The California Cowgirl Teaching Individual Investors Like You To Become The Bank
Unmistakable in her iconic pink cowgirl hat, Jasmine Willois has quickly become recognized as one of the leading women entrepreneurs of this century, who is helping others rethink their money, investments, and relationships with banks.
The old status quo mindset for the past 50 plus years has been that you put your hard-earned money in the bank, they loan it back to you and your neighbors at a premium, and if you are lucky they will give you a tiny slice of that back, minus a lot of fees.
Over the last couple of decades, that model certainly hasn’t proven wildly profitable for individuals and families. It hasn’t helped anyone get out of the rat race. In fact, in a variety of ways, it is designed to keep you stuck in the same groundhog day continuous loop. Only you are growing older as the years fly by.
If that isn’t giving you warm and fuzzy feelings about your money and future, then it’s worth checking out how this female entrepreneur has been changing these dynamics for as many people as possible.
The Backstory
When Jasmine hit the 5th grade her single mother decided enough was enough and packed up her and her two sisters to get them as far away from the mayhem of growing up in the Bronx.
Poway, California, near San Diego was about as far and as different as you can imagine. A country setting, with much better weather, one street through town, and lots of horses.
She was thrust from an environment of crime and chaos and a lot of poverty into a whole new world. One where kids naturally aspired to getting great grades and were focused on getting into a good college. Their parents would be running hot startups and making big business deals upstairs while the kids played in the finished basement.
It was contagious. She signed up for the most challenging university degree she could find, and ended up studying economics. Then not wanting to stay idle, and eager to be productive, she pursued her MBA while nursing her first child on maternity leave.
Willois says she tried out lots of different jobs, and while none really captivated her, she enjoyed learning different ways of running businesses.
Seeking a new challenge she headed back to NY and began knocking on doors of big financial institutions. She ended up with 25 different professional, securities, and trading licenses, and did time working with big firms like Metlife and Morgan Stanley. As well as working in the middle of the mayhem on the exchange trading floor for a boutique company.
When 9-11 hit, it was a big wake-up call to finding a better way to work and live.
Through her time working with GMAC Homecomings in their loss mitigation division, she also gained a lot of insight into real estate and mortgage debt investments. Including what worked and what most banks were doing horribly.
Becoming The Bank
Bringing together all of these experiences and her expertise, Jasmine struck on the idea of becoming the bank herself.
Meaning instead of giving her hard-earned cash to a big bank that didn’t care, used her money to invest and often treated their other customers poorly with that money, and all for miserable returns, she decided to step up and take control of her own finances and future.
Hold ‘Em, Fold ‘Em, Raise ‘Em: Mortgage Note Investing 101
What many people don’t know is that you can buy mortgage notes from these financial institutions. You are buying the debt that homeowners owe on their properties. Then they pay you instead of the bank.
The banks sell these assets off, and often at very deep discounts to those with the right connections. Depending on what mortgage notes you choose to buy you can gain interest rates on your money of 4 to 7%, and even into the double digits each year. You can also enjoy a great windfall of capital when borrowers sell their homes or refinance.
In contrast to the public stock market, private venture capital in tech startups, or cryptocurrency, these assets are secured by the land and brick and mortar real estate. It’s solid. You can enjoy a lot of upside potential, without taking on those extra risks. In the meantime, you get a nice steady stream of passive income going into your account each month from those mortgage payments. All without the big bank dipping their hands deep into your pockets with all kinds of fees.
Perhaps even more importantly, you can feel good about the investments you are making. As we’ve seen over the past 16 years, big banks don’t treat their customers very well. In many cases, it seems they’ve been given a free pass to take people’s homes and defraud them, with barely a slap on the risk. In other cases, they’ve just become too large for their own good and just can’t deliver reasonable service.
As the note owner, you can provide real help to these individual homeowners and families. A new conversation with a fresh lender can be all it takes to keep them on track with their payments and saving their home, instead of losing everything. That has a huge impact on their local communities and economies as well. You get paid well for doing something good. It’s hard to beat that.
You could sum it up by saying it is the smarter, safer, more profitable, and kinder way to make and invest your money.
The Mortgage Note Market Now
What does this space look like for people who are considering it as an investment or business today?
Opportunities are increasing with more deals coming down the pipeline
Banks and funds are selling more of these assets to meet new regulatory rules
Plenty of opportunity to cherry-pick the best deals
Changes in the deposit account and retirement rules mean many more people should be using this strategy to put their money to work
After the eventful last year or so borrowers are grateful for new noteholders
The Note Assistance Program
Today, Jasmine Willois is a national speaker, and founding President of The Note Assistance Program.
The Note Assistance Program is an education and investment company on a mission to educate and empower new and experienced investors to learn how to become the bank themselves and enjoy a better future.
Her customers and students range from veteran real estate investors who are tired of owning rentals or the crazy futility of attending tax lien auctions, as well as regular working people like single moms and firefighters who crave the ability to go to work because they want to, not because they have to.
If this has spiked some curiosity for you, then check out what Jasmine is doing at NoteAssistanceProgram.com or on the Naked Notes podcast.
