Private money is so easy to attract for your real estate deals when you know where to find it and what to say to the private lenders.
In today’s episode of Raising Private Money with Jay Conner, Jay is joined by his dear friend Jim Zaspel. Jim shared all his secrets about where he finds his private lenders, what he says to the private lenders and how it is that his private lenders always chase him to fund his deals instead of him chasing the lenders.
Plus, discover how Jim has raised over a total of 15 million in private money! And just last month alone, he raised $995,000 of private money.
Timestamps:
0:01 -Raising Private Money With Jay Conner
0:23 – Today’s Guest: Jim Zaspel
1:36 – How Jim Zaspel Raised $1 Million Of Private Money In One Month
5:09 – Private Lender Has More Money Than They Tell You
6:54 – What Is Substitutions Of Collateral?
8:46 – How To Get More Money From Existing Private Lenders
12:11 – How To Start A Conversation With A Potential Private Lender
15:43 – The Indirect Method
19:28 – Jay’s Favorite 3-Word Question
21:57 – Jim Zaspel’s Lakehouse Deal
30:39 – Importance Of Listing Your Goals
32:47 – Jay’s Free Private Money Guide: https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide
33:35 – Why Most Investors Never Heard About Private Money
38:19 – Jim Zaspel’s Real Estate Deals Per Year
39:41 – Jim Zaspel’s Parting Comments: Embrace Fear. Find The Thing That You Are Afraid Of Doing And Do It. You Will Realize How Amazing Life Gets When You Deal With The Hard Things First.
40:55 -Connect with Jim Zaspel: www.Facebook.com/JimZaspel or call/text: 267-577-1072
Private Money Academy Conference:
Free Report:
https://www.jayconner.com/MoneyReport
Join the Private Money Academy:
https://www.JayConner.com/trial/
Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now?
It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at
https://www.JayConner.com/Book
What is Private Money? Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner
https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyPodcast
Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. He maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $67,000 per deal without using his own money or credit.
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How Jim Zaspel Raised $1 Million Of Private Money In 30 Days | Raising Private Money
Jay Conner
00:00:01
Private money is so easy to attract for your real estate deals when you know where to find it and what to say to the private lenders. Well, my guest in this episode is a dear friend of mine all the way back in 2009. We met at a real estate investing conference, and we’ve been best of friends ever since. Well, my guest, has raised over 15 million in private money. And just last month alone, he raised $995,000 in new private money all in just one month. Well, my guest is Jim Zaspell. In this episode, Jim is going to share where he finds his private lenders, what he says to the private lenders and how it is that his private lenders always chase him to fund his deals instead of him chasing the lenders. So if you want to hear how you can have private money chasing you, don’t miss a second of this episode. Let’s dive in right now.
Jay Conner
00:01:34
Well, Jim, how in the world did you raise a million dollars in private money? Just last month.
Jim Zaspel
00:01:40
Jay, I’m super excited to be here. Thanks again for having me here today. Super. I’ve learned so much from you over the years on how to raise private money. And at any given time, we have a commute, 15 and 20 million of private money deployed private or sometimes hard money deployed on deals. But, you know, I woke up one day, I was like, I wanna, I, I need some more private money. I got a bunch of deals closing. And so I think the first step was I decided to right, starts the intentionality, and then I reached out to some folks who I knew might have money. I have reached out to some folks who had already left my money and got more money from them. Right. And then I asked for referrals, right? And so when I referred in his sister, another one referred in a friend, and another one doubled his investment. Then I got a couple of new investors as well. So one decided to, and next, I started picking up the phone and dialing and using your approach
Jay Conner
00:02:30
Now. Well, thank you for the kind words, by the way. So you said you reached out to these folks. So first of all, when you say folks, folks, in fact, that sounds like South Southern talk there, but you said you reached out to these folks raising this million dollars in private money. So it sounds like you weren’t reaching out to banks, institutions, or hard money lenders for this million dollars. These were like people, right?
Jim Zaspel
00:02:58
Individuals.
Jay Conner
00:03:00
Had they already loaned you money before or were they new lenders or a mix?
Jim Zaspel
00:03:05
So, Gina, it was brand new. She was the sister of one of my existing private lenders. Carrie. He doubled his investment more than doubled his investment. So he, he did, he did one deal with me, and then I called him, said, Listen, do you wanna reinvest? It was such an awkward conversation, actually. So he’s a real, he owns a local business. He’s a real straight to the point kind of guy. And I called the day after he got his money back from his first deal with me, said, Hey, you know, Carrie’s wanted to, you know, thank you for doing business with this was all that you expected and more, Well, it was, it was about what I expected. Like okay, I told myself by surprise. I said, Great. He said, Well, you know, I, you know, appreciated the opportunity to do business with you. Would, would you like to do business again? He said, All right, like that, these are like, I’m telling you, this is exactly what he said. Then I said, Great. I said, Did you wanna keep it outta a similar amount, or did you, did he invested like $140,000 the first time I said, Or did you wanna do more? He said, Well, between two and three. I said, All right, sounds good. Two and 300,000, not two or 3 million. Right? Right. Said
Jim Zaspel
00:04:08
I said All sounds good. So,
Jay Conner
00:04:10
So, he was at 140,000 and now he is coming up to 200 or 300,000.
