The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Carl Fischer of Cama Plan Self-Directed IRA

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

Carl Fischer of Cama Plan Self-Directed IRA Camaplan.com

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And be sure to go see my new courses at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Today, we have an amazing gentleman on the show. He's going to be talking about his company, leadership, how he runs it, and everything else. Just amazing entrepreneurs we always have on the show. Today, we have Carl Fisher on the show of the company camaplan.com. He is a Cornell University graduate and third generation real estate developer. He began his investing career in the 1970s when he was employed as a rocket scientist at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. He is presently one of the

founders and principals of Kama Self-Directed IRA LLC, and it's a national company that's headquartered in Ambler, Pennsylvania, I believe that is. Welcome to the show, Carl. How are you? Doing really good, Chris. Thanks for having me. And thanks for coming. We certainly appreciate it.

Give us your.com so people can find you guys on the interwebs. It's pretty simple. It's camoplan.com, C-A-M-A-P-L-A-N.com. There you go. You used to work at the Kennedy Space Center. That's pretty freaking awesome. Yeah, no, that was some good times. It's probably more fun launching rockets than doing real estate or self-directed IRAs,

but it doesn't pay as much. Well, you know, I think that's kind of government work. We had one or two astronauts on. We had one of the astronauts from the, I think the Armstrong, or is it Apollo 13, the show. And so great conversations with them. So tell us about your company and why you started it. Yeah, the company, I started it because it looked like a pretty good thing to get into. And obviously from my bio, I don't know if you knew it, but I'm a third

generation real estate investor. So my mom and dad and my grandparents on both sides were in real estate. So I grew up around real estate and my father died land rich and cash poor in 1995. And I missed a loan that was in default and I had to borrow money relatively quickly. And I put up one of the properties as collateral for the money while we were settling the estate. And the guy lent it to me and I got it relatively quickly, but it was from an IRA. And it dropped my interest rate, default interest rate from 28% to 12%. So I stopped the bleeding for a little bit. And, you know, about 10 months later, I asked him if he wanted to hold the loan. And if he would lower it, you know, to 7%, because I could get a 6% loan. And he said, No, the lowest I make is 12%. You know, it's 12 to 18%. And I said,

I know, but you've been with me for almost a year now. We haven't missed a pain. So, you know, we're a good risk. He says, I knew you were a good risk right from the beginning, but you know, it's still 12 is my lowest property. I said, but yeah, now you got to worry about foreclosing and things like that. And he says, I'm not worrying about it. That's what I was hoping happened. Wow. So it changed my mind, you know. I'm kind of going, I'm working at the Space Center.

I'm getting, you know, a company match of 3% or 6%. I can't even remember. And I said, this guy's making 12%. And that's whether he goes to work or not. And along the way in our discussions, he says, there's a lot more people looking for money than lending it. So I can get my money back out on the street relatively quickly. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So that got me thinking. I said, well, you know, maybe I got to change my mind. Maybe I got to think about foreclosure as a good thing instead of a bad thing and people not paying you. So it changed me. I pivoted a little bit at that point. And then I just tried to go find out information on doing IRAs and 401ks and buying real estate and lending money out of them. And there was no information, no books, right? I even called the IRS up and they said they thought they knew something about it,

but the guy wasn't in, he wasn't in that knew about it. Like there's one guy in the whole country that knew about it. So I just, you know, the internet started coming out at that point in time and I researched it for a couple of years and then I learned about it. And then I, you know, I went to bankers, financial advisors, everybody out there, attorneys, everybody said, stay away from it. But I finally found somebody that would do it, bit the bullet, tried it out with a friend of mine to minimize the risk. And it turned out great. And then, of course, the attorneys and the accountants and financial

advisors, when they saw the paperwork and the applications and the IRS reporting, they liked it. So I started doing that. I'm the oldest of 12 kids, so I pretty much have a pretty big network and I started helping other people doing it. And when you can have, you know, tax-free income, you know, from rental properties, it simplifies your tax returns and it creates, you know, a lot more wealth, you know, faster. So I just said, you know, let's just start buying real estate in it. Let's start lending money out of it and start making, you know, 12 to 18% like the other guy did and build the portfolio on foreclosures if they so happen. So that's how we got started, you know, and then I started talking to, you know, my network. They said, why don't you just start a company to do that?

