Hey everybody. In this episode, I have a fascinating conversation with Heather Dreves who shares some secrets on how to get returns from your real estate without being an expert.

Grant
Everybody, this is Grant, Welcome to another episode of Financial Investing Radio in the house with me today is Heather Dreves of Secured Investment Corp. Now someone reached out to me and said, Hey, have you taken a look at Heather's profile. And when I reviewed it, I started to realize, hey, there's some things that she's talking about that I've been able to dip my toe in, in the real estate space. And when I saw what she was doing, I thought, oh gosh, this would be really fun for us to hear more about the unique solution that they're bringing to clients. So let me take a breath and say welcome, Heather.

Heather
Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Grant
Very good to have you here. And you know, when we were talking before we got started, I think you probably live in one of the most beautiful places on the planet, which is awesome. So thanks for coming out of the cocoon of beauty where you guys live, talking with the rest of us. Okay, so first things first. Tell me a little bit about how your dreams and what got you going into this business area in real estate?

Heather
Yeah, well, I think everybody has a story, right? Like, a lot of us started with something else. And then was led down a path that was probably a better calling, per se. I went to college to be a teacher and decided I really liked my children but wasn't really interested in spending all day with everybody else's kids. That's it.

Grant
That's good to find out. 

Heather
Yeah, yeah. Well, my kids gonna test it out. They're like, You were terrible at helping us with homework. But anyway, so stayed home with our kids for a long time, we were kind of entrepreneurs and my husband was running an indoor soccer center facility. But I had a very good friend of mine that was in the private money industry. So when our youngest son was in school full time, I decided to go back out into the adult world. And he's like, you know, come to work for me. I said, I have no idea what you do I have a mortgage, is it the same thing? He's like, No, come down to my office. So long story short, 20 years ago, walked in there and just, it blew my mind. I had no idea that one, if you were a real estate investor, you could get funding outside of a bank and traditional sources. And two, I had no idea that you could invest money that way. I thought everybody went to a financial advisor, everybody, you know, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, like I just I was, my eyes were wide open.

Grant
I mean, that's such an uncommon knowledge just right there. Even some of our listeners will be like, wait a minute backup, say that phrase again, you can do what say that one more time.

Heather
So you can buy real estate, and get funding for real estate transactions outside of a bank. So you can acquire what we would call private money lending to buy real estate, a lot less restrictive than a bank, you know, they typically private lenders will look at what we call an after repair value, which banks don't do, you know, they want to know what's that property worth as it sits, and that's the most they're gonna lend on it. private lenders are much more creative. And they can look at a property and say, hey, I can see the value you're going to add, and I can see your vision. Absolutely will end on that. And so, that was mind blowing to me first. And then I started started with working with investors that said, you know, I've got money in the stock market, but I also want to invest in real estate. But here's the deal. I don't want to own the real estate. I don't want to rehab the house. I don't want to deal with a tenant and toilet but I want to reap the benefits of that.

Grant
So intended for more passive participation. Is that the idea?

Heather
Absolutely. Yep. So I'll huge majority of my clients, you know, have been active real estate investors in the past. They like real estate as an asset class. Again, they don't want to do it themselves, but they want To be the lender per se, and so there was this opportunity to match active real estate investors with people that are looking for a more passive Path to Wealth and and match the two and it benefits everybody. Right?

Grant
So what's the what's the typical profile of someone coming to service like this?

Heather
I would say on the borrower's the active investor side, you know, there there are people fixing and flipping, and they're everything from the guy that has a full time job that's doing it on the weekend to the very active clients that are for like 100 houses, really now they don't want to deal with a bank. There's too many restrictions. You know, we obviously have a very clearly defined guideline process and underwriting process, but it's much different than a thing. We're we're focusing on the asset, and then also focusing our attention on the borrower, we're making sure that they have the financial wherewithal to actually finish the deal. Can they make the payments, you know, all those things, we look at credit. But then on the on the passive side, the clients I mostly deal with there, you know, one of the niches I've really gotten involved with is high net worth dentist right now.

