How Real Estate Notes and Seller Financing Replace Rehabbing | Christy Osterkamp

Christy Osterkamp (00:00)

So I found a great market.

In a state that is landlord friendly, foreclosure friendly on our side. there for a hundred thousand dollars, you can have the property that’s behind me on a half an acre? And there are jobs, galore, and there are

Tons and tons of people who are needing a home but can’t get that bank financing.

Quentin Edmonds (00:58)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today because I have another

Fantastic guest. I cannot wait for us to peek through this lady, lens, learn from her experience. She has an acronym that maybe you’ve never heard of before. BRRF. Yes, I’m gonna let her tell you what that’s all about. She is a collector of notes. Listen, She wants to refresh. she’s looking to refresh.

She has a method. She’s not looking to rehab. she wants to refresh and set people up. And I love the way that her mind works. I love the process that she goes through. So I’m excited. I’m excited that we get to learn today from Miss Christy Osterkamp. Miss Christy, how are you doing today, ma’am?

Christy Osterkamp (01:48)

Wonderful and so happy to be here. Thank you.

Quentin Edmonds (01:52)

Absolutely. Ma’am, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m glad we get to do this episode together. Listen, if you had any nerves, let’s kick him out the window because you can see I’m already Stammering this is me being authentic, right? Trying to read my own chicken scratch. wait a minute, we down here. so we’re just gonna have a very natural conversation. I always love to dive right in, Miss Christy. I would love for you to

Talk about what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, kind of how you got into the spaces that you’re in. And then if you want to tell us like where you are in the world, what markets you’re operating in, you can give people that information as well. And so Miss Christy ma’am, you have the floor, my dear.

Christy Osterkamp (02:32)

Thank you so much. one of my old mentors coined the term I jump out of the airplane and I build my parachute on the way down. That’s how we have come to where we are today. We started off about 2017 when the corporate job got pulled out from under the rug, and I said, Never again will I work for anyone but myself. So

I went through the landlord phase and I did fairly well until COVID hit and one of my markets they all stopped paying. So I freaked out and I pivoted. I pivoted into notes and I became a lender. And I learned everything there was to know about real estate notes and fractional notes. But in my network and my

Conferences and my education, I follow people who are successful. I’m a follower. I will learn from their mistakes and from their geniuses. So only in the last maybe year and a half, I have decided not to just lend on somebody else’s deal. I want to be the deal maker myself. So I found a great market.

In a state that is landlord friendly, foreclosure friendly on our side. there for a hundred thousand dollars, you can have the property that’s behind me on a half an acre? And there are jobs, galore, and there are

Tons and tons of people who are needing a home but can’t get that bank financing. So, just recently I’m gonna lay claim to this acronym, BRRF, because it explains exactly what we’re doing. We buy, and we obviously can’t buy them all out of our own resources, so we offer a note to a private lender who’s usually someone we know, like, and trust in our own network.

And they’re possibly using a soft directed retirement account, possibly tax free. And I’m giving them a note based on a piece of property that’s worth 30% more than their loan is. So the property values would have to plummet over 30% before they would ever be at risk. Okay, that’s the buy side. The refresh side means I’m not a rehabber.

I don’t have to swing a hammer to bring value. So I use the word refresh and it does not mean lipstick on a pig. If it needs a roof, sometimes I’ll do a roof. They’re amazingly cheap in Texas. if it needs a power wash, I’ll have a power wash. Whatever it takes to make it attractive to a homeowner. Then I’m gonna resell to that homeowner.

On seller financing. So I’m creating a long-term note for me in second position to my private lender who’s always gonna be protected in first place. Okay, so that’s the BRRF. If somebody wants to challenge me for ownership, bring it on because I have done my research and I think I coined it.

Quentin Edmonds (06:10)

I love it. I love the innovation. You decorated the phrase. You walked us through it. So definitely, thank you. Thank you for walking us a little bit through your journey, what you do, how you kind of got to where you are. And I love how you talked about, you kind of had to make a pivot within, this process. And so, Miss Christy, I always say destiny has no wasted moments.

Right? Destiny has no wasted moments. we are learning from every leg of our journey, from the success, from the failures. So, Miss Christy, I would love to know throughout your journey, what has the journey revealed to you about yourself? Has it made you more disciplined? Has it made you more humble? Has it increased your tenacity? Has it increased your innovation? what does this journey reveal to you about yourself, Miss Christy?

