How to Buy Real Estate Without Banks, Credit, or Your Own Cash | Nick Prefontaine

Nick Prefontaine (00:00)
So once they were out of my room,

That’s when they shared that I probably wouldn’t be able to walk, talk, or eat on my own ever again. And even if I was able to come out of the coma, there was a good chance that I would need 24 hour care for the rest of my life. And my parents, to their credit, didn’t accept this like so many patients do as a death sentence.

Michelle Kesil (02:00)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Nick Prefontaine, who is a real estate investor and a coach and mentor for others that are looking to get started with real estate. So excited to have you here today, Nick.

Nick Prefontaine (02:23)
So excited to be here, Michelle. Happy to spend some time with you and your listeners, for sure.

Michelle Kesil (02:29)
Great, so let’s dive in. First off, for those not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is?

Nick Prefontaine (02:38)
Sure, so right now where our main focus is doing real estate deals, working in the trenches with our associates that we have all over the country.

Michelle Kesil (02:51)
Great. And what does that look like? Can you expand more on the process and who these associates are and what you do with them?

Nick Prefontaine (02:59)
Sure, yeah, happy to. So we have associates all over the country who we, well, let me first back up. I think if I share… ⁓

Michelle Kesil (03:06)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Prefontaine (03:09)
some more context, I think it’ll help you understand and help the listeners understand rather. So my journey into real estate and how I got here today, back in 2003, I was at a ski club with my friends and on the very first run, I went off, very first run, the chairlift was going right over the terrain park, Michelle, where all the jumps were. And I knew as soon as I saw it that I had to go off biggest jump in the terrain park.

Got to the top, buckled into my snowboard, took a breath of that crisp winter air, and confidently charged towards that jump with all my speed. And going up to the jump, I caught the edge of my snowboard, and that’s the last thing that I remember. So ⁓ they wanted to actually bring a helicopter to the mountain to rush me to the hospital, and they couldn’t because it was too windy, so they had to send in an ambulance.

And out of the six paramedics, there was only one who could intubate right on the spot. And I needed that to be able to breathe. Lucky for me, he was one of the paramedics that showed up to the mountain that day. So retelling this story is always really easy for me to remember because there are three things that I credit for being able to be here today and to tell this story with you and your listeners. So the first one was the right paramedic showed up.

to the mountain to intubate me on the spot. Secondly, although I wasn’t wearing a helmet, the goggles that I had on, I had some thick goggles that go over your eyes with a lot of padding. So I learned from eyewitness accounts, ⁓ like my friends that were there that saw it, doctors, experts, that kind of thing, Michelle, that not only did my goggles brace my initial impact,

But as I continued to roll down the mountain and continued to hit my head, they told me that my goggles moved to cushion each blow between my head and the ice. And like I said, wore some pretty thick goggles, a lot of padding. I never would have fathomed that I would need them to brace my fall. This is the most important thing, I think. Once I got to the hospital, I was out. I was resting in a partially induced coma.

in the intensive care unit unable to communicate with anyone. So each time the doctors would come into my room to share progress updates, my parents would usher them out of the room. They knew that even though I was in a coma, I was still taking in information. So especially in the early stages, these updates from the doctors were not very positive. They had to give them the worst case scenario.

So once they were out of my room,

That’s when they shared that I probably wouldn’t be able to walk, talk, or eat on my own ever again. And even if I was able to come out of the coma, there was a good chance that I would need 24 hour care for the rest of my life. And my parents, to their credit, didn’t accept this like so many patients do as a death sentence.

So they took the information.

thank the doctors, and allowed me to treat it like any other situation. So this was no different than any other challenge that I had faced up to this point in my life. So I ended up being in the coma for three weeks. As I said, it was partially induced, so I really don’t remember a month. And it was after a month that I was transported to a rehab hospital in Boston. And Michelle, that’s where really my journey began.

That’s really my first, because I was coming off that medication, that’s where my first memories come from, they come back. So it was right around this time that I started to unknowingly use a system to not only make a full recovery, but run out of the hospital. And that’s a step system. What I can do is give everyone like a 10,000 foot view of that. And then if they’re interested at the end, I can let them know how they can download it for free. So.

Michelle Kesil (08:13)
Sure.

Nick Prefontaine (08:14)
⁓ Step is an acronym. It stands for support. So make sure you have the support of your family and friends right from the beginning. This is going to have you falling back on relationships that you built prior to your setback. T is trust. Trust that once you take your first step, your next step is always going to be available to you. And this also starts with trusting that voice that you have with inside of yourselves. And we all have it. So…

⁓ After I ⁓ came out of the coma, and it was very early on at the rehab hospital, I overheard my parents talking to my team of doctors and therapists, and they were saying, all right, what do we need to do to make sure Nick makes a full recovery? I heard in the back of my head, you’re going to run out of the hospital. So then I was able to communicate that to the rest of the team, and that became our common goal. That’s what we are working towards every week.

And then E is energy. So maintaining your energy allows your body’s natural ability to be able to heal itself. Medication has the potential to get in the way of that. And finally P is persistence. So once you’ve taken your first step, keep getting up every day and taking your next step, no matter how small. By continuing to move forward every day, you are building an unstoppable momentum.

