How to Profit from Purchasing and Restructuring Distressed Mortgage Debt, with Chris Seveney | Financial & Tax Series

Intro: Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity and explore current challenges they’re facing. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. If you like today’s content, please hit the like, share, or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. 

My name is Anthony Codispoti and before I introduce today’s guest, I want to say that the information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing discussed should be taken as investment advice. I’m not a licensed investment advisor and this podcast does not endorse or recommend any specific investment opportunities. 

Please consult with a professional before making any investment decisions. Now, having said that, today’s guest is Chris Seveney. He’s the co-founder and CEO of SevenE Investments, a Virginia-based private real estate firm. Chris has been in the real estate industry for more than 25 years and back in 2016, he began getting involved with something called mortgage note investing. This is where they purchase distressed mortgages and are able to provide their clients great returns with some tax advantages. 

And we’ll discuss how all that works in more detail. He’s also a thought leader and member of the Forbes Finance Council and he has his own podcast that you should definitely check out called Creating Wealth Simplified. Now, before we get into the good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, AdBac Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to save over $900 per employee per year by implementing one of our proprietary programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. 

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. Now, back to our guest today, the CEO of 7E Investments, Chris. I appreciate you making the time to share your story today. 

Chris Seveney:  Anthony, thanks for having me on and excited to chat with you today. Hi. Great. 

Anthony Codispoti:  So to start off, let me just start with a quick explanation of what I think mortgage note investing is, which is what you specialize in and then you can fill in any gaps. Yep. Okay. So you purchase distressed mortgages where people have fallen behind on their payments and then rather than foreclose and evict, which is seen as a last resort and very stressful for everyone involved, banks prefer to sell these mortgages to someone else at a discount to recoup some of their investment. So your firm SevenE buys them at maybe half of market value, which gives you a lot of flexibility to restructure the loans in a way that allows the homeowner to get back on their feet and start making payments again, while also providing good returns for your investors. And I think I saw on your website returns that have averaged between 8 and 11%. And then on top of that, those returns are distributed as dividends, which are taxed at a more favorable rate than ordinary income. How did I do? 

Chris Seveney:  Very well. Do you want a job? Okay. 

Anthony Codispoti:  You know, be a sales for us? What did I leave out? Or what more is there to the process there? 

Chris Seveney:  You kind of explained it, you know, very well at a high level because most people never even understood that this opportunity exists out there. And people don’t, you know, some things that people should realize about the mortgage market is, you know, it’s a $16 trillion industry. 

So it’s probably one of the largest industries in our country. And for those that do own a mortgage, many of us after we buy a house, you know, you’ll get a letter that says, okay, here, you know, now you need to send your payments to this company. And, you know, most of us seen that where you got to, you know, now you got a ACH mail to check to somebody else. The reason why that happens is your mortgage was sold. 

Now, you don’t kind of realize that you’re just like, oh, I’m just going to start sending payments to these people. So the majority of mortgage actually do get sold, whether they’re performing or non performing. So just wanted to kind of, you know, share kind of again the size or this market that’s out there. And people also ask a lot about like the banks and why do they sell. And banks don’t want to own real estate and they’re not in the business to handle this type of product. So it creates opportunities out there for companies like ours, buy this type of debt. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And so are you always buying distress debt or is it sometimes just buying because like what you’re describing here is a bank may be the one that sort of initiates that mortgage but they’re not holding on to that note they’re reselling it to somebody else who’s then responsible for collecting on it over the life of the loan. Are you also purchasing some mortgages sort of like upfront like that are still in the healthy state. 

Chris Seveney:  Yeah, so we will buy performing loans which are ones kind of in the healthy state. And the reason we’ll do that is, you know, for cash flow purposes, you know, we want a balanced portfolio. We don’t want 100% of non performing loans, you know, for risk and diversification will have a, you know, a mixed portfolio of anywhere from you know, 6040 7030 kind of mix. And again, to blend out the portfolio that keeps them balanced. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And so when you’re buying the distressed loans, are those are you ever buying those directly from the banks or you’re buying them from a secondary holder who purchased them from the banks earlier on when they were performing typically both. 

Chris Seveney:  Usually, I’d say the majority are from the larger hedge funds, because the way it works, typically is a bank may look to sell off $100 million at a time. So a very large pool which we can’t buy and we don’t have the capacity right now to buy that much. And they will sell it to, you know, a larger fund, not larger fund will break it into tranches and say, Okay, here’s like the a piece of the ones we want to keep. Here are the ones like be a well, look at these and then here are the ones we don’t want to keep. And the ones they don’t want to keep doesn’t mean it’s a bad asset. 

It could be an estate they don’t like to invest in it could have a loan value that is lower than they like, because one thing that’s interesting about, you know, the mortgage note space. It costs the same amount of money to manage a balance of $5,000 on a loan or $5 million on a loan. It’s the same to foreclose. It’s the same to have a company collect the payments. So the size of the loan really doesn’t matter. So if you’re a larger company, you’re typically going to want to hold on to those larger loans so you don’t need more manpower to manage them. And some of those other loans, they’ll look to sell off. And then that’s where we can come in and buy those as well. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And so when you step in and buy loans, are you able to sort of cherry pick the ones that you want, or they package together and it’s like, it’s an all or nothing kind of a thing. 

Chris Seveney:  Both typically we cherry pick, which is great for us. And I think that’s one of the things that, you know, we talked about kind of advantages that we have is an advantage because large those larger players, you know, they’re just buying a portfolio. And, you know, basically they have the analytics that say, okay, we’re going to hit on this many, we’re probably going to lose on this many, and this many will kind of perform as is where for us, we get the cherry pick the ones that we’re interested in. So, you know, we should we I would anticipate we’d have a much higher success rate because of that. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And what kinds of criteria are you looking for when you’re cherry picking? I mean, these are these are mortgages that are not performing, right, which is sort of code for people have stopped making payments. Yeah. 

Chris Seveney:  And so we, you know, we call it the three P’s. We look at the person, the property and the predicament. Now, most people just don’t wake up one morning and say, Oh, I’m going to stop paying my mortgage. And a lot of these loans that we’re buying there 1218 24 months behind it’s not like they miss one payment. 