Grant
Did you say dentists?

Heather
Dentists.

Grant
Okay, I did not expect you to say dentists.

Heather
Well, here's the thing. They have tons of capital, right? Yeah, they have no time to manage their money invested, you know, and a lot of times their biggest asset is their business, they'll sell their practice, when they retire. Now, they have this influx of massive capital. Oh, interesting. A lot of them are very educated with real estate, but they don't have the time to do it. And so I would say that the profile for my passive people are people that have started to create some wealth for themselves, and they want to either create cash flow, so maybe they're retiring. And they don't want to tap into what they've saved, but they want to live off their earnings. Got it, or a new niche I've really I'm pretty excited about is our growth minded clients. So you know, I don't know how much you know, about a real estate fund. But for a long time, you had to be a high net worth accredited investor to even ever think of investing in these types of funds that we're talking about REITs. Yeah, well, we are similar to a REIT. But we are a privately managed real estate. Oh, interesting. Okay, got it. Well, we're privately managed, but the model is the same. It's real estate assets, throwing off profit. And that's how people make money as off their earnings. But 10 years ago, you could only open that type of fund up, if you were what's called an accredited investor. That's the only people that could invest. So you had to have a million dollars in assets over income of $200,000 a year 300. As a couple. We feel really passionate, we think everybody should have the opportunity create wealth. So four years ago, we actually have the ability to open up what's called a Regulation A fund, and anybody can invest in it. We started our minimum at $1,000. And it's open to anybody, and we pride ourselves on this, it took a long time to get approved for this spot.

Grant
That's fascinating. Okay, that's the first I've heard of something like that. How many organizations do that? 

Heather
I mean, I haven't heard of anyone, not many that are a real estate fund. Most of the time, they're a crowdfunding platform. So you're, you know, you're investing in a platform, that's an angel investor, or they, they provide business loans. There are only a few real estate funds in the United States that were approved for that. So it's pretty uncommon.

Grant
That is, wow, that's very interesting. Okay, that must have taken a lot of effort to get that I mean, so that's feels like that's such an untapped market too. Huge market.

Heather
What we cater to is we work with a lot of clients that have 401k Is that they didn't move from a previous employer have small Ira balances, you know, they funded it with six grand and, and then they never did anything with it. This is a great opportunity for those kinds of funds. You can roll those accounts over to self directed custodians. So they're still tax deferred, you're not, you're not taking a distribution on it, okay? You're just, you're just now deciding where you want to invest it instead of having a financial advisor or a money manager, and I'm not here to tell you to people to pull all their money out from their financial advisor, really, it's just a way to diversify. And it gives people the ability with small dollars to invest in real estate because a lot of people think, well, I've got to have, you know, a couple 100 grand to buy real estate, no, you don't, you could invest in a fund that's investing in real estate and you reap the benefits of it and you have zero headaches. 

Grant
That's, that's awesome. So let me say back to you because it sounds almost too good to be true. Okay. You're telling me that someone could take their four When k or whatever other capital they have, there's not a bar, a minimum bar, they can roll that into this investment fund investment fund is going to be making the investment decisions, as well as managing the properties. And these people then just participate that investment participate in sort of a passive, passive return is that you said?

Heather
Yep, yep.

Grant
That's really awesome. 

Heather
Average yields are eight to 9%. We've managed funds for 10 years. So we have a really good track record. They are very regulated by the SEC. So there is a another set of eyes overseeing it. And they're fully audited funds.

Grant
Okay. Okay. Then what's the risk side?

