The Wisconsin Investor
Each week, we bring you interviews with some of Wisconsin's top real estate investors who share their tips, tricks, and strategies that you can implement right away. This show is dedicated to helping Wisconsin real estate investors elevate their game. Along with interviews, I'll also dive into hot topics in solo episodes and feature experts from various real estate sectors across Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Investor
Unlocking the World of Seller Financing and Creative Strategies with Attorney Sean St. Clair
Unlock the secrets of real estate law and creative finance with insights from our esteemed guest, Attorney Sean St Clair. Are you eager to master the art of LLC formation for optimal asset protection? Sean shares his expertise on creating a corporate veil and the importance of proper business operations to shield personal assets. We also explore Sean's inspiring mission work with Missional Law, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting injustice in Malawi by securing the release of wrongfully imprisoned individuals.
Embark on a journey through the complexities of structuring LLCs and discover creative finance strategies like subject to deals and wrap mortgages. With a focus on Wisconsin and Arizona, Sean guides us through the nuances of seller financing, land contracts, and wrap notes. He offers practical advice on balancing risk and operational ease, empowering listeners to make informed decisions in real estate investments. Dive into the dynamics of mortgage lending in Arizona versus Wisconsin, and learn about the challenges and opportunities presented by entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Round off your learning experience by exploring the powerful work of Missional Law, where Sean's passion for justice shines. Discover how collaborative efforts with local legal professionals in Malawi have led to the release of over 150 prisoners. Plus, learn how you can support this noble cause. Don't miss the chance to hear about the Creative Finance Collective's live Q&A sessions, offering a unique opportunity to tap into the knowledge of creative finance experts from across the nation.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode. I am super excited because today I have the honor of interviewing Mr Attorney Sean St Clair. Sean, how are you doing today? Sir Doing well, corey, how are you? I'm doing great, man, I'm doing great. Appreciate you joining me here today. I'm really excited to get in this conversation with you. We had you as a guest on a panel a couple of months ago where we were discussing all things creative finance and seller finance, and the response I got from the audience was awesome. I mean, everybody was saying how much value they gained from that and how much insight they gained. And so, man, you come with a lot of knowledge in the creative finance space. I'm sure that's not the only thing you're really smart at, but I wanted to get you out here today to talk creative finance and have our audience get to know you a little bit. So I'm really excited for this conversation.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Corey. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I appreciate the invite and I'm excited about our conversation here.
Speaker 1:Well, let's do this, then let's dive right into it. Can you just give us our audience, kind of a quick background on who is Sean St Clair? Where do you practice? How did you get into the real estate kind of sector of law?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm an attorney licensed in Arizona and Wisconsin and as an attorney, I'm going to provide a little legal disclaimer here before we get started. So the information I'm providing is just that it's information. It's not legal advice. So I may talk about some you know legal ideas, topics, even concepts, but it is not legal advice. It's not specific advice. You're not to rely upon it and go and try to enter a transaction based upon what we talk about. Instead, what you need to do is you need to engage a competent attorney in the state where the property that you're looking to enter into a transaction on is located and work with them and obtain specific legal advice for any transaction from a licensed and competent attorney in that particular state. So, with that disclaimer, I'm a partner with the law firm of Fowler St Clair. We have offices in Scottsdale, arizona, and Sheboygan, wisconsin as well as I'm not licensed there, but we do have offices in Georgia as well, wisconsin as well as I'm not licensed there, but we do have offices in Georgia as well.
Speaker 2:Cool, our firm is a business and real estate space law firm. Anything that touches real estate we generally can handle, with a few limited exceptions. So my practice is transactional based, which means that I work with primarily real estate investors in their business and real estate needs. So that could be anywhere from estate planning, because when you do business planning you really should have an estate plan at the top of that structure.
Speaker 2:So, estate planning, setting up their organizational structure and then setting up their transactions, real estate transactions whether that is figuring out how best to structure the transaction to make it work or how best to paper the transaction based upon the structure that the parties have agreed to so basically, all things real estate, um, and so that's what I, what, what basically my day job is Uh, I do um also run a uh 501c3 nonprofit called missional law that uh works to um uh, uh obtain the release of wrongfully imprisoned men and women in Malawi, africa. So that's what I do on the side and what my passion is. I'm also passionate about practicing law, but it's just kind of different passions for me and just something else that I do in addition to practicing law day in and day out.
