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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel Podcast, host Leo Wehdeking speaks with Samantha Lencioni, a dynamic figure in the real estate industry. Samantha shares her journey from a traditional 9-to-5 job to becoming a successful real estate investor. She discusses her innovative strategies for acquiring properties, the importance of networking, and the lessons learned from challenges faced along the way. The conversation highlights the transformative potential of real estate investment and the significance of building relationships in the industry.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Samantha Lencioni (00:00)
So this is actually why I love doing these because I want to show people that there is another world, like outside of a nine to five and outside of having to go to work and things like that, like because that was me. I was doing…a 95 job. Then I learned that that is not like at all what you have to do. Like you can literally purchase properties without and then take over their existing debt, which is usually less than the market rate. Market rates suck right now. They’re 7%, 6%. people can’t qualify or afford these interest rates at this point. So what we’re doing is we’re going in and we’re taking like even with foreclosures, we’re paying people’s arrears and then we’re taking over their existing debt and making their credit better.Leo Wehdeking (02:09)
everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Leo Wehdeking, and today I am joined by someone I’ve been looking forward chatting with, Samantha, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate industry. Samantha, glad to have you here.Samantha Lencioni (02:23)
So happy to be here, thank you.Leo Wehdeking (02:25)
Perfect, perfect. Samantha, think our listeners are really going to take away something from how you’ve been approaching the real estate business lately. So let’s dive in a little bit. And for the people who may not be familiar with your world, can you give us your version on what’s your main focus these days?Samantha Lencioni (02:45)
Sure, so, so absolutely.So this is actually why I love doing these because I want to show people that there is another world, like outside of a nine to five and outside of having to go to work and things like that, like because that was me. I was doing…
a 95 job.
loved it because I was working at home, I have to say. So I was passionate about what I was doing because I was doing rehabs on homes. know, like we would buy really distressed properties and we would go and finish them. And I was the project manager. I would make sure construction was done correctly. We are licensed GCs in Florida as well, just a side note. So we did a lot of that. And then when the interest rates skyrocketed, we all got laid off. Everybody, the whole company shut down, which was, and they sold all their homes to American Homes for Rent.
which is a huge company, right? Like all the homes that we had renovated and rented out, the whole portfolio got sold to American Homes for Rent. So here I am without a job. And then my partner who purchased SUP2 with Pace Morbii, it was like a $10,000 membership. She’s like, hey, go study this and go look at this. Now I didn’t know what escrow was. I didn’t know.
what I didn’t know anything about real estate, right? Like I thought anybody had to purchase a home. They had to go to the bank and they had to do all the things and give your first blood and all the things, give your thumb and, you know, cause it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a nasty process.
Then I learned that that is not like at all what you have to do. Like you can literally
purchase properties without
can go in and these people are in a tough position. Like say they just moved or they’re Navy people or whatever. Like they have to move for whatever reason and they just purchased their home. And you’re able to give them like five or 10 grand down because that’s all the equity that they
and then take over their existing debt, which is usually less than the market rate. Market rates suck right now. They’re 7%, 6%.
just dropped them 0.25 and they think this is like a huge deal. It’s not.
It’s not. It makes no difference. And
people can’t qualify or afford these interest rates at this point. So what we’re doing is we’re going in and we’re taking like even with foreclosures, we’re paying people’s arrears and then we’re taking over their existing debt and making their credit better.
And I have, like I said, I have a $40 million portfolio across Florida that we are literally doing this with right now. And the whole thing is like, I’ve, look, when I started, I was cold calling and I was making those hard phone calls.
and getting hung up on and yelled at and all the nasty stuff that happens when you make phone calls. And then I said, you know what? Like I had a partner who ended up being my actual partner in life. He was doing agent outreach and it was amazing what he was doing because he’s making relationships with these agents and now at this point, fast forward two years later, we are literally getting agents coming to us with deals. Like we don’t even have to work anymore. Like they’re bringing us deals saying, listen, these people are kind of upside down, they need help.
or they’re in foreclosure, we can literally stop bank auctions and help people. If they wanna stay in their home and they can afford it, then we do that. And then all we ask for is a good review. Now, if they don’t wanna stay in their home and they want a fresh start, we can do that too. We either give them the cash down or we say, listen, we’re gonna take it over, we’ll pay your arrears and we’ll keep going. So we’ve had a lot of success in this, especially now in this economy and what’s going on in the world.
