Buying Houses With 0% Interest Debt (Seriously!) With Brandon Elliott

Brandon Elliott: [0:00] Like, when I bring up credit cards, they're like, wow. You're Yeah. You know? They're like, don't why are you doing that? But we've always utilized 0% interest credit card.

Mike DeHaan: [0:09] Totally.

Brandon Elliott: [0:09] I can use it as liquid cash the next day. And, yeah, I mean, it was it was 0% interest for eighteen months.

Speaker 3: [0:17] Welcome to the Collecting Keys Real Estate Investing Podcast with your host, Mike DeHaan and Dan Austin. From wins, losses, horror stories, and tactics for optimizing your business, Mike and Dan take a real uncensored deep dive into the ins and outs of running a full time real estate investment and wholesaling business.

Mike DeHaan: [0:41] What's going on, guys? On this episode of the collecting keys real estate investing podcast, you are stuck with just me. Dan had some family things to attend to during this interview. So I hung out with the guys myself, which I think was perfectly fine. But I had on Brandon Elliott from the Ready, Set, Go real estate investing podcast. He also runs a mastermind called the Credit Council Elite. And this dude is doing some of the craziest things with credit and credit cards that I've ever heard. One of his claims is that you can literally get a million dollars in cash liquidity from these different credit card methods that he uses within one year, which is mind blowing to me. So I'm going to inquire with him and sort of hear what that's about. But he has so many insane knowledge bombs about how to approach banks and lenders and these different companies to start getting these credit cards, how you can utilize them at 0% interest. This isn't like you're getting, you know, credit cards at, like, a a crazy cash advance interest rate. He literally will get things at, like, super low interest or 0% interest for, like, eighteen months or a couple of years. He can go, and he has, like, bought whole houses. He has done massive renovations. He has done all sorts of things with this liquidity, and, like, he will even go and get, like, 30 to 50 credit cards at a time using these different methods of, like, applying and having these conversation with his banks that he then goes and turns into cash that yield you rewards or zero interest are super liquid, and, like, the only catch is that you gotta pay them off in eighteen to twenty twenty four months, which, you know, is exactly the same as a hard money loan, but is significantly cheaper.

Mike DeHaan: [2:19] And you're gonna be able to fly first class after you finish the project as well, so all the money you're gonna spend. So super, super interesting stuff. So definitely reach out to Brandon after the show, and don't be afraid to to engage in in asking questions about what he does because has some nuances in there that I'm still trying to wrap my head around, and I'm sure you will be as well. So, you know, go ahead and check them out at the Ready, Set, Go, Real Estate Investing podcast and also the creditcouncilelite.com. So aside from now, you guys, if you wanna start generating off market leads so you can use all of this new credit card cash to buy properties off market, you you should should go check out collectingkeyspodcast.com/free and get our free five step guide to start generating off market leads. And aside from that, guys, enjoy this podcast with Brandon Elliott, and leave us a Pfizer if you ever listen to your podcast. Thanks so much, guys. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the show, everybody. Today, I have Brandon Elliott, who is the host of the Ready, Set, Go real estate investing podcast. He has crushed it over there. I was on his show a few weeks ago. If you guys heard that, It's a really fun show to do with him. And Brandon, you have a super crazy backstory about kinda your upbringing and just everything else that we can dive into. But also the way that you buy properties and you invest, you utilize credit in a way that I feel like I haven't really heard from any modern people because you, like, have literally bought houses with credit cards and done all these other crazy things.

Mike DeHaan: [3:42] And I feel like that's what you know, I talked to, like, older investors who used to get, like, VHS tapes Yeah. Off of, you know, like, whatever late night TV infomercials that would teach them how to do that. But you've done that, like, recently. And so I would love to dive into that, what that looks like, and everything else going on, including the group where you teach people how to use credit the same way. So, yeah, welcome to show, Brandon.

Brandon Elliott: [4:05] Dude, Mike, appreciate you so much for having me. I love it. I'm excited. We had such a good time on my podcast when you're on for Ready, Set, Go Real Estate Investing. So anybody that hasn't listened to that episode, I highly recommend going and and checking it out. You dropped a lot of great nuggets. My story basically is I grew up in New Jersey, single parent mother. She's diagnosed with manic depressive bipolar, have two sisters, and we always grew up on like Section 8. Yeah. I call it American poor because, so so above and beyond blessed. We had a lot of help from local churches, friends, and schools, but also the government paying for, like, the Section 8 housing as well as, you know, Social Security and so forth. So very blessed, but there's still a struggle. There's still a a poverty mindset that had to be overcome one way or another. And I grew up just a little misfit. You know? I I made a lot of mistakes. I became a big pothead at a certain age to get away from all the negative things, and I used it for good, bad, ugly, everything in between. And eventually, ended up having an explosion in my apartment making hash oil like a moron in in San Diego. And so I was literally on fire, like literally on fire. I burnt forty percent of my body.

Brandon Elliott: [5:23] I was induced into a coma for a full week. I went through three surgeries. I had to learn how to walk again from just being bedridden for three weeks. And and yeah, man, it was definitely an eye opening experience, know? I didn't have a male figure in my life to be able to be like, hey, think about your damn actions, bro.

Mike DeHaan: [5:40] But Yeah. Yeah. Right. That that's crazy. And so I'm I'm ignorant. I'm not really like a cannabis person. Yeah. What how has Hugh caused an explosion making hash oil? Like, what what even transpired for that?

