One of the worst situations for a real estate investor is missing out on a deal because of the inability to secure funds. What if I told you that you don’t have to wait for banks or financial institutions to lend you the money you need?
Today’s guest is Brett Johnson. He has been in the property business since 1997, when he started Brett Construction Company in Hico, Texas. Brett has always gone to banks for financing, but learning about Private Money allowed him to access so much more that he has managed to raise $1,950,000 in just four weeks!
Learn more about his inspiring story in this episode!
Key Takeaways:
- How Brett raised $1,950,000 in four weeks.
- Don’t beg for money; instead, offer people the opportunity to invest in you.
- Why have a deed of trust for your lenders?
- On authenticity regarding faith and how it can even help attract lenders.
- How Brett discovered Private Money.
- Private Money is flexible.
Check out my book: 7 Reasons Why Private Money Will Skyrocket Your Real Estate Business and Help You Build Incredible Wealth!
Get it here for FREE: www.jayconner.com/moneyguide
Timestamps:
0:01 – Raising Private Money with Jay Conner
1:00 – Today’s guest: Brett Johnson
2:04 – Private Money is What’s Been Missing In Your RE Business
3:15 – How To Raise $1.95 Million Of Private Money In 4 weeks
4:50 – The True Meaning Of “The Money Comes First” IN RE
6:48 – Our Number 1 Goal Is To Help People
7:44 – Security For Private Lenders
10:00 – I Have Never Been Ashamed To Talk About My Faith
13:11 – In The World Of Private Money You Make The Rules
15:41 – Jay’s Free Money Guide: https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide
16:40 – Money Needs To Be Happy On Both Sides
20:36 – Jay’s Biggest Mistake
22:22 – Private Money Can Be Use In Any Kind Of Real Estate Deal
24:02 – We Are Brought Into This World To Become Creators
25:22 – Brett Johnson’s One Piece Of Advice: “Talk To People, Share Your Story”
How Brett Raised $1.95 Million in the Last 27 Days
Brett Johnson (00:00):
Yesterday I had the opportunity, to go into a lady’s home that we’re looking at. And you know, the last thing out of my mouth was this. You know what, we’re gonna try to find a way to help you, you know, get out of this jam you’re in. And like Jay says, sometimes you can’t. The best thing you can do is buy the home from ’em.
Narrator (00:23):
If you are a real estate investor and are wondering how to raise and leverage private money to make more profit on every deal then you are in the right place on Raising Private Money, we’ll speak with new and seasoned investors to dissect their deals and extract the best tips and strategies to help you get the money because the money comes first. Now, here’s your host, Jay Connor.
Jay Conner (00:51):
Imagine what it will feel like to have all the private money you would ever want for your real estate deals and to never miss out on a deal. Well, you’re about to hear the story of how a real estate investor who just recently started raising private money raised $1,950,000 in private money in just the past four weeks. My guest on today’s raising private money show is Brett Johnson. Brett is from Temple, Texas, and started a construction company back in 1997. He credits his success to being a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ. Brett was diagnosed with a brain tumor back on December the fifth, 2021. And now today, Brett is totally cancer free. Now, if you want to be inspired and learn how you can get your own private money, you are going to love this episode of Raising Private Money. Come join me right now as we visit with Brett Johnson.
Brett Johnson (02:01):
Hello, Brett.
Jay Conner (02:02):
Here’s what I want to know. I want to know how in the world did you feel when you were able to break through and finally realize that private money is the thing that you were missing in your business?