And when we’re going to buy these loans, we get to see a lot of the history of this loan. So we’ll look at, of course, the property, you know, confirm what the property exterior condition is because we can’t go knock on the door and look inside their house. But usually the exterior can relay what the interior would look like. We’ll also confirm like, okay, they paying taxes or their other liens on the property kind of paint a picture of the property itself and the value. 

But the thing that we like to focus on is the person and the predicament. What we mean by that is the person, you know, have they filed bankruptcy. We’ve I think my record I’ve seen is like seven or eight times someone’s filed bankruptcy. 

You know, do they have a criminal history record? You know, what is in those servicing comments about kind of their response or willingness to work with the lender? You know, you see a lot on the news of especially today, like professional squatters, you know, where, you know, think of there’s also professional borrowers now it’s very select in few. 

I think media of course blows everything out of proportion. But there are people who, like I said, have filed bankruptcy eight times. So they are very good at, I’ll say extending the system and then the predicament component to it. You know, if there’s a borrower, it’s like, okay, you know, no criminal history, haven’t filed bankruptcy, then you look at, okay, what caused this issue? And most of the causes are either unfortunately they had a death in the family, a divorce, a divorce. A temporary job loss or some type of health condition. And typically in most of those situations, you know, we have the ability to work with somebody, especially if it’s the job loss because usually of course that’s temporary and during COVID there were significant losses and there’s always, you know, three to five percent unemployment. So those situations, we can see all the history on what is going on and then understand, okay, is this something where we can work out a new payment arrangement with this borrower based on buying it at this price that meets our desire returns to give our investors the return we’re looking to give them. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And so as you’re considering whether to cherry pick a particular mortgage, what you’re describing sounds like a pretty time intensive process, right? And how are you collecting all this information? Like some of it could be pulled, you know, from like getting a credit report on the person. But then when you’re trying to understand sort of like the personal story behind that, are you able to like interview and like meet with this person? 

Chris Seveney:  We can’t meet or interview, but the there’s a third party company in the middle of this called the Loan Servicer. And they’re the ones that actually where the payments get sent, and they’re the ones that have all the phone conversations because they have to be licensed. People have probably heard of Dodd Frank or the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau based off of what happened in 2008, which today is very different. 

Government stepped in and put in a lot of regulations restrictions on debt collecting. So those companies are required to keep very tedious notes. So they have a conversation log, which essentially is like taking this podcast and then putting it into a software that spits out all of the conversation and show notes. Now, basically they have systems that do that. So they send that to us when we have it under agreement. But we can see every conversation who was with the date it was, what was being discussed, but we can kind of paint the picture from a lot of those comments. 

Now, the other crazy thing about, you know, technology today is for the cost of about $1 to $1.50. I can go online and basically do a public record search on somebody and see every speeding ticket they’ve gotten, every bankruptcy they filed, every business they own, every place they’ve lived, every cell phone number, their parents, their kids, their spouse, their cousins, their nephews. It’s crazy what you can find out on the internet. And I don’t even need your social. 

All I need to know is like your name and, you know, one place you’ve lived or a city you’ve lived and I can get pretty much almost anything about you, which is scary in some sense. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Yeah. And I’m curious, you know, the banks or the hedge funds, you know, whoever is holding this distressed asset, you know, if my numbers are correct and you’re generally buying this distressed note at, you know, somewhere about half of the value. Like, why doesn’t the original note holder just foreclose and then take and sell that property at market value? It seems like it would take a lot less of a loss in that case. 

Chris Seveney:  So with the original lender, which is typically a bank for people who like to go down rabbit holes. There’s a bank book called The Creature from Jekyll Island. And if people understood our banking system and what’s called fractional lending. Banks basically create money out of thin air for lending purposes. No, if you put $100,000 in the bank, the bank can lend a million dollars to people and they don’t need a million dollars behind it. 

They only need 10% of it. So, so the banks are in the business to lend. But once it goes in default, that throws their accounting system kind of a muck where now it’s considered a liability and it impacts how much they can lend and they can’t create more money out of thin air. 

And they don’t have the team to manage it. So the banks, honestly, you run the numbers. It’s sometimes more profitable for them to just get rid of it and then get a new borrower with an 800 credits score, especially at today’s interest rates. For some of these other funds, it really boils down to their strategy time effort. Some funds or, you know, other companies, they will not foreclose. They’re just like, we don’t foreclose. It’s not in our business model. So if they think they’re going to have to, they’re like, let’s just sell it. 

And, you know, and it’s a numbers game for them where again, they’ve got tens of thousands of assets. And even today, it’s rare that you do see foreclosures. For us, we rarely see them because a lot of loans were buying, were originated pre 2017. So think about what’s happened in the housing market since 2017. And over time, your mortgage goes down, home prices have appreciated. And people don’t have any place to go. 

Where are they going to go live today? We had a borrower that had a three bedroom, one bath house in Maryland, where they were living rent for one bedroom condo was more expensive than the three bedroom, one bath house. So, you know, they’re incentivized to also figure out a way to try and work with us. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And that’s interesting that you say that you really don’t see a whole lot of foreclosures these days. Is it just that it’s, is it like a people are coming at this from more of a like an altruistic sort of state of mind? Like we don’t want to put these people on the street or is it like more of a business decision that it’s just so expensive to remove somebody? 

Chris Seveney:  It’s a mix of both, you know, the, it’s, you know, the altruistic of, you know, I think 10 years ago, people caught that wave of foreclose, foreclose, foreclose and borrowers are just handing keys over anyways, because they’re underwater on these assets. Today, I think society has changed significantly where people are more receptive to working with investors. It’s still some banks still have their hands tied on what they can do from compliance and government regulation, unfortunately, but on the secondary market, we have a lot more flexibility for what we can do because we have investors where banks have, you know, your deposits that they’re using. 

