Buy Money at a Discount: Surplus Proceeds Explained (Christopher Craig)

Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless.

And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should.

One, it's $15 a month.

Two, seriously, it's $15 a month.

Three, no big contracts.

Four, I use it.

Five, my mom uses it.

Are you playing me off?

That's what's happening, right?

Okay, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, $15 per month equivalent required.

New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mintmobile.com.

Welcome to the Level Up Podcast.

I'm your host, Paul Alex.

I went from being a comp to an eight-figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day.

I created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals.

Let's win together.

Remember, I have your six.

Get ready to level up right now.

Hey guys, and welcome back to the Level Up Podcast.

This is Paul Alex, and today we have a phenomenal guest.

He goes by the name of Christopher Craig.

So, Christopher Craig is a good friend of mine and he's going to be speaking at Swipe to Freedom in Dallas on September 6th.

But what's very unique about Chris is the way he figured out how to make some good money in 2025.

And guys, just imagine, okay, let me paint the picture here.

Imagine if you guys had a neighbor and they just foreclosed on their house.

They lost everything.

And they're like, you know, you've been neighbors with them for the past 10 years and they don't have a single dollar to their name.

But what if you knew one strategy, okay,

that you can actually help them

go back on their feet, put some money in their pocket, and in exchange, you guys get paid as well?

Sounds pretty interesting, right?

Well, Chris is actually going to go ahead and break that down on this interview.

And he's also a military veteran.

Thank you for your service, Chris.

Chris, welcome to the show, brother.

Thank you, Paul.

Thank you for having me.

Dude, it's a pleasure.

It's exciting.

I'm excited for this talk just because dude we've been talking behind the scenes for a while now and uh

you know we met at the charity dude like about a month ago now right the paul hutchinson uh charity dude swiped uh sound sound of freedom yeah and uh book launch yeah his book launch dude it was great very small like 40 50 people if that you know very intimate dude but it was impactful very impactful yeah it was man so um chris For the viewers that don't know you, man,

who is Chris Craig?

Hey, I'm just an everyday average yo shit the ragman yeah you know got out of high school you know straight a student in high school but uh college that i didn't think was for me

and so i enlisted in the marine corps yeah 18

and then off you know of all the marine corps songs off i went to boot camp right

and so uh i was an open contract kid yeah didn't get to choose my job so they i became a communicator or that's what they selected for me communications so from uh san diego

29 palms from 29 palms lacklin air force base because i graduated number two in my class for this the school so i got to go to carry-on school and then my duty station after that was guantanamo bay spent a year down there during the cuban and haitian migrant crisis from 94 95.

wow and so that was uh then you know been on a few coast guard cutters chasing counter drug interdiction and doing that all thing just uh marines are the gunslingers not so much the coast guard putting in some good work huh?

Yeah, yeah, put in some work.

And then

after Guantanamo Bay is Camp Lejeune, and then finished my active duty and

a couple years in the reserves and then into the civilian life, basically, you know.

So worked for Pacific Bell.

I've had a lot of different jobs, a lot of different experiences, you know, from

blue collar to white collar, I guess.

And so I've also had my trials and tribulations, you know, but basically is

I was a tech worker coming out, you know, and coming out of the Marine Corps in 1997.

That was kind of like our dot-com boom, like the mid-90s, right?

So we had technology.

I mean, think of this, like Amazon was just coming on when their stock price was like, you know, four or five bucks a share, which is insane.

Right.

Microsoft was only like $20 something a share back then.

Right.

And so.

you know, it was kind of the internet age.

And then all of a sudden we had the dot-com crash of 2000.

Yep.

And so I was working.

I don't think I had a job longer than eight months because companies were knocking out.

If you were a tech worker, like, hey, come work for us.

We'll give you stock options.

We'll double your salary or your hourly wage.

So it was like when you're 22, 23 years old, I was making $100 and some thousand dollars a year in my 20s.

