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Fund Deals Fast – Learn How to Access Private Money and Close in 10 Days

By September 25, 2025Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Sean McGrover, a private money lender based in South Florida, shares his journey into the lending industry and the unique opportunities that private money provides compared to traditional financing. He highlights South Florida’s appeal for entrepreneurs and real estate professionals, noting the wealth, diversity, and fast-paced nature of the market. Sean emphasizes the importance of networking, marketing, and building relationships with both investors and borrowers. He also reflects on the challenges in today’s economy, drawing parallels to past downturns, and stresses the value of financial education, diversification, and learning from failure. With a commitment to helping others navigate real estate investing and private lending, Sean offers practical insights into risk, speed, and strategies for success in a changing financial landscape.”

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Sean (00:00)
    I was reaching out to people. was like, hey, listen, my name is Sean. I have opportunities to bring to you. Would you be interested in being a private lender? And I got a handful of private individuals, high net worth individuals that now allow me to lend their money and I make nice commissions on it. But not only that, once you start to get the flow,

    And you start sharing the fact that, I have access to money. If you’re looking to do real estate investing, whether it’s commercial, land, residential, and you need quick cash or you’re buying out partners or you’re doing a refinance and you can’t go your traditional bank lending, you can come to me and I can get the access to the money.

    Dylan Silver (02:17)
    Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a South Florida based private money lender active since 2014 and also runs a nationwide coaching program. Please welcome Sean Mcgrover. Sean, welcome to the show.

    Sean (02:33)
    Hey, thanks, Dylan. I appreciate this opportunity. I can tell you I’ve been in finance and real estate for a very long time. And I know the future of our business is all the social media and this engagement. And I really appreciate this opportunity because you’re the first podcast I have ever done. And I’m very thankful that you reached out to our you set the platform where we can come in and share what we do. So thank you.

    Dylan Silver (03:01)
    Absolutely, it’s great to have you on here. I mentioned this to you when we spoke yesterday and then before hopping on here today You’re in and I say this maybe I have a lot of bias maybe a little bit of bias But I also think it’s just one of the nicest places in the country South Florida. I’ve never lived in South Florida I’ve lived in Texas. I’ve lived in northern New Jersey in Massachusetts. Now I live outside of the country What is it about South Florida Sean that people love so much? Is it the weather? Is it the entrepreneurial spirit? Is it you know,

    A little bit of everything.

    Sean (03:33)
    Great question. So I was born and raised in Florida. I grew up in a small town called Clearwater, which is over near Tampa. After leaving Clearwater after high school, I went to central Florida for college and to start working. You know, as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in life. going from Clearwater, which is a small town, to Orlando, which is a mid-sized town.

    I had an opportunity to come to South Florida to work in a private equity fund in 2012. And when I came down here, the first thing I recognized is the diversity of South Florida. And in that diversity, there’s so much wealth, there’s so much money flow. And I was excited because I’ve always been in real estate and finance. But when you go from Clearwater to Orlando, it’s…

    Dylan Silver (04:15)
    Huge.

    Sean (04:31)
    those are small like communities where everyone knows each other and it’s hard to capture or grow. I mean you can do it but it’s a lot of hustling going on. When I came to Miami and I was using the same hustle that I did in Orlando, I started growing a lot faster because the opportunities and the amount of other like-minded people in these bigger communities

    makes it so much easier to build a business, whether you’re in real estate, finance,

    any aspect. If you’re a small business owner or an entrepreneur looking to build something, it’s getting in front of the right people. And in South Florida, I’m in Miami, I mean, there’s so much wealth here. All I do is send out marketing campaigns to these wealthy people just to let them know who I am, where I am, and what I do, and to try to engage them.

    Dylan Silver (06:12)
    Yeah.

    Sean (06:17)
    And I can tell you over the last decade, it’s been a phenomenal journey here in South Florida.

