Matt Porcaro: Oh man.
Chad Duval: It could be for any reason.
Matt Porcaro: I would say New Jersey because you can’t make a left turn. Freaking frustrating when you go up there.
Chad Duval: Wait, what?
Matt Porcaro: You can’t make left turns. You have to make a right and a right.
Chad Duval: Oh, no way.
Matt Porcaro: New Jersey’s weird.
Chad Duval: I didn’t know that.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, there’s no left turns off of their main roads. You have to make a right and do a you-ey and then make a left.
Chad Duval: A couple rights to come, oh man, that sucks.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, pretty much rights all across. They have stupid driving rules.
Chad Duval: I just learned that. I didn’t know that.
Speaker 3: This is Start FM. Now here’s your host, active real estate investor and entrepreneur Chad Duval.
Chad Duval: What’s going on, Matt? How are you doing? Welcome to the show.
Matt Porcaro: Good, man, really excited to be here. Ready to drop all the goodies for you and whoever’s listening.
Chad Duval: Perfect, man. Well I appreciate you coming on the show. I hope you’re all rested because I see that you’ve been cruising around Greece for a little while. How was that trip?
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, man. Yeah, that was a long time coming. We, me and my wife, have been really busy the last year, so really was looking forward to that trip and it was incredible. The pictures, it’s definitely the most Instagram worthy, picturesque place on the planet.
Chad Duval: Yeah, all those pastels and stuff, it’s unbelievable.
Matt Porcaro: Oh my God.
Chad Duval: Especially the islands where you guys were, it looked like.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, we did Santorini and Mykonos, both had their own charm. Mykonos is like this hotpot of European wealth so it was really interesting to see all people from all over Europe going there and just spending stupid amounts of money on all the nightlife and restaurants and everything there, so that was a lot of fun. Really cool and also really cool towns as well. Then Santorini is a lot more quaint. Oddly, all American, like 100% American, which is really weird.
Chad Duval: Oh, interesting, I didn’t know that.
Matt Porcaro: Especially coming from Mykonos. Yeah, we came from Mykonos and it was all international and then Santorini seems to be only American tourists, but insanely beautiful. We actually were able to score a perfect room on Airbnb right in this part that had a perfect view of the sunset.
Chad Duval: Oh, nice.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, I got a lot of awesome pictures on there, a lot of good content to post going forward.
Chad Duval: Perfect. That’s awesome. No, I was super jealous. I’ve been to Greece but I never made it out to the islands because it was that late fall time of year and it was getting really cold so I was like, “I feel like it needs to be nice out there.”
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chad Duval: Perfect. Well I guess we went on a little tangent there but I’d like to, I guess, this is Matt Porcaro. He’s the 203 Way guy on Instagram. I thought I’d bring him in because he’s got a very interesting story and technique to help all the listeners get into their first detail with very little money down. It’s a type of FHA product but I’ll let him describe that more. Matt, let’s just start with a little bit about yourself. Give a little bio and let us know how you got started in real estate.
Matt Porcaro: Cool, man, yeah. Best way to start this is I really just kind of grew up in a blue collar environment. My dad has his own business as a contractor, a general contractor doing very small residential stuff. Nothing big, family run business. It’s him, he doesn’t really have employees for the better part of 10 years. When I was a teenager I was his only employee. Pretty standard blue collar construction guy that is just kind of running his own business. My mom was in charge of doing all the bills and that was pretty much it.
Growing up, a lot of ups and downs financially because of construction just being so volatile, especially general contracting, renovation, stuff like that. Starting from a young age I really was kind of always interested in making money because I just wanted to avoid what I saw, the struggles my parents always had, which was so much up and down. When it was good it was good but when it was bad it really sucked and that’s what you remember when you’re an impressionable young kid and into your teenage years.
I made a focus on doing decent in school and really when I was in high school wanted to focus on, “Okay, what’s going to make me the most money out of college?” My parents said it, just like everyone else says it, the common knowledge is go to a good college and get a good job. That’s all I knew and that’s all I did, so I looked around on the web sites on what professions make the most money out of school and which ones seemed the most interesting to me. It seemed like engineering across the board was the best way to make money after four years. I took to electrical because I was always like a computer nerd and went into electrical engineering. By the grace of God, made it out in four years. I don’t really know how I did it but I did. It was extremely difficult. I realized very quickly that this stuff is not easy. This is for super, super brainy guys and I wasn’t really ever that but I’m also the type of person to really see anything through I get into.
I did and I struggled through it. I made it out, very quickly got hired right out of college which is a great thing, which is a blessing in and of itself. I know so many people that didn’t get that opportunity. Started working right out of the gate and it wasn’t very soon after that that I was like, “Hm, I don’t think this is how you get rich.” It was like the first time that the light bulb went off in my head. Again, growing up in an environment where no one was rich, no one told me about money and how money really works. Again, my parents were like, “Get a good stable job,” because that’s what they didn’t have and that to them was the freedom.
I got into that and I’m like, “Well, this kind of sucks.” Then my parents are like, “Oh, okay, so can you take off for Christmas?” I’m like, “No, I have to work Christmas Eve and I can’t,” and they’re like, “Oh.” They don’t realize all the freedom they have. Fast forward, I realize that this isn’t the way. Read the good old book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which is a big pivotal book for a lot of people on actually just learning how money works and learning how rich people get rich and it’s not just having a job, it’s investing your money and making your money work for you. I took that as a, “Screw the man, I hate working for the man,” and I just revolted against everything and was just trying so hard to crack it without working for someone else.
Tried everything. Did penny stocks, did making money online things like e-commerce, selling things on eBay, affiliate marketing, you name it, I tried it in an effort to get out of that 9:00 to 5:00 grind, which I realized very quickly probably wasn’t for me long term. Tried it all, tried and failed at pretty much everything. It’s super frustrating when your family is just like, “What the Hell is wrong with you? You have a great job, you make great money for what you do, all these things are lining up. Why can’t you just be content with that?” I was always struggling with that. I got into so many arguments with my parents and again, they were just trying to push me in the right direction because to them that was the right direction, was a stable job. For me, and I’m sure you can relate to this too, you just know. You just know deep down that that’s not for you.
I continue this cycle and eventually was reading or listening to a podcast actually and it was learning about real estate and other ways to get in it. For me, real estate was always a thing for old rich guys to do. People with a ton of money that could buy multiple houses. The idea of me buying one house, let alone multiple houses, was just insane. I didn’t really get it. Then there’s this guy that’s on the show and he’s talking about, “Oh yeah, you can buy houses with no money down and you don’t need credit and you don’t need a ton of money and all this stuff.” I was like, “Oh, that’s really interesting.”
