Blog

Picture this deal.

Seller inherited a house outside DFW. Three years behind on property taxes. A dormant IRS lien from a business that folded years ago. Real equity in the house — call it $80k sitting there — but legally, every dollar from a standard closing gets vacuumed straight into payoffs before she sees anything. She needs to move. She needs money to move. And under a normal sale structure, she walks away with maybe $400 and a U-Haul she can’t afford.

On paper: dead deal.

I’ve watched newer investors walk away from this exact setup, because that’s what the certification course told them to do. “Clouded title? Walk.” “IRS lien? Walk.” And look — sometimes walking IS right. But this one wasn’t dead. It just needed a play most investors have never heard of, because most investors learned real estate from a speaker who was really selling a $25,000 program and had no incentive to give away the actual tools.

The Problem Nobody Teaches From Stage

Here’s what conventional wisdom gives you here: make the offer subject to liens being cleared at closing. Title company handles it. Seller gets whatever’s left. Done.

Except “whatever’s left” in this case was $400. The seller needed $1,000 — first and last on an apartment, maybe a moving truck. She couldn’t get that $1,000 from the real property proceeds without triggering the IRS lien.

This is where deals die. Not because there’s no solution. Because nobody told you TREC Form 10-6 exists.

The Non-Realty Items Addendum

Texas has a form called the Non-Realty Items Addendum. It lets a buyer compensate the seller separately — outside the real estate transaction — for personal property that isn’t attached to the house. Appliances. Lawn equipment. Whatever’s sitting in the garage.

Here’s how it played: the house sold for $250,000. Separately, on the addendum, the buyer paid $1,000 for the refrigerator, the washer/dryer, and the riding mower. That $1,000 is personal property consideration. It doesn’t appear as real-property seller proceeds. It flows differently.

Seller got her $1,000 to move. The IRS lien attached to the real estate side. Deal closed. Everybody got what they needed.

I didn’t learn this from a YouTube channel. I learned it in a twenty-minute conversation over lunch with a real estate attorney who was sharing actual case studies from active deals. No stage. No microphone. No PowerPoint deck about her “journey.” Just a practitioner talking to another practitioner about what actually works.

Why Most Real Estate Events Can’t Teach You This

That kind of conversation doesn’t happen at a typical conference. You know the format: celebrity speaker opens with a story about hitting rock bottom, three hours of inspirational build-up, then a $30,000 coaching upsell from the stage disguised as “the room where secrets are shared.” You go home fired up, $4,000 lighter from the ticket and hotel, and the one tactic they mentioned casually doesn’t apply to your market because it was from a Phoenix flip in 2019.

Real estate events that aren’t boring look like what happened at that lunch table. Somebody brings a specific deal they almost lost. Somebody else in the room has done that exact deal. Twenty minutes later you’ve got a tool you didn’t have before, from someone with zero incentive to sell you the extended version.

That’s not lucky. That’s what the room is supposed to be built for. And most rooms aren’t built for it — they’re built to monetize the audience from the front of the room.

What to Actually Steal From This Deal

The steal here isn’t “use the Non-Realty Items Addendum” — though write that down, Texas investors. The deeper steal is the diagnostic frame.

When a deal looks dead, stop asking “should I walk?” Start asking: “What constraint is blocking the seller, and is there a mechanism I haven’t tried?” In this case, the constraint was simple: seller needs move-out money, can’t access it through real-property proceeds. Once the constraint was clear, the tool became obvious — if you knew the tool existed.

That’s why the room you learn in matters more than the course you buy. A course gives you frameworks from three years ago. A room full of operators gives you tools from deals closing right now, in your state, under current conditions.

Go to the bar after the sessions. Sit at the lunch table with strangers. Come with a specific question about a deal you’re working. Not “what’s everyone doing?” — something specific. “I’ve got a seller with an IRS lien and I can’t figure out how to get her move-out money.” That question, in the right room, closes a $250k deal.

At Black Sheep Convention, that IS the room. No back-of-the-room close. No five-figure upsell masquerading as inspiration. Operators bringing real problems, real numbers, and real plays — including the ones the gurus won’t share because sharing the actual tool cuts into course sales.

If you’re going to drive across Texas for a real estate event, make sure the room you’re walking into has people who still have a deal under contract.

---

If you’re in the real estate game, you know that networking can make or break your success. But let’s be real: not all networking events are created equal. Some are dull, stuffy affairs that make you feel like you’re back in school, while others—like our Black Sheep Convention—are electric, engaging, and downright transformative. In this article, we’re diving into the nitty-gritty of two networking for real estate investors options: traditional real estate conferences vs. the Black Sheep Convention. Buckle up, because we’re about to challenge the status quo!

Criteria for Comparison

Let’s break down what we’re evaluating here:

1. Atmosphere: Is it a stuffy boardroom or a lively gathering?
2. Content Quality: Are you getting actionable insights or just fluff?
3. Networking Opportunities: Are you meeting the right people?
4. Cost: Is it worth your hard-earned cash?
5. Follow-Up Resources: What do you walk away with?

Traditional Real Estate Conferences

Pros

• Established Reputation: Big names often headline these events.
• Diverse Topics: You might find sessions on everything from market analysis to legal updates.
• Networking with Big Players: Access to high-profile investors and agents.