Jim Zaspel
00:04:15
Correct. And so I sent him two deals, the sum of which was $330,000. And he invested in both of those deals. So he doubled his investments. So I guess, I don’t know what is that another 190? Right? And then Gina was the sister, or still is the sister of one of my existing private lenders. This is the guy I’ve known. The guy who referred her in, her brother, brother-in-law actually Don, for like 10 years. Right. He’s a home inspector in the area, and I knew him and, he’s one of my smaller private lenders. He’s a great guy. And we do a dealer two at a time consistently. And then another guy used to work for me, actually part-time like six years ago. You probably actually know him. I, I’ll give you his name offline. But yeah, so it was, I reached out to individuals going through my cell phone, right? And then that either asking for referrals or asking folks, you know, if they knew somebody who was interested or if they’d like some information.
Jay Conner
00:05:09
You know, Jim, what you just shared reminds me of a couple of lessons that I’ve learned over the years since raising money in 2009 is actually when you and I started. But one thing your story just reminds me of is, first of all, every private lender that I’ve done business with, and I’ve got 44 of ’em now investing in our business and loaning this money, every one of them has got more money than they tell you initially that they have always, always, I think you’ll agree with that, right?
Jim Zaspel
00:05:46
A hundred percent.
Jay Conner
00:05:47
And the second lesson that comes to my mind from your story is a close cousin to what you just shared. And that is, here is a tip as to how I easily, effortlessly, not always, but a lot of the times, get more private money pledged to me to use from my existing private lenders. And it’s a very easy thing. So here’s the way it works for me. I’ll have private money funding a deal, and I’ll go to sell it. I’ll cash out. Now, I do a lot of substitutions of collateral. Do you do substitutions of collateral with your lenders?
Jim Zaspel
00:06:28
We usually give at least three months of interest. Sometimes four every once in a while, six months, depends on, I don’t know, whatever variety of factors. Every time I do that, I pay six months of interest in four months. I’m like, I should just be doing substitution collateral. Like Jay, I don’t,
Jay Conner
00:06:52
Well, so, so just to make sure we’re on the same page, tell me and my listener what is a substitution of collateral and then I’ll get back to, my tip about how to always get, not always, but a lot of the times get more private money from your existing lenders.
Jim Zaspel
00:07:08
Sure. So you gotta, with the private line, there’s like, you know, basically three things involved, right? You’ve got a deed, you’ve got a promissory note, and you’ve got either a deed, trust, or mortgage, right? So it’s three things. And you, the deed, which is the house, you got the promissory note, the promise to pay for the house, right? And then you got the deed of trust, the mortgage in between that connects the two, right? And as the deed of trust or the mortgage puts the house up as collateral, once you get a buyer lined up for the underlying asset, the house, the deed, right? And I say, Listen, we’re gonna sell this, and how about we put your mortgage or your need of trust onto a different asset, different deed, or against a different property? Did I, did I explain that? Well?
Jay Conner
00:07:45
Well, yeah. I mean, you know, as you did, another way to say it is that substitution of collateral is exactly what it sounds like. So like you just said, I’m not borrowing, I don’t think you do. I always collateralize the notes. I don’t borrow unsecured money even though we can legally, So I always give the lender, the private lender, I always give them a deed of trust or mortgage that backs that note, that backs that money that’s loaning to me. So let’s say I go to sell a house and I wanna do a substitution of collateral. Well, what are we gonna do? We’re gonna substitute the collateral. I’ve got that note that I wanna keep in play with that lender and not pay them off. So as long as I’ve got another property that can collateralize that note or that money that they’ve loaned to me, then I keep the note going.
Jay Conner
00:08:34
I keep, you know, they keep earning, they keep earning their money, and then I just back that note with different property in order to keep them secure, right? So do a lot of that. So back to my tip that started a moment ago, and that is how do you, how can you get more private money from existing private lenders? And here it is in a nutshell, I’ll go to pay ’em off. If I’m not substituting the collateral, I’ll go to pay ’em off because I’m, I’ve sold the property, and now that that private money is paid back to the individual, to the lender, and I call ’em up and I say, Hey, let’s say, Jim, you’re my private. I say, Hey Jim, I’m, I’m selling this house. I’m paying off your note of whatever, $200,000. And so you should receive a check in the mail from my real estate attorney within the next week. By the way, Jim, you’ve got this 150,000 coming back, I assume you want me to put that money back to work for you as soon as possible. And Jim, in all likelihood, you’re probably gonna answer that question with what
Jim Zaspel
00:09:44
Absolutely.