Lo and behold, he was a guy that did a lot of wholesaling. That was the first time I found out about wholesaling and very quickly started reading up on it. It was another rabbit hole that I went down and went all in, did all the things. Did the bandit signs, did the mailing, did all the marketing, tried my best. I’m in New York, the New York City suburban market. About where I grew up, it was about 45 minutes outside of New York City. Very high taxes, highest in the nation. Some of the highest housing values in the nation. Very competitive, tough market. Everyone loves to say they have a tough market and mine was really up there with the toughest. For whatever reason, couldn’t crack it. All right? Just sent out thousands and thousands dollars worth of letters, all kinds of stuff, couldn’t figure it out.
Then I’m like, “Well, what else can I do? Maybe we can try to flip houses with my dad. My dad’s a contractor. Maybe there’s ways to get deals,” and went to my local real estate investment association group. They sold us on a mentorship program. I got in it and I’m learning all this stuff that through the last couple of years I was realizing was very cookie cutter stuff. Trying to find seller financing deals, low money down, lease option, all these crazy creative financing things but I’m just like these things just really weren’t seeming to exist in my market. It was kind of frustrating because they’re like, “Oh yeah, you can flip houses, all you need is like $30,000 plus $50,000 for the rehab and you use a hard money lender,” and all this stuff. Very quickly I’m getting discouraged.
One day, the person that led the program is this lady, Melissa, and she ran our local real estate investment association. I put a lot of faith in her because she was obviously very successful, did a lot. Mother of, like, eight I think or seven and a ton of kids and a ton of houses that she had flipped and a ton of units that she owned. I took her off to the side. I’m like, “Listen, I’ve been trying to crack this real estate game for three years and I don’t know. How do I get in this? What can I do?” It was like I had some money saved up in the bank, a couple thousand in the bank, I’m 25 years old, whatever it was at the time. “If you were me and you could do this all over again, what would you do?”
She told me this and she said, “I would use an FHA 203k loan, which is a renovation loan where you can wrap the renovation costs plus the purchase price together. I would buy a house, live in the downstairs, live in one unit, rent out the rest,” aka a house hack, which a lot of people know as where you live in one part of your house and you rent out the rest like an Airbnb style, something like that. She’s like, “I’d live in there for a little while and then depending on how much equity you have in it or where you’re going next, you get married, move out and then you rent that thing out and then it’s going to pay for itself and you now have your first cash flowing property.”
I said, “Okay, what do I need for a down payment for this?” She’s like, “FHA only needs, you only need 3.5%.” That’s, in our market it was about $7,000 to $10,000, whatever it was. I was like, “Oh, 10 grand? Okay, 10 grand.”
Chad Duval: That’s more digestible than, yeah.
Matt Porcaro: Right. Like $10,000 still seemed astronomical at the time but it was like, listen, with a savings plan, it was something that seemed somewhat attainable. I was thinking back, I was spending more than that on marketing for wholesaling. I was spending $2,000 a month mailing letters. I took it and I went home and I started Googling it. I was like, “Okay, I don’t know what the Hell this is or,” all the information on it was really, really skewed and few and far between and I didn’t think too much about it. I don’t know, but I knew it was the right thing. It sounded so good but I couldn’t find anyone that has done it or something that has done it through the eyes of an investor like I wanted to do.
Fast forward again a couple, maybe two years later. In the meantime I was able to get a new job, so I put my focus in that. I started working on a side business with a buddy doing some marketing stuff. I was getting some nice income coming in from that and I was stacking away and getting ready to get married, getting ready to buy a ring. Kind of took a backseat to real estate for a little while. One day I was sitting in my office on my computer and I just had got done paying a bill or something. I look at my bank account and I’m like, “Man, I got some money now.” It was the first time in my life I ever saw five figures in my bank account, about $10,000, a little more. I’m like, “Maybe I should do something with this. Maybe I could do this 203k thing.”
I made the best and worst phone call, worst short term, best long term phone call I ever made. That was to a family friend who was the only mortgage broker that I knew and I asked him. I was like, “Do you know anything about this 203k loan?” He fast talked and sweet talked me into, “Oh yeah, we can do this, 100%. Let’s do it, blah, blah, blah. This is what I need from you, blah, blah, blah, blah,” and before I knew it I was getting pre-approved. I’m getting all the alerts on my phone, my credit’s being checked, I’m getting hard inquiries. Now it’s funny because, it’s good that I made that phone call because obviously it got me to where I am today. It was the kick in the butt that I needed to get this thing pre-approved.
The downside, which we can get into a little more, I don’t want to harp on my story too much, but basically is I used a lender that has never done a 203k before.
Chad Duval: Oh boy.
Matt Porcaro: The literal worst thing you could do if you’re looking at doing a 203k loan and I’ll tell everyone now how to avoid that. He was able to do it but at the same time because he was a family friend and because he was quick to act, it pushed me over the edge. I think if it was any other mortgage broker on the planet I would have just said no.
Chad Duval: You would have backed out.
Matt Porcaro: Right, the second he started asking for personal banking info and my social and everything like that, but the way I figured it was like, “This is my cousin’s best friend for their whole life. I knew him since I was a baby.”
Chad Duval: Yeah, totally.
Matt Porcaro: It was like I trusted him, so he pushed me into it. Before I knew it, I’m pre-approved.
Chad Duval: This is so crazy. I wish I knew this. Dude, you have a very, very similar story to me.
Matt Porcaro: Oh, that’s awesome.
Chad Duval: The fact that your parents have their own businesses, forced you to school, you get into school, barely pass by the skin of your teeth then you get your job right afterwards and then you’re in it and you’re like, “What the Hell am I dong?” Then you start seeking for things, try different things, all this different stuff and then finally come to real estate. It’s so funny, the last thing is you reached out to the one person that you knew, which is the same thing I did. I reached out to my uncle who was a president of a bank. He was the only person I knew that kind of had any relation to real estate. Reached out to him and the same exact thing, as soon as I reached out to him he already started the paperwork and got it going and he actually forced me into it after my parents had been hounding me for months and months and actually years to actually buy a property and do the same thing and then house hack and the same type of thing. That’s so funny.
I’m assuming that you struggled through this whole process of getting the 203k loan. Did the pre-approval happen right away and then you figured out afterwards that he didn’t know what the heck they were doing?