Cons

• Boring Format: Sit and listen for hours; can’t we spice it up a bit?
• Generic Content: Often filled with broad, high-level concepts that lack practicality.
• Limited Engagement: You might find your conversations fizzling out after the first few minutes.

Use-Case Fit

Ideal for those who thrive on traditional formats and are looking to rub elbows with industry bigwigs. But if you want to dig deep into creative strategies and make real connections, you might want to look elsewhere.

Black Sheep Convention

Pros

• High-Energy Atmosphere: We’re all about shaking up the norm and having fun while learning.
• Hands-On Learning: Dive into creative financing and wholesaling techniques that actually work.
• Targeted Networking: Connect with fellow rebel investors and agents who share your vision.
• Tangible Takeaways: Walk away with actionable strategies and resources you can implement immediately.

Cons

• Not for Everyone: If you’re looking for a boring, corporate feel, this isn’t your scene.
• Limited Scope: We focus on the unconventional; if you’re a fan of the traditional, it might not resonate.

Use-Case Fit

Perfect for investors and agent/investors who want to learn cutting-edge techniques, network with like-minded rebels, and actually have fun while doing it. If you’re ready to break free from the corporate shackles, this is where you need to be.

Recommendation

If you want a networking experience that’s not just about shaking hands and collecting business cards, head to the Black Sheep Convention. We promise you’ll leave with a brain full of actionable ideas and a network of badass investors who are just as hungry for success as you are. Why settle for mediocrity when you can be part of something revolutionary?

Summary Table

Criteria	Traditional Conferences	Black Sheep Convention
Atmosphere	Stuffy and formal	High-energy and engaging
Content Quality	Generic and broad	Actionable and hands-on
Networking Opportunities	Limited and superficial	Deep and meaningful
Cost	Often high	Value-packed and worth it
Follow-Up Resources	Minimal	Extensive and practical

Don’t get trapped in the old ways of doing things. Embrace the unconventional and join us at the Black Sheep Convention, where you’ll learn, connect, and thrive in the world of real estate investing.

Ready to take the plunge? Here are some resources to get you started:
– Join the Revolution at Black Sheep Convention
– Check Out Our Hands-On Workshops
– Success Stories from Fellow Investors

Let’s disrupt the norm together!

You’ve been burned before. Dropped $2,000 on a ticket, flew somewhere, sat through eight hours of slick presenters building to the “limited-time offer” at the back of the room, and flew home with nothing except a tote bag and a sales brochure disguised as a workbook.

So now you hear “real estate convention” and your wallet flinches.

Fair. But the assumption that all events are that event is the same logic as swearing off all Mexican food because you got food poisoning at an airport Taco Bell. Let’s burn down the actual myths — the ones circulating in every Texas REI Facebook group right now — and show you what the mechanism behind each one actually is.

---

Myth 1: “Every real estate convention is a guru pitch-fest with different branding”

This one survives because it’s mostly true. Most conventions are financially structured around stage time. A sponsor pays $25,000 for the keynote slot. They teach you 45 minutes of soft content, then spend the last 15 minutes closing you on their $15,000 mentorship program. The “education” is the funnel.

The mechanism at Black Sheep is different at the contract level: sponsors support the event financially, and that is their entire lane. They do not get the mic. They do not teach the classes. The stage belongs exclusively to operators — people who closed deals last quarter in the same Texas markets you’re working — sharing the actual plays they ran.

John Barr’s session on maximizing ROI as the listing agent for your own flips doesn’t end with a program pitch. It ends with the specific inspection strategy decisions — the ones between offer acceptance and closing — where investor-agents are either making or giving back $8,000 without realizing it. That’s a class from someone running these deals himself in San Antonio, not a coach who did three flips in 2019 and has been selling courses since.

---

Myth 2: “The networking is the real value — the content is just filler between hallway conversations”

This gets said about every event, and it’s a defense mechanism for events where the content genuinely is filler. If the sessions are soft, of course the hallway is better.

At Black Sheep, the sessions are the competition. Alan Seschger runs two back-to-back sessions: one on Subject-To, one on novations and JV agreements. Those are two completely different acquisition tools with different legal structures, different seller conversations, and different exit strategies. That’s not a 50,000-foot overview — that’s a practitioner unpacking the in-between decisions that determine whether a creative deal closes or falls apart at the title company.

The networking is real and it’s good. But you don’t skip the sessions to network. You network because you met someone in the sessions who’s running the same strategy you are.

---

Myth 3: “If you’re a newbie, wait until you’ve done a deal first”

This myth is actively expensive. Waiting to learn until you “have more experience” means spending the next 12 months learning the hard way — on your own money — lessons that a half-day session would have handed you in September.

The Houston event (September 26–27) has an explicit newbie series covering marketing, financing, and deal vetting. That’s not a beginner-shaming participation ribbon. That’s a structured track built around the three places where new investors lose the most money before they ever close their first deal: spending on the wrong marketing channels, accepting the wrong financing terms, and underwriting deals without a real exit strategy.

You don’t need experience to attend. You need experience to teach. Those are different jobs, and the speakers have the second one covered.

---

Myth 4: “One-day tickets are for people who aren’t serious”

The implication is that if you’re a real operator, you do the full event or you don’t bother. This is just status posturing dressed up as conviction.

The reality: a one-day option exists because some people have constraints — a listing appointment they can’t move, a closing scheduled, a family obligation. The content on either day stands on its own. Apartment syndications, what’s going wrong for investors in that space and the specific structural mistakes to avoid, is a full session — not a teaser for Day 2.