We’ve got a lot of success with this and we’re not taking advantage of people. We are helping people. We are helping people get out of the situations that they are in and we’re making money on the side, is a blessing of course, but it’s not the main goal. It’s been an awesome experience as far as real estate investment and going from zero to a hundred because if I can do it, literally anybody can do it.
Leo Wehdeking (07:09)
Exactly, that’s correct. Samantha, just for our listeners, in what markets are you operating in?Samantha Lencioni (07:17)
I’llOnly in Florida right now, we’re kind of expanding to Texas and some other red states because we have buyers there. However, Florida is my, I don’t know, Florida is what I know. It’s all I know really. Like I love Florida. Florida, can tell you, know. So Florida is where I’m operating right now. And we’re closing a lot of like Morby Method deals, Stack Method deals, you know, basically where you’re getting paid to buy deals. Like you’re giving a seller 30 % down, but you’re pulling 75 % loan to value. So you are literally getting paid to buy deals.
deals in this and this is what’s so exciting about what I’m doing now and I’ve only been doing it for a couple of months and as we spoke about a little bit off camera, that CSD key deal, that $9.3 million deal, I’m giving them $4 million down but I’m taking out $6.2 million. So there’s a huge, that’s gonna cover closing costs, that’s gonna cover my agent’s commission and that’s gonna cover any kind of wear and tear that I wanna do but I’m pulling that out and they’re going on the LLC so that’s a little bit more complicated of a deal but to my point, there’s so many
There’s no
There’s no like, nothing is out of question. Like you can do anything. And that’s kind of what I want to instill in people and audiences and get people kind of on boarded. I’ve got bird dogs that come to me with deals like this all the time where they’re like, Hey Sam, they’re willing to take 40 % down. I’ll get on a call with them. We talk about it. We go on a zoom. They get comfortable with me. I will go in person like cause I’m in Jacksonville, uh, Jack’s beach right now. So I will travel. Like we go to Miami, we go to Tampa. I have properties in Largo. Like I’ve got STRs everywhere. So that’s kind of cool too, to where I can kind
Leo Wehdeking (08:40)
Okay.Samantha Lencioni (08:48)
to stay in those properties or but you know black them out if I have to go and it’s like the most liberating thing ever and I know there’s just so many closed-minded people that don’t understand it or think that it’s too hard but if you remain consistent there’s nothing that you can’t do.Leo Wehdeking (09:04)
Yeah, yeah, that’s totally that’s totally you know I totally agree with you, and that’s not easy to do Not on this climate okay, so Samantha can I ask you another question? What’s been the key to keeping your business running smoothly like? You know something that actually caught my attention Was that you told me that you started with nothing all right? So how you’ve been able to help people and at the same time collect?you know these huge portfolio that you have and keep it running smoothly you know through all these years.
Samantha Lencioni (10:11)
Mistakes were made. Okay, so so you learn you learn you learn you live you love all that stuff. But when I started so Wholesaling right wholesaling 101. That’s that’s how I started. So I acquiredLeo Wehdeking (10:13)
I’mSamantha Lencioni (10:24)
a property in Jacksonville and a property in Tucson. I was doing Facebook marketing and I made, I was broke. Okay. I got fired on my birthday, September 13th. It was a couple of days ago, 2023. That’s when I got laid off. Like no bullshit. Two months later, I made my first two assignments for 64 grand in that month because I took one piece of paper and said, Hey seller, I’m going to give you, I can’t remember the exact, so Jacksonville was like 200 grand. And then there was Tucson that was 147.Well,
I ended up passing those pieces of paper to the buyer, adding like 64,000 to both of them, you know, sold them. And I could not believe when I got that check. I had never seen that much money at that point of my life. I had not seen that much. And I was like, proof of concept is everything. you, you have that, once you see it go down and like, could show you the HUD statements, like I am not lying. So then once we got that, we also bought a property in Georgia. We flipped that, we’re licensed general.
