Chris Prefontaine
Chris Prefontaine has been a guest on Collecting Keys, the real estate investing podcast hosted by Mike DeHaan, Dan Austin and Dylan Koch.
Lessons From a Master of Creative Financing With Chris Prefontaine
Chris Prefontaine, a 32-year real estate veteran who rebuilt his business after 2008 around buying on terms, walks through how he structures owner-financed, subject-to and lease purchase deals without ever signing personally on bank debt. He explains the paperwork behind wraps, land contracts and trusts, how he protects sellers with mirror mortgages and default agreements, and how he gets rent-to-own buyers actually mortgage-ready. Mike and Dan also bring him a live deal — a portfolio of duplexes they want to take over subject-to — and get his structuring advice.
Key takeaways
- Chris buys everything on terms — owner financing, subject-to existing financing, or lease purchase — and never signs personally on bank loans, even when a bank offers a formal assumption, because assumption puts the debt back on your credit.
- Roughly a third of U.S. properties are free and clear; those sellers want their price, and you can often give them full price in exchange for getting your terms, which avoids the 60-70 cents on the dollar conversation.
- To protect a subject-to seller, record a wrap (mirror) mortgage whose amortization matches the underlying debt, so the seller has security and can foreclose if you default — and can show a bank that security when buying their next house.
- Another seller protection is a default agreement with a signed deed sitting in escrow: if you miss payments past 30 days, the seller records the deed and takes the house back with no foreclosure cost. Chris says a couple of states don't allow this, where a contract for deed works instead.