How to Use Credit and Creative Financing to Start Buying Investment Properties

Jeremy Perez (00:00)
Passion. I feel anybody that does stay in it in the long term, one, you gotta have thick skin in this game. I ain’t even gonna hold you— you gotta have thick skin to be in real estate, but you just gotta have passion for it. I have passion for it. I see like me being a prime example of quitting a, you know, a career job. I was literally making a hundred and twenty dollars an hour as an ironworker— benefits, annuity, pension, all that stuff that you— that everybody speaks about. But the— but the more bigger picture was is your time.

Joseph Crooms (02:05)
Hey everyone, welcome to Investor Fuel Real Estate Pros Podcast. And my name is Joseph Crooms. Today I’m joined by someone who’s been looking forward to chatting with. His name is Jeremy Perez, who’s making some serious moves. Also, he’s just changed his locations, so he’s gonna be making some new moves. But I’m gonna let him talk about that for himself, and he’s an investor. Jeremy, glad to have you here. Say hello to everyone.

Jeremy Perez (02:35)
Glad to have you, too. Welcome, welcome. How you doing, everybody?

Joseph Crooms (02:38)
All right. So I think our listeners are going to take something away from how you’ve been approaching the investing agency, and telling me that you’re from New York and you invested in another area, another territory in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania, in that area. I’m interested in hearing about that. So let’s dive in. So, but so first off, for people who may not be familiar with your world, give us the short version. What is your main focus these days?

Jeremy Perez (03:06)
My main focus is pretty much buying as many properties as you possibly can due to the fact that I personally witness that it could help you, you know, live a passive income lifestyle. You know, and I’m obviously living proof of doing that.

Joseph Crooms (03:24)
Great. And so, and what markets are you operat— operating in now?

Jeremy Perez (03:28)
Right now in Pennsylvania, and right now branching out to Florida.

Joseph Crooms (03:33)
Great. Let me talk about that. So, you’re an investor. How long were you moving properties in Pennsylvania?

Jeremy Perez (03:43)
Pennsylvania started in twenty-twenty.

Joseph Crooms (03:45)
Right. What is your volume, and what is that— what has that equivalated to an income for you?

Jeremy Perez (03:50)
Man, so twenty-twenty, I was finding properties roughly for about 60K, 70K. So, you know, from— from a New York standpoint, that was a big jump. New York properties is anywhere from like 600K and higher. So, you know, especially as an investor, you have to put 20% down, so that was just an absolute no. But in PA, you know, 60K, 70K… it’s peanuts. You’re putting like ten thousand dollars down, twelve thousand dollars down.

Joseph Crooms (04:19)
And what is your volume level at now?

Jeremy Perez (04:21)
Now the volume is basically… I have twenty-one investment properties. Grinded it out, and we didn’t really speak on it, but I— I was an ironworker in the union in New York City. Okay. So I was dealing with both, to where I was— I had a— a nine-to-five job, well, we— we call it a seven-to-three. I had a seven-to-three job, and then on top of that, I was grinding and searching for deals in Pennsylvania.

Joseph Crooms (04:47)
And what is your— what is your monthly like now?

Jeremy Perez (04:51)
Right now, well, I first I started as an investor. As getting into an investor, I realized there was just so many ways to make money, so I kind of dunked my hands into becoming a broker where I provide loans for investors as well. So I do loans for investors. And then on top of that, you know, just general contracting. People may need, you know, a painter, electrician, a roofer, you know. So I have my contractors as well to where if one of my clients need their property rehabbed or a repair done, they— you know, they’re not gonna get taken advantage of because, obviously, they— they’re going through me.

Joseph Crooms (06:21)
You talked about passive income. Where is your passive income monthly at now?

Jeremy Perez (06:26)
Right now I generate roughly about anywhere from $25k to $30k a month.

Joseph Crooms (06:32)
Okay. Okay. So also, do you own some of the contracting businesses or strong partnerships?

Jeremy Perez (06:39)
It’s just strong partnerships. I feel building a relationship with individuals that have a good skill builds a lot because, you know, build— dealing with a, how you say, like a company, it will— will be kind of hard because like if I do deal with a company, then I don’t really have a relationship with those technicians that go out to a property. But if I build a relationship with just an individual contractor as a roofer, then I know, hey, I can vouch for the work that he can do on his roof.

