Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone

Creative Financing Solutions with Caleb Christopher

• Maria Quattrone • Season 1 • Episode 348

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In this powerful new episode of the Be The Solution Podcast, host Maria Quattrone sits down with Caleb Christopher, founder of Creative TC, a national consulting company specializing in creative financing and complex non-traditional real estate deals. Caleb handles the “weird stuff” in real estate — creative structures like Subject-To, Hybrid Financing, and Seller Finance Combinations — closing 30–50 creative deals monthly nationwide

Maria and Caleb unpack how these deals really work, why most agents don’t understand them, what risks sellers and buyers must know, and how agents can identify when creative financing is actually the best (and sometimes only) solution for their clients.


💡 Key Takeaways

1. What Creative Financing Really Is

2. Why Sellers Choose Creative Financing 

3. Why Investors Love Creative Financing

4. How to Structure Sub2 Deals Safely

5. Why Agents Say No — And When They Should Say Yes

6. When Agents Should Call Caleb


🗣️ Memorable Quotes

Maria’s Best Quote:

“Being the solution is all about finding ways to help, assist people, and walk them through the process.”


Caleb’s Best Quote:

“It’s cool to do deals with zero dollars out of pocket — but it’s not cool to do deals with zero dollars in your pocket.” 


📞 Guest Contact Information

Caleb Christopher
Founder, Creative TC
📌 Nationwide creative finance consultant
🌐 Website: CreativeTC.io
📩 Free Consult: Book directly on the site
 

Creative financing isn’t mainstream — but it’s a critical solution for sellers in distress, investors seeking opportunity, and agents wanting to deliver options beyond the conventional.

As Maria says, “This is what it’s all about — Being the Solution.”

Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
Facebook Page: REMAX at Home Facebook
Facebook Page: Rise in Real Estate Facebook
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535

Maria Quattrone:

All right, this morning I'm excited. We are gonna talk with Kayla Christopher in regards to how to use creative financing to structure deals and how we can break that down, what it looks like. You know, there's so many ways, I hate this saying to skin a cat. Poor kiddie, but there are so many ways to do that, so many ways of creative financing, and welcome Caleb to Be the Solution Podcast.

Caleb Christopher:

Thank you. It's an honor.

Maria Quattrone:

So creative financing, you know, sometimes I get these offers and they say, We want to take over your client's mortgage. Um you call the client, they say they want to take over the client's, they want to take over your mortgage. Nobody understands it. Agents aren't used to doing it, right? I mean, this isn't normal. But here you are, you have a successful business doing that. So let's dive in and let's talk about the different strategies that are available as a buyer and as an agent so that you can help your buyers with this creative financing.

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah. So I own a company called Creative TC, and that's transaction consulting. I know agents are used to transaction coordinator, but that's included in what we do. We coordinate, but we actively consult on these complex creative finance deals. So I do the weird stuff, but 100% of the time. So what you see like this often is my entire world, and that's what we do. So uh helping people understand how to make the offer, how to receive the offer, how to interpret, what are the different deal structures? Should I let somebody else take my deed to my house and then still make payments on my mortgage? Do I leave my mortgage in place? Do I sell their finances to them? What should I do? What can I do? That whole conversation is what I built a business around because it wasn't there for me when I started doing my own real estate investing path. And I got into the creative finance because I saw you really can help people. They can get a higher price, you can rescue them from foreclosure, put their credit back into a good standing, but it takes ethical people on the buyer side to make sure that we're not taking advantage of people and causing problems.

Maria Quattrone:

So, what's the number one creative financing solution in today's environment?

Caleb Christopher:

Oh, the the really popular one is subtle. That's taking it's an informal assumption, right? Oh, you why don't you assume the loan? I don't want to go through the qualification process and the 120-day timeline to assume the loan. I want to turn it into a rental property. I just want to make your payments.

Maria Quattrone:

Okay, so wait. So in order to assume the loan, it's a 120-day process.

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah, unofficially, but uh when we've seen it, it does take a frickin' long time. And nobody wants to wait that long for the real estate transaction to close. And so it's it's the alternative, but it's not something people turn to.

