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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews Ivan Oberon, a seasoned private money broker. Ivan shares his transformative journey from a painful divorce and a stagnant career in insurance to becoming a successful entrepreneur in real estate. He discusses the importance of being resourceful, the evolution of his career, and the significance of community and authenticity in the real estate industry. Ivan emphasizes the need for personal development and investing in oneself to achieve growth and success.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Ivan Oberon (00:00)
Micah, it’s crazy the way that it is right now, because so many of these hard money lenders are now backed by these incredible sources of capital, aka Wall Street.where they realized, even though they always back traditional mortgages, they started seeing the opportunity on the investment side of things. And so there is just like so much capital available, which is great for us as brokers of that private money. And it’s great for our borrowers that need the money to do their flips and builds and rental property portfolios and all that stuff.
Micah Johnson (02:02)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Ivan, who’s been making serious moves for over a decade in the private money space. Ivan, I’m glad to have you here, man. Welcome in.Ivan Oberon (02:18)
Likewise, Micah, I’m glad to be here. Happy New Year.Micah Johnson (02:21)
Happy New Year. Happy New Year. I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’ve approached your real estate career in general. And I’m excited to dig in on that. So for those who may not know you yet, how’d you get started in real estate? What led you down this path?Ivan Oberon (02:39)
That’s a great question, Micah. And ⁓ I guess the best way to answer that is I ⁓ have found that we as human beings are either drawn towards pleasure or pushed away by pain. And for me, it was really ⁓ the most painful situation that I’d ever gone through up until that point. I was in the insurance industry and ⁓ in 2009, I found myself going through a divorce.and coming home to someone that all of sudden didn’t want to be married to me anymore. finding out over time here that there was an affair going on. And what I won’t go into too much detail about is that the insurance agency that I work with or at was owned by my ex-in-law’s and my ex-wife was the office manager. I also had two little baby girls at the time and a mortgage I was solely responsible for. So I had to find some kind of way out, but I didn’t.
Micah Johnson (03:27)
Mmm.Ivan Oberon (03:35)
I couldn’t just leave the insurance industry. I had to go through the pain and the character development. And it took me about a year and a half after I decided that learning how to flip homes was going to be my path out. I still had to build that whole thing out and I had to build it covertly because guess what? I couldn’t let anybody else know what I was doing. and, you know, the, the, trials of, of seeing that every single day and then just hating going to work andas you know, as in the sales industry, oftentimes you kill what you eat. But if you hate going there, it’s your performance wings. And now you add insult to injury. You have all these bills that now you’re solely responsible for. You have an income that’s going down and you want out. But I didn’t want to leave insurance for insurance. So I just stuck it out through kind of the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And until I learned that, hey, there was something coming to town. I can go into this little three day
free training and that’s what really opened my mind for the first time. When I started hearing that guy talk about how the wealthy use their money and how to buy assets to pay for liabilities and talking about real estate up until that point. The only thing I knew about real estate is that I wanted some and that I knew more wealth had been created through that asset class than anything else. But I didn’t know how to get started. So we go and I went through that three day or the little three hour thing, which of course they upsell you into a three day thing.
which of course then they upsell you into a bigger batter, bigger three day thing, because by the end of the first three day thing, you really don’t still don’t know what the heck you’re doing. And so not to go into too much detail for the purpose of time, but I had to get creative and be resourceful and figure it out. Cause guess what? I didn’t have the money to be able to get into those things, but I knew like in my heart, this was going to be the way for me to do it. And as I went through that training and understood I’m going to become an entrepreneur really for the first time ever.
The only way that I’m going to be able to be successful is that I can figure out how to add value to other people. So how do I do that? Well, I had to make myself more valuable first through education. Then I picked a niche saying, I want to be the money guy. I learned about hard money and gap funds. And I just figured if I’m going to have to raise some money, why not just raise all the money. And maybe that’d be a little bit easier. from, it took me about three months for making that decision to raise about 500,000 in cash.
And then that’s when I really started putting in offers because they teach you and I’m sure you’ve heard of this, Micah, you find a deal, the money will come. Well, in theory, like I can tell you that now. Yes, absolutely. But then I had zero connections. I literally thought that this seminar company that I went through was the only people in the world teaching this stuff. Like that’s how green and naive I was. So was like, well, that doesn’t make sense. Maybe if I have the money first, then I go find the deal and I want to develop a reputation to be the guy that can’t perform.
Micah Johnson (06:43)
Wow.Mm.
