E39: The Private Lending Playbook for Investors Who Want Passive Returns Without the Headaches with Mike Seidl

E39: The Private Lending Playbook for Investors Who Want Passive Returns Without the Headaches with Mike Seidl

Mike Seidl is a true private money lender who keeps roughly $30 million deployed at any given time across his own funds and a small investor community he and his partner Zack have built together. Before landing in private lending, he built and sold two companies: one in the medical alert industry and one in property damage construction, doing 250 to 300 repairs a year. That background in systems, operations, and human behavior turned out to be the perfect foundation for a business where the numbers are the easy part and reading people is everything. In this conversation, Mike and host Jon Nolen go deep on what separates private money from hard money, why a 2% interest rate difference almost never matters as much as speed and relationship, how Mike underwrites deals across 15 states without setting foot in the market, and what his years working with at-risk youth in Massachusetts taught him about judging character before extending capital. If you want to understand how professional private lenders actually think, this is the episode to study. Episode Highlights [0:00] – Mike opens with his philosophy on lending: the numbers are math, but judging character and integrity is the real job [1:02] – Host Jon Nolen introduces the show and welcomes Mike Seidl, a true private money lender with $30 million deployed [1:46] – Mike's background: three companies across decades, from medical alert systems to property damage construction to private lending [2:59] – What pushed Mike toward lending over flipping: a 45-minute call with an economics-minded mentor in early 2020 changed his direction entirely [5:04] – The real difference between hard money and private money: institutional infrastructure vs. relationship-based speed and flexibility [6:36] – The $2 million same-day close: how a 3-year relationship saved a borrower whose LP capital evaporated 24 hours before closing [9:29] – Why a 2% rate difference rarely matters: the math of spending two extra hours chasing a cheaper lender vs. closing another deal [13:04] – How Mike and Zack met through a Facebook group in 2020, connected in Vegas, and eventually merged their operations for mutual trust and more vacation time [15:06] – The investor community side of the business: why most aspiring lenders hear about the 110-point checklist and immediately ask to invest instead [18:41] – Foreclosure reality check: two foreclosures since 2017, and why over-discerning borrower selection is a feature, not a bug [19:45] – How Mike's years working in psychiatric hospitals and with abused youth trained him to read body language and facial expressions in borrower calls [21:53] – Where Mike lends: legal in 39 states, active in 15, and why the borrower always comes before the market [23:02] – The 7-to-8-angle underwriting system for verifying ARVs across unfamiliar markets, including Housing Alerts, PropStream, Redfin, and Google Earth [25:40] – How Mike and Zack automated their underwriting spreadsheet with Manus AI, cutting a two-hour process down to 20 minutes [28:38] – Parting wisdom: Mike sold his first company after starting it with zero industry knowledge, and believes the only real barrier is mindset 5 Key Takeaways 1. The deal is math. The borrower is everything. Numbers either work or they don't, and that part is relatively simple. The hard work is evaluating character, because when things go sideways, the only question that matters is whether that person is going to get up and get it done. 2. Speed and relationship have real dollar value. A lender who costs 2% more but can close in hours on a text message is almost always cheaper than a lender who costs 2% less but runs you through an underwriter, a loan officer, and a supervisor who can each kill the deal. 3. Verify from multiple angles before you trust any ARV. Mike uses at least seven data sources including Housing Alerts, PropStream, RicherValues, Redfin, Google Earth, street-level Google views, and direct calls to local contacts before getting comfortable with a borrower's numbers. 4. Automation should free your team, not replace them. Using Manus AI to handle underwriting data entry and financial statement coding cut hours of work down to minutes, and the assistant who runs it is now more valuable because her capacity opened up for higher-level work. 5. The only ceiling in business is the one you build yourself. Mike started his first company knowing nothing about the industry, figured it out anyway, and sold to a public company ten years later. The information exists. The mentors exist. The question is whether you believe you can figure it out. Closing Remark Mike Seidl built three companies across three decades by staying systems-focused, reading people carefully, and never confusing the complexity of an industry with an actual barrier to entry. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to rate, follow, share, and review The PETE Podcast so more investors can learn how to build smarter real estate businesses.

