Hey, everybody. How's it going? This is Seth Williams. You're listening to the REtipster podcast. This is episode 272. And today we're diving into a topic that every real estate investor runs into at some point, and that is access to capital. This is a huge issue because no matter how good you are at finding deals.

If you don't have the money to close them, it doesn't really matter. We've talked about this before on the show several years ago. We actually had a conversation with a company called Fund & Grow and how they help investors access unsecured business credit, basically lines of credit you can use like cash, often with 0% interest for a limited time. And that episode opened a lot of eyes when we did it years ago. Also, just as a quick note, if you decide this is something you want help with, as we talk more about this, we have a referral link set up at dealfundingnow.com where you can get a $500 discount through REtipster. No pressure at all, but it's there if you want to check that out after you hear how this works. Since we last talked to Fund & Grow, a lot of time has passed, things have evolved, the company has changed, and there's more nuance to how this works now than most people realize. So today we're going to revisit this topic with Ari Page, the CEO of Fund & Grow. And for those who aren't already familiar with this, we're going to break down what Fund & Grow actually does and how these credit lines work and where they fit in a real estate business, especially for land investors, and just as importantly, where they don't fit. It's not just about who should be using it, but also who shouldn't be, because this is an incredibly powerful tool. But like with any powerful tool, there are some risks you need to manage as well. So, Ari? Welcome to the show. How are you doing? Great. Thank you so much for having me today.

Yeah, of course. So for people who may not be familiar with you, how did you get pulled into this world of business credit in the first place? Like what made this space interesting to you? I was originally working back in the shipyards in Virginia, working on Navy ships back in the 2003 to four to five timeframe. That was a lot. But then I started transitioning. I was like, this is no life, you know, working 12 hours a day, seven days a week, that's 84 hours in one week. And I had two small kids at that time. And I was like, man, I need to get out of this. So I started looking at different things online. Yep. The internet was around back then. And I started finding out things about real estate. So I was like, you know what, I need to see what I qualify for. I want to start getting different types of loans to be able to buy things. So I I bought a house and I was like, well, we're moving. So I want to rent this one out and buy something new and start, you know, maybe burying or start buying and flipping, maybe rehabbing and flipping. And I was having a hard time getting access to money.

So I called up one of my friends at the time. His name was Dave Candle. He was running a loan company. So I decided to ask him what I could do. And he's like, you know what, Ari, at this point, I think the best thing you should do is you should probably learn a lot more about this. And one way to do that is to come work with me. So I started doing mortgage loans. That was in like the 2006, 2007 timeframe. So we were doing mortgage loans for commercial businesses, specifically in an area within California, even though we weren't living in California, we were doing them remotely. And we ran into that timeframe of 2007 to 2008. You remember the great market crash of 2008? Well, that was preceded with the mortgage companies having massive loan-to-value drops in what they could loan out. So what we could loan out 75% on turned into 70%, turned into 65%, started to go lower than that. So we had deals that we were working. These were all commercial deals where the clients were suddenly unable to do what it is that we were telling them in terms of the loan-to-value amounts. And that's because even before the 2008 crash, the banks were seeing it, and so they were just reducing what they were willing to lend in terms of total exposure. And so we decided to find other ways of getting them money for those down payments.

And because these were commercial customers, they were businesses, we turned to using business credit cards. And so we were able to get at that time, 100,000 pretty easily on one card. We were getting for some clients, 500,000, 600,000, and we were charging $1,500 an hour to help the client through the process from consulting to applications. To helping through a negotiation process. And back then it was really cool because you could do a balance transfer. They didn't even call it a cash advance. It was a balance transfer off of the credit card into a checking account with a maximum charge of $150. They would say 3% or 150, whatever the maximum amount was. The maximum amount they were charged was 150. So if it was smaller amount, then they would just charge 3%. But if it went above that, then it would be $150 charge, which they do not do nowadays. Yeah, that sounds crazy cheap. Yeah, crazy cheap. And because these were all commercial businesses that we were working with, we could use business credit cards. And so we were using that as down payment stopgap money to help with this loan to value drop that was happening till the 2008 crash happened.

And then that's when we realized that the real value that we had here was how we could get businesses access to hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of business credit cards that have a 0% introductory period of time that allow the business to operate for anywhere from six months all the way up to 18 months at 0% with no origination fees, no interest during that period of time, simple payback in terms of not having amortization fees and you're paying all principal payments. And it was just huge. So the mortgage companies or the companies that were referring loans to us, the different affiliates that we were working with, they were like, listen, guys, you got to stop charging this 1500 bucks an hour. Cause we were charging sometimes 10 hours, 15 hours worth of work. And you need to create like a package so that the client can go through this in a systemized way and be able to get their funding. And then we could send you a lot more business. So that's how the whole Fund & Grow concept was created. So Fund & Grow to this day, in a nutshell, is essentially a service where you educate people and actually offer the service where you will go out and find these 0% interest business credit cards for people. What is the whole shebang that Fund & Grow does? We take a client and we look at their profile. We determine what are the best cards to go after. Now, sometimes their profile might need some balancing.