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. Luckily my credit was pretty good, I had a decent savings, I was W2’s, so I fit all the bills for a 203k. Actually I got pre-approved very quickly but for a pretty low loan amount, especially for what was available in my market. Again, I’m in a really expensive market, I’m applying a loan. I just wanted to, I wasn’t married or even actually engaged yet at the time so I wanted to, my goal was to buy a house before I got married that would be an investment property that I can have forever. Very obviously at least one and that was my goal. I wanted to just do it on my own, be able to do it on my own, so I did. I filed and I got in for whatever it was, I think in the neighborhood of the 200 range.
Now I’m like, “Okay, now I have to start looking for properties,” but again, the great thing about this was he was someone now that, okay, he didn’t know the loan but he knew what to do to get me, he was an action taker and he was a pusher. He’s your classic salesman, pushing me into the next thing. He sent me a list of links. He’s like, “Go to all these different web sites, all these different HUD web sites. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, foreclosure web sites.” He’s like, “This is where I found my house, you can find a decent deal on there.” One cool thing about some of these Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac foreclosures is once they get listed, there’s a 10 day waiting period where only owner occupied people that are using renovation loans can bid, which is a really, really good thing.
One of the main questions that I get from people is, “How do you make sure that your 203k loan can go up against investors that are putting in all cash offers,” and that’s one of the ways.
Chad Duval: Oh, I see. As long as you get in there within the first 10 days you should have a pretty good chance. You’re only competing against other home, well, it could be owner occupied with cash. That might be one thing that you would be up against that you might lose to but at least you’re same playing field.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, same playing field. I think a big misconception too is that these banks are always going to want cash. One quick tip, another quick tip I can give is cash investors have so many more holding costs, so many other costs involved, profit margins they got to look out for. 203k, you’re only putting 3.5% down. That’s it, that’s all you’re laying out, and closing costs depending on what you offer. When you think about that, I was putting down $9,500. That’s how much my down payment was. An investor coming in to buy that same property that needed to put $100,000 worth of work into it, he would have had to come out with at least 20% to get the loan, maybe if he was using a hard money lender, an investor. He’s paying eight to 12% interest on that loan every month. There’s a lot of other factors.
I was able to offer at asking. What ended up happening was I did find a property. I found a property very quickly that just came on the market. I was always looking at properties but I never really knew what I was approved for. It was $270,000 and I think that was my max amount of what I was approved for. $270,000.
Chad Duval: What year was this? When did you do this?
Matt Porcaro: This is 2015, I think?
Chad Duval: Just to, I’m trying to think of the perspective of how the market was doing at that time.
Matt Porcaro: Oh yeah.
Chad Duval: Like if it was, “Oh wait,” with a lot of foreclosures or if, ’15, you guys are crawling out of it.
Matt Porcaro: Oh no, yeah. Yeah, not too long ago, so we’re talking 2016, I believe it was. Yeah, it was. 270, but now that was the lowest of the low. I found out why because I looked at the pictures and then I finally went and took a look at the property and it was about as terrible of a condition of a property that you can find. It was built in 1903, so it had a lot of structural issues. It was completely a disaster. It was disgusting. There was squatters living in it, using the toilet even though there was no running water but still proceeding to use the toilet anyway. Animal feces everywhere, everything you could think of. It was a nightmare and I walked into this thing, I’m like, “No way,” but I had some people around me. I had this guy, again, my mortgage broker friend, and he was like, “Oh, this is going to be a cash cow, this is great.” The one great thing about it was it was a legal two family.
Chad Duval: What type of neighborhood was it in?
Matt Porcaro: Good.
Chad Duval: Was it in a decent neighborhood?
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, a decent neighborhood. It was right in the town, good neighborhood. Not far from where I worked, not far from where I was living at the time. Everything else about it was good except the fact that it was, actually it was a drug den. A slumlord owned it. I found out they were selling drugs out of the front window.
Chad Duval: Drive through drug pickup.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. That’s quite literally what it was, so the town was on my side. I looked in it and my dad, he had a lot of experience in construction. I’m like, “What do you think this is going to be?” He’s like, “$100,000 in rehab.” I’m like, “Holy crap. I think I’m only approved for $270,000 or something like that. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Chad Duval: Oh, so they approve you based on the total value? That’s construction costs and the actual mortgage, right?
Matt Porcaro: Yeah.
Chad Duval: Oh, I didn’t realize that. Okay, okay.
Matt Porcaro: Right. What ended up happening was I went and spoke to my broker. This was one thing that they did know, is he said, “What’s the rent going to be on the upstairs?” I said, “It’s probably around the neighborhood of like $2,300 a month.” It’s a three bedroom. He’s like, “Well, we’re able to use 80% of that as your future income.”
Chad Duval: To try and get your approval higher, right?
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. What ended up happening was that rent was able to get me the loan. What ended up happening was we were able to get the rehab, like what was actually needed versus what was going to be maybe desirable or whatever, actually what we needed was 80 K. We can get away with 80 K and then the offer was 270. I was basically all in for 350. I think I was right around my approval, with that extra income on the upstairs it was 350.
I put in my offer. I think we countered a couple thousand dollars here and there. They were able to cover closing costs which is really big.
Chad Duval: Did you say you bought it from a bank?
Matt Porcaro: I bought it from a bank.
Chad Duval: Okay, perfect.
Matt Porcaro: This was a Fannie Mae foreclosure. I picked it up for 350. One of the big things I was doing through this whole process was I was doing what this lady, Melissa, told me to do from the beginning, is look at it through the eyes of an investor. What I did was I said, “Okay, if I’m in it for 350, what will it be,” and I was trying to look up what the ARV is around in the area. The ARV in the area was about 450. I said, “Right there, I have a nice equitable property. That equity I can use, I can take out a home equity line of credit. I can leverage against that. Or Hell, if one day I wanted to flip it I can put 100 grand in my pocket,” you know what I mean?
Chad Duval: All right guys, sorry to interrupt this episode but I wanted to ask you a huge favor. If you’re enjoying this episode so far or you’re a big supporter of the podcast, can you go to the Apple Podcast app and leave a rating and review for the show? I didn’t realize how easy it was until the past couple of weeks I’ve been going in and rating and reviewing all of the podcasts that I actually listen to on a daily basis and it’s super easy. If you just go to the show in the app and scroll to the bottom, it’s literally just two clicks. All you have to do is click on the stars to leave a rating and then there’s an area there where you can actually leave a comment or a review on the actual show. I would love your help. Leave some feedback and it will only help the show grow and appreciate you guys listening and let’s get back to the show.