E38: Making Data-Driven Decisions with Boring & Repeatable Processes with Andrew Becker

What does it look like to build a real estate business that runs without you? This week on The PETE Podcast, host John Nolan sits down with Andrew Becker, a serial entrepreneur and systems architect out of the DMV area who spent seven years working nuclear weapon policy at the Pentagon before pivoting into real estate in 2013. Over an 11-year run leading his investment team, Andrew built a playbook-driven operation across wholesaling, flipping, and retail — and eventually stepped out of day-to-day operations entirely, handing the business to his team while launching new ventures including a PPC agency, a team software platform called Billions, and his current coaching program, Probate Engineers. In this episode, Andrew and John dig into the operational philosophy that made it all possible: systematizing every role through department-specific playbooks stored in Google Workspace, automating multi-step processes down to a single form submission in the CRM, and using KPI data to make decisions without emotion or gut feel. They also unpack probate as a lead source — why Andrew considers it one of the highest-revenue, most consistently available lead sources in any market, and how Probate Engineers teaches investors to build a full probate department inside their operation in just four weeks. Episode Highlights [0:03] – Opening clip: why one-action CRM automation beats asking your team to remember 11 steps [1:16] – Andrew's background: from nuclear weapons policy at the Pentagon to 11 years running a real estate investment team in the DMV [2:28] – The ventures Andrew has launched alongside and after his real estate team: Billions, Brighter PPC, Team Talks podcast, and Probate Engineers [3:34] – The hardest part of scaling: how to actually let go of operations and put your business in someone else's hands [4:38] – How codified playbooks and SOPs make delegation possible — and what Andrew learned about systems from the U.S. Air Force [5:48] – The moment that changed everything: the first time his phone rang and he didn't have to answer it [7:35] – Where and how Andrew stores playbooks: Google Workspace organized by department, with version control and permission levels built in [9:15] – The 52-week playbook strategy: one new playbook every Saturday morning for a full year [10:54] – How to handle the gray areas: giving team members ownership of playbooks and building in a culture of iteration [13:12] – The CRM automation layer: turning a multi-step appointment process into a single form submission that triggers everything else automatically [16:17] – Introducing Probate Engineers: building a full probate department inside your operation in four weeks [17:46] – Why probate is one of Andrew's 80/20 lead sources — and why it never stops generating new records across 3,100 counties nationwide [19:47] – How to approach probate leads with genuine help first, not just a buy or list offer, and why that separates you from everyone else [21:27] – The Probate Engineers motto: don't compete, separate — be the 1% who specialize in this space [22:53] – Using KPIs at the individual county level to project and predict probate revenue across a full state operation 5 Key Takeaways 1. Systematize before you delegate. The only way to confidently hand off a role is to have it fully documented first — Andrew built playbooks for every department so that anyone stepping into a role has a clear, auditable foundation to work from, not just a verbal rundown from the person who used to do it. 2. Make playbooks living documents, not monuments. Each playbook has a single assigned owner who is responsible for updating it when a better method is found — the goal is always the most efficient, effective version, not the original one. 3. Automate the checklist into the action. If a process requires your team to remember 11 separate things after completing one task, you've already created a data integrity problem. The solution is to collapse all downstream actions into a single CRM trigger so the system does the work, not the person. 4. Probate is a built-in, never-ending lead source. People pass away every single day in every county in America, and most of those estates involve real estate. The investors who take the time to understand the probate process and approach those families with genuine help — not just an offer — are operating in a space with almost no competition. 5. Data-driven decisions require boring, repeatable processes. Andrew's operational philosophy comes down to one thing: if your team is cutting corners or doing things inconsistently, you can't trust your KPIs — and if you can't trust your KPIs, you're making decisions on gut feel. Boring consistency is what makes the math work. Closing Remark Andrew Becker represents what's possible when a real estate operator commits fully to systems, data, and the discipline to do things the same way every single time. Whether you're trying to step out of your own operations or add a reliable new lead source, this episode has something you can implement this week. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to rate, follow, share, and review The PETE Podcast so more investors can learn how to build smarter real estate businesses.