Maria Quattrone:

Okay. And so subject two is let's go through it step by step because oh yeah, I can tell you this 99% of the people don't understand it and don't and don't do it.

Caleb Christopher:

Well, and I I want to say that I am okay with people saying no to sub two offers because they don't understand them and they've got a lot of other stuff going on. And agents, you guys have a fiduciary responsibility to your clients, and so recommending something you don't understand could be foolish, could be a problem. And so I understand the hesitance on taking on these subject to offers or even bothering to figure them out. So, yeah, let's dive into this. I'm gonna start with creative finance, if we're gonna define the term, it's non-institutional financing. So it's finding ways to buy and sell houses without using, I guess, fresh financing, fresh bank financing. So it can be as simple as a seller finance where somebody has a paid-off house and they become the bank for the buyer, or it can be as complex as some seller finance combined with uh a buyer taking over a seller's mortgage payments.

Maria Quattrone:

A buyer taking over a seller's mortgage payment. Why would a seller want to do that?

Caleb Christopher:

Usually it's because they want their price, and this is the way the buyer's able to do that.

Maria Quattrone:

So let's break so let's break it down. What is it? What does a deal structure look like?

Caleb Christopher:

The simplest structure is if you owe what your house is worth and you sell to me, I just step in and take over your payments. No cash to you. You walk away from the house, I take over your payments. A lot of times, my customers, my clients are finding these deals off market already. So if that's the case and there's no agent fees, then it makes sense for the walk away. Your house is you're not upside down on the house, but I'm not going to pay you anything, I'll just take over your payments. And that's where the seller is under pressure to move, to do the next thing. They've lost their job, they've run out of money. Usually there's financial distress, and it would cost them money out of pocket to sell their house traditionally. And so the creative finance does offer a solution in that, hey, you don't have to pay anything to sell your house. We'll step in, maybe even give you five or ten thousand dollars for moving expenses, etc. Uh, but we'll take over the the payments.

Maria Quattrone:

Now, why would an investor want to do that?

Caleb Christopher:

What kind of in uh interest rates can investors get today?

Maria Quattrone:

Seven.

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah. I can take over a four percent mortgage with a sub two. That's why.

Maria Quattrone:

What if their mortgage isn't? What if it's like six?

Caleb Christopher:

Still, it comes down to down payment. So with less cash up front, I can I can step into a property that will break even or cash flow, far less cash out of pocket to do a subject to deal in many cases, than to go get a new fresh investor loan at a higher interest rate.

Maria Quattrone:

So, and there's basically let's just put it uh a deal, a scenario on a table. Seller owes 300,000. I tell them the house is worth 300,000 and you need 8%. And I don't think we're gonna get 300,000. And we might get to let's say we get 290. Now you need to bring 35 to the table.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

That's rich. That's rich.

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah, that's rich.

Maria Quattrone:

And that happens all the time. And people that can that have savings or can get the money will bring 35. Not to go to foreclosure, not to file bankruptcy.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

And these are real life situations. This isn't like some you know, BS, so okay. But that house, you know, the the the rates is five percent, and um can rent you can rent it for like two thousand. There's no real upside in the rent, like whatever the payment is, that's what it's gonna rent for. Yeah, is that still worth it?

Caleb Christopher:

If it doesn't cost a lot of cash for the investor to get into, yeah. Like the the low entry fee makes up for a lack of cash flow for the most part, because if you give it five years, if it pays for itself for five years, we'll be fine, right? It'll cash flow within the next five years uh as we have the opportunity to raise rent. And so from the investor side, yeah, it still can make sense. It's not a stellar deal. In fact, I have one of those where the the rent was about $1,250 and the monthly payment was $1,200, which from an investor standpoint is losing money every month, by the way, from after expenses. So why did I take on that deal? And how? I told the people that if they made a monthly payment to me, I would take over their mortgage, I would take over their payments, and I said, Caleb pays when tenants don't, it's gonna be a rental. That's so I'm gonna make sure this gets paid one way or another. But they had two house payments, they couldn't have any missed payments on their credit report because of a job situation. And so I said, This is what I can do for you. This is not a great deal today, but in five years it'll be fine. And so if you would help me for a year or two with these monthly payments, I'll make the full monthly payment and then I'll be able to raise rent, and you won't have to worry about it after that.