Matt Porcaro: The other end is, “Okay, well I can rent out one unit for the time being, house hack it. It’s going to cover,” at that time it would have been covering 400 or 80% of my mortgage. I’d only have to come up with a couple hundred bucks a month to pay since it’s an owner occupied loan. I’m living in one unit, renting out the other and then after a year or so I knew I was going to get married and I was probably going to move out and rent out both units. After I rent out both units I was like, “Man, I’m going to be cash flowing around $1,500 to $2,000 a month on this thing.” I looked at it and I analyzed it that way and that’s how I knew it was a good deal despite how ugly of a house it was.
Chad Duval: Now, I got a question, though. When you’re doing, so you’re still going through this process. You originally got the 270 approval. You figured out it was a two family, you could apply that 80% income to your income to help qualify for more.
Matt Porcaro: Right.
Chad Duval: Now how does the process work from, I know that’s the mortgage piece of it but how does the construction side of it work? How does that paperwork go? Do you have to apply separately for that? Is it a joint application? Do they need bids from contractors?
Matt Porcaro: Sure.
Chad Duval: Do you they need people to write off? What’s that process like? Because I know it’s not a very, at least I don’t think it would be a traditional way as far as just going to a bank and saying, “Hey, I just need a mortgage,” you know what I mean?
Matt Porcaro: Right, right. The way a 203k process typically works is like this. You first need to get pre-approved for your maximum amount, whatever your maximum loan amount will be, so you have to get pre-approved by a lender. The biggest thing with this process again is finding the right lender. There’s a multitude of ways to find a good lender but the main thing is that you have to make sure that they’ve done multiple 203k deals in your market. There’s a lot of lenders out there. There’s a couple of different ways that I go into on my content on how to find the right lender but essentially the best thing to do is start by Googling 203k lender, your market, and just go down the list. Give them a call, ask them how many they’ve done in the last six months. Start with that. If they said 10, great, then go start working with them. If they said, “Oh, you know, we did one last year,” don’t work with them. That’s the first step.
Chad Duval: That’s a good gauge, I guess, is 10 or above, it seems like they’re pretty proficient in it and they’ll be able to do what they’re doing.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. There’s no hard, fast number but it should be multiple. You know what I mean?
Chad Duval: Yeah, yeah, totally.
Matt Porcaro: It should be a decent amount. Again, there’s some other tips and tricks that I have that I won’t get into too much in detail. It’s kind of too technical but there’s way to find it out. You can go online, Google. There’s something called a 203k endorsement summary. If you want to go Google that, what it’s going to give you is everything, since it’s HUD and it’s through they government, they have to give you a list of all the mortgage companies that have written 203k loans in the last however many months, but they release it every month.
Chad Duval: Oh, nice.
Matt Porcaro: You can see, yeah, so you can go to that list and see who wrote the most 203k loans in your market, which company. You go to that company, you Google them, you call them up, you say, “Who is in charge of renovation lending at your office,” and get on the phone with them, that’s the best way. That’s the tried and true way.
Chad Duval: Actually, yeah, that’s a good point too. When you’re actually calling up these banks, do they have specific departments? For me, when I’m buying multifamily I go to the commercial department. There is an actual renovation department that you need to contact?
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. It might not be a department.
Chad Duval: A specialist or something.
Matt Porcaro: There’s going to be, you just say, “Who’s in charge of renovation lending?”
Chad Duval: That’s a good tip.
Matt Porcaro: Listen, here’s a word of advice. Every single mortgage broker within reason, 99% of them are going to say they can do it. Just because they can do it doesn’t mean they should do it. Remember, closing deals is what pays these mortgage brokers’ bills. It puts food on their table. They might not know how to do it but they don’t want to piss away a lead, right?
Chad Duval: Right.
Matt Porcaro: They’re going to take you because to them, that’s another way to put dinner on their table.
Chad Duval: It’s sales [crosstalk 00:28:54], exactly.
Matt Porcaro: Right, but at the end of the day if you’re the borrower, you want to make sure that you have the right person because they can make your life a living nightmare like mine was. That’s a great way to avoid it.
That’s really the first thing, is to get pre-approved for the max amount. It’s FHA standards, just like a regular FHA loan. Your minimum down payment only needs to be 3.5%. They look for subpar credit. They think they look for like a 600 credit score. That income ratio needs to be, your monthly total bills need to be 50% or less of your gross income, whatever your income is per month, so gross income is before taxes. In New York they cut away pretty much half my income.
Chad Duval: In taxes.
Matt Porcaro: Right, right, but luckily it’s not off of that, it’s off of your gross, like whatever your main bring home is. If you make $80,000 a year, you’re doing $80,000 divided by 12 and whatever that is, it needs to be half that.
Another thing, another key one is they want to see stable work history. W2 employees are the best for this, not to say people that are self employed, stuff like that, won’t be able to do it but you have to get more creative. You might have to have a cosigner.
Chad Duval: Two years worth, yeah, or two years, yeah.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, two years. Right. One thing I did learn is that the mortgage companies do approve you off of how much, they approve you on how much you show. If you have a ton of write offs, they can only approve you off of whatever you show as profit or whatever you want to, as income. I was talking to one person, they’re like an Uber driver but they write off so much that they only show that they make like $20,000 a year, which then that means you’re only approved for $20,000 a year which we know you’re not making $20,000, but it’s just something to keep in mind.
Those are the main things. That’s what’s going to help you get your pre-approval. Then all you do is ask them to pre-approve you for the max amount. They might ask you if you have a property in question but the whole point is you don’t want to have that, you don’t want to be, you don’t want to put yourself in any specific property yet. You want to just get the max amount just so you can set your expectations on where you want to go.
The next thing to do is that you really want to just start looking for properties in markets that you desire to be in. The biggest thing with this is you can’t shoot super high. One of the biggest things with this 203k thing is it’s in many cases your first property, your second property or your next property that you’re looking to buy with financial education in mind. This isn’t your dream home. That’s not to say the 203k can’t be used for a dream home but the strategy that I basically am trying to teach is how to leverage the 203k loan to the best, most effective way it could be used possible, which is finding an undervalued home, finding something that’s a small multifamily.
FHA allows you to buy up to a four unit, so the more units you have, the easier it could be to pay off your mortgage so either you can live rent free with this, live mortgage free with this. Or I have a guy that I’m working with right now. He’s buying a triplex and even with him living in it, he will still be cash flowing. He’ll still have a couple of extra bucks on the mark because he’s buying a triplex.