And I said, okay, I'll do that. They were starting to talk about going to the Russians at the space center, you know, and getting rid of the, you know, American rockets. And that I just lost interest in it at that point in time. And man, spaceflight was going downhill. So I said, well, let me go do this. And that's how basically the company got started. I asked my younger sister, who had just graduated from Villanova, if she'd help me because she had all the technical computer

and trust processing and financial processing background. That was her degree. And so her and I started the company in 2003 and started running with clients in 2004. Wow. That's awesome. You guys have been running ever since. So tell us about the company. I got a chance. I'm looking through your website, downloaded the IRA info packet. How does it work and how do you serve clients? Well, basically, most of our clients will open up an account, take money from their existing IRAs or 401ks, roll it over to us, and it helps them diversify their portfolio, number one. So they'll put real estate in it.

They'll put real precious metals and gold and we'll hold those in a depository. They'll invest in some closely held companies and they'll invest in notes or mortgages on real estate. And sometimes they'll join a fund or an LLC, private fund or LLC that invests in real estate. So that's where the majority of our clients come from. So you open up an account and then you'll find an investment, one of those that we talked to. If you want to lend somebody money on a building or a restaurant or a house that they're buying, then your IRA will do that. You'll be a mini bank and they'll pay you interest. And if you put it in a Roth IRA, it'll be tax-free. And if you put it in a traditional IRA, you won't pay it until you

take it out. Wow. So this is how, to my understanding, this is how the wealthy utilize their money to where they're putting it in an IRA for retirement and then they're doing the thing. Am I correct in that? Well, the wealthy have always been doing it, you know, even back to the 70s. You know, like I told you in the 90s, I couldn't find very much information at all. And I mean, I went back to Cornell's library and asked them to help me find it. And I went to the IRA directly to help me find it. So it took me a long time until the IRA came out. But now there's information out there on it. But yeah, I mean, everybody heard about Peter Thiel and his billion dollars, you know, last year, you know, when Congress was going to try to kill him, you know, kill the Roth IRAs

and loading them up like that. And then, you know, a few years before that, when Mitt Romney was running for president, he showed his $100 million IRA. And then our phones rang like, hey, I want one of those IRAs. And I said, you can have one of those IRAs, but you still have were good at finding investments. We don't sell investments. All we do is the paperwork that allows people to use their knowledge and expertise. I think it was Warren Buffett who said, invest in what you know and understand. Okay. So you guys don't handle the investing for people. You just manage their IRA and set up the paperwork so they can do everything the way they need to. What's the minimum type investment or what sort of client is your prospective client? A lot of entrepreneurs like us. One, because they're used to making decisions and taking risk on their own.

Obviously, any real estate investors, you knew my story. I was borrowing money from a private source and I got it in a couple of days. So anybody looking for those types of investments, now there's a lot of private investments that are out there for accredited investors that people are using IRA funds. But we do have people that start an account with a few thousand dollars, and they might be wholesaling, if you're familiar with wholesale real estate contracts. We've also seen people take a little bit of money and put it down on a deposit and then sell half of their contract to the fruition for all of the money.

So there's a lot of little strategies that you can take a little bit of money and turn it into a lot. So that's on one end of the money. So there's a lot of little strategies that you can take a little bit of money and turn it into a lot. So that's on one end of the spectrum. And then the wealthy come in on the other and then they get the accredited investments. Because everybody likes to put them in the Roth IRAs and not pay taxes on them, right? They want to follow Peter Thiel and Mitt Romney. Yeah. People are always trying to figure out a way to do it. So what different variations of IRAs do you do for folks? That's a great question. We do the personal, traditional, and Roth accounts, which, you know, are $6,000 or $7,000 in contributions that they can make a year. But then we do the business ones like the SEPs and the 401ks,

which they can put 10 times that amount into. And then we'll do a simple IRA, which is another business one that's up to $20,000. It really depends on what the person's personal goals are, how much money they have to invest, et cetera. But the other one I really like is the health savings account, where the money goes in tax deductible and comes out tax free. That's the best plan out there ever, especially if people are paying their own health insurance. And then there's Coverdell ESAs, which cover kids up to