If you can do both days, do both days. Nobody who’s ever come regrets the full event. But choosing one day over zero days is not a sign of commitment problems. It’s math.

---

Myth 5: “The real training is online now — conventions are a 2015 thing”

YouTube is free and YouTube has produced more confused, contradictory real estate education than any guru convention ever did. The problem with free online content isn’t access — it’s that it’s optimized for views, not for outcomes. Controversy and conflict get clicks. Nuance and specificity don’t.

The question “should I use Sub-2 or a novation here?” doesn’t have a YouTube answer you can trust because the right answer depends on the seller’s specific mortgage terms, the equity position, your intended exit, and the local title company’s appetite for the structure. That’s a conversation, not a thumbnail.

What you get at Black Sheep is the back-and-forth — the moment after the session when you catch the speaker and describe your actual deal and get an actual read on it. That transfer doesn’t happen through a screen at 1.5x speed.

---

The myth that survives longest is the first one — that every event is the same event. It’s worth questioning. The Black Sheep Convention Houston is September 26–27. Full event or one-day option. Operators only on stage. Real deals, real training, no back-of-room close.

That’s either your kind of event or it isn’t. But don’t skip it because of what happened at the other one.

---

Most people teaching sub2 describe it like this: “You take over the seller’s existing loan.” Cool. Now what? What does the actual offer look like? What do you tell the title company? What happens when State Farm laughs at you?

This is the El Paso deal — broken down step by step with every number. A two-year-old house near the military base, ARV $480K, sitting vacant, VA loan at $430K, rate of 5.7%, monthly payment $3,656. Here’s exactly what we did and where deals like this fall apart.

---

Step 1: Qualify It in 2 Minutes — Three Numbers, That’s It

Before you drive anywhere, run these three:

Loan balance vs. ARV. $430K loan against a $480K house. $50K gap. You’re not buying distressed equity here — you’re buying an interest rate. In a market where new financing prices at 7%+, a locked 5.7% fixed is the asset. That’s what you’re acquiring.

Monthly payment vs. market rent. $3,656/month PITI. Single-family near a military base in El Paso rents for $2,800–$3,200. That spread means a straight rental doesn’t work — you’d be -$400 to -$850/month. Knowing this before the appointment means you go in already knowing this deal needs a wrap or a short-term appreciation hold. You don’t waste an hour negotiating a deal you don’t have an exit for.

Seller motivation. Vacant plus military base means either a PCS move or an inherited property. This one PCS’d. No emotional attachment to the house. They need it gone quickly and cleanly. Speed is your offer.

The mistake that blows Step 1: Assuming all sub2 deals cash flow day one. They don’t. Run the payment-to-rent math before you walk in the door — not after you’re already attached to the deal.

---

Step 2: Structure the Offer — How the Numbers Stack

Purchase price: $430K (the loan balance — no new financing). Seller walking money: roughly 5% of purchase price, so under $24K. Hold period: 36 months. The seller originally listed at market ($480K); we came in $50K under. They offered 3% commission and were flexible on fee structure.

Here’s the actual stack:

• Your purchase price: $430K
• Your cash in: $20K–22K seller walking money + closing costs = roughly $25K all-in
• Rate you inherited: 5.7% fixed — immune to Fed moves, rate hikes, whatever
• Term you locked: 36 months before you refi, sell, or hand it off on a wrap

One note on the commission structure: this seller offered 3% listing-side and was open on stacking. At StepStone, our agents can actually work these deals — most brokerages ban their agents from sub2 and wrap transactions entirely. That’s not a boast; it’s just math. If your brokerage forbids it, you’re leaving a growing deal type on the table every time a seller can’t get a straight payoff.

The mistake that blows Step 2: Letting the seller anchor on their $480K list price and trying to grind them down. Don’t. Reframe the conversation around the loan balance and what they walk away with in cash. Retail price is irrelevant when no payoff check is coming.

---

Step 3: Lock Insurance Before You Touch Anything Else — Budget 5 to 7 Business Days

This is where deals die quietly.

Your Allstate, your State Farm — companies built for standard owner-occupied single-family — have real trouble with sub2. It’s not that it’s illegal. It’s that their underwriting systems aren’t built for “named insured isn’t the mortgagor.” They’ll either decline outright or write you something that doesn’t satisfy the lender’s escrow requirements, which means your deal doesn’t close.

You need a carrier that can shop multiple underwriters and has actually done this before. When you find the right one, this is a 5-to-7 business day process, not a 4-week crawl. But you have to find them before you sign the contract, not after.

Build a short list of non-standard market carriers in your area. Call them with one direct question: “I’m purchasing a property subject-to existing financing. The mortgage stays in the seller’s name. Can you write a policy that names me as additional insured and satisfies the lender’s escrow requirement?” Their answer in the first 30 seconds tells you whether to call the next one.

The mistake that blows Step 3: Calling State Farm on Monday assuming you’ll have binders by Thursday. By the time you figure out they can’t write it, you’ve burned 10 days and your seller is re-listing.

---

Step 4: Call Three Title Companies, Use One — 21 to 30 Days to Close

Sub2 does not automatically trigger the due-on-sale clause. Lenders have historically not called performing loans. But not every title company knows this, and the ones who don’t will either refuse to close or stall you for six weeks while they figure it out.