Jay Conner
00:09:45
Yep. You wanna put about work. Then my next question outta that is, well Jim, is there more investment capital or retirement funds you’ve got that you would like to put with that 150 so you can make more money on your money? And when I ask that question, probably 50% of the time at least they wanna add money to it, particularly if they are a newer lender. What’s been your experience with that person like increasing what they started out with?
Jim Zaspel
01:10:13
Well, I can tell you that in he’ll hear you talk right now. I don’t ask that question nearly enough, but I’m gonna start doing that every single stinking time. I’ll be honest with you.
Jay Conner
01:10:24
I’m glad I could remind you, you know, of something about private money, Jim, after those years, and look, you know, I want, I want my listener that’s tuning in right now to understand this. Jim’s Aspen has been one of the dearest friends of mine and my wife Carol Joy, since February 2009, right?
Jim Zaspel
01:10:44
Yes.
Jay Conner
01:10:44
You and I met at a real estate investing conference in February 2009. And when I was there, I remember like it was yesterday, I didn’t know what private money was. I didn’t know what private lending was. I don’t know what subject buying is subject to the existing note. I didn’t know the terms, I didn’t know creative financing for six years. All I knew before that conference was the go to the local bank and borrow money. So what a wake-up call that conference.
Jim Zaspel
01:11:10
Was. Yeah, it was, that was something, you know, it’s funny, I remember as you raised, was it 2 million, one $80,000 and 90 days
Jay Conner
01:11:18
After leaving that conference?
Jim Zaspel
01:11:20
Yes. Yeah. And I was, I was slow. And I think like, people ask like, what’s, what’s one thing you wish you’d done differently? Right? And there was a, there was an unnecessary, and Ill-founded awkwardness I had about asking for private money, Right? So before you came out with your, scripts and your course, Right? And I was slow to do that. And if I had done that a little bit sooner out of the gate, yeah, I probably would’ve been met with more success sooner. And to this day, again, like I think we have 21 million on the streets right now, and to this day, there’s still an apprehension. I, I have, and then I realize every time I pick up the phone, I have yet to have somebody be upset with me or be offended that I asked them if they wanted to invest money. Cause what does it mean? It means I think they have money. It’s, it’s a, it’s a compliment, right? And it’s, it’s, it’s awesome.
Jay Conner
01:12:10
So you said a moment ago that when you first started having conversations with potential private lenders you felt awkward. So what do you think made you feel awkward in those initial conversations that you would have? And what breakthrough did you have that changed your mindset about that?
Jim Zaspel
01:12:36
Yeah, so two, two answers to the first question. Why did I have that awkwardness? Think there are two things. One is I recognize my own inexperience, which, which is a well-founded concern, right? I was 21 or two when I started as young and dumb, right Now I’m just dumb, not very young. And then the second thing was, yeah, think it’s part of a product of our environment, right? I was raised right, People didn’t talk about money a whole lot. And so you talk about money and borrowing money, it was almost like this, you almost felt needy, but like you, as you’ve taught, it’s like it’s a reposition the app, it’s an opportunity I’m giving somebody that they wouldn’t otherwise have. And that’s once I’ve adjusted in my mindset. So what triggered that adjustment in my mindset was, I dunno, the success stories are my private lenders, they’re, they’re happy, they keep investing the capital. I’m like, Are you sure you want to? And after a while I was like, Holy crap, this is awesome. I’m actually doing a huge favor and, you know, hundreds and hundreds of houses later. It’s, it’s like I have supreme confidence in my abilities.
Jay Conner
01:13:36
Yeah, well, you know, when it comes to a mindset like you just alluded to, and, and, and, and I’ll, and I’ll admit, I’ll confess the same thing. I mean, I remember like yesterday, my very first conversation with my first potential private lender was at church, right? But you know, you know what’s funny, Jim? I’ve never asked anybody for money. That very first private lender, I didn’t ask for money. Do you know what I did? I asked for, I asked, I asked for his help, I asked for his help. I, and I’m sure you’ve heard this story, but it was at church on a Wednesday night. And you know, I went up to him before church and I said, Hey, I’d like to talk to you, you know, confidentially after bible class tonight. And so after bible class, we get together, and here’s exactly what I said to him.
Jay Conner
01:14:30
I said, You know, everybody in this town, And he did, he was the original Zenni television dealer that’s prior to Walmart coming to town, right? So he, and he did, he knew everybody in town. He was, you know, steeped in the Rotary club. I mean, he’d been in community service and church and all this for decades. And I told him, I said, my exact words were, I said, I’ve now opened up my real estate investing business to people that I know and trust and have a relationship with. And I said to him, I said, I need your help. He said, Well, what do you need Brother Jay? I said, Well when you run across somebody that’s complaining about the volatility of the stock market, or they’re complaining about, you know, getting no money at the local bank in a certificate of deposit, would you refer them to me and I’ll show them how they can earn insane hay high rates of return doing business with me and investing in my deals?
