To Possess the Ultimate Freedom to Scale Without Fear with Ben Stef

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent. Our guest today is Ben Stef, a mortgage loan advisor and founder of Funding Freedom, who has made it a mission to help real estate investors stop getting boxed out by lenders who don’t understand how investing actually works. Based in Chicago and operating nationwide through Nexa Mortgage, Ben specializes in DSCR loans, HELOCs, and no appraisal financing strategies that let investors move fast, scale smart, and keep building without their W-2 getting in the way.

With over 53 million funded at 91% close rate, he brings real world results and clear practical guidance to every conversation. Ben, welcome to the RII Agent Podcast.

[Ben Stef]
Thank you guys for having me, I’m excited.

[Mattias]
Yeah, so I think DSCR loans may not be fully understood by a lot of agents, I’m not sure how many, I mean, they’ve become more popular here recently, but I think that’s probably a newer term or maybe a term that a lot of people may not know. So maybe just to get started, can you explain what a DSCR loan is?

[Ben Stef]
Yeah, so DSCR loans are the secret weapon to buying as many properties as you want with basically infinite scalability because they do not require personal income verification. And so if you’re an investor or even a realtor and you know about this program, it’s gonna help create deals for you. But basically, in a nutshell, in one sentence, as long as the gross rental income from the property covers the mortgage payment, you’re okay, right?

One-to-one ratio, that’s usually what we look for. And so if the property is vacant, that’s okay, the appraiser will use market rents, so it doesn’t have to have a tenant in there currently, but it is almost like a commercial loan, but for residential. And so it allows you, whether you own a business or you don’t, you could literally be jobless, right?

You could have no income coming in, but if you have the 20% down over and over again, you can buy as many properties as you want using this DSCR loan program. And we just closed, I think last, when we closed was like 6.5%, 30-year fix. Like it’s funny, because the rates are like not even that, you would think they’re much worse than a standard, like conventional investment property loan, which is what most people have used for a while now, which the difference with those, the rates are slightly better and there’s no prepayment penalties, but they require full documentation.

So anyway, I don’t wanna get too ahead, but in a nutshell, like that’s basically what it is now.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, I know that it’s used, it’s like something that has been used for more like businesses or business type loans in the past. I know that some commercial lenders that I’ve spoken with have that as a requirement. Some don’t even know what I’m talking about when I bring it up.

So yeah, so that’s interesting. If there’s a tenant, let’s say there’s a house that is under rented. I mean, this is like so often, and I have a property that I see on the market is under rented.

People are like saying, but the rents could be this. And so it’s worth this. And they’re like, the rents aren’t that.

Like, does it matter for the DSCR loan? Like if it is actually under rented, can they use what market rents are or do they have to use what existing leases are?

[Ben Stef]
This is such a good question. I get this almost every call. So I’m glad you asked this.

The way underwriters approach, if it is rented, they use the lower of the two, meaning if the actual rent is 1,500 a month, and let’s say the market rent is two grand a month. If the appraiser comes in and says, hey, you know what? Mattias and Erica can get two grand a month for this.

Underwriters say, I don’t care. We’re gonna use the lower. We’re gonna use 1,500 a month, right?

And so they have to use that. And if it’s under, if the mortgage payment is 1,600, 1,700 a month, and the rents are under that mortgage, there’s like a decision tree that I go through, like a flow of my plan A, plan B, plan C. My plan A is I have a unique, super unique program where we’ll divide up your assets.

So if you have 100 grand sitting in a bank or 500 sitting in a 401k or wherever, we can divide that up actually and use that as income. And so we did this actually a couple of weeks ago. Investor had like 350k sitting somewhere.

We divided it up by, I believe it’s three years. And so he got a certain number. I think, I forgot what the number was, but let’s just call it $1,000 a month.

So that $1,000 a month got added to the DSCR, like for purposes, for rental purposes, and he got them qualified. So that’s option one. It’s my favorite, okay?

If you don’t have that much cash, option two is we go to a 40-year fixed mortgage. So we extend it, right? We’ll do a longer term, lower payment.

Option three is interest only. So I do have some options in case it doesn’t come. And then my plan D is worst, worst case.

You just get a higher interest rate and it’s below a one-to-one ratio. So sometimes like lenders will allow you, okay, hey, it’s not quite there. We’ll still close it.

But instead of a six and a half rate, it’s gonna be like seven and a half or 8%, because it’s now considered a riskier loan. Does that make sense? Yeah, and they never look at potential ever.

I don’t care if you’re in the process of rehabbing, whatever, it doesn’t matter what it could be. It’s what is it right now. And if you’re refinancing, let’s say, and you want the underwriters to use the higher income, right?

