Skip to main content

You Don’t Need Money to Invest in Real Estate (How Smart Investors Actually Get Funded)

By February 5, 2026Real Estate Pros Show

Subscribe via:

Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews Jeffrey Winick, a seasoned real estate financier with 25 years of experience. They discuss the intricacies of financing for real estate investors, including the importance of understanding both debt and equity, the value of persistence in securing loans, and the common misconceptions that keep potential investors on the sidelines. Jeffrey shares insights on how to navigate the financing landscape, the significance of building relationships, and the necessity of having a solid plan when approaching real estate investments.

Resources and Links from this show:

  • Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Jeffrey Winick (00:00)
    Yeah, I mean, people think you need good credit to be an investor. ⁓ You don’t. You don’t need good credit. People think, you know, you need to have a lot of money to be an investor. And that’s not true either. ⁓ And then people think you need experience to be an investor. That’s also not true. Now, you do you do need one of those three, right? You do need either money or experience, meaning somebody on your

    on your team, on your operating agreement with experience, you know, or credit, like you would need one of those three, but you definitely don’t need all three.

    Micah Johnson (02:10)
    Hello everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Jeffrey, who’s been making some serious moves in the financing part of the real estate investing for quite some time now. Jeffrey, welcome in, man, glad to have you. I’m excited for you to be here today. I think, man, with your vast experience that you’ve had 25 years doing what you do, I’m excited for folks to either learn about something they haven’t before or some tricks to help them make sure they get qualified.

    Jeffrey Winick (02:24)
    Thanks, thanks for having me.

    Micah Johnson (02:40)
    digging in on your experience, man. So let’s dive in. For folks who may not know you yet, what is your main focus right now and what markets are you operating in?

    Jeffrey Winick (02:49)
    Well, my main focus is investors. ⁓ I’m nationwide so I can help anywhere in the country. I’m also doing stuff overseas. ⁓ But definitely investors are my main focus. A lot of stuff from hard money, buy and renovate, Burr method and ⁓ ground up construction are some of the main focuses I would say.

    Micah Johnson (03:15)
    And you’re an investor too yourself, right?

    Jeffrey Winick (03:17)
    Yeah, I’ve rental properties. I’ve done fix and flips. ⁓ time is always a challenge for me, but I am also a real estate investor.

    Micah Johnson (03:26)
    Right. Well, I think that’s valuable, especially in the industry, because you know both sides. You know what someone you’re lending money to is fixing to go through. You understand the steps and it gives you, I mean, it makes your expertise that more dynamic because it has a functional knowledge of what’s happening after that money hits the account.

    Jeffrey Winick (03:45)
    Absolutely. the mistakes that I made as an investor were invaluable because now I could share those with my clients and say, okay, this is what you want to watch out for because these are the mistakes I made early on.

    Micah Johnson (03:58)
    Right, right, man. Passing that knowledge on helping folks not make mistakes is one of my favorite things to do. If I can be the only one that went through it and I can help you not do it, here you go. I’ll tell you how. So you said your main focus now is working with investors. Take us through that. What products are you seeing that are super valuable right now? What are you able to help with? And again, for folks that are listening in that may not understand it all, help them dive deeper on the subject.

    Jeffrey Winick (04:02)
    Yeah.

    Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

    Well, I have so many products. really kind of pride myself on having access to everything in the marketplace. One of the big challenges for investors is the down payment, is the money out of pocket, right? So I guess I would start there. So I have programs where you could pick up a property and renovate it with no money down, which is very unique, where you could buy it 100 % of the purchase, 100 % of the renovations.

    And that’s without paying like a 20 % crazy interest rate also. So it’s a normal hard money lender where they don’t have to necessarily put so much money into the deal. Same thing with properties, commercial properties where you don’t need renovations. A lot of people say, well, you need 20, 25 % down. I have programs with 10 % down. that, lowering that out of pocket for the investor, I would say was one of the biggest,

    Micah Johnson (04:57)
    Right.

    Wow.

    Jeffrey Winick (05:24)
    focus points, I would say, as far as different products. But I mean, I have so many, kind of joke around and say like, I’m like the Amazon of lending because I have so many different products. mean, I have a good database of probably 4,000 different lending sources, funding sources.

    Micah Johnson (05:32)
    Thank

    And so what allows you to get access to those? What sets you apart to be able to do that versus others that you hear so often, I can’t help you.