Christy Osterkamp (06:53)

Well, a wise man once said that your network is your net worth. And where I live on the left coast, I mean the west coast, it seems that everyone is in business for themselves and they might share what they do, but they’re not really collaborating. So my world, my network, which spans coast to coast, but mostly

Middle America and East Coast, everyone’s collaborating, sharing. There’s no competition. I had another cliche that said, don’t fight for a piece of the pie, make another pie.

and there’s plenty to go around. Yeah. so we learn from each other, we are accountable to each other. we’ve had a couple of bad apples, but in a network like that, those don’t stay secret for very long. And there’s comfort and accountability and security in knowing who you’re doing business with, no like and trust. And that’s a great resource for

private lenders who are doing it either professionally or they are just other kinds of professionals that don’t have the time to do the research on real estate investing. They just want somebody who’s gonna do it for them and create that mailbox money.

So that’s what I’ve learned along the way is your network is everything, your community is everything.

Quentin Edmonds (08:06)

Love it. Thank you so much for sharing. I totally agree. I think the network is everything. And I said to you before, I just believe when you have a healthy community, a healthy network, you heal yourself. When I say heal, like you make yourself whole. if there are gaps, you’re able to go to your community and say, hey, how do I fix this fracture? How do I fix what’s broken here? And more than likely, if you have a healthy community, somebody’s been through what you’re going through and they can lead you to the right, way to fix it. So I love that.

Miss Christy, I want to talk about some operational things, right? Because if you’re in business, you got to have some operations, some systems in place, some things that work that is helping you be successful. So I would love to know what’s maybe one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years that has really helped you be successful.

Christy Osterkamp (08:54)

Well, the financial foundation, obviously at my age, I am thinking about repurposing. I don’t use the word retiring. I use repurposing. I don’t ever want to be retired. I get bored too easily. step one, if you don’t have a self-directed retirement account, get one.

Even if you have to put $200 in an IRA, or if you have a child, open an education savings account for them and you can administrate it while they’re growing up. You can have a health savings account, which is one of the greatest retirement accounts there is. And I believe, there’s no expiration date to spend that money on medical.

or any other purpose after a certain age. So always consult your professionals.

with us, my husband and I, I call us mom and pop entrepreneurs. We don’t want to scale and we don’t want a corporation. We have an LLC and we have no employees, which makes us eligible for the best account, the solo, self-directed solo, Roth.

for four one K. And I say Roth because you want to pay your taxes on the sea, not the harvest. So that’s our financial foundation. If you’re not there yet, that’s your checklist.

Quentin Edmonds (10:46)

yeah. Brilliant advice. Thank you so much for sharing that nugget. That’s really, really good advice. what’s next for you, Miss Christy? What is your next real goal? What are you looking to solve at scale next? What’s next for you, man?

Christy Osterkamp (10:58)

This is a brick home. It’s not going anywhere. maybe the roof might get damaged in a storm, but that house isn’t going anywhere. It might need some refreshing.

repairs here and there, whatever. But we want to obtain a home for somebody who needs to sell fast and they don’t have time to put it on the market. They don’t have the resources to bring it up to, retail standards, all of that. So we do help that home seller. maybe they inherited it and they don’t want it. so we help them. And then we help our private lender by

Creating a great note at no more than 70% loan to value. And then obviously we’re going to sell it as a premium because our value is that seller financing, which I get phone calls all the time and messages. How does this work?

Quentin Edmonds (11:48)

Yeah.

Christy Osterkamp (11:49)

because they’re thinking I can’t get a mortgage. So I’m also educating them.

about seller financing as well as everybody else. that used to be something that sellers don’t want to talk about. Seller financing, no, I want it all in cash. that’s another tangent.

Quentin Edmonds (12:04)

No, absolutely love it. No, thank you so much. this is awesome. everyone that comes on, Miss Christy, always wanna get fair, unique respect perspective on the word relationship.

So I want to get your unique perspective, your unique philosophy on the word relationship, relationship within business, healthy relationship building, whether that’s from the client perspective, dealing with your clients or just dealing with other people within your network. So talk to me about your perspective on building healthy relationships and what are some of the relationships that you lean on within business.