30 years old, their expenses from kindergarten through college and graduate school. So all of those types of accounts can do it. That's great. And so people can qualify, how do they qualify their loans and stuff? I'm looking at your website. It talks about how they can use to qualify the buyer, the amount they want to loan, collateral requirements, et cetera, et cetera. How does that work? Well, there's a couple of ways that work.

Sometimes people buy notes from banks that are selling them or they're buying them from people that bought them from banks that were selling them or they're buying them from people that bought them from banks that were selling them. So that way, a lot of times you're just buying the note and the bank does all the qualifications. In the other case, sometimes people are buying a house or buying a business and they put a proposal together and they hand it out to several different lenders. And some of the people are private lenders and they say, hey, this is what we're looking for. A lot of times the banks and they're getting back that way right now is they don't want to lend on a house that isn't finished, right? So a lot of

times these people will do the short-term loans a little bit like my loan that I talked about earlier, where they'll get 12% for six months while the people rehab the house and put it back into a condition where they can get a bank loan. So everybody kind of has to find their own. We do some events where borrowers and lenders will show up at, they'll join their local real estate chapters in their cities, and they can go to the National REIA to find out where these chapters are. And there's a lot of meetups now where people are talking about them. So anybody that's looking for money that's out there will do it. Some people will address their clients that are already investing with them and tell them about using their IRAs and 401ks because it makes their investments a little bit more

profitable because they don't have to pay the taxes on them, right? So if somebody's in the 40% tax bracket, look how much you saved them by having them do it in a 401k or an IRA. So when do you pay the taxes on these types of IRAs? Well, on the traditional IRAs or the business IRAs, the SEPs or SIMPLs, you generally will pay those taxes when you take the money out. And you'll pay it on the contributions and the earnings. On the Roth IRA, you pay the taxes on the money going in, but any of the earnings from then on will be tax-free for the rest of your life and you never pay taxes on them again. And on the health savings accounts, you don't pay the taxes going in, you actually get a deduction for it.

And the earnings and the money coming out of it when it's used for medical expenses, you don't pay the taxes on that at all. That's why I said it's the greatest plan out there. You never pay taxes on that money. That's always good. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's the only thing I've ever seen in my life that you don't pay taxes on. But this is really good if you use the self-directed one, right? Because, I mean, you're able to manage your money and invest it.

And I suppose if you take a loss, you can write it off. Or if you invest it and earn a profit, you expand what you can do. Yeah, I mean, if you take a loss on it, you're not going to be able to write it off because you've never paid taxes on that money. Right. But if you take a loss on a Roth IRA, you possibly can, depending on how much your earnings are. But yeah, this shouldn't be your first rodeo. I use it for my higher returns and less risky returns is where I put those types of investments. But I try to keep as much of my investments in there as possible and just take out the money I need to live on. And then my other investments go in my IRAs. And if you look at your wealth and your net worth, it grows quite

quickly when you do that because, you know, and obviously I'm over, maybe not obviously, I'm still pretty good looking, but I am over 59 and a half so I can take my money out easily. But other people say, well, I don't want to wait till I'm 59 and a half to take the money out of it. Well, there are some strategies to take the money out earlier. You know, when you think you've reached your retirement age or you said that you've had enough, you know, let me know and we'll show you how to do that. Awesome sauce. So anything more we haven't touched on or covered? You guys have an academy there where people can go learn stuff, a resource center.