Brandon Elliott: [5:51] Yeah. You're just being a moron. That's what it is. Yeah. So, it's like young and dumb for sure, but so blessed at the same time. I was wearing gloves at the time that, like, for baseball that I used to have for riding dirt bikes and quads that I haven't rode in years, and I don't play baseball. That protected my, my hands. As you can see, there's like skin graft right below it, but Hell, yeah. But, yeah, how I was doing that was I was utilizing butane, and that anybody that I don't know. Long story short, it's there's a process to utilize butane to liquidate the trichromes on the on the marijuana plant, and Okay. And then you vaporize that later.

Mike DeHaan: [6:30] Okay. So someone with a with a background in chemistry can send me that over, because I'm a I'm a I was a phase of kids. Chemistry is not my jam.

Brandon Elliott: [6:38] Yeah. Yeah. So check this out. I ended up getting a lot of court charges, as you can imagine.

Mike DeHaan: [6:43] K.

Brandon Elliott: [6:43] I didn't realize how ignorant I was at the time, but you're allowed to have the end product, the beginning product, and everything in between. I had a medical marijuana card and all that dumb stuff. And, yeah, long story short, I ended up I didn't realize that it was illegal to make the process, like that in between process. And so, that's considered manufacturing. And it's also the same exact charge as if I was making meth. Oh, jeez. And so, that was really eye opening to me. I was facing twelve years in prison, and first time ever being a moron, and I'm sure not the first time being a moron, but first time getting caught for something like that, and having such an eye opening experience, I needed something to shift. Right? So Yeah. It was a long out process, but I ended up getting house arrest. I ended up, fighting it in court for a while. I got two felonies and a misdemeanor, and that left me with options of real estate, because I didn't know what else to do. I was working restaurants at the time.

Mike DeHaan: [7:46] Yeah, right. Especially with that sort of track record now, getting a regular job, especially somewhere like California, where I feel like they Yep. Are typically, you know, there's a lot of people to choose from that's gonna rule you out right away of any traditional employment. For sure. Okay. So that led you to real estate. Did you go into investing right away, or did you try to do the realtor game like so many people do?

Brandon Elliott: [8:06] No. That's a great question. So, was actually doing door to door sales for Kirby vacuum cleaners at the time. So, I got into sales, was I quite good at it from my background, and I ended up getting recruited into a real estate investment company here locally in San Diego. Loved it. I loved the systems that were in place. We were focusing on NODs at the time. That's like notice of defaults. There's a lot of pre foreclosure back in twenty eleven, twenty thirteen times. What was really cool was I got a little bit of education, but I got so much more motivation that like had me running. So I ended up picking up all the books, the podcasts like this, and all the YouTube I could get my hands on to really get educated on this stuff. And then two years later, I put in the work. I put in four hours every day of education and implementing things, submitted 30 offers. I was going against real investors that, like, do all cash, no contingencies, stuff that we do now. Yeah. So I kept on getting my offer denied. But but two years later, I finally got offers accepted, and we fell in love with the BRRRR strategy. That's what we started rocking and rolling with. And, like, real estate has changed my life, but credit was the catalyst to be able to do it. I didn't have any money saved up.

Brandon Elliott: [9:19] I I was working restaurants. Yeah. I had a lot of debt over my head from the hospital bills and everything else. So it's like, I didn't know what else to do except I had decent credit, and I had decent credit lines. And I figured out how to get the credit lines higher and how to be able to liquidate them into cash Okay. So that I could actually close on real estate. Interesting. Okay.

Mike DeHaan: [9:39] I was gonna ask her what that transition looked like too, if that makes sense. I love what you're saying though, because so many people, they reach out to me, you know, and they they wanna become an investor, and they don't know where to start. So they go through like this analysis paralysis, so they listen to all the podcasts, they read all the books. People always wanna know like the number one place where I learn how to do what to do. But what you did that makes so much sense is you went and you worked for an investment company. Yeah. And this is what I tell people all the time is if you really seriously wanna do it, especially if you don't have money Yep. Especially if you don't have the experience or any sort of like family background, go work with one of the companies that's doing what you wanna do and just learning how to do it that way. It's the easiest way to get into it and like actually do actionable things. And not just like, you know, you don't have to risk your own money, you just gotta give your own time and be prepared to learn and put in the legwork. And that's that's super, super cool. So awesome. So the transition when you were buying houses, were you still working for the company? Like, were they cool with you buying houses? Because I know some companies companies don't don't don't like that.

Brandon Elliott: [10:37] No. So I actually only lasted with them for about six months, and then there started being internal issues with management, jealousy, a lot of money coming in, about 600 k a month, and it just started bringing a spiral of issues and management. So, like I said, I got my feet wet there. I got a little bit of education, but I got so much more motivation that I was just like, hey. I didn't even think about real estate because it wasn't in my family background. Once I got my eyes open to it, I was like, this is what I wanna do, and I was just determined to get there.

Mike DeHaan: [11:08] Yeah. Awesome. So you left there, and then from there, you went back to into the restaurant industry, and you're like, I'm gonna do this myself now. So Yep. You were going to auction, you said, or were you like doing direct mail? Like, those offers that you were making before, maybe I missed it. How exactly were you making those offers, and like, what is that sort of transition like?

