Creative Finance Strategies for Real Estate Success

Aaron WILMER (00:00)
The biggest wins have been gaining more freedom and more time and not having to answer to ⁓ you know a boss or anything like that where everything’s just dependent on me I close the deals

I dispo the deals, so I’m basically accountable just for myself and the business.

Dylan Silver (01:48)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Aaron Wilmer, is a real estate investor and operator focused on wholesaling and creative finance. He’s a former professional football player who transitioned into real estate and built his business with a competitive mindset. He runs Meridian Equity Capital and is actively working deals while operating as an investor while also using automations to streamline his business and increase efficiency. Aaron, welcome to the show.

Aaron WILMER (02:14)
Awesome Dylan, thanks for having me on. An excellent intro man, that sounded great, I loved it.

Dylan Silver (02:19)
Absolutely, it’s great to have you on here, Aaron. Now, with so many options, what makes sellers commit to selling right now?

Aaron WILMER (02:28)
Well you know what, so a lot of times with home owners, especially those that you know we’re targeting for wholesaling, which they’re usually in some kind of distress.

whether it’s pre foreclosure, life events like a divorce or a job relocation, or one of my favorite folks to target is tax delinquency properties. Sometimes they don’t have the time to actually list a property on the market, wait three to four months to sell the property. And a lot of times homeowners can’t get a secure mortgage for the property because of its current status.

they choose to go with a wholesaler or, sometimes you don’t have to present yourself as a wholesaler. just say, hey, listen, I’m the one buying the property that you can assign it at the end. But usually because of the quickness of the transaction where it’s 30 days, I actually just did one, ⁓ think it was maybe 19 days from start to finish ⁓ for the seller and got them, you know, paid out and everybody was happy at the end of the day.

Dylan Silver (03:32)
Now, one of the interesting things about wholesale specifically is that there’s a niche where these deals can’t find a traditional buyer because they’re not going to pass an inspection. There’s also another niche where these properties are tied up in some type of probate or other issue which could prevent closing. And so a traditional realtor could stumble with how to get these deals across the line. In many cases, wholesale or something creative

⁓ is going to be, viable option, right?

Aaron WILMER (04:06)
100 % so there’s a couple things that ⁓ that you touched on there the first thing is so I actually just lost a deal ⁓ that was We got a property under contract ⁓ For $50,000 we had a buyer for 85,000 so we got a $35,000 spread here and As we’re going through the title search and I use easy ⁓ Easy REI closings. I’m sure you’ve heard of them David olds and his team and

it came back to the seller had a fraud alert on his LLC. anything, and it was unrelated to our property. was anything that his, the LLC has touched was tainted basically, and nobody would give us the title insurance to close on a property. So that’s one case where we couldn’t help the seller. But in terms of the creative stuff, ⁓ you know, there may be some folks that are pre-foreclosure where they,

don’t have any other option besides doing a subject two situation because of the amount of debt that they have on a property.

The property wouldn’t sell for it. So we call that debt for debt in the industry. But there’s a way to save them with the subject two ⁓ finance structure.

Dylan Silver (06:03)
Now, that conversation is a very nuanced conversation to have because that seller is behind, they’re probably getting messages from a number of folks, including their lender. And now this is snowballing, because this is months of them being in this situation. When you’re making initial contact with someone in that predicament, what’s that initial conversation look like?

Aaron WILMER (06:31)
The initial conversation is straight off the bat consultative. It’s not a sale. It’s not, you you know, I’m not trying to kind of

do ⁓

and a trust and then transfer it over. there’s kind of ways to get around it. But ⁓ as for the seller, it’s mainly a consultative sales process. And to be honest with you, I do the same thing for a cash sale because early on when I first started on my own, I would have these conversations with sellers and they were like, you know, they didn’t have any guidance on, okay, after I sign, what happens? So I made sure I had a process after you sign, ⁓ I’m going to come out, I’m going to take some pictures of the property. ⁓

Then the next step is we’re gonna get this over to the title company, open up title and get this to close as soon as possible so we both walk away happy here.

Dylan Silver (07:46)
Now I know you’re in Philadelphia. Are you hyper focused on that market or are you wholesaling remotely across several markets?

