Many people struggle with starting in real estate because of money. They think that without it, they can never start their journey. But what if you can access money you never knew was available to you? Amy Bersamin, the Managing Partner of Sweep Strategies, has just the wisdom to help you tap into that so you can start purchasing real estate. In this episode, she sits down with Moneeka Sawyer to talk about using OPM, Other People’s Money, in the form of lines of credit—home equity, personal, and business. She helps you identify which ones to go after and the tools you need to be completely guided in using this unconventional tool. Follow Amy in this discussion as she shares more wisdom to help you get started on your real estate journey.

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The Surefire Way To Purchase Real Estate With Amy Bersamin

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome Amy Bersamin to the show. Amy is passionate about helping people purchase real estate using money they never knew was available to them. She was in her twenties when she first bought her first house. It was not until after learning about using OPM, Other People’s Money, to purchase real estate that she was able to buy rental properties. Her vision is for young adults to get financial education and coaching so they can be well on the path to earning passive income shortly after entering the job market.

As the Managing Partner of Sweep Strategies, a financial education and coaching company that has changed the lives of over 3,000 people and families across the United States, Amy knows that having your own coach to help you with implementation is the key. Sweep Strategies specializes in one-on-one coaching tailored to your unique situation. Amy herself has coached clients so they were able to purchase rental properties within months of joining her program. Amy comes to us as a referral from Lorraine Conaway and I know that you saw Lorraine on the show. I love Lorraine because she comes to us with an entire network. She is a wealth strategist.

You see wealth strategies with stocks, financial planners, and insurance but I have never met anybody who does the whole wealth strategy where they take into account real estate. I was beyond delighted to meet Lorraine and introduce you to her. She wanted to introduce me to Amy because Amy is one of the partners in the network that provides the services for the wealth strategies that are set up with Lorraine. I’ve got Amy on the show. I’m so excited. Welcome to the show, Amy.

Thank you, Moneeka. I’m so excited. Thank you for having me.

I’m so glad. Amy is in Hawaii. Aloha.

Yes. Aloha, everyone.

Amy, can you give us the two-minute version of your story? How did you get into real estate and start doing all of this amazing stuff?

I was in my early twenties when my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, said, “Why don’t we purchase a property with my parents?” I was like, “Okay.” We were renting so he suggested that so I said, “Sure. Why don’t we do that?” That’s my introduction to buying real estate. It was our first home. I want to say about eight years later, we purchased our own house. A few years later, we bought our second home. Those two homes became rentals, but we did not purchase them as rentals. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago when I came to Sweep that I learned how to use other people’s money to buy rentals.

I was so blown away because I didn’t know that I could do this. I’ll explain the specifics. I went home and I told my husband. I’m like, “I learned a way that people aren’t talking about how to go buy rentals.” I have to back up a bit because when we purchased a second home, my husband was like, “We’re going to buy this house. It’s going to be a vacation house. In a couple of years, we’re going to go in and rent it out or sell it.” I was like, “Why? This is our vacation home. Why would you sell it?” He’s like, “It’s an investment.” I was like, “No, it’s our house.” He goes, “Fine. We’re not going to sell it. Why don’t we rent it?”

I’m like, “What you’re going to have other people live in our house? I’ve heard horror stories about people damaging homes.” As you can see that’s why I’m so glad that you have your show for women because I was one of those women. If it weren’t for my husband, I would never have gotten into real estate because it’s more of, I want to say, a man thing because I do see that in a lot of my clients. The husbands are going to be like, “We want to buy a rental property.” I’ll look at the wife and they’ll be like, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

It’s so true.

Everything is a mindset and how you're educated. Share on X

I’m sure you see that.

All the time. Absolutely. That is such a great story because it’s so real. I remember the first time my husband brought to me that we should take a loan off his 401(k) to help with the down payment on our home. I was like, “Don’t touch your 401(k). That’s our retirement funds.” He was like, “Relax.” It’s so funny because I’ve been in real estate for so long by then but every time you hear something new and we’ve been so marketed to about the way the world is supposed to look. We don’t even realize that we’re taking it in and what it’s creating inside of us.