Brett Johnson (02:18):
So, Jay, I felt really great the first time that I got private money. And, you know, I’ve always used banks all my life and I really didn’t know private money. A lot of people don’t know about that. But yeah, we were able to raise 1,950,000 and just a few weeks. So
Jay Conner (02:44):
That’s awesome rep. That’s fantastic. So, you know you came recently to my Private Money Academy conference live event. And you told me that, you know, you just learned so much from the event about how to approach people and talk to people. Of course, when we’re talking private money, we’re talking about doing business with individuals, human beings just like you, just like me. So let me just like ask you a like really broad question and you can answer this, you know you know, answer it anyway from any angle that you want to. So, you know, someone hears you raised $1,950,000 in private money in just a matter of four weeks. How would you answer the question, Brett? How do you do that? How in the world do you raise $1,950,000 in funding and decided to use private money instead of going and using, you know, your local bank? How did you do that? And of course, there are like 10 different answers to that question, but, but how, how did you raise almost 2 million in four weeks?
Brett Johnson (03:59):
Well, Jay, I wanna give credit and praise to God, first of all, cause all things are possible with Jesus. And so that’s been my company Mato since 1997. And, you know, God just opened, you just prayed up every day and God opens the doors and you gotta step through ’em. And you know, that’s, that’s just something that you, you know, I, I learned that it’s the money first and at your conference, Jay. And so you know, I always try to get the deal, then go find the money, but the proper way to do that is to find the money first. So
Jay Conner (04:50):
Why, why is that? I mean, it sounds like that the money comes first really resonated with you when you first heard me talking about that. What does that mean? Money comes first and why is that important?
Brett Johnson (05:06):
Just because when you get a deal, you don’t need to go scrambling and begging for money. You need to be opening the doors for people to have an opportunity to invest and to be paid for investing. And so that’s kind of my look on it.
Jay Conner (05:26):
Right? You know, one question that I get a lot Brett, particularly from real estate investors that have not raised private money yet, they’ll say, well, Jay, how do you approach people? How do you talk to people? How do you introduce this idea of private money? So Brent, what I want us to do is to really drill down on this story of you raising almost 2 million. How did you start the conversation? How do, how do you approach someone when you’re, when you are attracting and raising private money? What’s that conversation looking sound like?
Brett Johnson (06:07):
You know, you just, you just open it up with, Hey, you know I got a really good investment opportunity for someone and you know, if you’re interested, I, I’d be glad to share it with you. And, and I just, you know, this guy was a good friend of mine and, and I just began to share, you know, with him and he said, you know what, I, I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna do that with you. So, you know just, just have to be honest at all times and just open your heart and just befriend people and love on people. You know, that’s us, our number one goal is just to help people in this business. That’s yesterday I had the opportunity, to go into a lady’s home that we’re looking at. And you know, the last thing outta my mouth was this, you know what, we’re gonna try to find a way to help you, you know, get out of this jam you’re in. And like Jay says, sometimes you can’t, the best thing you can do is buy the home from, but yeah.
Jay Conner (07:20):
Well, you know, you said a really, really important word just a moment ago, and that’s the word help, H E L P. It’s all about helping other people, serving people, putting them first creating win-win scenarios. And so let me ask you this question, Brett. You know, the way we do private money, of course, we’re talking about doing business with individuals. One thing that we offer our private lenders is a mortgage or trust, depending on the state, the property’s in. But a mortgage or trust is that document or that legal instrument that collateralizes the note and protects the private lender. So even though this private lender was and is a good friend of yours how important was the deed of trust or mortgage that you gave to the lender in order to secure their note?
Brett Johnson (08:17):
Yes, it’s, that’s very critical. You know, people are not gonna put that much money up, even small amounts of money without some kind of guarantee, you know? So that’s really good to have that aspect of it.
Jay Conner (08:33):
Yeah, my wife, Carol Joy, and I, we’ve got right now 44 private lenders that are investing in our deals. And I ask ’em all the time, I ask all of ’em, I say, you know, we’ve got a relationship together. You know, we know each other. But after they’ve gotten into the program and, you know, been with us for a while, I’ll ask ’em what was the top reason or reasons that you decided to do business with us? And of course, one reason is they’re gonna make a lot of money, they’re gonna make a whole lot more, more money than they could say in the local bank at a local certificate of deposit. Obviously, no matter what kind of documentation and security got, unless they like you and they trust you, they’re not gonna do business with you. But then in addition to that, invariably all my private lenders tell me that it is that deed of trust or mortgage that secures the note and backs their loan to us.