To prepare them for the business credit card applications. Then we apply for business credit cards for them. We actually do that work for them. We target cards that have a 0% introductory period of time for six to 18 months. We're targeting the highest limit cards. On the first round, it's typical because we're doing like three rounds of funding. So that means that we're going after funding for them multiple times for that membership. And so on the first round, we could be targeting anywhere up to 50 to 70,000 on that first round. It could for well-qualified clients go up to a hundred thousand on that first round. Then it's, this is one of the most important parts. We teach the client how they can use a business credit card like a line of credit. That way, they could pay vendors, they could fund an escrow account via wire or ACH or check, so that you can use the credit card beyond just swiping. And there's a right way and a wrong way of doing this, and this is where our consulting comes in. So then, after that, we're teaching them about the utilization patterns, so that when we go into their second round of funding, which will happen a couple months later, we're able to really maximize that. And the key thing is that these are business credit cards that when used properly will not appear on the client's credit report. Now, why does that matter?

That matters because if the card was a personal card and it showed up on the client's credit report, then you could only use 35% of the utilization of the limit to the balance. And so that means that if the client goes and actually uses the card. Now it pulls their scores down. When it pulls their scores down, you can't go into round two or round three. You can't build up to 300,000 in these types of 0% cards. So it's critical that we're using their entity properly attached to the application.

And then we walk the client through this negotiation process. Now this negotiation process is where from our 2025 data, because here we are in 2026, so we were able to take all of the 2025 data and add up from the application to the final approval. What was the difference when we made the application, what we got approved for? And then after the negotiation process, what was the final approval? There's a 72.4% difference. That 72.4% increase in funding is due to us walking the clients through, it's a pretty easy process.

Of talking to the bank, verifying themselves, asking for the higher credit limit, merging old interest-bearing credit cards into the new 0% applications, and just in general, asking for higher limits. This is the way that the negotiation process works. In this instance, what happens is when they're walked through this negotiation process, us, whatever that initial approval is and whatever the final approval will be, on average, a 72.4% difference. And so this is something that a business consumer cannot essentially do on their own without being walked through. Now, you have some savvy people that do. We have clients that go through our process that are like, listen, I've got a degree in financing and I learned more from Funding Grow than I did in college. So then once we've walked them through that process, we've shown them how to use the business credit card similar to a line of credit so they can fund an escrow account or pay a business that doesn't accept credit cards, then we're ready to go for the second round of funding. So that second round of funding is now going to bring in another $50,000 to $70,000 for well-qualified clients, up to $100,000. We're encouraging the client to pay down.

The credit limits during the 0% period of time, which can be as long as 18 months and as short as six months, but on average, about 12 months. So that's how long that 0% is. Of course, they get to keep the credit card forever, but we're just talking about that 0% introductory period where there's no points, there's no interest, they can easily spend on whatever they need to spend on. And then, of course, we do a third round of funding. So that's kind of the whole Fund and Grow membership in a nutshell. So you kind of just mentioned it there. Let's say I've got millions of dollars on my PFS. I got tons of money. I'm loaded. I'm like the most financiable person ever. Is there like a ceiling for how much money I can get doing this? Like, is there a point at which it's like, hey, if you need this much, then don't bother because we can't get you that much. Or could you get me like millions if I want to? And then what's the floor? Is there like, don't bother doing this unless you need at least X amount? Yes. To answer the first question. So if you are a very well-qualified client, within a 12-month period of time, it's safe for us to say that we're going to get you up to $300,000 in these 0% business credit cards. Now, are there clients that have gotten more than that? There are.

However, the way that the advertising rules work is I have to tell you the averages. I can't tell you the clients that just got the most, even though there's clients that have gotten $700,000 in that period of time. There's clients that routinely get 500,000 and 600,000 in that period of time. Then there's clients that go through the membership multiple times and they're getting more than that. But on average, if a client has, let's say a 720 score, they could be looking at getting up to 250,000 to 300,000 in that 12 month period of time. And it depends more on their credit score.

So although the business credit cards, when used properly, don't show up on your credit report, the banks still want to look at your credit report in the determining process because they are personally guaranteed credit cards. But instead of reporting to your personal credit report, they report to your business credit reports like Equifax Business, Experian Business, and many of them report to Dun & Brad Street helping you build a Paydex score. So the highest amounts, I wouldn't say millions of dollars. I would say up to $300,000 if someone's very well qualified and they already have high personal credit card limits. Maybe they already have a couple of business credit cards. Then they could potentially get above that. And then on the other side, on the minimum side, if someone's looking for $20,000 to $30,000, that would be a good minimum amount that would still be worth it because the cost of our membership is so minimal. If somebody is listening to this and they're evaluating themselves.