So you're getting paid.

Paid.

I had three jobs one time paying me over 80 grand a year.

What year was that?

This would have been 97, 98.

Oh, dude, you were balling.

99.

Yeah, you were balling.

2000.

And you were a single guy.

Single guy.

Dude.

I can only imagine.

Crushing it.

Yeah.

I mean, from a perspective of going from $14,000 a year in the Marine Corps.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, and the first thing was, is, you know, I was going to be a cop initially.

CHP tested out all over for these departments because that's kind of the natural progression of military is law enforcement.

Absolutely.

You know, so they were like, you know, one department was like, oh, we'll pay you $22,000 a year to start.

And it's like, okay, the phone company was offering me $60,000 to start.

Like, where am I going to go?

Exactly.

It's a phone company.

So, yeah, I went back to California where I'm from and worked for Pacific Bell.

And the, you know, San Mateo is where I was at, so South Bay.

And then.

Got fired from that job because my boss was telling me I had to go on spikes.

I was a little bit of a hardhead.

So

he wanted me to climb up on a pole spike, splice a 2,000-pair cable in the rain.

I'm like, dude, I got a bucket truck.

I got equipment.

I just drive it through the mud.

Well, it got stuck in the mud.

So then they fired me for that.

Yeah.

So, which

getting fired on my first job out of the military was probably one of the greatest things ever.

Why is that?

Because then I got a better job.

Okay.

And so.

Was it because of the military you had that level of confidence that you were like, you know what?

I got a little chip on my shoulder.

I could do it.

I could do it all.

I think, you know,

you learn how to adapt and overcome.

and you, you basically say, look, I've got tools in my bucket and I'm going to use them.

You can't tell me not to use a tool that I have.

And I had this bucket truck.

It just, it made it down there.

I got the job done, but on the way out, it got stuck.

Yeah.

Like literally 30 feet from the road.

Yeah.

And so what they got mad is I

utilized the next tools around me.

There was a guy with a tractor.

Down below, another contractor doing something, building a house, whatever that I recall, said, hey, can you come help me out and pull this truck out?

That's what he did.

He pulled the truck out, but it bent the front fender a little bit.

So I, you know, drove the truck back to the yard.

And hey, why is the fender bent?

Well, because I got stuck and I had some other guy pull me out with a chain.

Big deal.

It's an old truck.

Right.

So they didn't like that.

So anyway, it's just

in the union, in my experience,

if you worked with efficiency and you were fast, they didn't like that.

Yeah.

And so they wanted you to work slow to preserve the status quo.

So I felt like the union back then was not for me and it only protected the lazy.

Right.

You know, where it's at today, I don't know because I've been out of that

job thing for like a long, long time, 30 years.

Oh, yeah.

So anyway,

what have I done?

I mean, so in 2000, dot-com bubble kind of hit.

I was out of work.

Tech workers were a dime a dozen.

I went into real estate.

What made you go into real estate at that time?

Actually, it was a friend of of a friend

said, hey, I got to introduce you to this guy named Douglas McCabe out of Portland, Oregon.

I was living in Portland at the time, and he needs a database built for foreclosures.

So I was like, I'm not

a coder or a programmer or a software guy, but I knew them.

So I called my other buddy and said, hey, what would you charge me to build this database?

And he was like, you know, 10 to 20 grand.

I'm like, perfect.

So I went down to McCabe.

I said, $80,000.

Right.

And then he goes, you know what?

I think it'd be cost me $10,000 to $20,000.

And I said, you're right.

It will cost you $10,000 to $20.

I'm just trying to make a few bucks, too.

This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

With school out, summer is the perfect time to teach our kids real-world money skills they'll use forever.

Greenlight is a debit card and the number one family finance and safety app used by millions of families, helping kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely.

Parents can send their kids money and track their spending and saving.

while kids build money confidence and skills in fun ways.

Start your risk-free Green Light trial today at greenlight.com slash Spotify.