The horror stories of rentals so many people have heard that. I’ve never had one of those horror stories happen to me. It doesn’t have to be that way but that doesn’t make the news. Things being simple and blissfully easy doesn’t make the news. We hear about all this other stuff and it damages the way we feel about things and the willingness to experience and take a little bit of risk and grow our world becomes a little bit limited, don’t you think?

I agree.

Talk to us about other people’s money. What I love about this is I know so many people who are reading who are like, “I’m 23. I need to save for ten years because I don’t have a down payment. I can’t buy real estate. This isn’t for me now.” What I love is you’re like, “After college, use other people’s money and get started.” I’m excited about that. Talk to us about other people’s money. What is it, first of all?

OPM is Other People’s Money. People may know about private money and hard money, the money in the bank is other people’s money, too. I want to talk about lines of credit. Lines of credit are other people’s money. The power of it is people in their early twenties have to save for a while before they can even purchase a property. To put a down payment on a property you have to save for months. To even think of buying a rental with cash, that’ll take years. Here we can teach our clients a way to be able to use other people’s money and be able to go and purchase the rental that they want in a short time.

Tell us about the different kinds of lines of credits.

There are different types of lines of credit. One, a lot of people are familiar with because it is a home equity line of credit. A Home Equity Line Of Credit or a HELOC is tied to your home. Your home is used as collateral. If you do not have a home, no worries because you can use a Personal Line Of Credit or as we call it, PLOC. That is unsecured. You don’t need collateral for a personal line of credit. There’s also a business line of credit. That also does not need collateral. If it is under your business, it may not even show up on your personal. Those are the three that we focus on as far as the different types of lines of credit.

How can someone figure out which one to go after? Will they qualify and that sort of thing?

That’s what we do. What we do is we do an assessment. We look at a lot of things. When you start something it’s what is the goal? Why do you want to buy this property? Why do you want to buy a rental? What is the goal? I’ve heard anywhere from, “I have three kids. We have one house. I want to buy two rentals so I could have one house for each of my children.” For some people it’s, “I want to get a passive income.” We run the numbers for our clients that way we can make sure that they’re not over-leveraged. Everyone’s situation is unique and that’s why we do that.

Talk a little bit more about how that process would work. You basically would talk to people, do an assessment and you would tell them whether a HELOC, PLOC, or the BLOC is the best option. Home equity, personal, or business line of credit, is that true?

 

Correct. When they come to us and they don’t have a home, the HELOC is not the tool for now because we use the line of credit as a tool. If you use a line of credit as a tool to go and help them purchase a rental property. If they do not have a home and they can’t use the HELOC we would suggest a personal line of credit. If they have a HELOC, that’s easy if they have a home equity line of credit. Even if they don’t have a home equity line of credit, if they have a property that we can go and take a HELOC off that property, they can then use the HELOC. If they don’t have a home, it would be a personal line of credit, or if they have a business, it would be the business line of credit. It all depends on what they want to do. We run the numbers to see what is a good fit for them.

I know that I didn’t prepare you for this so you may not have the answer for this but what is the range and rates? I know a HELOC is between 3% and 4% at least for the beginning section and it goes up. What is the range or the rates you would you expect with a PLOC and a BLOC?

I’m smiling because you said, “Amy is in Hawaii.” Not only do we have sunshine almost all year long and nice weather but people want to buy properties in Hawaii because the banks have what we are calling promotional rates or teaser rates. The teaser rates could be low. They’re as low as 1.49% for two years. Moneeka, you should come in by your priority there and I’ll teach you how to take out a HELOC on it. You could go and buy more properties.

I know that on the mainland, they don’t offer that low of a rate. The average is about 4% to 6% depending on the banks and the credit also makes a difference. As far as personal lines of credit, I’ve seen them anywhere from 5% in Hawaii, but on the mainland, they tend to be higher. I have seen them on the mainland for probably about 14% and even 16%. We show them how to use the tool and how to pay off the tool.

It’s a tool. It’s a way to get us in and we can leverage what we do with it to pay it off and circulate it so we can use it again and again. I love that. Tell us a little bit about the way that you fit into Lorraine’s financial network.