Joseph Crooms (07:12)
So now that you’re in Florida— and congratulations to sunny Florida getting a guy like you, Jeremy— are you going to continue flipping and owning and investing, or are you going to pursue your real estate broker’s license in— in Florida?

Jeremy Perez (07:32)
Yeah, so I’m still gonna do loans in Florida as well. So I’m gonna basically branch out… everything that I want— that I have done in PA, I want to do in Florida. So I want to diversify, I want to branch out, I want to build relationships with contractors out here. It is a different ballgame out here in Florida as far as building relationship with contractors, but I don’t see it’s impossible. So, you know, I’m gonna dig into that and then also dig into building relationship with realtors. So I only have a good relationship with one realtor, which is the one that obviously got me my primary residence in Florida, but they are not really considered an investor realtor. So there’s a difference between literally having a relationship with an investor realtor and having a relationship with just a regular realtor that probably just finds primary residence for people.

Joseph Crooms (08:24)
How— how would you explain the difference?

Jeremy Perez (08:25)
So investor realtor is going to find you a property that the numbers make sense, meaning that they’re gonna find a property that, “Hey, this is how much you could potentially rent the property for. This is how much, you know, we can kind of get the property,” and know their interest rates. A lot of these realtors do not know their interest rates, so they’ll speak on, “Hey, yes, this is a good investment property,” right? But then you’re like, “Okay, what makes it such a good investment property?” And they will stay stuck, not knowing, “Well, what is the interest rate that I’m potentially getting?” How can you say it’s a good investment property if you don’t know my interest rate? What is the potential rent for this property? Because if my mortgage is two thousand dollars and I’m only renting it out for two thousand dollars, what am I walking away with? I’m walking away with nothing. So, you know, there’s a big difference between finding yourself an investor realtor that does know their numbers, that does do a little bit deeper homework, than as far as a realtor that’s for primary, because primary, you don’t gotta worry about those things. Primary is you’re looking at a home and you’re going off of emotions— “Hey, I like this house. Hey, I see myself in this house for the next twenty to thirty years.” So both of them is a two different ballgame in a point of view.

Joseph Crooms (09:42)
And which one would you be exactly?

Jeremy Perez (09:44)
Well, I’m not— I’m not a realtor, but I basically… yes, I have those eyes, too, for my clients. So when I do work with realtors that’s finding investment properties, they have two sets of eyes. So I would tell them all the time, “Ask all the questions to the realtor, but then when you’re done asking those questions, come to me so that way I can give you my point of view on is it a worthy property.” And I do the numbers as well, so that way the client can feel comfortable in seeing both numbers aligned. If both numbers don’t align, then obviously there’s an issue.

Joseph Crooms (10:54)
And how do you get paid in— in— in this?

Jeremy Perez (10:56)
So I basically broker the loan. So I’m considered a loan officer. So whenever they get approved for the loan, that’s how I get paid. I also have a program where it’s a mentorship program, so I get paid monthly from that client. But I am not— and I— I would say this, I repeat: I am not a wholesaler. So, you know, I’m just a middle person that puts people on with investing realtors, but also have the contractors also help provide, you know, the tenants, basically do the work for you. But I don’t— I don’t like to be in the middle of, hey, being a wholesaler to where I see a property for like 160 and I’m telling you, “Hey, you can get this property for 200K.” You know, I— I just don’t— I— I don’t… I personally don’t like that.

Joseph Crooms (11:46)
Did you come to this conclusion that you don’t like that, or did you learn this from your Philadelphia engage?