contractors not in Georgia but in Florida so we did have you know there was some shit there but whatever so so we got that and we refinanced that property and we ended up getting 500 grand out of that we took that and then we started buying properties properties properties and the reason my portfolio is so big is because I am purchasing these properties subject to our seller finance or a hybrid of both I only have a couple hybrids but a hybrid would be like if their mortgage is only a hundred thousand and they the property is worth 500 I would structure a seller finance
payment with the remaining of their equity. give them a down payment of closing, of course, but then I would structure a down, you know, a regular monthly payment for the seller and then whatever that adds to as long as I can cash flow as a long-term rental, we’re good. And then people say, well, what happens if you don’t get a renter in there? Well, I’m on the hook anyway. Like I paid, I’ve got a property in Largo. It’s my pain in the ass property that I paid like three months that is, you know, I’m not, I’m not making money off of it. So you make mistakes. You learn. mean, I furnish that thing. You know, you furnish there. I don’t
I would ever get back into the we’re doing midterm rentals like for doctors lawyers traveling nurses and stuff or supposedly a furnace finders But I think I’m trying to I think that we’re pivoting more towards commercial and multifamily I want all my properties under one roof to be honest with you and that’s kind of what we’re pivoting to but like I said making mistakes and Understand and not saying like my failure. No you learn you learn off those. I mean so I
Leo Wehdeking (12:28)
All right.Samantha Lencioni (12:47)
those people who don’t, I don’t have analysis paralysis. As a matter of fact, I had the quite opposite, like I will get in there and mess it all up. And then I figure out, okay, well I screwed up and you know, it costs some money sometimes, you know, but at the same time you learn and you make that money and you just keep going. And that’s kind of where I’m at, like with everything.Leo Wehdeking (13:08)
Allright, all right, cool. Now that we’re talking about that, I know that every operator has a moment where actually things got very real. All right. Maybe a deal that went sideways or actually, you know, you were talking about pivoting but to a different area, you know, like commercial and multifamily, but maybe maybe a time that you actually had to pivot really, really, really fast. Do you mind sharing one of those moments now that we are actually talking about that topic?
Samantha Lencioni (13:33)
Yeah.Yeah, so, okay. I don’t even know if I can talk about it we’re kind of in court with it right now, but I will give you a brief underline of what happened. So we purchased a home subject to, it was a $1.6 million property and she had a $900,000 mortgage and she was such a nice lady and I’m a single mom and all, she fed me all the things, like said there was a sex offender living next to her and she had to move and like, I really, I helped her pack.
Like I went to her home and helped, like I really cared about this lady.
Fast forward, we bought the property and two weeks later, unbeknownst to us, it got foreclosed on because she did not pay the mortgage and the title company didn’t do what they were supposed to do and it was a really hot mess. so that was ⁓ a, that, I don’t even think like, I questioned everything that I was doing from that point because I’m like, my God, like I really love this lady. She was so, she was so genuine and you know, she played the whole single mom thing and
I found out from neighbors and things so much later that she was generally a con artist like she she got me she got me she got a hundred thousand dollars of my money um she walked away with a hundred thousand and uh and we’re still trying to kind of recoup it um but yeah that was that was uh that was a nasty little moment we were kind of like we put oh oh by the way we put in a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in construction into this woman’s house because she tore it up like she had no I think she was really trying to get insurance money
because now, looking back in hindsight, you kind of start thinking about, okay, okay. So she ripped up her stairs, and there was nothing wrong with this house. I could show you the befores and the afters, and you would be like, the house was fine, and it was. But she had, yeah, it was nasty, and you just have to really trust your instincts, trust your gut, and maybe talk to other people and understand, because sellers, they say buyers are liars and sellers are worse. Well.
That was true in that case. And we’re going to court for it still. So that was a nasty little thing that could ended me, but at the same time it just made me say, you know what, we just have to more money. And that’s how we started building everything else that we’re building. So it is what it is, but it was a hard lesson. A hard lesson learned.
Leo Wehdeking (16:25)
Exactly. All right.All right. All right. Nice of you of sharing. Now let me ask you this, Samantha. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next?