Knowing what they know about themselves, and they're trying to think, I wonder how much I could get. So we've got the credit score answer there. Is there like a certain net worth or income they need to have that would like kick that amount higher? Or do you just have to look closer at you first and play it that way? How does that work? So let's go over those qualifications because these are good questions. So yeah, the minimum credit score for entry is 700. Then you're going to want a clean credit report. And what that means is no recent bankruptcies, no recent foreclosures or derogatory items. Recent means none in the last two years. Then you're going to want an existing credit history of at least two to three years of established personal cards with a reasonable limit of at least $5,000. Because if you don't have other personal credit cards of at least $5,000, then you're not really going to get access to business credit cards. If you have higher, If you have $15,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 personal cards, that'll just make it a lot easier for us to get you a lot more funding on the business side. And then the final key, and notice all of this surrounds your lendability on your profile, on your report.

This is not so much about how much money you have in the bank. This is more about how lendable you are from a credit standpoint, because these are unsecured business credit cards. So they're going to be looking at your credit report, even though when the cards are used properly, they're not going to ever report to your personal report. So then the final key is when we go to apply for you, so this is at the actual time of applications, your personal credit card balances need to be at that 35% utilization that I mentioned earlier. Because if you have personal credit cards that are above 35%, that's going to pull your scores down and then you're not going to be lendable. So this is a little thing that I want people to write down. If you have any card, and this isn't your total aggregate amount of cards being below 35% of the aggregate limits. This is each individual personal credit card has to be below 35% to not trigger the algorithms to automatically decline you. We have a pre-qualification system. So at the link that was mentioned earlier, you'll be able to go through our pre-qualification. So it's a very easy pre-qualification to go through. And this will tell you with a soft credit check.

So it means it will not put an inquiry on your credit report. This will tell you immediately how much funding you might be able to get access to. So it's going to take a peek at your credit report with a soft inquiry, and it's going to calculate all of these different things that we talked about. Your credit score, any type of bankruptcies or derogatories on your report, your existing credit history. It's going to look at your credit card balances. If you happen to be over on any credit card balances, our system will immediately tell you how much you're over. So that way you know what amount you would need to pay down in order to move forward with applications. So once you've done that pre-qualification, if you qualify, then you would be able to see the price and how much we charge, and then you can get started with the program. Now, it's important to know that once you get started with the program and we apply for the actual business credit cards, in the application process of actual business credit cards, there will be hard inquiries.

Because that's the way it works when you're applying for a credit product, there's gonna be a hard inquiry. So our prequalification is a soft inquiry, but the application process with the banks does have a hard inquiry. Gotcha. Now, you said a couple of times, when used properly, those keywords, it doesn't show up on your personal credit report. So what does that mean? Like, how could a person use it improperly so that it would show up on their personal credit report? What rules would they have to break to mess that up? Well, those are the big ones. For example, any money that you borrow from the banks, you have to pay it back. Just because it's 0% does not mean that it's free money, guys. This is legitimate banking products that have been out for decades, for decades, guys. These are business credit cards. You can go online. You can Google 0% business credit cards. You can see all of the major banks and many of the geographic footprint banks, all of them offer 0% business credit cards. So the key is you have to pay them back. You got to pay them back on time. You cannot miss your payments. So if you start missing payments and paying late, the banks could decide to at that point report it to your personal credit report because you're showing risky behavior. So when utilizing your card properly, it means you're following all the card issuer terms. Another thing is you're not going to take your business credit card and go to PayPal and try to pull cash off your card.

That's against the card issuer rules. You do those types of things, and that's not using the card properly. And so there's other ways to be able to pay a vendor that doesn't accept credit card or to fund an escrow account. And there's ways of doing it the right way where you're not violating the card issuer's terms. So paying late, not paying it, improperly using the card, those would be ways of not using the card properly. And there can be ramifications to that. And the ramifications are, it does hit your personal credit report? They could shut down the account altogether, or it could show up on your credit report. Gotcha. I think it's a good distinction. As obvious as this should be, it's actually not obvious to everybody. 0% interest does not mean no payments, right? So like, what would a payment be if I'm borrowing 100K like this, even with 0% interest? That's a great question, because it absolutely means that there is a payment. And the payment is generally going to be 1% of the utilized balance. So on $100,000, it would be 1%. You'd be paying $1,000 a month. Gotcha, super helpful.

And you mentioned that there is a personal guarantee with this. So what does that mean exactly? Like if I don't pay it back, what are they going to do? Are they going to come like knocking on my door, seizing all my personal assets? Or like, what does this personal guarantee constitute? That's a great question. So the personal guarantee means that you are personally guaranteeing the credit and that just like a personal credit card, that if you should not pay it, they're going to report it to your personal credit report. They're going to pursue you to try to get that money back. However, this is unsecured credit, meaning that it's not secured.

On your car. It's not secured on your home. It's not secured on an asset or a piece of property. So the way they would pursue you would be through a collection agency. So if you were to not pay it, it's going to show up on your personal credit report. They're going to try to come after you with collection agencies to try to get their money back. So in one sense, it's a bit safer because they're not going to take away your assets. They're not going to take away the things that you've purchased with the funding. But in another way, it could hurt your credit. And that's very important. We don't want anyone's credit to get hurt. That's why it's really important that you utilize these types of credit cards the right way, that you do not buy things that you're unable to generate a return on your investment, that you are using them responsibly, that you're vetting your deals properly, that you're not just rushing into things because it was easy to get access to a couple hundred thousand dollars of this. So when we say that these things don't hit your personal credit.