E37: Why Mobile Homes Beat Single Family Flips with Mitzi Dyane

This week on The PETE Podcast, host John Nolan sits down with Mitzi Dyane, the investor who turns trailer trash into cash and leads the Mobile Home Profits Kingdom. Mitzi bought her first home at 19, a double wide on half an acre, and rented out the rooms to cover her mortgage through college. After a decade in finance as an advisor and compliance officer overseeing 17 branches and 250 advisors, she built a single family and multifamily portfolio before pivoting to mobile homes three and a half years ago. What she found was a calling as much as a niche: affordable housing that serves families being priced out of the market while producing some of the best returns of her career. From quick $9,000 wholesale paydays and $20K-in, $20K-out flips to 12% cap rate park portfolios and chattel loan financing, Mitzi lays out the entire playbook, plus a duplex fire story you have to hear to believe. Episode Highlights [0:40] – John welcomes Mitzi Dyane, who turns trailer trash into cash and runs the Mobile Home Profits Kingdom [1:19] – Buying her first home at 19: a double wide on half an acre with roommates covering the mortgage [1:48] – Transitioning from single family and multifamily to mobile homes as affordable housing tightened in San Antonio [2:12] – Making six figures on mobile home flips while selling well under the median home price [3:16] – Mitzi's finance background: ten years as an advisor and compliance officer over 17 branches [3:39] – The $6,000 park mobile home renting for $1,300 a month that changed everything [4:48] – Accidentally wholesaling her first two park homes for quick $9,000 paydays [7:18] – The $20K purchase, $20K rehab, $20K profit formula and keeping all-in costs under $30K [8:32] – Why 1976 matters for manufactured housing standards and Mitzi's preference for 2000 and newer [11:02] – Buying 12 park homes at once and turning the mistake into 12% cap rate portfolios for investors [14:19] – Chattel loans explained: 21st Mortgage, Cascade, Triad, Vanderbilt, and local credit unions [15:30] – The standard deal: buy at $30K, collect $700 a month, paid off in about four years [17:33] – Inside the Mobile Home Profits Kingdom: Hunters, Kings, Blacksmiths, and Guardians [22:06] – The duplex that burned down three days after a tenant moved in, plus a hidden pit bull [26:06] – Where beginners should start and Mitzi's limited time $147 a month community special [28:45] – Final words: a free mobile home that made $42,000, keeping it simple, and taking action 5 Key Takeaways 1. Adapt to where the market is going. Mitzi moved from single family to mobile homes because taxes, insurance, and interest rates were pricing families out, and serving affordable housing became her most profitable niche. 2. Small numbers can produce big returns. A $6,000 park home renting for $1,300 a month pays itself off in a year, and a standard $30,000 deal at $700 a month is free and clear in about four years. 3. Know the rules before you move a home. Verify your mover is licensed with the manufactured housing division, insured, and permitted with the Department of Transportation, and remember a home only keeps FHA and VA eligibility if it has been moved once from the manufacturer. 4. Turn mistakes into systems. When Mitzi bought 12 park homes before lining up buyers, she filled them with tenants and packaged them into 12% cap rate portfolios, getting paid twice on the same homes. 5. Master your strengths and partner for the rest. The Kingdom's Hunter, King, Blacksmith, and Guardian roles exist because deals move faster when people focus on what they are naturally gifted at instead of grinding away at their weaknesses. Closing Remark Mitzi Dyane represents what happens when financial discipline meets a heart for affordable housing: a business that serves families who need a decent home while rewarding the investor bold enough to go where others won't. Her story, from buying a double wide at 19 to building the Mobile Home Profits Kingdom, is proof that creativity and action beat fear every time. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to rate, follow, share, and review The PETE Podcast so more investors can learn how to build smarter real estate businesses.

E36: 70% of the Data You Buy Is Already Dead Before You Use It with Alicia Jarrett