Brandon Elliott: [11:25] Yeah. So I had a realtor as a friend. We submitted a bunch of offers on a regular basis. It was a little over 30 in a two year time frame. So I was working two restaurant jobs, trying to get out of debt from the explosion. And I was I was just putting in the work of checking out new properties and and more education each and every day. Yeah. So as I did that, was I starting to get more desperate of like, hey. If I don't get one of these, you know, accepted, I'm just gonna submit on on an offer I know that's, like, it's stupid, but I'll learn from it. And then which I'm glad that I didn't, but I was getting to the point, like, I'd rather mess up when I'm young because I know it's gonna happen eventually.

Mike DeHaan: [12:05] So Mhmm.

Brandon Elliott: [12:06] I'm determined to get into real estate now. But luckily, I started looking in other states, and, Ohio was the one that made sense for us. Started buying properties left and right there, and went through the trial and error with contractors, but started paying them with credit cards, and that saved me a lot of headache and a lot of time by protecting myself.

Mike DeHaan: [12:28] Yeah. Okay. Cool. So yeah. So sounds like you the cash flow, I'm guessing, was the goal. If you're in San Diego, you can find space travel in Ohio. That's why most people in the West Coast look into the Midwest because over here on the West Coast, it's just much harder to find good cash flowing assets. Yeah. And especially too, I I know a lot of people when they're starting to I I was the same way. The only thing you care about is cash flow because you need to pay your bills. Yeah. And a lot of, like, the upside of equity and and those sort of things you don't even care about until, you know, you get some mailbox money coming in.

Brandon Elliott: [12:56] Yeah. I was trying to get out of the restaurants. I was like, man, this is I all I need to get out of it. I need like five, six, ten k a month, and I'd be set. Then, you know, there's levels to it. So, once I hit those, then I started to feel more comfortable, you know?

Mike DeHaan: [13:10] Yeah, right. Were you at least working in like a cool restaurant though, or was it like a bread robin or something?

Brandon Elliott: [13:14] No, no. It was like little mom and pops. There was a Thai restaurant and a Italian restaurant. So, I got good food.

Mike DeHaan: [13:21] Yeah, at least it wasn't like a big corporate sort of restaurant, which can be extra soul sucking you have to deal with the wage with the the staff, and you have to be, know, the Yeah. Corporate side of it Yeah. Exactly. Cool. So, guess, sorry, going over to Ohio. Let's talk about how you started paying for these things. Didn't have any money. I know that the credit was a huge portion of what you're doing. And you said you had good credit lines. Yep. First off, I guess, it's funny. For some reason, I never realized that, I guess, a criminal record probably doesn't necessarily affect your credit. Like, I I got I'm just completely ignorant to that. Okay? Yeah. And then so you're able to get these credit lines. Like, how did you start putting those together? And you said you figured out how to turn them to cash. And I guess I didn't realize you could do that either without paying, like, 27% interest or whatever the hell the credit card companies charge you when you go and you take a cash advance.

Brandon Elliott: [14:09] Yeah. See, so many people believe that, and that's why, like, when I bring up credit cards, they're like, wow. You're an idiot. You know? They're like, don't why are you doing that? But we've always utilized 0% interest credit cards.

Mike DeHaan: [14:21] Silly.

Brandon Elliott: [14:21] And and there's even and it's not always like the introductory credit cards that, you know, you see 0% interest promotion deals that these banks are are selling to us. Yeah. You can actually ask your current credit card that you have, like, hey, do you have any promotional deals behind the scenes, underneath my account that I could take advantage of? I got this amazing opportunity. I want to take down this real estate, remodel it. It's gonna be worth a lot more. Is there any opportunities that I could utilize my credit card to be able to pull this off? And that's exactly what I did. They said, yeah, we got this promotional deal. It's similar to a cash advance or like a balance transfer, except they'll just wire the funds right into my bank account. I can use it as liquid cash the next day. And, yeah, I mean, it was 0% interest for eighteen months. Interesting. So, like, I guess, like, what amounts of money are

Mike DeHaan: [15:12] you able to get that way? Because I guess what I think about too is stuff like that, it's usually kinda like sucker loans. You know? It's like three or 5%, but it's at you said it's at 0% interest. Yeah. That is something that they're gonna make you, like, put up all of your personal assets to secure.

Brandon Elliott: [15:26] Well, yes. So there's no security behind it. I mean, the credit card itself had had a personal guarantee. So just like it's just like a regular credit card, you know. I'm responsible for my monthly payments.

Mike DeHaan: [15:37] Right.

Brandon Elliott: [15:37] And, you know, you can make, at 0% interest, you can make just your minimum payments, which is typically like $35 or anywhere from like one to 3% of whatever your balance is. Mhmm. So you just gotta be mindful of that. Also, taking advantage of this promotional deal, you really can't utilize that credit card anymore, even if there's availability on it. Because that's where they catch people off guard, and and it stops that 0% interest on that whole account moving forward. So Okay. I had it as 0% interest for eighteen months. Right when I make a purchase on there, it stops at eighteen months, and it starts right away on the whole balance. Interesting.

Mike DeHaan: [16:18] So you're you're, like, literally just, like, asking the the lender, I guess, the credit card company, instead can I of having, I don't know, $20,000 on this card, what do you ask for like half of it? That's like 0%? Or

Brandon Elliott: [16:29] Yeah. So I got first off, it was very important for me to get my credit limits as high as possible. I already had credit cards around 60,000 and 70,000 from every six months asking, and getting educated on knowing what to say, and how to get the increases. On a single card? Oh,

Mike DeHaan: [16:45] yeah. Yeah. Back back then, that's crazy.