Ivan Oberon (07:11)
So that’show I started. And over time I was flipping homes here in Southern California remotely. Cause back then, if everybody remembers what was going on around 2010, 11, 12, there was a glut of REOs after the crash. And here in Ventura County, Southern California, where I live, the hedge funds were just coming in and outbidding everybody. So I couldn’t get a deal in my own county. So I started flipping homes remotely.
First time ever. here I am, you know, doing deals three hours away from me because of, know, I started out there, going out there, building my network, going to events, getting introduced to people, finally getting more engaged in the community. And so we started doing deals in Southern California, about three hours from me. Then decided to take our capital stack to Indianapolis to make it go further than Kansas City, Missouri, greater Dallas area. And I found myself with the interesting problem now of having more money than I had my own personal deals to deploy it into.
So I started again, still green entrepreneur, don’t know anything. I started connecting my investors money with other people’s deals and calling it a relationship fee. Okay. Not knowing that I was essentially falling into becoming a private money broker. And over the course of time, you 2018 happened and there was less deal flow. was less margins, but I had connected with people nationwide at this point. And, ⁓ I just decided to go kind of.
Micah Johnson (08:19)
Okay.Ivan Oberon (08:36)
slowly transitioned all into becoming a true private money broker and started ⁓ just connecting with institutional private capitals, I like to call it. And eventually I got convinced to add traditional mortgage to my platform. And that was another really great decision that I finally made there. And so now we’re licensed and we lend nationwide. And that’s only a small part of the story of how I got here today.Micah Johnson (09:03)
One thing I love about the story and I hear it in real estate over and over, actually it’s a couple of things really. First one is you either got to have resources, you got to be resourceful, one or the other. And most of the time you’re on the resourceful category as an entrepreneur. You’re trying to get out there and figure it out. So for those that are listening that could be at the beginning of your journey, don’t be surprised when it’s hard. It’s supposed to be hard. Don’t get upset by how hard it is.Ivan Oberon (09:18)
Bye.Micah Johnson (09:32)
There’s a Jim Rohn quote I always butcher, but it talks about, don’t wish for no problems, wish for the wisdom that comes from solving the problem, right? Like get that in your mind early that it’s okay. One thing I try to teach my kids is hard isn’t bad, just because it’s hard. Typically if something’s hard, it’s pretty good if you figure it out and keep going with it. There’s this stretch that you can get to. And the other part is real estate in general. One thing I really love about it, and I’ve been in it since 2014,Ivan Oberon (09:41)
There you go.Micah Johnson (10:02)
is as you keep going, you find your niche, you find that part of it that really lights you up. So you were coming from an insurance world that you didn’t like, got into fixing and flipping, and then even doing that thinking, okay, that’s not quite the piece. What’s that next thing? And just constantly little tweaks to find what’s that thing I already do well, where it pays my emotional paycheck and my financial paycheck. Because when you have those two together, you got alignment. You can really do something special then.Ivan Oberon (10:29)
Yeah.Well, I love that. And I figured I like people and I like like the deal structure, the creative aspect of it. I just realized that I wasn’t the best of babysitting contractors. didn’t really, that didn’t really light me up, but I knew how to put structured things together. I knew how to create connections. I love people just in general, because I’m just driven by my faith in doing that. So I want to.
I want to connect with them and then when we can and we can make a deal together then great. And everybody needs money is what I figured. So if I could be the guy that could structure that properly, then maybe there’s some way to bring a win-win situation.
Micah Johnson (11:44)
That’s very well said. So bring us to today. Now you’re doing that. What are you doing on a daily basis? How are you impacting the private money world and what do you all do have going on?Ivan Oberon (11:56)
Yeah, it’s been a whirlwind of a year. And God’s just continued to open doors and things for us, but just because we’ve been heavy in the work for the last 16 years and it’s still full-time, private money, doing a lot of financing for fix and flips, rental properties, ground up construction. And then, obviously the conventional side of things on owner-occupied things, growing the mortgage side of things for the last several years.And as you know, I mean, one of the biggest things as an entrepreneur, especially starting out, but then progressive over time is personal development. So I had all the things, right? I started off with the OGs like Brian Tracy and Jim Rohn and of course John Maxwell and got certified through him. then, know, then progressively found some of the more contemporary guys. ⁓ But it’s also getting in the right rooms. So about a year and a half ago,
Micah Johnson (12:35)
Mm.Ivan Oberon (12:54)
I joined a pretty high level mastermind through the Aspire Tour, which became the world’s largest business entrepreneur tour that tours the nation here. And through that, they do a lot of great education and then they have a high level mastermind that you can join at various entry points. So ⁓ April, a year and a half ago, I decided to make that investment and join the community.and be plugged in and, and, you know, learn of course, but part of it was just connecting with people and seeing what people are doing in their respective areas of expertise. Cause a lot of people are coming into the mastermind are entrepreneurs. Some of them are on the real estate side, but maybe I’m just successful business owners looking for other, other ways to scale and sell businesses and buy and these all kinds of different things that they teach. And along the way, ⁓ founders, one of them is Eddie Wilson.