Jay Conner
01:15:23
And of course, we know, where that conversation went. Well, now he’s interested. He wanted to know what the program was. And right there on a spot, he pledged me $250,000 just simply by me asking for his help today. You know, when I’m teaching other people how to do this, I call that the indirect method. It’s like, how can you be rejected? Like, you know, I hear people all the time say, you know, fear, Well, they don’t say it, but what they’re meaning is fear of rejection. Fear of rejection. I’m going, How can you have fear of rejection when there’s nothing to reject, Right? Yes. Number one, the indirect method, everybody wants to help. We’re all created by God wanting to help other people. Unless you’re just screwed up in the head, God created you to help, right? Yep. So when you ask somebody to help, of course, they want to help you know, if they can help, you know, kind of thing.
Jay Conner
01:16:15
So that’s, that’s what I call, you know, the indirect approach there. So, so I’m in, So, so, so back to, so people ask me all the time with Jay, how do you have, And I don’t have as much private money as you do, Jim. You’re like, you know, I need to just like bow down to you. But I got, you know, I got eight and a half, I got eight and a half million that, you know, in private money that I move around from project to project. But that’s pretty good for only 40,000 people in my market and all, and all I need, I mean, I have a problem now. I can’t put it all to work. That’s my problem. But what a good problem to have. That’s
Jim Zaspel
01:16:47
A good problem. What to call that Jay is rich people’s problems right there, rich people’s problems.
Jay Conner
01:16:53
That’s a downer. I never heard of the rich people problem. So, I’m interested. So people say, how do you have the money without asking for it? I don’t ask for money. I teach ’em what private money is. And then of course they’re chasing me. So Jim, you know, you were this million, what do you say? I mean, how does your talk off, what is your talk off points when you’re like beginning a conversation with a new potential private lender, an individual, Of course, we’re not talking about banks and all that. We’re talking about regular old people like us. How do you start a conversation with someone and they’ve never, you’ve never talked to ’em about private money, but how does that even start?
Jim Zaspel
01:17:41
Sure. So I’m trying to think. Most of my new private lenders, all but one of my new private lenders came as referrals. And so the people are kinda warmed up to me and are relatively familiar with the idea. There’s one recent private line. The guy went from one 40 to, what was it, 3 30, 3 $30,000. He’s known. My parents since they were in, were all in college together, right? So he has seen me come up in the business and we, I saw on a church function and where the function was, and we don’t go to church together when he has to come to our church that day. And he said, Jim, he said, Are you still doing that real estate thing? I said, Only about 200 houses this year. He says, Okay. He says, he said a while back, he used investors, right? I said, I do.
Jim Zaspel
01:18:26
I said I tell you what, you know, if that’s something you wanna chat about, you know, I’ll give you a call. We can schedule something. Now’s not the time to replace. So I kinda immediately pushed back a little bit. He said, Yeah, yeah, you’ve got my number. He said, you know, gimme a call later this week and we’ll schedule a time to meet. Right? And it’s just, I’m very slow in my sales cycle if, if, if I wanna call it to the sales cycle, right? I’m never asking them, We’re pitching it. I’m always pushing back to the next meeting. The next meeting is, is I learned from you, I’ve got a simple slide deck. I go through just some sample deals and frequently asked questions that, that I got from you. I still, still use it. I put in my deals, but I still use your slide deck. And, we go through and I just, my closing question is really simple. I ask them new questions, they say no. I said, Great. That’s what we’d do. What would you like to do? That’s my closing question. What would you like to do? Same thing as buying houses, What would you like to do? It leaves it open-ended and is an anti-pressure process.
Jay Conner
01:19:23
I love it, Jim, you just may, I mean, it’s just so natural. I mean, the conversation is natural. So starting a conversation as you were answering the question, I was thinking to myself, Well Jay, how do you start your conversations? And, and you know, my favorite, I love this question that begins with three words and it’s a, did you know the question? Did you know? It’s like everybody wants to be like on the inside. And so Jim, my favorite, like if somebody’s, if I’ve never talked to ’em about, you know, private money or anything, my favorite conversation starter is, did you know there’s a way people can make unlimited income per year tax-free? And of course, they don’t know the answer to that question. No, they dunno any kinda way they could earn unlimited money. But just, I didn’t say you, I said people did you know there’s a way people can earn unlimited money per year tax-free? Of course, they say no. And then it’s, it’s just an easy way to start a conversation about using retirement funds from self-directed ira, you know, accounts and companies. And, so when I asked the question, did you know there’s a way people can make unlimited money per your tax-free? They say no. And then I’ll say, Well, let me tell you about Bruce. And then I tell him a story. So, you know, stories. So that’s
Jim Zaspel
02:20:53
What I teach.
Jay Conner
02:20:54
Yes, stories teach, you know, I mean my lands, we learned that from Jesus, right? His, parables and his teachings were how he taught, he taught by telling a story, right? And so I said, Well, let me tell you about Bruce. And then I tell him about my private lender named Bruce that earned $65,000 from me and my company for one-year tax free by using his retirement funds. Well, it was a Roth ira, that’s how he was able to do it. It was a Roth. All the investment is after tax. So all the profit that he makes for the not profit. Cause I don’t, hey, I don’t wanna share the profit. I just paid private money. All the private money interests that I paid into his retirement account that year were totally tax-free. So I tell that story and now the listener is like, what?
