Zero Money Down Deals: The Real Estate Strategy You Need | Landon Moore

Landon Moore (00:00)
Three days before close, there was a massive cold spell that flew through Tacoma, Washington. And unfortunately, the seller moved,

over that time, the heater broke in their house.

the entire house froze. I’m talking toilet water was frozen in the toilets.

have to repipe the entire house. And it’s a $13,000, $14,000 rebuild of that. And for a seller who has no equity,

She’s not in a position financially,

And so the only solution to this was through creative finance and the way that we purchased this. And so we were able to ⁓ pivot this

And so staying level-headed and figuring it out, we ended up getting it done,

Michelle Kesil (02:17)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Landon Moore, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate space. Landon, so glad to have you here with us today. I think that our listeners are really going to

take something away from how you’re approaching the real estate acquisition business. So yeah, let’s dive in.

Landon Moore (02:51)
Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I’m genuinely honored to be here and to chat with you.

Michelle Kesil (02:57)
Yeah,

absolutely. Thank you. So first off, for people who may not be familiar with you and your world, give us the short version. What is your main focus these days?

Landon Moore (03:11)
Yeah, my main focus these days is really acquiring real estate. mean, we’re still in a market where…

Interest rates, the way I purchase real estate, which is leveraging to sometimes even one, one, two, three and four percent interest rates still here in 2025, where we’re closing between six to 10 deals a month right now, whether we’re keeping them in our portfolio for ourselves as rental properties or wholesaling them for other buyers to purchase those properties is that we’re leveraging interest rates that are in the ones, twos, threes and fours and creating those off of debt that’s already existing out there or

using seller finance to acquire our deals. And so right now our main focus is really in that space. We do cash, primarily right now is that there’s a lot of home runs out there that live in those 2 and 3 % interest rates.

Michelle Kesil (04:01)
Yeah, that’s really important. That may be something that people aren’t aware of. yeah, what are some of those maybe misconceptions that people feel about interest rates?

Landon Moore (04:15)
Yeah, I mean the biggest misconception is that they think…

The mortgage and the deed of the property are tied together. Is that when you purchase a property, you’re also purchasing a debt. And that’s, that’s, couldn’t be further from the truth. The debt vehicle and the deed of the property are two completely separate things. And so, you know, an example, I just closed a duplex here. I’m in, I’m in Bend, Oregon right now. We spend our summers up here. We live in Phoenix, Arizona, primarily. And I just closed a duplex last Monday that I’m currently converting into an all women’s sober living house right now. That’ll be, we’ll have nine.

women living in the house. And with that, I purchased it for $685,000. That property was sitting on the market for 120 days, 130 days and just sat there.

Why did it sit there? It’s because every investor is a one trick pony and only has one option. It’s to go out and get a 20, 25 % down payment, a new mortgage at a seven and a half, 8 % interest rate. So when you start running those numbers, there is no investor that can make that deal work. Rental rates do not allow for

that level of increase.

So that’s where you have to put your creative brain on and realize like, wow, he purchased that property back in 2021. He has a 3.25 % interest rate on that property. And so if we can figure out a way to leverage the payment that’s already existing on there, there’s a deal to be had. And that’s exactly what it was. And so, you know, all said and done, you know, my mortgage payment will be just under, it’ll be 2942 after all said and done at a 3.25 % interest rate.

rent the property out for $4,400 a month every single month starting here in Mid-Aug here in two weeks my lease starts for them and so from the standpoint is we are literally taking over the payments of the mortgage the debt stays in the seller’s name and we just take over the payments we’re responsible for those payments we’re responsible for that debt and everything but the deed comes into our name so the deed is in my LLC for that property I get I’m all responsible for the tenants the toilets the termites the taxes every aspect depreciation

you name it. And so the deed and the debt are two completely separate things.

Michelle Kesil (07:15)
Yeah, that’s super important. I’m sure that most people don’t realize that. So thanks for sharing that. And what markets are you operating in?

Landon Moore (07:26)
Yeah, mostly my, we are nationwide. We do deals everywhere. I think we’re an escrow for seven properties right now, ranging from Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Montana, Washington. And yeah, we’re all over. And California, we just completed a deal in Big Bear, California. And so we’re all over the country. A lot of those are.

know markets that maybe we personally don’t invest in and keep into our portfolio or my personal portfolio. My portfolio primarily is ⁓ Arizona, Montana, Washington, and Oregon is where I keep properties right now currently. But we do deals nationwide.