    Dylan Silver (06:23)
    South Florida, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, you know, that whole area. haven’t been everywhere. I haven’t been to Boca, right? But I’ve been to a lot of the places. It’s an international destination. I mean, it’s not just, you can lose sight of this because there’s not so many places in the US really that have this same vibe because it’s beautiful, but it’s also international. You’ve got so many languages. You’ve got incredible weather.

    Sean (06:30)
    .

    Dylan Silver (06:52)
    You know, I grew up 28 miles from New York City. New York City’s an international city, but it’s not South Florida, right? So this is a whole other destination and really an incredible thing. I’ve met so many people just on this show, Sean, who are real estate entrepreneurs from the Midwest, from the West Coast, from everywhere in the United States, and they’re moving their business down to South Florida to partake in that energy and that entrepreneurial spirit.

    Sean (07:16)
    Yes.

    Dylan Silver (07:20)
    I do wanna pivot a bit here, Sean, and ask you about getting started in the private money space, 2014, and you mentioned working with a firm in 2012. And you had a background as a conventional lender before that, but getting into the private money space, I’ve heard, and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s a different animal entirely.

    Sean (07:45)
    Yes, it is. Yeah, so the beautiful thing about private money is unlike your traditional financing, whether you’re doing residential lending or even commercial lending, there’s certain guidelines and rules you need to follow. And the reason being is because a lot of ⁓ the time and effort you’re putting into is dealing with direct to consumers. Consumers need to be protected. But when you’re dealing in private money and the commercial financing as well,

    You’re dealing with entrepreneurs. You’re dealing with business owners. You’re dealing with more of an astute clientele that understands risk. They understand leverage. They understand disciplines. So to participate in private money, what I did was I didn’t have any money in the beginning. So what I had to do is I had to go and find the money and then share the opportunity with these

    high net worth individuals, how they could lend their money, have low risk based on the loan to value that we’re offering and make huge returns, double digit returns annually. by me introducing this to these high net worth individuals who they’re always looking for opportunities. you know, if you don’t take the time to actually reach out to these people, like I said,

    Dylan Silver (09:04)
    Yeah.

    Sean (09:12)
    I was reaching out to people. was like, hey, listen, my name is Sean. I have opportunities to bring to you. Would you be interested in being a private lender? And I got a handful of private individuals, high net worth individuals that now allow me to lend their money and I make nice commissions on it. But not only that, once you start to get the flow,

    And you start sharing the fact that, I have access to money. If you’re looking to do real estate investing, whether it’s commercial, land, residential, and you need quick cash or you’re buying out partners or you’re doing a refinance and you can’t go your traditional bank lending, you can come to me and I can get the access to the money.

    And you can do this anywhere in the US. Wherever you are,

    there are private lenders in your community.

    you just have to reach out to them, introduce yourself, tell them that you’re out there, you’re in the real estate market, you’re meeting with people all the time, you’re structuring deals, and you would like to be, I guess in the real estate thing, in the wholesale thing, it’s bird dogging. You can be a bird dog for the real estate, but you can also align them with the capital that they need through private lenders. And I’ve been doing this for so long, it is so easy and so

    Dylan Silver (10:53)
    Yeah.

    Sean (11:08)
    quick to make the money once you structure your business. And the reason it’s so easy and it’s so quick is because with private money, unlike your traditional Fannie, Freddie, FHA, all those, you can close in as little as seven to 10 days. There’s multiple ways to lend the money. Like right now, I’m doing a deal in Orlando, Florida. That’s another thing. You can do this nationwide. You’re not limited to the state that you’re in.

    But this deal is in the state I’m in. But with private money, you can do it nationwide. There’s no barriers. But I’m doing this deal in Orlando, Florida right now. It should close next week. It’s a cardiologist. He got behind on his IRS taxes. And he needs to pay off the IRS, because there’s penalties and interest accruing. And he has a $4 million home in central Florida.