That's just if you pay this stuff on time and pay off a credit card, which I guess would be true of anything, right? Or like, how is it different if this doesn't hit your personal credit, but a personal credit card? Are we talking about like when they do the hard pull or what is the differentiator there? So a personal credit card is going to show up on your credit report no matter what. The credit will show up there. The balance will show up there. That utilization ratio is going to count against you. a business credit card, it's not going to even appear on the personal credit report. In fact, it'll be reporting to your Equifax and Experian business. And some of the cards report to done in Bradstreet building the Paydex score. And so when it's reporting to those bureaus, you're building business credit. So it only hits it if it becomes a problem, but otherwise it would steer clear of your personal credit report. Yes. Okay. Gotcha.

How old does my business need to be in order to do this? Like, does that matter at all. Could I just open an LLC today and be ready to get money tomorrow? Because it really is based on my personal credit. That's one of the categories that we dominate in on LendingTree and NerdWallet and Privatelenders.com is in the startup category. So while we can fund companies that have been in business for many years that are doing millions of dollars of revenue, and many of them need business credit cards for advertising, like let's say you're doing pay per click marketing and you're spending a couple hundred thousand dollars a month, you would need business credit cards for it. But if you're a startup, a startup, the easiest way to get access to business credit.

Is through business credit cards. And that's for a variety of different reasons. And that's why we do so good on those platforms. That's why we're able to help so many new entrepreneurs, because you can have a brand new business and you can still get access to business credit cards. So if you could be a startup, you could be an established business. All of them can utilize business credit cards and have a need for them. And I know you mentioned this a little bit earlier. what is fund and grow actually doing for a client that the client wouldn't normally do themselves? Like what part of the process is harder than people think going out and trying to find these 0% interest business credit cards? So finding the cards is only a small part of the equation. The bigger part of the equation is looking at your profile and making sure that you qualify for business credit cards so that when you are applying, you're not stumbling uphill with a broken leg. You need to make sure that when you're applying, you're going to actually get approved. Because when we're applying for multiple business credit cards in rapid succession, and so that could be five cards in one round of funding, you're going to want to make sure that you're actually going to get approved for that. So by us working with you, analyzing your profile, helping you be able to qualify for the business credit cards, that is a huge part of what we're doing. But then we're also utilizing our strategy that's based off of working with 35,000 clients.

Over the past 19 years, which is what's earned us an A-plus on the Better Business Bureau, what's put us on the Inc. 5000 list for seven years in a row, we have a lot of data. That data tells us what is the order of operations, which are the cards that you want to apply for first, which are the ones the most likely to get approved for, which ones do you need to have relationships with that particular bank first before you even apply there that we wouldn't want to even apply for that one for you yet. And so then we will move forward and we actually do the applications for you.

Then we need you to work with us to do the verification process that I mentioned earlier, where 72.4% of the funding comes in. We make that really easy. We connect you with who you need to be connected with over at the bank. And then that's when you get those final approvals. And the credit limits jump up by, again, on average, 72.4% of the time. And you end up getting the larger limits coming in. But then our work doesn't stop there. At that point, you now need to know, how can I utilize the business credit card like a line of credit? How can I use it when I'm purchasing a piece of land that I need to fund an escrow account, $30,000, $50,000? I can't just take my credit card to title. How do I do that? So we show you the platforms that are approved by Visa and MasterCard, where you can put your credit cards into that platform, and then you can fund the escrow account, either by wire.

ACH, or overnight check, and they charge the card, and there's a 2.9% fee for that one transaction. Then they fund the account, and now your money is sitting in title.

And it makes it super easy for you to be able to use the card. You're not going against the card issue or terms. You're using the card as it's stated, as you're supposed to. And then after that, we're helping you with the utilization patterns and we're consulting with you. And then there's another very big part. So if we are helping you manage all of these different credit cards, you're going to need to keep track of all these cards. When are the due dates? What are the 0% periods of time? That's another thing that we're going to help you with throughout the whole process as we build and stack your amount of business credit cards larger and larger. And you kind of just hit on it like these are credit cards, but people are using them like cash, but I guess using certain tools to convert it to cash and then they can send it. We were talking before we started recording here how this can only be sent to like a business or a title company, right? Like if somebody was buying a cheap lot from John Smith down the street, they can't send the money to John Smith. It has to go through escrow. Is that accurate? You can pay another business. So if they create an invoice that you're purchasing something and you decide that you don't want to run it through the safety of title of escrow of that third party safety, and you want to pay them directly, as long as they're a business and the payment platform can verify their business, then you can pay them directly.

You just can't pay an individual. So when we say business, if somebody is operating as a sole proprietor, like John Smith's quick lube placed down the street, is that a business? Or like it has to literally be an LLC business entity? Well, a sole proprietor is a business. It's just a business that doesn't have a limit of liability. It's a business that has an EIN, a form of an entity. And so in that case, they would verify with the IRS that that EIN is in fact set up and there's verification processes to do that. The payment platforms, they're going to determine the worthiness of that business. So if that business is lapsed and they're not paying their fees for their state filing fees, then you're not going to be able to pay it. And you can't pay your own business. You can't pay your wife's business. You can't use the card against the card issuer terms by doing a de facto cash advance.