Speaker 1:I love that man Well, I want to talk about that before we wrap this podcast. So if I forget about it, sean, at the end you just bring that back up, because I think that's such a cool passion that you have and something that I got exposed to following you on Facebook a little bit on your most recent trip over there, and so there were some really interesting things that I think you know. At the time we're recording this, it's right after the 4th of July. You know, I think a lot of us here in the States take our freedom for granted, take our system for granted as broken as we all think it is. Right now, whatever side of the political spectrum you're on, you could probably offer some pretty good insights on just how good we got it over here, so let's dive into that at the end.
Speaker 1:I want to go back to something you said, though. You said you help folks with their estate planning and kind of setting up the business from the front end. Would you recommend? I mean, if somebody's saying, hey, corey, I got my first deal coming up nothing creative finance, just a standard I'm going to pick up a rental property Is that the best time to start engaging with someone like yourself, to start setting this up. What's your recommendation? When, when or what do you see as best practice there?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Anytime you're going to invest in real estate, you should create a separation between your personal real estate holdings you know whether that's a primary residence, a second home, but something that you're going to utilize individually and what you're going to hold as an investment. And the way you separate those two is through the formation, generally, of a limited liability company or an LLC, and I normally recommend just forming it in the state where the property is going to be located or the state that you reside, whichever one makes the most sense. I do assist clients with anonymity, which it was the formation of Wyoming and Delaware LLCs. I'm not a huge anonymity proponent. I don't push it. I don't think it's necessary. Really, what's necessary is to basically form an LLC which creates that corporate veil and operate that LLC in the property as you would a business. So don't commingle personal assets. Keep a separate bank account, file taxes, do the whole thing that you're supposed to do if you were operating a business and keep it separate from your personal assets. So yeah, from day one I would say that if you're out there shopping for, looking for, about to buy your first investment property, have an LLC.
Speaker 2:I do a little bit of investing and I won't get into it, but we have this whole thing called the Corporate Transparency Act. But I used to have always a couple of LLCs on the shelf that were just formed and then, if I, you know, found a property. I had one that stayed on the shelf for a couple of years and just you know, it was there and we found a prop. My wife and I found a property, we bought it and sure enough, you know, here's the LLC. We got the EIN for it at that point in time and we bought the property in that LLC. So each state's a little bit different. Fortunately, in Arizona, once you form it, you can forget it. There's no additional annual reporting fees or anything like that.
Speaker 2:So I was able to basically form it, keep it on the shelf for no additional costs, no, nothing to worry about and then just pulled it out when I was ready to invest in some real estate. So I would definitely have one. If you're, if you're even thinking about real estate investing, have one that you have formed ready to go that way. You don't have to be you're even thinking about real estate investing. Have one that you have formed ready to go that way. You don't have to be, you're not. You have enough to worry about.
Speaker 2:When you're looking to purchase, when you get escrow open, you're looking to fund, you're looking to figure out how you're looking, how am I going to use it, finding tenants, whatever. You don't need to worry about now. Well, now I need to form an LLC. Sure, if to worry about now, oh, well, now I need to form an LLC. If you already have it, you know, move forward Now. Once again, the corporate transparency act has changed that a little bit, because you now are required to obtain an EIN and that does, you know, cause certain things to to transpire that didn't used to. But definitely, if you're going to buy within the year, go form that LLC and and have it ready to go.
Speaker 1:What's the big risk for somebody if they say they just buy it in their personal name? Because I know there's some financing options out there that where you could get 10 conventional mortgages in your own name. Now, in the current interest rate environment we're in, we don't see it nearly as much as we did when it was 3%. But what do you see?
Speaker 2:just for the audience who's maybe just looking at getting started here what's the big risk for them if they don't form an LLC and they just hold that property in their personal name? Yeah, so your, your biggest risk is twofold. So the first risk is you put a tenant in there and that either the tenant themselves or they have somebody come over. They have somebody come work on the property a handyman, et cetera and they end up, for example, electrocuting themselves and they, you know, are seriously burned or or even even killed in in the process. And they then go back to you as the homeowner saying hey look, this was something you knew or should have known about, and therefore you're liable for this injury. And, um, you know, depending on what type of insurance coverage you have in place, it may not be enough. Um, and they can then sue you personally not your llc, but you personally and they could then access, you know, all of your personal assets, uh, which is what you want to avoid.