If let’s say the appraiser comes in and says, you know what? I think this is 1200 a month, but you’re making 1700 a month on a rental right now that you own, that you’re refinancing. You have to show two months receipt of that 1700 to get credit for it.

And we’ll use the higher. So there’s an exception to that, yeah. Interesting, okay.

[Mattias]
Well, let’s backtrack for a second, if you don’t mind. We dove right into the meat, but Ben, what got you started in real estate? How’d you get started in this crazy business?

[Ben Stef]
Yeah, crazy business. So kind of by accident, I came from an immigrant family. My dad was a GC.

So I grew up doing construction and I would always see people, I’m like carrying drywall, right? Up like four flights of stairs. And then I’m sweating and I’m dying in the heat.

And I would see these guys pop up for like an hour or two and then leave. And they were wearing the suits. They were wearing the crew, the crew neck like vests or whatever.

They had the nice like clothes. And I was like, what are they doing? Why am I out here struggling?

And they’re showing up. And I know like they’re the owners. They’re the ones with the money managing.

So I’ve always had an interest in real estate, especially investing, hence the niche that I’m in now. And so I didn’t wanna become a realtor to be honest, because I didn’t wanna like always drive on the weekends and take people places. So I was like, you know what?

I like the lending financing side of it because I liked that aspect of it. And so I accidentally, I got into a corporate job, mortgage job. And then slowly after that, every job went less and less like bureaucratic, if that makes sense.

I eventually just went on my own because I figured out that I’m unemployable pretty much. Like I’m really, like I’m not a good, I can be a good employee. I can take orders.

But like, I feel like I had a lot of really good ideas that actually have paid off. Cause they, for me, they work. But like, I always got the same.

Nope, that’s not how we do things. Like it was very 1980s, 1990s. Like this is how we do things.

And I’m like, okay, but it’s 2021, 22, 23. Like, you know, we can’t, like there’s gotta be a better way, right? Anyway, so it slowly moved from like the corporate job where I was just working in a cubicle to now like starting our own P&L and our own like, you know, branch, I guess you can say.

But yeah.

[Mattias]
Yeah. You know, one of the biggest questions we hear from investors sitting on appreciated properties is whether to do a cash out refinance or tap into a HELOC. What is the framework that you use to help investors decide which route makes more sense, especially for those holding low rate loans they don’t want to lose?

[Ben Stef]
To answer this, it’s very situational. So I’ll try to give you my best framework that applies fundamentally to most cases. So I look at what is it being used for, the capital?

Like, why do you need it, right? Do we need it to go shopping? Obviously that changes, you know, like, or are we using it to buy a property?

Now I know most of the time they’re using it to buy property or like keep construction projects moving forward, right? So in that case, generally speaking, leaving your first mortgage, if it has a nice two, 3% rate is like preferable. We want to keep it that way and not pay it off.

That way you can keep your payment low and you’re not touching it. So I generally lean towards a home equity line of credit. If you already have a six, seven, 8% rate on it, sometimes cashing out, doing like a regular cash out refinance might be better because sometimes they let you take out more money, right?

Whereas a HELOC, sometimes you don’t get as much money or like the LTV may not be as high. Compared to a DSCR, they could push it up more because it’s less risky, I guess you can say. So I would say it depends on the property.

Does it have a lien or no? What are you going to use the money for? Do you need funds that you can access and reaccess over and over again, right?

So some guys are like, I just need my lump sum of 200K, I’m good. I’m not going to go back and draw on it again. But most investors love the idea of like, hey, I can get a HELOC on investment, pull out the money and then reuse it if I need to.

And so that freedom and flexibility is really what’s important, so yeah.

[Mattias]
Yeah, that was something that got us going. That’s what got us started. We kept our first house.

We made the mistake of not putting a HELOC on it before leaving. We moved to our new house. And then we got HELOCs on both.

We got a pretty decent deal on our new house. And so we were able to tap into some, a decent amount of equity, even though we only put like 10% down, I believe. So anyway, we were able to get a little bit of gunpowder to be a little bit dangerous on those two moves.

And that’s what kind of started us with the BRRRR process. And so that’s definitely one of the things I often recommend. So first of all, if we’re looking at this from like a playbook for maybe a newer agent or somebody who’s trying to hustle and get started in both real estate sales and investing, maybe a house hack to start would be a great option for that person, keeping their expenses low.

And then when they’re about to, they’re saving up their money because they’re not putting it towards rent or the mortgage, they’re having that all covered. When they’re about ready to move to the next one, maybe they get out a HELOC on that first one, rinse and repeat, and you start getting some capital reserves. Now from there, the BRRRR method can make a lot of sense.