If that makes sense. That was going to be my next question is, are there any limits or oversights on what you can or can't use this money for? You just hit a bunch of them. But in terms of real estate or buying land, as long as it's being sent to a business or a title company, which I think is what most people would be using this for anyway. Most people probably aren't going to go through all the trouble to do this, to buy like a $500 vacant lot. It's usually the more substantial ones, but that's pretty much it. As long as it's a business expense, there's no reason you couldn't do it. There's a few caveats. There's going to be some business types that aren't accepted, things that are federally illegal, for example, like medical marijuana. Think about that type of stuff, like gambling, those types of businesses. But for all intents and purposes for this call, you're going to be able to use it for a variety of different things. And when you look at real estate investing in general, you can easily use it for rehabs. There's hard money companies that will allow you to use it for the down payment on a loan.

Not all hard money will allow you to do that, but there's companies that we work with that will absolutely allow you to do that. It's just important that you disclose to your lender and that you ask your lender ahead of time, do you allow the use of a business credit card for the down payment? I think you mentioned also the real cost of turning this credit into usable cash. Is it basically just the 2.9% credit card processing fee and that's it? Exactly. So those platforms will have a 2.9% processing fee. Now that's not for anything that you buy on the credit card. That's just for that one particular transaction. Because most of the time, investors can simply swipe the card. If you're going to Home Depot and buying materials, you just swipe the card. And if you're using the electrical contractor down the street to do some work at a rental property, you just swipe the card. It's only in the instance that the business that you're trying to pay.

Does not accept credit card. That's when you use a payment platform. So if I need to get $100,000 out of that credit card, it's actually going to cost me $102,900 to send that. And $100,000 is what ends up at the title company? That's right. And we encourage our clients not to think about it, about pulling cash out. We encourage you to think about it as a business-to-business transaction. Because you really don't need to pull the cash out to yourself and then pay it out. You just need to take your card and pay whatever vendor, whatever business that you're working with. Tell me how this whole world has changed since 2020. Like, has it gotten harder to find these kind of credit cards? Or like, are the terms less favorable? Seems like in the past when I've talked to you, seems like there were more options that were like 18 months long with a 0% interest. Now it's like, those are actually more the exception. They exist, but it's not the most common one. Now it's more like 12 months. But just tell me how it's gotten harder. That's a great question. And we got to be honest about the market. So what's changed is that the credit markets have tightened since 2020. The intro, the 0% APR periods, they're shorter. They're harder to find. Banks are more selective when approving.

The approved credit limits are lower than they were in 2020. But what has not changed is that the 0% intro APR offers still exist. They're not 22 months anymore. Now they're, on average, 12 months at 0%.

Some of them are as short as six months at 0%. There's a couple that are at 18 months at 0%, but we used to be able to get 22 months at 0%. Now we can't get that. And maybe they'll bring them back someday, but right as of now, we don't have those.

So what also has not changed is that unsecured business credit cards are still available. They're still available. They're still lending literally billions of dollars. In fact, I just saw a article come out from JP Morgan. It was on Yahoo Finance, where JP Morgan Chase has committed $80 billion over the next couple of years to small business lending. They're hiring 1,000 small business bankers. And that money more than likely primarily is going into unsecured business credit cards. So the stacking strategy is still alive. It's still well. The key is it just requires more expertise, more time, and more work than before, which makes our job a little bit harder. But that's what you guys are paying us for. That's why we're putting in that work. You may have gone on your own and applied for cards and not got the greatest results. Well, that's because there's a lot more time and expertise and work that goes into it than back in 2020. Do you know of any good ways to keep track of the different cards you have? Because I know that's kind of what makes this work is if you're able to get these cards and actually pay them off before the interest starts piling up. So for example, if you bought a vacant lot and you're able to buy and sell the thing within 12 months, which most of the time that ends up being the case, unless you did something wrong or something huge changed all of a sudden.

But in terms of just like keeping your eye on the ball, like making sure, oh, I got this credit card like nine months ago. I better figure something out. Either get another one to pay it off or find something to take care of that before the interest starts kicking in. Do people just use a spreadsheet or is there some good software that like keeps track of all the moving pieces to make sure people are aware of what's coming up and what they got to pay off? Ever heard any good ideas on that? So currently what we do is we have a complex spreadsheet that we help the client with. So we set that up so they can keep track of their due dates.

Of the 0% periods of time. But we are in process of building it directly into our client portal so that clients can receive emails and text message reminders of due dates and 0% periods. We haven't quite perfected that process yet, but pretty soon that's going to be built directly into the Fund & Grow portal. But in the meantime what we help clients with is a spreadsheet that tracks all of this because we want to make sure that everyone's keeping up on every single payment they're understanding the zero percent periods they're working on paying the cards down during those zero percent periods if they have a deal that they think is going to take longer use the 18 month card for that if you have one that you know you're going to flip quickly use the six month card for that yeah i will say for anybody using stride crm you can totally use the opportunity pipeline for this kind of thing, just to keep track of different columns of, you know, when you got the credit card and you can even have it send you notifications and reminders and attach dollar values to each one. So if you're a stride user, you should totally look into that. If you decide to use this kind of strategy.