Jay Conner
02:21:44
It’s like their head is up. Cause you know, financial advisors have never heard this. No. Right? No. And the reason they haven’t heard is cause like, you know, there’s, there’s like no money in it, you know, for them to know about it. Well, now Jim, before we started the show, you were telling me a story about this house that you bought on a lake, I think here in North Carolina. You were telling me, and, and in the process of purchasing this lake house, I love what you tell me, you just wrote down one of your goals this year. I’ll buy a lake house and poof, you did. So anyway, and in purchasing this lake house, you were able to raise even more private money than you had before. Tell me the lake house story.
Jim Zaspel
02:22:32
All I will, So it’s a different approach from, from like my, our standard deals, right? And you know, it’s like sometimes you, like, you jump outta the airplane, you figure out how to build a parachute in the way down. So, so it’s kinda what I did, right? So you grow up, you know, my family when I was little like they didn’t have two nickel rub together. You know, I, we always loved going to lakes and not just for the day or, you know, scrounge up some money and, and to go for a week. And so I’ve always loved lake houses. Four years ago we actually rented a house on Lake Norman in North Carolina. It was a beautiful lake, with 512 miles of shoreline. Huge. And I loved it. Ever since we’ve been there, I’ve had it as like a, I’ll call it back burner goal to, to have, a lake house in North Carolina.
Jim Zaspel
02:23:13
And I had lunch with, a friend in Florida in May of this year. And he said, Jimmy, he said, What are your goals? And I talked a little bit about them, but really there’s a lack of clarity on my part. And he said, Jimmy, he said If you don’t have them like you’re not gonna hit them. Like you gotta get clear, you and your wife, she was there as well. She said, You gotta get clear in your goals and you gotta write ’em down, keep ’em in front of you, you know, every single day, and you gotta like pursue them. So one of the goals I wrote had a lake house on either Deep Creek Lake Maryland or Lake Norman, North Carolina that’s big enough for our entire family with a flat backyard on a relatively quiet cove. That was my goal, right?
Jim Zaspel
02:23:49
And it is at least 50% subsidized, for lack better term, by short-term rental income. That was the goal, right? And so I’m gonna write this down for a couple of months and then all of a sudden one day, like, what the heck am I waiting for? I’m doing absolutely nothing towards this. So I go on the internet and, you know, fill out some forms and realtors start calling me whatever. And the first house I looked at online, never went and saw and the first house I went and looked at didn’t work out as, like a Sharon doc easement, it was too shallow at the end of the co whatever the second house was about, the realtor sent me was gonna come on the market that coming Friday, they’re gonna take offers on Sunday. And so she went and saw it, sent me a video, and rewind.
Jim Zaspel
02:24:29
My wife had, actually, this is funny, my wife a few weeks prior had gone to Asheville actually with her parents and took one of her kids there. And they like three days kind of seeing all the whatever’s to see in, in Asheville. And she comes back and she says, Jim, she says, People in Asheville or in North Carolina is so nice, it’s so beautiful. We really need to get the Lakehouse in North Carolina one of these days. One of these days I took that as asap, right? And so Jimmy goes to work trying to, so I go, so Sunday morning, right? So coming soon on Friday, review offers on Sunday, Sunday morning, the realtors texting me. I’ve looked at the pictures, we’re sitting at the breakfast table. I said, Oh, Marin, I said, Here’s the, here’s the house we’re gonna, I’m gonna make an offer on.
Jim Zaspel
02:25:12
And she’s like, Wait, you just gonna make an offer on it? I said, What are you, what are you talking about? Like, are you gonna flip it? I thought you only flipped out. This is Pennsylvania. Like what do you mean? I said, No, no. Remember you said you wanted a lake in North Carolina? I think I found a good deal. Like it’s worth like 1.5 or buying a friend gonna buy for 1.1, it’s gonna be a good deal. She’s like, All right, then I get the thing accepted. I sent $30,000, to get my offer accepted. I sent a $30,000 wire. And, then she’s like, wasn’t thrilled. She’s like, Jim, hold, hold the horses. She’s like, I was s romantic weekend getaway. You went, I go, How’s shopping by boat? And you just went and got this thing. And here I am thinking I’m like her savior and turns out I’m in trouble. And I was so confused.
Jay Conner
02:25:55
Don’t you know your wife wants to do two things? Number one, she wants to go shopping with you. Number two, she wants to talk about it,
Jim Zaspel
02:26:03
Right? Married a lot longer than I have. And so I’m, I’m to learn. So anyway, we, we worked through that and she’s like, Well how you gonna pay for it cuz you ain’t using our money to pay for it? And I was like, I’ll figure it out. She’s like, Well how long do you have to close? I said that you know, 29 days. And she’s like, Well you better figure it out. So, one of the hard money lenders that I use, actually, they do business in North Carolina as well. So I took care of, you know, 80% of the cost, right? But still had to come up, you know, everything. I needed a few hundred thousand bucks, maybe three 50.