Speaker 2:And then the second thing that people don't think about is, by having it in your name, then it's subject to your personal creditors. So you're driving down the street and God forbid you miss a stop sign and you seriously injure or kill somebody walking in a crosswalk, and they then sue you and they get a judgment against you. Well, since that investment property is in your personal name and it's investment property, so there's no homestead protection, then that's subject to being leaned up. But if it were in the LLC, then the LLC wasn't driving the car and so the the LLC is not subject to a lien. Now there's charging orders and different things can be done, but, um, most of the time it's very hard to access the assets of an LLC for the members debts and obligations Okay, um, and so you wouldn't have a lien against the real estate in that situation?
Speaker 1:Okay, let's say there's not a lot of equity in that person's first rental property. Is there still a similar like we should get the LLC right away, or is it maybe not as urgent if they're going to be higher leverage because there's not as much to go after? I mean, obviously it's probably just good general practice to have it, but just in your opinion for that specific scenario.
Speaker 2:Well, for the latter scenario, of you driving the car and causing a crash, the lien will stay there and the lien will continue to attach to any appreciation in the property. So, you know, seven years from now, when you go to sell it, you can't sell it because there's a lien against it. And you know, even though judgments expire over time they can be renewed. And so you know, you're out there basically exposed and that lien is going to attach and at some point you're getting, there's going to be a reckoning.
Speaker 1:And an unnecessary risk really is what it sounds like. Yeah, Pretty avoidable from the front end. I want to ask you one other question here. I know we wanted to talk creative finance, but I get a lot of these questions a lot of times before we get to that part. Layering LLCs or having one LLC per property what's your view on that and what do you typically recommend?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the reason why you layer is just for the ease of formation. Number one. Okay, formation number one. Second, the ease of tax filing. Number two, and then number three it'll allow you to potentially operate other ventures besides just owning real estate, but using that upper level holding company if you will. And what I mean by that is level holding company if you will. And so, and what I mean by that is, if you go and you form a holding company, you put an operating agreement together for that holding company. But if that holding company is the sole member of LLC one and LLC two and LLC three, that operating agreement's going to control and you don't need a separate operating agreement for all all three. Okay, if that makes sense, because there's only one member, which is the holding company, which has an operating agreement in place already. Okay, and so it allows you to basically just say, okay, I'm ready to buy another property, boom, I'm gonna form it.
Speaker 2:The holding company's the member. You form it. You don't have to worry about. Okay, who's the managers? Who's who you know? Is my trust going to be the member? Am I going to be the individual? You don't have to worry about okay, who's the managers, who's who you know. Is my trust going to be the member? Am I going to be the individual? You don't have to worry about all of that. You just make the holding company the member. You have that upper level operating agreement. The lower level can be disregarded. Entities for tax purposes, obviously. Talk to your CPA and, you know, figure it out. But then that just all flows up to the holding company.
Speaker 1:So you're not filing multiple tax returns for each property, so to speak?
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, and so that's why you normally do the holding company, and it does add an extra layer of protection. So you have to pierce the lower level and then the holding company. But at the end of the day, even if you own an LLC individually, as long as you are treating it like a business and keeping formalities and all of that, there really is no extra benefit from an asset protection standpoint. Okay, so now your other question was what about an LLC per property?
Speaker 1:I get that question a lot from people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's kind of a logistical issue that you have. So the greater the asset protection, the more difficult it is to manage your financial affairs. That's the rule. So you have to kind of balance that with asset protection and the hassle of operating and keeping that asset protection in place. So for every LLC that's going to own real estate, you need an EIN, you need a bank account. Even though it can be a disregarded entity, you still have to keep books and records and all of that to show that. Hey, it is separate from me personally.