Maria Quattrone:

So let me understand what happened. These particular people have a home they own, they live in, and this is an investment property. The investment property rents $1,200 a month or whatever.

Caleb Christopher:

It was it was their primary, just to be clear. So they moved out of the primary property. Well, it was their primary, they moved to a new primary and couldn't sell it on the MLS.

Maria Quattrone:

So they've already gone through the okay, so same, same, basically same scenario.

Caleb Christopher:

Exactly. And so basically the same scenario. You came up with a theoretical, and I'm like, hey, that actually happened to me. I actually was the buyer on one, and they paid me every month to help take the mortgage off their hands.

Maria Quattrone:

So in this case, they're they had to get a tenant and they couldn't have it where the tenant could maybe not pay the rent. So you said, okay, I'm gonna pay the rent if the tenant doesn't pay the rent, basically.

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah, you could put it in those terms.

Maria Quattrone:

I'm I'm that's what I heard you're saying, so I'm like regurgitating it back.

Caleb Christopher:

That one's as the buyer, what I'm selling to the you have to sell, right? That's negotiation and closings is sales. I have to sell this idea that Caleb will pay their mortgage. Caleb will pay, even if I have a tenant in there who doesn't pay, so I have to sell them on that concept and understanding that uh this is a business model that I already do and I pay my bills.

Maria Quattrone:

And so, in regards to does the property transfer to your name?

Caleb Christopher:

Yes.

Maria Quattrone:

So you do have the transfer cost and and the title insurance. Just no, if there's no agents involved, then there's no additional um commissions or anything like that.

Caleb Christopher:

Right.

Maria Quattrone:

So there's the cost of sale, and they have the cost of sale unless you absorb that.

Caleb Christopher:

As usually the investor, the people I work with are used to dealing with homeowners who are in distress and who don't have funds. And so the investor understands I'm gonna have to pay all the closing costs. That's all on me. And I give the seller some cash and they and they walk away a lot of the time. In this case, it was not it was so not a good deal that I didn't give them any cash. I just took over the payments and they paid me for a little while. I mean, the total they paid me was like $3,600. So that wasn't gonna break the deal to me, but I wanted them to understand this is a business transaction. It's not me willy-nilly just doing stuff, it's not a game. But if they had not paid me, it wouldn't have ruined my life, wouldn't have ruined the deal. It was $200 a month for like a year and a half.

Maria Quattrone:

Got it. So subject two, that's one.

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

What's the next one?

Caleb Christopher:

Uh it's usually a combination of subject two and seller finance where there's more equity. Oh, I'm gonna confuse people. But basically, I'll take over your payments and I'll make payments to you. So if it's worth $50,000 more than what's owed, but it's still not selling, then worth is a is a kind of a question there.

Maria Quattrone:

But but if I'm willing to pay your price, there's mar so worth of it is right, there's market value and then there's perceived market value, what a buyer is willing to pay.

Caleb Christopher:

Right.

Maria Quattrone:

And they're not the same number, especially today.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep. And so let's say that you you want fifty thousand more than what's owed on the property, and nobody's giving it to you, and I step in and I say, I will give that to you. I'll give you your price if you let me make payments. What do you mean, make payments? Well, I'll I want your mortgage because you've got a low interest rate, I want that to stay in place, and I'll give you $20,000 up front, and I will give you monthly payments of $300 a month until the rest is paid off. That's the next most common. It's a it's a hybrid of subject to taking over your payments and seller finance. I make payments to you.

Maria Quattrone:

So, and they stay in the property?

Caleb Christopher:

No. The investors do not want the sellers to stay in the property. That this is a sale. You're selling the property to me. This is not my primary residence, this is a business transaction. I'm buying this to turn it into a rental.

Maria Quattrone:

Okay, so they're leaving, or the tenant that's theirs leaving, or maybe there's a tenant there and they're saying, I don't know.