    And he was introduced to me by another client that I helped finance. And this is a cardiologist. He does very well, but he’s so far behind on his taxes that he needs quick access to money. And he doesn’t care the rate. He doesn’t care the points. He needs to pay off the IRS. He needs to get that stress off of them. So I said, hey, based on your real estate, I’ll give you 60 % of that $4 million. He said, Sean, I only need $2 million. I’m like, done.

    I called up my investor, I’m like, listen, I got a cardiologist makes a boatload of money. And I’m not, I’m not even asking for income statements, credit scores, bank statements, anything like that. We’re based on it all in the real estate. The real estate is valued at 4 million. He wants 2

    Dylan Silver (12:52)
    Picking back up we were talking about a deal where you were able to Loan out it sounded like two million ⁓ based on the the value of the home I want to ask you a pivot a bit here Sean ⁓ Your your role as a private money lender is is just as much ⁓ Finding the investors as it is finding the capital but every ⁓

    private money lender is not gonna be the same. You’ll have people within private lending who focus maybe on one side of it. They may be raising the capital, they may be finding the investors. It sounds like you’re doing both, but it also sounds like based on the history that you have working with investors, that the deal flow is almost non-stop.

    Sean (13:44)
    No, I won’t say it’s nonstop. I will say that, you know, it takes time to build up your profile, your marketing and stuff like that. But today, more than ever, it’s easier to build your marketing and attract whether you’re looking for the private individuals with the capital to lend or the individuals that need to borrow. It’s easier today than ever.

    through social media, putting yourself out there and sharing what you have to offer, people start showing up. I got a call the other day. ⁓ There’s a lady in Kendo, Florida, which is ⁓ southwest of Miami, and she was telling me that her home’s free and clear, their credit’s bad, they need access to money because they’re going through, I’m not, I probably won’t explain this properly, but.

    She and her husband want to have a child and they can’t do it the organic way. They have to go through a company. It’s like I don’t like that. They want they need they need the money. And now the thing is with hard money, you can’t lend to a primary home that’s

    Dylan Silver (14:51)
    Right. Yeah.

    Sean (15:46)
    There are some rules, not many, but Dodd-Frank that came out in 2009 after the last really big collapse. Yeah, it doesn’t allow you to

    Dylan Silver (15:45)
    Hmm.

    Yeah, it changed everything.

    Sean (15:54)
    to lend hard money to a homestead property. So we started, you know, ⁓ just brainstorming together. We realized that there’s a possibility to go through the Federal Housing Administration. So I took her out of the private money and I flipped her into the FHA program and we just completed the application yesterday. But the reason she needs this money, and she thought her only option was hard money.

    Dylan Silver (16:23)
    Hmm.

    Sean (16:24)
    So, I explained to her, I’m like, listen, I don’t know who you’re talking to, but hard money is for a family, a couple, it’s a last resort, or it’s probably even off the table if it’s your primary home. If they had an investment property, I could do it all day long. But I pivoted them from the hard money into just a traditional FHA. FHA goes as low as 500, and you get it up to 90 % financing.

    they only need, I think, like 50 % financing. So I pivoted that. But what I want to allude to is if you want to be a private money lender and you’re already doing real estate and it seems like your viewership is wholesaling real estate, structuring deals, and if they want to get into money, and I don’t know if you want me to promote my coaching program. ⁓

    Dylan Silver (17:16)
    Go ahead, go ahead, yeah, no, I’m sure people would love to

    reach out.

    Sean (17:20)
    Yeah, so what I would suggest, just go to mortgageinfomillionaire.com. I have just a funnel. You you opt in, your name, your email, your phone number, and then it’s going to take you to the page where you’re going to get more information about the program. But consider what I just did there. I said, hey, go to this page, opt in your information, and I’m going to give you more information. Now, when your viewers do that, they’re going to

    connect with me, they’re going to engage with me and then they’re going to start getting like a drip campaign on why private money is a great way to earn a living and whether they take advantage of it or not, until they decide to opt out or hit stop or say Sean I’m not interested, they can gradually start getting more and more information in regards to how to build this business. So,

    Dylan Silver (17:59)
    Yeah.