Call three title companies before you go under contract. Ask directly: “Have you closed a subject-to transaction where the existing mortgage stayed in place? How many in the last 12 months?”

One confident “yes, regularly” beats three “we’d have to check with our underwriters.”

In Texas, a clean sub2 closes in 21–30 days with the right title company. If they quote you 45+, they’re telling you they’ve never done it.

The mistake that blows Step 4: Picking the title company because they’re the cheapest or closest to the property. You need one that’s closed these deals, not one that’s willing to learn on yours.

---

Step 5: Exit With the Math, Not the Hope — Three Real Outcomes

Wrap it (highest return). Sell on owner financing at $510K, 7.5%, 5% down. That’s $25,500 upfront — covers nearly your entire cash-in. Buyer’s payment: roughly $3,775/month. Your monthly spread: ~$119/month plus the down payment plus equity appreciation. You’re profiting on three separate mechanisms simultaneously.

Rent it (negative carry, appreciation play). At $3,200 rent, you’re -$456/month against your $3,656 payment. Only makes sense if you’re in a military market with strong appreciation history and you plan to refi in 24 months below a rate that pencils. Cash flow play it is not.

Wholesale it (fastest exit, zero holding). Package the deal — property details, loan terms, 5.7% rate, payment, hold structure — and sell the contract to another investor for a $10K–$20K assignment fee. You never close. You never carry insurance. You collect and move to the next one.

Make the mess, then clean up the mess. Get the deal signed. Then decide which of those three exits fits your current position. Do not wait for perfect clarity before making an offer — you’ll talk yourself out of every good deal that comes across your desk.

The mistake that blows Step 5: Engineering the exit strategy before you have a signed contract. Deciding which buyer to find, which market to hold through, which rate to refi at — all of that before there’s a deal. There’s no deal to engineer.

---

The Number That Doesn’t Show Up in the Spreadsheet

$430K at 5.7% fixed in a 7%+ market is not just a below-market rate. It’s a product that no longer exists. You’re not selling a house — you’re selling access to financing conditions that new buyers cannot get anywhere else. That’s why a buyer pays retail (or above it) on a wrap. That’s the actual trade.

Gurus teach you to hunt distressed equity. Sub2 is different. You’re hunting a rate and structuring around it.

We walk through live deals exactly like this one at Black Sheep Convention — not the concept of subject-to, but actual deal breakdowns with real sellers, title agents, and exit buyers in the room telling you what happened and what nearly tanked it. That’s the format. Real numbers, real mistakes, real Monday-morning moves.

---

Here’s a pattern you’ve seen if you’ve been to any major real estate event in the last five years: a guy walks onstage, shows you a lifestyle photo, runs you through a “proprietary system,” and by minute forty-five, someone in a headset is walking the aisle with an order form.

That’s not education. That’s a sales funnel with a keynote attached.

The guru model has a specific business problem: if you actually learn to do the thing, you stop paying for courses about the thing. So the curriculum is always just enough to make you feel behind — never enough to make you independent. That’s by design.

I’m not guessing at this. I run a brokerage. I talk to agents and investors every week who dropped serious money on “masterminds” and came away with a Discord server and a homework assignment.

Here’s what they didn’t get — and what I’ll just tell you straight.

---

Your Brokerage Doesn’t Know What a Wrap Is, and That’s Your Opportunity

Most brokerages won’t let their agents present owner financing or wraps to sellers. That’s partly liability management, partly company policy — and partly because the broker themselves couldn’t explain the mechanics if you put them on the spot.

At StepStone, we train our agents on these tools. Not as a gimmick — as a real skill set for a real market condition.

Here’s the situation it solves: you’ve got a seller with a low-rate mortgage (say, 3.5% from 2021), equity in the house, and a buyer who can’t quite hit the conventional financing bar. A traditional agent sees a dead deal. An agent who understands wraps sees a path. The seller keeps their loan in place, the buyer gets the property on terms that work, and you close something that everyone else walked away from.

In a slow market, the ability to structure a deal nobody else can touch is not a nice-to-have. It’s the difference between an agent with a pipeline and an agent refreshing Zillow.

---

The Credit Union Rate Gap Is Real and Nobody’s Teaching It

A recent deal we had in San Antonio closed at roughly 6.0% with about two points — through a local credit union — while conventional quotes were sitting near 6.99%. That’s not a rounding error. On a $350,000 loan, the difference in monthly payment is over $150. Over thirty years, it’s a different life for the buyer.

Most agents hand their buyer off to a preferred lender and consider their job done. That preferred lender arrangement isn’t always about who gives your buyer the best rate — it’s about who sends you a thank-you gift card.

Tell your buyers to call at least three lenders. Make sure one of them is a credit union. Send them in educated, not just hopeful. That’s not complicated advice — it’s just the advice that doesn’t generate referral income for anyone in the transaction, so nobody says it.

---

You Don’t Need to Pay for That List

If you’re getting into REO or BPO work, you’ve probably seen ads for asset manager contact lists. $99. $140. “Exclusive access.”

Here’s what most of those paid lists are: public information, reformatted and resold. You can register directly with BPO companies by Googling “BPO companies for real estate agents” and working through the results yourself. Free. Takes an afternoon.