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

Okay, so let's talk about that. There's a tenant in the property. Let's put numbers out there. I mean, I'm a number person. Okay. There's a tenant in the property, the property's on the market for 250. Not selling. Market price says it's 250, but nothing's happening.

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:

You're offering what?

Caleb Christopher:

Cash price, 190, 210 range. You know, so the cash offer is where all investors should be starting, anyways, because if you can buy at a discount, do that. But if you owe 200, you're not gonna sell for 190. So that's the first price. The next price is well, if that's not gonna work, I can give you your price if you let me make payments in a cash flow. So what was rent? Did you say $15. $1,500? So I'm assuming that that's gonna be break-even or barely.

Maria Quattrone:

$1,500, but they're month-to-month.

Caleb Christopher:

Month to month tenants, fifteen hundred dollars. But if that's market rent, there's not room for me to increase it.

Maria Quattrone:

Well, you could sectionate it.

Caleb Christopher:

Okay. So if there's if there is room to increase the rent, then it's a viable option. But it sounds to me, based on just the those high-level numbers, it sounds like a break-even monthly type of deal for whoever owns that property when all is said and done. Maybe even lossy. Very similar to the house that I bought in Colorado. So the offer is gonna be I will pay you your equity later. I will pay up to $15,000 now, and I'll take over your payments. So if we're gonna $250, I'm gonna go down to what $235. I'm gonna I'm gonna pay you $15,000 up front, and now I owe $235. I'll I'll take over your mortgage payments, and then uh you'll just have this lump sum payment waiting for me to refinance the house in five to seven years. And you'll get a windfall of cash when I do that. That's not a first offer. That's not somebody's something somebody says yes to until they've been beaten up by the market. They've had it on the MLS for four months or something, and they're like, nobody's buying at this price. And you get to somebody who's like, I will pay your price, but it's it's only if it's on my terms. Because I can make it work, but it doesn't work today, it works over the next five years, 10 years. You see the the the mindset shift there?

Maria Quattrone:

Of course, yeah. Of course. So then here's the thing a lot of these properties are on the market, yeah. And they're listed with workers like me.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep, yep.

Maria Quattrone:

And then you guys call us and we're and we get the subject to, and we're like, no fence, but we're busy, right? And then this is like doesn't fit in that our in our round, our square hole, our heart, or a round box. There's three, we three different ones doesn't fit in any of them. And so at the end of the day, we want the seller to have a win. We also want to get paid.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

Right. And we have you know a contract to make that. So how does that work in? Because that's one of the things that brokers are like, I'm going to pay. I don't know, I don't get this. So this is one of the things you hear from agents and brokers.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep. It doesn't have to be any different than it normally is. The seller can pay you, but I you I tell investors this too. You have to bring enough you have to bring enough cash to the table as the investor buyer making the offer, you have to bring enough cash to the table to pay the agent. Because if your offer doesn't even satisfy that, they're gonna say no from a uh uh self-interest fiduciary responsibilities aside, they're not gonna encourage the seller to take that offer if they don't see that they're gonna get paid.

Maria Quattrone:

So while the the contract calls for the price plus the fees, right? So if the price plus the fees that they can or willing to accept don't make set, don't they add up, then there's no and that's what we've seen, right? We see well, they want to buy it with no money, with and they're like, Well, what do what do we do?

Caleb Christopher:

There's I I say this a lot. I was gonna say there's a saying, but it's actually from me. It's cool to do deals with zero dollars out of pocket. Yeah, if you can, great. It is not cool to do deals with zero dollars in your pocket, that's irresponsible. And so, yes, I understand there's a lot of people that want to take over with no money out of pocket. That's not the reality when an agent is involved. You're gonna pay them something. The other side for the agents is a lot of times if it's not selling, this is a way to get paid where you might not get paid at all. And so I often see agents taking a reduced flat fee on top of whatever that sale price ends up being. So there is some negotiation going back and forth, and it's not just a buyer-seller, there's a buyer-seller and agent all getting together to build a solution.