Jay Conner (09:39):
So, you know, all of the loans that we do with private lenders, it’s the real estate that we are purchasing. Yeah. That is, that is backing, you know, that is backing that note. So that is just, just a phenomenal story that you’ve got there, Brett. And you know, you mentioned God, you mentioned Jesus, you mentioned the kingdom. You know, I’ve been a public speaker training real estate investors for many, many years now. Carol Joy, my wife, and I, we’ve been investing in single-family houses since 2003, but we started using private money actually in 2009. We started educating other real estate investors on how to do it. And, you know, you go to speaker training school, they say, never talk politics, never talk religion, never talk about your faith. I don’t talk politics because even, some of my good friends are on the other side of the aisle.
Jay Conner (10:36):
But when it comes to being authentic and being really and truly who you are, you know, I’m not ashamed at all to let people know who I am. And that is that I am a believer in God. I know that Jesus is the son of God. And you talk about that all the time. What’s your, what’s your take on letting people know what really your faith is? You know, some people say, if you let you know, let people know what your faith is, you’re gonna run some people off. What are your thoughts about that?
Brett Johnson (11:07):
And, you know, you just have to really pray that up every day. You know, that, God gives you the words, he’ll give you the words to speak to people. But I do, I’ve had a lawsuit you know filed on us for religious we, we hold, we do bible studies every week in our companies and, and you know, and we let ’em know that if they don’t want to be a part of it, they can go stand outside, you know? But yeah, I mean, you just gotta, you gotta, you gotta be like a fighter jet. I always say, you know, that fighter jet, he was in and he drops the bombs and then he’s out of there. And I, I feel like God gave me that, that picture years ago that that’s the way we need to do sometimes, you know when we’re ministering, it’s, it’s what, you know, it’s kinda like if I’m in a, if I’m in a chair, I’m standing in a chair and I got four or five people around me, is it easier for them to pull me down or for me to pull them up?
Brett Johnson (12:19):
And so we have to just, we have to set the stage, speak the words, and then let God water those words.
Jay Conner (12:28):
Yeah. You know I, I tell people the reason that I want to be totally transparent and authentic with who I really am is that truth be told Brett, I mean when it comes to attracting private money or doing business with people that wanna sell their house, or anybody I’m gonna do business with, or anybody that I wanna hang out with and be friends with, I want to pull closer to me the people that are most like me. And quite frankly, if I repel or run off people that are not like me, then that’s okay. I want to hang around people and be around, you know, be around people, you know, like myself. Now, let me ask you this question, Brett, what was it? Well, first of all, what year did you start investing in real estate?
Brett Johnson (13:18):
So I’ve done just very little investing. So I’ve, I gotta have a construction company that we started in 1997. And, and you know, I remember I’d go buy, you know, a hundred acres or something there around the home and flip it, you know, but really, you know, we didn’t start till 2019 when we started our company kingdom Developers.
Jay Conner (13:45):
I got you. So what was going on, what’s been going on in your real estate investing business to where something happened, something triggered in your mind, something came along and you heard about it? What was it that got the attention that you wanted to get involved in using private money for your deals, saying instead of, you know, traditional institutional money?
Brett Johnson (14:11):
Correct. You know heck it’s, it’s just
Jay Conner (14:27):
Were you running into any kind of problem or challenge that caused you to seek out private money?
Brett Johnson (14:34):
Yeah, I mean, you’re just always needing money. And banks, take too long. They’re, they’re slow. They’re you know, they, they get paid by the hour, so they’re not, not, they’re not in a hurry to get you your money. And then with all the, you know, the paperwork that you have to turn in every month on loans is, and it gets, it gets overwhelming when you’re dealing with banks.