Samantha Lencioni (16:35)
I want to build.I want to build more of an agent database. I want to build more brokers. I want more brokers and agents to work for me. I have a very specific buy box at what I’m doing right now as far as multifamily. like doing like a huge, like we were talking, I was talking to my partner who does the AI. I’m like, man, we just have to do like a huge push for brokers and agents to be able to get them to say, hey, like bring me your deals. Like, hey, I’m buying 90 % occupied or more and 2 million to 15 million or more. And then we’re doing, you know, 30 or 40 % down.
willing to hold a note on the back end. And what that note is going to look like is not going to be market rates. They’re not getting 7%. If I wanted 7 % I would go to a bank and I’m not doing that. So we’re giving them a chunk of money in the front end. I’m basically, I think that being able to scale, need more systems in place and maybe like more of, you know, like email outreach to agents and brokers to kind of understand what we’re doing so that we don’t have to like go on Zulu and Craxi every day.
and kind of outreach to people, because that’s what I’m doing now. Me and my partner literally all day, that’s all we do. We sit there and just outreach to agents. And we have agents that work for us too, that bring us deals, but we always want to make more relationships with them. you know, some of them are very close-minded, so you gotta weed through them, but some of them are very like, hey, this is great, let me help you, you you guys are doing good. And we have proof of funds, we’ve got proof of our portfolio, so it’s kind of hard to ignore as far as that’s at. So I wish I had something where I could just kind of push
all emails to the agents with our portfolio value, our bank screenshot, with our credit lines, our million dollars, millions and millions of dollars of credit lines, and be able to just say, we’re real people, let’s do a deal.
Leo Wehdeking (18:15)
Alright, alright, alright That’s actually very big Now I think that a lot of people that are listening there are they’re either earlier in their in their journey or maybe trying to level up Alright, so I think they will benefit her hearing Actually, you know hearing this when it comes with from a person, you know with such an experience like yourself but when it comes about building relationships andgrowing up your network. What’s made the biggest difference for you?
Samantha Lencioni (18:46)
being open and telling people what you want to do, you know, and I have to say I fail in that. on Facebook, I probably have 6,000 followers, but I have never, I don’t release videos and I don’t do, I don’t do what everybody else is doing. You know, like if I did, I couldn’t even imagine. But like, I think, I think, and I’m saying this just to say that like being open and telling everyone, like you should not have one discussion in your life without somebody knowing what you’re doing. And one thing Paisen told me one time is like, we are bilingual.And by that he means like have you ever talked to somebody who doesn’t know a thing about real estate and then they’re just like I have no clue what you’re talking about He’s right like we are but we speak a different language and there’s a different language and you have to kind of you know, it’s if You have to put yourself out there and let everybody know like this is what I’m doing Hey, if you need to sell a house or you have like issues this you need to have every conversation that you have with somebody You need to let them know what you’re doing. They should always know what you’re doing. Put it on your on your social media
Which I’m terrible at put it on you know like everything like blasted I I’m terrible I do have to hire somebody for that but like just letting everybody know that what you’re doing so that they can come to you and say hey I mean I get text messages all the time like hey I’ve got a deal I don’t even know who they are like hey I got this deal would you talk to me about absolutely like please like contact me if you have any issues with sellers or you need to close a deal like I’m a closer I will talk to people make them nice and comfy and and and get them to across the table because that’s
what it’s all about. Like so I would say if you’re starting out you need to let everybody know what you’re doing. Put it on all of your stuff, put it on Facebook, every conversation you have they should know that you are doing real estate and that’s where I found a lot of my success.
Leo Wehdeking (20:30)
Allright, all right, yeah, you can actually fake that. All right, Samantha, now before we wrap up, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?
Samantha Lencioni (20:44)
Honestly, I would say just go to my Facebook because that’s kind of where I’m at right now. We do have an Instagram. It’s catalyst catalyst I Don’t remember so so so go to my Facebook. My Facebook is probably the best way like hit me up on messenger It’s Samantha Lindsay only is my name you can get that or yeah, that’s probably the best wayLeo Wehdeking (21:01)
All right, all right, perfect. Well, listen, Samantha, I really appreciate your time, your story, and also your perspective. We need actually more people like you doing it the right way. All right, so thanks again for being on the show. And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. All right, we got more conversations coming up with operators just like Samantha, all right, who are out there building real businesses. Until then, we’ll see you on the next episode.Samantha Lencioni (21:15)
Absolutely.Leo Wehdeking (21:29)
Hey Sam, nice!Samantha Lencioni (21:30)
Yes. We’re good.