He came to me and say, look, want to on the real estate side, we want to teach people what we consider to be the best and maybe least risky way to make money in real estate and not what the gurus teach you that wholesaling is the easiest way to get into real estate. Like that’s one of the hardest ways to get into real estate, my opinion. And only someone who’s I think has experience would tell you that ⁓ it is a way, but it’s not the easiest, certainly not the most risk free.
Micah Johnson (14:08)
Hahaha!Ivan Oberon (14:18)
So he wanted to create a private money brokering course, if you will, to teach people on the real estate side, to teach other people that want to come into that, understand the value of that money piece and tapping into an industry. Now,Micah, it’s crazy the way that it is right now, because so many of these hard money lenders are now backed by these incredible sources of capital, aka Wall Street.
where they realized, even though they always back traditional mortgages, they started seeing the opportunity on the investment side of things. And so there is just like so much capital available, which is great for us as brokers of that private money. And it’s great for our borrowers that need the money to do their flips and builds and rental property portfolios and all that stuff.
So he asked me if I would do it. And I love the community. I love Eddie as a person. I know his heart.
I didn’t know what it was going to look like, but I said, well, shoot. Yeah. Like, let’s figure that out. And so after I said, yes, there’s a slew of calls and zooms over the course of the next week. And they’re like, Oh yeah, by the way, you have a live immersion training coming in Denver after the Aspire tour was just there. And you got to present for two days straight and you know, good luck. So, so, so we did it, man. And by the grace of God, we, I mean, it was, was wild.
Micah Johnson (16:14)
Yeah, have fun.Ivan Oberon (16:21)
the response that I got at end of that two day not knowing, like I’d never even run through our slides. mean, of course we created them and everything, but we never did a run through. And God is just so good that, you know, I changed one slide on one day because the timing was off between when people wanted to go to lunch and when we were going to come back. Right. Like that was, that was the whole thing. And then we’ve only built it better from there. But so now I’m doing that as well, which is definitely a big. ⁓use of my time and my energy and my resources. But it’s also the first time that I have felt like I’ve done anything significant in my life. Because I think as entrepreneurs, we’re all very hard on ourselves. Sometimes when people ask me a question, I tell them a bit of my story and you reflect, like, you know, like I actually haven’t done a couple of cool things, you know, but the rest of the time, it’s just you live in the gap as an entrepreneur rather than the gain. So that’s a great book for all you entrepreneurs out there, the gap and the gain.
Because I think we all live in that space a little bit where we’re really hard on ourselves and we have a goal and we just don’t feel like we’ve accomplished what we want for our family. We haven’t accomplished what we want for this thing or that thing. Every once in a while we have to give ourselves a little bit of credit. And just seeing that first immersion come out where it was almost 60 people that paid a significant amount of money to be part of the mastermind, to be there with me and listen to me talk. I mean, it was my experiences. It was really the way I think it went off with a hitch.
I’m very transparent. I’ve talked about my pains in life, my failures, different things that have happened to me personally and in business. I mean, then month after month after month, people are just like same five stars feedback, you know, and then the cool thing is that lives are changing because they are, they are closing deals. Not all of them, right? Just like anything else, not all of them are closing deals, but guess what? Not all of them show up to the daily calls.