Jay Conner (15:02):
Yeah. Well, you know, the list is long, and I know, you know, it like I do, the list is long as to why I absolutely love private money over institutional money or bank money or, and I’ve got some great friends that are hard money lenders but of course, when you’re borrowing any kind of institutional money, it’s the lender that’s making the rules. But, you know, in this world, we’re making the rules, we’re putting our teacher hat on, and we’re teaching potential private lenders, people that we’ve got some kind of relationship with what private money, you know, is all about. And in fact, Brett, what that reminds me of is, I’m just so excited about this recent private money guide that I just finished writing. It’s called Seven Reasons Why Private Money will Skyrocket Your Real Estate Business and Help you build Incredible Wealth. So if you’re listening or watching this podcast and you’re going, you know what, I really wanna learn more about how this private money thing works, this is absolutely free.
Jay Conner (16:09):
You can download it for free at www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide. This will get you on the fast track to private money and get you in a position like Brett and myself where you never miss out on a deal because you did not have the funding. Brett, back to those reasons as to why we like private money overdoing business for the banks. Well, you know, the list, as long as I said, as you, as you said a moment ago, it’s like the banks take forever in order to fund a deal. And, you know, when I was relying on banks up until 2009 I actually did not get some of my offers accepted from sellers because it was gonna take me 30 and 45 days to close. And in this world of private money, I make all my offers to where I can close within seven days. So I want you to share your part of the story to where you were down to like just a few days before your contract was going to expire to close on this deal, and what was it that happened that private money actually saved your deal and you didn’t lose the contract?
Brett Johnson (17:47):
So the way that I started using the private money was I had a bank lined up to do the loan, which I was needing 1,950,000. And so I pushed every, banker from starting the process of the loan until I got back from Jay’s conference. And cuz I knew that I was gonna learn something there that was gonna help me with that private money. And so I went to Jay’s and I come back, I learned all the, you know, how to talk to people, when to talk to people and you know, just made it all fit for me. And, you know, I love these private lenders because every one of them is your friend. I mean, you love ’em and they’re, they’re part of your family. And I said this one time before Jay, but it’s money. It has to be happy on both sides.
Jay Conner (18:55):
I love that phrase. In fact, I heard you say it at the live event and say, so what does that mean? Money’s gotta be happy on both sides of the table.
Brett Johnson (19:04):
So if I’m buying a house, I’ve gotta be happy with the price the seller has to be happy with it or it’s not gonna be good.
Jay Conner (19:15):
Yeah. That’s called a win-win. You know, my dad told me years and years ago, he says, Jay, you know, every transaction that I’m involved in, unless everybody is winning and coming out ahead, he said, you know, I don’t wanna be involved in the transaction. And you know, Brett, you and I are of the same mindset. We got the same values, we believe the same thing. And that’s what you mean if I understand it correctly, about the money being happy on both sides of the table. Right, right. So, so Brett, you know, you’ve been, you’ve been in this real estate investing world for a little while now. If you knew when started what you now know about real estate investing, what would you do differently when you started out?
Brett Johnson (20:09):
You know it would’ve been a lot easier and I’d be a, a lot further along, you know in my process. Just just I would be so much further down the road. You know
Jay Conner (20:29):
I guess you’re, I guess you’re talking about in relation to having private money
Brett Johnson (20:34):
Yes. In relation to having private money. For sure.
Jay Conner (20:37):
Yeah. Well, and I tell you, Brett, you know people ask me that question all the time. The biggest mistake I made starting out is I try to do this business by myself and on my own. What a mistake that was. I mean, the biggest advice I can give to people that are starting out. And of course, I work with all different levels of real estate investors, and with their experience and fact, Stu and Harriet out of El Myra, New York, already had a portfolio of over 100 houses before we started working together. They’ve already raised, I guess about two and a half million or so. I know your totality, you told me in private money that you have up to this point $2,950,000 in private money. But, you know, private money just really takes the handcuffs off of you and puts you in the driver’s seat, puts you in control.
