Ken McElroy

The Hidden Mechanics of Creative Finance To the uninitiated, real estate is a game of credit scores, down payments, and endless bank approvals. But Pace Morby has spent his career proving that conventional methods are for amateurs. With a real estate portfolio valued at over $500 million and supported by $400 million in debt, Morby is not just playing a different game—he is writing the rules. His entire operation relies on creative financing, an umbrella term for transactional strategies that sidestep institutional gatekeepers to construct highly profitable deals. At its core, creative finance functions on a simple truth: find the seller’s pain, solve it with structural engineering, and take control of the asset. Morby’s approach operates with remarkable leverage. His name is not on the debt. He does not apply for commercial loans. Instead, he takes over existing mortgages or negotiates directly with sellers to act as the bank. It is an assertive strategy that allows for infinite return on investment because, in many cases, there is literally zero personal capital deployed. This is not about seeking cheap houses; it is about hunting down specific, systemic pain. Unpacking the "Subject-To" Playbook The most powerful weapon in Morby’s strategic arsenal is the "subject-to" (sub-2) transaction. In a sub-2 deal, an investor buys a property by taking ownership of the deed while leaving the seller’s original mortgage in place. The investor then takes over the monthly payments. For example, in a transaction Morby completed with sellers Melissa and Kenneth, the couple had zero equity and faced a looming foreclosure. They were locked into a 3.5% interest rate from 2022 but could not afford the next payment. Morby stepped in, took the deed, and assumed the mortgage payments through a third-party servicing company. This structure often confuses traditional real estate observers who wonder about its legality. The biggest point of friction is the "due-on-sale" clause, a standard mortgage provision that gives banks the right to demand full payment if a property transfer occurs. Morby dismisses this threat as a paper tiger. In his experience across tens of thousands of deals, institutional lenders rarely invoke the clause because banks are not in the business of owning real estate; they want steady payments. If a bank does issue a warning letter, Morby uncoils the transaction in five minutes by transferring the deed back to the seller and executing a pre-negotiated lease option. Furthermore, mortgages are rarely held by the originating companies anyway. Organizations like Rocket Mortgage package and sell these notes on the secondary market within months of origination. The disconnected servicing companies managing these portfolios simply do not possess the infrastructure or incentive to track title transfers as long as the cash flows on time. By separating the debt (which remains in the seller's name) from the deed (which transfers to the buyer), creative investors bypass the entire banking apparatus. Asset Optimization and the Co-Living Revolution Acquiring a property with creative terms is only the first phase. The real magic happens when you optimize the asset’s cash flow. Morby does not rely on traditional, long-term single-family rentals. Instead, he matches the physical property to the highest-yielding operational strategy. The house itself dictates the business model. For a four-bedroom, three-bathroom home with no homeowner association (HOA) restrictions, the optimal strategy is co-living. Morby relies heavily on PadSplit, a co-living platform that screens tenants, manages weekly rent collection, and handles disputes. By converting traditional single-family homes into co-living properties with up to nine bedrooms, Morby maximizes yield. A property with a assumed mortgage payment of $3,100 can bring in $9,100 in gross revenue under a room-by-room model, netting roughly $3,000 per month after accounting for utility bills, management fees, and professional cleaning. This room-by-room strategy also provides a natural hedge against vacancy; losing one tenant does not dry up the asset’s entire cash flow. Beyond co-living, Morby leverages government-funded programs and niche housing models to extract premium yields: * **Sober Living Facilities:** Partnering with reputable organizations like Oxford House to lease properties. These programs often pay the base mortgage plus a premium of $2,000 per month on a triple-net lease, assuming full responsibility for maintenance and utility costs. * **Nonprofit Partnerships:** Working with platforms like PadMission to lease homes to vulnerable populations, securing stable rents through government-backed social safety initiatives. * **Specialized Care Housing:** Converting residential assets into assisted living facilities or transitional housing for patients with traumatic brain injuries. Why Intelligent Sellers Reject Cash Conventional wisdom dictates that cash is king. But Morby argues that for a sophisticated property owner, accepting a full cash offer is a