Christy Osterkamp (12:37)

All right. Well, in my network, I used to be the person who would go get the education. And I educated the heck out of myself to the point where I’m like, okay, I’ve got enough education. Now I need implementation. so I’ve got the basis of understanding and I’m creating relationships with the people who shared their knowledge.

like we’re doing today. And I say, I like what you said, but I kind of like what they said. And so I’m kind of taking those ideas and I’m gonna make them my own. And this BRRF is really in evolved because I kept questioning myself where do I fit into this investor model? I’m not a rehabber, I’m not a flipper.

not a landlord, what am I? And so I forced myself to really narrow it down so I could easily in an elevator speech say this is what I do precisely and then rinse and repeat. Up until where I’m done. I’ve done enough and I can take off a month or two.

And of course we always mix the business with the fun because we like to go on investor cruises or when there’s a conference in a great space where you can go be a tourist for a while. We always like to make sure there’s a lot of fun and relaxation involved as well.

Quentin Edmonds (13:58)

Yes, ma’am. I love that. Fun and relaxation. I believe rest. I believe we got to reset, recharge. Absolutely love that. Miss Christy, we’re starting to wrap it up just a little bit. So before we tell people how to get in contact with you, I want to make sure that we’ve covered our basis, right? So is there anything, any message that you had on your mind before we came in?

that maybe you wanted to tell people that we haven’t touched on. I want to make sure that if there was a message you wanted people to know, I want to make sure that we can land that message, whether it’s about your business, whether it’s about inspiration, motivation, again, I just wanted to cover all bases. So is there something else that you need or wanted to say, I want to give you the opportunity to say it, man.

Christy Osterkamp (14:40)

Sure. the last couple of years I didn’t believe enough in myself to just be Christy Osterkamp. So I created The Note Connectress and it was my brand. And I had graphics and I spent a whole year just trying to get this brand out. And what I learned is that people don’t care about my brand. They care about me.

And they will call me and say, I heard you speak at this or that conference and I believe in what you’re doing and I want to participate. That’s better than any brand.

Quentin Edmonds (15:15)

No.

Christy Osterkamp (15:15)

Yeah, so relationships and trust and that’s much more important

and a track record, okay. So I could give you a list of six people to call right now who you could call them and say, why should I give my money? Why should I invest my money with that particular person? And another thing is that I’m not a fund and I’m not pooling anybody’s money unless it’s a fractional note, and we are not really doing that much anymore. But one property, one lender.

One buyer, it’s simple, it’s clean, and it’s incredibly secure. Because let’s say somebody walks away from their house and I have to take it back. It’s incredibly easy and fast in Texas. That’s a plus. And in the meantime, I’m always going to make my private lender whole while I’m going to simply remarket and resell that house yet again.

Quentin Edmonds (16:05)

So well said. just when you was talking about just people caring about you, that was a word for me. and I told you at the beginning of the show, I just believe in authenticity. And sometimes that can be hard because you see some of the things that seem to work for other people, but you always got to zero into your authenticity, just to being yourself and giving people just the authentic you. So I think that was brilliantly said.

If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, man?

Christy Osterkamp (16:34)

I have a website that has all of our contact information and it’s simply noteconnectress.com. And the spelling should be obviously it’s connectress. And I did steal that from one of my coaches a while back. She was the consultress. So I said, hmm.

Well, I’d like to be the note connectress because we’re making a lot of connections. And I can probably list twelve people who benefit from every transaction.

Quentin Edmonds (17:03)

Well, Miss Christy, let me just say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. So I value the fact that you gave us some of your time. Secondly, thank you for coming and scattering some seeds, right? we threw some seed out there and somebody can take that seed and plant it. Plant it in their business, plant it in what they’re doing. So I believe you telling your story has really cast some seed that somebody can take and plant and really get a harvest from. So thank you for that.

lastly, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. Miss Christy, I appreciate you coming on today.

Christy Osterkamp (17:37)

Thank you.

Quentin Edmonds (17:38)

Absolutely.

So listen, y’all heard Miss Christy. Her information is in the show notes. Please go click it. Get in contact. Click the link. Get in contact with her. And definitely make sure you’re subscribed here. Cause I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Miss Christy. So ma’am, I say thank you again. And to everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.