Speaker 2:So what I normally recommend is, especially in the scenario you were talking about, where you don't have tons of equity in the properties market, which is basically you start out and you say, okay, I'm going to form, say, three LLCs and each LLC will hold a property, and then I'm going to repeat but I'm going to use those same three LLCs, so I'm going to put another property in LLC one, so now it has two, another property in LLC two, another property in LLC three, and you do that three times and then once you have or you can do it by a multiple of five and then once you have those kind of filled up, then you move on and you do three more LLCs and that way you're still giving yourself a decent level of asset protection. But knowing that, hey look, if somebody goes on to a property owned by LLC one electrocutes themselves and you don't have sufficient insurance then and nothing I say here today can replace good insurance. I mean that's, you know, put that $3 million, $5 million umbrella in place because that's your best protection. This is just kind of backup. But you know, if somebody goes onto LLC one that now has three properties in it and they go onto one property, they electrocute themselves. Now you have exposed those other two properties, but the properties held by LLC2 and LLC3 are all protected. They're not exposed. It's really just balance.
Speaker 2:Now there are some people, some clients, who are like nope, I don't want to risk it. They put one property in one LLC and they just do that 10, 20, 30 times. But I've also had clients who have done that, who have come back to me and like we got to restructure because this is a nightmare.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know for sure. So it just really depends on your risk tolerance as opposed to you know the the logistics of managing it all, all when you have it all set up.
Speaker 1:That way Cool. No, it's really good. I get that question so often and we had a little bit of a cutout, sean, with your audio, but I think I picked it up, so I just want to recap, right when you were starting to get into how to structure it. Yeah, I think what you were saying there because you went into the details there, but just so our audience, if they miss that piece too, you're saying basically have three different LLCs where you're putting three different properties in each one, then move on from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you start with one at a time, so you don't fill up LLC one first.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You fill it. You put a property in LLC one, then you put a property in LLC two, and then you put a property in LLC one, then you put a property in LLC two, and then you put a property in LLC three, and then you repeat, so that for the longest time you don't have that double exposure, triple exposure. But at a certain point, if you have a nine property portfolio you generally can withstand maybe a loss on one LLC, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yep, that does make total sense. Let's talk, let's shift gears a little bit into that was great, by the way, that is a very common question I get a lot, so I appreciate that. Let's let's talk a little bit about Wisconsin specifically. Being that you're licensed in Arizona and Wisconsin, you get to see a contrast there. Plus, you, you network with, you know your Georgia folks and other and other other people. I know you guys have a call that you guys do every week. Um, what do you see is some things for somebody who's looking at some creative finance options and I guess where I'm going with this for our audience here we're talking about like subject to deals, rap mortgages. Um, those probably more in that sector of deals and if you're not familiar with those are, maybe, sean, you can just give a quick, a little brief description of what each of those mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the overall umbrella that things generally fall under is if you're going to do creative finance. Well, there's two umbrellas. There's one which is just straight seller finance. The property is owned, free and clear, the seller is willing to provide terms and you structure it so that you make regular payments to that seller of some amount, with or without interest. It's all negotiation at that point and the seller becomes a lender, basically.
Speaker 2:The other type is commonly referred to as subject to, which is and the reason why we call it subject to is because you are going to take the property subject to the existing loan or loans against the property. So the existing mortgage against the property, it's not being paid off, it's not being released, and there's different strategies for acquiring property subject to the existing mortgage. But basically what you're trying to accomplish is you're trying to keep the lower interest rate mortgage in place and use that to your benefit as an investor or as a buyer, and instead of going to the bank obtaining 7%, 8% or even higher financing, you use that to your benefit and say, okay, well, we already have $150,000 mortgage out there at 3.5%, let's use that, let's make payments on that, and then any equity, for example, we can either pay to the seller or we can finance. The seller could finance that equity, but it's subject to is keeping the mortgage in place. And then, as far as the way to structure, you referenced a wrap.
Speaker 2:So what a wrap would be is basically providing where the seller actually conveys the property by warranty deed to the buyer. The buyer in turn provides the seller with a promissory note that's either equal to or greater than the existing mortgage and then secures that promissory note by a second, generally a second position mortgage against the property that's in a principal amount that's equal to or greater than the existing mortgage. Ie we're wrapping the mortgage with a secondary mortgage so that if the buyer doesn't perform, then the seller has the ability to come in and foreclose, just like their lender would be able to foreclose on them and either be paid in full, which would then allow them to pay off the existing loan, or they'll generally end up owning the property again, and then they can sell it or do what they want with it at that point. So that's one way, but there's two others I'm sure we'll get into here.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. What do we got for the other two others?