Jay Conner (21:34):
One question I get all the time, Brett, is how in the world do you get all that Private Money, Jay? And you never asked anybody for money, and I haven’t, I’ve never asked anybody for private money. I’ve never asked anybody to like fund a particular deal. And I say, Jay, how do you get all the money without asking for it? And the answer to that is we put our teacher hat on just like you did. You taught the person you know that invested with you at 1,000,900 and $50,000, you taught them your private lending program as to the type of interest rate that they can get the length of term, et cetera, how they can get their money back in case of, of an emergency, et cetera. And, you know, private money can be used for all kinds of real estate deals. Yes, it can be used for single-family houses, it can be also used for commercial properties, apartments and et cetera. But this particular real estate deal that you’ve got in the works is really different. So what kind of real estate did this private lender actually fund for you? What kind of deal is it?
Brett Johnson (22:49):
So it’s a, it’ll be a subdivision. So it’s 156 acres, and there’ll be 218 lots on it. And so we go in and we put the water this through the streets, then, all of that. Then we have builders that build a bunch of houses and then we’ll build a few too.
Jay Conner (23:09):
That’s awesome, man. You know my dad, Wallace, Connor later this month, he’s gonna be 89 years old, can you believe it? 89 years old. In fact, at the upcoming mastermind meeting, you’ll probably meet him Brett, but my dad at 89 years old, he’s got one subdivision going right now 350 houses that are a little bit over halfway built out. he did all the infrastructure and then he got a great friend that’s a builder that’s doing all the vertical. And I will be John Brown if my 89-year-old dad doesn’t have two other projects under contract that he’s moving towards closing, one is a 200-unit apartment building complex, and another one is townhouses that he is getting ready to build. And people ask to say, say, Wallace, you’re 89 years old. Why in the world are you still doing all that?
Jay Conner (24:09):
He said, why would I get up in the morning unless I got something to work on? Yeah. And you, and you know, Brett, with you being a Christian or believer in God, I heard something not long ago that I think you’ll find interesting. And that is this idea of retirement, you know, actually is a United States of America concept, this retirement concept. And I’d never heard it until earlier this year. Someone said, Jay, did you know that retirement is not a biblical concept? You’ll, you will not find anybody in the Bible that ever retired. Now they might have retired from one thing and gone to another thing, but you know, God created us to work and to be producers and be creators just like he is the ultimate creator. Had you ever thought about that?
Brett Johnson (25:08):
Yeah. That’s pretty awesome,
Jay Conner (25:11):
I love it. Well, if, if, if I’ve got you figured out, Brett, I don’t think you’re ever gonna retire either, right?
Brett Johnson (25:18):
I’m not, no.
Brett Johnson (25:20):
I’m not.
Jay Conner (25:22):
Well, Brett, I got one more question for you before I let you go. And that is what if you could only give one piece of advice to say a new real estate investor that is starting out, what advice would you give them?
Brett Johnson (25:38):
Man, just be bold and have faith and, just talk to people and share your story. There’s a lot of good people left in this world, and a lot of ’em still wanna make money.
Jay Conner (25:53):
Absolutely. Brett, thank you so much for taking the time to come on and be with me here on raising private money.
Brett Johnson (26:00):
Yes sir. Jay, thank you for having me.
Jay Conner (26:02):
Absolutely. God bless you. God bless you, Brett. Well, there you have it my friend, another episode of Raising Private Money. I’m Jay Conner, The Private Money Authority, and I need your help. Yes, I need your help. I want you to think of someone that would benefit you know from this episode who might be inspired and motivated to hear Brett’s story. Share this episode with them. And also if you are listening on iTunes go to the upper right-hand corner, you’ll see three little dots and you’ll find, follow or follow me. Be sure and follow me so you don’t miss out on any of the upcoming episodes. And in, in addition to that, if you are watching on YouTube be sure to subscribe and click that bell so you don’t miss out on any other episodes as well. Then I really appreciate you giving me five stars and a quick little review as you’re listening here to the show. So I look forward to seeing you here on another upcoming episode. Here’s to Taking your business to the next level. And I’ll see you right here on the next Raising Private Money.