So it’s a different animal in that sense. But also the borrowers, borrowers today are more inclined because they want to keep their property where 15 years ago, most people had like those 80 20 loans where they had no equity. They were only in the property for a year or two and they’re like, I just don’t want to deal with this. Today, people stay longer in their homes. They have, you know, the equity and they also have that emotional equity where I’ve been living here. I’ve had a family here. Like, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave. 

Anthony Codispoti:  How are you finding these opportunities? So this mostly like relationships with hedge funds? Are you combing like bankruptcy proceedings? 

Chris Seveney:  Yeah, it’s mostly relationships and typically through people we’ve bought from in the past. And also there’s, you know, companies that are like whole loan traders, which really M &A companies. So, like think of a bank. A bank is not going to have any idea like who buys these things on the secondary market. So bank will go to a what’s called the whole loan trader and say, Hey, look, I’ve got $25 million of loans I want to sell. You know, can you give me an idea what these would sell for and then sell them in these whole loan traders will charge the buyer, not the seller, the fee. So the bank can basically sell them through this company. It doesn’t cost them anything in these companies have all the connections and know everybody who’s buying these types of loans. It’s similar to like also when you know everyone probably heard Silicon Valley Bank and stuff like, you know, a lot of their stuff gets sold. You know, not the bank or another bank that comes in it’s kind of a merger and acquisition company or other types of companies that specialize in this and say, Okay, here’s who we’re putting it out. They also can qualify the people to say this person’s qualified this person’s not to be able to buy these and they have all the systems in place to already liquidate these. Since it doesn’t cost the bank really a penny to do it. You know, why wouldn’t they. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And so are you finding a lot of competition when trying to acquire loans and bidding against other companies. 

Chris Seveney:  It’s very competitive today, because there’s less product on the market today. But in the same sense, you know, we’re roughly a $25 million company. We see on average about $250 million a week and loans come across our desk. So, you know, if we’re buying 25 million a year, and we’re seeing 250 million a week, you know, we’re seeing roughly a billion 12, 10 to 12 billion dollars a year. 

So for us, we still see plenty of product. But in the same sense, our, you know, our win ratio is, you know, in the teens, the 20s, because there is a lot of competition. And depending on timing, there’s also a lot of money out there that people, you know, are trying to get out the door. Some people, some larger funds have institutional money from like insurance companies and others where their cost of capital is 5%. So when your cost of capital is 5% versus us targeting 8 to 11 for investors, they can be a lot more aggressive on some of that pricing. 

Anthony Codispoti:  What’s the trend look like right now? Are you seeing more deals coming in? Is it tapering off? Is it steady? 

Chris Seveney:  It’s starting to pick up. So we’re starting to see more of an uptick. I think, you know, the economy is, you know, very unique in regards to, you know, what people think are going to happen, whether, you know, rates going up, rates going down, cash and getting, you know, you know, investments and where to put some money. Right now you hear private credit, you know, is, you know, hot keyword, which is basically kind of exactly what we do where a lot of companies are getting involved in that. So there’s more people coming in. We’re also seeing a lot more product, especially on the commercial side. 

You know, unless you’ve been living under a rock the last year, you know, the commercial foreclosures and, you know, office buildings and everything is, you know, there’s billions and billions of dollars of debt going into default. Well, we primarily don’t play in that space. We primarily play in residential. So there’s less competition there. But, you know, typically the residential side, you know, has a lag to the commercial and we’re starting to slowly see that pick up. 

Anthony Codispoti:  What does the opportunity look like for an investor minimum investment amount? I don’t know what what the you’ve already mentioned 8 to 11 a percent for expected return. How quickly do they start to see that? 

Chris Seveney:  So this, you know, is something really was unique about our company. And one of the things we wanted to structure was, you know, our minimum investments only $5,000. So unlike, yeah, so it’s open to accredited and not accredited investors. 

We want to open up kind of that blue ocean strategy to everybody and give a retail investor an institutional grade product. And in, you know, your distributions would start if someone would have invested yesterday, which, you know, today is May 1st. So if somebody invested in April, they would start accruing their distribution today and get a payment on June 1st. So they start accruing. That’s, you know, part of what, you know, having performing loans in the fund as well. So we want to, a, just, you know, keep the minimums low for investors. You know, we have roughly about 600 investors in the fund right now. 

You have an idea. So we want to give people that opportunity to invest and also invest where even accredited investors today, you know, may have $100,000 in savings, but they’re accredited. And these offerings out there may have a $50,000 or $100,000 minimum, which they can’t diversify. Whereas, you know, we want to give people the ability to, because I was an investor, you know, I’m still am an investor and I invest in other things. One thing that I’ve always been taught since I was, you know, this big is why diversify. And I learned the hard way when I started out of a company called WorldCom. People probably have heard of them. I was out of college. 

I’m like, Oh, I saved $5,000. Here you go. WorldCom. You know, you’re supposed to be the next big thing. And all went down. And even today we’re starting to see people, you know, unfortunately that happened where people in some real estate syndications, you know, took their $50,000 savings, put in one syndication and had variable debt on it. And next thing you know, cap rates went up. They’ve lost everything, you know, and it’s extremely unfortunate. 

Anthony Codispoti:  So I invest money today or yesterday, April 30th, I would get my first dividend check in June 1. So just a month away. And that’s actually a check or an ACH direct deposit that’s sent out automatically. It doesn’t like get rolled back into the fund. 

Chris Seveney:  Yeah, we don’t do what’s called the drip of direct reinvestment. My accountant would kill us. We have an house counting in, you know, once you start doing the direct reinvestment programs, it just makes it extremely more complex on the accounting side. And, you know, if we have limited investors, it’s not as big a deal. But when we’re growing to get thousands of investors in our offering, and then giving people the option to the option not to it just increases overhead costs substantially. And for most of the people who look at our type of investment, they are looking for a cash flow play. They’re, you know, they can invest other places for equity or and get that, you know, equity investment, but we’re a cash flow play where somebody wants to basically, you know, pay for their vehicle and they have money sitting in savings. Well, they can invest with us get that distribution check and use that to pay for a car or whatever case maybe. 

Anthony Codispoti:  How would you go about trying to quantify or describe what the risk would be to an investor? 

