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Creative Acquisitions, with John Crutchfield

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In this episode, Jeff interviews John Crutchfield, a full-time, successful real estate investor and entrepreneur who encourages people to “grab the map” and take charge of living the life they want. John shares his story of getting started as a real estate investor, transitioning from his previous full-time career and ultimately becoming one of the biggest real estate investing players in his market through doing great, creative and entrepreneurial real estate acquisitions.

Episode Transcript

“I found that a lot of the sellers have problems that can be solved without initial capital or without large sums of initial capital. And so that’s when asking them what they’re going to do with the money. That’s my favorite question. And asking them if I could solve their problem without money, what would I do, gets you crazy answers that help you cater offers. So a lot of times I’ll find their problems have more to do with management than money. A lot of times their issues will have more to do with, you’ve mentioned in other conversations, trying to solve a tax problem. Maybe they’re trying to have something to leave to their kids, but they don’t want to leave the property management to them. Or maybe they’re just trying to go on a trip, or do something that requires a little bit of cash and they don’t need a big lump sum payment. Maybe they want income.”

Welcome to Racking Up Rentals, a show about how regular people, those of us without huge war chest of capital or insider connections, can build lasting wealth acquiring a portfolio of buy and hold real estate. But we don’t just go mainstream looking at what’s on the market and asking banks for loans, nor are we posting We Buy Houses signs are just looking for “motivated sellers” to make lowball offers to. You see, we are people-oriented deal makers, we sit down directly with sellers to work out win-win deals without agents or any other obstacles, and buy properties nobody else even knows are for sale. I’m Jeff from the Thoughtful Real Estate Entrepreneur. If you’re the kind of real estate investor who wants long term wealth, not get rich quick gimmicks or pictures of yourself holding fat checks on social media, this show is for you. Join me and quietly become the wealthiest person on your block. Now let’s go rack up a rental portfolio.

Thanks for joining me for another episode of Racking Up Rentals. The Show Notes for this episode can be found at thoughtfulre.come106. Please do us a big favor by hitting that subscribe button in your podcast app; it really does help fellow thoughtful real estate entrepreneurs to find us and helps make sure that you don’t miss any of our awesome upcoming episodes. So onward with today’s episode.

I’m really pleased to share with you a super fun interview that I had a chance to do recently with my new friend, John Crutchfield. John and I met kind of through the social media channels of the real estate investing world. And as you’ll hear, it’s really quite funny; he reached out to me and I actually kind of resisted a little bit. And I started to realize, wow, this guy and I were really on the same page about a lot of things philosophically. And it really seemed like, gosh, we need to sit down and have a conversation. And what if we just recorded that conversation as we get to know each other, we’ll share this with everybody else, as well. And it turned out to be such a fun conversation, full of tons of great ideas and unique stories and insights about creative deals coming together. And understanding sellers and really finding that a lot of those are not as obvious as it would seem and are actually more unique and that there could be very fun and creative ways to give them exactly what they are needing most, but in non-traditional ways. And so I think you’re just going to enjoy this conversation; first, because John is just a super awesome and fun guy to talk to. But secondly, I think you’re gonna get some really neat and interesting ideas about ways you might be able to get deals done that you might not have thought of before. So without further ado, let me get us right into my conversation with John Crutchfield.

Jeff Stephens 

All right, John, thanks so much for joining me today.

John Crutchfield

Man. This is gonna be awesome, Jeff. How are you doing?

Jeff Stephens 

I’m doing good. How are you?

John Crutchfield

I’m doing pretty good. It’s a sunny day outside. I’m sitting in a blue room, so I got a great view. And I’m talking to you, so it’s gonna get better.

Jeff Stephens 

That’s fantastic. Where are you located physically?

John Crutchfield

Today I am in Tupelo, Mississippi. Tupelo, Mississippi is a little city about 80 miles south of Memphis, Tennessee.

Jeff Stephens 

Nice. Well, very cool. I know you and I have been we’ve been kind of circling each other for a while and kind of flirted with the idea of chatting a couple times. I mean, maybe you were flirting and I was resisting at first but

John Crutchfield

You were very resistant. You were the girl who says no over and over again. Hey, not girl. But you know what I mean. J

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah. Well, you were persistent and here we are. So I’m really grateful for the chance to chat with you. Because it seems to me like every little interaction we have has just sort of shown this tremendous amount of alignment, philosophical alignment. And even though, we’ll talk about this in a few minutes, maybe we’re not tactically doing everything exactly the same, it feels like energetically maybe you’d say, that’s very touchy feely, but energetically maybe we think about things in the same way. Is that kind of how you perceive it to?