They can learn more about how you guys do different investment options. What have we covered that you guys handle? A lot of times people want to know about fees. It's boring. It's boring to me. I think we're the only company out there that doesn't charge a fee until you actually do a deal. So if you open up your account and you put five thousand in there so you're ready because that that's the other thing that you know people say well i really like this when i find a piece of property i want to buy i'm going to go open up the account and and buy it and we always tell them open up the account first get the money in there because it takes a couple of weeks to transfer it from, you know, Fidelity or Morgan Stanley or whatever. And most of the time people want a contract and some money down. So we say,

put 5,000 in there and then, you know, make your closing. You know, you can get the rest of the money when you're doing closing. The other thing that I found interesting is your IRAs can actually borrow money. So if you don't have enough money in your IRAs can actually borrow money. So if you don't have enough money in your IRA to pay cash for a property, it can borrow money. It's non-recourse, and it doesn't show up on your credit. It goes against the IRA, and basically the only recourse the bank has if you don't pay is to take the property. So there's a couple of, you know, there's a couple of great things in there that I think is good. And it's the only way to get true diversity in your portfolio, in my opinion. And we allow them to pick anything that the brokerage

houses don't sell for them to do that. Okay. That's awesome. And we do want educated clients, so we appreciate you and your leadership skills out there. You know, we believe in education, as you mentioned, our academy, and the majority of it's free because, you know, an educated client takes us less time to deal with and understand,

and they're always asking us questions, even ones we can't. CamelPlan is a neutral third party, but people will ask me, well, is this deal any good? And it's in La Jolla, California, or the Jersey Shore, or Padre Island in Texas. And I'm going, how do you think we can know about all these places? You know, you have to do your own due diligence. You have to be smart about it.

Use your own team, build your own team, and just make CamelClan part of that team. Yeah. You know, and a lot of syndicators, you know, that are putting a lot of money together like to talk to us and ask us for help. Because right now, the majority of middle America has seven times more money in their qualified funds than they do in their cash accounts. Oh, wow. And savings accounts. And that's money they never use right until they're 59 and a half. Wow.

That's beer as rich as Mitt Romney or other things. You know, I know investors that, you know, they just do investing for startups. Some of my friends do investing for, like, startups, Silicon Valley stuff or other things. Is that also good for that? Yeah, absolutely. Wow. I mean, there's syndications for startups. We've seen different movies.

The Villanova crowd was making a movie of their championship back in the 80s with Massimino. And then there's some music people that are starting up syndications and need money. So there's anything that you're good at. And like I said in the beginning, we want people to know and understand it or at least know and trust the people they're giving the money to. There you go. So what's the best way for people to reach out to you if they're interested in finding out more about what you do?

You can go to cameraplan.com and on that, you know, and go in there, download information like you did at one point or sign up for a consultation where an account executive will get with you. And if they can't answer your questions and it's a little bit more complex, just tell them thank you and have them set up an appointment with me. There you go. Sounds good. I like the hands-on service. Anything more we need to tease out on what you guys do and how you guys do it? I think we talked about enough today, but I appreciate it. And obviously, everybody will have different questions. Again,

feel free to call. We encourage you to bring your accountants and attorneys and any other professional advisors so that they can get the real story for us because we do do continuing education for accountants, attorneys, financial advisors, and realtors, you know, and they can get continuing education credits for it so that they get the true story because there's a lot of myths out there. And if you go to our website, you can download the seven myths with self-direction and, you know, at least get your head on straight about what this does for you. There you go. I love it. It sounds awesome. So thank you very much for coming on the show, Carl.

We certainly appreciate it, man. No problem. Thanks a lot for having me, Chris. And maybe we can return the favor when we've got our road to financial freedom podcast series going up. I'd like to invite you. Oh, cool. Cool. Do you have that up yet? How soon will that be up?

It's up and running. We just got to get you on and scheduling you. Let's do it. All right. It sounds good. And that way we can find out a lot more about what you do. And a lot of our clients may end up in your leadership classes in your institute. Thank you.

Thank you. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks, my audience, for being here. Be sure to go to goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss, all of our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, all those crazy places. And let's see, there's youtube.com, Fortress Chris Voss, and the chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. And we'll see you guys next time. Thank you.