So like getting into flips, if you wanna keep them as a rental, then you just refinance it out. And again, if you are a new agent and you don’t have two years of history, the DSCR loan still works for getting those rental properties. It’s not something that they could, could somebody do with a house hack if they are renting?

[Ben Stef]
Yeah, it’d have to be a non-owner occupied only.

[Mattias]
Yeah, so maybe the first house is before you quit your corporate job. And then you start moving into some of these strategies while you’re building up your business. But anyway, so what we did then as well is we BRRRRed a few places and those all did pretty well as BRRRRs.

And so we were able to then get a multiple property equity line of credit across multiple rentals to kind of consolidate. We still have three, I think all together, but one of them is across multiple properties. And that really gives us a lot of flexibility.

We treat it as, for the most part, we try to treat this as like short-term capital to like to buy something in cash and renovate it and then refinance the money back out and pay it off or sell it. And so it can be a huge tool for getting your investing started.

[Ben Stef]
Yeah, and do you guys usually sell? You prefer to hold?

[Mattias]
It depends on the property. I think if it’s one that we feel like is in a good area that would have a strong rental demand, then we like to keep it. Most recently, actually the last one we did, we did use a DSCR loan because it was the best interest rate we could find for one.

And actually probably the lowest closing costs as well. So it was a pretty good note. And, but it just penciled out.

So we had to move it into a midterm rental and that has been doing well. I mean, that’s been over a year. We’ve had one day of vacancy.

Yeah, and like that property, it’s one of those that, you know, I mean, it’s in a really good location. So it has some of the things that like, it’s not just that we were in love with it. That was definitely- That was a big part of it.

[Erica]
We had a hard time letting go of that one. We were trying really hard to make the numbers work.

[Mattias]
Which is not what you’re supposed to do.

[Erica]
Yeah, thankfully it has worked out, but it’s been a totally different ball game. I mean, with long-term rentals, you know, you can plan out like a month or two in advance. And with this midterm, every time it has come down to like maybe the week before they vacate and somebody else pops in and it’s like, you know, I have a three month term.

[Mattias]
These people are planning, you know, months in advance or anything like that.

[Erica]
It’s- It’s been really interesting to learn.

[Mattias]
And most recently we’ve had actually somebody that was separated from their spouse and needed a place to be for seven months. And we’re like, yeah, sure. And then after the seven months was up, like wanted three more months.

And then after that’s up, it’s like, we’ll stay month to month until I find a new place. I guess he just really likes, maybe he loves it too.

[Erica]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Ben Stef]
Cause it’s hard to move, right? And especially if you’re not comfortable. But yeah, like you guys, it’s the not knowing the fear of like what’s going to happen is why you can, why yeah, midterm and short term pays more, but it is more, you know, volatile, right?

It’s more up and down. I guess you can say long-term rentals, like yeah, you make less money, but it’s more for sure. Like this person’s in for 24, 12 months, you know, are we going to renew?

Yes or no? Okay, we’re not. Let’s find someone else, right?

Like, yeah.

[Erica]
It’s like a solid lesson on anxiety management. You just have to be real detached from it. That’s all going to be all right.

[Mattias]
And yeah. Cause like, even if it were to sit vacant for a week, like it’s, you know, like we said, things get booked in like a week. So like it could have very little vacancy.

I think when we did the math on it, we were factoring in like, I don’t know, like 30% plus vacancy to try to like, you know, like to price out what made sense. And so far it just hasn’t really been an issue. So we’ll see if that continues that way.

But I guess another question I would have for you is that most conventional lenders cap investors at 10 finance properties and W-2 income requirements can hit a wall fast for active investors. What creative or DSCR based financing strategies do you recommend for investors who are ready to scale beyond those limits? And what should they have in place before they come to you?

[Ben Stef]
So multiple things there. Number one, you don’t, with DSCR loans, you’re not capped. You can, we have programs, you can have as many as you want.

Number two, sometimes it helps to put some under the spouse as well. If you have a spouse, you have a partner, like splitting it up might like open up doors for you, especially if you’re trying to buy a personal home. That’s like another thing.

To position yourself, my rule is six months reserves for every rental I have. Right? So if the mortgage payment on a rental is three grand, I like to have three times six of that, right?

Sitting in a bank account. And so when I know that I have 18 grand somewhere, that’s like my account, my fund for that property, for that asset. So that way, if a vacancy or something comes up, right?

I have the funds to take care of it. So I think it’s really important. The two pillars that you need to stand on as an investor to be prepared to answer your question directly is credit score.

You have to have a decent credit score, right? Love it or hate it. That’s just the game that we have to play.

I was talking to, so I come from an immigrant. Like I understand the immigrant mentality. Like I have Korean friends and I have like other European friends.