John Crutchfield

Absolutely; I’ve followed your content online, you’ve got a great podcast, Racking Up Rentals. And you also have a Facebook group, you have to remind me of the name of the Facebook group, but I’m in there too and I see you responding to all of the folks in your group, providing lots of value, answering questions. And when I see your answers to the questions, or even the questions you ask, I’m like, I got to get like that right there. That’s the way I need to be doing things. So yeah, a lot of synergy, for sure.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah. That’s cool. When I see you and see the names and labels associated with what you do, I see these words, Grab The Map. And I wasn’t sure exactly what to make of it at first, but I thought I like the way that strikes me, even though I don’t know literally what it means. So can you tell us a little bit more about what does that mean? Where did you come up with that? And, and what’s the sort of origin story of that?

John Crutchfield

Man, if I went through the rabbit hole, it would take up too much time. But in essence, a few years ago, people used to say YOLO, you only live once. They used to say, you only live once, so do everything that you want to do make your life enjoyable, live your life. And I had a real issue with it because a lot of the people that were walking around saying YOLO didn’t have any money, didn’t have good credit, didn’t have any assets. And I was like, Well, how can you really YOLO? How can you live this once in a lifetime kind of experience? You need to have some assets paying for those experiences. And thus, Grab The Map; the idea that we do live our best lives, we do shoot for our accomplishments and our dreams, but in order to do so, we need to be acquiring and maintaining assets in the form of rental real estate. So that’s where it comes from.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah, I really love that. People have asked me many times what does thoughtful mean, and I always say that it means two things. The first one is it’s very people oriented, and maybe that part’s more obvious. But the other part is, it’s just a higher level of intentionality, and being really purposeful in what one’s doing. And so as you were just describing that idea of what it means to Grab The Map, to me is that second definition of thoughtful, which is let’s just be very deliberate about what we’re trying to accomplish, and go out there and make it happen.

John Crutchfield

Absolutely. And that’s something that I continue to try to define more and more on a daily basis as I build a portfolio.

Jeff Stephens 

Let’s talk about that, then. So I know, like me, you are advocating for an approach as well as doing it yourself. So talk to me about how are you grabbing your map?

John Crutchfield

First of all, the concept of grabbing the map, living your best life, really boils down for me being able to be available for my family, being able to be available for my kids. I was a former teacher, former school principal and I did the principal thing for about five years, and it was great, I served the community. But nobody really talks about how if you’re the principal of a school, you don’t get to put your own kids on the school bus, or you don’t get to pick up your own kids from school, you don’t really get to just run off and go see your kids at their play during school, stuff like that. And so for the first two or three years that I had kids, I missed all of that stuff. And it was something that kind of appeared to me like, it’s got to give; my wife kind of helped with that, but it had to give where I had to give more time to my kids, to my wife and to my family. And real estate as an asset class, when I learned about what cash flow was, when I learned about generating more monthly income, somewhat passively, where I didn’t have to be physically in a place, I kind of got addicted to it. So this concept of grabbing the map truly became like, let me see how much cash I can get my hands; it still is that. How much how much income can I continue to build for my family’s sake, so that I can be there for those experiences and be there for my kids. So that’s really how I’m grabbing the map these days.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah, I love that. It’s a great answer. And I think the two things you mentioned there that I think a lot of people can probably really relate to; one is like, oh this life that I was taught I thought I was pursuing is not actually necessarily giving me some of the kind of flexibility or benefits that I thought maybe it would. And then secondly, is that little sense of addiction that one can experience when they start to get a little bit of a taste real estate. So what was that? What was the gateway drug, so to speak, that kind of gave you the taste of real estate and that made you go down that rabbit hole?

John Crutchfield

So it was really the first time I made bank payments. And I know, I know, you don’t like bank payments, but the first time I made bank payments with somebody else’s money. See, I had been spending, you know, I have bank payments, and you have bills, and people call you and you gotta run your card and all this stuff. And it was always with money from my job. And I remember it like yesterday; having three bank payments, and three tenant payments, and being able to pay those bank payments, and still having some money left over. And I was like, wait a minute, you mean to tell me I could actually be using other people’s money to build up assets for my family? And then it was game on; it was game on then.

