Creative Cash: The Complete Guide to Master Lease Options and Seller Financing for Investing in Real Estate by Bill Ham

Creative Cash: The Complete Guide to Master Lease Options and Seller Financing for Investing in Real Estate by Bill Ham

C H A P T E R 1
COOPERATION
To fully understand the art of obtaining creative and seller financing (CSF),
you must first understand what money really is.
Money was invented to make trading easier. Instead of always having to
trade goats and chickens, we created currency. Over the years, that currency
has changed form from seashells to gold coins to paper, backed only by the
confidence in our government (fiat currency). No matter what form money
takes, it has always represented one thing: cooperation.
If two people are unwilling to cooperate or trade with each other, money
has no value. If you are alone on a deserted island with $1,000,000 in cash,
it has no value. The money only has value when someone else agrees that it
does. By itself, it’s actually worthless.
This is not a hard concept to understand, but it reveals something important.
If you remove money from a deal, you are just cooperating with others. You
simply use money to facilitate that cooperation.
Let’s work backward for a minute. What are you trying to do in real estate?
Buy good deals that make money. What does it take to buy those good
deals? Money! So what if you don’t have any money?
If it takes money to do business and you don’t have any money to get
started, then you have to fall back on the one thing you have and can create:
cooperation. If money is cooperation at its core and you can create
cooperation with people who have what you want (sellers), do you need
money to get started?
NO!
All of the real estate in America (and in most countries) is already owned or
controlled by someone else. There are no more “land rushes” where settlers
can run out, stick a flag in the ground, and claim that land. Someone already
owns it. The trick is to get the people who already own the land and
properties to give them to you.
This is where cooperation comes in. If you have all the cash in a checking
account to buy all the property you’d ever want, then you probably don’t
need to read this book. But you do know who has what you want (sellers)
and that you don’t have to spend cash to get what you want (properties). So
it’s time to create cooperation.
START WITH PROBLEMS
There’s one thing that is common among all people:
Problems!
It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor. It doesn’t matter if you are just
starting in the real estate game, or if you have been here for years. Chances
are, you have problems. See where I’m going with this? The people who
have the deals you want to buy are likely to have problems, too. If you can
find ways to solve problems for these sellers, then you will create
cooperation. Remember this simple equation:
Cooperation = Cash
If a seller owns one of those 79 “other” deals that is not good, then chances
are, they have problems. At the very least, they probably can’t get someone
to buy their property at the moment. They may have occupancy problems.
They may have repairs that haven’t been done for a while. They may not be
able to manage the asset anymore. They may be a “burned-out” landlord.

Creative Cash: The Complete Guide to Master Lease Options and Seller Financing for Investing in Real Estate by Bill Ham