And it’s so funny because we’re all kind of similar and it’s very like, oh, the system sucks. It’s annoying. Why do they do it this way?

It makes no sense. And I’m like, yeah, but if you want to make it in this country, right? In this like system, like you have to play by the rules, right?

And so credit score is really important, right? Despite what Dave Ramsey says. And then the second thing would be is having like assets on hand.

I would say those are the two, right? So income doesn’t really matter. Obviously income, taking off my lender hat, like income does matter, but for the loan, it doesn’t, right?

Like you just need to have money on hand and reserves as well. So if you do 20% down, they’re going to ask you for reserves anyway. It doesn’t mean you’re going to spend it.

It just, they want to see you have somewhere usually six months and then also your credit score. So like, those are the main, like I would say the two things to make sure you’re prepped. Yeah.

And then also, are you a first time investor? Meaning, do you even own a house? So sometimes the programs, there’s two different programs, like for DSCR mainly, for people that don’t own a house already and for people that do own a house, it actually does matter because if you haven’t bought any real estate ever and now you want to put 20% down and buy an investment property, they’re going to ask some questions.

Sure. It can be done, but they’re going to want to like make sure that, okay, you’re not committing fraud. Like you’re actually going to use it as a rental.

So, you know.

[Mattias]
Yeah. And I mean, again, kind of back to my previous point, especially if you’re starting off and don’t have like 20% down, like, you know, doing that house hacking.

[Ben Stef]
It’s the best. High star Y thing right now, I’m telling you is the four unit, 5% down, three and a half down strategy. Like, oh, if you don’t have kids, you don’t mind living with tenants.

Like I get it. Some families can’t do it. I had a mom call me and she has like five kids and they’re all like, they’re graduating high school.

And she’s like, we want to house hack. And I’m like, good luck. Like how?

You know? But yeah, like I know it’s very lifestyle dependent, but yeah, it is three to four units having multiple doors under one roof. Instead of four single family homes, you have four doors under one roof that you can manage infinitely.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I had dreams of that when we were first house shopping and you did not like those dreams.

[Ben Stef]
Very common.

[Mattias]
They’re also not super available in our market, so.

[Ben Stef]
It depends on the market too. That’s the second thing is I had a guy come to me and I was like, is your wife on board? He’s like, we’ll get her on board.

I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Go talk to your wife. Like, let’s stop the meeting here.

Let’s not spend any more time. Go talk to your wife. And he comes back and she’s like, yeah, she doesn’t want to do it.

And I’m like, there you go.

[Mattias]
We just, we live in the renovation of the one unit. And then we, once it’s done, then we move into the next one and renovate that one. And you know, let’s just do all four.

It’ll be a great time.

[Erica]
It’s a possibility. Yes. It’s one of the options.

[Ben Stef]
Do you guys still like chat about it today? Like Mattias, are you like, man, I wish we did it or no?

[Mattias]
No, no, no, no. It’s totally fine. Like I said, there actually weren’t like that many options for that.

I think there might’ve been one duplex that came up while we were kind of looking around, but we also didn’t have, we didn’t qualify for a ton. I mean, like you mentioned Dave Ramsey. When we bought a house, we were like making like what?

Like 60, $70,000 collectively. We had like $120,000 in student loans. So like we didn’t qualify for very much at all.

And then Dave Ramsey, you know, was the reason we like, just, you know, was zeroed in and paid off all our loans in three years, making that little money and why I became a realtor because I wanted a side hustle. And don’t get me wrong. I now feel like I’ve graduated and the benefits of leverage for sure.

But it’s really not. Yeah, I do owe some gratitude to like, you know, those first years of getting this started, we would be in a very different place if we hadn’t, yeah, zeroed in our focus like we did.

[Ben Stef]
And I think Ramsey solves a very good problem. It’s a specific problem for a specific type of people. And I think it’s great.

Does it apply to everybody? No, right? Like I don’t, you know, I think as at a certain point, I don’t like his advice, but like in the beginning stage, baby steps, right?

Emergency fund, like I love all that stuff. I’m like, yeah, I think it’s very, you know, cause most Americans like to overspend. So yeah, props to you though.

[Mattias]
Thanks. And I would just say, sorry, I’ll let you talk. But I would just say to like the, those years of just really being solely focused and grinding, whether you’re doing that with debt or whatever you’re doing.

Like, I think there’s something that we look back at that time as like, you know, we were really happy. We were like working together. We were like, you know, one mind, one, like one direction.

It was all in, which I think, you know, could equate to like, you know, what I just joked about is getting a fourplex and fixing up each unit. That could have been the same kind of thing, you know, like, you know, but I’m super happy with the way things went. Sorry, I’ll let you talk.