Aaron WILMER (07:54)
Yeah, mean, Philly’s obviously a hotbed for wholesaling. It seems like, you know, there’s a lot of amateur wholesalers out in the market, so it kind of is saturated. However, ⁓ not, no, I don’t just focus on Philadelphia. I actually, ⁓ I had a contract in Indiana recently. ⁓ We just had one in Jersey and I’m working on one in Florida right now, but ⁓ the Florida one is more of a…

Because of the current foreclosure situation in Florida, it’s mainly I’m doing subject to situations, if possible, down in Florida.

Dylan Silver (08:25)
Now, Florida and Philadelphia, I could understand that there could be some level of connection between those markets. get snowbirds potentially gone from one place, right? Indiana, that’s a different market. How are you finding these deals in multiple markets?

Aaron WILMER (08:42)
The easiest way that I would let people know is to do the basics of wholesale, which is contacting your government city list. ⁓ I love the vacant indicator property list, which is great. ⁓ Also love ⁓ the tax delinquency list. And of course, yeah, you can get some paid lists or do some, I don’t really do them that often. Will you buy leads at PPC?

or PPL excuse me, ⁓ I did that for a little bit, but it wasn’t

Dylan Silver (09:07)
Yeah.

Aaron WILMER (09:14)
kind of what I wanted to do in terms of the success rate. I just went back to the basics and stuck to the guns of contacting the government list because usually there’s motivation there. Not everybody wants to sell and it’s going to take a little bit of legwork to get to the actual homeowner sometimes because a lot of times some of these people are dead and that’s why the property’s been vacant for five years. So there’s a little legwork involved but once you get one, one deal could cover you for two months. You know what I mean?

Dylan Silver (09:32)
That’s true.

That’s a great point. know, one deal, especially if you’re looking at spreads, you know, 15 to $30,000, that could be one month, that could be several months, right? If you’re doing this remotely in some other locations, that could be even longer than that. But I think one of the bottlenecks that a lot of people face is they get motivated, they get skilled up, they understand the knowledge,

they may even be working with some mentors or a team, but then getting that first deal from under contract to…

clear to close to then closed and assigned to an end buyer can be challenging and it can take a lot of time. What feedback would you have for folks who are trying to get into wholesale and trying to get money in their account, they’re trying to get a deal across the line.

Aaron WILMER (11:03)
Obviously just like with anything in life, there’s always going to be some resistance But you have to have persistence to break through the barriers and of course, I mean, yeah sometimes I wake up and I’m like man I gotta I gotta make 150 phone calls today, but

You’re always every no is just means new opportunity or next opportunity where you can go out and connect with a homeowner and not every day You know like first I got my notebook here. I’m looking at ⁓ Today, I haven’t had one meaningful conversation, but I’ve been on the phone a lot ⁓ But Friday I hit a jackpot I have four meaningful conversations two of them are actually signing contracts the ones I’ve mentioned before we hopped on the podcast here ⁓ So I mean that that’s where it all starts and it may be by the numbers 50 % of those deals were closed so

the numbers make sense. If you just kind of look at the end goal ⁓ and the reasons why you got into doing the business in the first place, like it took a lot of balls to be honest with you to go out on my own, start my own LLC and kind of bet on myself ⁓ where there’s not, you know, steady stream of income like a regular job, like a regular nine to five. You know what I’m saying?

Dylan Silver (11:58)
Yeah.

No question about it.

I relate to that. And having gone through a similar journey myself, I can say that when you’re in that period of time where you’re making that jump, it can seem like, where’s the next step? And then of course, you’re thinking, where’s the next dollar coming from? When you’re building and when you’re on this on ramp towards scaling a business, what have been some of the biggest wins that you’ve encountered in the time starting Meridian?

Aaron WILMER (12:34)
⁓ I have a lot more time with my family than I did when I was doing another job or anything like that because it’s ultimately it’s up to your schedule ⁓ and you kind of work whenever you want but if you want to be successful obviously you got to put a lot of time and effort into it but

biggest wins have been gaining more freedom and more time and not having to answer to ⁓ you know a boss or anything like that where everything’s just dependent on me I close the deals

I dispo the deals, so I’m basically accountable just for myself and the business.

