We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cortney Jones a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cortney, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

When I first started investing in real estate I was just 19. I didn’t know what I didn’t know and maybe that was the secret sauce. I just learned and took action; learned something else and took action; and so on. I didn’t question those that had come before me. My belief has always been that if someone else can do it then I can too, so as I would read a book about something someone did to buy an investment property with no money down, I implemented what I learned day in and day out and just kept going until I made it work.

My first exposure to the no money down investing world was a 3 day seminar that I went to with a date. I hadn’t even bought my own house yet, but I was exposed to the idea that I didn’t need money or credit to buy an investment property. I started watching the newspaper (this was 33 years ago) for the keywords they told me to look for and I found a condo that was in the area I wanted to move into. I ended up buying it for no money down and moving into it. All this happened within about 90 days from attending the seminar that exposed me to the idea. About a year later another similar opportunity came up and I rented the condo out and moved into a bigger house in a nicer part of town. By this time I had proven to myself that it could be done but I still didn’t have the itch to invest full time, it was just kind of a hobby at this point, but I kept learning, reading and attending seminars to gain more knowledge.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m now a 33 year experienced investor who buys, sells, rehabs and rents properties throughout the U.S. After those first couple properties I bought I kept learning and eventually about 4 years later decided to invest full time. I started doing rehabs (just 5-6 per year) and taking the money I made from rehabs and investing in long term rentals for cash flow, appreciation and mortgage buy down and tax benefits. Eventually I decided I should get licensed, at the time not realizing that investing and being a realtor are 2 totally different businesses, but I got licensed. I did some new construction and development for a few years while continuing to work as a licensed investor. After about 10 years I ended up opening up my own brokerage where we had an investment division, a property management division and about 10 realtors who hung their license with us.

For me, all of this has always been about controlling my own time. Having time freedom has been my highest value since I can remember. In 2008 I woke up completely paralyzed one day, out of nowhere. The day before we were on vacation at Disney World and the next day I couldn’t get out of bed. For 9 months we searched for answers as to what happened and what was causing this. It really caused me to take stock of things. I had time freedom in many ways in that I was the boss of my time, but I had so many committments and people relying on me that I really didn’t. I could plan family time when I wanted but I would be bothered with business calls the entire time and even if I chose to not answer the phone, it would all still be there when I turned the phone back on.

After we were finally able to get some answers about my mobility and I was able to get treatment to get back on my feet, I made the choice to slow things down, get back to the basics and simplify everything again.

As a licensed investor I now have time and money freedom that is real! I love sharing that with others through my coaching. If doing 10 deals is enough to give you the lifestyle you want and keeping the time freedom without all the hassles and headaches then that’s ok. Just do that! The beautiful thing is that as your life goes through stages and seasons, you can change things. Now that my daughter is 20 and on her own, I want to work more and stay busy again so I’m doing more deals than I did the last 15 years. Being a real estate investor is the best job in the world, second only by helping others to be a successful real estate investor.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

In 2007 we were buying so many houses based on the equity we were getting. We were taking over people’s mortgages in a strategy called “buying subject to the existing mortgage.” The idea is that someone is in a highly motivated situation, say a divorce, and they had little to no equity and need to sell their house quickly and didn’t have time to wait or just didn’t want to wait. If they would have sold through traditional means (a realtor and 5 months on the market at the time) they would have had to pay money to get their house sold. So we come in and take over their existing mortgage payments. We were buying 6-10 houses a month – rehabbing some; renting some out; negotiating short sales; you name it, we were doing it.

At the time we were using our own money from savings from the last 10 years. We had scaled up so fast that I wasn’t paying attention to the money going out the way I should have been. I was just paying attention to the equity we were getting. We may buy a house and get $30,000 of equity but we had to pay $5,000.00 in backpayment to catch their loan up from missed payments. In my head I was thinking, I pay $5k and get $30k – no brainer, yes, do that. Again and again and again. What I wasn’t paying attention to was the $5k going out over and over and over again.

All of a sudden, literally overnight I realized we weren’t going to be able to make payroll next month. We were almost completely out of cash. This was my lesson in cash flow is king and how to REALLY watch the money.

I had been learning about how to raise private money but I hadn’t started doing it yet because it wasn’t an issue. Or so I thought. I immediately focused on raising money and went into hyperfocus mode. Over the next 6 months I raised over $1million to help the business stay afloat and move forward, but it was really a stressful time and a great learning experience.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Most of my new clients come to me through referral and speaking engagements where we meet. I help people throughout the U.S. take what they’ve learned about investing and actually become an investor. I do this through calls, education and helping them to find deals. I even partner with my clients on deals sometimes. It’s a low key way for them to get started.

So many people want the lifestyle of an investor or want to riches they see through gurus, but they don’t understand the work it actually takes to make it happen. I help them take what they’ve learned, create an action plan and implement it daily into the successful results they are trying to achieve.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bestreitips.com/
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