[Erica]
I was just gonna say, Ben, there’s probably, there’s probably more than one, but I think there was one particular investment property or investment deal that Mattias came to me asking about. And it would have been our very first flip. And I think if I would have said no to that one, which I was on the fence and very hesitant, mostly, we’ve told this story before on the podcast, but because he came and asked me like the day before I was going in to have a C-section.

And he presented this situation and he’s like, we gotta go for it. And I’m like, oh my God, it’s like I’m having a baby tomorrow. But I think if I would have said no, that might have been like a point in our marriage that he would have looked back on and maybe had some resentment towards.

And I remember thinking like, I trust him. I think we just have to lean into this. I don’t have to understand the ins and outs of it.

[Mattias]
So right after we had gotten these, he locks and like we had everything kind of been lined up to be able to do this. And yeah, total nesting phase. Going out of your comfort zone and picking up a place that has like the insulation falling out of the ceiling and yeah, it’s nesting.

[Ben Stef]
I think it’s funny, Erica, cause my wife is like the exact same way. Like she’s more hesitant on things and like doesn’t understand, like I’m in the industry, right? And so sometimes it’s hard to, cause I have to communicate like years of knowledge and like one conversation of like why I think this might be a good deal.

And so we’ve had to have a lot of conversations about like, hey, like, do you trust me? Do you think I’m going to go and gamble this money? It’s like, okay, no.

Like, you know that I have a good team around me. I have a good sense for these things. Like I have a good track record.

Like maybe like this might, you know, I think that I found like that was in the beginning of our relationship, like kind of frustrating for me. Cause I was like all these big things I want to do. And she’s, you know, she’s a teacher and that’s her background and she’s not a business like person, right?

And so I was like, I want to do these things and let’s do this and this and this and this. And she’s like, no, like that’s too much, you know? And so it’s good though.

Like it’s a good to have that dialogue. And sometimes I need to like slow down a little bit, you know?

[Mattias]
So yeah. I think it’s the classic gas and brakes kind of dynamic, which is a good thing. I think if we were both gas, we would probably be out on our ass.

[Ben Stef]
Yeah, right, right. Obviously Eric is the one with the gas, right? Obviously I know Mattias, you’re the one that we need to slow.

I’m just kidding.

[Erica]
What have you learned about her process when you come and present her with these deals? What have you learned about how she receives that information in the best way?

[Ben Stef]
I think coming with patience and grace is really important because meaning like I’m not better than her because I know this side of the world, right? And not thinking that like I’m more valuable and like having humility and approaching it and not being like, I’m the man of the house. Like we do what I say, right?

Like opening cooperation, having an open conversation and like giving her time to process it. I think like too, timing’s really important. Eric, could I answer your question?

Like maybe when she’s not about to have a C-section, I probably, you know, I’ll probably wait till after. That’s real estate, man. That’s the thing about real estate.

Sometimes you like never know when it’s gonna happen. You have to know.

[Erica]
It is kind of time sensitive, yeah.

[Ben Stef]
I know you can’t control it. And that is the thing that she’s learning is like, hey, sometimes like we don’t have a month to like think about it. Like sometimes we have like a day, if that, right?

And so I would say like, you know, as guys too, like our tones or like I have to really watch my tone as well because sometimes I get passionate and I’m talking and she’s like, why are you yelling at me? I’m like, I’m not yelling. I’m not yelling.

So, cause that’s how she is. You know, that’s her personality. So does that answer your question?

I don’t know if that is a good answer, but.

[Erica]
Yeah, it does. And I mean, like you hit on a really good point there. And just in the sense that sometimes these deals, they have to be decided very, very quickly.

And if your wife is anything like me, sometimes I have to take a while to think about it and try and try to understand it. And that might take like a week or so. And you really don’t have that amount of time.

And so it really does come down to a level of trust between the two and whether do you trust me to go out and make this decision or not.

[Mattias]
And anybody listening that can relate, know that it gets easier. Like, cause like you mentioned this as well, like the trust builds as you have like a track record of success or whatever. And like, I think this last one we talked about that we have it as a midterm rental, I got an email and I looked at some pictures, looked at where it was at.

I was like, hey, we might be buying a house today. And I like, I left and I came back and I like wrote it. Like, it’s like, yep, we’re offering that.

[Erica]
Yeah, I think that was during the morning rush too. We’re getting the kids out. And you kind of said that in passing and left.

And I think I texted you later. I was like, just let me know if we’re buying something. And it was fine.

We got to the point where we could do that.

[Ben Stef]
But you’re right. It’s a muscle that builds. In the beginning, it was very like, what if this happens?