When it comes to a real estate investor or really any business owner looking to use this kind of thing, where do you think this type of funding actually makes the most sense? Or what kind of asset purchase is a perfect use case for this? And when is it not a good idea to do this kind of thing? Like, should we be looking at it through the standpoint of like, this is basically short term financing. So use it to finance short term things, not a long term purchase. Like, don't use this to finance a rental property. Like, it makes no sense. Is there a certain lens or decision matrix that person should be thinking through to know, okay, this is a perfect use for these fund and grow credit cards. And this is a terrible idea to use it for that. Yeah, so let's break that down. So if you are buying a property that you are planning on holding.

Then the business credit cards could be used for two things. You can use it for your down payment. You can use it for your rehab. Let's talk through that. So a client, they purchase their property, they rehab the property, they rent out the property, then they refinance the property, And the down payment, as well as the rehab, are all done on business credit cards. So in many cases, they can put out very little of their own money. And then when it comes time to refinance, they may refinance using a mortgage. They may refinance using a DSCR loan. And then the proceeds would be used to pay off the original hard money loan, along with the down payment of the credit cards, along with the rehab on the credit cards.

So we have clients that are doing that all the time. And whether you're fixing and flipping, whether you're burying, you are able to do that process because eventually you're going to cash out and you're going to use something like a DSCR loan or a long-term financing, and then you can pay everything off. That would be a use case that you could use it for. Let's say that you're able to purchase the property if you're in an area of the country or you're buying a distressed property, and you can buy the property outright using your $200,000, $300,000 of 0% business credit cards. Well, if you know that you are going to be able to fix the property and flip it within that six-month to 18-month period of time, and let's just focus on six months because it's the shortest. So if you know you're going to be able to purchase it, repair it, rehab it, flip it within that six-month period of time, then that's a perfect use case where you can fund the escrow account directly. You can purchase the entire property. You can rehab the property and you know that you're going to be able to sell it and your after repair value is much higher than everything that you're putting into it. You've done your due diligence and then you pay off all the credit cards. Let's say that another use case is that you are using a conventional loan to purchase the property, but you just need extra money to rehab it. Instead of adding that into the hard money loan and having to go through the draw process and the extra points and the interest that come with hard money.

You decide that you're just going to fund all that with your business credit cards. That's another perfect use case for you to be able to do your rehab, get your after repair value, get your new appraisal, and then cash out using a DSCR, using a long-term financing loan. So there's a variety of things that you can use it for. What you would not want to use it for is to try and hold a property long-term as a BRRRR, for example, because your rent isn't going to cover and make you money once it goes past that 0% period of time. You're always going to want to do that refinance. Yeah, it sounds like one of the real benefits with this is that you can move fast with this kind of money. It's not like when you get a mortgage approval, you got to wait weeks or months and everybody's slow and you might not get approved. Whereas with this, it's like, nope, I can move on this like right now.

Exactly. And one of the great things is that you can stack it. The only caveat is it's important to always disclose the source of funds to your lender. So using business credit card proceeds toward a down payment, it has to be disclosed to the mortgage or the hard money or in the loan application process. But beyond that, there's a lot of hard money lenders and DSCR lenders that absolutely allow you to use the business credit card as a down payment. And for all Funding Grow clients, we will connect you with an incredible company that will do that for you if you don't already have one. Do you know offhand, what are the payments end up being, or I guess, what does the interest rate end up being if these cards are not paid off within the required timeframe? So they could go anywhere from like 18% up to 29%. On average, like around 20 to 25%, which is horrible. But one thing that we haven't talked about so far is the cash back rate. That you get through using business credit cards. Now, you might already be thinking, how is it even possible that the banks offer cards with a 0% period for 18 months? How's that even possible? They have to make money. And the truth of the matter is, yes, the banks do have to make money. But let me clue you guys into a little secret. The banks aren't just making money off of the interest rate.

Every time you swipe that card or use it on a payment platform, the merchant is paying a fee that fee could be three percent it could be four percent it could be five percent so when you go to home depot and you're buying supplies and materials and you swipe that card what's built into that transaction is that home depot is paying a merchant fee and so there is billions of dollars being earned by the banks through simply running transactions and getting paid on the merchant fees every single year. And so what they want is they want a lot of people out there, instead of paying by cash and paying by check, the banks don't make any money off that. They only make money off of when you are swiping with a card, swiping with a card, swiping with a card, or using one of those payment platforms. They want as many people out there as possible to be using credit cards because every time you use it, There's a transaction fee and they make money off that. In fact, they make so much money off it, they're willing to split the cost with you. They're literally willing to take some of that money and give it back to you in the form of what's called cash back. And depending on the credit card, you could be getting 2% cash back. It's very common that you could get 2% cash back on any purchases. I have a card where with all of my Amazon purchases, I get 5% cash back.