    Sean (18:16)
    That’s part of the marketing, that’s part of the social media stuff. Right now I’m running ⁓ a small ad nationwide on Facebook. It’s pennies. I set the budget at $25 a day. Every day I’m getting two to three people somewhere in the US that’s saying, I need to start making money and I don’t have a plan. So they click on the ad, it takes them to the…

    the mortgageinfomillionaire.com funnel page. It has a little bit of information there. Actually, if you look up on the screen behind me, this is the page that you would go to and it will give you more information. So if you’re a wholesaler, if you’re in real estate and you want an additional revenue stream, because wholesaling’s great. And right now, the beautiful thing about right now, this economy…

    Dylan Silver (19:04)
    Yeah.

    Sean (19:10)
    is showing telltale signs of what we saw in 2008, 2009. Right now, more more foreclosures are happening. People are not buying homes right now because prices are too high, they’re overvalued, those prices are gonna start dropping. But in the meantime, the people that bought in over the past five, six years, they’re struggling right now. The cost of property insurance has gone up, the cost of property taxes has gone up, the cost of food has gone up.

    Dylan Silver (19:14)
    It is.

    Sean (19:40)
    Gas has gone up. Just the cost of living across the board has gone up. And a lot of people who had an irrational exuberance back in 1920, 21, they overextended themselves to get that home at that low interest rate. But because they overextended themselves, they maximize their debt to income ratio. They’re starting to feel the struggles of all the other things that have changed. And those people…

    Dylan Silver (19:55)
    Yeah. ⁓

    Sean (20:09)
    They’re either falling into foreclosure, and by the way, you’re gonna see this with a lot of the Airbnb investors as well. They overextend themselves, think they’re gonna have this revenue stream. Now, I’m not saying Airbnb is bad. I’m saying those investors overextended themselves to put themselves in a position to build an Airbnb business. It was irrational exuberance. And the reason I know this,

    Dylan Silver (20:21)
    Huge cash flow, yeah.

    Sean (20:36)
    I did this back in the late 1990s. I started buying real estate so aggressively because it was easy access to money. There were opportunities and I started to build a portfolio of real estate. And over three years, I was managing 11 properties and by 2003, everything collapsed on me. And the reason being is because I didn’t understand leverage. I didn’t understand the type of properties I should be

    Dylan Silver (21:01)
    Yeah.

    Sean (21:05)
    adding to my portfolio. So what I did is I was buying low income housing for cash flow and I was buying high end homes for renovations and resale. But what happened was I was over leveraged on everything. The low income housing was not creating the cash flow I needed because I didn’t factor in the fact that when you’re in a low income ⁓ type of lifestyle, you struggle with paying your bills. So

    Dylan Silver (21:33)
    Yeah, the whole

    thing.

    Sean (21:35)
    So I’m covering that debt service and by the way, it’s highly leveraged. And then I have these high end properties where the market started to cool down and I’m like, oh, I’m paying this debt service that I can’t afford. So everything started to collapse. What I did is this is like, you know, feet in the fire. I started liquidating everything, doing short sales, negotiating with banks and everything. And at the end of 2003, you know,

    My whole portfolio was gone. I only had my primary home and I owed over $100,000. I was upside down, $100,000 on everything. And the epiphany happened when I was sitting at my dining room table with my wife. Our two-year-old daughter was asleep and we were warming up her food as we were going over the bills like, hey, what bills are we gonna pay based on the little money that we have right now?

    Dylan Silver (22:14)
    Yeah, pat-a-doodle-doo.

    Sean (22:33)
    And then all of the power went out in the house. And I was like, hey, was there a blackout on our street? Because the power went out. So I got up from the dining room table. I walked out to the front door. I opened the door and I saw the utility truck leaving my driveway. They shut off my power while I was making my daughter’s lunch as she was sleeping. ⁓ let me tell you something. That was the moment when I said, ⁓ I messed up and now I got to figure out how to fix it. My credit was bad.