    Jeffrey Winick (06:39)
    Well, I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I’m a little bit, you know, my personality, a little bit OCD. like if someone says, Hey, here’s a, here’s a weird loan. need to build a, I don’t know, a hotel in, you know, Morocco or something. Unlike other guys will try a few places and say, can’t help you. I’ll make calls for like a week straight, you know, and then I’ll find someone that can do it. And then that goes in the

    the database of like, okay, next time somebody needs to build a hotel in this continent, I have the lender for it. So I just make like 200 to 300 calls sometimes if I don’t have a source and that’s how I find them. So I just have my own database that I set up, sort of my own, you know, like CRM basically, that’s, know, that’s proprietary. And I have just built up a network of people of

    private people, private lenders, family offices, life insurance companies, banks, credit unions, debt funds, hedge funds, all kinds of stuff. So I’m a lot more, you know, I have a lot more options than the average broker, that’s for sure.

    Micah Johnson (07:51)
    That’s fascinating because really the difference it sounds like is you’re willing to work, right? Someone else telling you, no, like I was thinking like, did you have to qualify for stuff, know, that like programs and find or products and those things, was there something that was keeping you out that you had to do? But if it’s literally just phone calls, man, then you’re killing it. You’re, you’re doing that extra leg that it seems like other folks can’t really pull off.

    Jeffrey Winick (08:14)
    Well, also, my personality, I don’t take no for an answer. it’s like, you know, I meet a guy that’s going to do ground up construction for an apartment building. And he said, no one’s going to get me alone. I’ve never done this before. And I said, I’ll find it for you. And I call so many places and, I get them on the phone. I pushed the underwriters, I pushed the lender and I get it done, you know, so just, you know, just crazy persistence and, and, you know, not taking no for an answer. It helps me build up a network.

    And that network is super vast. it’s like, try to always be creative and solve the problems. One of my other jokes is I call myself the lender’s lender, because I have so many people who do what I do who call me when they can’t find a solution.

    Micah Johnson (08:43)
    Right.

    Right?

    And being known as the guy who can get it done the earlier my career, one of the lenders I use, he had that same reputation and there’s nothing like it. When you have somebody that’s willing, they can, I remember we got a VA loan done on a 1980 mobile home. I was blown away. was like, I don’t know how you did that, man. It was amazing. And it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s awesome. And like, it really sets your business up. So that’s where you were talking about network and, and, and the relationships that you have, relationships in general, even with someone

    Jeffrey Winick (09:18)
    Yeah.

    Micah Johnson (09:30)
    like yourself when it comes as investors, the ones we need, finding folks like you can be the difference between success and failure.

    Jeffrey Winick (09:39)
    Yeah, I mean, I don’t just provide debt. I provide equity too. I have relations with equity firms that they JV on multifamily. So like you might come in and say, I want to really buy this 20, 30 unit property, but I only have 10 % down. Well, guess what? I’ll introduce you to an equity firm and they’ll come up with the other 15%, plus closing costs. And now you’re getting 50 % of the cash flow of a building you would have got 0 % of.

    Micah Johnson (10:07)
    Right.

    Jeffrey Winick (10:07)
    So

    I have all kinds of those types of relationships.

    Micah Johnson (10:46)
    For those that are listening out there that may not understand that difference of the debt and the equity and going to get money break that down for them a little bit

    Jeffrey Winick (10:54)
    So most people say, hey, I wanna go to a hard money lender or a bank and get a loan to buy this property. But as you get bigger and get more creative, you can also get equity, which means that instead of getting a loan for 80 % of what the property’s worth, you can come in with a partner and that partner will provide the money to buy the property, whatever the splits happen to be.

    The partner could come in and take 100 % of the money to buy the property, and you handle all of the construction, and you handle the property management, and you handle finding the deal, and you work out your splits. But there’s ways to pick up property without any money out of pocket with the right partners. So equity is a big deal, especially when you get to the bigger projects and it’s off-market stuff.

    Micah Johnson (11:24)
    Gotcha.

    Right.

    Jeffrey Winick (11:53)
    So that’s the value of equity.

    Micah Johnson (11:58)
    You sound like you’re one of the guys that actually bring reality to the quote you hear in real estate a lot, which is using other people’s money, right? Which is that you always hear that, you know, learn how to invest with using other people’s money. You seem like the guy to know that that could help with that. Cause that can, that messes with people. They’re not sure how to do that. A lot of them think I need to go raise all the money myself or do things that you can find a specialist like yourself that’s already done this that has the network.