Speaker 2:Okay, so the second, and in Wisconsin I prefer this method. Okay, so the the um second, and in Wisconsin I prefer this method. Okay, um, in Arizona I actually prefer the rap, for different reasons, various reasons, but the this method, um, in Wisconsin is a land contract. Okay, and basically what a land contract is is um, an agreement, um with the seller, where you basically are going to, as the buyer, own the property subject to the existing mortgage, but in order to secure your performance, ie your payment of the underlying mortgage and or payment to the seller of some amount that you've agreed to for the equity, et cetera In exchange for that, the seller is going to retain title to the property. So the deed will not transfer. Title will remain in the name of the seller but for all intents and purposes, the buyer owns the property. The assessor will show the buyer is owning the property, or the county treasurer will show the buyer is owning the property. The buyer pays the property taxes, the insurance. The buyer can lease the property, can improve, maintain, repair the property. They basically treat it as their own, but in order for the seller to be secured, they retain title.
Speaker 2:It's very similar to if you buy a car with financing. If you buy a car with financing, who keeps the title? The lender. The lender holds the title as security for the repayment of the loan that they made for the purchase of that car. It's the same concept for real estate, where the seller retains that title but you still have the right to own it. Talk to your CPA. But you generally have the right to claim the mortgage interest deduction. Cpas kind of differ on this. It's a little bit of a gray area whether or not you can claim the depreciation.
Speaker 1:I was just going to ask you that differ on this.
Speaker 2:It's a little bit of a gray area whether or not you can claim the depreciation, but, um, basically you have, yeah, you have the full, and I mean some CP.
Speaker 2:You know some CPAs are going to be more conservative than others, um, but uh, I know, you know plenty of my investor clients are claiming the depreciation. Happened to run into an issue with the IRS, knock on wood, but nevertheless, basically you are the owner, seller just retains title. I like that strategy in Wisconsin because I like the seller retaining title, in that the land contract for seller financing and even RAP or subject to transactions, it is the more recognized vehicle in Wisconsin than your traditional promissory note with a RAP mortgage. In Arizona it's the reverse. Our judges and courts are a lot more familiar with the RAP note and we use deeds of trust and that's why I think they're more familiar with it because it allows for an out-of-court foreclosure, so they're more familiar with it than the land contractor. In Arizona we call them agreements for sale and so because of that, I favor the wrap in Arizona and I favor your land contract in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1:Now are you saying you favor that as if you're the seller, If you're the buyer? Is there a difference in that, or do you think equally?
Speaker 2:I favor it for both. Okay, for both, yeah. Yeah, if I'm the seller even selling on seller finance I'm in Wisconsin I'm probably preferring the land contract just because it opens the door for a strict foreclosure action, okay, as opposed to going through the standard foreclosure process that a mortgage provides. So a strict foreclosure is hey, I don't want to recover the debt or anything like that, I just want to get the property back. And it basically allows you to get the property back and with a much shorter redemption period than what you would find under a mortgage, and so for me the land contract works better. In Wisconsin you still have to file a lawsuit, but with that strict foreclosure action you can significantly reduce the redemption periods, okay.
Speaker 1:And you can use that land contract on. What you're saying is similar to a wrap. So if a seller has an underlying debt on the property, they can keep that existing debt in property because there's no deed transfer, is what you're saying. So that's not going to trigger any sort of due on sale clause issues or anything else like that, and then they could wrap that around if they came up with some. There's some other equity that still has to be paid above the underlying debt and that's all could be done through the land contract.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right.
Speaker 1:Okay, wow, that's really cool. That's exactly right and that's a pretty big difference, you're saying, between the two. What are some other differences? Are you seeing from other states compared to Wisconsin that somebody looking at doing, I guess, really any sort of real estate, but that you're seeing that are things that are benefits maybe to investing here and then also some things that are maybe more challenging here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, one of the things that you have here that is beneficial and detrimental subject to transactions, is you have a lot of community banks that provide financing and hold their own paper and hold their own paper. So the advantage to that is, if you want to actually do an assumption or obtain a bank approval for a transaction, you can pick up the phone and talk to somebody generally, and so that's beneficial. But the downside is, if you talk to them and they say no, but you want to do the transaction anyway, they're going to watch their paper like a hawk and they're probably going to call the, the loan due, and or, if you don't go to them and seek their permission, they do regularly, you know, do checks on the status of the property and audits and things like that to find out what the status is. And you know they're more likely to find out that, hey, it's been, you know, conveyed the property, whether by land contract or by, you know, warranty deed with a wrap note and mortgage, and they're likely to call the loan due in that case. So that's the good and bad of the community banks.