Michelle Kesil (08:08)
Amazing and what has been the key to keeping that running smoothly like this nationwide business?

Landon Moore (08:16)
Yeah, you know with anything, stagnancy in a business is falling behind. And so for us,

It is finding ways not only to optimize the business, what does that mean? It is becoming more efficient and learning how to automate our business more, learning how to delegate roles within our business more, and empowering and training the people on our team, our acquisition specialists, our disposition specialists, and ensuring that one, they have the tools to succeed, but also they have the skills to succeed, and the skills that we train on a weekly basis.

and empowering those is critical to not only our team success, but also theirs too. I think I have a macro responsibility within our team is that we’re not just simply or selfishly even growing them for us, but also for themselves too, is that if we can train and grow everyone individually, all ships rise, but also for them too, is that I want to see each of them succeed individually in their own individual legacies that they’re putting together. And so as a byproduct, we will all succeed if we can all

grow together.

Michelle Kesil (09:23)
Yeah, totally. What are some of those skills that you’ve mentioned?

Landon Moore (09:29)
Yeah, I mean, I’ll tell you a lot of it in entrepreneurship, real estate, business acquisitions and various things is the greatest personal growth vehicle of all time because in that process you learn that it’s not so much the how of how to do something. Yes, that matters, certainly.

But moreover, you learn it’s more the mindset. And so really that is the inner workings of what we work on on a regular basis is really the mindset approach toward things is

yes, we do intentional time blocking. Like my calendar is hyper intentional when it comes to the time blocking and working through those things and really setting the standard for how we operate on a regular and daily basis. But it’s moreover is working through the mindset approaches of personal growth and entrepreneurship.

⁓ and really being the standard for…

how to operate when it comes to real estate acquisitions, even business and entrepreneurship and how to have conversations, how to talk to humans, how to psychologically relate to someone, how to build rapport, how to have confidence. so those are the real meat and potatoes of the skills. It’s more mindset than it is anything else. It’s not the tactical 10 day boot camps. It’s the more the mindset that you have to walk away with and start to grow out of who you used to be into who you’re going to become.

Michelle Kesil (11:30)
Yeah, I think that’s so important. A lot of people maybe get stuck in trying to learn new skills and are avoiding the personal development work that’s really going to skyrocket. Yeah.

Landon Moore (11:37)
Ugh.

Yeah, they’re avoiding the foundation of

what got them where they need to go, is that that’s what it is. It’s not going to the boot camp for the shiny object here, the shiny object here, the shiny object here. All of those things can work. Each of those can work. But if you’re foundationally, your mindset is not ready for that one thing, you’re not going to succeed at any of those. And so it’s moreover working here first and focusing on you than it is anything else.

Michelle Kesil (12:05)
Yeah, I think that’s extremely valuable. So every operator I know also had a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal went sideways or just a time where you had to pivot fast. Would you mind sharing an experience like that for you?

Landon Moore (12:29)
there’s so many. There’s so many crazy deals I could tell you about. I mean, in the world of creative finance, I said this last night, like at the meetup that we do, is that I would tell you 60 % of the deals that I get under contract for creative finance never come out on the other side as to what they were when we got them under contract because the deals change, the terms change. It’s just all over the place. There’s one in particular I’ll just share because it’s juicy is that

I think last January, yeah, last January I was doing a deal up in Tacoma, Washington. It was a single family home, three bed, two and a half bath, standard vanilla, right? And this particular seller, property was listed on market and what she owed, it was a VA loan. She had purchased it, she’s a veteran with a VA loan, had a 3 % interest rate. And…

she purchased it using 100 % financing, which is what a VA loan is, right? And she’s listed on the market, but the cost to sell a home is around 8 % right now. And when you take away from the list price that 8%, she was actually gonna be writing a check to sell her house after paying agent commissions, closing costs, seller concessions, and all the things. And so she was in a very tough position.

Adding on to that, she was two months behind heading to three months behind on mortgage payments. So now we’re heading down a bad road. ⁓ And the property is not selling, it’s just sitting there.

And so we approached the agent, we had a conversation, and we ended up putting together a deal. And the deal was that we were going to reinstate the mortgage. So we’re going to bring those three payments to bring the mortgage current, which is improving her credit. We’re going to put some money in her pocket as well too. And we’re paying the listing agent’s commission and closing costs. So we’re bringing a lot of money to the table. I mean, it wasn’t a lot. was probably $30,000, $40,000 in total to bring everything current.

and make everything whole to close the deal.