Heather
Well, the risk side is, you know, not any different than any other investment, right risk is the market shift values decrease, I will tell you that our funds are a little bit different than most in the sense that we focus around residential real estate, okay. And we were not what people would call a syndication where we're investing in apartment complexes, we focus our investments around single family up to four units, all in the affordable housing market space. So we do two things with the funds. So part of the fund, we lend the money out. So real estate investors that are wanting to fix and flip we'll lend them money, we take a first lien against their property. So worst case scenario, they don't pay, we foreclose on the house. And now we own a house with 30% equity in it because we don't lend more than 70% of the the other portion of the fund we buy real estate, specifically in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and Spokane, Washington. So we invest in projects locally. We don't preach people trying to manage a rehab five states over and we don't do it either. So that's our model.

Grant
So are all of your properties in that area, then?

Heather
Yes, all the hard assets that we buy are only local, we went out is nationwide.

Grant
Because I've worked with I've worked with some groups that will take the approach of the look for places in the US where the volatility of the real estate market is small. The intent is to create a cash flow through sort of this renter model, if you get appreciation on the property great, but it's not about that it's more about sort of that rental cashflow. How different are you from from something like that? 

Heather
Well, we look at all of that. And that's another reason that we stay in the affordable housing market space. Because let's let's say that, you know, our exit is to rehab a house and flip it and the profits flow back into the fund and the market shifts. When you're in that affordable housing market space, you have a huge opportunity to cash flow that property in the event that you need to write out, you know, values decreasing. So we're much like that. And I think you'll have to be as a fund manager, you have to be nimble, you have to have multiple strategies. If you start relying on one stream of income for that fund, you're in big trouble when things change. And so we're much like that I you know, in the past, we've done very well, fixing and flipping, and our clients have done very well fixing and flipping, we're right now educating our clients that hey, some markets are turning like in an inflationary time, real estate's a great place to be. But it's also a great place to be for rental market. And so we're seeing a ton of opportunity for cash flowing properties. And so we're starting to add that to our to our portfolio.

Grant
So a couple minutes ago, you were talking about another class of investor that sort of a high growth or high high growth minded and then I think I may have entered interrupted you on that. What is it about them that you find interesting?

Heather
Well, the nice thing about our funds is when people make a decision to deploy capital through our funds, they can set their accounts up however they want. So what I mean by that is, they can either set their accounts up to reinvest their earnings. So earnings are paid out monthly. So we pay out all profit, which is really different than most real estate funds. Because if you're investing in a fund that's buying an apartment complex, for example, typically your returns are realized five years down the road, you get the benefit of depreciation, which is great, but you don't typically see your high yields till they sell that property. Right, right. Are our funds cash flowing? So we're lending on loans or paying off or buying properties? We're selling them. So all those earnings or profit are paid out every month? So you can either reinvest your earnings and roll them back into your equity membership, which is yeah, if you're working with self directed IRAs, that is an awesome option because you don't have these dollars going back. All right, and then they sit there and deploy until you have enough so you can reinvest for more growth minded clients, or for my guys that are looking for cash flow, you know, retired sold their practice trying to replace their income. They liked the monthly model because they're getting, you know, the earnings. Yeah.

Grant
So on the property, so sorry, Heather, quick question on the property itself when it's purchased, is it the fund that is on the property that owns the property? Or is it you know, allocated to the individual?

Heather
No, the fund owns the prop. Yep. Any loans that we originate? The fund is the lien holder. And that that's another thing is these are tangible assets. So risk is, at the end of the day, the markets go haywire, we just start liquidating assets and paying people off would be worst case. Right?

Grant
And that's how that's very interesting. Because, you know, I, currently, my wife and I, we invest in properties, but we do it where we're the first in other words, it's, it's, it's on us, right? So we have property managers that certainly take care of it, because we really like that, you know, cash flow kind of idea, right? And you want to be sort of passive with it, for sure. But at the end of the day, it's it's my name on it, right. And I think that's a unique thing about what you're describing there. I'm listening to a gun, though, that would distribute the risk, right, and spread it around there a little bit as as the individual investor.