So if you fast forward less than 60 days later, Michelle, ran out, I realized my goal of running out of the hospital and it really wasn’t like my work was done. I had to continue to go to outpatient therapy for another six months, along with being tutored all summer long, five days a week in order to continue on to high school

with the rest of my classmates. And looking back at it, it’s a little surreal.

that only 18 months later, I got my start in real estate after recovering from my accident and finished in rehab. And that was door knocking pre-foreclosure doors. So homeowners that have received the notice of default from the bank, meaning that they had missed ⁓ several payments on their mortgage and the bank still hadn’t foreclosed on it. So I would go to every one of these doors, get a list and.

try to set appointments with one of our investors the following week. And it took a mentor pointing it out to me about four or five years ago until I realized this. ⁓ Because it was so soon after my accident, ⁓ this was really part of my recovery. Going door to door, helping people out of their unfortunate situation. So I continued doing that throughout the rest of high school.

⁓ As a result, we were able to purchase several homes in the areas that I knocked doors. So that that definitely was a success. ⁓ After real estate, I mean after high school, I got my real estate license, started helping buyers and sellers. And then in 2014, after about six years of helping buyers and sellers sales full time, my dad came to me and he was buying homes creatively.

⁓ and he needed help with getting them on the rent-to-own market and finding rent-to-own buyers for them. And I’m still involved in this family business. So this is what I’m doing today. So some of the ways that we buy, and I’ll just keep it again, like really broad, really basic 10,000 foot view. So a few ways that we buy on a lease purchase or… ⁓

like a rent to own, we’ll buy it, basically a delayed cash sale, take over all responsibility for maintenance and upkeep over the course of the term. And then at the end, whether it’s two, three, five years from now, ⁓ we’ll cash the seller out. And then we find rent to own buyers from that as a result of that. Getting that under contract, that’s one of the ways that we buy. We always sell on a rent to own, but…

We buy, that’s one way on rent-to-own. We’ll buy subject to someone’s existing loan and we’ll actually close on the home. And then another way to keep it real basic is if someone doesn’t have any debt on the property, we can structure owner financing and structure principal only payments ⁓ back to the seller. So those are some of the ways that we buy and then we’re always selling on a rent-to-own. So.

By 2016, January of 2016, Michelle, it didn’t even make sense for me to keep my real estate license anymore. And I let it go, joined my dev full time and helping all of his, which became our rent to own buyers really allow me to kind of fine tune, not just me, like me and the team.

⁓ fine-tune the process and systems that we have to put the buyer through to make sure that by the time they get to the end, ⁓ they’re able to become mortgage ready and be successful. And still to this day, we have ⁓ up to 90 % of the rent-owned buyers that we put in our homes are able to go forward and get their financing, where the industry average is probably close to the flip, the like inverse of that.

only like maybe 10 or 20 % of the buyers are able to go forward and get their own loan. So it’s really exciting that to this day we’re still doing that. 2016 was when I joined MyDeaf full-time and we started holding yearly events where I’ve always had the opportunity to tell my story. And this has really meant

the world to me because ever since I got out of high school I’ve always had this voice in the back of my head no matter what I’m doing.

Yeah, great Nick. But what you really need to be doing is telling your story from stage and helping accident and trauma survivors thrive with the rest of their lives. So I always thought by sharing my story for maybe 10 or 15 minutes at our event, I was doing that. Kind of, but not really.

So it was, it took until 2019, me sharing my story, someone approached me after I spoke and said if I was ever looking, Michelle, to find to my message and bring it to another level so I could help the most honored people, she could introduce me to some coaches and mentors that have helped her along the way. Well, you know, wasn’t ready yet because I was actually in the final throes of a voice issue.

that I had been dealing with since 2012. It sounded like it was really strange. Like, I had a lot of tension in my throat. So I wasn’t ready yet. However, I always hung on to that woman’s card. And in May of 2021, I finally reached out to her and I said, okay, I’m ready. What should I do? She introduced me to her mentor, Trisha Brooke became my mentor. And Trisha on that first call,

told me I should be, that was in May of 2021, told me I should be doing the speaker salon where you commute for six weeks in a row to be on stage with up to 10 or 15 other speakers at the Triad Theater in New York City. And that was 25,000. And at a solo level, I had to do this. So during the speaker salon, ⁓ Trisha actually pitched the idea of working with her one-on-one. And she told me that she,

help speakers to build out their speaker platform. ⁓ I didn’t even know what this was. ⁓ That was $75,000. So I said, hmm, I don’t have that in my back pocket, ⁓ but give me a week and I’ll figure it out. Six days later, I wired Trisha the money and it was the best decision that I ever made. mean, I had to do this.

And I’m so happy I made the right decision because she was able to help me launch my company Common Goal and pull the step system out of me, which is now what I’m doing and

to this day.

Michelle Kesil (18:19)
Amazing. I love that you were able to bring such an impactful trauma that happened in your life and turn it into gold to serve and support others.