REO work is legitimate and can be profitable — but it’s operationally heavy, the margins get squeezed, and the asset managers are picky about performance metrics. Before you spend money on a shortcut to that business, spend two hours verifying whether the shortcut is actually shorter than just going direct.

The gurus selling those lists know you won’t verify it. That’s the whole bet.

---

On Buying From Wholesalers

We have a specific position on New Western and operations like it: you’re selling to them, not working with them. They take all the meat on the bone. By the time a deal flows through their funnel to you, the spread that made it attractive is already gone.

That’s not a moral judgment — it’s just math. If you want wholesale deal flow, you need your own acquisition pipeline. That means your own marketing, your own seller conversations, your own direct relationships. The intermediary wholesaler makes the process feel easier and makes the economics work for them, not you.

The investors in our network who are actually moving properties built those direct channels. It’s harder than buying from a list. It’s also the only version that has margins worth talking about.

---

What We Do Differently at Black Sheep

We don’t do the pitch-from-stage thing. No back-of-the-room close. No “act now and get the bonus module.” Nobody walks the aisle with an order form.

Black Sheep Convention is operators and investors swapping real stories — the deals that worked, the ones that didn’t, the screening call that saved an agent from a dangerous situation, the creative structure that closed a deal nobody else could touch. Real training you can use Monday morning.

If you’ve been burned by the guru circuit, I get it. The model is designed to keep you paying. Ours is designed to make you not need us anymore — which, oddly, is why people keep coming back.

---

The move: Stop auditing the conference circuit and start vetting what the speakers have actually closed in the last twelve months. A speaker with a $25,000 mastermind and two closed deals last year is selling lifestyle, not expertise. Find the operators — the ones too busy doing deals to build a following — and learn from them. That’s exactly who’s in the room at Black Sheep.

---

The usual take is that real estate conferences are boring because the speakers are dry. That’s wrong. They’re boring because boring is the business model.

Think about what a typical guru event actually sells: a weekend ticket at $997, a back-of-room offer for a $25,000 mastermind, and somewhere in the middle, just enough “content” to keep you in your seat long enough to hear the pitch. The education isn’t the product. You are. A stimulated, critically thinking audience is a hard sell. A passive, slightly glazed audience sitting in a hotel ballroom after lunch? That’s the target demo.

I’ve been in this industry long enough to have sat through a lot of those rooms. Real estate operators taking notes on slides they’ll never implement, waiting on the next “exclusive offer available today only.” It’s not that the speakers don’t know their stuff. It’s that what they actually know isn’t what they’re there to share.

What Actually Transfers Knowledge (And What Doesn’t)

Here’s the mechanism that actually works: an operator who closed 40 sub-2 deals last year sitting across from an operator who’s trying to close their first one, working through the actual objections, the actual numbers, the actual seller conversation that went sideways.

Not a keynote. A debrief.

The difference between education and entertainment at a real estate event is specificity. “Creative financing is the future” is entertainment. “Here’s exactly how we structured a subject-to on a property with a $187k balance and a seller who needed $4,000 to move — and here’s the Non-Realty Items Addendum we used to get her that money without it showing on the HUD” is education you can use Monday morning.

That specific tactic, by the way — the TREC Non-Realty Items Addendum — is something Texas investors sleep on. Seller can’t receive sale proceeds but desperately needs cash to move? Buyer pays a separate line item for personal property: the fridge, the mower, the patio furniture. $250k for the house, $1k for the appliances. That $1k doesn’t hit the real property column. The seller gets walking-around money. The deal closes. That’s a real war story from a real deal, and it took about 90 seconds to explain. You will never hear that in a pitch-fest because there’s no $25,000 product attached to it.

Okay, Here’s When the Conventional Wisdom Is Right

The people who say real estate events are worth attending aren’t wrong that networking matters. Half-point drop in interest rates last quarter and mortgage applications jumped 16.8% in a single week. The buyers who were sitting on the fence are flooding back into the market right now. If you’re a wholesaler or a sub-to investor and you need a buyer pipeline, your buyer list should be the thing you’re working on every day — and yeah, showing up in rooms where serious investors gather is how you build that list fast.

The conventional conference just happens to be the wrong room. Networking with 400 people who are all trying to sell each other courses is not the same as sitting in a room with 80 operators who are actively buying.

When someone tells you to “attend events to grow your network,” they’re right about the goal and wrong about the execution.

What We Built Instead

Black Sheep Convention exists because we got tired of the alternative. No stage pitches. No five-figure back-of-room upsells. No speaker who’s going to dangle the “real information” behind a paywall they announce from the podium.

What we run is closer to a field debrief. Operators in the trenches — people doing wholesales, sub-to acquisitions, creative finance deals right now — showing their work. Real numbers. Real deals you can reverse-engineer. The kind of stuff that’s genuinely uncomfortable to share publicly because it requires you to admit exactly how a deal worked, including the part where something almost went wrong.

We also don’t glorify the 24/7 grind. Real estate culture has a weird fetish for burnout. “I slept four hours and still sent 200 mailers” is not a flex — it’s a systems failure. The operators who actually build lasting portfolios build systems that run without them in constant intervention mode. That’s what we teach and that’s how we operate.

The One Question Worth Asking Before Any Event

Before you register for any real estate event, ask: how does this event make its money?

If the answer is ticket sales plus speaker splits on back-of-room offers, you’re about to sit through a very expensive infomercial. If the answer is ticket sales, full stop, and the speakers are there because they have something real to share — you might actually learn something.