Micah Johnson (18:07)
Mmm, not too much that.Ivan Oberon (18:16)
Not all of them go back to the trainings. Not all of them re-attend the immersion if they need to. Not all of them are getting into networking. Not all of them have completed the 30 day fast start that I put together. You know, so, but, but the fact is that they are and, uh, and then that comes back into the community and then just everybody can celebrate everybody’s wins. And that I somehow had a part in that, uh, is pretty cool.Micah Johnson (18:16)
Right?That is cool. Cause you got that full arc. You’re watching it from, you’re taking your story from a very unfortunate situation in the insurance world where you’re going through things you didn’t ask for. Now your career is changing and you’ve been in the hardest spot. And now to get to be in a place where you can have that impact, where to look back on your life and see, know what? I did do well.
because I couldn’t agree with you more. Entrepreneurs, we love to be hard on ourselves. A lot of times we use it to keep driving ourselves. And it’s something I talk to people about. I’m very big in the personal development space. is getting good at being human. It will change your life forever. There’s a skillset to being one of us. So when you take that time to learn and understand, you realize, it…
Ivan Oberon (19:17)
Sure.Micah Johnson (19:28)
And me and my own personal life, it’s so easy to look at it and just pick apart all the things that you’re not doing and the places that you failed. And then when you can really see something where, whoa, this is changing someone’s life. This did have an impact. It changed the whole way you think about your own story, even personally, you start to feel the meaning of it more in your chest. So it’s that emotional side too, which drives, it drives so much of real estate. And I think it’s important what you touched on a second ago, which was,why people identify with that. Authenticity goes a long way in this business. There’s a million folks that show up to free events that think they’re the coolest person they know, and they talk these huge games, and that’s all it is. And then you get around people like you’re talking about in the mastermind you’re in. I’m huge on belonging to ones you have to pay for because you want to be in a room where someone’s been vetted.
You want to be in that place where when you get to come in, you can put that guard down a little bit. You’re around like-minded people who have done the things that you’re trying to do and are there and you can share, because that’s where that real growth takes place, is when you can share the hard stuff.
Ivan Oberon (20:40)
For sure. I agree 100 % and not sure could for people, right? Like, sorry, we’re going to make the path a little bit easier for you if you want to learn how to do this, but it’s not easy. And if you want to have any level of success, then guess what? It’s going to, it’s going to require work. And sometimes people don’t want to hear that. Sometimes people are still looking for the easy button. Now it’s definitely easier. Like you’re not going to go through some of the things that I went through, but you’re going to have your own challenges and you’re going to have to show up for yourself.One cool thing about being part of a community though is especially if you really tie into it and people come to rely on you, you’ll show up for them even if you’re not feeling like showing up for yourself.
Micah Johnson (21:20)
Yeah, it is. It ties that relationship where, cause real estate, it’s super easy to get on your own little Island. You can get so deep in your own stuff and your own part ⁓ of the world and just feel nobody likes to talk about the stuff you like to talk about that lives close to you. it’s, you just can get really enclosed and then to get in those rooms where everybody likes to talk about it. You can have the deepest conversations and use words that other people know what you’re talking about. You can really dig in. Your soul comes alive.Ivan Oberon (21:50)
Yeah, it’s true. true. We are a little isolated. mean, my family doesn’t hardly know what I do and it’s okay. It’s not because they’re just interested. It’s just like, you know, if you’re not in it, a lot of it’s just Greek, you know, goes over your head and it’s just, my mom’s like, I’ll just keep praying for you. Like, know you, okay, God understands. I don’t have to understand. It’s like, that’s right,Micah Johnson (21:56)
YeahGood job, buddy. Proud of you. Like, that’s it. It’s so helpful. So you really answered that next question of what makes that biggest difference for someone in that building relationships and growing your network. For someone that would be on the fence about, know, should I do this? Should I not do this? What would be that encouraging step for them to say, make that investment in yourself and take that step? What would you tell them?
Ivan Oberon (22:40)
⁓ I would examine what their motivation is and maybe there’s just not a strong enough pain point. That’s that’s where why I think a lot of people just get stuck in a little bit of discomfort because they get comfortable in that discomfort a little bit. And even though they know they’ll never get there to where they truly want, like just listen to your heart. Like if you you keep going back to ⁓ a similar thing or a certain thing and it’s fear or it’s doubt or self loathing or disbelief that that one.Nobody’s going to like me or I can’t do it or whatever. Just try to create some, kind of goal or target that makes you come alive. If you don’t have enough pain, you’ll, you’ll stay there, but maybe the pain won’t come. Maybe you find something that will truly motivate you to say this is worth it and look at it as an investment for sure. Because that’s, that’s where I think a lot of people get stuck. They look at their, their finances and their budget and their bill. And they’re like, I can’t, you know, I don’t have money for this expense.