Maria Quattrone:

Caleb, there's the broker, the brokerage, right? So as an agent, you can't just say I'm only gonna take X fee. Like you have a brokerage that you have a fiduciary to as an agent who they also need to be paid.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

Right. And we do have minimum standards of what we will, the minimum we would actually work for. So there's that.

Caleb Christopher:

And there are plenty of transactions that die right there because there's not a willingness to reduce fees, and the house either goes on and sells on the MLS at a reduced price, or it doesn't sell at all, and the and the agency agreement expires. And that's just the reality of transactions. Some come, some go, some work, some don't.

Maria Quattrone:

That's the reality of transactions, period, because you can have any deal that just doesn't come together. You have a buyer, you have a seller, the end of the day, buyer walks the day of closing. I mean, that's the business.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

It's a sucky part of the business, to be frank, because you know, I say this often, I'm I'm mainly a listing broker, and not that we don't work with buyers, we do, but if I had to pick what side I work on mainly, and I'm a seller's broker. And so, you know, you have a the day closing, buyer doesn't come day before closing, buyer loses job, uh day before closing, uh, they want a reduction of a hundred thousand on a contract. Like that's the part of the business I really despise because I market it for the listing. Yeah, I spent my my money, right? My resources on doing all the things to get the listing under contract. Then I had to do the work from the contract to the close and then no payment. So I think agents make you know too much money. I mean, most agents, if they make 50, 60 a year, the majority of people, that's the average. Which I don't know how you can live on that, quite frankly. But that's another story for another day.

Caleb Christopher:

And I I end up, I see, I I'm not in the middle dealing with all the back and forth most of the time. I'm the guy who comes in once it's almost to the finish line and helps polish things up and make sure it gets across the the finish line safe, legal and ethical. But a lot of times I'm seeing a situation where it's gone under contract three or four times, dropped out anywhere close to closing, the agent is just stressed and wigged out about things like this is the thing, it's not gonna sell. And so by the time somebody calls Caleb and says, hey, 123 Main Street, we've made an offer, they're willing to talk about creative finance, can you help me close it? I'm usually dealing with people who are like, Thank God there's a solution. I'll take a reduced fee if I can just get this thing out the door. I or or I've actually had quite a few agents say, I know this person, I want to help them get this sold. I don't need to get paid at all. As long as they don't have to pay money at closing, they're my friend. That's actually happened quite a bit as well. But that's not the normal thing. I don't work in the normal space. That's not my world isn't what's normal. And so when it's weird, that's when Caleb can get involved and usually can bring a solution. And I really like helping people.

Maria Quattrone:

Well, at that point, people might be in a desperate situation as well. So and when your back's against the wall, either you're gonna be, you're gonna um resist more, or you're gonna really finally want the help.

Caleb Christopher:

So and it's usually the last 30 days of the agency agreement where the agent is like, all right, what other solutions are there? What can I do without uh without saying yes to something that might put my client at risk? Because the risk is that this investor buyer actually doesn't pay your mortgage, your seller's mortgage. And that would be a shame too, because that will still hurt their credit. With sub two, the seller's loan is still open. Caleb, if if you're buying my house, my credit score depends on you making my payments.

Maria Quattrone:

So how does how do sellers get comfortable with that?

Caleb Christopher:

Yeah, again, it's usually that they're getting their price that they really insisted on, and so it becomes worth it because they're getting more cash up front, or they're in distress and they're already having damaged credit from not making payments. And so, how how much worse can it get, sort of thing? It can get worse, but they've already got damaged credit. But if we're saving them from a foreclosure on their record, it is overall it's a net positive, right? We we dodge a foreclosure, we make your payments, and it builds your credit back up. And having an open mortgage is a great thing for your credit score. But if we default, it hurts pretty bad, too. So, how do you secure that? We do what's called a wraparound mortgage or deed of trust, and that that gives the seller the right to foreclose on the buyer. So if you're buying my house, I sell to you with a wraparound mortgage, and that's a whole masterclass in itself. But when you give somebody a mortgage, that gives them the right to foreclose on you for if you default on the on the loan here.

Maria Quattrone:

And how long? Typically, what's the right to cure? Is there what's the right to cure on that?