Real estate events that aren’t boring aren’t rare because interesting people don’t exist. They’re rare because the boring format is profitable. We built Black Sheep because we’d rather have a room full of 80 people who leave with actionable material than a ballroom of 500 who leave with a credit card charge they regret by Tuesday.

Come meet the operators. Hear the war stories. Take notes you’ll actually use.

---

Picture this deal.

Houston, 2024. A buy-and-hold investor finds a motivated seller on a dated ranch home in Pasadena. The seller is tired, owes almost nothing, and open to carrying the note. No bank needed. This is exactly the kind of deal where creative finance prints money.

They shake hands on $185,000. Seller carries $150,000 at 7%, 30-year amortization. The buyer’s PI payment: $998 a month. Taxes and insurance run another $400. Totally workable numbers. The buyer runs the math, pencils out a small cash flow, and says yes.

Then somebody fills out the Seller Financing Addendum.

They put $1,398 in the Note Payment box.

Not $998. $1,398. Principal, interest, plus escrow — combined — in the box that’s supposed to define what the note payment is.

Here’s the problem: the Note Payment box doesn’t mean “what you pay per month.” It defines the promissory note — the legal instrument, the document that says what the buyer owes and what happens when they miss it. Escrow isn’t part of the note. Escrow is collected separately, on top, and it shifts every year when tax rates change. The moment you combine them, you’ve legally committed the buyer to a payment $400 higher than anything they agreed to.

The buyer shows up to closing. The note says $1,398. The buyer says they agreed to $998. Both are correct. One is their memory. One is the signed contract. Guess which one the title company cares about.

The deal almost died in the closing room.

What saved it was a sharp title agent who had seen this exact mistake before and slowed everyone down long enough to get an amended addendum signed. That costs time, costs trust, and sometimes — when the seller is already skittish — costs the deal entirely.

This seller almost walked. From her seat, the buyer was changing the deal at the last possible second. She wasn’t wrong to be suspicious. The paperwork said one thing. Now they were asking her to sign something different. The explanation was logical. The trust damage was real.

---

What to steal from this.

The Note Payment box on the Texas Seller Financing Addendum belongs to the note only — principal and interest, period. Escrow is a separate disclosure, handled outside the promissory note so it can flex without triggering a modification every time the county reassesses.

Run your addendum by somebody who has closed more than a dozen of these before you sign anything. Better yet, know the form cold enough to catch it yourself in real time.

This isn’t obscure knowledge. It’s the difference between a deal and a disaster. And it’s precisely the kind of thing that never comes up in a standard CE class where an instructor walks you through the form without once telling you where the bodies are buried.

---

Why this story belongs at the black sheep real estate convention.

At the Black Sheep Convention, Alan Seschger doesn’t teach Sub-2 theory from a slide deck. He teaches the part of Sub-2 that burned somebody — specifically the moment when the paperwork diverges from the conversation, and what you do when you’re standing in a closing room at 4 PM trying to figure out whose fault it is.

That’s the format. That’s what makes it different. There’s no version of this story where a keynote speaker hands you a framework about mindset and you leave Monday knowing how to handle a blown addendum. You learn this from somebody who has been in that room.

This September in Houston, Alan runs two sessions: one on Sub-2, one on novations and JV agreements. Same format both times — real deals, real paperwork, real screw-ups that got sorted or didn’t. You get the story and you get the clause that stops you from living it yourself.

The newbie series runs parallel: marketing, financing, and vetting deals — taught the same way. Not a lecture. Not a pitch. Not a back-of-the-room upsell into a $15,000 mastermind. Just operators teaching other operators what took years to learn the expensive way.

September 26–27. Houston. StepStone agents get in for $249 full event, or you can pick one day. Nobody who has shown up has ever said they wished they’d stayed home. The food’s good too.

But the addendum box thing? Don’t wait. Pull your last seller finance contract right now and check whether the Note Payment includes escrow. If it does, go have a very uncomfortable conversation with your title company about what that actually means.

The convention will teach you fifty more situations exactly like this one. But this one you can fix today.

---

• How Seller Financing Works in Texas
• Subject-To Real Estate: What You Need to Know Before You Sign
• Black Sheep Convention Houston — Schedule and Speakers
• Novations vs. Assignments: What Texas Investors Get Wrong
• StepStone CE Classes for Texas Agents

Every Facebook real estate group has the same 300 people repeating the same four things about sub2 and wholesaling. They say it with confidence. They’ve never closed one of these deals. The myths survive because the people spreading them have never been in a room where someone walks through an actual closing — numbers, structure, insurance carrier, and all.

Here’s what the war stories actually teach you.

Myth 1: “The bank will call the loan the second you do a subject-to”

This one has scared more investors off more deals than any other piece of conventional wisdom in creative finance. The fear is real — due-on-sale clauses exist, lenders technically can call the note — so the myth stays alive because it’s based on something true.

Here’s the mechanism that kills it: servicers get paid to collect payments, not to call performing loans. A loan that’s current, on a property in good shape, with insurance in place, gives a servicer zero economic incentive to trigger acceleration. They’d have to take the property back, manage a REO disposition, and explain to investors why they called a clean-paying note. That math doesn’t work in their favor.

Take the El Paso deal we walked through: 2-year-old home near a military base, $480k value, sitting vacant. We structured it as a VA subject-to at the loan balance — $430,000 — at 5.7%, $3,656/month, 36-month term. That loan has been performing. The lender isn’t touching it.