Jeff Stephens 

How was your transition? Was it abrupt? Was it like, Hey, I’m going all in on this, bye bye, Principal job. Or was there a kind of a gradual transition?

John Crutchfield

Well, I took a job as a professor at a university, which was a lot slower, and a big pay cut, so that I would have the time. I didn’t really realize that I would have the time then, but university life is a lot slower than the day to day life when you’ve got 1200 12 year-olds in school. So I had that extra time. And that time, had me start thinking like, let’s see what I can do with it, let’s see what I can grow with it. A very gradual transition, nothing abrupt, nothing crazy, definitely building up the cash flow to a point where I feel like I can jump off. Dave Ramsey likes to say keeping the boat close enough to the dock, where I didn’t just jump in the water, like the boat is pretty close by the time I said, I can do this full time I can get off. And it’s funny, because when I did finally get off, I realized, man, if I would have got off sooner, I probably would have blew off some of the goals that I even accomplished. So very gradual approach, building up cash flow, slowly building up a team, so that even once I stopped working full time, I still had a team that manages my rentals. That’s actually where we are right now sitting in the office here this afternoon.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. So if we fast forward to today, to what happens in that office you’re sitting in right now, what does your business and real estate life in general, what does it look like today?

John Crutchfield

Yeah, so on my end today, I spend a lot of time talking to sellers. I try to talk to people that are interested in selling their property or solving a problem with their real estate as the collateral. I also spend a lot of time dealing with contractors, people that are maintaining the properties, keeping the properties in good condition. And then I also spend time creating relationships with investors, and with banks. So trying to make sure that I can continue to have the capital to buy more properties, keep the properties that we have fixed up. Typically, I like to say my job is finding money, finding deals, and then making sure that the business is running efficiently. Those are things that I’m constantly working on.

Jeff Stephens 

Are you providing property management services to other people? Or is there any services level component to your business? Or is it pretty much just primarily your own portfolio that you are managing?

John Crutchfield

Very proud that started the company totally managing our own properties. We’re actually one of the largest property management companies in Tupelo, Mississippi, and we only manage my properties. So it’s pretty cool that that’s the case. We have recently, just recently, in the last six months, started a third party service just because we have relationships with contractors, we have relationships with vendors. So we wanted to say how can we help the community and leverage some of those services to create an additional income stream? And so now I do have someone that’s working specifically on not managing property for other people, but providing services to other people and charging a fee for connecting them with vendors and contractors.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah, that’s very, very cool. I love that. First of all, I should say I’m super happy to hear that one of the first things you mentioned in terms of how you allocate your time is talking to sellers. I think that’s fantastic. That’s definitely my focus as well. Although certainly, if you followed me around, you probably would say, Jeff, you should be following your own advice a little bit better, should be carving off some other things you’re doing and getting in front of those sellers more often. But talk to me about what you consider to be your acquisition strategy. If you could kind of put a headline or a bumper sticker that says, here’s how I buy properties, since you are really kind of a full time buyer of real estate, how would you describe that?

John Crutchfield

There may not be a total similarity to how you do it. But lately, my idea has been to create an awareness that I buy houses and apartments. And so really this idea that you promote a brand that lets people know constantly, that this is what I do. And that brand is built through bandit signs, that brand is built through cold calling, that brand is built through door knocking, that brand is built through the truck with the signage on it. My office is actually on Main Street, which is 40-50,000 cars pass by here every single day, they there’s a big train that stops in the middle of the town, so people have to stop and see my building. So really, the idea that I’m creating an awareness that this is what we do. And so right now, probably 80 to 85% of the business that I get is totally referrals. Totally people that say, Hey, we heard you buy houses, can you come look at mine? Or, hey, we heard that you might offer me a fair price on my property, can you come look at mine? So I haven’t bought a property from a realtor in about a year, 12 months; I have sold some stuff to realtors, but I have not bought a property from a realtor in about that period of time, just because a lot of it is referral based from investors or people that see the signs and stuff like that, or students, students that work with me that are learning from me about how to how to get into the business.

Jeff Stephens 

And so of the properties you are buying, what’s your kind of allocation exit strategy, so to speak? It’s a very complicated way of saying, how many of them are you keeping? Do you do flip some? Do you wholesale some? What’s the mix there for you?

