Understand private mortgage notes well enough to judge any loan yourself.

If you landed here, you probably heard me talk about private mortgage notes at a webinar or an event, or somebody passed my name along. Either way you got the short version, and the short version always skips the questions people have afterward. So here's what I'd hand you if we'd had another hour.

Watch the first video Get the free Starter Kit

Step 1 · Watch

The Start Here playlist

Seven videos, in the order I'd explain this if you sat down across from me. The first one asks what $3,000 a month of income actually costs to build. The last one is the long version of how a private mortgage note actually works, and it's the one to save for when you have time.

The first video runs about nineteen minutes, and you don't need to get through all seven in one sitting. I'd say two or three is enough to make the kit a lot easier to read.

Open the playlist on YouTube →

Step 2 · Read

The Private Lender Starter Kit

This is the same ground on paper, from the lender's side. It's one free PDF, 23 pages, and the point of it is that you can look at a private loan and decide for yourself whether it holds up.

Page 4 is a real house. Samuel Avenue in Youngstown, Ohio, bought for $37,000 with money from one person's self-directed IRA: a $37,000 note in first position, five years, fully amortized. A young couple who couldn't get a bank loan moved in and put $3,000 down toward owning it. The kit shows what the lender looked at before any money moved.

What a note pays, on paper. Take a made-up $50,000 loan at 9% over four years: about $1,244 a month, part interest and part principal, charted month by month.
The IRA path, with eight custodians compared side by side.
What happens if a borrower stops paying, and how long the wait runs, state by state.
The ten-question checklist to put any borrower through, me included.

Like any investment, a note carries risk. Your money is tied up for the term, and if a borrower stops paying, getting it back takes time. The kit lays that part out plainly too.

Here's your Starter Kit.

It's yours to keep. A copy is on its way to your inbox, and over the next ten days I'll send a few short emails that walk through it one piece at a time.

Download the Starter Kit

Who I am

Dan Wilson

14 years in the Air Force
100+ real estate deals
24 rentals in Ohio

Both sides of the note

I'm a real estate investor. I buy affordable houses in Ohio with private money and sell them to families on payments. I also lend on private notes myself, so when I talk about them I'm talking from both sides of the table.

I own rentals too, and I still like them. A note just asks for its work once, up front, instead of every month, which is most of the reason rentals and notes are my two favorite kinds of income.

More about me →

If you'd rather talk

Rather just talk it through?

If you want to learn what it takes to be a private lender and figure out whether it fits your situation, apply for a Private Lender Fit Call. It's a conversation, not a pitch. It's thirty minutes on the phone, it's free, and you get your next step in writing within a day. If lending isn't a fit for you, I'll say so.

Apply for a Fit Call

Educational content only. Not financial, legal, tax, or investment advice, and not an offer or solicitation of any investment. Consult your own licensed professionals before making financial decisions.