    Jeffrey Winick (12:07)
    I’m

    Micah Johnson (12:26)
    Again, it all comes down to your team. Who’s on your team? It’s helping you be successful.

    Jeffrey Winick (12:31)
    Yeah, it’s all about people. That’s really, I you have an off-market deal and you’re exclusive to that deal. You have a couple options. You can make a little money wholesaling the deal, or you could try to think bigger and get a piece of the deal without any money out of pocket. But because you found it, that equity group will give you a piece of it. most of the people that I connected with, I did a loan for it. I didn’t just go out and search for equity groups.

    Micah Johnson (12:52)
    All right.

    Jeffrey Winick (12:59)
    equity groups came to me through other brokers that couldn’t get the job done, by the way. I did a loan for them and I said, oh, by the way, you’re an equity group? Okay, let me keep your, save your number because I’m definitely going to need you. So most people that I met during my course of business, I met them by doing a loan for

    Micah Johnson (13:18)
    And finding a way to keep them coming back, because that’s how you get the most out of a relationship. One time business, that’s the most expensive. You don’t want that. Like repeat business, folks coming back again and again and again is really where you get that success. And one of the things that you’re even struggling with right now is how busy you are. One of the better problems to have is a little too much work.

    Jeffrey Winick (13:36)
    Yeah.

    Yeah. Yeah. I can’t complain.

    Micah Johnson (13:41)
    I

    heard that. What kind of loans are occupying most of your time right now?

    Jeffrey Winick (13:47)
    Bridge loans and construction. have this hotel construction and some bridge loans, concrete manufacturing in Africa. Just some more challenging stuff that I don’t do every day. And my personality is I’m anal. I like to get everything done. I have some of these.

    more unique requests, I would say. But I have a team, I have processors, I have loan partners, so of course I have a team to help me with all my, because I do all kinds of stuff. I can help someone buy a primary home in Texas. I can help, I can do all kinds of loans, which I do, ⁓ in addition to these more off-the-beaten path loans.

    Micah Johnson (14:18)
    Right on.

    Right on, right on. Again, man, that’s the benefit of being in for 25 years. You’ve just kept sharpening your skills and keeping what you’ve built. Like so often people just stop doing one to do another and you’ve just been putting cards in your deck. No problem, no problem, no problem, no problem.

    Jeffrey Winick (14:51)
    Yeah, yeah,

    I never got out. When 2008 came, I stayed with it.

    Micah Johnson (14:57)
    And you’re reaping the benefits of that. Like that’s what I try to encourage most people. If you can stay in when it’s hard, one, only makes you better. It gets the riff-raff out and the kind of momentum you can get after. It’s unstoppable. You grow quick if you can build your name inside one of those markets.

    Jeffrey Winick (15:14)
    Yeah.

    Micah Johnson (15:58)
    Tell me a little bit about 2026. What are you excited for this year?

    Jeffrey Winick (16:00)
    Well, I’ve been, I’ve gotten a lot of recent requests for these, these bigger projects. So I’m excited for the relationships I’m going to make. I’m like that, like some of, I’m trying to think like, like the equity partners I mentioned and some of the other investment bankers that I’ve met recently. ⁓ I’m excited to get into a lot more into that space. And yeah, just, you know, helping my clients and trying to hit.

    trying to hit big goals.

    Micah Johnson (16:32)
    heard that man 25 years in and still grow and still looking for those projects and that’s I was talking with the gentleman the other day

    And that’s the fun part about real estate is the longer you stay in the game, you start getting opportunities at things you never saw coming, just different chances. And the older you get and longer you do it, they seem to be more and more lucrative. There are deals like no one else can really do them. They don’t have the experience to do it. So you start becoming the guy that can do it. And man, that’s where it becomes a playground. One of the reasons I love real estate is there’s just so many different ways to do it.

    Jeffrey Winick (16:48)
    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah, it’s so much fun.

    So much fun and throws so many different challenges, which are to me fun challenges, know, it’s like, you know, and opportunities. So it’s nothing else like it.

    Micah Johnson (17:13)
    Right.