That's greenlight.com slash Spotify.

And so he liked that I was transparent and honest with him.

And he says, why don't you come work for me?

And I'll teach you foreclosures.

I'll teach you the mortgage business.

I'll teach you everything I know about real estate.

And he called himself back then as today, the foreclosure guru.

He'd been doing foreclosures since like 1986.

Wow.

So like, you know, now he's like pushing 80.

He's in his 70s.

We're still good friends.

We still, we have a business together.

I mean, so so it's basically at the end of the day is build your relationships because that's what life's about is building meaningful relationships.

Absolutely.

It's about good business.

Good business.

Your network, your environment.

Yeah, your network's your net worth.

Yeah.

You know, I'm a big believer in that as well, man.

So

that's where I started learning about pre-foreclosures and then the wholesale business was back 2000, 2001.

Doug taught me the mortgage business, but I had to go get trained by a different mortgage company for about five or six weeks.

He goes, let them train you, then come work for my mortgage company.

So it was all about learning how money works and the flow of money, how it hits the real estate market.

So got my education in that sense.

And, you know, we were probably doing three, four, five deals a week

because.

The foreclosure market today is the landscape is much different today than it is yesterday.

20 years ago, we didn't really have internet data available to track foreclosures.

You literally had to go down to the the county recorder and look at Microfish

and search for the notice of defaults and notice of trustee sales.

Wow.

And then you would go knock on the door

and then try to negotiate with the homeowner and try to help them or buy their house or, you know, you would figure it out.

And so there was only about five guys in Portland, Oregon that did this in the early 2000s.

I mean, nowadays you've got three, 400 people in one market chasing the same, you know, off-market off-market property list, on-market property list.

It's armies out there today.

So the competitive environment is much harder.

And then so I kind of just have stayed in that lane for a long, long time.

Then fast forward, like 2004,

five, we've got kind of a

You know,

the market's starting to tank.

It ran up for a couple years.

9-11 happened.

So 9-11, when 9-11 happened, that was the first time we actually saw interest rates drop from like seven and three quarters down to below 6%.

No one had ever seen that in the history of mortgages.

Like they'd never been that low.

And so, I mean, it was funny because I was a loan officer then.

I was like, people, hey, I just, they refined in six months prior to the 9-11 happened.

They're like, can we refi again and get that lower rate?

I'm like, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Back then you'd make a point, point, point and a half for their loan amount but I think what we got to look at today is that house 20 years ago was only 200 250 thousand dollars yeah now today that same house is like 700 750 000 dude it's closer to probably to a mill depending on the market you're in yeah

and so

now we're back up to this those interest rates

Same house, higher value, nobody can afford it.

Or they'll qualify them with some sort of 2-1 buy-down rate.

So they got a low interest rate a couple years ago.

Now

it's 7%.

They can't afford the payment.

The foreclosure storm, if anybody has not looked at it, foreclosures are up 28% to 32% in most jurisdictions across the U.S.

Wow.

You know, so the storm's coming.

It's like it's just in its infancy.

So give it another six months.

I think we'll see foreclosures double again.

Right.

And it's, you know, it's

technology.

I mean, there's a lot of factors pushing people out of the workforce, but wages haven't really gone up too.

Do the fear of AI right now.

I mean,

it's growing, brother.

It's growing.

It's growing faster.

Faster than we can blink.

It's really replacing jobs.

It is.

Yeah.

So let's get to the part of your story, brother, where essentially you learn how to make money with foreclosures and how you were able to build now

over 10 million with foreclosure surplus proceeds.

So that's collectively over the lifetime of the proceeds cases that I've done or claims.

I mean, so what it is is

if you owe the bank $100,000 and let's say your house is worth $300,000.

In today's foreclosure market, there's going to be an auction.

It's going to be a judicial sale, meaning it's a court-ordered sale, or it's a non-judicial where it's just they're filing paperwork saying, here's your auction date.