    Dylan Silver (22:52)
    That’ll do it.

    Sean (23:02)
    I had no continuity in income. I felt I was unemployable because for the past three, four years, all I was doing was real estate investing. And I’m sure a lot of real estate investors feel that way. They can’t get a job because they focus so much on this. But what I learned was I built a portfolio of 11 properties with private money. I did some renovations. I did some rentals. I did so much, but I failed. However,

    Dylan Silver (23:12)
    Yeah.

    Sean (23:33)
    Now that I did that, I had skills that other people didn’t know about. So I started teaching other people how to acquire real estate, the pitfalls of how you do it, and how to make money at it. And within a year and a half, I paid off that $100,000 helping other people do real estate investing. And also, I had to get a job because I needed money.

    Dylan Silver (23:56)
    Incredible.

    Sean (24:01)
    That’s when I pivoted from real estate investing into becoming a loan officer. And I even struggled at that as well because I wasn’t good at trying to figure out how to put the paperwork together, how to determine how the interest rates are done and stuff like that. So I was struggling through that. But from 2003 to 2005, I was learning mortgages and I was getting myself out of a deep hole that I built in my early 20s. And I’m like, this is not good.

    But I did it and it only took a year and a half to get out of that bad situation. after that, I started to build my own, after two years of a loan officer, I opened up my own shop and the market started to heat up. You know, 2004, 2005, 2006, it was a hot market. I mean, you could just lend money, properties were of abundance, people were buying, they were really

    Dylan Silver (24:34)
    That’s the power of it.

    Sean (25:00)
    It was such a heated market. Everyone felt there was no way to lose money. And from 2005 to 2008, I was killing it, lending money. Then all of sudden, the real estate collapsed happened. Now remember, I just came through my own personal collapse, and now I’m in a second collapse, and I built up a business, another portfolio, and then it all collapsed again. Only this time, I realized,

    Dylan Silver (25:05)
    Yeah.

    Sean (25:29)
    It wasn’t my failure this time. It was the world’s failure. It was the bank’s failure. And the second time, I lost a million dollars. I mean, I was upside down a million dollars. And that’s when I had the opportunity to meet a guy named Gary Urbanski out of central Florida. And he told me, he’s like, Sean, whether it’s a good economy or a bad economy, you need to be in private money because

    Dylan Silver (25:34)
    Yeah. What you do?

    Sean (25:56)
    with private money, it moves quickly, it doesn’t follow the same guidelines, and it’s very lucrative if you can structure deals. So I started focusing on that, and from 2009 to 2014, now, I didn’t pay off the whole million, I had to negotiate discounts and stuff like that, and ultimately I paid off that debt. And from there, I never looked back. From 2014 on, I’ve always made a multi-six figure income.

    Dylan Silver (26:20)
    Yeah.

    Sean (26:26)
    And by the way, I don’t just do the private money. I have a residential lending company. I have a commercial lending company that lends SBA financing. I have the private money and I also have the coaching program. So I’m very diversified in businesses, but they all have ⁓ a foundation. It’s finance. Each one has its own type of fund. ⁓

    Dylan Silver (26:51)
    ⁓

    We are coming up on time here, Sean. ⁓ Where can folks go if maybe they’re in South Florida, but also maybe they’re nationwide and are interested in maybe learning more about the coaching program or reaching out to you directly?

    Sean (26:56)
    Okay.

    Yeah, yeah, they can reach me at 786-699-7115 or they can go to mortgageinfomillionaire.com and just get more information about how to be a private money loan broker. And everything’s there. I don’t mind them calling or texting me. I may not pick up, but it will go to voicemail and I will follow up with them. I promise them that because

    Right now more than ever, the economy’s changing. There’s gonna be huge opportunities for people to start making money, but you wanna associate with the right people and you wanna have the right mindset. And sometimes it’s hard to do it alone. So I’m open to helping anyone, any of your viewers that wanna participate in this.

    Dylan Silver (27:54)
    Sean, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

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