Speaker 2:Here In Arizona we don't really have that Most loans, 95% of the loans, are going to be originated through either mortgage brokers or bankers, all of whom are then securitizing the paper, all of whom are then securitizing the paper. It's being sold off to a fund with thousands of other loans and investors that have a trustee that's appointed and all that trustee is really concerned about is my apologies, I forgot to put do not disturb on.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's all right. I didn't hear a thing, you're good.
Speaker 2:All right, perfect. Yeah, I should have probably just kept going, but I'm sure we can fix it in editing.
Speaker 2:That's right In any event. So in Arizona we have mortgage brokers and bankers and they generate 95% of the loans and they then sell those loans off to portfolios. They're securitized and so you're going to have portfolios of thousands of loans and it's basically a stock and people. If you're invested in the market, you probably are invested in some of these loan funds and they have a trustee that's appointed, that basically oversees the fund and who can make decisions on behalf of the fund. But their real concern is are we passing distributions to our investors? I mean, that's their main objective.
Speaker 1:Not who's on title, you know are we distributing fund?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they aren't really looking to see who's on title. If money's coming in the door and they're passing it to their investors, they're happy, right, yeah. And then you have a servicer, because you have to have somebody that's going to collect the loans, and so the servicer, the way they're paid is they take, you know, a very small portion of each payment as their servicing fee, and so they're happy. When money's coming in, then they don't care whether it's the borrower or someone else. I mean, as long as the payment's coming in, they get paid and then they pass that on to the fund and basically that's how it operates. So there's nobody really that's there overseeing. That's auditing. That's more palatable, it's more doable.
Speaker 2:Now, at some point, will these servicers, will Fannie Mae, freddie Mac, will there be audits? I don't know, it's possible, but the way they've structured this whole thing, it makes it so that it, you know it, it's less of a concern. The due on sale is less of a concern for those types, types of loans. And the other thing you have in Wisconsin and you know rightfully so is most borrowers have a relationship with their bank who made them the loan, and so they feel like I don't really want to do this when I don't think the bank's going to sign off on it or approve.
Speaker 2:In Arizona you may have a relationship with your mortgage broker, but you know that they're not involved anymore. They don't own the loan, they got paid their broker fee, they're out. So it's not like you're in any way hurting that relationship or harming them. And, frankly, if you tried to call up one of these servicers or trustees that are managing the portfolio and you say, hey, this is what I'm trying to do, can we do an assumption or can we do this or do that, literally you'll get nowhere. I mean, it's next to impossible. Yeah, you know, um, so you it. Either you either as a seller, you either sell the property or you do a transaction to, but there's no going and saying, hey, how about assumptions? That type of thing. Now, fha, va, that's a little bit different because there are processes built in and there's the more. Even mortgage brokers know how to go about facilitating those assumptions. So that's more doable.
Speaker 1:But when you have other types of loans like Fannie Mae, freddie Mac, it's just not even a real possibility have a huge track record, but they've got a good amount of liquidity, or they've got a really solid W-2 or something like that, where the individual bankers or their board, which is a small group of people, will say, yeah, let's go with this. Where, like Fannie Mae, freddie Mac, it's got to be securitized, so it's got to fit in this tight little box and you as the borrower, have to fit within that box. And it's a lot more stringent, I would imagine, which is maybe why you've probably seen more of these creative deals done in Arizona than you've probably see here in Wisconsin. If I had to, if I had to guess, yeah, much more, much more um in in Arizona.
Speaker 2:I think um, you know, I'm not sure that there's going to be the the anywhere near the volume either now or in the future here in Wisconsin. Um, and I think part of it too is the the market um factors as well. So, arizona, we have real highs and lows, you know um, I don't think you have quite, you know, those same um upswings and dips in in prices here, uh, maybe a little bit here or there, but nothing like what we see in Arizona.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty steady here. Ups and downs are bumps instead of mountains, and valleys.