It's in the recorder's, in the county recorder or the public register's office.

Then they'll held a public auction usually at the county courthouse, literally on the courthouse steps.

And if it's not a rainy day, it's outside.

If it's a rainy day, it's inside.

And there'll be a crier who works for the foreclosing trustee.

And the trustee will say, open the bid up at, let's say, $100,000.

So let's say that house sells.

I mean, in today's market, it's mostly hedge funds that are buying foreclosures.

It's hard for a guy like me to go buy foreclosures today and make money on them because they're bidding them up to 90 to 95% of current market value.

If you're a small guy with just half a million bucks in cash,

you're going to make $30,000 on a huge half a million dollar risk or

let's say you buy the house for $250,000, it's worth $300,000.

After your sales costs and everything, you're going to make $20,000 and

now nothing's even selling.

So

the surplus is the difference between what they owed the bank and what it sold for at auction.

If the bank takes it back, there's no surplus if it goes what they call third party that means an investor bought it at the auction that's called a third-party sale there's surplus

most of the time yes but sometimes no it just depends on the property but i've seen in the last like two three weeks surplus cases above two hundred thousand dollars

and so what happens is the homeowner themselves does not know about that surplus because it's like a esoteric secret market.

market

by the time they lose their house within 10 days usually the deed transferring the house from the bank to the investor from the sale the trustee sale takes about 10 days

once that's recorded the eviction process starts depending on where you're at the jurisdiction you're in the municipality the county the state you could be on the street in 15 days after that i mean it goes pretty quick most of them it's taken about 30 days but people,

it's more their mental health at that point.

They're stressed.

They got depression.

They got drugs, alcohol, divorce, I mean, death.

I mean, all those different factors of why they're in their position they're at.

All the legal mail that comes in.

So they're going to get a letter from an attorney's office that they're most likely just going to throw away that's telling them, hey, you might have.

surplus proceeds to claim.

They never tell you how much.

Wow.

And most of the people will open up the letter and they'll go,

I don't know what this is and they throw it away.

Right.

So let's say that the guy's got $150,000 of surplus coming.

He has no clue.

So I will sit at the auction and I will listen to the sales data.

Like I go physically to the auction.

It usually only lasts 30, 40 minutes from, you know, 10 a.m.

to maybe 11 a.m., depending on where you're at, 9 a.m.

to 10 a.m.

And I'd listen for the opening bid and I'd see who bought.

And if there was a surplus, I'd immediately go knock on that person's door the day of the sale, leave them a little note, handwritten note.

Sometimes I'd type up kind of a general thing and write in some numbers.

Your house opening bid was this, sold for that.

You're entitled to this much money.

Call me if you'd be interested in advance on these funds.

I don't think I'd ever have had anybody not call me because they're broke.

They're going to get evicted.

They have no money for first, last, and deposit.

They might not have a car, but offering them cash for their surplus funds at a like literature is buying money at a discount guaranteed money at a discount it changes their whole scope in life now they can move on and most of the time it's a negotiation with whatever you're going to give them whatever they're going to take because the process to get it released in the court system could be 60 days right it could be nine months right now you got somebody that has no money they're happy to take whatever they can get in the next week.

Right.

You know, now they got food on their table.

They can, I mean, it's basically they're moving on with their life and whatever bad chapter they just went through, they want to forget about it and move forward.

So that's what the surplus proceeds opportunity is about.

Helping people, put money in their pocket, changing lives, and making money yourself.

That's amazing, man.

And you learned about this what year?

2004.

So since 2004, you've been doing this for almost 21, 22 years now.

There's been a lag because

when the market's doing well, there's not a lot of foreclosures.

So there won't be a lot of surplus.

So let's just say from

probably 2000,

from about 2006,

which was the crash started.

So, you know, everybody owed more on their house than what it was worth.

So you saw no surplus cases.

And the market didn't start going back on its feet till about 2012, 2012-14.