Heather
Very cool, right. And that's what you know, a lot of people like, I have a large percentage of my clients have done real estate in the past, they've owned rentals they've owned, they've funded notes, they've fixed and flip, they, you know, developed and they're kind of at the point where they've, they've got capital now, and they don't want they want to retire. They, they want to, they want to golf, and they, they don't want to hear from a tenant that their toilets plugged in the middle of the night, you know, even though you're using a property manager at the end of the day, it's still you paying for it. That's right. That's right. You know, that's where I think there's benefit there. And then also for our clients that have smaller dollars that, you know, our husband and wife both working full time with kids, they don't have time to be rehabbing a house, this is a way that they can start to put that money to work for them. And it's shocking how quick it grows, especially your tax deferred accounts, self directed IRAs, and self directed 401. K's are like, people don't talk about it enough. It's, you know, you can do traditional, you can do Roth, if you're not working currently, for the employer that provided the 401, you can roll that over and start deploying that capital. So there's just so many other options out there that I just don't think people are aware of.

Grant
What's your take on potential impact to this model with, you know, interest rates slowly nicking up there from the feds and such any any concerns there?

Heather
We do. We talk about it. We meet multiple times a week, there's three fund managers to include myself, I think what we're already seeing, I mean, our market is a little different. It's still very hot, but we're starting to see it take longer for houses to sell. I think prices are going to stabilize. I don't know that we're going to see a I don't think we're going to see a downturn like 2008. I don't think that's going to happen. banks aren't lending at 120% of value. But at some point, I would I think homeownership is going to be affected and there's going to be a huge opportunity in the rental market.

Grant
I think it'd be a soft landing, right?

Heather
Yeah, yeah. Well, there has to be right. Yeah. You you can't have interest rates as low as they were in values increasing at the pace that they were.

Grant
No, it's crazy, right. Especially what the last. I think you're saying before we started chatting wasn't like you've seen it just in the market year and 40% valuation increase just in the last two years. Is that right?

Heather
Yep.

Grant
Yeah, boy, that's in the Wall Street. Yeah, that's better than this.

Heather
We bought a little house close to my office down here. My our younger son was going to call it there's actually a small junior college here. And three and a half years ago, we bought it for 200. And I was sweating bullets. I thought, oh my god, we're just overpaying for this house. The house next to it just sold for 450. I was like, Why didn't we buy like five of five of these? Yeah, I was thinking but you know, it's but but again, that shows you that a lot of locals in this market are selling because it's a huge opportunity, right? They'll never make as much money but now they're displaced. And that's why as a as a fund management team, we're saying hey, multifamily, small multifamily. We have several duplex projects going and for plexes because people have to have somewhere to live and at the prices that have increased here, you know, most of the locals can't afford it. And so they're going to be you know, looking for housing. So we think that that the housing market right now, is it the opportunities in rentals?

Grant
Yeah, that makes sense. Quick question about your clients in terms of preparing them. So given that some of these models are new to a certain group of people, what do you guys do in terms of getting people up to speed or educating them? Is that some of the things that your organization does?

Heather
Yeah. So the interesting thing about our company is we actually are an education company. First and foremost, we put on so it's interesting, we used to put on live events, like maybe at most for a month, usually two to three will COVID hit. And as everybody else in the education space that did live events, quickly, you're either closing down or you're pivoting saying how do we still pull this off? So what's really cool about that is we went live with all these these events, webinars, podcasts, online live events, and now we put on anywhere from three to four a week. So yeah, so and they're everything. They're from a grant, you want to buy a piece of real estate, we're going to teach you how to rehab it too. Hey, Grant, you want to be a loan broker? We'll teach you how to do that. I am mostly involved with a lot of webinars where I just did one last week, and it was all about how to buy a note how to educate people about how to buy a mortgage, or what some people call a first lien. How do you do your due diligence, what do you look for? And so we just, we really believe in helping our clients be the most educated they can to make the best decision, you know, and and so a lot of webinars, we have one tonight, we do every first Monday of the month, called our CEO, fireside. And that's all going to be focused about around the rental market. So education, just tons of online, tons of education.