John Crutchfield

I definitely like to see different exit options when I’m looking at a deal. But you know, I like numbers. So I would say 95% of everything I’ve ever purchased is still in our portfolio. I literally am one of those people that when I send my balance sheet to anybody, they think that I’m addicted to houses. So it’s become an issue because I hold a lot of stuff and I realized that holding stuff is very expensive. So nowadays, I am starting to sell a few things. I do wholesale from time to time, but very informally, not structuring anything on any paper; the things that I wholesale are really like, hey, let me call a buddy that I know buys houses and tell him hey, if you buy this, give me 1000 bucks, and I just move on and if I don’t get it, I don’t really care. Because most of the things that are really deals, I’m just gonna buy myself.

Jeff Stephens 

So when you are spending your time acquiring, I should say, when your company is buying things, are you pretty much the sole person who’s out there doing that? Do you have other people on your team that do acquisitions with you? Or how does that work? Is it just you?

John Crutchfield

Certainly I’m using a virtual assistant to help make some of the cold calls, I don’t really cold call anymore. I usually am following up on warm leads. I’m usually the one that’s talking directly to the seller, dealing with the actual appointment, I’m the one making offers. But in terms of getting the warm lead to me, I do have a variety of sources that I’m using. So my ladies in the office will certainly answer the phones or make some cold calls, if they have extra time. They’ll certainly drive by properties. That happens a lot actually now; my contractors and maintenance workers all know if you drive by a vacant house, you really need to get me the information because you may end up getting a referral fee for doing so. I’m definitely spending most of my time as the one who does the negotiations and talks to the seller.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah, yeah, that’s cool. I want to touch on something that came up before we were recording this. I was saying hey, with your people skills and approachability and whatnot, you know that’s definitely what you should be doing. And you said, Oh, well, I’m more of an introvert. What’s funny is I feel exactly the same. I don’t do well in a huge crowd of people, but I do well in somebody’s living room. So my question for you is, I guess, it sounds like that’s another thing that we’re kind of aligned on is maybe some of those traits. But do you get up for that environment? Do you enjoy that part of the process overall, or do you find yourself shying away from it?

John Crutchfield

Actually, as the principal of the school, I had a really good mentor who taught me that there were five things that people really gravitate to, that make you look confident. And I’ll share those just because we got a second. One thing is what kind of voice you use; do you use a loud voice or do you use a quiet voice? So he says, speak louder. He says walk 25% faster; just people who walk a little bit faster, it seems like they have somewhere they’re going, so seems like they might be they might be important. Smile big is one of the things that he says; smile big, it projects confidence. You’re definitely doing that. Now, I’m trying to try to remember all of them. Certainly listen more than you talk. Because you’re listening for ideas, and you’re able to react to those ideas, which is the fifth one.

And so doing all of those things certainly projects a little bit more confidence. I’m kind of in the zone when that’s happening. And especially when I am helping solve a problem for a seller, that’s going to be the key. I actually turn down things all the time where I don’t feel like I’m helping the seller, and I’ll ask the seller, Do you not need help with this problem? Would you be able to handle this based on the way things are going right now if I totally exit from the picture? Sometimes you have sellers that don’t want the help, or they don’t feel like they really need it, and it’s not until they really realize the pain they’re in, that they come back and realize they do need the help. So yes, I’m in my zone, I’m in an awesome place when I’m working directly with sellers. I’ve learned, in some of the bigger stuff that I’ve done and some of the larger projects I have in mind, to maintain relationships with brokers, but I certainly am loving when I get to talk to sellers directly.

Jeff Stephens 

One thing I think about sometimes, that’s really interesting, is a seller almost always has a problem. But whether they think of themselves as having a problem or not having a problem is a different topic. And I don’t know if you feel this way; we align on a lot of things but maybe you won’t agree with me on this one. I believe that a seller, if they’ve called you back from your marketing, if they’re willing to engage you in a conversation, in my opinion, they are a motivated seller. Motivated Seller is one of these incredibly common and kind of overused terms in our industry, but I would say that they are a motivated seller, if they’re engaging you in a conversation; the question is just how obvious is their motivation.

Now, some of the motivations a lot of people work with or focus on are the bluntly, brutally obvious ones, like, oh, the roof is falling in, I have to move or get a new roof; or I’m five years behind on the taxes and down to the last couple of days, those are the real obvious types of problems. But the less obvious types of problems or the ones, the less obvious motivations, are the ones that require more of what you just described, which is sitting in their living room, engaging that conversation, listening more than you’re talking, and all that. And I think that that’s not a talent that everybody has necessarily. I don’t know, I’m not even sure if there’s a question in there, but what do you think about that?