Right.

But because the market was doing so well from 12 and 14,

equity was still building up,

the real estate market, the economy was generally doing well.

You won't see a lot of foreclosures.

Now

people have equity, their heads in the sand, and we have a lot of foreclosures.

So we have the perfect mix to jump back in the game because the gold rush for this is now

and moving forward for probably the next two two or three years.

Wow.

So what would you say to somebody?

Let's say, because my audience, you know, we have about 4 million downloads a month currently right now.

We just got ranked top four in all categories as well.

Very thankful for you guys, you guys watching this.

So Chris, majority of our viewers and listeners, they're actually beginners.

You know, this almost sounds like it's too good to be true.

It really does, man, because it's just like saying it, like, you know, buying money at a discount, right?

And then most people are like, so what's the actual work?

Well, I mean, obviously there's more to it than just, you know, the steps of just saying, offering somebody, hey, we're going to pay you this much to obtain this much of your money, right?

So

if someone, let's said, wanted to get advice from you,

what would be a good amount?

for them to have saved up before starting a venture like this.

And we're talking about somebody who, let's say, is a blue-collar worker, you know, like myself, coming from law enforcement and i have let's say ten thousand dollars saved up is ten thousand dollars uh worth you know going ahead and investing into something like this you could ten thousand dollars could be a good start but better yet i i could partner with you and you don't even have to use your own money

you could make money off my money just by bringing me the lead and then i'm going to coach you through it on the whole entire process Oh, okay.

So people are able to go ahead and actually

partner up with you, which is what you do now.

And you partner up with people that are interested in actually learning this concept.

They're able to go scout for the deals at these auctions.

And then you're able to then leverage your money.

And you guys basically partner up on the deals.

Correct.

Wow.

That's amazing.

So they earn a fee like immediately up front.

Now, I have to wait because you have to go litigate some of this stuff.

It's going to get released through a court process.

And that could take a couple of months.

It could take many, many months.

It just depends.

There's a lot of factors that are probably not relevant for this talk today.

But it's more of leverage my knowledge because I've been doing this.

I had to figure this out on my own.

Now, I used to do it in a manner where I would go knock on the person's door.

I'd say, you know, just for telling them about their money, it's kind of like searching for an error, right?

Right.

You tell them about, you say, hey, look, I know where there's a pot of money for you, but I'm not going to tell you unless you sign a contract and give me 10%, 15% or 20% or 30% of the funds, right?

Right.

So I used to do it that way.

In California, Nevada, Arizona, and other states, they pretty much outlawed that.

Wow.

You can't take, now they haven't outlawed it completely.

They just said, you can take a fee for telling them about it, but it's limited to like $1,500 to $2,500 per case, right?

Right.

And so

I had to go litigate those.

We got stung on one in Nevada and Las Vegas, where I live, and we didn't get any money at all.

It cost me $15,000 in attorneys fees 20 years ago and we rolled a donut on that.

So I went back to the attorneys.

I said guys

we have to come up with a better system.

And that's when the attorneys I had at the time, they were the largest foreclosing attorneys on the West Coast.

They represented Countrywide Bank, Bank of America, US Bank.

I mean they were the firm.

So I said what I better have better put these guys on my payroll and have them work for me because they're tied directly to the bank.

that means they're holding the funds

okay

so

with that they said listen the statutes and everything kind of

are not favorable for you to just get a percentage of their money because what did you really do you didn't pay any consideration you just told them about something there's a contract here that lacks consideration and he goes

We'll give us a few weeks and we'll draft you up a series of documents, contracts, where you're going to buy the right to the claim.

So if they're owed 100 grand, maybe we give them $20,000 today.

Wow.

So

it's a contractual right.

It's a property right at that point.

We bought the claim.

And after we did that, I think we had one challenge and we won that one in court.

And then it was just like the game was on.

And what happened in 04, 05,

surplus proceeds, I mean, we did millions of dollars in surplus, millions of dollars.