Jay Conner
02:26:39
Oh, just a few hundred.
Jim Zaspel
02:26:40
Yeah, just a few. And so I thought, you know, how am I gonna do this? And you know, Scott, I’ve got a self-storage facility looking to buy more. And so, you know how like people syndicate those deals, They get the bank loan they raise investors for, for the equity, the down payment. I was like, why don’t I do the same thing and I didn’t come up, heard some deals doing it, do the same thing for this. And so here’s what I came up with and I’m gonna tell you the structure, then I’m gonna tell you how it went about raising the money right. To do it. So I was like, you know, this has gotta be different. I just got like, it’s gotta be sweet enough to attract like people like you and me, a little more sophisticated investors, not just armchair investors, right?
Jim Zaspel
02:27:19
So anyway, we structured it way, and it created a new LLC just for that. The property’s the only thing that owns Lake Norman Paradise, which I thought was a good name. Love. To create a new list and in exchange for hundred and $15,000, I give the investor 10% ownership of the LLC. 6%, 6% preferred return, and two weeks at the Lake House free each year, one peak season, one off-peak. And all of the bonus depreciation we’re taking in year one, I’m splitting it equally amongst those three investors. Mm. So if they’re a real estate professional, it drives their IRR through the roof and three-year commitment. And it’s, well that’s, that’s enough detail, but that’s how I structured it and is instead of having a bunch of one-on-one conversations, I recorded like a video, like a Loom video of me going through a slide deck and walking through the deal. And I was, I spent like two and a half hours in the morning going through the cell phone and putting it out on Facebook once. And instead of having to schedule a time to meet with people, I just send the Loom video link. I never did have a conversation with anybody about it.
Jay Conner
02:28:28
And what kinda link was that? What kinda link
Jim Zaspel
02:28:30
Loom. L o om. And so what that is, it’s a, you can go to loom.com and you can record your screen and it records your audio over, it’s, it’s really cool. Yeah. So recorded, present. So
Jay Conner
02:28:41
You, you do this video, what were they seeing on, I mean you weren’t doing the video at the house? No,
Jim Zaspel
02:28:48
So I was doing a video of my slide deck presentation, right? So I had some pictures of the house, you know, of course, the about Lake Norman, the math of the deal, right? The analyzing of the numbers in the deal and what’s in it for them, how they’re gonna get paid back and how much they’re gonna, they’re gonna make and how they’re gonna enjoy those two weeks per year. By the way, you know, if you can’t make it two weeks every year, you can give week one or both of your weeks to your friends. Imagine the ball or status you’ve got if you give away a lake or a free week at a lake house.
Jay Conner
02:29:16
So, oh man, you did the Colombo close in the middle of your video, which was, oh, by the way, that’s, so how much money, how much private money did you raise on for that deal?
Jim Zaspel
02:29:30
Yeah, so one was one of them, so I took three people at one 15 each. One of them was an existing private lender. So it’s, it’s fair to say he just reallocated money, right? And then I raised two new investors who had one had heard about it, by word of mouth and one saw a Facebook post. But the person who heard about it, word of mouth, was from somebody I reached out to right, from texting.
Jay Conner
02:29:50
So you actually got one of those private lenders from your Facebook post and the link to that video that you did on Loom.
Jim Zaspel
02:29:58
So the Facebook post, you wanna be careful, make sure it’s an existing relationship before I ask for money or I wanna be compliant. And I said, Listen, there’s a lake house, you know, here are some pictures if you like to, you know, talk about getting involved. If you’re looking for a good place to put 115,000 bucks, you shoot me a message and have a conversation about it. And one of the guys who reached out to me was somebody who worked for me several years ago and lives in North Carolina. And I was like, I hadn’t thought of this guy in four years. And, but he is a great guy. I watched the video and the next day he is like, all we’re, I’m like, I still haven’t to him on the phone. Like we text you watched the video, but I never talked to him. It was, it was really cool.
Jay Conner
03:30:39
I love it. Now I wanna go back to the very beginning of your story. Okay. There’s something you told at the beginning of your story that I don’t want anyone to miss. And here’s what you told me. You were visiting with a friend down in Florida and your friend was visiting with you about your goals and he says, What are your goals? Jim? And your friend told you, well they need more clarity. And then you wrote your specific goal down and then here’s what I heard you say. You were reviewing your goal, reviewing your goal, and then it occurred to you that you, weren’t doing anything with your goal, and then you started searching on the internet. Here’s my question, if you had not written down that goal, what do you think the chances would’ve, and you, and you hadn’t been reviewing it, what do you think the chances would’ve been that you would’ve just remembered that something you wanted to do and you went to the internet to search?