Alicia Jarrett is a former real estate investor turned data infrastructure founder who spent a decade fixing and flipping homes from Australia, running vacant land deals, and building a data and marketing company before launching Sifter Solutions Inc., a platform sitting at the intersection of data aggregators and the apps that use them. Based now in Florida after relocating from Australia, she brings a decade of operator experience to a company purpose-built to solve a problem she lived firsthand: the real estate industry wastes between 50 and 70 percent of the $30 billion it spends annually on data because nobody is managing that data once it's bought. In this conversation with host John, Alicia breaks down what Sifter does across three layers — data processing as a service, AI-powered record verification through a product called Sifter Truth, and blockchain infrastructure for tokenizing real world assets — and why every piece of it traces back to a simple belief: if you don't trust the data, you shouldn't be buying it. She also goes deep on entrepreneurial pivoting versus shiny object syndrome, why your North Star matters more than any strategy, and what she sees happening in the real estate market over the next six to nine months. If you're a real estate operator who's ever bought a list and wondered whether it was worth anything, this conversation will change how you think about data forever. Episode Highlights [0:41] – Host John introduces Alicia Jarrett, now living in Florida after a decade of real estate investing from Australia [1:56] – How Alicia thinks about her business journey: not a series of new starts but a decade-long evolution from fix and flip to vacant land to data and finally to Sifter Solutions [3:49] – Why a decade of doing real estate deals yourself makes you a fundamentally better product builder for the people still doing them [5:13] – Alicia's take on what failure actually means for an entrepreneur and why pivoting is a skill set that takes real courage to develop [6:28] – The difference between shiny object syndrome and a true strategic pivot and how a clear North Star is the only reliable filter between the two [8:08] – Why some people chase the next thing not because of opportunity but because they can't tolerate difficulty — and what that pattern costs them [9:06] – How Sifter is built on three pillars: big data, AI, and blockchain, and why Alicia's job is not to be the expert but to find the people who are [11:45] – The $30 billion problem: how much the US real estate industry spends on data annually and how much of it gets wasted because no one manages the lifecycle [13:05] – What Sifter's platform does before you buy data: analytics, fall-through rates, assessed value versus sale price, and FHA/VA/conventional splits so you know what you're purchasing [14:55] – How Sifter sits in the middle of data aggregators and marketing systems to manage compliance, skip tracing, DNC checks, refresh cycles, and CRM delivery [16:29] – Sifter Truth: the AI-powered truth layer being built to verify individual records, and why a verified data record could soon be worth far more than the $0.05 to $0.10 people pay today [19:11] – Web2 versus Web3 in plain English and why blockchain puts the data consumer in control of access, payments, and smart contract management for the first time [20:11] – How Sifter's partnership with TX (formerly Solar) is tokenizing every US property across 2,000 data points per property to lay the groundwork for DeFi real estate lending [26:23] – Alicia's three-part framework for deciding whether a business pivot is real: who does it help, how big is the problem at scale, and do you have the skills or support to actually execute 5 Key Takeaways 1. Your North Star is what separates a pivot from a distraction. Shiny object syndrome doesn't hit people with a clear direction and strong internal resilience. It hits people whose vision isn't defined clearly enough to anchor them when things get hard. 2. If you don't trust the data, don't buy it. Between 50 and 70 percent of real estate data purchased in the US gets wasted because investors buy first and ask questions later. Understanding what data is telling you before you purchase it is the foundation of a smarter acquisition strategy. 3. Doing the thing yourself first makes you better at everything that comes after. Alicia's decade of running real estate deals from Australia is what separates Sifter from a software company that guessed at what operators need. Operator experience is a product advantage most tech builders never develop. 4. Pivoting is a skill, not a failure. Moving from one business model to another requires courage, self-awareness, and the discipline to carry your learnings forward rather than leaving them behind. People who call it failure are usually watching from the outside. 5. The market always has deals for people willing to work with it. Whether rates are rising or falling, divorces and deaths and financial distress still create motivated sellers. Investors who catastrophize over market conditions are often competing against the smaller group who simply adapted their strategy and kept going. Closing Remark Alicia Jarrett represents the kind of operator-turned-builder this industry needs more of: someone who lived the data problem, got tired of it, and built the infrastructure to fix it. If you're doing deals and wondering why your marketing keeps underperforming, the answer is almost certainly in how your data is being managed — or not managed — after you buy it. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to rate, follow, share, and review The PETE Podcast so more investors can learn how to build smarter real estate businesses.