Jeremy Perez (11:51)
Yes. So I learned it basically the hard way, right? So my errors is a benefit to all my clients, the do’s and don’ts. So I’ve learned to where, okay, you can work with a wholesaler— and don’t get me wrong, not all of them are— are greedy like that— but you— you just gotta pay attention to the numbers and the numbers have to make sense. So if someone’s trying to, you know, sell a property that’s originally probably worth 160K and trying to get, let’s say, 20K profit from it, and next thing you know, it— it doesn’t appraise at 180K, now you put yourself in a situation because you’re gonna be responsible to pay, you know, the outcome. Because the lender is not gonna say, “Hey, it came in at 165, so yeah, we’re still gonna— we’re still gonna offer you the 180.” They won’t do that. They’ll say, “Hey, look, it came in at 165, so now you’re responsible for the remainder.” And a lot of, you know, people don’t take that into play to say, “Well, that’s an extra fifteen thousand dollars that I gotta cough up.”

Joseph Crooms (12:52)
So now that you’re in Florida, how soon— how soon do you feel you’ll ramp— you need to ramp up?

Jeremy Perez (13:00)
Well, us speaking right now, I literally just locked in another property, but not in Florida— I locked it up in— in PA. So I’m always looking for properties. I don’t stop. I’m a type of person that, basically, I don’t like my money sitting long times in the bank— I like it making me money. So I’m a type where I see it in the bank, I’m like… I’m itching, like, “Hey, I gotta find a deal.” So I was out here, I have been out here looking at properties, but just the numbers wasn’t making as much sense as they make in Pennsylvania.

Joseph Crooms (13:35)
And what is your volume now? What— from when you started in twenty-twenty-five?

Jeremy Perez (13:40)
What is your value? So my value, basically, it of course it has increased, but it fluctuates. So, to be honest with you, me focusing on the primary residence, my biggest clientele is TikTok. So I go on live on TikTok, I speak about real estate, I speak about, you know, how to build credit, how to be creative, use creative financing to your advantage to get investment properties. So I kind of took a step back off of that and was just focused on getting the primary. Luckily I’ve been blessed to where I still have my clientele that’s still continuously buying properties. But so lately it has declined from, let’s say, February to now. And now it’s basically picking back up because now I’m back on TikTok, now I’m back on the grind. But before that, I was closing like 10 deals a month.

Joseph Crooms (14:36)
Mm.

Jeremy Perez (14:36)
Ten deal, and I’m just by myself— I don’t have, you know, a team. You know, whenever a client wants to speak to me, they speak personally to me.

Joseph Crooms (15:27)
Thanks for sharing that. So now, every operator I know has a moment when things just got real, maybe a deal that went sideways or the time that they had to pivot fast. Do you mind sharing one of those moments with us, Jeremy?

Jeremy Perez (15:40)
Yes, absolutely. So my biggest moment was I basically closed out on three deals— this was back in twenty-twenty-three, should I say. I closed out on three deals at the same time, and they were all rehabs. So I needed to deal with contractors, right? ‘Cause sometimes you have to babysit these contractors as well. So I’m dealing with contractors, I’m dealing with, you know, still clients. My business was growing. I’m dealing with, you know, being in the house as well as— as a husband, as a father, and then on top of that, dealing with finances.

And the finances was just slowly getting eaten to where, you know, literally you have that moment where you’re overwhelmed and you break down. You know, so I literally had that moment where I broke down, but then, you know, like I said in the beginning, you have to believe in yourself, right? So I got into three deals seeing the bigger picture in three deals. Now it was just like, “Hey, I gotta snap out of being overwhelmed and I have to just figure out how to come up with more finances so that way I could get the— the ball rolling with these three deals and do the cash-out refi so that way I could be in a good place again.”

Joseph Crooms (16:56)
That’s the kind of stuff people don’t talk about enough, Jeremy. Thank you for sharing it. And honestly, it separates the folks who just dabble from the ones who stay in the long term. Still in this long term. Why?

Jeremy Perez (17:07)
Passion. I feel anybody that does stay in it in the long term, one, you gotta have thick skin in this game. I ain’t even gonna hold you— you gotta have thick skin to be in real estate, but you just gotta have passion for it. I have passion for it. I see like me being a prime example of quitting a, you know, a career job. I was literally making a hundred and twenty dollars an hour as an ironworker— benefits, annuity, pension, all that stuff that you— that everybody speaks about. But the— but the more bigger picture was is your time. So I was like, “Hey, yeah, you could give me a hundred and twenty dollars an hour, but I’m giving you eight to ten hours a day of my life.”