Three days before close, there was a massive cold spell that flew through Tacoma, Washington. And unfortunately, the seller moved,

her and her family moved to, I think, Mississippi or Alabama over that timeframe. So they were no longer at the house. And

over that time, the heater broke in their house.

and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time because of the cold spell that flew through. When that happened,

the entire house froze. I’m talking toilet water was frozen in the toilets.

And so when that occurs, you have what’s called pipe bursts.

And so when you turn the water back on, you’re going to have bursted pipes because of the contraction expansion of pipes. And so now we’re at a place where

have to repipe the entire house. And it’s a $13,000, $14,000 rebuild of that. And for a seller who has no equity, for a seller who’s behind on payments and all of these things, she is not in a broken heater. She’s not in a position financially,

one with any

equity

to do a HELOC, two to do a refinance, three to pay it out of pocket for herself. Like all these things, she’s up against a wall. And if we were to cancel, no retail buyer, no mom, pa who want to buy this for themselves is going to purchase this with this intact.

they’re going to want concessions that she can’t afford to give.

And so the only solution to this was through creative finance and the way that we purchased this. And so we were able to ⁓ pivot this

in that time. We extended escrow another 30 days. That allowed us the time to figure out one, the cost, the bidding for all of these things. And then two, in that timeframe, we found out her husband and her daughter had left her. So now she’s alone and her cell phone got shut off. So we had to find her. had to pay for herself.

to get turned back on to speak to her again. And then we got ahold of her. We got the quotes and we had to renegotiate that deal completely because of that rebuild of the piping and the heater and whatnot. And I actually have a full YouTube video of me negotiating that listing agent down from a $10,000 commission down to a $1,000 commission. Crazy call. And those types of deals, they come about.

You don’t expect it three days before close, you have a frozen house and frozen pipes. That wasn’t on the thoughts that it was going to happen, right? And it’s all about from that point, not overreacting, not quitting, not going, okay, we lost this one.

is that, ⁓ how can we pivot and figure out how we can get this across the finish line? The seller wants to get it done. We want to get it done. How do we accomplish this together?

And so staying level-headed and figuring it out, we ended up getting it done,

getting it across the finish line, reinstating the mortgage, which saved that veteran her VA entitlements as well as her credit. And so there’s so many ways to help people out. It’s just a matter of using your creative brain and problem-solving mindset.

Michelle Kesil (18:10)
Wow, yeah, what a story. That’s the stuff people don’t talk about enough. Yeah, it’s really like what separates those that are just dabbling in this industry versus that are here for like that long term vision.

Landon Moore (18:15)
No.

Michelle Kesil (18:28)
So let me ask you this, what are you most focused on solving or scaling next?

Landon Moore (18:35)
Yeah, we just, there’s a couple things. So a couple of stokes in the fire right now is we’re pushing into the private equity space. Now we just acquired a commercial flooring business out of San Francisco, California. And so really bootstrapping a lot of those aspects of things that business has been operating for 45 years. And so we’re taking over a lot of historical.

in the area and relationships and clients and so like right now I’m working on a bid right now for a large project there in San Francisco and putting those things together and so…

pushing into that space more. When it comes to real estate, we’re still heavily acquiring. I’m closing on a property in Ridgefield, Washington next month, as well as I just closed another duplex here in Oregon. So I’m still acquiring property and a lot of that is all taking over payments of debt that’s sub 3 % interest rates.

And then our real estate business is doing more and more deals. We have a lot of partnerships with buyers that are acquiring heavily right now across the country. We’re working on portfolios in Alabama, Birmingham specifically, as well as a ton of deals in Florida, Carolina and whatnot. So really pushing and expanding our wholesale business to tip over that $1 million scale this year in 2025.

Michelle Kesil (19:58)
Wow, those are some exciting goals. What skills or action steps are you taking in order to make sure that those are accomplished?