We are so excited to be a part of this financial network because I don’t think there’s any company or a group of companies that can offer the services that the network is offering. What I mean by that is it is a one-stop solution. If you want to purchase a rental property, the network has a company that offers lending. There’s a company like our company that teaches how to use the OPM to go buy the rentals. There’s also tax because a lot of people purchase rental properties for the tax offset. Not only for passive income but also to offset the tax. There are other companies in the network that if you want cashflow there’s a way that you could get cashflow through real estate that you don’t own. That’s an option. There’s also insurance and legal.

A lot of times a lot of people have a financial planner and CPA, but do they talk to each other? Does your CPA talk to your financial planner throughout the year? Does your CPA talk to a lender that you choose? Normally, people will use a CPA for tax prep, not necessarily for tax planning. I’m so excited because now you can come in through any one of the companies and you would be able to utilize all of the services that would be available to you and all of us are talking to each other. I talked to Lorraine and I talked to the other people in different companies. It is so exciting because we are all under one umbrella as far as what’s available for people out there.

I love that too because it’s a one-stop shop. You go to one company and you’ve got a whole team of people who work for you that can communicate. They’re all on the same wavelength, each of them will understand a different aspect of the client and they can bring that knowledge to the team so all the tools are best utilized. That’s what excited me when I met Lorraine. I was like and I said this to her on the show, “Where have you been all my life?” It’s good stuff and I’m so delighted that we were getting introduced to you too, Amy.

Thank you. We talked about the mindset because everything is a mindset and how you’re educated? Because all we do is we educate. We educate and we coach. Everyone is so used to traditional ways of thinking and banking. Everything is traditional so we are non-conventional, because who uses a line of credit to go buy a rental or a property? Who does that? It’s a tool because it is a tool that you will need the proper coaching for you to be able to implement it correctly. Otherwise, it could be risky for you. It’s all the same with the financial network. It’s a different way of thinking. It’s a different way of looking at all of your assets and making them work for you and not waiting until you stop working or when you’re 65. It’s how can we help you now?

I love that.

When we talk about my passion I was in my early twenties when I first was introduced to real estate, but if I had known that something this was available to me back then, I don’t think I’d be talking to you, first of all. I am so glad to be talking to you.

You can use a line of credit to go buy a rental property, but you can also use the line of credit to help you pay your debts a lot faster. Share on X

I’d be on the beach over here in Hawaii.

I would not be here but I believe everything happens for a reason. I believe I’m supposed to be here talking to you and telling you my vision and my passion because when students, early twenties and young adults when they get out of college, most of them will have debt. They enter the job market and a lot of times purchasing a property is the last thing on their mind. It’s more about, “How am I going to pay my student loan?” “I’m working now. I’m going to go buy a car.” “I can get this credit card and I don’t have to pay for it until I’m going to make the monthly payment.”

If we can educate the young people after they enter the job market, teach them financial education, provide them with coaching and show them that they’re able to get passive income through rentals, whatever passive income they’re getting, they can use that to help them pay the debt. Maybe they won’t have to rely on their parents to pay for the student loan. I’m looking at it like, “If we can give them that solid starting point, think about how the world would be.” If we could introduce these young people to financial education, how to get passive income and how to take care of your taxes, all the way insurance, lending, and everything if we educate them. I’m thinking by the time they’re 40, they’re retired.

I’m with you.

Think of all of the problems that we have and how that could help them. A lot of times when I say they need financial education and coaching because we were young ones. Did we listen to our parents all the time? Parents, your readers and moms, we tend to want to pave the way for our children. We want to try to make life as easy for them as possible. That’s something moms do but a lot of times your children are not going to listen to you because they’re not supposed to. It’s a vicious circle. We didn’t always listen so why should we expect them to listen to us, but it’s human nature. If they can get professional education and coaching, the moms and the dads would be so happy. It’s like, “I don’t have to go in and force my child to listen to me to go do this, that I wish I had done twenty years ago because now they’re getting an education from professionals.”