John Crutchfield

I agree wholeheartedly with you. If they are calling, they are motivated in some way; there’s a reason that they called. And it’s our responsibility, really, to try to figure out where that connection is. And I’ve been on the receiving end of it; I’ve had people that are interested in buying properties that do a very good job of trying to find that that point of commonality, where what they’re trying to accomplish, and what I’m trying to accomplish makes sense for both of us to do something. And it’s a dance of sorts, and that negotiating period is really, really, really a good way for me to spend my time, because it’s something that I love doing.

Jeff Stephens 

I love the dance analogy, too. I totally agree. Let’s talk about financing a little bit. So we were joking before, you said you had a lunch earlier today with a banker who you were working to persuade to have the perspective that you everything’s good, and you deserve to continue to be a borrower of theirs. What is your typical kind of financing strategy for how you acquire your especially long term holds?

John Crutchfield

Yes. I like to think about every transaction as an opportunity to figure out how to solve a problem. And so the more tools that you have in your toolbox, the more deals I can get done, the more holds I can accomplish. So I don’t really go into any particular seller with any predefined financing terms. Obviously, I want to get in for as little down as possible and as cheap as possible. But that’s really not how I’m approaching the situation. Usually, I’m thinking as little cash as possible; if I can get in for as little cash as possible, sometimes I can use my own capital. If I can get in with great terms, sometimes it helps the seller accomplish whatever they’re trying to accomplish. Sometimes the seller wants some money up front, and that’s where the bank is going to be a partner.

So my typical hold nowadays is more so what we call the BRRRR strategy, which is buying the property in cash, whether it’s my own or whether it’s another investor’s money; fixing the property up, all with credit or other lines of financing; and then going to the bank as a partner and saying, hey, I’ve got this asset, it’s worth so much more, can I get all of that capital back? And that’s my typical strategy these days.

But because I’ve been buying larger units, larger packages lately, portfolios of homes/apartments, I found that a lot of the sellers have problems that can be solved without initial capital or without large sums of initial capital. And so that’s when asking them what they’re going to do with the money. That’s my favorite question. And asking them if I could solve their problem without money, what would I do, gets you crazy answers. Crazy answers that help you cater offers. So a lot of times, I’ll find that their problems have more to do with management than money. A lot of times their issues will have more to do with, you’ve mentioned in other conversations, trying to solve a tax problem. Maybe they’re trying to have something to leave to their kids, but they don’t want to leave the property management to them. Or maybe they’re just trying to go on a trip, or do something that requires a little bit of cash and they don’t need a big lump sum payment. Maybe they want income; I’ve had a lot of people that just want a check without the worries.

And so I’ve been able to position myself as the guy who can pay you on the first of the month for real. Really passive income, you really don’t have to chase me down because you know where my office is, and be able to position myself as a solution that provides them a consistent source of income, but also allows me to carry that and for me to make monthly payments, without having to go to a bank. So I’ve kind of used all of those tools. My last deal, I closed in cash and went to the bank, and I’m holding that one on a 15 year fixed note. The deal before that I closed a two and a half million dollar deal where the seller is carrying the down payment, they’re still carrying it, they’re going to carry it for the next 15 years, and the bank was the partner on the rest of it. And I just had to come out of pocket for the renovation. So just lots of different strategies that I use to try to get stuff done.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah, that’s awesome. What a great, great answer. One thing, two things actually, I want to call out there. You know how you just said, you tell the seller, Oh, you actually want to get paid at the first of every month, it started making me think about something that I’ve definitely experienced in my own business, but now I feel like I haven’t talked about it enough on this show, and I’m glad you’re bringing this up, which is the very positive snowball effect of developing that track record with sellers. Because the first time you go out and you’re proposing seller financing, they need to feel good about you. The second time though, you have one reference; the third time, you have two references, and pretty soon, you’ve got a whole bunch of references. I’ve definitely found that that’s been helpful to me, too; I can say well, let me give you the names and phone numbers of 10 other people who I pay reliably every month on the first and you call them and you ask them what you want to know. And so I think that that’s really valuable. Do you ever find yourself harnessing that snowballing track record?