Chris Seveney:  Great question. I’ll first start off by saying there’s risk in every investment. And that’s, you know, that’s what an investment is. It’s it is a risk. We try to focus. You know, I like to try and say we are trying to be more boring. You know, I’m getting older and I don’t like roller coaster rides. 

I like, you know, just, you know, as my wife will say if we go to water parks, she likes the lazy river. That’s kind of what I like to from an investment standpoint. So for us, you know, some of the things we do to mitigate risk is we don’t have debt. So one of the things that I think people need to understand is any part of investment is, you know, where are you in the capital stack, meaning, you know, when you invest, how many people are in front of you and how much money is in front of you. So I’ll just use real estate is a simple example of if you have a hundred thousand dollar house, and there was $90,000 of a bank loan and you were $10,000 of the other equity, hope that bank gets paid before you. 

And if house prices dropped by $10,000, and it was a rental that’s losing money, and you’re forced to sell what happens to you, you could lose everything. So that’s one thing people should, you know, understand is that capital stack, and we don’t have any debt. So our investors essentially are in first, whereas if we had to liquidate our portfolio, everything would go to the investors is no bank or debt in front of that. But, you know, there’s also the risk of we’re dealing in a space where we’re dealing with people who have defaulted on their loans. There’s government regulation that could step in. IE COVID happened in people, you know, in some states you couldn’t foreclose on people so you’re kind of, you know, had a moratorium where you had to sit and wait. 

Ironically enough, during COVID was probably our best years and my prior offerings because a lot of people were able to refinance at that ultra low rate so we’re getting lots and lots of, you know, payoffs during that time. But now with anything, you know, with risk, it’s always going to be inherent that there is risk. It’s understanding how is it getting mitigated and are you comfortable with the people behind the curtain who are looking to mitigate that risk. For example, I’ve been in real estate for 25 years. If, you know, my neighbor wanted to do the same thing I was doing and has never been in real estate, you know, who would you be more comfortable with putting your money with. So understanding the sponsors experience, how are they compensated as part of the offering, you know, as their compensation all upfront fees where it’s an acquisition fee, a management fee, a, you know, a yearly fee and how are the fees calculated. 

For example, again, on real estate, you know, is it fee calculated based on how much they raised or is it almost how much they’ve raised plus the bank debt because, you know, the bank is, you know, has debt. There’s a lot involved. For us, we try. 

I like to think this is my personal opinion that we put the investors first. We don’t charge fees. I collect the salary. So I’m just, you know, I’m paid a salary and I don’t get any profits of the company until the investors get their money back plus their distributions. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And if I understand correctly, we mentioned this briefly in the intro, the way that you guys have this structured your investors, their earnings are taxed at capital gains rather than ordinary income. 

Chris Seveney:  Yeah, so we structured it again. I can’t provide tax advice, but we’re structured as a C corporation. So the company will pay a corporate tax and then investors will get a 1099 dividend just as if you were investing in Apple, Google, you know, name a public company. We’re private. But typically, and this is one thing to understand part of that risk and your investment, you know, everyone looks at the, you know, the, the number of, ooh, I may get this. But that’s your gross. 

What’s the net? And, you know, people who some of our comp competitors who love them are very good at what they do. You know, they may structures in LLC where you get a K one or a 1099 interest, which unfortunately interest is considered ordinary income. You know, just like if you get interested in your bank, you know, and again, I learned my lesson because in prior funds that I was doing, you know, it would always be the interest and my wife would always be yelling at me of, you know, Hey, we got K ones, which costs a lot more from a tax perspective that have them prepared. Plus, we’re just getting whacked with the ordinary income on it as well. And, you know, I’m not complaining that I’m in the high tax bracket. You know, for that perspective, but if there’s a way to. 

Anthony Codispoti:  But you’re looking for a more efficient approach. 

Chris Seveney:  And this is the way we found that efficiency. 

Anthony Codispoti:  That’s great. So you’ve been in the real estate industry for over 25 years. You found this mortgage note investing a little bit more recently. I think you started back in 2016. How did you come upon this? How did you discover this great question? 

Chris Seveney:  And by luck. Yeah, I joke. I either thank or blame my wife, depending on, you know, how our relationship is that day. And the reason we how I got involved in this is. I was, I’ve been in real estate. My wife and I had the dream of building our own primary residence, which we did. And we acted as a general contractor on it because I had that experience. And when we finished in 2013, we timed it perfectly where no market started going up at that time. We had some considerable equity. And at the same time I was working for a developer who was, you know, I’ll say one of my mentors who’s giving me a ration of, you know what, because I really wasn’t investing outside of my 401k. And he, you know, coined the term to me is like, yeah, you’re going to be the 4040 40 club. 

And I was like, what’s that? He goes, you’re going to work for 40 years as a W2 employee. And you’re going to be working for 40 hours a week and you’re going to collect 40% of the income you’re making and you’re never going to be able to retire. And that’s what most people, you know, I’m a Ben Exer. 

That’s what we were basically taught is when we graduate college, you go get a good job and you work and you say for your 401k and you know, you’d be a loyal corporate employee. And he had owned a lot of real estate in San Diego and other places. And he’s like, you’re gonna start buying real estate. You know, you’re in real estate. 

Why aren’t you taking advantage of this? So we started buying some rentals and we were fixing them up and you know, you know, so we’re getting building sweat equity. But after two of them with two young kids and plus I had a health scare at the time, my wife’s like, okay, we’re done. And I definitely at that point in time was getting that taste in my mouth of entrepreneurship, you know, had a little bit of that taste. So I was like, I got to keep it going. 

How could I do that in a manner that doesn’t take away from my family time? And that’s how I stumbled upon note investing is like, wow, you can do this literally as long as you have an internet connection from anywhere in the world. And, you know, so that is how I got into it. And, you know, I started out with, you know, just re spent six months going down that rabbit hole of learning before I pulled the trigger. And, you know, got from there. 