That’s the big thing but you want to find out what market you want to move into and then start looking at what the prices of foreclosures are in that market using web sites like HomePath.com, Foreclosure.com, Realtor.com, your local MLS, just seeing what the foreclosures go for in the market. Then trying to see, “Okay, what is it going to be to put a down payment on that?” The down payment has to be, is your total loan amount so what it will be is it’s going to be the purchase price plus whatever the forecasted rehab cost is.
In the beginning you have to understand on how much a rehab is going to be. I like to tell people just throw a $50,000 rehab on it just so you get a rough idea on what you need to save for a down payment. If you’re doing a scenario where you find a house that’s $150,000, you’re going to put $50,000 into it. You’re looking at a $200,000 total 203k loan amount.
Chad Duval: You basically have to guess when you go for your pre-approval because you’re not going to get a contractor involved before your pre-approval? Or do you suggest people actually get a contractor, somebody who knows construction, to look at the property first to give it a more accurate number? Me and you, we’ve got experience looking at that kind of stuff but like somebody who has never done a deal before, who’s never worked the trades, that sort of thing, which way do you suggest people do it? Is that what you’re saying, is just add 50 grand no matter what, type of thing?
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. That’s like the napkin sketch. I just want people’s expectations to be set. The other thing is, too, I don’t want people to go out there if they don’t have the down payment amount. The other thing it does is if you don’t have the down payment amount it gives you something to aim for.
Chad Duval: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Matt Porcaro: I like to tell people, people ask me all the time, “Can I get down payment assistance? What if you don’t have the down payment?” Listen, 3.5% is the absolute lowest you will ever get into a house. Outside of a VA loan, unless you’re a veteran, which you could buy 100% financing, this is the lowest loan product. If you can’t manage the lowest, maybe real estate isn’t for you. I’m just going to go out on a whim and say it because the reality is you need to be good at money to some degree in real estate. If you can’t save up 3.5% in any market, my market’s one of the most expensive and I was able to do it on a single income and I did it in a year. If you can’t sacrifice a year of your life to save a couple thousand dollars, real estate’s not for you. I think that’s a hard and fast thing that I will always stand behind.
That being said, yeah, there’s ways to do it. There’s other ways. 3.5% is the most you need to come up with out of pocket. Are there other ways you can use down payment assistance? I don’t know, maybe. I didn’t do it. I knew what I needed to have and I got that money available. I got that wrapped up.
Find out what you need, but then what you want to do now is start analyzing deals through the lens of the investor. You want to look and you want to make sure that, really, at the end of the day if you buy a property, you rehab it, that when you’re done you have some equity, you have some meat on the bone. You want to basically do a live in flip. Or in the very least, if you want to refinance out of this loan when you’re done you want to make sure that you have at least 20% of equity when you’re done. That, and then the second thing to look for is if that property would cash flow on its own if and when you move out.
Chad Duval: Yeah, that’s a huge, that’s such a big tip for people. Especially because it’s an owner occupancy loan and you need to look at the numbers because you never know. Even if you don’t plan on moving out, there might be an emergency, there might be circumstances that change. You need to really make sure that you can get that rented because I feel like you can get something rented up pretty quick versus trying to sell it, you know what I mean?
Matt Porcaro: Exactly. Oh yeah.
Chad Duval: If it’s cash flowing, covering itself, covering the expenses, maintenance, all that stuff if you moved out, that should be, in my opinion, the number one reason or criteria to make sure when you go buy this. Because when you’re living in it, I think there’s some value in the sense that you always need a place to live and so even if you’re not cash flowing, 99% of the time it’s going to be cheaper than if you were to be renting somewhere else. You know what I mean, that monthly expense? Yeah, that’s a really good point for sure.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. Those are the two big things to look for. Then once you find one that’s worth offering on, you put in the offer. Now this is where someone called the 203k consultant gets involved. 203k consultants, they’re typically home inspectors that add the 203k consultant to their resume of what they do or to their services. Essentially what they do is they have to take a certification through the Housing Department. The FHA is the one that certifies these guys and basically what they do is they are the overseers of the project. They make sure that everyone gets paid, they make sure that the whole project is getting run correctly and on time. They are the neutral third party.
They actually work for you, though. The next step in this process is to when you find a property that works, or maybe not the next step, you can even do this ahead of everything, is you are able to get a 203k consultant on your team. What a 203k consultant is going to do is they’re going to be able to give you estimates of what the work’s going to be for a 203k loan. It’s really important because there’s a lot of different ways to look at the rehabs. The one way to look at it is they’re going to know what needs to be done for the bank to approve the loan, so we’re talking bare minimum. They basically call it necessary and then they’ll have a column of what the borrower would like if the money allows at the end. Then there’s an extra fantasy thing, like if there’s a little extra on top, this is the last thing that I’d love to do.
The 203k loan is virtually limitless on what you’re allowed to do. The only thing they don’t let you do is crazy luxury stuff like a pool house or a tennis court or something like that, like crazy landscaping, anything like that. In many cases, it’s pretty unlimited to what you can do. Really, your only limitation is what you can afford.
Chad Duval: Do you have to return the money if you don’t use it all up or is that accessible for-
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. What happens is, yeah if you go under budget, it’s going to apply to your principal, which is great. It will just end up lessening your mortgage payment. Basically what this 203k consultant’s going to do is you can call them up. You can look up 203k consultants. All you have to do is Google 203k consultants. There’s actually a good web site called 203kHUDConsultants.com, and guys, when I say 203k, I mean two zero three K. It’s just like 401(k). That O is a zero, just to let you guys know. I know some people have confused that, but 203kHUDConsultants.com. Basically you put in your ZIP code and it’s going to give you a list of all the 203k consultants in your area.
What you can do is you give them a call, you let them know you’re starting to look at properties, you want to do a 203k. You’re looking for houses that need some work. Ask them what they charge to come do a feasibility study, which is really them just coming in and telling you what it’s going to cost to get this thing up to snuff. They’ll also give you a cost breakdown of every line item that you can then now use to shop contractors.
What they’ll do is they’ll go around and they’ll create a line item by line item scope of work, which makes it very easy for you because you might not need, you don’t really need to know the whole story. You don’t need to be a great inspector. They’re going to tell you what you need. They’re home inspectors, they know what you need to get up to code, they know what the bank’s going to want on a 203k loan and they also know what the market prices are in your area to get things done.
They also know contractors that have done 203k work, so they can recommend you contractors even though in many cases, in some cases they might not want to because they don’t want there to be a conflict of interest but they can make the recommendation if needed. Basically what they’ll do is they’ll write this whole scope of work. They’re going to give it to you. This is something now you can go, it’s basically create a worksheet. Now you go on, I always say with contractors, start with family and friends. Ask family and friends of good contractor that they’ve used in the past, start with that.