What if that happens? What if this happens? And I’m like, yeah, well, what if we could get hit by a bus when we leave the house?

Like, you can’t play these what if games, right? Like, I would get so mad because I was like, we can’t like think about all the, I’m like, what if it works? What if it actually profitable, right?

But in the beginning was a lot more like, almost like, I don’t even want to talk about it. Like, no, you know, kind of thing. Like, it’s too much.

But now it’s definitely grown. And we’ve only been married three, coming on three years now. It’s like, we’re still, you know, obviously I look like I’m 12 on camera, so I can’t, you know, it doesn’t look like I’ve been married that long, but you know, I’m 28.

But anyway, so like, yeah, it’s definitely a muscle. And I appreciate you guys sharing that because it brings me hope to know like, hey, as we build this partnership together and continue to learn in marriage, you know, like, it’s just the process. So yeah, I think having the information, timing it, if you can time it.

And there was another point I was gonna make, but I forgot now, but anyway, so yeah.

[Mattias]
Yeah, you know, it also helped that the first one was one of our best profit, like deals. Like we partnered with somebody who knew what they were doing. So that was also, I gotta say that too.

Like I act like, you know, I was gung-ho and all about it, but like my partner, my friend who had experience was making fun of me because I was so scared. It wasn’t like, you know, stepping out of my comfort zone as well. Cause it was the first time I’ve ever done it.

And it’s a Latino guy who like, was like, yeah, it’ll be $30,000 to fix this up. And I’m like, break it down for me. Where are you getting the number from?

Give me a spreadsheet, man. But anyway.

[Erica]
He made our accountant kind of crazy.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Ben Stef]
Oh, really? That’s funny.

[Mattias]
I was so thankful for having him and being willing to like, you know, take on a person that doesn’t know what they’re doing. That’s gonna probably be a little bit annoying cause they’re scared. But yeah, so we ended up again in the timeline since we’ve shared our life story with you for some reason in this podcast.

We had bought this fixer-upper that was a pretty good deal in a nice neighborhood. And the profits of that first flip went to renovating our house. And so like, that was a nice win that like, you could, the money coming in is nice, but then also having like a, you know, a house that’s renovated that, you know, you just, you bought not too long ago.

It was a nice feel as well. And then after that we had, you know, more successes. So it was definitely, definitely got easier.

And I think, you know, if the right opportunity came up again, I think, you know, we could have that conversation a lot more easily. Yeah.

[Erica]
I have one more question. Okay. I wanted to ask you with the rhythm of your work now, I’m, I guess I’m assuming you don’t work like a nine to five hours wise.

And so I’m curious what the rhythm of your work is and how that impacts the rhythm of your family life.

[Ben Stef]
So for context, we don’t have kids. We’re trying. So don’t have kids yet, but it’s just, and my wife now is staying at home.

Like she just, we just retired her. Like she doesn’t have to work really as much. So, which is awesome.

Yeah, it’s great. So now she’s kind of taking a, she’s, you know, helping more around the house and, you know, she’ll have side hustle ideas and all that stuff. So we have some time, but the rhythm when we were both working was pretty tough because it felt like a lot of things were just left undone at the house.

Right. You know, just errands and short, when I say at the house, I mean like groceries and like, oh, we got to do this. We got to do that.

Like there was a lot of, in the beginning stages when I was building, it was really tough, Erica, because I had to work a lot more. Whereas now it’s weird. I feel like I can work less and make more, but that’s just because I’ve developed a skillset and leveraged activities.

And I know now kind of what works and what doesn’t, I guess you can say. But now I kind of work in seasons. So I’ll tell my wife, I’ll like, she’ll know, leading up to a season, I’ll be like, Hey, I’m going to be working.

It’s going to be like Armageddon. We have this event I’m doing. I’m hosting this event.

I was invited to speak here. Like, it’s going to be a lot. Right.

And then there’ll be seasons of like, okay, things are slowing down a little bit. I’m now I’m home at four o’clock. Right.

So the last few weeks, ironically enough, I’ve been home around four, four 30. Right. And so generally speaking, I’m in my office every day in the morning.

I leave in the afternoon. Sometimes I work on Saturdays. Sometimes I have to work on Sundays, but generally speaking, it’s like a Monday through Friday thing.

Like sometimes, yes, I have to do the evening calls. I have to do the pre approvals. Right.

So, so like she now understands that in the beginning was kind of like, why are you working? Like you should be done at five. And like for her, I had to like kind of help her understand, like this isn’t a nine to five, you know, we’re not trading hours.

I’m not, I don’t get paid hourly. I get paid if the deal closes. And so like at first she was kind of like upset by like, why are you taking the call?