Landon Moore (20:14)
Yeah, really good point. Because what’s interesting is, again, I go back to that, mindset, the personal growth, right? Because what got me to here isn’t gonna get me to there. And so there’s going to be a new version, a new cocoon that I have to climb out of in terms of who I become. And a lot of that is really gonna be time management and delegation and figuring out how can I delegate more of what’s weird is like…

You know, coming from, you know, I was a mechanical engineer coming from that place, employee mindset to side hustle, to owning real estate, owning Airbnbs and all those things. And you, you start doing those things that get you to where you’re at. And it’s hard to relinquish those responsibilities and those things that you do. But

you’re required to do so to get to the next level. And so it’s an interesting aspect of transition as you go through these things is you start developing this hustle and these, this business and what you’re doing is relinquishing things that you’re even good at to someone else who’s actually great at those things. And so for me, it’s that evolution of how can I find ways to buy back my time in ways that delegate aspects of the business that I’m not the most proficient at, that I’m not the best at, that I can delegate out to I can focus on the one thing

which is what I’m best at. And so that’ll be the next evolution of 2025 is finding more ways to delegate what I do to other people to not only just relieve them from me, but also empower them to be a part of that process and journey as they’re along in their own.

Michelle Kesil (21:50)
Yeah, I feel like that is such an important part of growth is knowing your strengths and if that’s someone else’s strengths, like letting them have that. Awesome. Now, I know a lot of people listening to this are either earlier in their journey or looking to level up. And I think they’d benefit from hearing this when it comes to building relationships and growing your network.

Landon Moore (21:59)
Yeah.

Michelle Kesil (22:20)
What has made the biggest difference for you?

Landon Moore (22:24)
This is the number one question. It genuinely is because in my experience, in my time really dedicating myself and sacrificing to allow this dream to become a reality, the foundational thing that trumps everything else is relationships. The more relationships you develop and cultivate, the further you will get. I’ll give you a quick example because I’m a long speaker so I will keep it short. Is that…

You know, here, that duplex I just acquired, okay, here in Bend, Oregon, I just bought, I just told the story of. I’m buying that deal with zero dollars of my own money. I’m not using a single dollar of my own money to get that deal done. And where did the money come from? It’s a private money partner. Where did that private money partner come from?

a relationship I developed a year ago that I didn’t even know I was going to be using for this deal, this aspect, or even anything. ⁓ It started with me dropping into or going to a real estate event and this person happened to drop into the same gym that I went to and he was a husband of someone who was going to that conference. So not even someone who was going to it, who was a part of it, he was just simply along for the trip. ⁓

And we built a relationship based upon alignment is that we both care about our health in the gym and all those aspects, right? And that relationship carry over, you know, over the next few months and just talking more shop, talking more fitness and talking more other things that we do outside of real estate. And that was a year ago to this month. And fast forward to March of this year, similar thing, a real estate conference in Dallas, Texas went to, he traveled along with his wife, him and I met.

We played basketball in the mornings before we worked out together beforehand and just laughed and had a great time had dinner one night, you know and fast forward to Here a month ago is when this opportunity approached itself and he goes Hey, I have a self-directed 401k that I would love to partner with you and do I I feel like I align with a lot of what you have going on I’d love to be a part of this so can learn and earn and so ⁓

for him, it’s great. He’s bringing the, doesn’t have the time, but he has the money to be a part of this. And he’s going to learn so much on the foundation of what I’m already building and what I already have in place that he’s going to be a part of it is that that was purely based off of a relationship that I developed. so for anyone out there, go to as many meetups in your local markets as you can attend virtual zoom meetings as you can, and meet more and more people that are doing the thing and are having success and build this relationship.

as you go because you’re gonna start replacing people in your tribe and you’re and you’re gonna get around people who are more of your vibe and so Getting around people who are doing more or doing the next thing of what you want to do is only gonna level you up And so it is based upon relationships I would not be where I’m at without the relationships that I am caught currently and that I have developed

Michelle Kesil (25:29)
Yeah, relationships are everything in this space.

Landon Moore (25:32)
everything.

Michelle Kesil (25:34)
All right, so before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or just learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Landon Moore (25:47)
Yeah, that’s great. Great question. think it’s primarily Instagram. Hit me up on Instagram at more underscore deals, M-O-O-R-E underscore deals. Also on YouTube, Facebook, all the things. LinkedIn, I’m out there. But I primarily live on the Instagram space. So you can DM me there. I will send you voice memos back if you need help with deals or various things. I’m hyperactive on there. And so that’s the best place to reach me.

Michelle Kesil (26:13)
Perfect. Well, listen, I really appreciate your time, your story and your perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing things in this right and innovative way. So thanks again for being here.

Landon Moore (26:27)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Michelle Kesil (26:29)
Of course. And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Landon who are out here building real businesses. And we’ll see you all in the next episode.