Next thing, HomeAdvisor, Angie’s List, these are good places. Go online, they background check these people. These are guys that have a decent background that are licensed, insured, what have you. Give them a call, bring them all in one day. Bring them all in together, who cares? Have them all come in at the same time. Hand them your worksheet of your scope of work. White out, in many cases the 203K consultant will give you a blank one, and just have them fill in what the materials are going to be for each line item and what the labor’s going to be. That’s the best way to shop this out.
When you do that, you’re getting the best bang for your buck because you’re making sure that all the scope of work is perfect across the board.
Chad Duval: There no guessing.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. The worst thing you could give a contractor is creative freedom. You don’t want them to come up with what your game plan’s going to be. You want to give them the game plan and let them price off of that. You give them that, you start getting numbers coming in, you see where they are compared to the 203k consultant. Are they way higher, are they way lower? Then you can really use your best judgment and bring someone in like that.
Now as far as the 203k process is concerned with paying them out, typically the way that it works is it’s like there’s construction, renovation lending is all pretty much the same. Essentially what it is is they need to pretty much, I’ve heard that this has changed, that they’re able to get a deposit now. Typically it’s been where they don’t get a deposit, they have to start the work before they can get paid, which is fine in many cases. I think one of the things that I want to tell people is if you see a contractor that literally can’t get themselves off the ground without a down payment or something like that?
Chad Duval: Yeah, that’s a red flag.
Matt Porcaro: Typically means they’re pretty shitty with money, yeah. That’s a big red flag. Any contractor could be a 203k contractor, they just need to go through an approval process, licensing, insurances, and they have to show that they have some trade line credit. They have a trade line with Home Depot, they have a trade line with the local whatever, basically knowing that they can get the material put out and ready to go.
The great thing about 203k work is that you get paid for what you did and that’s it and there’s no questions asked about it. What ends up happening is the 203k consultant stays involved. What happens is when they start working on the project, as things start getting crossed off the list the 203k consultant comes in, looks around, verifies it, “Okay, yeah, this is done, this is done, this is done.” What they do is they send that to the bank, the bank overnights the contractor a check the next day. No questions asked, there’s no arguing.
As someone that grew up in the contracting business, I can’t tell you how many times my dad was going nuts on owners that were holding back $10,000 because like the hardware was wrong or something or he had to change some hardware. They’re using every little thing to keep an astronomical amount of money back, so for contractors that’s a huge thing, that they’re not going tit for tat with the homeowner. You have a third party that’s like, “This is done, you get paid, this is done, you get paid,” you know what I mean?
Chad Duval: That helps people who actually have this loan too. I mean if you don’t want to work for or actually have to deal with contractors or if you have a bad taste in your mouth dealing with contractors, you pretty much have this consultant there helping you out 24/7.
Matt Porcaro: 100%. I like to say too, the 203k is doing a flip on training wheels.
Chad Duval: Yeah, it absolutely is.
Matt Porcaro: Because you have this third party that’s kind of watching, making sure that everything’s going well. They’re consulting on what you need to get done. They’re there to help you in such a multitude of ways. It’s very funny because if you go out there and you Google using a 203k loan, they’ll have a pros and cons things of a 203k and oftentimes using a 203k consultant comes in as a negative. I can maybe understand the reasoning why, of it might slow down the process, but people are regretting to think of the amount of back and forth that happens with a contractor and a homeowner on a day to day basis in a typical situation, right?
Chad Duval: Right.
Matt Porcaro: There’s so many more issues with that. A 203k consultant’s basically, it’s black and white.
Chad Duval: Yeah, and everything’s all spelled out too. I like your little quote there of basically a 203k is flipping on training wheels. If you even want to try flipping, I feel like it’s a good start too because it teaches you how to manage or how a 203k consultant can teach you how to manage contractors, how to make sure your scope of work actually spells out everything line by line. Because I know I’ve made that mistake on a few of my properties, is I gave a very, very macro, “Hey, I want you to do this,” and not spell everything out and then there was a miscommunication, there was an interpretation issue and then things get done and then things are over budget. That’s a huge benefit of having this consultant and going through this process.
Matt Porcaro: Listen, I don’t want to get it twisted and I always tell people, people ask me all the time, “Can you repeat this loan? Can you do it multiple times?” No. Can you? Yes. Is this is a loan to flip houses with? Absolutely not.
Chad Duval: No.
Matt Porcaro: Is this a house to buy multiple investment properties with? No. The reason this loan exists in the manner in which it does, low down payment, basically the low down payment is really the long and short of it but no, you can’t use this multiple times but if you leverage the Hell out of it the first time, you never need to use it again. That’s the position I’m in now. That product opened every real estate door for me. It opened up $150,000 of equity that I never had.
I told you in the beginning of this story, the biggest thing when they told us is, “All right, to flip houses you need at least $60,000 to get started.” That was unheard of money for me.
Chad Duval: Right.
Matt Porcaro: Now all of a sudden, I have it. I have it in the form of something that isn’t even my money. It’s money that my tenants are now paying every month. The biggest takeaway from this whole thing was that I started in trying to figure out how to get started, trying to talk to realtors, trying to talk with hard money lenders, all these people. No one would ever take me seriously because they’d ask me how many deals I’ve done and I’d say none.
After doing this deal and after doing this loan, you don’t need to tell them what kind of loan it was, a home owner occupant, whatever it was. At the end of the day, I bought a house undervalue, I rehabbed it. I did a BRRRR method, that’s pretty much what I did. I bought it, I rehabbed it, I rented it out, I refinanced it.
Chad Duval: You have experience in all of those things now.
Matt Porcaro: Right.
Chad Duval: You’re not a, well you’re still a newbie I guess technically but you actually have a deal done. That’s a huge credibility booster.
Matt Porcaro: They say, one of the funniest things about people putting so much work into their GPA, your GPA is only good for the first job you ever get. I never put a GPA on my resume ever again after my first job and no one ever asked. Actually after my internship I never put it on again and no one ever asked. The same rules apply for flipping houses, honestly. I’m sure you know this but it’s not a matter of how many deals. They might ask how many but if you show them one good deal and that you did it, it makes you a player automatically. It separates you from the pack very quickly. I think that’s the biggest take home from this thing. There’s so much to get into detail with the 203k and how to use it and how to leverage it, but I think the biggest thing and really privy to your podcast is how to start.