    That’s it, man. Folks think opportunities come wrapped as something easy, but they’re not. An opportunity has its challenges and typically they’re front-loaded. Like you gotta go through them enough. Life says, prove you want this. And you do it and then you get it on the back end.

    Jeffrey Winick (17:28)
    yeah.

    ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah.

    Micah Johnson (17:38)
    So for our listeners out there, again, we’re predominantly a bunch of real estate investors across the spectrum. What are some things that you’ve helped investors with in terms of just stories that weren’t true, right? You know, if that makes sense, like the things we tell ourselves on why we can’t go borrow money, whether that’s our credit, our, you know, all the things. What are some out there that are ⁓ often said, but really not true that you could shine some light on? Does that make sense?

    Jeffrey Winick (18:07)
    Yeah, I mean, people think you need good credit to be an investor. ⁓ You don’t. You don’t need good credit. People think, you know, you need to have a lot of money to be an investor. And that’s not true either. ⁓ And then people think you need experience to be an investor. That’s also not true. Now, you do you do need one of those three, right? You do need either money or experience, meaning somebody on your

    on your team, on your operating agreement with experience, you know, or credit, like you would need one of those three, but you definitely don’t need all three.

    And there’s always solutions to problems like, ⁓ I don’t have any experience. I want to renovate a five unit property. I don’t have the experience. Well, maybe I can help you with getting that experience on paper so that the lender gives you the money, you know, or I don’t have a good enough credit.

    Micah Johnson (18:45)
    Gotcha.

    Gotcha.

    Jeffrey Winick (19:06)
    And it’s like, hey, I need to fix my credit. But some people don’t realize their credit could be fixed in a week versus six months. I have tools for that. Credit tools, credit plans, we call it. And then the money part is often introducing to them for a JV partner or a loan with no money down.

    Micah Johnson (19:12)
    Mm.

    Interesting.

    Jeffrey Winick (19:30)
    or a big commercial property and warehouse or something where you only need 10 % down versus what they would think would be 25. So these are the biggest, I would say, obstacles for investors is the money, the credit or the experience. And there are solutions to those.

    Micah Johnson (19:38)
    Right.

    Man, I love that. So if you’re listening in and you thought you needed all three, because I feel like that’s so often what keeps people on the sidelines is they’re waiting for perfection. They’re waiting for all the stars to line up and then to jump in. And it’s like, you’re clearly saying you don’t have to do that. What are your actual issues? One, if you’re listening, talk to somebody like Jeffrey who can help build the path for you. If your credit’s bad, OK, figure out how to make it good. Each little thing, like you said earlier,

    It’s opportunity. Your opportunity is to fix it, right? Like identifying the problem is the opportunity when you start to look at it. And that’s what I see makes the best, most successful investors is when the problem shows up, it’s pretty much, okay, so what now? What do I do next? It’s okay. It showed up. I’m not bothered by the problem. I want to figure out how to solve it. And they just keep solving it and they don’t stop solving problems. Like it’s an endless thing that you go on and

    Realizing that there are solutions up front that can help you with that process. So if you’re listening thinking I’m on the sidelines, can’t get in, whatever it is, there is a solution for it. It doesn’t have to keep you on the sidelines. Even if you gotta wait a little bit, at least you’re waiting on purpose. You’re doing something along the way to get yourself ready. Whatever it is, like that’s where folks think making the offers the first step. No, educating yourself is the first step. That counts and you gotta educate yourself.

    Take the time to learn whether that’s having calls with someone like yourself, meeting with someone local to you. Go find people doing this. It’s not a mystery.

    Jeffrey Winick (21:20)
    Yeah, yeah, that’s so well said. Education and having a plan, you know? It’s like if you want to make an offer on a property and you’re not sure if you’re going to sell it or keep it, you’re not ready to make the offer yet, right? You need to have a plan of exactly what you’re going to do and exactly what your exit strategy is. And then also a plan if things go wrong, too. A contingency plan. What if you don’t sell it right away? Do you have a plan B? know, like so you need to kind of have that set up with

    Micah Johnson (21:33)
    Right.

    Right.

    Jeffrey Winick (21:50)
    the education and the network, like podcasts like this, real estate networking groups, meetup groups, those are so important because you just get flooded with good ideas and good connections.