Caleb Christopher:

It's on a state-by-state basis. Typically, it's the standard, yeah. I mean, foreclosure is foreclosure. It's well established with state law, with court proceedings, and things like that. So it's a well-known thing. And in some states, it takes way longer than other states. And so some are the same.

Maria Quattrone:

That's why people don't want to do that route of foreclosure, like they'll do like a deed in lieu.

Caleb Christopher:

Yes. And and that is a great solution if the parties are willing to do it. So rather than go down that full route, hey, can you just and I've been called in to talk to some investors who suddenly can't make the payments. The renter doesn't make their payments, the seller doesn't, I'm sorry, the the investor buyer doesn't have the cash in the bank to continue making the payment, and the seller's like, you guys, what can help me out? And I've talked and counseled through that where the the investor, I said, Look, you made a commitment to pay their mortgage, you're affecting their credit score, you need to walk away. You need to deed the property back to them and let them sell it. And so there have been situations like that where we've just counseled somebody through that. But hardship and heartache is part and parcel of the deal. So giving yourself the right to foreclose on somebody is an important factor when you're seller financing or giving this sub to.

Maria Quattrone:

So if somebody doesn't, you know, if it's not uh the property isn't orthax, they have to bring money to the table and they don't want to do that, why not just do a short sale?

Caleb Christopher:

That's a valid option. So also is foreclosure. Foreclosure is a natural, normal process, and you can let it go to foreclosure. If you don't feel that you don't feel security in your buyer or potential buyer actually making the payments, then don't risk it. Just let it go the natural route, either to foreclosure or the short sale. Those are valid options. Uh, the uh people choose the sub two option because they see they catch the vision they see and they understand that okay, this is a business model, they turn it into a rental, it should cash flow up, it should rent for as much or more than is owed. And the deal makes sense. It only works when it finally makes sense to everybody involved, and this the seller gets a benefit.

Maria Quattrone:

What percentage of sales do you think get subject to?

Caleb Christopher:

Oh, I don't know. In the market, total sales way under one percent.

Maria Quattrone:

Just I was curious. I just I know and and you've been uh working on these structured deals for how long?

Caleb Christopher:

Three and a half years. That's all we do, 30 to 50 of these every month across the nation.

Maria Quattrone:

So nationwide. And you want an agent to call you when?

Caleb Christopher:

That's a good question. Uh if you get an offer and you think it might be valid, like it might be a val a viable solution, and you want to talk through and plan that, my team has free 15-minute consults for just that reason. Uh and I told you before the show, I built what wasn't there for me. That's what this is. So if you're an agent, if you're an investor, and you have uh a potential deal, it looks like a deal, but you've got questions. Uh, you're not sure. But you if it's right, you're moving forward, call us.

Maria Quattrone:

How can they reach you? What's the best way?

Caleb Christopher:

That would be creative tc.io, and you can book a free 15-minute call anytime there.

Maria Quattrone:

CreativeTc dot IO.

Caleb Christopher:

You got it.

Maria Quattrone:

And go right to the calendar link, 15 minutes, you'll walk through the deal, you'll look at it, you'll let them know if it's something that is viable and that you can move to the next step with.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep. We can help look at the look at the the risks and rewards, and you know, does this make sense? Because if they've made an offer that's not going to cash flow, then they're probably going to default on payments later too. How do you evaluate that person, the buyer? So we'll talk through all of that stuff because I want the deals to be safe, legal, and ethical. And yeah, I sell services too. The free 15-minute consult is a free 15-minute consult. If there's something, if it is a deal, we can help you walk it to the finish line. If you want to just be done, you can be done.

Maria Quattrone:

Awesome. Well, that's what this, that's what this is all about. Being the solution, coming up with solutions, finding ways to help and assist people and walk them through the process. And you know, get referrals from other people that you've helped, just like them.

Caleb Christopher:

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:

Oh, Caleb, thank you so much for being on Be the Solution Podcast. This was great. And again, people can reach you how?

Caleb Christopher:

Creative Tc.io.

Maria Quattrone:

CreativeTc.io.