And so I took the— the— the pay cut into going full-throttle with real estate to where I’m more happy, my mental state is way more better, I’m more positive, I have more energy. So all those things are just perks of when you become a— a self-entrepreneur, self-paid person doing your own thing. What a lot of people don’t speak about, though, is— is that it’s not going to come to you. It’s never gonna come to you. You have to go out there and you have to believe in yourself and you have to grab it and you got to really want it. If you really want it, then you know the puzzle— the piece of the puzzle will come in place.

Joseph Crooms (18:33)
So, Jeremy, what do you focus on solving or scaling next?

Jeremy Perez (18:38)
So what I wanna do out here in Florida is basically try to build relationships as far as, not just for myself, for a big group of like-minded individuals that come together— whether it’s realtors, investors, hard money lender, private money lender— all come together so that way everybody can make money together and everybody could be wealthy. So that’s a big— that’s a big thing, but that’s one of my things on my bucket list.

Joseph Crooms (19:10)
The next move can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. Now I know a lot of my people’s listening are— are either early in their journey or looking to level up. I think they’ll benefit from hearing this. When it comes to building these relationships and growing your network, I’m not gonna ask you what’s the biggest difference. How do you— what do you— what have you found to work?

Jeremy Perez (19:32)
What I found to work is as a per— as an individual, have a good credit score and always educate yourself. There’s never too… there’s never… there’s not— not one person out there in real estate that knows everything. There’s every day there’s something new to learn about, so just keep flooding your mind with education. But the biggest thing is what I see a lot of people downfall is— is not being educated in the financial state. Meaning, like, just because you don’t have the funds doesn’t mean that it’s an automatic no. It’s things that’s called creative financing, where if you have a good credit score, you could use credit, you could use zero percent interest credit cards to get your feet in the door. But number one is you gotta have a good credit score and you have to be disciplined.

Joseph Crooms (20:20)
And— and how do you apply that to— to building those relationships?

Jeremy Perez (20:24)
So building a relationship as far as a client?

Joseph Crooms (20:26)
So you say you’re in Florida and you want to build a relationship. What is the biggest difference that you know that— that you know about building relationships?

Jeremy Perez (20:35)
Well, one, you just gotta be yourself, like— like, you know, like you— you said. Be yourself, be authentic, and people, you know, your… I feel your vibrations will grab on to those that you kind of want in your circle. You know, so for me is I’m so passionate with real estate. Like I said, I have clientele, I’m very educated in it. I— I know hard money lender, private money lending, using, you know, credit to get started, using your own funds to get started, the do’s and don’ts, so I’m pretty much advanced. But so it’s like when you speak to someone, you’re gonna know either they’re the same as you or they’re above you. So for me personally, I always like being in a room of people that’s above you. I never want to be the spotlight, because I want to pick your brain. I want to know, “Hey, what do you know about real estate that probably I don’t know?” So I feel that’s a big perk as far as for me with building relationships and growing.

Joseph Crooms (21:34)
Thanks for sharing that, Jeremy. So you can’t fake that. Relationships are everything in this space. All right, before we wrap up, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way to reach out to you? And you can repeat it two times.

Jeremy Perez (21:50)
The best way to get in contact with me… yes, I do have Instagram, I have Facebook, but the best way to get into contact with me is TikTok, under Famous Achiever.

Joseph Crooms (22:01)
Okay, say it again, Jeremy.

Jeremy Perez (22:02)
So the best— the best way to get in contact with me is through TikTok, which is Famous Achiever.

Joseph Crooms (22:10)
Very good. Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, your story, your perspective, Jeremy. I— I know you’re gonna kill it in Florida. Really, I feel the— the passion. We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way, and thanks again for being here, honestly. And as for you tuning in, I know you got some value from this, some very key real experience teaching from someone who’s been doing it from the ground up. And so make sure you subscribe to us, and we got more conversations coming with operators, just like Jeremy, who are doing— who’s out there doing building real businesses for real people and helping real peop— people develop their own business. See you in the next episode of Investor Fuel Real Estate Pros Podcast. And also, hey Jeremy, tell them you’ll see them later.

Jeremy Perez (22:59)
I’ll see ya later.