Anthony Codispoti:  There are obviously a lot of folks, a lot of other companies that are doing what you’re doing. We already mentioned two really great differentiators about what you do. And one is the low minimum investment, right? $5,000 is, you know, pretty accessible for most folks. And the other is the way that you’re structured in terms of being structured as a C Corp, which means that your investors are paying less in taxes on those earnings. Is there anything else that you feel, I mean, not that there needs to be in those are two pretty big ones, but is there anything else you feel separate? 

Chris Seveney:  A lot of everybody says this. So everyone says they’re people. Of course is what separates them. But I want to kind of peel the young and back on this a little bit more because one of the things that I think is different about us compared to everybody else is our integrated approach. Most firms focus on raising the money. It’s like I got the money in so I can go buy stuff. And they lose track sometimes on the back end of that investor relations side. We differentiate ourselves because we have our asset management is in-house and our investor relations is handled in-house. So it ensures we have a deep and nuanced understanding of our product and our ability to communicate with our investors. 

And that I think is so important. I did a webinar last week with one of our investor relations specialists who people are asking questions and she could sit there and answer every single question and know about our offering. And one of the things I read a lot about online, especially today, is people trying to communicate with the investor and they’ve either outsourced it to a third party for saving on cost or they just don’t have a strong enough team that can get back to them. And then your investors get frustrated because what’s going on? You pause distributions. Why did you do that? 

How long can before I redeem what is going on? I haven’t seen this type of report. Usually you provide these. And then when you do get somebody, it’s like, oh, I’ll get somebody as part of a team to call you back. 

For us, the person answering the phone, unless it’s kind of a technical question about taxes or asset valuations or something, from the investor relations standpoint, we have experienced people in-house and that is something that being integrated, I do truly believe is something that does set us apart. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Chris, I’d like to move into the portion of the show now that in the pre-interview, both of us were excited to kind of dive into and that’s maybe exploring some challenges that you’ve overcome. And I know that we were both sort of energized by this topic because I think you were saying in social media, there’s this big sort of misrepresentation of people who are doing well, like their life is just sunshine and rainbows and people don’t often see the work and the sweat, the tears, the blood in some cases that goes in sort of behind the scenes. And I think for other people who are struggling to achieve a certain level of success, it can be helpful to hear some real life examples, some very specific things to sort of use as inspiration in their own lives. What’s something that you’ve gone through? 

Chris Seveney:  One significant challenge that we face in our business has been the competitive nature of fundraising in today’s economic environment. We’re going against firms that can promise or put out there that they potentially could provide exceptionally high returns and what I believe is at a higher risk level. In over the past few years, we’ve noticed a trend where investors have been driven by the lure of those gains because they’ve been able to have them. And I think people over time have overlooked some of those inherent risks and present a challenge like us because our priority is back to what I mentioned earlier, the lazy river approach of slow and boring type of investment. 

But our response has always been to stay true to our philosophy and what we do is we mentioned that top gun analogy of never leave your wingman. Now, we don’t compete with those types of investments and we don’t try to compete. We focus on our one product and it’s a struggle because I’ve been on calls with investors and they will say, well, I can get 15%, I can get this, I can get that. 

And I’m not trying to convince them that I’m going to compete with that or tell them, not going to critique that other offering either because I’m not educated enough or I haven’t done due diligence on them. I just need to tell them what we do. And if they get comfortable with what we do and they like who we are, then they’ll invest. 

And there’s certain people out there who do chase high returns and they’re okay with it. And understanding for people listening, who your client is, I think is the most important thing people need to understand is who are you focused on, be that investor or that client? Who are you trying to sell to? Because if you’re just trying to sell to everybody, that’s where companies get lost and then you’ll start spending money on paid ads and all this other marketing costs that you’re not targeting the right specific person. For us, we like to focus on kind of, that narrow deep type of individual who understands what we do and is okay with what we provide. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And so has it been hard for you in the past to maybe stay so disciplined and focused on this singular product, this singular avenue? Because I mean, there are other, especially when real estate markets really hot and returns are really high, I mean, we’ve all got a little bit of FOMO in us, right? Like we got this fear of missing out on something else that’s going on. 

Chris Seveney:  This is where my business partner is, I’ll say, I’ll call her the rock and I’m the squirrel. And one of the things for people out there, when I started my company originally, I tried to do it all. 

And I was like, I can do it, even if I’m not, maybe I can’t do it as good as somebody, but I just tried to do it all. Then when I found my business partner who randomly, she found me by a webinar I did on how to lose money in real estate. And she’s like, wow, this is the first person who actually talks the truth about it. Everyone’s just talking, here’s how you make all this crazy money. This person’s talking about how you’re doing it. 

How to lose it. So she started helping me with my portfolio and then realized she had a sales background and she knew how to raise money and she knew the product. But one of the things that she was very good at is, she’s a parent, she’s a mother, which I think inherently are more disciplined than men. 

I know my wife is a lot more disciplined than me, it’s probably just me. But literally they call me the chief squirrel officer because I have so many ideas, but if I chased every single one of them, our company would be a complete disaster. And you’re right, it’s like, oh, my background is in multifamily and construction and development. Let’s go do a development deal. 

Let’s go buy a multifamily building, let’s go do this. And she’d be basically, you know, Chris, narrow, you know, stay focused, focus, focus. And literally, there’s a squirrel emoji that they’ll send me and stuff like, stop. But yeah, it’s very important for anybody who’s starting or trying to lead a company. Now being a visionary is great and having ideas, embedding these ideas to see, okay, there are ways I can improve my company, but you have to be so careful of just not chasing that FOMO because people get so sucked into it. And it’s literally that rabbit hole that you just, a lot of people just keep falling and realize they got themselves in too deep. 

And it’s extremely challenging to dig yourself out. And that’s where I again, go back to, the never leave your wingman thing, just, hey, they’re coming around on you, but it’s like, I’m not, this is where we need to be. And this is what we should be doing. 

Anthony Codispoti:  It’s a common thread. I hear with a lot of my friends who are business owners, especially who, they’re great idea people in that sort of visionary role. And, right, everything just looks like an opportunity. And where I find that people have sort of been the most successful in their careers is where they have another partner, or somebody on their leadership team that can kind of balance them out. Sort of like, pull the reins back. 