The due-on-sale clause is a speed bump, not a wall. Treat it like one.

Myth 2: “No seller in their right mind stays on the loan — sub2 deals don’t actually happen”

Walk into any room of conventional real estate agents and they’ll tell you sellers would never agree to leave their name on a mortgage they no longer own. What they’re missing is why a seller calls you in the first place.

The El Paso seller wasn’t sitting comfortably in their home debating offer price. That house was vacant. They were bleeding $3,656 a month on a property they couldn’t unload at full retail in that market. The sub2 structure was their exit. They offered 3% commission, stayed flexible on fee stacking, and structured around what a VA buyer at 5% down looks like — which meant coming in $50,000 under market value.

Sellers who need options beyond a straight payoff don’t care that their name stays on the loan. They care about stopping the monthly hemorrhage. That’s who calls a creative finance investor. When the pain is specific and the numbers are concrete, “I’ll take over your loan payments” sounds like salvation.

The myth survives because conventional agents are looking at motivated sellers through the lens of a traditional transaction. Sub2 exists in the gap those agents can’t see.

Myth 3: “Your broker won’t let you participate, so sub2 and wraps aren’t a real business model for licensed agents”

This one’s actually true for most brokerages — and that’s the problem.

Most brokerages blanket-prohibit their agents from listing or participating in subject-to and wrap transactions. No training, no policy, just “don’t touch it.” Their risk management team saw a liability issue and shut the whole thing down rather than build a framework for it.

At StepStone, we allow it. With training and policy compliance.

In a softening market where sellers have burned through their equity cushion, where cash buyers have thinned out, where the 7% rate wall is shutting down conventional buyers — an agent who can say “here’s three ways I can help you move this property” is in a completely different conversation than an agent who can only offer one. Sub2 and wraps are options. Options close deals.

If your broker has told you it’s off-limits without offering any training or policy path forward, that’s not risk management. That’s a competitive disadvantage disguised as compliance.

Myth 4: “Wholesale and sub2 are two separate strategies — pick one and stick with it”

The Facebook group version of creative finance loves hard categories. You’re a wholesaler or you’re a sub2 investor. Choose your tribe.

Real operators stay fluid because real leads don’t arrive pre-sorted.

Short sale leads are the clearest example. Take one lead. Three completely different ways to monetize it:

1. List it — handle the seller-side agency, bring in a short sale specialist for the lender negotiation. Typical structure: 3% listing / 2% buyer’s agent / 1% processing.
2. Buy it yourself — come in as the investor-buyer. Your broker acts as buyer’s agent on paper, because lenders won’t cut a check to a buyer who’s simultaneously the buyer.
3. Wholesale it hands-off — forward the lead to another investor, collect 40% of the release-of-option fee at close. Zero hours on the phone with the lender’s loss mitigation department.

Same lead. Three exits. The tool you reach for depends on your cash position, your timeline, and the specific deal structure. The investors who are rigid about “I only wholesale” or “I only do sub2” are leaving money on the table every time a lead lands sideways.

---

The war stories that actually teach you something aren’t the polished retrospectives where everything worked perfectly. They’re the deals where the insurance carrier said no and someone had to find an underwriter who understood sub2 policies. Where the seller said yes and the conventional listing agent in the deal had no idea how to handle the paperwork. Where the exit strategy changed three times before closing.

That’s what gets walked through at the Black Sheep Convention. Not theory. The numbers, the structure, the problems, and how they got solved — so you can copy the approach Monday morning.

Nobody who shows up ever says they wasted their weekend.

---

The real estate game isn’t just about properties and deals; it’s about the connections you forge and the knowledge you share along the way. If you’re tired of the stale, stuffy, and oh-so-boring agent conferences, welcome to the Black Sheep Convention! Here, we shake things up and redefine what networking for real estate investors looks like. Get ready to dive into a world where creative financing and unconventional strategies are the norms, and where your next deal could just be a conversation away.

Why Networking Matters in Real Estate

The Power of Connection

In real estate, your network is your net worth. Think about it: the more people you know, the more opportunities you can access. Networking isn’t just about swapping business cards; it’s about building relationships that lead to collaborations, partnerships, and yes, deals that actually make you money. When you connect with other investors, you gain insights that can transform your approach and outcome.

Expanding Your Knowledge Base

At the Black Sheep Convention, we don’t just exchange pleasantries; we share actionable insights. You’ll learn from seasoned investors who’ve been through the trenches and emerged victorious. We’re all about real talk, real experiences, and real successes. Our workshops are designed to give you hands-on training in creative financing and wholesaling techniques that you won’t find in traditional real estate courses.

The Black Sheep Convention Experience

Unique Workshops and Training

Forget the typical lectures. Our workshops are interactive and designed to get you involved! You’ll work on real-world scenarios and collaborate with fellow investors. Whether you’re interested in mastering the art of negotiation or learning how to craft a winning pitch for potential partners, we’ve got you covered. Expect to leave with not just knowledge but a toolbox of skills you can implement immediately.

Networking Like a Pro

Networking shouldn’t feel like a chore; it should be exhilarating! At the Black Sheep Convention, we create an environment that fosters genuine connections. Our events include speed networking sessions, breakout discussions, and fun social gatherings. Get ready to meet like-minded rebels who are just as hungry for success as you are. You never know who you might meet—perhaps your next deal-making partner or a mentor who can guide you through your next big move.