I like 8 PM, like just tell him tomorrow. And I’m like, we’re going to lose this deal. You know?

Like if I take this call, like this could be a three, $4,000 check for us. Right. And it’s important that we, and so I think now we’ve gotten better at like, Hey, I understand.

Like, let’s just plan around it then. Or like, she’ll give me the space, you know? Especially now that she’s not working.

She’s like even more, like we’re even more on a, we want to be on a budget and be cognizant of like our finances. So.

[Erica]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Ben Stef]
Does that make sense? Yeah.

[Erica]
Yeah, it does. And I can totally relate to that. We have a very similar rhythm.

I mean, like the spring is usually real estate season. And so every year without fail, it is within 24 hours, something, some switch flips and he is just, I mean, working probably from the time you get up to the time you go to bed for weeks on end. And before that, before that 24 hour flip, usually he would be home, you know, it’d be much more easy pace, but I have to, when that happens, I just know I’m going into solo parenting season.

And then it’s a lot of just communication and trying to figure out where can we find pockets of time where we can be together, parent together, go on date nights together. And yeah, it’s just, it’s like constant communication. Like you had mentioned, just this is where we are.

This is what the next couple of weeks look like. Here’s what we can plan and prepare for.

[Ben Stef]
Yeah. Was that like the biggest learning lesson for you guys? Like with that?

[Mattias]
Yeah. I mean, I would say it’s really important now is like scheduling dates, like being very intentional about scheduling dates. We’ve with kids, three little kids, they definitely take a lot of like all the extra time.

And so like us, we almost have to schedule like a regular meeting. We try to do this on Sundays at 10 a.m. We try to get together and like, you know, like, let’s make sure we know what’s happening this week. Like what’s going on?

So we just aren’t able to talk. And so trying to make sure we carve out those intentional times has been really huge, especially post kids, but this business, it can be very demanding.

[Erica]
Yeah. But to answer your question, I would say yes. I think it’s a constant conversation.

But I would say, I think you maybe hit on this too. I can really respect and have a lot of grace for the pressure that you guys probably feel in feeling the need to pick up that phone call and then knowing the sacrifice that comes with picking up the phone call on the family end too. And knowing that you just can’t be there for both all the time.

I know that’s really hard.

[Ben Stef]
Like there is gonna be sacrifices in both. If I could, could I make more money? Yes.

But it’s like, what’s the cost here? Do I wanna cost my marriage and sacrifice my marriage? Which is ironic because like in Breaking Bad, Walter White sacrifices family, but that was the very thing he was doing.

Like the reason why he was making crystal math or whatever it was. I think it was math. Anyway, like that’s what’s funny is like we sacrifice the things we love because we do it for the things we love.

But then in that you’re like costing. So I know like, yeah, we have, especially as men, like we wanna provide and we wanna work and like we feel like this, like if we’re missing out this FOMO, like now I, what if I can’t pay the bills next month because I don’t take this call. Right?

And now sometimes, some calls people are like, I need you right now. And I’m like, no, this could wait. Like this could wait.

So I’ve actually gotten better at like, hey, I’m not available. Like I know now I’m getting better at what’s actually urgent. Cause I used to think everything was urgent.

Like, you know what I mean? So that was my, that was my problem too.

[Erica]
Yeah. Yeah. That’s also a muscle.

[Mattias]
For sure.

[Erica]
Learn to differentiate.

[Mattias]
For sure. You good?

[Erica]
Yep.

[Mattias]
Sorry. I feel like I’ve been a, I’m gonna get in trouble for this podcast.

[Erica]
No, I got my time in.

[Mattias]
No, Ben, what golden nuggets do you have for our listeners?

[Ben Stef]
So to summarize, just like in the lessons that I’ve learned in building my business, it’s like, I think this kind of, what we talked about as a segue, like if you want to be at the top of your game and the highest performing athlete or top producer in your market, it’s like, you have to sacrifice a lot of other things. You can’t be an amazing pickleball player, but also an amazing realtor in my opinion. And I mean amazing, like you’re like top in the district or top in the county or whatever, right?

Like just throwing it out there. I think like balance almost never exists. You just have to constantly fight for it every single week, especially if you are producing at a high, I think you can produce at a high level and have hobbies and have a family, but it’s just asking yourself, like how far do I want to go, right?

But the second thing is like, especially for the new agents out there, can you do the work when nobody’s watching, when nobody’s cheering you on, nobody’s applauding you, like can you do the work still when it’s not sexy, it’s not attractive, it’s not easy, right? And I think that’s going to separate the top producers from the people that are still struggling. And then the third thing, which I have behind me, the one thing, it’s one of those books in white, you cannot catch a rabbit chasing two, right?