Dylan Silver (13:07)
I do want to pivot here because we were talking in the green room and you have a background in property management. I do see that there tends to be the ability and sometimes the necessity for people to be able to have knowledge and experience doing multiple things in order to have staying power in the real estate space. Right. And so I know folks who are flippers who do wholesale and vice versa. I know folks who’ve done property management who then have gotten into

this space as well. How has your background in property management helped you look at and evaluate these types of deals?

Aaron WILMER (13:47)
I would say, most of the jobs, rather than playing football, most of the jobs I’ve had have always been customer focused sales jobs. just knowing people, knowing interactions, knowing what to do when you’re in front of a seller, knowing what not to do when you’re in front of a seller.

Dylan Silver (14:04)
Huge.

Aaron WILMER (14:07)
But there’s definitely a lot of negotiation that goes on and a lot of people reading, which obviously if you’re not in the people business, you’re not doing a lot of. So the hardest part, I would assume for a lot of people that are new to the game is the people business of dealing with a distressed homeowner who, they know that their property is $50,000 in back taxes. They know they have foreclosure letters coming in. They already know that. So how do you level with them and kind of… ⁓

be a more consultative partner versus just a sleazy sales guy calling them to try to get their property for cheap.

Dylan Silver (14:41)
And I want to add to that. I’ve never personally been able to get a property under contract remotely. Now, I have done it many times in person for remote specifically. Like if you’re doing a deal in Indiana, how are you able to develop that trust? How are you able to get that signature?

What’s that like for folks who may be thinking about doing the same thing?

Aaron WILMER (15:47)
You know, Dylan, great question. And it can get a little scary sometimes when you’re new to the business because you’re like, man, who the hell would sell their property to somebody over the phone? now to go against the grain here, because I know a lot of wholesalers do the one call close and that may be working for them. I feel like for me to build a deeper connection and deeper relationship with somebody, it’s multiple phone calls.

where we’re having a 15, 20 minute conversation versus one long hour conversation. Have I done a one call close before? Yes, I have. ⁓

But I feel like for me, the best way to do it for myself is to have multiple conversations where we’re building rapport, we’re building trust, they know who I am. I had a property in Mississippi, it was a land deal in Mississippi with a Mr. Richard and he was like 85 years old, me and him would talk. mean, I guess I would go to the gym around like six o’clock, maybe from 6.30.

Dylan Silver (16:35)
Yeah.

Aaron WILMER (16:50)
at the gym to about 730 at the gym. and him would just have an hour conversation for like three days straight. And eventually he ended up signing, you know, contract that I actually had to mail over to him because he didn’t have email. So I actually had to FedEx a contract to him to have him sign it. And we’re waiting to close on that one. So sometimes just longer conversations can get you there.

Dylan Silver (17:11)
Once you have the deal on the contract, now you’ve got to find your exit, right? Now you’ve got to find the investor. How do you handle the dispo side of the business?

Aaron WILMER (17:20)
I gotta give a shout out to David Olds and EZREI Closings and EZREI Dispo. They are basically my partners in this business because especially, yeah, I don’t know anybody in Mississippi. I was gonna try and do that one on my own. I called a couple realtors down there to kinda see what I could do and I was like, you know what, man, let me just flip this over to David Olds and they’re working on that now.

Any deal that I get, usually run it through ⁓ our easy REI closings for transaction coordination and also for Dispo.

Dylan Silver (17:54)
Those two sides of the business are huge. I know a lot of people can try to do it themselves. If we go back five years ago, you might’ve had buyers coming out of the woodwork for some of these deals and so people could just post it online. It’s not the same thing nowadays. I think one person could have the deal, could be a home run deal, could present it to investors, but because the investor doesn’t know that person, they may feel like,

let me check their credibility and they don’t have awareness of who this person is, they might not take the deal frankly as seriously. That same deal with someone else who they have a track record with, who they understand, hey, I bought multiple deals from this person. Now that’s a known factor. So they’re gonna come in and say, okay, I bought several deals from this person, let me take a look. I’ve heard this happening recently multiple times where a wholesaler tries to disbow it themselves.

basically sends the information, same information out to investors, no buys, partners with someone locally, and then the deal is bought immediately. So right now, this approach that you’re taking, I think is super, super powerful, because it allows you to have the ⁓ credibility, the brand of someone who has a business out there without you having to walk the streets in…

these neighborhoods in Mississippi in order to develop these relationships with sellers and with buyers and so forth.