John Crutchfield

All the time, all the time. I actually did a subject to deal with some seller financing in it about three months ago. I proposed it to the seller, he kind of abruptly hung up on me on the phone and called somebody; at the time I didn’t know what he was doing. But, he called somebody that we both mutually knew and they talked and he called me right back and he was like, Okay, yeah, I’d do that. And of course, later on, days later, I found out who he had called, and he just basically was saying, Hey, is this guy gonna pay me? He just mentioned your name, and he didn’t tell me that he knew the person that I named dropped, but he said he mentioned your name, he mentioned that he pays you every month. And so that relationship, that prior history certainly can lead to more deals for sure. I’ve actually had that happen several times; I did a big, kind of a huge deal, my biggest seller finance note right at a million bucks. And that guy called the garbage company that I pay garbage to, to ask them, Hey, should I finance this million bucks to this guy? That was my credit check, a question to the garbage people. So yeah, that’s pretty cool what can happen, how sellers do reference checks.

Jeff Stephens 

Absolutely. At that point, they’re like 94% of the way to saying yes, anyway, because they liked you. They’ve spent time with you, they’ve gotten to know you. And then now, their heart has already decided, yeah, I’m gonna loan this guy money. But now their brain’s like, Oh, come on, do something logical here. So they just do some kind of a reference check or credit check like that, whether it’s the garbage company or somebody else you pay each month. It’s funny, I just stop and I compare and contrast that to filling out 45 pages of a loan application, putting all these numbers in there, like, Oh, my God, I have to look up these numbers again? And put these in this personal financial statement.

John Crutchfield

I see the pain on your face. You’re thinking about it right now.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah, I am, aw man. And then you said something else that I just thought was super fascinating; I’ve literally never thought about this before. Talk to us more about when you said one of your favorite things to ask somebody, this is what I wrote down so let’s see if I got it right, if I could solve your problem without money, what would I do? Did I get that right?

John Crutchfield

Yes, you got it right. I’m convinced because I’m one of these people now; I don’t need any more money. I don’t need any more money. I need what the money will do for me. And most people are that way. Most people do not need money. Most people need what the money will do for them. So I ask people: if I couldn’t solve your problem with money, what would you have happen? And I’ve literally had a guy say just send me to Africa on a safari. I literally had a guy who was wanting to go hunting for lions in Kenya. And that’s what I did; I swiped my credit card, and I bought a property because I just sent him to Kenya and he signed the deed for no money down. That’s what I mean; if you can get behind what their real reason is for selling the property and what they’re going to do, sometimes we can really create wins for both sides. I had another guy, he was just getting married, it was his second marriage. And the lady wouldn’t marry him unless he paid off her student loans. This was a single family house, he wanted $50,000, but she only owed like $6,000 in student loans. So when you find out, so you mean if I just make her student loan payment for you for the next two years, you’ll sell me the property? Yes. Like that was the thing, she agreed to that, ge agreed to that, and it would be a creative deal. It’s kind of crazy some of the stuff I’ve done, but I did pay that off – but for a little while, her student loan payment was coming out of my account.

Jeff Stephens 

This point cannot be overstated. I think that you would not have been able to do that had you not been asking good questions, listening carefully, understanding what the real thing was that was going to be required to get this deal done. And I just think that’s a beautiful example of the value; there’s no way in a million years you could do that if you were looking at listed properties.

John Crutchfield

Absolutely not, absolutely not. There’s going to be a broker in the middle that’s going to squash that right away.

Jeff Stephens 

Yeah, exactly. I think what you said there about nobody wants the money, they want the money can do for them is just the most important thing that we can remember. And sometimes I think that manifests itself in lots of different ways. Sometimes it’s I want the money because I want the trip to Kenya, sometimes it’s I want the money because I want to pay this other debt off. Sometimes it’s I want to get this particular price because that jerk Barney down the street, he sold his house for this price, and I hate that guy, and I will not lose to that guy. That might be what they’re really looking for, is just the emotional win of knowing that they beat their rival, whatever it is. I’ve literally said to people many times, nobody wants money; money is just paper and green ink. You want what it’s going to do for you, though. And uncovering that second, third, fourth layer of that is, I just can’t even say how important that is. I love hearing that you do that.