They even put some rules in place that are like, okay, this seems like a really great idea today before you task somebody with it. Like, here are the four steps that you need to take. You need to sit on it for a week. 

You need to write up a one page business plan. You need to let it simmer and let it kind of sit for a minute and then see if it still seems like a good idea. 

Chris Seveney:  And then you could maybe- Yeah, a funny story with that is, so as an attorney we’ve been using for, oh God, six, seven years. And we always joke because I always come to him with like these crazy ideas and I’ll ask them, is this legal? Because that’s the first thing you always, I like to play by the book. I’m very more conservative. 

I don’t kind of wanna have gray across those lines in sense. So I always run everything by him, like, is this legal? And probably nine out of 10, he’s like, no, you can’t do that. But it’s like, he loves it because he’s, again, most attorneys are like, they just go through their course. 

He’s a real estate attorney and he does many different things, but they just go through the bread and butter of certain things over and over. And I’ll be like, hey, I think I’m like, as part of our SEC offering, can I do this versus that or this? And he’s like, man, you make me think on some of this stuff and so forth. 

So he enjoys it actually. Unfortunately, he’s like, I’m usually the bearer of bad news, but there are opportunities that, he always come back and he’s like, oh no, you could do this, but you gotta structure it this way and stuff. And then it’s like, okay, then, tell me the rules of the game in the field we’re playing on. But then I know how to create my game plan. I’ll use a football analogy of basically, let me know the rules and then I can create my playbook. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Well, that attorney sounds like a terrific partner to have in place because, yeah, whether it’s an attorney or oftentimes accountants, like they’re very rigid and sort of like rule-based and like their job is really to protect you. And so it’s a lot easier for them to say no to something just to be on the safe side. 

But if this guy is, hey, like, okay, that one you can do, but you just kind of twisted a little bit this way and make sure that you’re compliant. What are some passions or interests do you have outside of your company? 

Chris Seveney:  Man, A, I love what I do, but really, I mean, my family is A, a passion, I’ve got a teenage, well, soon to be teenage son, I have a teenage daughter, spending time with my wife as well, and I’m a diehard sports fan. We’re here from New England. So I’m a diehard Boston sports fan. And a fun fact about me, they’ll say is, this is kind of like before I even kind of realized, like I was kind of an entrepreneur or type of person, is if you don’t ask the question, you’re never gonna find out the answer. So I was on a project, I got a free ticket to the Super Bowl, is essentially kind of an interesting fact. And the story behind this was, I was building for the government, and this was a crazy schedule where we had to design and build a building for the government in 12 months. 

So never mind, I think it was 36,000 square feet, it was like a $40 million building. But never mind, and everyone who’s ever had to deal with the government knows, they’re not the most expeditious type. So I bet my boss at the time, basically, it’s one of those hold my beer type of things, like can you do this? I’m like, of course I can. So when I said, here’s the bet, I said, if I finish on time, and the Patriots go to the Super Bowl, you’re getting me a ticket. And he’s like, sure, okay, exactly. And this was 2011-12, and people fall right. 

Anthony Codispoti:  So still the top three years. So we finish on time, and they go to the Super Bowl, which is in Indianapolis. So I remember walking to my boss’s office that day and said, Mike, remember that bet we made? He goes, which one? I go, about the Super Bowl? 

He’s like, yep, we good? He goes, the six pence a ticket. And of course, I wasn’t gonna get a box, a box seat or anything like that. And tickets back then actually were three to four grand, which today it’s probably triple. 

But yeah, that was a unique story of, if you don’t ask, you don’t tell. Of course, if flip and lost, which was, which game was that? It was the Giant’s in Indianapolis where? Oh, that was the perfect season they were working on. 

Chris Seveney:  No, it wasn’t that one where, I forget which Giant’s receiver made this. Patriots were leading, late in the game. No, it wasn’t that one. That was in 07, where the receiver down the sideline made the catch. 

And the series before that, the Patriots were moved down the field in West Welker. I literally was like right in front of us, up on the upper section, looking down at him. He jumped up to catch the ball and it went right through his hands. And if he were caught, it would have been first down, game would have been over. And he dropped it, Patriots punt, and then Manningham, no, what was the guy, I forgot the guy’s name, something ending in ham, caught this incredible catch down the sidelines with two guys on him. They go and score and can win the game. Oh, right. 

Anthony Codispoti:  And West Welker is such a reliable receiver. 

Chris Seveney:  He was. Yeah. So that’s tough. How about any mentors or books that have been particularly helpful in your trajectory? Throughout my career, I’ve been very fortunate to encounter numerous mentors and absorb a wide range of people who’ve influenced. I think part of that has been being able to work for larger companies on W2 side, that I’ve had really great mentors. 

And I’ve had interactions with owners who, net worths of billion plus dollars on multiple occasions. So just seeing how those type of people act in meetings, how they respond to people, their professionalism, their charisma. Me, seeing that has been kind of a mentor. I mentioned a gentleman who told me about the 40, 40, 40 rule. Again, another kind of mentor or somebody who really aligned. What’s his name? 

I don’t wanna say his full name, but his name was John and he’s, right about retired now. Or he’s probably just doing this as a hobby. One of the smartest guys I knew comes from like a family of doctors and just had complete problem solving, risk mitigation, kind of everything you need from kind of on the real estate development side. So from that standpoint, I had a lot of great mentors. In terms of literature, this is actually one I struggle with when people ask this because there’s so many business books that it relates similar themes, such as importance of discipline, focus, perseverance. The core lessons typically that success isn’t handed to most of us. There’s that a lot of hard work that we talk about. 

It requires the grit and most importantly, consistency. It’s the Mike Tyson quote of, once you get punched in the face, how do you react? The Rocky Babel quote about getting knocked down, getting back up again. 

A lot of those principles have been foundational in shaping my approach to business and life. And a perfect example of that kind of feeling like you’re getting knocked down is, as part of our offering, we have to go through a financial audit every year, which is due April 30th, which lo and behold, was yesterday. And it, you know, to go through and financial audits are, they’re painful. I mean, in a sense of, there’s a lot of work involved. 