Grant
Perfect. And where would someone go to find those webinars?

Heather
So they if they're want to learn more about the passive investing side of things, I would send them to our main website, which is at secured investment Corp, no plural in their secured investment Corp. There they're going to learn there's tons of webinars, different podcasts I've been on. And that's more your education about passive investing. If they are a more active real estate investor, they want to go find the deals they want to make offers, they should visit our website at Lee Arnold System of real estate.

Grant
Sorry. Did you say Lee Arnold?

Heather
System of real estate system real estate? Got it? Okay. All right. Yeah, that's awesome. Kind of two different paths, it kind of just depends on what they're really trying to accomplish. I mean, that's what I talk with my clients is like, what are you trying to accomplish? How much time do you have? And how much capital do you have to actually commit to that? And then that typically dictates what path they're going to take?

Grant
Is it pretty evenly split? Or do you see more people going passive? What's What do you observe? And

Heather
I'd say it's pretty evenly split. Honestly, you know, I think for a long time, it was heavier on the, you know, everybody, you know, you got HGTV, and they make rehabbing look like it's I've I've rehabbed and I never looked like anybody on HGTV, and my husband and I almost divorced each other. So I said, I thought we were going to be like, Chip and Joanna, like, this was a thing. I was like, Oh, it was good. Like, that was a big buyer, you know, through COVID, you know, you couldn't get into buy houses, you couldn't get the county out there. Now you're having supply chain issues, you can't get materials. So I think it has started to shift a little a lot of people have left employers through COVID. And now they've got these 401k sitting there. And they're going What am I going to do with this? So I think that's created a lot of opportunity and interest in the passive side of it. So I think it's right now it's probably 5050 5050

Grant
Awesome. Okay, while Heather, you've just been incredible sharing these, these experiences that your organization's had and the value that you're bringing, I have a quick question. Are you still doing CrossFit?

Heather
I am I'm getting back into it. I kind of fell off the CrossFit wagon. Last year we moved we were, you know, again, developing five acres like it was going to be the big glamorous thing. So yeah, I not as much as I was but I'm getting back to it regularly.

Grant
That's awesome. I love your story and what it is you're doing for the market and for people changing lives and given them a livelihood to build on all the like you said all the nest eggs they've developed in a way that's got a sounds like a lot of risk taken out for the people. So that's amazing.

Heather
We're here To educate people and give them a pathway to create, you know, generational wealth for themselves. And we just strongly don't agree with the fact that you have to be a high net worth individual to take advantage of this. So we pride ourselves on the fact that we we have a real estate fund with people with as little as $1,000 can invest in. Yeah, people have to start somewhere, they really do. 

Grant
Well, and you may have a free, you may use the phrase there that I love, which is around generational wealth. And sometimes that gets in the popular culture that's not talked about much. But for people that are being intentional with what they're trying to do for their families, those kinds of strategies mean a lot. So the fact you've made it accessible to the masses, and you're helping them solve that generational wealth problem. That's that's really awesome vision that you guys have any last comments that you'd like to share?

Heather
No, I mean, I guess I what I would like to share is if you have any interest, or you want to become more educated about self directed IRAs, and 401, K's just for clarification, we are not an IRA custodian. I'm not a tax professional. But I know a lot about those accounts. And I would encourage anybody, if you even have a small interest in it, get a hold of me and my team, you can get a hold of me at our website at security investment corp.com. And we'd love to give you some references for you know how you can set those types of accounts up if there's one thing people take away from this this presentation is that there is opportunity for investment through tax deferred accounts.

Grant
Very cool. Wow, what a great, great service you guys are providing Heather, thank you for taking the time with me here today. I appreciate that. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening to another episode of Financial investing radio and until next time, go check out Secured Investment Corp.

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