Day 40: Seller Financing — The Ultimate Cheat Code in Real Estate (Storage 100)

Welcome to Day 40 of the Storage 100 Series.

In today’s episode, Joe Downs from the Storage Mogul Mastermind breaks down what he calls the ultimate cheat code in real estate investing: seller financing.

This is the strategy that allows you to:

Buy more deals with less of your own money

Move faster than institutional buyers

Secure better terms even when interest rates are high

Win deals that all-cash buyers lose

Joe opens with a real-world story of a seller who turned down a multi-million-dollar cash offer from an institutional buyer — not because of price, but because of taxes. By using seller financing, the seller was able to spread capital gains over time, save hundreds of thousands in taxes, and still get their price.

In this lesson, you’ll learn:

What seller financing really is (and why it beats banks)

Why sellers actually say yes to this strategy

The three negotiation “levers” every buyer can pull: price, down payment, and interest rate

How to trade a higher price for better terms

The installment sale tax advantage that makes this irresistible to sellers

How balloon payments work — and the golden rule for structuring them

Why 5–7 years is the minimum term you should accept

How to pitch seller financing the right way

Why you should always present two offers (cash vs. terms)

The four components of the “perfect” seller finance deal:

Low down payment

Low interest rate

Long amortization

7-year balloon

When structured correctly, seller financing creates a true win-win: the seller gets mailbox money and tax savings, and you get control of the asset without fighting banks or overpaying on debt.

👉 Like and subscribe if this changed how you think about financing deals
👉 Share this with a friend who says “interest rates are too high” — they’ll thank you later

Tomorrow is Day 41, where Joe breaks down deal analysis in 15 minutes or less.