One claim we paid like $80,030, $84,000 for

for $353,000.

Wow.

Took nine months to get the money because there was multiple claim holders.

You know, I don't remember.

I mean, it's a long time ago, so I don't remember the details, but it was by buying the guy's claim, it changed the landscape.

That means the judges had no problem with it.

The foreclosing trustee didn't have an issue with it.

And because the guy already got his money, he already left.

Right.

He's gone.

We couldn't even get a hold of him.

So, you know, when we say buying real money at a discount, we know there's real money there because there's an overbid.

There's an excess.

There's a surplus of the amount of money that was owed in excess of what the bank was owed.

So to be able to buy that at a discount and negotiate it, it was like a game changer.

It was like, wow, instead of trying to go buy houses.

and raise investment capital and buy them at a foreclosure auction to fix them up and flip them, which is heavy capital intensive.

it was like, hey, we'll just buy the money and have no competition.

Right.

There is very little competition in this process.

There's very few people that know how to do it.

Most people that I do know doing surplus proceeds in other states are still doing it the old way and taking a percentage.

I've talked to their attorneys.

I'm like, just buy the claim.

They're like, well, how do we do that?

It's not rocket science.

If I can figure it out, you're the attorney.

You should be able to figure it out.

Right.

But not all attorneys are created equal.

So what would you say, I mean,

would be a good amount of profit that a beginner can see from doing their first deal.

Like, let's say they wanted to partner up with you.

Typically, what do you see on average?

It's all going to be dependent upon the size of the claim, right?

Because you've got litigation costs.

There's going to be additional trustee's fees.

The trustee tries to bill the case $3,000 to $10,000

just for filing what they call a complaint for interpleader.

What an interpleader means is it means we have no interest in the funds.

We don't care who gets them, but they get to draft their little lawsuit, give the money to the clerk of the court, and then they get to take their fees for doing that.

Wow.

So that's another little business model that the trustees have.

You know, I've seen some trustees sit on the money and not interplead it, and they'll bill against it through skip tracing and hiring PIs PIs and more

legal review.

And they'll do that in some states

until there's the three-year, what they call the S-cheat loss, right?

Where they have to turn over the money to the government if nobody claims it.

They'll hold that in their

trust.

They'll hold that in their trust account and bill against it for three years,

more revenue for the firm that way, until somebody claims it.

or they have to turn it over to the court.

And then if they have to turn it over to the court, they get to bill again for that, right?

So there's a a little bit of a game now.

In some states, like I think it's South Carolina,

like if you don't make a claim to the money in 30 days, you lose it.

Wow.

Like it's lost.

So different states, different laws.

Correct.

Okay.

And let's say if the beginner was to come to you, and once again, it's their first deal.

I mean, majority of Americans out there, they just want, they want like at least an average, right?

They're going to make, you know, let's say the average claim, let's say if we get a $100,000 claim.

Okay.

Yeah, fair enough they're probably gonna make 10 to 20 grand just just working with me okay cool so 10 20 grand guys if if the claim's about a hundred thousand dollars working with uh christopher craig i mean there you guys have it so we'll come back to this man this is very interesting portion of your story but i want to get into the entrepreneurship mindset um as you know the lola podcast the reason why i believe we became number one very fast is because we help people with their mindset so it's all about mindset right all about mindset all about mindset so what would you say

made you want to be an entrepreneur?

I had really good jobs, but when the tech bubble hit in 2000, I didn't have a job.

I was a worker that was a dime a dozen.

In fact, there was no other job.

So I had to figure out something I could do.

And thank God I met, was introduced to my mentor, mentee,

good friend today, Douglas McCabe.

And he kind of gave me the trajectory, but he says, you got to put in the work.

Yeah.

You know,

if you don't go knock the doors and you don't make the phone calls, you're not going to make any money.

Yeah.

You know, so,

but what it, the sparked was the sky is the limit.