Nick Prefontaine (18:35)
Absolutely. Yeah, so I do a lot of speaking for brain injury associations, like at their annual conferences, their annual events, also webinars that they host and other organizations that support individuals that are going through trauma and all kinds of trauma, really. ⁓ So working with individuals one-on-one and by sharing my story on… ⁓

Like whether it’s podcasts or conferences, it gives me the opportunity to be introduced to people that are in the midst of their own trauma or crisis. So my goal is to always first and foremost, help them get through it and then help them thrive with the rest of their lives.

Michelle Kesil (19:20)
So is that the coaching work that you’re doing right now?

Nick Prefontaine (19:24)
That’s ⁓ some of the coaching work that I’m doing. That’s like with Common Goal and ⁓ my company, my company Common Goal and nickprefontaine.com. Yeah. And then the other coaching, coaching and consulting work is what we’re doing with our associates all over the country. So we work with them to implement the same systems, tools and processes that have made us

so successful and helped us get buyers to the finish line. We’re helping them to do the same thing for their business. So they’re able to create a win-win-win transaction ⁓ from the seller that they’re buying the home from for themselves as the investor. And then for the buyer, the rental buyer that’s able to get financing that wasn’t able to a year and a half or two years ago, but they are today. So we’re getting them connected with credit enhancement, getting them on the path to home ownership.

⁓ and eventually getting their own loan. I’m working a few right now out in California.

Michelle Kesil (20:30)
Amazing, so it sounds like you’re helping people that might not have had the chance to own a home be able to do that.

Nick Prefontaine (20:37)
Exactly, ⁓ So helping people on multiple fronts, I guess you could say.

Michelle Kesil (20:43)
Yeah, amazing.

And so what does that process look like for someone that is maybe thinks that having a home doesn’t look like it’s possible for them?

Nick Prefontaine (20:58)
yeah, I’m happy you asked that question and I kind of glossed over that because I didn’t know if we would have enough time to talk about it. So ⁓ the type of buyers that we help, we help a lot of different type of buyers but ⁓ as you and your listeners probably know, there’s only roughly 18 % of the market who can walk into a bank and get a loan today. So we’re actually specializing in helping the other…

call it 82 % of the market. Now, I’m not saying, and we’re not saying that they’re all good, that other 82 % of the market. However, in there, Michelle, there are, there’s a large swath of them that they make great money, great incomes, ⁓ and they have money saved on payment just for whatever reason, they’re not bankable. So they can’t walk into a bank and get a loan. So we’re…

getting them into the home ⁓ and then getting them connected. We have a bunch of disclosures that we have them go through and sign ⁓ at the beginning. That’s in conjunction with our Rent-A-Own program. And that’s for the reason that we want to make sure that they’re successful. ⁓ I touched on a few. We’re getting them connected with a great credit repair, credit enhancement company that’s going to work with them.

And we require it. It’s a condition of our contract over the course of the time that they’re in the home. And they’re going to have to go through as many cycles as that takes. So they usually run in like six to nine months credit repair cycles. So they’ll do six or nine months of work and then they’ll wait a few months for it to settle. And then they’ll reevaluate if they have to go through and do another cycle of that credit repair.

and get them and just keep repeating the process. Michelle will eventually get them to a point where they don’t need to do it anymore and they are mortgage ready. So all of our homes require a down payment anywhere from three to 10 % of the purchase price. So they’re locking that in right at the start of their agreement. So the down payment of three to 10%, I know that’s a…

That’s a pretty wide range. And it’s always all of our properties come on a first serve basis. So the higher they get their down payment, the better their chances are of being accepted. So ⁓ I’m not gonna say that we don’t look at anything else, but that heavily weighs into who we’re accepting. So ⁓ it behooves them.

if there’s a lot of competition on the home, which there is a lot of the majority of our in-town homes, to get their down payment up to give themselves the best chance. Almost like a bidding system, I guess, for lack of better term, ⁓ which allows us to select the best buyer. then it’s gonna give, in turn, it’s gonna give them the best chance of being able to be mortgage ready by the time they get to the end of their agreement.

Michelle Kesil (24:13)
Awesome, Nick. Thanks for sharing your process and what it is that I use you. think that’s amazing. And before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect and learn more, where can people find you?

Nick Prefontaine (24:26)
Sure, so if anything about like my story and like the STEP system, I know I only shared like a 10,000 foot view, appeal to any listeners, they can go to my website to download the entire STEP system and I’ll give them the direct link for that. That’s nickprefontaine.com/step and they’ll learn all about support, trust, energy, and persistence.

And then when it comes to the real estate, ⁓ anybody, ⁓ what I shared, if that piqued your interest ⁓ and you want to learn more, you can go to our website, smartrealestatecoach.com/masterclass and get registered for a free masters class. That’s going to teach you all about how we buy and sell homes on terms without using any cash, any of our money.

or credit or like signing personally. ⁓ And if by the end of the webinar, the master’s class it is, like you wanna learn more, you’ll be able to take your first step.

Michelle Kesil (25:36)
Perfect, appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Nick Prefontaine (25:40)
This has been a blast. Thanks for having me.

Michelle Kesil (25:44)
And for the listeners tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Nick who are building real businesses and we’ll see you on our next episode.