Jim Zaspel
03:31:37
I mean, it wouldn’t have happened, it would still be the same back burner goal would’ve been for the previous four years. Right? It just, wouldn’t have happened.
Jay Conner
03:31:46
And so writing it down and how often, how often, you know, were you reviewing that goal or reviewing your goals to where it was like the top of mind awareness? I
Jim Zaspel
03:31:56
Mean, I was writing down the same list of goals every day for a while. Then it was like once or twice a week and I did it again today and I was able to, you know, stop writing a couple of ’em off cuz we, we hit ’em. But, you know, I write ’em down consistently a couple
Jay Conner
03:32:08
Times. A how many, how many goals do you have written down right now that you’re working towards for the year? And I wanna know how many of them you’ve checked off for the year.
Jim Zaspel
03:32:17
Yeah, I think it was 18 and I’ve checked off two and these weren’t, these are like five-year goals. These are not this year’s goals. Sure, right? Sure. Or 18 of them. Some are relational, some are, you know, financial, some are business and sometimes they change. And I think sometimes for me like I get stuck down a path and I feel guilty changing the goal. Right? I made a change in my residential business recently and, and I was like, we gotta be willing to change the goals. But I think having clarity and focus is the important part.
Jay Conner
03:32:46
Absolutely. Jim, I briefly mentioned it to you before the show started, but I’ve got to just share it now. I’m so excited about the brand-new private money guide that I just finished writing. And this private money guide is called Seven Reasons Why Private Money will Skyrocket your real estate business and help you build incredible Wealth. And it’s free, you can download it for free. This will put you and anyone on the fast track to private money. You can download it for free at www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide. Again, download your private money guide at www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide. Jim, I got another question for you before we wrap up the show. And that is, you know, when you were telling your story about reaching out to these people that you know, you know, it sounds to me like, well, I’m not gonna put that in your brain, I’m just gonna ask you the question. When it comes, to your own experience with private money and, and getting it for your deals and not hard, I’m not talking about hard me, I know, I know you use hard money for your big deals as well, but the private money from individuals, has most of that private money come from people that you taught about private money and you had some type of relationship with? Or did most of that private money from individuals say come from existing private lenders that were already loaning money out?
Jim Zaspel
03:34:26
Not a, not a single one ever lent money to, me on a real estate deal prior to investing with me.
Jay Conner
03:34:32
And you know what? Yeah, my experience is exactly the same as all my 44 private lenders, none of them had ever heard of private money or private lending. None of them had ever heard of self-directed IRAs. In fact, over half of my private lender’s ha are using their retirement funds to invest in our deals. They never heard of self-directed IRAs until I taught them about them. And so, since you have had the same experience and I’ve had the same experience as you as far as where these private lenders are coming from, what lessons, what takeaway does that really bring to mind to you if someone is really gonna raise private money from individuals?
Jim Zaspel
03:35:20
I, I think the takeaway is you already know the people who are gonna supply your first, you know, at least a few million dollars of private money and they’re right here in your cell phone, right? That’s where they’re located. You already know them. And I, I just like, as I said before, I’ve, I’ve yet to have somebody to be offended or upset that I asked ’em their opinion on, on a, on the structure or if they would mind helping me. I’ve never had somebody offended by that. And unlike I do sometimes ask if they would like to, to learn more about, you know, my, I’ll actually ask for the money instead of asking just for help sometimes. And again, nobody’s ever offended. It’s like, no, I don’t have it, but thanks for thinking of me. It’s like, cool, you’re welcome.
Jay Conner
03:35:59
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean it’s like, and here’s the deal. You know, here’s an interesting number that you may have heard or may not have heard. I just learned it three months ago and I learned it from Quest. So all of my private lenders transferred. I mean those that are using retirement funds transferred their funds over to Quest Trust outta Houston, Texas. And that’s where they loan the money from for those of my lenders that are using retirement funds. But you know, in my experience, like we were saying, none of them had ever heard of private money. Never. They had never heard about rated IRAs. And this figure that I heard from Quest Trust three months ago, prior to Covid coming along, there was 18 trillion in liquid capital just sitting in retirement accounts. Not including just liquid capital, but just
Jim Zaspel
03:36:53
Unbelievable
Jay Conner
03:36:53
Just in, in retirement accounts in the US on this side of covid $31 trillion in cash just sitting on the sidelines. And so what’s the lesson to learn from that the private lenders need and want us real estate investors and borrowers more than we need them now? It’s a win-win scenario. But here’s the deal, there’s more money out there available than we can use, right? Yes. And so, like, like you just said, when we come along and we teach someone about what private money and private lending is, we have done them a huge favor and we have been a servant to them. I mean, you know, and I know you’ve heard me say it over the past years, Jim, but you know, particularly our older retired private lenders, they have written us thank you notes for changing their retirement years by giving them high rates of return safely and securely, and they’re able to travel, they’re able to go visit grandkids when ordinarily they wouldn’t be able to unless they were doing business with us. So, you know, it’s just wonderful to be, to be able to have a win-win relationship to where everybody wins. You know, my dad taught me a long time ago. Unless everybody’s winning, then we don’t wanna involved in it.