massive financial blunder. To demonstrate the power of terms, Morby breaks down the math on a hypothetical $1.3 million property in Los Angeles owned by podcaster Graham Stephan. If Stephan sells the asset for cash, he must pay a substantial broker commission, transaction fees, and a massive capital gains tax bill. For a high-earning individual, this immediate tax hit can wipe out hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit. Once the government takes its cut, the remaining capital must be redeployed into new investments, which carries its own set of market risks. Alternatively, if Stephan sells the property using a lease option or seller financing, he unlocks a vastly superior return profile: * **The Option Fee Premium:** He can charge a future purchase option price of $1.6 million or $1.7 million, locking in hundreds of thousands in extra capital. * **Consistent Cash Flow:** He receives monthly premium payments from a tenant-buyer who is motivated to maintain the home because they intend to own it. * **The Afterparty Loophole:** Statistically, about 70% of lease-option buyers fail to execute their purchase option within the designated timeframe. When this happens, the owner retains the non-refundable option fee, takes back the property, and repeats the process with a new buyer. * **Tax Deferral:** By spreading the sale out over time as the bank, the seller defers their capital gains tax liability, keeping more money working in the asset. The Failure of the BRRRR Method in Modern Markets For years, real estate forums championed the BRRRR strategy (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat). Morby warns that this approach is functionally obsolete in a volatile interest rate environment. The BRRRR method relies on a dangerous double-loan gamble. Investors buy a run-down property using short-term hard money loans at interest rates of 10% to 12%. They fund renovations out of pocket, find a tenant, and then attempt to refinance the completed project into a long-term conventional loan. This strategy worked beautifully when interest rates were locked at historic lows. But in today’s market, a 90-day renovation project is a massive risk. If interest rates spike during those three months, the investor’s refinancing math is completely ruined. They are left holding an asset with a high-interest hard money loan that eats their entire profit margin. Many prominent real estate advocates have lost entire portfolios because their adjustable-rate mortgages reset to unsustainable levels. Creative finance eliminates this refinancing risk entirely. When Morby buys a property using seller financing, he negotiates permanent, fixed-rate debt with the ultimate bank: the seller. His contracts include clauses that protect against rate volatility, stating that if interest rates make refinancing unviable when a balloon payment comes due, the note automatically extends for an additional five years. By removing Wall Street banks from the equation, he secures permanent, stable debt. Infinite Yields and the Power of the Lazy Asset While Morby maintains single-family co-living investments, his true passion lies in commercial properties with minimal operational overhead, specifically RV parks. He describes RV parks as the ultimate "lazy asset." Unlike multifamily buildings where landlords constantly deal with plumbing, tenant turn-over, and capital expenditure projects, RV parks require very little infrastructure. In an RV park, the landlord is essentially renting gravel and utility hookups for $400 to $600 a month. Tenants bring their own trailers, eliminating capital expenditures on appliances and internal maintenance. By hiring a resident manager through platforms like Workamper, an investor can run a multi-million-dollar park with virtually no daily operational involvement. Morby’s sweet spot is buying established, cash-flowing parks valued between $3 million and $7 million using seller financing, targeting a net cash flow of at least $15,000 per month after all expenses. Scaling the Mountain Creative financing is an incredibly powerful vehicle for wealth creation, but Morby is quick to point out its inherent dangers. Because these transactions require no bank approvals or personal credit checks, they allow investors to scale at a speed that can quickly outstrip their management capabilities. He points to cautionary tales of inexperienced investors acquiring over a hundred houses in a few months, failing to manage the operational logistics, and leaving a trail of ruined sellers and defaulted private loans in their wake. For those willing to build the systems and do the work, creative financing offers a path to financial freedom that conventional real estate investing simply cannot match. It is not an educational barrier that stops most aspiring investors; it is a lack of execution. The tools, platforms, and strategies are openly available. To win in the coming decade, you must stop looking for properties and start looking for pain. If you can solve a seller’s problem, you can write your own ticket to wealth.