Imagine how much you guys pay on Amazon. And if you could bring down the cost by 5%, or if you're doing a rehab and you could bring down the cost by 2%. So not only are you getting access to a loan at 0%, but it's actually negative 2%. You're actually getting 2% back for all the spending that you're doing on there. If I'm following you right, so that example we talked about earlier, if you're taking 100 grand and you're trying to get it from your credit card to the title company and it ends up costing you $102,900 because of the 2.9% fee, that's actually just a 0.9% fee because you're getting the 2% cash back if you have that type of card. Is that right? Yes, depending on the cash back card that you're getting, because of course, all the rates vary by card and are subject to the issuer terms. But yeah, it could be that you are using a 2% cashback card and the fee is kind of a wash where you're only paying 0.9% in total fees for that transaction. And if you're doing a transaction where you don't need to use one of the payment platforms.

Then you're just collecting all that cash back. Fund and Grow, because we do a lot of spending every month, we're getting thousands of dollars back on our cash back reimbursements. And it's something that if I was looking at it from the cost of the program of what you would pay for Fund and Grow, they're getting thousands of dollars above what it even costs for our program simply by using your business credit card. And I disagree with Dave Ramsey on this.

If you're using a credit card responsibly and instead of spending directly out of your business checking account you divert that spending to the credit card now you're bringing down your spending by two percent and you're going to get thousands of dollars back on your credit card i'm not talking about making up spending to get cash back i'm talking about spending that you wouldn't be doing anyway you're already doing the rehab you're not making up spending this is spending that you would be doing anyway. Of course, you always want to spend responsibly. You want to vet your deals properly. You want to only invest where you're going to have a proper return on investment. But when you're doing that, just divert it from spending out of your checking account to spending off of the business credit card. And then that way you can earn cash back. So when you said that 5% cash back card you've got, so I mean, is the credit card company losing a bunch of money on you? Is that what's going on? So I don't think that they're losing money. I I think because Amazon is the one that's sponsoring that card through Chase. In that instance, it's Amazon that's also giving a discount on their service, on what all the customers are paying for on the Amazon platform. And so part of that money comes from Chase. Part of it comes from Amazon in partnership together. That's what I would guess, because I certainly know that Amazon doesn't charge 5% with their merchant fees. They're not getting charged 5%. They're probably getting charged 1% at best.

So they're trying to incentivize purchasing on their platform because everything on their platform already has a huge markup. So is there a way to like make sure my credit card company loses money? Or is that kind of impossible? Like they're going to find a way to make the money. I mean, if you don't pay your card off, if you do that, then you're going to hurt the credit card company, but they're going to come after you. We don't recommend that at all. Credit card companies are awesome. We recommend that you work together with them properly, positively, so that you can utilize this amazing funding.

There's so many places in the world that you go that you can't get access to these types of cards. But I guess what I'm getting at is like, I can abide by their terms. I could get a 12 month 0% thing where I borrow as much money as I can, make the payments, pay it off. I effectively pay zero interest, but the credit card company is still making money in the end. They're not losing anything through that. They're not losing anything because every time you run a transaction, they're making a small amount through that transaction fee. Without you even knowing, the merchant is paying a transaction fee. And let's add to that that this is what they call a loss leader for getting a high-end person because the people that qualify for these cards are all what's called prime borrowers. People below a 660 are a subprime.

People above a 700 are a prime borrower. And prime borrowers are the very people that banks want to offer all of their other credit services to, their bank accounts to, their insurance products to, their life insurance, all of those different types of things, their business insurance. And so once you have their credit card, now they are marketing to you inside your client portal when you log in to look at the credit card. They have all these other offers and things for you where, bam, they're in your face and they're offering you these other things. So this is also a way of getting in front of the most lucrative prime borrowers for them to be able to sell their other products to. One quick thing I was wondering about, does it ever happen where people apply for this through Fund and Grow, they pay the fee for your services, and they can't get any business lines of credit? And if so, why would that happen? So if someone doesn't go through our pre-qualification process.

And they just sign up on the website, and then we find out that they're not qualified, then we have to give them their money back. Because if they're not qualified, then we have to refund them. So there's a, Funding Grow has a 60-day money-back guarantee.

And the only thing that you don't get back is the 4% processing for the credit card transaction that we were just talking about. But other than that, you will get the membership feedback if you don't qualify. But we encourage everyone to go through that pre-qualification process. Now, sometimes a client might be heavy on their personal credit card balances, but we do have three strategies that can help around that. So the first strategy is we can help a client with a business line of credit so that they can consolidate business expenses off of their personal credit cards so that they can get that personal utilization below 35%. So Funding Grow can help you obtain a BLOC or a business line of credit at no extra cost so that you can move forward and rebalance your portfolio so that you are more qualified to get access to business credit cards. And when I say that at no extra cost, I'm saying we're not going to charge you for the loan. Of course, those loans will have an interest rate, but a business line of credit is going to have an interest rate and they're going to look at your credit, but we're not going to charge you for that. So the second strategy to be able to rebalance is that you can use a partner or a family member within our program. So if your credit, if let's say the husband's credit has a heavy balance on the personal credit cards, but the wife has great credit.