Brandon Elliott: [16:48] Yeah, man.

Mike DeHaan: [16:48] It's crazy. It's taken me forever to get cars that are like, you know, 40 or $50, and even still, always face pushback from it. That's that's

Brandon Elliott: [16:55] Yeah. It's because people don't know what to say, and they don't know how to position themselves, or how the banks are judging them. When you understand these things, you know exactly how to position yourself to make it a low risk and get your credit limits as high as I mean, we've gotten ones up to like 150 plus. Really?

Mike DeHaan: [17:14] That's crazy. Yeah.

Brandon Elliott: [17:15] Yeah. One of my new students, he got one credit card at a 100,000

Mike DeHaan: [17:19] Yeah.

Brandon Elliott: [17:19] Doing his first mass apply.

Mike DeHaan: [17:21] Yeah. And these cards that like 100,000, so if you so I'm I kinda keep interrupting you because I'm trying to like comprehend what you're doing.

Brandon Elliott: [17:27] That's exciting, man. Rub with it.

Mike DeHaan: [17:29] Yeah. So so, like, you know, you're getting this $100,000 card. You're gonna get 0% interest on, like, much is that? Like, the whole thing? The whole thing, yeah. But, like, why would FANK do that? Doesn't make any sense. Well, the

Brandon Elliott: [17:41] bank wants you to mess up. Yeah. They wanna take your business as well. There's tons of options. There's over 4,300 banks nationwide. Different banks. Yeah. All in the same industry, to lend money to people, and make money off of us, right? Yeah. So when we open up a bank relationship is a very key ingredient that many people overlook. You know, the more bank account relationships you have, the more products and services you're taking advantage of, the more like, the longer you've been with them, it shows it shows good credibility with them, so a lower risk. But at the end of the day, they wanna get you in and take you from some other bank and get you committed to just them. And then afterwards, they're going to kinda wheel you in with certain things, 0% interest, hoping that you'll mess up.

Mike DeHaan: [18:27] Yeah. Okay. So you basically are competing for your biz, which makes sense. So then I guess when you go and you pull, say, a $100,000, is it like when I do that, can I get, like, credit card rewards on that too, or is it just like a cash thing?

Brandon Elliott: [18:39] Yeah. So when there are ways that you can Yeah. Get rewards from that as well. However, the techniques that I've utilized in the past, a majority of them, I would say it would be easier to not go the rewards route and instead simply get it liquidated into your bank account so that you can use as cash. But when you're paying for contractors, always, I'm paying real estate contractors with my credit card, and I'm earning points with that. And the best part behind that is usually because we do the burst strategy or fix and flips in the past, after each remodel, I typically have enough points to go on like a free vacation. That's always fun It's like a good reward, you know?

Mike DeHaan: [19:22] Yeah. That's awesome. See, I wish Dan was here because he drives me freaking crazy when he like doesn't pay with credit card. He like, he's like our debit card at Home Depot. I'm like, bro,

Brandon Elliott: [19:29] what the fuck? Are you done with it?

Mike DeHaan: [19:31] Yeah. Like, come on. Right. I so I have my own personal rentals that I also own alongside of him, and I did a bunch of renovations on on my different properties this past year. And, you know, I just cashed, like, 800 something thousand points that I could use across all those things from Yeah. Come on. And that's like, yeah. Me and my wife, we flew first first class to Africa in September Yes. With

Brandon Elliott: [19:52] And so, it's very important to learn how to utilize the points too to to make the most bang for your buck. Because if you use it the traditional route, many people don't realize you're actually you're wasting a lot of points. Mhmm. But if you're making a ton of points, it doesn't matter. You're still having a ball. For Dan, for example, for the the debit card thing, this goes for anybody. Hopefully, Dan listens to this though, because you put yourself at so much risk using a debit card. That's where identity theft happens. That's where you have no security. That's where, like, you know, they can get access to your bank account and other info. So, it's very important to I mean, you're not getting any rewards with debit cards.

Mike DeHaan: [20:29] Yeah. Yeah. They exactly. Not getting anything like that at all. I guess it's just for people who really don't have credit or like Sure. Can't get credit for some reason. Yeah. That that that's interesting, though. So I guess when you're building up this sort of nest egg with these different credit cards that you're pulling the cash from, like, you kinda limited on what you could pull? Like, theoretically, the guy that got a $100,000, he'd go and do that at, like, five other banks and have, 500, you

Brandon Elliott: [20:54] know, $600, whatever? Exactly. So he so when he did his Mass Apply, and a Mass Apply, for anybody listening, it's simply an application sequence. If done properly, you can get ten, twenty, thirty, forty plus credit cards at once. So it's very impactful. But so that was just one credit card that he got at a 100,000. Actually got with his mass supply, he got over 25 cards, and he got 464,000 in new credit lines.

Mike DeHaan: [21:24] Jesus. I'm saying, that's you thinking like, this one simple pample maker bookkeeper hates you forever. Yeah. Yeah.

Brandon Elliott: [21:32] Dude, my bookkeeper is like, man, can we can you just be easy on me this year? And I'm like, you know what space I'm in, dude.

Mike DeHaan: [21:39] Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy though. Like, so so Mass Supply, so I guess, what does that mean? Is there like a service that you do for that? It's just, it's like basic steps you said, but like, I mean, obviously there must be a way that's simpler and doesn't hit your credit over and over and over again.