    Micah Johnson (22:04)
    That’s it, man. Relationship is a real estate business. This thing is a team. mean, real estate is a relationship business. Excuse me. This is a team sport. And getting out there and working with folks. And one thing I love, and you were saying in the pre-recording, you just like to talk to people. Call me, talk to me. I find that so common in the best professionals in this industry that if you’re willing to talk to them, they’re willing to talk to you.

    Jeffrey Winick (22:20)
    Mm-hmm.

    Micah Johnson (22:27)
    If you’re willing to be serious and have a real conversation, so are they. They’re glad to share what’s going on. Cause again, it’s not a mystery. No one has any secret sauce in real estate. There’s hard work and knowledge. That’s what you got. And the longer you do it, the more you realize, okay, if I just do this, this and this, and everybody looks like, man, what secret do you know? A lot of pain, loss of money here and there, right? Like that’s the secret. The process is the shortcut. You build the machine that trades in real estate. It’s not random.

    Jeffrey Winick (22:28)
    ⁓ yeah.

    Okay.

    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I love helping people. I don’t mind. I’m not I’m a little old fashioned. I’m like, just give me a call. And, you know, when I’m on the phone, I’ll text you. Hey, I’m on a call. Call you right back. Because I’d rather connect with someone than just people, you know, send people to a website and, know, you know, a lot of lenders say, oh, just go to this website. And if they don’t have good credit, they it’s one less person they have to talk to. Well, I don’t look at it like I look at every person is like I could possibly help them and they could possibly help me.

    Even if they’re not ready, they might know someone who’s ready. So for me, it’s just, you know, I prefer having that call, at least initially.

    Micah Johnson (23:31)
    Right.

    I love that heart man, because it is. If they’re not ready, you can tell them what to do. And like you said, when you take the time to build a relationship, that’s where you get access to their network. Right. It’s when you show up wanting to give something first, it unlocks the door. It’s how we do it. When we think about that, it’s what’s the golden rule. Do unto others, you would have them do unto you. Right. Like whatever you want, give that away first and then you’ll get it back. That’s the secret. You want a good relationship? Be good at the relationship and you’ll have a good one back.

    Jeffrey Winick (24:06)
    Yeah, it works. It’s so true.

    Micah Johnson (24:10)
    It does, man. That’s again, one thing I love about real estate. It’s a human industry. There’s people involved. If you like people, this is a great place to be because they’re everywhere. It’s fully connected throughout the experience. And the better you’re at dealing with people, the better you’re at dealing with this whole thing. Everything rises from there. So, man, I could go off on that forever. Jeffrey, man, I appreciate your time and your story perspective today. For those that are listening that…

    Jeffrey Winick (24:28)
    Yep.

    Micah Johnson (24:36)
    do want to get ahold of you, what’s that best way for them to reach out to you? What’s that number you have?

    Jeffrey Winick (24:41)
    My cell I only use one number to make it easy. So it’s 267 9690520 267 9690520 Text or call and like I said, if I’m on the other line, I will just text you Hey, I’ll call you back in so and so minutes or if I’m on a podcast or something

    Micah Johnson (25:01)
    Excellent, excellent. If you’re listening or watching it out there, we’ll make sure that Jeffrey’s phone number is in the show notes. If you’re looking for somebody that’s doing a great job in the business, has a lot of experience and actually cares, reach out. I’m telling you, that’s the secret sauce in real estate. Someone actually caring. If there is a secret sauce, there it is right there. Someone who actually cares about you, what you’re going through and how to help you pull it off. So don’t, don’t stay on the sidelines anymore if you don’t have to make that call.

    Again, Jeffrey, thanks for joining us today, man. Appreciate you being here. Everybody listening, if you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode, share it with someone else you think you get value out of it. Help them get off the bench too. And as always, please don’t forget to subscribe. We appreciate every single one of you out there that follows along. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators just like Jeffrey out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks for being with us. We’ll see you on the next episode.

    Jeffrey Winick (25:32)
    Thanks so much.

Tags:

Share via
Facebook
X (Twitter)
LinkedIn
Mix
Pinterest
Tumblr
Skype
Buffer
Pocket
VKontakte
Parler
Xing
Reddit
Line
Flipboard
MySpace
Delicious
Amazon
Digg
Evernote
Blogger
LiveJournal
Baidu
MeWe
NewsVine
Yummly
Yahoo
WhatsApp
Viber
SMS
Telegram
Facebook Messenger
Like
Email
Print
Copy Link
Copy link
CopyCopied