John Crutchfield

It’s very interesting because when I first started asking the question, people would kind of get concerned, why are you asking me what I’m going to do with the money? But when you position it as a place of rapport, and a lot of times, because I’m younger, I will a lot of times position it like I want advice. Like man, if I had that kind of money, what should I do with it? Like, if I were to get this, what should I do? And they might say well, I’m going to…what did I have a guy say? He wanted to put a roof on a different property. “Well, I’m gonna put a roof on another property.” “Well, you mean, if I put the roof on the other property, you would sell it to me?” And I literally have a 30 year assumed mortgage, I assumed from somebody, because I put the roof on, and he signed the deed to me. And those are some of the funnest ones.

I also like to think about them as a hedge. So a lot of these bank paperwork are really, I hate to say scams, but a lot of the bank paperwork just basically says if anything goes wrong, they can just call the note and you have to give them all the money back. And my seller finance notes do not say that. As long as I meet the terms of those notes, they cannot take the property back. And so I consider a lot of my seller finance stuff, or creative finance stuff, as a hedge in case something does go wrong with all that bank borrowed money.

Jeff Stephens 

That’s such a great perspective. Yeah, I really, really, really love that. Thank you for sharing that. So let’s go back to where we started, we can we can wrap this up. Talking about Grab The Map. So you you have got a podcast, which you graciously invited me to be a part of recently, and I appreciate that.

John Crutchfield

That’s a good episode; that’s a good one.

John Crutchfield

I really enjoyed it, too. I just found myself thinking about how you started in education and then you kind of pivoted to real estate. But now what you’re doing is kind of a perfect blend of both of those; it’s education in the context of real estate. Why do you do what you do in that way? Why don’t you just sit back, do all these deals, collect all this money? Why are you out there trying to help other people and educate them?

John Crutchfield

Well, in a lot of ways, real estate has changed my life, in giving me the ability to have time freedom, giving me the ability to employ other people, to help other people meet the needs of their families. Real estate has really changed my life. And so the goal of things like the podcasts, things like the Wealth In Real Estate Facebook group, the goal is really to help other people change their life, to help other people create some of those opportunities for their families. And it never fails that when you’re giving back and you’re helping other people, that you don’t have to worry about your own livelihood, you just don’t. There’s a lot of reciprocation that happens where you’re not even trying to make it happen, but things kind of generally seem to flow your way.

Jeff Stephens 

I love it. Well, I’m glad and grateful that you think of it that way, because we’re all benefiting from the leadership that you’re showing and education you’re providing. If people want to learn more about you, what you do, reach out to you, get connected with all your awesome content, how would you like them to do that?

John Crutchfield

Hey, they can reach out to me; I’m easy to Google: John Crutchfield, Grab The Map Properties. You can find us in the Wealth In Real Estate Facebook group or you can reach out on Grab The Map podcast or YouTube channel. All of those platforms are great. @grab_themap on Instagram also works.

Jeff Stephens 

Awesome. Well, I encourage everybody to do that. And John, this has been super fun. Thank you for stalking me. I’m sorry, I played hard to get. But I’m so glad this worked out the way it did. J

John Crutchfield

Yeah, I’m gonna keep stalking you because I find a lot of motivation, and I know we’re wrapping up here, but I do find a lot of motivation between entrepreneurs, real estate investors that have their own portfolios, that are using creative strategies. I like to get connected with people that are like minded because I’m always gonna learn something new. So learning a lot from you as well and I’ll definitely stay connected with you.

Jeff Stephens 

That’s fantastic. Thank you so much for hanging out today.

John Crutchfield

All right, thanks, Jeff. Don’t just look at it, grab the map.

So there you have it. Super fun conversation with a great guy, so many good ideas and just a joy to be around. I love it when I get to laugh in an interview, and John definitely does that. So that’s it for today’s episode of Racking Up Rentals. So again, show notes including a transcript of our conversation can be found at thoughtfulre.com/e106. Please do us a big favor by hitting that subscribe button in your podcast app and take just a second to rate and review the show.

Did you know that we have a Facebook group for Thoughtful Real Estate Entrepreneurs as well. It’s called Rental Portfolio Wealth Builders and we would love to have you join us over there. Just go to group.thoughtfulre.com and you’ll be taken right to that page, and you can hit the blue Join button in Facebook. If you liked this episode, please take a quick screenshot of it and post that to Instagram and tag us; we are @thoughtfulrealestate. I’ll see you in the next episode. Until then, this is Jeff from the Thoughtful Real Estate Entrepreneur signing off.

Thanks for listening to Racking Up Rentals where we build long term wealth by being win-win dealmakers. Remember: solve the person to unlock the deal and solve the financing to unlock the profits.


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