Jim Zaspel
03:38:17
Yeah, I like
Jay Conner
03:38:20
Gm, My lands, you are amazing. You’re an amazing friend, you’re an amazing entrepreneur and business guy, and the empire that you’ve put together over all these years is just remarkable. I wanna ask your advice, first of all, when I say empowering and remarkable, just share real quick what your business looks like today. Like how many deals over the last two or three years have you been doing, like, you know, a year?
Jim Zaspel
03:38:51
Sure. So I think last year we did 187 houses. That’s some of ’em we bought fixed and sold. Some of them we wholesale in the last three and a half years, we’ve acquired I think 141 rental properties that we’ve, that we’re keeping. And so we, you know, wholesale, we, we’ll do about 200 houses again this year for either wholesale and fixed and flips. Not looking to buy rentals aggressively, probably just one a month or so as, as they come up. I don’t care if I ever buy another rental property, 140 something is enough. But yeah, it’s, we stay busy. We, I think we have 73 houses in our pipeline right now. Either stuff we’re about to buy under construction or we’re about to sell, that includes about 20 wholesale that are under contract with the buyers. So it’s, we stay busy.
Jay Conner
03:39:40
Phenomenal man. Phenomenal. So one last question. What is the best advice from your experience that would you give, that you would give to someone that’s looking to start raising private money that hasn’t raised private money before?
Jim Zaspel
03:39:57
Sure. So the first thing you gotta do is do the same thing I’m gonna do when I get off this called download that money guide. That’s the first thing I’m gonna do. And next time I’m just gonna assume anybody listening to this is already fully engaged in your world and all that you have to offer. Jay, if that’s not the case, then that’s your first thing, but if that’s not the first, if you’ve already done that, I think the people ask me a lot of times like, what’s one thing piece of advice you have, right? And assuming they’re already on the right path for education like they’re following you for how to raise private money it’s one thing I look to do more all the time. That is just to find the thing I’m afraid of doing and do it right. Embrace fear and do the hard thing and do it sooner. And it’s amazing how much easier your life gets. That’s it.
Jay Conner
04:40:48
Awesome man. So Jim,
Jim Zaspel
04:40:50
Yes,
Jay Conner
04:40:51
Someone may want to continue the conversation with you about investing in your business. I mean, you’ve got millions and millions. How many millions in private money did you say you’ve been working with?
Jim Zaspel
04:41:02
We’re, I think we’re 21 right now.
Jay Conner
04:41:04
21 million. So someone may want to invest with you to get high rates of return that you’re paying everybody. So how can someone connect with you?
Jim Zaspel
04:41:17
Sure. So I’m a pretty unsophisticated guy here. You can reach out to me on Facebook. I think it’s showing the video right now, facebook.com/jim Zall. That’s my first and last name, Jim Zal. I used to say I’m, I’m one in a million right now. I’m like one in a billion people on Facebook, right? But,
Jay Conner
04:41:35
Well, well, and, and, and I wanna make sure that you know, we know how to spell that. So on Facebook, Jim Zaspel, all one word, J I M Z A S P E L, Jim Zaspel,
Jim Zaspel
04:41:49
Thank you. Or you can gimme a call or shoot me a text on my cell number. It’s right there on the screen. It’s 2 6 7 5 7 7 1 0 7 2.
Jay Conner
04:41:59
Jim, you’re actually giving out your cell phone number. Are you a real person or something?
Jim Zaspel
04:42:04
I’m a real person or something. You know, I don’t have a, I don’t have a funnel and I don’t have a sales floor for, for the stuff. I just me
Jay Conner
04:42:11
Give out your number again since you’ve spilled the beans.
Jim Zaspel
04:42:14
Sure. (267) 577-1072. Shoot me a call or a text and we’ll figure out a time to, a time to connect. But you know, Jay, I just wanna say again, like, I, I guarantee you, and I know for a fact, you know, I would’ve been having a lot harder road to ho but for the road to, I think the expression is for raising private money if I hadn’t, you know, learned from you along the way. So folks, if you’re, if you’re listening to Jake Con or you’re in his world, then you’re in the right place. So, Jim, appreciate all that I learned from you, Jay,
Jay Conner
04:42:42
Thank you so much. And what an inspiration you are to me with the organization that you have grown and that you now manage. So Jim, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for joining me on today’s show here on Raising Private Money.
Jim Zaspel
04:42:58
Thank you, Jay. It’s been, it’s been a blast. It’s been fun.
Jay Conner
04:43:01
There you have it, my friend. I’m Jay Conner with the Private Money Authority and I really need you. Yes, I need your help. I need you to like, share and subscribe and gimme a five-star rating and a personal review. And in addition to that, I really would like for you to think of someone whom this interview could inspire, could give value to, and share this episode with your friend or your family member. So thank you for joining me here on the show. I look forward to seeing you right here next time on Raising Private Money.
