During this episode of the Lab Coat Agents Podcast, host Jeff Pfitzer speaks with Chris Prefontaine, Founder of Smart Real Estate Coach, real estate investor, and author. Learn how real estate agents can create a secondary income by becoming a niche expert, and new solution provider for clients who need financial options when buying or selling homes. This is a fascinating episode with lots of great takeaways. Episode Highlights:  Chris Prefontaine started his career building homes in the 90’s. He then practiced real estate, then pivoted after the market crashed to become an investor and coach. He no longer operates as a realtor. Chris buys and sells his own properties exclusively. Almost all of his exits are rent-to-own. They make sure that their mortgage-ready date coincides with the terms they have with the seller. There's an enormous pool of buyers who can't walk into a bank and get pre-qualified. This is who they serve. They have a 2-10% drop out rate vs. a 2-10% finance rate. Most dropouts happen due to life events and most of those are quite amicable. If that happens, they sell the property conventionally with a realtor. Or, if the term allows it, they just do another rent-to-own. Coming out of the '08 crash Chris wanted to buy without using money or credit. His wife had the idea to help people who needed to recover their credit. They carry 50-60 rent-to-owns at the same time. Mostly they find buyers online. The important thing once you find buyers is the pre-qualification process. They must understand that they are acting as if they own the property. The buyers will come if you are priced right and meeting your monthly, and you're fair on your sale price. What does it mean to buy and sell a property on terms? These are often properties that have expired. Maybe they're over-leveraged or they can't afford to pay a commission. You can buy it either on a lease-purchase or owner financing. Not many agents know how to do this skill-level wise. First Jeff and Chris talk through a Lease Purchase deal. If the seller has a home worth $300k and they owe $250k, you guarantee them the $50k cash out. Here's how it works: At the end of 36 months you pay them their $50k, you pay off the underlying debt. That accrues to them. They carry the note. Make the deal contingent on finding the tenant-buyer first. Then 30 days after the tenant-buyer occupies, the company takes over the mortgage payment. They're collecting higher rent from the tenant-buyer. You're relieved of maintenance, repairs, and your mortgage payment. Go into the home and ask what's best for the seller. With this strategy, there aren’t too many sellers you can’t help. Another example: They took many properties in 2013-2014 that were in theory over-leveraged. They pushed the term way out, 9-10 years so they have time to have that principal paid down. That usually takes care of it. You can target free-and-clear owners. There are plenty of people that want to do this for estate reasons, tax reasons, and cash reasons. They want to push the term out if it's free and clear. Payday #1 is the non-refundable down payment from your buyer. Payday #2 is the monthly spread. Payday #3 is the back-end markup in price and principal paydown. They average around $78k per deal. They have students as low as $45k per deal and as high as $200k. Their average price point is the $280k-$680k range. Jeff and Chris talk through a Free and Clear deal.  If you have a home that's free and clear and $200k and higher you can structure an owner financing deal, with principal-only payments, four-year term or better, and you get a six-figure deal on all three paydays. Free and clear are more profitable than lease purchases. So many people are tied ego-wise to price. They'll give people fair market value as long as they get their terms. To get recession-resistant they push their terms out longer. As a real estate agent, you need to open up more options for sellers. Their contract will be with you, with your