Real Success Stories from Fellow Investors

Learn from the Best

We believe in the power of storytelling. Throughout the convention, you’ll hear from successful investors who dared to be different. These aren’t just cookie-cutter stories; they’re raw, real, and relatable. They’ll inspire you to think outside the box and embrace unconventional strategies that can lead to massive success.

Case Studies and Lessons Learned

We don’t just want you to hear success stories; we want you to learn from them! That’s why we host sessions where investors share their journeys—complete with their failures, successes, and the lessons learned along the way. This is the real stuff that can help you avoid pitfalls and seize opportunities in your own investing career.

Join the Movement

Why You Should Attend

If you’re ready to break free from the mundane and elevate your investing game, the Black Sheep Convention is your ticket. This isn’t just another event; it’s a movement. Together, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in real estate investing.

How to Get Involved

Joining us is easy! Simply head over to our website, grab your ticket, and get ready to turn your real estate dreams into reality. Don’t forget to bring your business cards because this is one network you won’t want to miss.

Conclusion: The Future of Real Estate is Here

Networking for real estate investors at the Black Sheep Convention is not just about making connections; it’s about creating a community of forward-thinking individuals ready to disrupt the status quo. Ready to join us? The revolution is just a ticket away!

The conventional wisdom says go to more conferences, meet more people, grow your business. Here’s what nobody says out loud: most real estate conference “networking” is just you, a room full of other ticket-holders, and a shared suspicion that the speaker is about to close hard on something.

That’s not networking. That’s a waiting room.

The Conference Revenue Model Makes the Room Worse

Pay-to-play speaker slots are standard in this industry. A speaker pays a fee — or agrees to give a cut of back-of-room sales — in exchange for 45 minutes on stage. The organizer makes money. The speaker makes money if they close hard enough. The attendee gets a pitch dressed up as a presentation.

Here’s the perverse effect: the speakers who end up on those stages are the ones who need the stage to sell product. The operators actually closing Sub-2 deals every month, running apartment syndications, flipping novations — they don’t need to pay to speak. They’re busy doing deals.

So the celebrities at most conferences are famous precisely because they’re conference speakers. It’s a self-reinforcing loop. And the audience self-selects to match: people who bought tickets to be near a famous name, not people who are out closing deals.

You cannot network your way to better deals when everyone in the room is also shopping for deals.

What Happens When You Flip the Model

At the Black Sheep Convention — Houston, September 26–27 — Angie and I built the speaker lineup differently. No pay-to-play. No back-of-room close. No five-figure “mentorship” pitch from the stage.

Every speaker is someone we know personally and trust. They do it for free, because that’s what keeps the room full of operators instead of salespeople.

What does that look like in practice?

Alan Seschger is doing two sessions. First one: Subject-To — real mechanics, real deal structures, what actually goes sideways on a Sub-2 and how he handles it when it does. Second session: novations and JV agreements. Not a pitch. A workshop. Alan is doing these deals right now. He’s not trying to sell you on the concept of Sub-2 — he’s showing you the contract language, the seller conversation, the exact moment where most investors leave money on the table or blow the deal entirely.

There’s also a full apartment syndications session on what’s going wrong for investors in this market and how to spot the structural problems before you’re the one holding the bag when rates reset.

And a newbie series — not “is real estate investing right for you?” but the actual filters and frameworks you run before you ever make an offer: how to find motivated sellers, how to evaluate creative financing structures, how to vet a deal so you stop stepping on rakes.

The sessions are hands-on training. At StepStone, when we teach agents the Seller Financing Addendum, we don’t just walk through the form in theory. We show them the exact payment box where agents routinely drop “PI plus escrow” and blindside a buyer with a number they never agreed to — a mistake that blows up closings and kills agent-buyer relationships. The Black Sheep Convention runs the same way: real situations, real mistakes, real fixes you can use Monday morning.

When Conventional Wisdom Is Actually Right

Here’s what I’ll give the “go to more conferences” crowd: networking does work — when the room has the right people in it.

Twenty active Sub-2 investors and eight syndicators who’ve been through a market cycle in one room? The coffee break alone is worth the ticket. You’ll hear what’s working in Houston right now, who’s sitting on a deal they can’t carry alone, which lenders are actually closing on non-conventional structures. Real information from people with skin in the game.

The problem isn’t conferences. The problem is the incentive structure that fills most rooms with aspiring investors who are still deciding whether real estate “is right for them.” Those people are not your next deal partner. They’re in the same research phase you were in two years ago.

Black Sheep is $249 for the full event. StepStone agents can grab the agent rate or come for one day. Nobody who’s come has walked out saying the weekend wasn’t worth it — not once. They learn something real, they meet people who are actually doing the thing, and the food is always legitimately good (I know that sounds like a small thing, but you notice it when you’ve eaten rubber chicken at enough hotel ballroom events).

The Room Reflects the Culture

You cannot manufacture a room full of operators with marketing copy. You do it by booking speakers who are operators, setting a structure where nobody has to pitch to recoup their costs, and building a track record where the working investors actually show up.

When the room is right, the sessions are sharper, the hallway conversations turn into actual deals, and you leave with things to do — not things to think about.

Most real estate conferences give you a stage. We give you a room.

---