Speaker 1:You probably get down south. Yes, exactly, well, sean, I know we're bumping up against time here, man, so I do want to get back to your mission work and I want to just give give the audience you know kind of a brief overall of what this mission is and then how they could either support you or support that mission if they were, if they felt so inclined. So if you can talk about that for a minute, man, I would love to hear about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So the organization it's a 501c3 nonprofit is missional law and basically our goal is to obtain justice for wrongfully imprisoned men and women in Malawi, africa. I travel there a couple of times a year, so in June, and I'll be there again in September, and when we're there we do a lot of the groundwork for what our team will do going forward. So we have a director over there as well as a paralegal that works with us, and then we also have a memorandum of understanding in place with the Legal Aid Bureau there that will provide assistance for certain cases that we identify. And you know, we're basically looking for opportunities to just, you know, change the lives of men and women who we believe should not be in prison and reunite them with their families and to basically share God's love, you know, with them through that justice work, and that's that's our goal.
Speaker 1:Um, how did you get started in this? I know we don't have very much time. This could be a long story here, but how did you find this organization in that country and this problem?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so back in 2015, I went on a mission strip to Malawi with my church in Arizona and we were doing workout in a village basically community development work, construction, sports, vbs, that type of thing and my father-in-law, who's a pastor in Arizona at a different church, he tagged along with me on the mission strip and he volunteered to go into one of the prisons in town with a pastor and some of our medical team to do a little medical clinic in the prison. And he came back and kind of talked to me and I won't go into the details, but basically shared some of the stories that he was hearing about, um, you know, the um prisoners and the status of their cases and things like that. And, uh, I did some research. I kind of stuck with me, bothered me, um, so I did some research. It turns out, you know, what they were saying appeared to be true.
Speaker 2:And so I ended up reaching out to a pastor who does prison ministry in Malawi, who actually brought our medical team into the prison, and said, hey, I don't know if a lawyer from Arizona can be of assistance, but I'm happy to have a conversation. And he said, well, why don't you come on out? And so that same October, so I did the missions trip in June of 2015. And in October of 2015, I flew back out to Malawi and basically traveled around with him to the different prisons he works in, as well as met with paralegals and lawyers and prison officials, and you know anyone that I thought of that or thought would have information on. You know um, the the justice issues, as well as um. You know ideas on what could be done and we came up with a game plan and um, and since that time, uh, so missional law was then formed.
Speaker 2:I you I needed an organization to be able to raise funds, and so I formed Missional Law, and since that time we've been able to secure the release of over 150 men and women from prison there in Malawi.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible, man. Holy cow, talk about making an impact, man. Think of the ripple effect of that for the generations to come, of just their families alone. Right, wow, that's outstanding. Yeah Well, sean, if somebody wanted to get involved in the organization or help the organization in some way, what's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they can visit our website. It's wwwmissionallaworg, so that's M-I-S-S-I-O-N-A-L-L-A-W, so two L's in there. Missionallaworg, so not com org, is where you would go about missional law there on the website, as well as a page where you can um donate, uh. And then you can also find us um on social media. So we have a Facebook page missional law. Go on there and you can like that page and follow us. And you know we regularly post when things happen um because you know, fortunately, um it's not just relying upon me or my teams going out there. Um is happening on a weekly and daily basis through our boots on the ground there.
Speaker 1:Awesome, very cool, very cool. Well, sean, this has been awesome. Man, I learned a ton again from the first interaction we had on the panel together to now picking your brain here and then listening to your podcast and all that sort of stuff. I'm constantly learning from you, so if people want to listen and find out more about you, where do you want to point them to?
Speaker 2:We'll put it in the show notes as well. Yeah, so I do a weekly podcast. It's Tuesdays at noon central time and it's called the In Rim Podcast, i-n-r-e-m, and then just type in podcast. So if you go to YouTube, type in I-N, i-n, n, as in Nancy, i-n space, r-e-m space podcast, type it into YouTube and it'll come up, and so we have one on noon central. And then we also do what's called the creative finance collective, which has other attorneys throughout the country familiar with creative finance who are on, and we basically spend about an hour answering audience questions, and that is on Tuesdays as well, at 4 PM central. So tune into to both of those. You know. If you have questions, jump on to that Creative Finance Collective and type in your questions and we'll answer them live there on the podcast or on the show.
Speaker 1:Awesome, very cool. Well, sean, thank you so much for being here, man. I know our audience is going to get a ton of value from this episode and for all you guys out there listening, if you like this rate the podcast, give it a thumbs up, share it and tune into the next episode.