Getting started, I didn’t realize how important it is just to get one under your belt. I didn’t realize that getting one is more important than getting the right one or getting the best one or anything like that.
Chad Duval: Oh, 100%. Oh my God, I am a firm believer in that. Just getting anything, even if you don’t make any money on it, if you lose money. I mean I’m not saying you should try and buy a bad deal but if you lose money on accident in your first deal, that’s way better than not doing a deal at all because you didn’t learn anything.
Matt Porcaro: Most people that flip properties that I know that first started getting into it and did it the old fashioned way maybe a couple years ago before it was super hyped up? They broke even. Or if that, or made a little. You know what I mean? Breaking even’s not a bad thing. It sucks, of course it sucks but when you think about-
Chad Duval: You learn so much.
Matt Porcaro: Right. I was playing the stock market where overnight I could lose everything, you know what I mean, lose my whole investment. At least with this it’s like, listen, you have a liquid asset. You have a home. You have something people are going to need. It’s not like you’re left, as they say in trading stocks, holding the bag. You’re not left with this worthless thing, like 10,000 shares of something worthless.
Chad Duval: Yeah. Now I have two quick questions about the loan product itself. I know with FHA home occupancy loans, even like the USDA rural development loans, there’s only a requirement of one year to live in the property. Is that the same with that?
Matt Porcaro: Yes.
Chad Duval: It is. Okay, perfect.
Matt Porcaro: Really, again, this is their way of skirting around, this isn’t an investor loan. Again, I won’t get into reasons why you don’t need it but the 203k consultant, again, one of the things with flipping houses and doing stuff with that is speed. The 203k loan is not speed. If you’re looking for speed, go to a hard money lender. This is a slow but proven method of getting into a property and rehabbing it and making sure that everything goes nicely. Again, because it’s federal, there’s a lot of red tape but it’s keeping you safe.
Chad Duval: Oh yeah.
Matt Porcaro: It’s making sure that you’re not getting yourself into any crazy crap.
Chad Duval: Yeah, and the reason I ask, because I know when I first started, my first loan was a USDA rural which basically it’s a hybrid of an FHA loan. When I got it or got approved, it was home occupancy and I thought in order for me to move out of it, I had to sell the property. I wasn’t able to have another property. I just wanted to clarify for the listeners that usually its only requirement, that you live at the property for 12 months then you can move out.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. You know what? In my instance, I’ll be honest, my rehab took eight months so it was a big rehab. I’m not telling people to do that. Luckily I had some, my dad has experience in being a contractor and we were able to get around it and it wasn’t as daunting as maybe it could have been for some people, for me. That being said, it was still long, it was arduous, it cost me a lot of money. It definitely went, there was overruns, everything like that. It took eight months, but after that eight months I had enough equity when that was done to refinance so I refinanced immediately into a conventional mortgage. Got rid of, the FHA has mortgage interest. That’s why you’re able to put such a low down payment.
Chad Duval: Oh, the mortgage insurance.
Matt Porcaro: Right. The FHA is just a, when they say an FHA loan the FHA isn’t the one writing the loan. The bank is writing the loan, they’re creating the mortgage. The FHA is just insuring it and the way they insure it is they’re an insurance company. Everyone pays the FHA a certain percentage of their loan amount every month and you’re all in this collective FHA pool where people are basically putting in their good faith $300 a month or whatever it is, saying that they’re not going to default on their loan. For the people that do default on their loan, the proceeds come out of that fund that everyone’s paying into.
Chad Duval: Right, so that’s the offset of having a low down payment, because they see you as a higher risk borrower because you’re not bringing enough skin in the game. It makes perfect sense. You only have to live in it for a year and then is there a maximum dollar amount that the, taking your own personal finances out of the equation, is there a maximum amount of loan amount per state or something like that? Can they lend up to $10,000,000? Can they only lend up to $500,000 or does it vary?
Matt Porcaro: It varies by county, I believe, so it completely flexes with your county and market amounts in your county. You can Google it. You could look up 203, I think it’s FHA and 203k are the same. You just look up FHA loan limits. What I will tell you is, I think I looked it up, it’s astronomically high. Very high, you would have to really be trying to get that high in what they’re allowed, but yeah, there’s no limit. Your limit, it’s going to be your income really.
Chad Duval: I got you.
Matt Porcaro: That’s where your limit’s going to come in. For all intents and purposes, for all the listeners, it’s virtually limitless.
Chad Duval: I got you. Perfect, perfect. Wow. There is so much information in that.
Matt Porcaro: I know, and it’s so tough for me to try to say this as nicely an overview as [crosstalk 00:55:43].
Chad Duval: No, you did a really good job, man.
Matt Porcaro: I want to make sure that people really get a true look at this thing. Obviously I can rant and rave about this thing all day but the writing on the wall is that this is definitely one of the best ways to get started. You can use it in a multitude of ways, whether it be you wanting to live for free, whether you want to flip it, do a live in flip. Or if you want to create a cash flowing rental property, you want to buy a four unit, live in one, rent out all the others, live for free and cash flow, there’s so many different ways to use it.
Chad Duval: Because you can go up to four units, right? I don’t know if we covered that or not.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. No, I mentioned it before but yeah, that’s another cool thing about the FHA. There are some other loan programs out there that are renovations loans. You have the HomeStyle loan. Freddie Mac just came out with one. There’s a couple of them out there but the FHA one is the most static of them all, meaning it’s 3.5% no matter what. Wherever it is, HomeStyle loans let you buy investment properties with it but they have more limitations. I think you’re only allowed to get a single unit. It could be a single family and you need to put down 15% instead of 3.5.
Renovation loans exist. This isn’t to say that you can’t use a renovation loan to do other flips. You absolutely should if you can. The difference is you might have to kick up a little more, your credit score might need to be a little better. There’s a lot of different things. FHA is baseline the best one to use and then your mortgage broker, if they’re a renovation specialist like they should be, they’ll be able to put you in the direction of which product is the best.
Chad Duval: Gotcha, gotcha. That’s perfect, man. Yeah, no, I appreciate you getting into so much detail about it. It definitely cleared up a lot of questions I had and I’m hoping that it brings some value to everybody listening, especially like you were saying, it’s trying to get as many people to start and find the easiest way to do that.
Matt Porcaro: Right.
Chad Duval: This is definitely a very good strategy and you’re proof that it definitely works. We’re getting a little long here but I wanted to do a shift into what we’ve been calling the final four questions. Just fun, they’re light questions that kind of break it up a little bit.
Matt Porcaro: Cool.
Chad Duval: Question number one, if you were to get rid of one state in the US, what would it be and why?
