Hope everyone’s staying safe and warm through the storm! ❄️ I’m Chris, Jon’s partner here — long term real estate investor in CT and private money lender. Excited to network, share insights, and support the group. I’ll also be broadcasting quick wins, like how we’re funding fast fix‑and‑flips and helping capital partners deploy capital effectively and safely. Looking forward to connecting and growing together — drop a comment or DM anytime!

Long term rentals are not passive income. I know you want to prove all these people wrong by buying 100 doors that "cashflow" $300 per month, but don't do it. Take the money you were going to use to do your BRRRR method acquisitions and focus on active income. Build your active income until you have so much cash, you have no choice but to buy real estate to reduce your tax liability. I know you're in a rush to get out of your W2. I get it...it sucks. Clients are not fun to deal with, you're not happy with the direction of the company and you want to be able to do what you want, whenever you want, with who you want, exactly how you want to do it. Don't rush. Take all that extra money you were going to dump into buying houses and save it instead. Save it until you figure out what you want to replace your W2 income with. For now, figure out low cost ways to get started, either by working for someone else, bird dogging deals or white label someone else's products. There are low risk ways to get started. Focus on those routes. Read Ego is the Enemy. You may feel like you're humble, but you have parts of your personality that need to be put in check. Yes, you want the credit of owning 100% and being in full control. You'd much rather be a minority partner in a wildly successful deal than 100% owner in a stressful one. You don't know everything and that's ok. You may be willing to take on risk, but decisions you make now can end up slowing your growth in the future. You may learn a lot, but you can learn those lessons by bringing value to someone who's doing what it is you want to do in the market you want to do it in. You haven't figured out what you want to do yet and that's ok. You're going to save yourself a lot of headaches if you work backwards. Figure out what your strengths are. Take an audit of your current work experience, your education and what you enjoy in your day job now. Figure out what activities give you energy. That'll save you from throwing money at problems you're not willing to solve.

Jon and I have been heads-down curating these opportunities—vetting every borrower and deal to maintain our standards. Grateful for what we've built together so far and excited for what's ahead. Quick community update on our lending deployments: ✅ This Month: Deployed $400k across high-quality fix-and-flip deals ✅ Total Deployed YTD:$1.8M ✅ Lifetime Interest Earned: $88k paid to partners Security stays #1: In a market with rising delinquencies, every Aces loan comes with our exclusive performance guarantees—principal protection you won't find elsewhere. As always, DM @Jon Chan or myself to learn more or connect 1:1 about lending, strategies, security, opportunities or anything else!

Hi All, I’ve been digging deeper into self-directed retirement accounts lately to better understand the tools people are using. One topic that comes up a lot is the checkbook-controlled IRA. It’s a setup where the IRA owns an LLC, and the account holder (as manager) writes checks or wires directly from that LLC. The appeal is clear: faster transactions and fewer custodian delays. I recently spoke with an industry veteran who’s seen this structure play out in practice. Here’s the summary of what I was learned: Why some people use it - Bypass custodian delays and fees - Move quickly on deals like private lending Where the caution comes in - Because the account holder is both owner of the IRA and manager of the LLC, it can look like too much direct control. - Different custodians treat it differently. Some won’t allow it; others do, but it’s still a gray area. - If it were ever questioned, the “fix” would usually be administrative (re-titling assets back into the IRA) — not catastrophic, but inconvenient. Other considerations - Some folks try to get around the control issue by naming a third party as LLC manager. That reduces one risk but creates another (trusting someone else with your funds). - For slower, one-off deals (like a single syndication), a standard custodian-processed IRA can be just fine. Bottom line Checkbook-controlled IRAs do exist and people use them, but they sit in a compliance gray area. For some investors the speed is worth it, for others the simplicity of a custodian held self directed IRA (or a Solo 401k if eligible) is a better fit.

Just got off a zoom with my partner and mentor to discuss strategy going forward. I've probably asked him this question 4 times, but threw it out there...there's no shortcut is there? He confirmed there isn't. Just do the work and do it for a long time.