Brandon Elliott: [21:52] Yeah. So it's actually very complicated, but it is there's a science behind it. There is an algorithm. There's a step by step. So there's about fifteen, twenty different moving pieces to be able to get educated on. We teach people at Credit Counsel Elite, we teach people a four step process. It's educate, fix, build, and leverage. At the end of the day, we're teaching people how to get educated on how the banks and lenders are judging them so they know how to play the game of credit. You know, they know how to be able to flip the script on the banks and get as much funding as they deserve. Fixing credit, it's a process where we can show people how to remove bankruptcies, collections, hard inquiries, all within a couple hours to ten business days, and in some cases, thirty or longer. That's the only thing that, you know, there's no guarantees in. But with our track record, we can get really fast results. And then next, being able to do that mass apply, the build credit, we can show you how to be able to get to the 800, Flight Go score in less than thirty days. And then afterwards, being able to set yourself up for a personal Mass Supply as well as a business Mass Supply and and get a ton of funding. So you can do your Mass Supply every six months.

Brandon Elliott: [23:04] Get 500,000 to 1,000,000, actually, in twelve months time frame. And so you can do it for yourself, your significant other, friends, family, whoever. Yeah. And then lastly, like, once you have all that credit, put it to work. Leverage it.

Mike DeHaan: [23:18] Mhmm.

Brandon Elliott: [23:18] Show people how to purchase properties with it, but also life insurance, that where you can fund it, pull all your money back out ten days later, travel hacking, and so much more.

Mike DeHaan: [23:28] Yeah. That's freaking insane to me, and you're, like, blowing my mind right now. As we're just sort of sitting over here thinking about how much of a pain in the ass is even to get like business lines of credit and those sort of things. Like, we can get lines of credit for a business off, like, $50,000 relatively simply, but we have to go to so many different banks to do all this different underwriting. Definitely not happen in thirty days, we thirty days for like the whole process. And then make you go to the bank, you gotta do a signing, you gotta do all this BS. Sure. And then also to the problem of lines of credit through a bank, I don't know if the credit cards are like this, but they can technically call business lines or credit whenever they want. Sure. Like every single set of documents they make you sign, it says that if they suspect anything weird going on with your business, something weird goes on with the economy, this got people in 2008, you know, same with like home equity line of credit, they can just call it and you have to give it all back. And if you don't have it, you're kinda screwed. Yeah. So, but with the credit cards, because they're eighteen month term, do they have that? Because I imagine that it would be less likely to do so.

Brandon Elliott: [24:20] Yeah. So the banks are always gonna be in power. Like, they're Yeah. They have they're the ones lending it out. They can cancel the cars. They can shut credit lines down. The difference is that they have to work with you on the, the financing afterwards. If you have a big balance left over and your agreement was different in the past, like you have this opportunity, then they have to continue that. Obviously they don't need to continue giving you more though. So there's many ways around it, but knowing how they're judging you and how to play the game first and foremost, will set you up for success in the long run. And just like you said, one bank will do it. There's tons of others that will as also, you just need to know which ones to go to and what to say. And the big key factor here is that whether you apply for one credit card or one line of credit in one month or you apply for 30, it's going to make the same impact on your credit profile. And it's actually going like, after thirty days, once the new accounts start popping on there, either one or 30 of them, it's going like, you're not gonna be able to do another application. You know? You have to wait several months, three, four to six months before you can do it again.

Mike DeHaan: [25:32] And that's with, like, the same bank or just, like, in general?

Brandon Elliott: [25:36] In general, because when you apply, if you apply for two cards or a bank line of credit today, and then you wait next month, you got approved, and it shows up on your credit profile, then the next month you try applying somewhere else, they're going to deny you naturally, in many cases, not all banks, but many cases, the rule of thumb, because they see that you just applied for something and you have new credit lines that are brand new on there. Mhmm. So you're searching around for too much new credit, so you're a higher risk. So that's Makes why you wanna do it in a lump sum over thirty days before all these new accounts pop up on your credit profile. Get a couple 100,000 versus 20,000, and then do it every six months for yourself.

Mike DeHaan: [26:16] Yeah. That's super interesting. I mean, guess it makes sense. Kinda like It's kinda similar to if you're trying to get a mortgage, and you know, mortgage lender pulls your credit, and then, you know, you should apply to other places as well within that immediate time frame. Otherwise, you know, it'll show that you inquired for for debt. Okay. That's cool. So I guess, you know, when you're finding these institutions, are these like the big companies? Are you looking for like small banks? Crazy. Can I go with like an American Express card? You know,

Brandon Elliott: [26:42] Well, like American Express in general are the easiest cards to get. Okay. So a lot of the, like, big gurus out there that are that are teaching similar things that we are, they'll get people American Express cards because they're the easiest. Mhmm. But, yeah, what I would say is you wanna start off with big banks first, and then slowly start working into small credit unions, local community banks, because you'll get the most bang for your buck with them. You'll get big credit lines and so forth. You'll have more flexibility, but it's really, really relationship based with them. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [27:14] For sure. We always really emphasize that as well. When we work with people here who are trying to get especially burst out loans. Yeah, they want to especially right now we're like Fannie Freddie mortgages are so effective, so expensive. And like DSCR lenders are just driving you blind. If you have a good relationship with like a credit union here, you can still get great rates, and it's quick. And it's cheap. Yeah, know, like, we're able to still burr properties and get rates, kind of like around five, like upper fives to six. Because it's held in house by

Brandon Elliott: [27:42] the Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [27:42] From credit union. Yeah. Exactly. And then, like, even to get them, I just, text my banker. I'm like, hey. Here's what we need to do. He says, cool. We'll close in, two and a half weeks. So easy compared to going through the whole song and dance with these.