So we chase a lot of shiny objects in our business, a lot. We hear about this next funnel idea, this next marketing tactic, this listing agent, I’m sorry, this open house strategy, right? So we hear about all these shiny objects and this new tech and this new AI, this new thing is going to, this new AI thing is going to give you one listing appointment like a day, right?

Whatever BS is out there. And I think it’s so easy to get distracted. So like, don’t get distracted.

I built my business off of pillars. I think in terms of pillars, I have my past clients, I have my real estate agents, I have my YouTube channel, I have marketing pillars and I don’t do anything outside of that. That’s it.

And I focus on that, right? So what is the one thing that produces most of the results, but it’s like 20%, right? The 20% that produces the 80%.

Who’s the past client that gives you the most referrals? You and I both know, I have past clients out of, let’s say a hundred in the last year, there’s five that give me all the referrals. Okay, so those five are the ones I’m going to focus on.

That’s just how it is. I know that they’re chatty Cathy’s and they love us and then they’re going to refer us. So that’s what I would say is like, focus, stop chasing the next thing.

Like if you’re going to cold call Fizbo’s, do it for six months. Don’t do it for a week and then try to do social media marketing, right? Or if it’s social media marketing, then understand social media marketing really well and do it, right?

So whatever the thing is, yeah. That’s great.

[Mattias]
Would that be your book then? Your favorite book that you think everybody should read? Fundamental book?

Yeah, it’s a good one.

[Ben Stef]
I would say the one thing is a really good book. I know Gary Keller, I’ve seen it from the real estate industry. Extreme Ownership is another good one, which I also have behind.

Yeah, Extreme Ownership by Jocko. I used to blame a lot of people. I used to blame my county, my state, the title companies, the lawyers, the realtors.

I used to blame and blame. And my business changed when I suddenly was like, you know what? After reading that book, I was like, it’s my fault.

It’s always my fault. I have to take responsibility. I believe I’m responsible for my home, right?

As a husband and hopefully potentially a father, like I’m responsible for my kids. Like I need to take ownership of that. And so that, especially in my business, like we had a meeting, I know I’m gonna keep it short, but like we had a meeting where we were having issues for funding with one state and I got the funding team together and we kept seeing it over and over again.

And I was blaming the state. And I was like, man, you know what? What could we do better?

And then we had a meeting and we realized there were some things we could do better to make the funding process faster on the day of closing with one specific state. And it worked. And I was like, man, had I not taken ownership and gathered everybody together and said, hey, let’s meet and let’s figure out how to solve this problem and not blaming and saying, oh, it’s your fault, Alex.

Your fault, Judy. Your fault, John. Like you need to fix this.

But like coming together and say, hey, look, if someone messes up on my team, that’s my fault, right? We had this happen three weeks ago. My processor messed up, but I took the blame for it because I should have trained him better, right?

And so that’s what that book taught me. And it was very, for me, very helpful.

[Mattias]
Yeah, it’s definitely a good one. I think it’s one of the lessons I really, really wanna make sure my kid’s hear and take to heart. It’s not something that comes naturally.

[Ben Stef]
It’s not. And I think we blame too much in this world and in this day and age. We always wanna blame the left, the right, the government, this and that.

And it’s just like, man, some things you can’t control, right? Control what you can control and do it well, you know? 100%.

[Mattias]
Ben, you mentioned YouTube. What platforms can people find you on if they wanna follow you for more? And how can they find you if they want along?

[Ben Stef]
Yeah, so I actually don’t want anybody to find me or discover me. Please, don’t look me up. I’m just kidding.

So, my main platform is YouTube. So, I have a YouTube channel called Funding Freedom where I help real estate… I teach content.

It’s actually very helpful for agents too, but we teach investors about different little programs they can use to scale and buy more real estate and Flip and BRRRR and all that stuff. We have some really cool 100% financing programs that just came out for Flips and stuff, if you’re experienced. So you just have to pay closing costs.

It’s dynamite of a program. So, we talk about that there, but yeah, my website is fundingfreedom.net, or you can search Ben Stef Funding Freedom, and you’ll find me on YouTube. Those are my main platforms.

And then you can book a call on the calendar directly. As of this recording, I have it open to the public to book directly with me and then, or they can send me an email. So yeah.

Awesome.

[Erica]
Amazing.

[Mattias]
Well, Ben, thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been a lot of fun talking to you.

[Erica]
Yeah, thank you.

[Ben Stef]
Thank you guys for having me. Appreciate it.

[Erica]
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.

[Mattias]
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[Erica]
Visit REIAgent.com for more content.

[Mattias]
Until next time, keep building the life you want.

[Erica]
All content in the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.