*Intro and outro music are from an original piece by

Carl Zukroff of The Blue Hotel

Ann Bellamy

Buy Now

Carlton Sheets

Cattywumps

Bigger Pockets

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Hello, you have stumbled onto another episode of Get Your FILL, Financial Independence and Long Life, where we explore ways to achieve those two goals. While you have been listening to the original score by Carl Zukroff, I’ve been getting to know our next guest, Ann Bellamy. Ann is going to debunk the myths of hard money lending and educate us on when it is – and is not – a useful tool. Ann has been investing in multi-family and commercial real estate since ‘97 and has been lending private money since 2006. She’s the past treasurer and board member of the New Hampshire Real Estate Investors Association and she’s Co-Founder of The Boston Area Real Estate Investors Association and Black Diamond Real Estate Investors, which is where I met her. She’s dabbled in tax liens, modular spec homes, and out-of-state investing and she is really a wealth of knowledge on hard money lending, which I know a lot of people think might be the answer to how they’re gonna do investing. So, Ann, thank you so much for joining us today.

First of all, how did you get started in real estate? Was that the plan from the beginning?

A: Well, I was the victim of an infomercial just like so many people, but it was way back in the ’90s, and back then the biggest info guru on the TV, was named Carlton Sheets, who no one has ever heard of anymore except old people, like me. And so Carlton Sheets would sell this course. I ordered whatever it was – course, books, tapes, something – and I listened to it and I said: You can’t do that, that’s ridiculous. Nobody’s gonna sell you a house for pennies on the dollar.

So what I did do, is I kinda got bitten by the bug, is because there was some explanation in there of why real estate was so good as an investment so I started investigating real estate investing on my own through other means books, etc. I read everything I could get my hands on and eventually decided I wanted to be real estate investor on the side. I wanted to buy rental properties and build equity and build income and there are so many ways to make money in real estate.

So I moved to New Hampshire on the theory that my tenants would be paying all my taxes because there’s no income or sales tax, only property taxes and that’s gonna be paid for by the tenants. So that was my reason for moving to New Hampshire. I’m from Massachusetts originally so that’s how I got started in real estate investing and I did it strictly on the side working a regular W-2 job at the time and I bought my first duplex in a small town in New Hampshire that was an absolute wreck. I had no idea what I was doing, nor did anybody else when they first started real estate investing. But that’s how I got started.

C: Now, how long was it from then until you felt comfortable to leave your day job?

A: I probably left my day job around 2011, so it was a while and the reason was not because I had enough properties but what happened – I found a real estate investing group. I joined the group. I ran for office just so that I could get known. By mistake, I got elected to office, thinking that was a big deal. It’s not a big deal. It just means that they’re desperate for volunteers.

C: Nothing against you but I’ve had the same experience with these volunteer organizations, they’re like: Oh, yes, you wanna be a leader, go, go, do it.

A: Any of these volunteer organizations, we’re desperate for people. So yeah, if you think you can do it, you can do it. Yeah, so I got elected and I took it seriously, we tried to make the content of the group as good as possible. So I would stand in front of this group every month, as if I knew what I was doing, which I was really j