Brandon Elliott: [27:55] Yeah. It's a good relationship, you know. It makes it so much easier once you can you have a face to talk to a contact and and it's the

Mike DeHaan: [28:03] small local banks. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So so that's awesome, man. So I guess have you ever, like, had to get, a hard money loan or, a typical normal loan on a purchase, or have you always just used credits, and you just refinance into the bank loans after you?

Brandon Elliott: [28:17] Yeah. I mean, the BRRRR strategy, we always refinance into long term Okay. You know, good financing. But, yeah, we definitely use hard money as well. I mean, we're out here in San Diego, so we have million and $0.5 properties that we are funding. So, I can definitely I have the credit lines to use it. However, it it makes sense. How I look at it is, I already have good strong relationships with some of these lenders, and I'm getting at 8%. And what I can do is raise money second, like private or third, use credit as backup plans. I'm a big advocate of always having backup plans, because I've never been a part of any real estate transaction that it went exactly how we anticipated. Of course.

Mike DeHaan: [29:01] Yeah. Exactly. That's the most true statement of any real estate investor. Yeah. And I guess too, if it's like a million dollar purchase, you know, you can get your traditional hard money loan, whatever, and then just use the the credit funds for your down payment, and that'll make you fully leverage and be pretty strong. So now that's cool. So I guess one last question before I sort of dive into, I guess, like what your investing looks like and how you've used a lot of this in practice. How do you manage all these lines of credit? Do you have like a spreadsheet platform to do? You have a just have a spreadsheet? You just do it all manually?

Brandon Elliott: [29:31] Yeah. Sounds very like, nerdy and corny, and I'm not really, trust me, I'm not that analytical, but it is very important to just stay as organized as possible, especially when you have plus bank accounts, because you're all about having the relationships. You wanna have the date you opened it, the name of the bank, the name of the credit card, the bank manager. You wanna have these resources at your convenience, knowing which cards to use for the highest rewards and so forth, so that you can just look at your spreadsheet and be able to kinda put it in the right order.

Mike DeHaan: [30:02] Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. That makes sense. And, like, that is one thing that does get tricky as you start to have different Yeah. Like, values, I guess, of liquidity. So, like, even right now, we have a fund that we have some money raised, and we do, like, hard money lending, and we use it to purchase our own properties, things like that. But, you know, all the different tiers of cash that we have, they have different costs. You know? So, like, our investors, they get, like, a preferred return. But then our line of credit, like, we are not paying that at this time utilized, but it's technically cheaper money. And then like our own cash is obviously has no cost to it except for the opportunity cost. So it's always trying to keep track of which money you actually should be using as you go to make sure you're getting the most bang for your buck, for your liquidity. And it sounds like you kinda do the same thing, but with credit cards, because I imagine Yeah. The cost on those is gonna be when they're coming due if you look at it down the line.

Brandon Elliott: [30:49] Yeah. And you can move things around. I mean, by building these bank relationships, you can get sign up bonuses with the banks that I typically average about 5 k a year just with free money for opening new bank accounts. And then every time you do a mass apply, can get about 10 to 15,000 in free sign up bonuses. So there's a lot of cool things that you can do with credit besides just like travel hacking.

Mike DeHaan: [31:11] Yeah, right. Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, you got a you got an interesting niche, and you break it out in a way, I guess, that makes more sense than I've ever heard anyone else try to explain it. And that that's super, super cool. So I guess, looking at your own investing, how have you used this to build out your investments, you know, your portfolio? What does your actual investment business look like along with all this stuff?

Brandon Elliott: [31:34] Yeah. Of course. Yeah. So we have 20 plus doors at this point, long distance that are more long term holds, as well as our portfolio here locally in San Diego. We have a little over 8,000,000 in assets, 30 k a month in, like, passive income, and it's all from real estate. But like I said, I was a little screw up from New Jersey, you know, working restaurant jobs, had no money. So I utilize credit to constantly, like, kind of pull this.

Mike DeHaan: [32:01] Yeah.

Brandon Elliott: [32:02] And over the years, other people have seen that. They've asked us how we've done it, and we started teaching it and helping out thousands of people in credit counseling lead as well. So it's, it's just transformed into, like, kinda like my baby. Right? Like, real estate, I love Couldn't be happier with real estate. Everybody should get some. And then and credit, it's like, you could do whatever you want with it. It's amazing.

Mike DeHaan: [32:27] It's interesting. I think that that sort of transition over where you said, you know, it's kinda your baby, like the credit card stuff, that seems to be I mean, I think the natural evolution of humans. Yeah. You you're like, I don't know that many people that really love, like, fixing up properties and the headaches, things that come like, some people do. Sure. But for a lot of us, myself included in this, it's kind of a means to the end to do the stuff that you really like. So for you, it's, you know, starting the course and, like, teaching other people how to, you know, use the skills that you've learned. And that's why even the same for me. That's a big reason that we started this podcast was I love the podcast format. I love having conversations like this with interesting people.