And, you know, it’s not that, you know, not that there’s issues with it. It’s just like the back and forth of the questions and this and that and so forth. And then when you think you’re near the finish line, like, oh, now we need information on this or information on that. It feels like, you know, you’re always, you know, climbing uphill in mud. Until even yesterday, where we were done and had everything done, they’re still asking questions. 

And we’re like, kind of need to hit the submit button here, you know? And, you know, this goes to, as a leader, you know, our accountant literally pulled two overnighters last week to try and get this done. And as a leader, understanding that push, pull mentality of sometimes you got to pull people and sometimes you got to push them. And in this instance, it’s like, hey, look, you can’t push people when they’re like this. 

Like it’s pulling and showing as the leader, hey, I’m going to roll up my sleeves, I’m getting involved. I was like, what do you need help with? She’s like, well, you know, we got to get the bills paid because I’ve been focused on this. Great, let me pay the bills and, you know, go in and you know, roll up the sleeves and pay the bills or can you make this phone call? 

We’ve got some, you know, updating our benefits because of, you know, this, the enrollment period or, you know, whatever is, I think was April 1st or whatever it was. It’s like, okay, we got to make sure everyone’s got that stuff. So as the CEO, it’s not, you just get to sit back and just tell people what to do. It’s, you got to lead by example. 

And by showing people, hey, look, I’m going to roll up my sleeves. I will literally, and you know, my business coach would scream at me like, why are you paying bills? Like that’s, you know, you’re getting paid too much, but it’s also showing that I’m not afraid. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. And that is the one thing as kind of, you know, a CEO or a leader with your team to show you’re going to do what it takes, of course, legally. You know. 

Anthony Codispoti:  But you’re not just, you’re not just sitting on your couch shouting orders. You’re, like you said, you got your sleeves rolled up and you’re in the mix with them. 

Chris Seveney:  Like literally last night, you know, is perfect. But we were done. And you know, I had the, you know, unfortunately I was watching the Bruins who lost in overtime. I had that game on, but literally was, you know, assisting on some of the things to make sure that, you know, is she, you know, kind of takes a break today as she gets up and rolling again. Okay, what can I, you know, hear some of the things to support her to, you know, make sure she, you know, doesn’t feel overwhelmed. All right. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Chris, what’s something that you wish you could teach the 20 year old version of yourself? You can kind of go back in time. 

Chris Seveney:  I would say, stay inspired. You know, pursue what you love and seize opportunities with determination. You know, I spent time in my 20s. You know, perhaps like many people, you know, you’re not just a person. You know, less proactive, couch potato, you know, watching what’s on TV. You know, back then it was the reality show, Survivor and all those shows. It’s like, oh, let me do this. Let me watch this, you know, the internet again. So I grad, aged people, I graduated college in the late 90s. So, you know, internet was still kind of getting, you know, it’s thing, you know, you have blackberries, but you couldn’t really search internet on those. But I was focused on, you know, kind of just whatever, you know, just going through the motions of life and not educating myself and chasing my passion. 

You know, it’s, I think it’s a key lesson for people, use your time wisely and strive for personal and professional growth. Now you need to have fun in life, but you know, for me, I was kind of, you know, you also need to avoid some of those idle activities and be mindful of things because, you know, you only live once and that’s really where for me, I had a, you know, a health scare in 2013, where I woke up one day and my hands and feet were, didn’t work, they were paralyzed. I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. And, you know, basically, you know, I was like, woke up, I’m like, did I sleep the wrong way? You know, how are you like, you know, I’m a side sleeper or something like that. I sleep on my arm wrong or something and just fell asleep. And then I’m like, wait a second, I’m not waking up. So, you know, I realized kind of, you know, they fixed it and so forth, but the light bulb went off at that moment that was, wow, if I was like on disability, I couldn’t provide for my family. 

What could I do? You know, what was there? And then realize also at the same time, my father had just retired at the age of 60 and was very ill. And then realizing, bam, he worked his entire life, never took sick days, you know, took us on vacation and stuff. And, you know, was a great father, but was always doing things for other people. Now, you know, now he’s retired where he can do stuff for himself and didn’t have the ability to. 

And unfortunately, he was sick for seven plus years until he passed away at the age of 68. So, and my wife, I’m sorry, my mother, you know, her dream was to travel to Hawaii, you know, never been. So they went later on in his life, but I mean, she loved the fact to go, but kind of it hurt her inside because he wasn’t able to walk at the time. 

So they couldn’t really enjoy it. And people need to understand, I think that, you know, tomorrow is not given to, you know, it’s not guaranteed. You know, nothing in life is guaranteed. So make sure you do what you love. And I started the entrepreneurship because also somebody came to me and said, do you love your wife? 

Like, of course I do, you know? And he joked, he goes, oh, not everyone says that. But then he says, you know, and again, I was still working at W2 while kind of my notes was a side hustle. He goes, do you love your job? I’m like, I like what I do. He’s like, what do you love it? And I’m like, some days, but you know, having a boss this and he’s like, you know, if I said, if you took that reaction and said that about like a significant other, would you recommend that person stay in that relationship? 

I said, no. He’s like, think of your work as a relationship. You know, if you have the ability to, you know, go out on your own and do something and now I’m not, he’s like, just don’t quit and not have the financial resources, but plan it out. 

But just understand that you need to go do what you love. And most people, you know, unfortunately, and again, I was in a C-suite corner office making really good money, not really, you know, I’ll say, you know, working my tail off, I was getting my job done, but was I inspired? No, but you fall into this lull of, well, I go to work, I got to leave when I want, visit my kids and so forth. 

You know, get, don’t miss their sports games, I’m making good money, but you know, you realize that’s not what inspires you. And you just get comfortable with things. And I tell anybody out there is you want to be uncomfortable. Believe it or not, being uncomfortable is fun. 