E35: The Playbook for Building a Creative Finance Real Estate Business Without Blowing Up Your Marriage with Joe & Jenn Delle Fave

Joe and Jenn Delle Fave are a husband-and-wife real estate investing team based in Florida who left their W-2 jobs behind to build a creative finance portfolio using subject-to deals, seller financing, and lease options — without banks, down payments, or their own credit. Joe spent years grinding 12-to-14-hour days in a car dealership finance office before realizing the money wasn't worth the life he was missing. Jenn came out of a classroom teaching career, made $29,000 her first year after getting her four-year degree and a master's, and eventually poured all of that same work ethic into building something real. Today they run the Creative Finance Playbook, lead a small but mighty team, homeschool their kids, and have helped more renters become homeowners than just about anyone they know. This conversation covers the full arc — from their first junker house in upstate New York in 2008, to the discovery that the banks were about to cut them off at ten mortgages, to doubling down on marketing at the very beginning of a global pandemic and going from one deal a year to one deal a month overnight. Joe and Jenn talk about how they divide responsibilities as a married couple in business together, how they trained a former babysitter who had never heard of Zillow into a four-year acquisitions rockstar, and why creative finance deals consistently outperform their best fix-and-flip numbers. If you have ever wanted to see what it looks like when two people actually build the life together instead of talking about it, this is that story. Episode Highlights [0:53] – Host introduces Joe and Jenn as creators of the Creative Finance Playbook, who closed their first deal together in 2008 and now buy without banks, down payments, or their own credit [1:50] – Joe and Jenn describe themselves as dreamers who had a vision of leaving their jobs, moving to Florida, and traveling — a goal that once felt impossible until it wasn't [2:51] – Joe describes the 12-to-14-hour dealership finance days: leaving before the kids were up, coming home after they were in bed, eating pizza at his desk [4:07] – Jenn shares her teaching background: college in 1999, $29,000 starting salary, master's degree debt, and the moment she realized wealth might actually be available to her too [6:07] – How their exits from W-2 work happened separately: Jenn left first, then took over operations, and Joe stayed until Covid forced the issue [7:01] – The turning point when the banks were about to cut them off at ten mortgages and they discovered creative finance as the path forward [7:39] – Joe's dealership owner gave him a huge raise five days before Covid shut everything down, and March 12th, 2020 became his last day of work [8:28] – How they went from one deal a year to one deal a month by marketing hard at the very start of the pandemic while others were frozen [11:16] – How they navigate disagreements as a couple in business: finding a mentor as the third voice and staying in their respective lanes [13:06] – Jenn's lane is operations and back-end systems; Joe's is seller calls and deal making — and they figured that out through a few bumps and some honest conversation [14:19] – Their current team: small but mighty, with virtual assistants, an executive assistant, and a former babysitter turned four-year acquisitions rockstar who had to have Zillow spelled out for her on day one [17:08] – Why Joe has always been willing to train people with zero real estate experience and why mindset and attitude matter more than a résumé [19:20] – Their coaching community started virtual and recently added in-person events because nothing replaces the energy of being in the same room [20:25] – How homeschooling lets their kids travel with them to meetups and events, and why both kids at 13 and 11 told state evaluators they want to do real estate [22:13] – How creative finance reframes what it means to help sellers: most sellers don't want to sell, life just happened, and listening to those stories changes how you show up [24:12] – A real deal breakdown: a turnkey Florida house with a 3.25% seller-financed rate, no money down, and over $210,000 in saved finance charges compared to current market rates [25:47] – How they structure lease-option exits for buyers: helping renters become homeowners over time and why those deals consistently produce over six-figure returns 5 Key Takeaways 1. Stay in your lanes. Clearly defined roles are not a limitation in a husband-and-wife business — they are the engine. Once Joe owned seller calls and Jenn owned operations, everything accelerated. 2. Double down when others are frozen. Joe and Jenn launched their full marketing push at the start of a global pandemic. The properties they bought during that season of uncertainty have since doubled or more in value. 3. Creative finance lets you pay full price and still win. When you buy on terms, you are negotiating rate and structure, not equity. That means more sellers say yes, more deals close with dignity, and the returns often beat a fix-and-flip by a wide margin. 4. Hire for mindset, not experience. Their best team member had never heard of Zillow on day one. She became a four-year acquisitions rockstar because she had the right attitude and was willing to take action. The skill can be taught. The character cannot. 5. Every no gets you closer to yes. Rejection is a data point, not a stop sign. Averages always prevail for the people willing to stay the course. Closing Remark Joe and Jenn Delle Fave are a living example of what happens when two people refuse to let their circumstances write their story — and choose to build something meaningful together instead. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to rate, follow, share, and review The PETE Podcast so more investors can learn how to build smarter real estate businesses.