Brandon Elliott: [33:05] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [33:05] You know, we Dan and I, we've built a pretty solid business. We have a strong portfolio. And now, what I love personally is like the marketing side of it, and like strategizing, like how to find opportunities. And so I'm like, cool. I would love to teach other people how to do that, and it becomes a fun thing. And it's funny because a lot of people, I always say like, well, why would they waste time teaching me that if what they had going for them was so effective? And it's like, because we're already doing it, and it's fun to get other people doing the same thing. It becomes like a, you know, enlightening thing, and rising tides raise all ships at the end of the day.

Brandon Elliott: [33:37] So Yeah. It's been the most fulfilling and rewarding thing I've ever felt, honestly, and I didn't think it would be that way initially. I thought I was more self centered and like, you know, I need to make myself successful and my family first. And of course, you need to put on your own mask first. Right? You gotta get educated. Don't be a guru that you took my course and then you start teaching it right away. Yeah. You know? Because we've had people, but trust me, it's like, after putting in the time, the energy, and the efforts, you're going to go through learning curves, and you're gonna have something that you can help out other people with. Man, it's changed my life, and we've seen hundreds of other people change their life too, so we know it works, Very proud of it. And to be able to get more time back from getting the financial freedom to be with your loved ones and travel the world doing whatever you want with whoever you want, it it's a good feeling. If money was ever the issue to be able to hit your goals and dreams, it's like we just eliminate that with credit. Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [34:36] Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, they people say that money doesn't buy happiness, but time freedom definitely does, and no one can argue with that.

Brandon Elliott: [34:43] When people bring that up, I I ask them, what is poor by you? You know, what is broke by you? Not a damn thing, you know? It's Yeah. Pretty damn good. We raised over 34,000 in Tulum at our last mastermind group for a nonprofit here in San Diego, Journey to to Refuge. And it's we were able to raise 34,000 to build three new homes for families down in Mexico. We got to participate with one of them. And I mean, talk about fulfillment. Talk about the gratitude. It's like the experience to see this amazing young family be able to have a clean home with a roof over their head, safety, security, shelter, warmth for a lifetime. It's like, come on, man. That's what money can buy you.

Mike DeHaan: [35:27] Yeah. Exactly. And that and that's amazing. You know, that that's super, super cool. Good for you guys. Awesome, man. Well, I love it, dude. You're super amazing what you've put together, and the way that you're approaching things is truly unique. I feel like in a space that is an echo chamber of so many people trying to do the same thing, you have a a pretty sweet spot you're doing here. Appreciate it, Mud. So yeah. Yeah. So I guess to wrap up the show, we're gonna get to the end of time here. We have our three end of show questions. I apologize. I probably should've sent them to you. I need to get better about that at some point here.

Brandon Elliott: [35:57] You're talking to me.

Mike DeHaan: [35:57] But also too, it keeps you on your toes. Makes it more authentic. Question we have, which is always the crowd favorite, which is what is your craziest real estate investing story? And this can be, you know, good story, bad story, crazy tenant. Yeah. Only catalyst is that you cannot use a story about finding a dead person or tenant or seller in a property, because it's supposed to be entertaining story. And we had a streak of like five people that that was their story, and it was just a freaking bummer, man.

Brandon Elliott: [36:23] Yeah, man. That's a depressing one. Man, I have so many stories, honestly, but one that naturally pops out to mind is that I found a homemade bomb next to one of my properties before.

Mike DeHaan: [36:37] Really?

Brandon Elliott: [36:37] And, yeah, and I was shocked. I was just cleaning up the area over in Ohio, and I saw, like, there was a stack of bricks that I put there last time, and I saw this little bag hanging out. I went to go check it out, and I saw that it was like a red, like, makeshift pipe, and then it had a little fuse coming out. It looked all homemade, and I was like, god, what is this? And I was like, I think it is what it is. And, you know, my stupidity, I was like, alright. Well, I got to catch a plane in, like, thirty minutes. You know? I'm already, like, getting late for that. I need to go. I think if I call the cops, it's gonna take too long and be a scene. So instead, I threw it in the back of my rental. I drove ten minutes downtown to to the police department, and I straight walked in with the bag in my hand, knocked on the glass window, and I was like, hey. I think I got a bomb that I found at my house. And and they were like, you brought what you think could lead with a bomb into a police building? I was like, now that you say it, you know, I I didn't Yeah. They were like, get out of the building right now. And it was it was a scene.

Mike DeHaan: [37:48] That's crazy. Well, I laced him to the police station. I had a brief moan of panic. I thought you were gonna say, you should decide you're gonna bring it with you on the plane.

Brandon Elliott: [37:55] No. Well, not that stupid. Yeah. I was leaving it. I was leaving it in Ohio, for sure.

Mike DeHaan: [37:59] Yeah. Okay.

Brandon Elliott: [38:00] Not at my property. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [38:02] I tossed it in my bag and I decided I was I was paying a deal with it when I got home, but then I got to the airport and was like,

Brandon Elliott: [38:07] oops. Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [38:08] That doesn't make sense.

Brandon Elliott: [38:09] Tossed it to the neighbor's house that I didn't like.

Mike DeHaan: [38:11] Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's crazy.

Brandon Elliott: [38:13] Yeah.

Mike DeHaan: [38:14] So I guess, what was the resolution with that though? So they made you leave and then what did you just like like leave it out on the sidewalk and they came and dealt with it?

Brandon Elliott: [38:20] They came outside. They had a couple other people came outside as well, took a look at it. They opened they looked and then they had like a bomb, squad come in. They were very frustrated at me. They took down my info, and I believe, and then I said, hey, I really gotta go and catch this plane, and I was like, peace. And what's funny is that I never followed up, and they never either. So Right. I'm really curious whatever happened with that. I thought about it a couple weeks ago.