Aaron WILMER (19:21)
Yeah, to add to your point, Dylan, the credibility is so key. We talked in the green room about the company name, Meridian Equity Capital. It does have a sound of credibility, which we are a credible company. But sometimes I’ll have fun and I’ll go onto Facebook and I’ll look at some of ⁓ the wholesaling groups. And I’m like, man, are any of these deals getting moved? And I’m not too sure they are.

I think people were just posting them and hoping for the best where me, have a process where I’m like, hey, listen, soon as we get this under wraps, let’s get it up to David Olds and his team and then let them work their magic so that way we can have a smooth transaction coordination, which transaction coordination could make or break a deal to be fair. And then also having the easy Dispo where I can count on Rachel who’s been great. She’s been a partner over at REI or EZREI. ⁓

Dylan Silver (20:04)
100%.

Aaron WILMER (20:14)
And yeah, I mean, that takes such a huge burden off of me to be able to focus more on acquisition and not on disposition.

Dylan Silver (20:23)
The transaction coordination component as well is huge. You mentioned that it could make a break or deal. It certainly can. You want your seller to be in communication with you when you need pertinent information, when title needs something, when they need a signature on a document. And anything like that can hold up the whole process and just throw everything into a loop and you don’t want that. And when you have a buyer lined up, you need communication between all parties. And if you’re handling that,

and then you’re also trying to find the buyer and then you’re still looking for deals, it can become a lot to handle, especially remotely. So having a team like that in place is so powerful. I do wanna pivot a bit here though and ask you about some of your favorite deals. I know as a wholesaler myself, I’ve got a couple favorites. Do you have a favorite deal or something that comes to mind when you think about either a win or something that was just particularly tricky?

Aaron WILMER (21:15)
Yeah, yes. So one of my biggest wins was actually a deal I did not find at all. It was a buddy of mine that I worked with in property management and I told him that I was getting into the business and maybe about two weeks later he sent me a screenshot of one of his buddies in upstate New York saying, hey man, you know anybody in Philly that is looking to buy a property? And coincidentally, the property was maybe 12 minutes from where me and my girlfriend live.

Ended being a great deal. It was ⁓ a Seller that had some health issues and the property was basically dilapidated Not not terrible condition. I mean, it’s maybe about a hundred and twenty thousand dollar rehab ⁓ Situation, but we got the property under agreement for 300 and then we sold it to a buyer for 360 ⁓

And that one was a little tricky because even though the property was here in Pennsylvania, in Philly basically, the seller was in a senior living community in upstate New York and his sister was his power of attorney handling all the documents and stuff like that. So it was kind of little bit of a navigation that we had to go through to get everything done. But I mean, that was a huge deal and one of my biggest deals actually to date.

Dylan Silver (22:15)
Mm.

It’s been great talking with you here, Aaron. We are coming up on time here, though. Any new projects that you’re working on, and then also, what’s the best way for folks to reach out to you or your team?

Aaron WILMER (22:32)
Yeah.

uh… any new projects uh… is the next project so the next deal which says you know i get off this call here i got a rep of these two contracts that i just got uh… one is uh… here in philly uh… that’s our global threat to philly

just sell one of the cells was in Vegas all weekend. So now she just got back and she’s going to sign a document. ⁓ But I’m having a little issue with the link for her. So that’s the next project is the next contract and next acquisition I’m going to do. And if folks can just reach out, you can just Google MeridianEquityCapital.com.

If you know anybody looking to sell property, reach out. We could definitely help, whether it’s a cash offer or we could do some creative finance situation. ⁓ also shout out to Dylan here for having me on the pod. What a great opportunity to kind of plug in Meridian here as we’re growing and building. And I’m just happy to be part of it.