So you brought Sonrisers up. Sonrisers is S O N risers. It is a faith-based investment group. We meet every Friday morning at seven 30. It's on zoom now. So everybody across the country can be on it and we do have people across the country that are on it. So the best way to find information about Sonrisers is basically to email me, wendy@carolinahardmoney.com. I'd love to get you on so you can get online and participate in that and then, Sue and I, and Don who texted me earlier said, he's not going to be able to make it today because he's in a closing and we praise God for that. But we're in a mastermind together called King City Mastermind and it's a group of faith based real estate entrepreneurs, where all of us are in the real estate business in one way or another and it's all about, um, keeping each other accountable in committing your business to, you know, to God being the CEO of your company. And, uh, but there's all kinds of groups out there that you can get involved in and if you want to know about King City, I'd love to tell you about that too. Send me an email again. I forget our website. I should be ashamed of myself.
Sue Jensen (43:07):
Yeah, yeah. I should know it too. I think it's KCmm.org.
Wendy Sweet (43:13):
Yes, that's right. KCmm.org. That's correct. So that's a great way to get online and learn about that. And if you know, ours is kind of local. Our King City is local, but we can help you start one in your city and it's been a great resource for us, not only to, Oh, look, and Sohill, thank you Sohill. It's not, it's a great way to really get to know other people. And you know, in these groups, these subgroups that we're all in it's, you get to know people, it's a great way to do business with each other. You can't help but do business with each other, right? And again, when we're talking about lending, there's nothing more important than lending to people, you know, like, and trust.
Bill Fairman (44:05):
I want to make a quick point that Mark had another question about how many points above a bank interest. Can you charge. First of all, Mark,
Wendy Sweet (44:13):
You're not a bank.
Jonathan Davis (44:14):
You might be.
Bill Fairman (44:14):
You only make two legal entities. If you make what's called a consumer loan. So if you make a loan to a person.
Wendy Sweet (44:26):
that lives in the house.
Bill Fairman (44:26):
They don't even have to live in the house. If you make a loan to a person it's a consumer loan, even if it is for investment. But if you make a loan to a legal entity for investment purposes, you are clearly in the commercial space and you're going to avoid a lot of regulations. Now, there's something called a usury law, and it depends on the state that you're in.
Wendy Sweet (44:51):
Or that the house is located in.
Bill Fairman (44:51):
Well, that's what I meant to say.
Wendy Sweet (44:53):
Okay, sorry.
Bill Fairman (44:53):
You're lending in the state where the house is located and whatever state that house is located in, they're going to have it. They may or may not have any maximum rate of interest you can charge. You have to look it up. It's called usury. Secondly, you want to be competitive and at the same time, you want to make sure that it's going to benefit you and the borrower.
Wendy Sweet (45:22):
You need to build a relationship with them.
Bill Fairman (45:22):
That's right. You don't want to do one loan. You want to do many.
Wendy Sweet (45:24):
Don't wanna set them up to fail.
Bill Fairman (45:26):
That's right. So those are some things to keep in mind. Sorry,
Wendy Sweet (45:31):
Mark, If you have any questions about that, I am thrilled to answer any questions that you have.
Bill Fairman (45:38):
Talk about here in Wednesday with Wendy.
Wendy Sweet (45:38):
If you want to know more about investing and that kind of thing, I'll help you be a lender I'll help you. You can reach me on my Calendly link, which I don't know what it is, and I bet Scott doesn't have it. But again, if you'll email me, wendy@carolinahardmoney.com. I'll be glad to set up an hour to speak with you and help you on your way. We'll even show, share forms and things that we use, and you know, just steps you need to take and I would imagine Sue would be happy to share what she knows as well.
Sue Jensen (46:19):
And this brings up another point about the type of person that you want to work with is some, you know, we're not in competition with other people to make deals and to make money. And if you are around people like that, I would say, don't work with them because they're not the type of investor you want to work with. would rather work with somebody who understands that they're there to help you. They're blessed to be a blessing to others. And if that person doesn't have that mentality and all they're into is making money and crushing it and dominating, I don't want to go anywhere near that kind of person or was from them. I want someone who's generous. That cares about me as much as they care about them making money. You know, you just need to make sure that you're around the right kind of people.
Jonathan Davis (47:19):
Yeah. Mark has another question. And Mark I just I wanted to say, I got your email today. So we will get on a call and discuss that opportunity that we talked about. Usury is only on the consumer side? No. Yes and no. It's state state specific. So like take Tennessee. For example, Tennessee has a usury law that covers everything unless you are a licensed industrial loan and thrift company, which is not hard to be, but if you're not, you can't lend above prime plus four in the state of Tennessee. North Carolina, much different. North Carolina, if it's a commercial loan and it's over 50,000, there is no usury law. There's no usury law applies in the state of North Carolina, but every state is different.
Wendy Sweet (48:12):
Awesome. I'm sitting here. I've been told that that website's not right. So I'm fine.
Sue Jensen (48:17):
I just brought it up. It's KingCityMM.com
Bill Fairman (48:28):
Oh, not org.
Jonathan Davis (48:28):
Oh, not org. Okay.
Wendy Sweet (48:28):
King City and that's singular. And King. So it's a King City M M .com.
Sue Jensen (48:37):
That's what's coming up for me. I haven't checked it lately, but yep. That's how it comes up.
Wendy Sweet (48:44):
Awesome.
Bill Fairman (48:45):
Well, I'm glad we were able to give out false information
Jonathan Davis (48:50):
Only in websites.
Sue Jensen (48:51):
[Inaudible]
Wendy Sweet (48:56):
That's why we are the most trusted voice in hard money.
Jonathan Davis (49:01):
Cause we don't even know our own websites.
Sue Jensen (49:01):
I know
Bill Fairman (49:05):
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Wendy Sweet (49:06):
You've been just a wealth of information and what I think is so important is that, you know, people understand that this is not all puppy dogs and seashells and, you know, flowers and perfection. It's a lot of work and there's a lot of risk in what we do. There's gotta be some level of risk in everything we do. But the thing is, is get really educated on it. Get a crowd around you that understands what it is you're doing that has been down the road to ruin and been able to come back up it and I mean, that's really, really important.
Bill Fairman (49:55):
And that's, that's the only way you can minimize your risks, because there are always going to be things that are completely outside of your control and all you can do is minimize the stuff that is within your control,
Sue Jensen (50:08):
Do your very best to minimize your risk and you've just got to understand that sometimes things are beyond your control and it happens to everybody. But when you surround yourself with good people, you'll get through it. You'll do fine.
Wendy Sweet (50:22):
You're exactly right.
Bill Fairman (50:24):
Absolutely. So everybody, thanks again for joining us on what is our show again? Passive Income, Active Returns or Wealth.
Wendy Sweet (50:37):
Thank you, Sue.
Sue Jensen (50:37):
Thank you.
Bill Fairman (50:37):
I do know the name of our company. It is Carolina Capital Management.
Sue Jensen (50:43):
I love you guys. I appreciate you.
Wendy Sweet (50:45):
We love you. Thank you.
Bill Fairman (50:45):
Thank you so much for being on. Oh, there it is. CarolinaHardMoney.com is the website. If you're a borrower, click on the apply now. If you're an investor clicking on the investor tab. Don't forget. Forget to share, like subscribe and ring the bell thingy. Y'all have a great day.
Wendy Sweet (51:01):
Tell all your friends. We'll see you next week.
Bill Fairman (51:03):
Alright, bye.
Wendy Sweet (51:03):
Thank you.
Jonathan Davis (51:03):
Bye.
Sue Jensen (51:03):
Bye
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