You got to look at it as an investment. You know, what is the return on that next level of growth? Because everything that you’re that you have right now is within your comfort zone. And that also means like comfort zone of how much money you invest back into yourself, what you’re willing to spend at your level of belief. But if you if you had everything you wanted within your comfort zone, if it existed, that you’d already have it. So sometimes you got to just step out to give yourself that motivation to get up in the morning. And I say create goals that are big enough to draw you to them.
not small enough that basically you have to push them because when it gets hard, it gets difficult to push yourself. You have to have something that draws you. And it’s just the cliche of going to what’s your why, right? What’s your biggest why of doing something? Either you want to get away from something or you want to get to something, but either one can work if you filter it properly.
Micah Johnson (24:29)
It’s so true too, and it kind of bounces throughout life. Sometimes it is that pain, because we won’t make enough changes. You don’t feel the need to change if it doesn’t hurt bad enough, unless you see something that’s just so exciting that it moves you. And it’s not usually that one, in my experience. It’s that you get it even getting into something new, like looking at your world in real estate, you could have stopped at fix and flips and said, yeah, I know how to do this. This will make this much money and I can keep going.Ivan Oberon (24:43)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (24:55)
but it would have just led you to that same pain and it was just keep moving on through. What’s that thing that keeps you moving to that goal? So I love that. I definitely highly recommend what you just said to the folks listening, if you’re on the fence about that or thinking about it, it’s 100 % an investment. It will make you money. One thing I like to say is a lot of folks know how much money they’re saving, but have no idea how much they’re losing with that mentality because it will pay you back.Ivan Oberon (24:55)
Mm-hmm.stay.
Micah Johnson (25:21)
in your network, your peer group, the way you level up there, and it’ll put money in your bank account. And if it’s not, you’re probably not doing the work like you were talking about. Like you can put all the courses and everything in front of people, but you still got to have that drive to get it done. And being a part of those groups is what helps you even do that more is seeing your seeing the folks that you’re in the meeting with all Ricky got that. Okay, I can do that. I can see that I can get here. So man, I love that gives me hyped up.Ivan Oberon (25:30)
Okay.Yeah.
Micah Johnson (25:50)
All right, so we’re gonna start tying this up. So if someone wanted to connect with you and learn more about what you’re doing, what would be the best way to reach out to you?Ivan Oberon (25:59)
Well, you know, I call it my, digital business card, uh, which is just my, social media. You can find me on, uh, on Facebook. Uh, as a matter of fact, uh, I’ll give you a URL that’ll lead you there and it’s simply your kingdom lender.com. Uh, there’s, a big story behind that. And part of the reason that I’m here, uh, is a variety of answered prayers and fulfilled commitments on my end to just be bold about my faith, about the.faith journey that I’ve had about how God has worked in my life. And part of the conversations that I’ve had with the Lord have come from being in front of men like John Maxwell and like Ed Milet and getting coaching from them and seeing them speak to rooms of hundreds of thousands and sometimes speak openly about their faith. And then me realizing, my gosh, like there are just people from every walk of life here and not a single one of them seems offended. And so to me, that was a light bulb that Lord like
This is why I want you to increase my influence and increase my territory so that I have something of value to offer others so that when I speak my testimony, at least the walls are down, a seed can get planted and I can just have a bigger platform to give you glory on. And, you know, I’ve continued to be that and, you know, get rid of the fear of like, what are people going to say, the judgment, this and that. And as he’s continued to open those doors, I’ve continued to do that more and more.
And so that’s one of the things that he put on my heart about a little over a year ago is keep, keep proving it. And one of those things was I needed to change my entire personal brand. And of course I’m building his kingdom, but we’re all talking about our kingdom here as well. So as you introduce yourself and networking events, you need to have a kind of an elevator pitch. So that became part of my name is Ivan Oberon your kingdom lender. So if you go to yourkingdomlender.com, it’ll take you straight to my social medias.
Micah Johnson (27:48)
That’s beautiful.Ivan Oberon (27:51)
You can also find me on my Google business page and see some of my reviews there. And that’s probably the fastest way to have a conversation. Just message me and we’ll get your deals funded.Micah Johnson (28:02)
Excellent man. we’ll make sure that that link is in the description beneath the episode so you can check out Ivan there. Ivan, I appreciate your time, man, your story, your perspective. I think we need more people in the space doing it like you’re doing it from that authentic position, that true desire to serve and to build the life that you want to. So for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this episode, please make sure you’re subscribed to our podcast, like this episode, share it with people.Ivan Oberon (28:10)
request.Micah Johnson (28:29)
We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators just like Ivan who are out there building real businesses. So thanks for joining us this time. We’ll see you on the next episode.Ivan Oberon (28:39)
Thanks guys, thanks Micah.Micah Johnson (28:41)
Thank you.