Yeah, it really is. Like, you know, and I tell my team this, like, you know, I said, if you get comfortable, I said, I’m not pushing you hard enough. You know, and again, it’s not that I’m going to try and push them off a ledge, but I want that growth. I want you to feel uncomfortable because when you’re uncomfortable, you achieve things you never thought you could achieve. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Chris, can we go back to the health care for a moment? I mean, that sounds like that had to have been a pretty terrifying experience. You wake up one morning, your hands and your feet don’t work. 

Chris Seveney:  Yeah, so it was something called transverse molitus, which is a one-off episode of, like, multiple sclerosis, where my immune system just went haywire and starting attacking my nerves, or the nerve endings. And I learned way too much where your nerves are like an electrical conduit, where, you know, basically as a sheathing around your nerves, that protects them. 

But if you damage that sheathing, it impacts that signal. So it was kind of like a one-off episode of that. But my grandmother also had MS. So I’m sitting there thinking, oh, shoot, is that what I have? And then being in real estate and construction, like, you know, she, I never saw her walk. And I’m like, well, I can’t walk. 

Like, how can I go walk, you know, go visit a job site? So scared the heck out of me. And, you know, come to find out years later, it was really spurred by a second health scare I had five years later, where I was having some, you know, some hip pain. They just go to an ultrasound and they mentioned like, you know, something, your liver doesn’t look right. You know, your liver lit up and come to find out to have something called hemochromatosis, which probably nobody’s ever heard of. 

It’s called the Irish, Irish something, or the Celtic curse is what it’s called. And what it is, is it’s the opposite of anemia. But most people are anemic, have iron deficiency. 

I have the exact opposite. My body doesn’t get rid of iron. So my liver was storing all this extra iron, which my body was probably what caused the issue five years ago, of basically got too overloaded and basically started just attacking things. 

Thankfully today, you know, the great thing about it is, I don’t, there’s no med, there’s no medication you need for it. The way you get rid of iron is you donate blood. So I donate blood every few months. And that basically kind of, which actually reading about it, everybody should donate blood, by the way, because think of a car in an engine, you change the oil, you know, with your, you know, think of your heart is that engine, you know, the blood is that oil where, you know, donating blood starts to create new red blood cells and everything and kind of filters everything out. So that’s how I get rid of iron is I go donate blood. 

Anthony Codispoti:  How did you deal with the issue initially though? It wasn’t until five years later that you found out that the buildup of iron was the cause. How did you make that initial record? 

Chris Seveney:  Yeah, so I spent about two weeks in the hospital, you know, I was on steroids, on anti-inflammatories, went through two spinal taps to figure out like what was going on. And, you know, during this whole time, it was so scary because there’s also the time when a lot of like the ALS was in the news. 

And so I’m thinking in the internet, you’re a worst enemy because you’re just Googling like what could I have, what could it be? And all of these are what’s called differential diagnosis, which it’s not like a blood test that says, you know, oh, you have this, it’s kind of like they evaluate everything. So I spent two plus weeks in the hospital, one to two weeks in the hospital, going through tests every single day. But thankfully the steroids and the anti-inflammatories and some of the other stuff they gave me, basically calmed down my immune system. 

So I didn’t have any true permanent nerve damage. You know, certain things, you know, I’ll say, you know, I do have some muscle fatigue, kind of like people who have carpal tunnel. Essentially have, but for those two weeks, it was just a roller coaster ride of like what is going on, not knowing is the worst thing of like the test and we’re not sure, you know, and as the steroids kept kicking in, levels kept going down and down, took about a day for me to start getting, it was interesting because it almost was like, you know, a body part falls asleep where it’s numb and you start feeling pins and needles. 

I started getting some sensation back and after a few days, I had it back, but I had significant like fatigue or weakness to the point of like, okay, I had to learn how to like open my hand and close my hand again, you know, just how to write, you know, and just rebuild that muscle memory because at first like, okay, it was, you know, I could write, but it was like, you know, my hand would just get tired, like, you know, but thankfully kind of, you know, did a little bit of rehab and stuff and went through all of that and, you know, overcame it. And, you know, they basically after about a week, they’re trying to figure out, but they, you know, everything started getting better. So they were kind of of the opinion, okay, you’re kind of, you know, on the right path, they didn’t think there’d be future flare ups from that. So kind of started to settle down a little bit at that point in time. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Well, thank you for sharing that. It sounds like it would have been a really scary time. Chris, I’ve got just one more question for you, but before I ask it, I want to do two things. The first tell our listeners, if you like today’s content, please hit the like, share, or subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. The second is to point people to the best place to contact you. How should people get in touch with you? 

Chris Seveney:  Yeah, they can go to our website, 7einvestments.com, and that’s the number seven, the letter einvestments.com, which you can put in the show notes, or they can email me, chrisat7einvestments.com. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Terrific. So last question, Chris, how do you see the industry that you’re involved with evolving in the next five years? What do you think the biggest change is coming? 

Chris Seveney:  Yeah, so I see the biggest change in our industry to see continued legislation and protect homeowners that are in default, which it’s really state dependent, which is a very unique situation. 

So we have to know state laws in every different state. And we’ve already started to see it, especially in bankruptcies, where courts have gotten more creative, I guess, in the way to work with borrowers and bankruptcies to try and keep their homes. So I think legislation is gonna continue to move forward in that direction. 

So companies that are similar to ours that really more have that foreclosure mindset on things. I’m probably gonna have it a little harder because it’s gonna continue to lean towards being everybody’s best interest, trying to keep people in their homes, especially as interest rates remain high, which I don’t foresee them going back down to the two, three percents like they were. Most people can agree that we could use more housing in this country as well. So there’s the housing shortage. But when you look at everything that’s going on, we’re gonna continue what we believe to see more and more leaning towards the ability for people and options out there to work with borrowers. And some things we’ve already started to see is, certain states actually give out additional funds as part of programs that again, somewhere from COVID, but a lot of states have always had these programs for like zero-interest loans to borrowers to try and bring them current on their properties. So I think we’re gonna see more towards that. 

Anthony Codispoti:  Chris, thanks so much for sharing your story with me today. I really appreciate it. Thank you, thanks for having me. That’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today. Yeah.