One of the biggest questions I get from people is, “How do I get out from under my debt, student loans or whatever it is?” I am not a good person to talk to about that because I never carry debt. I worked all the way through college and stuff that. I feel good about the fact that now we’ve got someone on the team, the Wealth Network team that can talk about that piece. How to get out of debt? How to leverage other people’s money? How to balance this idea of getting out of debt and also building for the future? Both of those things are important. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. It can be something that you do at the same time.

Correct. We teach our clients how to use the tool, which is the line of credit and we teach them how to pay it off or how to pay it down. It’s like, “How do we help you use this line of credit to help you achieve your goal of getting a rental property, but let us help you pay it down so you can use it over and over again.” We can also look at your other debts because we can also use the line of credit to help you pay off your debt. You can use a line of credit to go buy a rental property, but you can also use the line of credit to help you pay your debts a lot faster.

In EXTRA, we’re going to talk about the three simple steps to get started and we’re going to talk a little bit more about the specific ways that you help people to buy real estate. I’m excited about those two things. I’m excited that we’re going to be talking about that in EXTRA. Before we move towards the end of this show, could you tell everybody how they can get in touch with you?

The easiest thing is you can go on our websites, SweepStrategies.com but they can also watch an interactive video and it’s sweepstrategies.com/idecide-amy We’re also on Instagram and Facebook but our website is at SweepStrategies.com.

I watched the video and it’s amazing. I love it so you guys should go check it out. Amy, are you ready for three rapid-fire questions? I did not prep Amy on this one.

It’s like going on a roller coaster and you didn’t know it was 200 feet high.

It’s so awesome. The first one is Amy, give us one super tip on getting started in real estate investing.

 

The first step in real estate investing is where are you going to get the down payment? Where is the down payment going to come from? Who’s going to be your team? That’s important.

What is one strategy for being successful in real estate investing?

Not to be over-leveraged. That is one strategy and that’s why we run the numbers because our clients can see how much. They’re going to if there’s going to be debt. How much are they going to be paying for the deb and how much are they going to be getting as far as rental? Is it a mortgage that you have to pay? Is it the mortgage, property taxes and insurance? Are there maintenance fees? What about the monthly maintenance fees? We run all those numbers and they get to be able to see if it still a good fit? Are they over-leveraged or will they come on ahead?

Amy, what would you say is a daily practice that contributes to your personal success?

As women and most women tend to want to multitask all the time. That’s in our DNA. Sometimes I wish I have eight arms because we want to be able to do eight things at the same time.

You want to become an Indian goddess.

The one thing that I try to practice every day that’s helped me a lot is to focus on one thing at a time. When my mind thinks I want to do something else, I stop and I ask myself, “What is the one thing that you need to do now that’s going to make a difference?” Whether it’s I have to go take the laundry out of the washing machine and put it in the dryer or I need to finish my email now before I go and do another thing. I need to finish cooking. I need to finish listening to this podcast before I move on to the next thing. It’s focusing and I find that by doing that, I can accomplish so much more by focusing on one thing at a time and completing that one important thing that I need to finish before I go on to the next one. I feel I can accomplish so much more by doing that. There are days when I still think I have eight arms.

I agree with you on that. Focus is a real key to success for sure. Thank you so much. This has been so much fun. I can’t wait to talk more.

Thank you. You’re so much fun to talk to so thank you.

Of course. Ladies, thank you for joining Amy and me for this portion of the show. If you are subscribed to EXTRA stay tuned, we’re going to be talking about the three easy steps to get started using other people’s money and how specifically Amy can help you to buy your first rental property. We’re going to be talking about that in EXTRA so stay tuned. If you’re not subscribed but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com and you get the first seven days for free.

You get this one for free and you can get as many as you for free and check it out. See if it’s for you and you can stay subscribed or not. It’s totally up to you. If you’re leaving any and I now, thank you so much for joining us for this portion of the show. I love having you here and I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember, goals without action are dreams. Get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon. Bye.

 

Important Links

• Sweep Strategies
• Lorraine Conaway – Previous Episode
• Wealth Network
• sweepstrategies.com/idecide-amy
• Instagram – Sweep Strategies
• Facebook – Sweep Strategies
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com