And not heavy balances on their credit cards, then we can move forward and help them right away using that secondary profile. And we'll work with you to find out which one of the profiles are gonna be the best. It could be your business partner, it could be a family member, it could be a spouse, it could be someone that you work closely together with on deals, all of those people could be your partner within the Fund and Grow program. So that's another way of, if someone signs up and they don't qualify, we first are gonna say, hey, well, do you have a business partner? Are you married? What about your family members? What about other people that you do deals with? And many times people have another person that they can bring to the table at no additional charge, can add to their Fund & Grow membership so that we can move forward and get them funding and help to rebalance their profile and then get them both to qualify over time. So the third strategy is if a client has heavy balances, they can use their retirement account. They can either do a loan against it or do distributions so that they can use their retirement account to be able to pay down and get that 35% utilization where it needs to be to improve their overall profile and position themselves for business credit card applications.

So this is a personal financial decision, and we're not the ones doing that. We refer you to a licensed, qualified professional who specializes in that strategy where they are licensed to work with retirement accounts because we're not licensed to do that. So we would refer you to that professional to be able to do that. But this is a very popular strategy to be able to even temporarily pay down those credit cards on your personal credit report so that you can qualify for business credit cards.

Have you ever seen somebody use this strategy or these credit cards in a way that surprised you in a good or bad way? Well, unfortunately, there are people that have not vetted their deals properly and they have gotten in over their head. There are clients that have not paid the monthly payment on time and then the 0% period was taken away and then the credit showed up on their personal credit report. So those are some bad examples. But then there's other examples, and I'm not suggesting that you do this, but there's There was a client that was funding an escrow account down payment with a hard money lender that accepted business credit cards for the down payment. And the down payment was $25,000. But they overfunded the account. They put $75,000 transaction into that escrow account. Well, when the account was overfunded, what does the title company do with the rest of the money in that account? They send you a check. So the client got a check back for $50,000.

I'm not suggesting that you do that. That was just a very surprising thing that the client told us about. Somebody like police that or something? I don't know. That's why I'm not suggesting that people do that. You asked if there was anything that surprised me. I've been surprised. That was creative and surprising. Yeah. All right. This has been great. Appreciate it. As we're wrapping this up, I am wondering if you were starting to do that. over today with no capital, would you use this strategy yourself? Do you think this is a good fit for everybody? Or are there certain people who are like, no, you probably should try something else first? So if I was starting over today with no capital, first off, this is literally what I did when I was starting with no capital. I first applied for myself for personal credit cards, then I applied for business credit cards, and that's what I used. So would I recommend it for someone who's starting off, I would, but with the caveat of if you don't have the ability to vet your deals properly, if you don't really understand the markets properly, if the only access you have to money is your business credit cards and you don't have any kind of cash, any kind of other.

In your investing strategy, because you don't want to get in over your head. So that's my number one caution is to people that may have great credit, that may be able to get access to large amounts of business credit cards, but they don't understand the markets. I wouldn't recommend that people use this to buy gold and silver or to invest in stocks or to buy bonds. None of those are sound strategies.

The best investments would be in real estate that you're very familiar with, that you have your deals vetted, that you're working with your advisors, that they're approving what you're doing, that you already know that this is a sound investment and that you're going to be able to flip and make money on, or that you're going to be able to refinance once you have finished your repairs and your after repair value goes up and boom, you can pull your money out. With those caveats being given, I would say that this is great for startups. This is what startups most often use. When you go to the banks, these are the most common loans that any startup will ever get. Well, Ari, thanks again for the great conversation. And just a reminder, if all the listeners out there, if you decide this is something that you want help with, head over to dealfundingnow.com. That's the REtipster affiliate link. You can get a $500 discount on the fund and growth service through REtipster. Also be sure to check out the show notes for this episode at retipster.com forward slash 272 for more details and resources. And yeah, Ari, I think that's pretty much it. Anything else we should mention before we wrap this up? No, I think that's it. But I gotta say that I am excited to help as many businesses as possible. I look at the economy today and I can tell you that there's just so many ripples worldwide in the US. There is so much uncertainty, But when has been the best time to make money in real estate?

During the uncertain times. That's when so many millionaires have been created. And so we could be the people that are frozen.

That don't move on the next deal, that are looking at the glass half empty, just worried. Or we could be the people that are putting in our due diligence, vetting our deals, and realizing that now is the time. Now is the time to make money. There's going to be waves of foreclosures hitting the market. This is the nature of what's happening. And there is so much opportunity out there. I really want to encourage people, whether you're using business credit cards or not, don't be a deer in the headlights. Don't get frozen in the market like so many other people are, where they're going to be cut out from making the money that they could be making. I can tell you right now, personally, for me, now is a time where I'm buying, where the prices, especially here in Florida, have dropped so low. They're literally at 2018 levels. Why would I not be scooping them up? It's a great time to buy right now, guys. Yeah. Ari, thanks again. Thanks to all the listeners for hanging out with us, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you.