Matt Porcaro: Oh man.
Chad Duval: We are not trying to piss off anybody.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, no. One state in the US to get rid of. Oh man.
Chad Duval: It could be for any reason.
Matt Porcaro: I would say New Jersey because you can’t make a left turn. Freaking frustrating when you go up there.
Chad Duval: Wait, what?
Matt Porcaro: You can’t make left turns. You have to make a right and a right.
Chad Duval: Oh, no way.
Matt Porcaro: New Jersey’s weird.
Chad Duval: I didn’t know that.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, there’s no left turns off of their main roads. You have to make a right and do a you-ey and then make a left.
Chad Duval: A couple rights to come, oh man, that sucks.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, pretty much rights all across. They have stupid driving rules.
Chad Duval: I just learned that. I didn’t know that. Question number two, when we finish this interview, you walk outside and you find a lottery ticket for, let’s say, $10,000,000. What would you do with the money?
Matt Porcaro: Oh boy. Buy a whole lot of real estate and then maybe save a million of it to just travel the world for the next, forever.
Chad Duval: Nice.
Matt Porcaro: Me and my wife love to travel. Never traveled my whole life. I can attribute my success in real estate to being able to travel now a little more. Yeah, man, I got the travel bug a couple years ago. Again, grew up in a, never was able to, our big trip was Disneyland, Disney World.
Chad Duval: Same here, yeah. Florida.
Matt Porcaro: Once I saw that there’s a world outside of the US, I couldn’t stop. Yeah, man, travel the world for sure.
Chad Duval: Perfect. Number three, if you could have a beer with any person dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Matt Porcaro: Man. Have a beer with anyone dead or alive. I guess this is my gut answer. I think George W. Bush I would want to have a beer with, no other reason than he just seems like the only president I’d want to have a beer with.
Chad Duval: He seems super funny.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. He just seems, every interview I ever see with him, it’s so funny looking back. People hated him so much but you watch him now and he’s just like the nicest, coolest guy and I just feel like, I don’t know, he’d be a fun guy to have a beer with.
Chad Duval: Yeah, man. No, I agree for sure. Number four, my favorite question, if you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Matt Porcaro: Me and my wife have this conversation a lot and I feel like I flex between two different things. I think bacon cheeseburgers, yeah, I’m going to have to go, it’s always between that and pizza, especially as a [inaudible 01:00:50], but bacon cheeseburgers, man. I love them.
Chad Duval: Okay. Yeah, yeah, man. They’re so freaking good. I know, I’m torn too, man. Yeah, pizza’s my thing but man, a bacon cheeseburger sounds really good right now too.
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. The way I look at it too is I’m always working out, so I really need to make sure I’m getting the protein in.
Chad Duval: What’s your favorite burger? Is it a favorite joint that you have or just at home?
Matt Porcaro: Man, yeah, just anywhere. There’s this guy in the New York food scene, calls himself Gotham Burger Social Club. They’re big on Instagram and it’s so awesome because this dude just tours New York City and looks for all the best burgers. I just go on there and see what his best ones are.
Chad Duval: “This is date night tonight!”
Matt Porcaro: Yeah. No, it’s really cool. I’ll just follow him and I’ll just go find the best burgers. They’re all good in their own special ways but yeah, man. It’s cool, one of the perks of living in New York for sure.
Chad Duval: Yeah, oh no, I’m super jealous, man. You guys have unbelievable food. What’s the stat, there’s like 5,000, just an amazing amount of restaurants that are there.
Matt Porcaro: If I tried to go to every restaurant in New York City, I would die trying. The whole thing is is in another five years there’d be a whole nother slew of restaurants [crosstalk 01:02:10].
Chad Duval: Right, right.
Matt Porcaro: It’s funny. We were saying I was just in Greece. We’re in Greece, we go all the way there and we get the food and we’re like, “Man, it’s good but it feels like it isn’t home.” We were talking to a lot of the waiters in Mykonos, it’s like a summer island and it shuts down in the winter. Two of the waiters we talked to, they were like, “Do you live near Astoria?” Astoria’s a part of Queens which is actually, I can see it from my window right now. They’re like, “Oh, we go there to work there for the winter. We work at,” so it’s like, man.
Chad Duval: The food’s here.
Matt Porcaro: [crosstalk 01:02:44] all the way there and it’s like literally right next door to us.
Chad Duval: That’s too funny, man, that’s too funny. Oh man. That wraps up the final four. I guess final thoughts, how people can get in touch with you, that sort of thing?
Matt Porcaro: Yeah, man. As you know, I’m super active on my Instagram and I think that you can probably also attribute to, I am no holds barred on there. I give every little bit of information I can. I don’t like to hold anything back. My Instagram is @the203kway, so you can check me out there, I do a lot there. Also, so many people have asked me how to do it themselves, and that’s why I started this 203k thing, and a lot of questions on how to get started and a lot of questions about my story and everything about it. I basically put together a little guide and you can access that at The203kWay.com. You just type in your name, email, and it will send you a copy of the guide. You could check it out and if you want to get started in this, that’s the best way to follow it and hopefully do it yourself.
Chad Duval: Perfect, man. That’s awesome. Yeah, no. I, definitely a big proponent of his Instagram. I’m following along all the time. That’s how we connected and yeah, he’s got a lot of good stuff. It basically takes our conversation today and breaks it down to little digestible nuggets that over time you can digest.
Matt Porcaro: Sure.
Chad Duval: Highly recommend it. I’ll link all that in the show notes. With that being said, I guess we’ll get out of here. Matt Porcaro, thanks for being on the show and we’ll be in touch.
Matt Porcaro: Chad, my pleasure, man. Thank you.
Chad Duval: What’s going on, guys? That was Matt Porcaro. Appreciate you guys listening to the conversation today. It was a little long but there were so many good aspects of that conversation. We covered everything that we could think of that would hopefully bring you guys some value and give you one more strategy to get started in real estate. I particularly liked the fact that he made it really simple by saying that this 203k loan product is basically a flip on training wheels, which after talking to him, it makes it so much clearer. Very low risk and you actually have a lot of other people that are holding your hand throughout. Between the construction consultant and the bank itself, you have two team members right there that are very useful through this process, especially if your first time buying a rental property. That was my favorite part of the interview.
You can follow him on Instagram at @the203kway and of course you can always follow me at @IamChadDuval on all other social platforms. Yeah, so I hope you guys have a good week. We will touch base again next Thursday. We have another good interview to publish and until then, you don’t have to be great to start but you have to start to be great.