Mike DeHaan: [38:49] Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. I mean, that must have been not a major deal thing. Yeah. Be pretty persistent on that.

Brandon Elliott: [38:55] It's a wild area, so I wouldn't be surprised some of the other things.

Mike DeHaan: [38:59] Yeah. But, yeah. Yeah. That's a funny one. Okay. Cool. So second question, what is the number one tip you would give to a new investor looking to get started or a, like, small time investor looking to take their business to the next level?

Brandon Elliott: [39:12] That's so good. So two part for that. So for somebody brand new getting started, I highly, highly, highly recommend checking out and getting a little bit of education on what it looks like to invest in real estate from beginning to end in all of the different strategies out there. There's 30 plus ways to make money in real estate. Like, it's not for everybody, all of them. Mhmm. Figure out what you resonate with, what you gravitate towards, what makes sense financially, what makes sense time wise, and your resources. And afterwards, just see what you're gravitating toward. Like, what really attracts you. After that, deep dive into just that laser beam focus. Only get education from people that are doing exactly that, and, it'll set you up for success. Don't get distracted from all the distractions out there. Right? Don't you're go three feet from gold in wholesaling, and then you jump into fix and flips or, you know, multifamily. It's like, don't do that because some guru made it look good and sexy online.

Mike DeHaan: [40:10] Yeah.

Brandon Elliott: [40:11] And then anybody that's trying to grow and scale a business, it's a financial piece. Know? It's like, get your ducks in order. I think there's an amazing book called Traction that has set our business up tremendously successful. I'm very thankful for it. Got recommended from a mentor with it, but but also, like, get your credit right. Like, utilize business credit. There's you can get so much funding. Like, I can't explain this enough or stress it. You can get over a million dollars in funding within just twelve months. That's crazy. Like, million dollars at your fingertips. So if money was ever the issue, understand that credit can be the solution. Yeah. If you live in America, you're blessed. Like, let's get the credit. Let's hit your goals and dreams.

Mike DeHaan: [40:49] Yeah. That's nuts. Yeah. We definitely have to connect after this because, I mean, for us, we're pretty established, but we could do a hell of a lot with a million dollars, I think. Yeah.

Brandon Elliott: [40:56] Yeah. That's what we're saying.

Mike DeHaan: [40:56] If you know how

Brandon Elliott: [40:58] to find opportunity, if you're a business owner and you can find opportunity and and capital is the only thing holding you back from it, then that's that's your solution. Credit.

Mike DeHaan: [41:05] Yeah. Yeah. I love it, man. That's good stuff. So last question, where can people find you, follow you, and reach out

Brandon Elliott: [41:11] to you? Yeah, man. Of course. Creditcounselelite.com is going to be the best resource. Can you can actually we we did a webinar. It's about an hour long. I highly recommend everybody watching that. It it will break down all the possibilities that we can help you with and guide you and show you for all the possibilities with credit. That's on www.creditcouncilelite.com. Otherwise, if you wanna check out our podcast, it's called Ready Set Go Real Estate Investing Podcast. Wherever you listen to your episodes, hit that subscription button. You can see the new episodes every Monday. And then I'm on all social media, so Instagram, it's Brandon Elliott Investments, and then facebook.com/ Brandon Elliott investor. Cool. Awesome. Well, thanks so much, Brandon.

Mike DeHaan: [41:57] This has been super, super enlightening, and it's good to see you again, man.

Brandon Elliott: [42:00] I appreciate you so much, man. Keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate the platform and all the knowledge and time and effort you're putting into this. So God bless you, brother. I appreciate it.

Mike DeHaan: [42:09] Cool. Awesome. Yeah. Well, thanks, Brandon. I appreciate it. And thanks so much for listening, everybody. If you want to reach out to Brandon, he just gave you a bunch of ways to do so. Go and check out creditcouncilelite.com. Definitely hit him up on that. And then, you know, Instagram, social, go ahead and shoot him a DM. Super nice guy. I would highly highly recommend you engage with him because he has a lot that he can teach a lot of valuable info. Besides that, everybody, if you want to start generating off market leads, you can go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free, and you can get the five step guide for how Dan and I, we put together the basis of our business to start generating literally hundreds of off market leads every single month. If go through that guide, it can get you started in just a couple weeks. It's really not rocket science. You just need to have a basic process. So that's collectingkeyspodcast.com/free. And aside from that, guys, please leave us a five star review. We're listening to your podcast, and share this with anyone else who wants to figure out how to get more liquid to buy properties because Brandon dropped a ton of knowledge on this. So thanks so much for listening, everybody, and talk to you guys next week.

Mike DeHaan: [43:11] Thanks for listening, everybody. Please make sure you subscribe and leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, please make sure you go and you share this with other people within your network. We are really trying to grow this thing, and the best way for us to do so is by you telling other people to come and check us out. You can also follow us on Instagram. I am at Mike underscore invest. Dan is at investor man Dan. You can follow the podcast at collecting keys podcast. And if you wanna learn how to make real money as a real estate investor or you want to grow your already existing real estate investing business, please go and check out instantinvestorprogram.com and book a call with either Dan or myself, and we will see if you'll be a good fit. Thanks for listening everybody, and talk to you next week.

Speaker 3: [43:54] Thanks for listening. Please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. And check us out at collectingkeyspodcast.com for tips and guides on starting your own real estate investment and wholesaling business.