Whatever I put into it, I'm going to get the direct, you know, proactive reaction out of it, which is dollars in my pocket.

And I worked, I was working seven days a week.

I mean, if you're young in your 20s, you can do that.

If you don't have a family, you got the energy.

You know, it's, it's something new.

You're learning.

It was, I was constantly learning, but I was always reading books, new books on the craft itself, real estate, foreclosures.

I'm not telling everybody to go real estate and foreclosures today because it's a very fragmented market.

Unless they go with you.

Right.

And, you know, I've got 25 years of experience of all the tricks in the trade from, you know, business bankruptcies on real estate to surplus proceeds, A to Z.

I've done it all.

You're also a professional with tax advising as well.

Yeah.

So you know your shit, dude.

And that, and that's why we're here.

Because guys, look,

here's a story you guys don't hear.

You know, when we were at the charity event, you know, you're explaining your concept to me.

And I'm like, dude, you broke that down pretty simple, but I know it's not that simple.

And you're like, well, it is pretty simple.

I was like, it's simple for you.

But it's not simple for majority of people watching this, right?

Majority of people are still trying to figure out how they're going to make their bills every day, right?

That's true.

So with that being said, this is why we're here.

We bring great guests like Chris, who are expert in their niche, which is foreclosure and real estate and even taxes

and and you're able to break it down in a simple simple formula right so you you wanted to go ahead and become an entrepreneur because you knew that the hard work that you put in the energy that you had at that time you would get the reward correct how did that make you feel like did you feel good did you feel powerful did you feel like dude like i could accomplish anything think about this like take a yard project right you know the honeydew list like hey i want you to build a waterfall or something i mean and you go back to when you were a kid anytime you built something on your own after it was done you felt really good about it because you accomplished it that was the direct work you did with your own hands correct you know just men were built to work absolutely

and so even today I might detract from doing paperwork and let's say thinking from the neck above.

And I still get my hands dirty today.

You know, I've done general contracting.

I mean, hey, I was out there running heavy equipment yesterday at one of my house flips I'm doing in Henderson, Nevada.

Well, it's not a house flip.

It's a house rental, but I had to remodel it.

So I got a

one of those extend-a-lift, extreme lift things.

I pulled the air conditioner off the damn roof by myself

because I didn't have any guys to help me.

They were two hours out, and I'm like, I got to get this done now.

So I just strapped it up, put it on the hook and lifted it off and moved it around, maneuvered it.

But I know how to operate heavy equipment.

In perfect action, man.

You You know, you're not going to wait for anybody.

Get it done.

Right.

Just go get it done.

And it's just like, you know, HVAC guy calls, hey, what am I doing?

It's like, I'm paying you money to go out and figure the job out so I don't have to do it.

Right.

But,

you know,

you're resourceful, man.

Not a lot of people are resourceful, you know?

You have to leverage your relationships and your network.

And call out your resources, right?

The worst thing someone can tell you is no.

Yeah.

And move on to the next one and the next one.

Somebody's going to say yes.

It's just, it's, it's a numbers game.

It's no different than marketing and social media and digital marketing today.

You got to go through, you know, 100,000 impressions to get 50 good qualified customers.

Growing pains, brother.

Right.

And so

everything is, can relate whether it doesn't matter the industry, it's still the same key concepts.

But, you know, you got to have grit.

You got to have the ability to adapt and overcome.

You're going to get knocked down just like I've been knocked down.

I've been, I've leveled up three, four steps and got knocked down five or six and had to start all over again.

Not once, not twice, three or four times in my life, maybe five.

Yeah.

But you cannot let it's the mindset is believe in yourself because other people believe in you.

Yeah.

So, Chris, what would you say is your why now?

I mean, obviously, when you were in your 20s, it seems like you were just a go-getter, dude.

So you probably didn't even need a why, right?

A lot of these youngsters nowadays don't need a why.

They just, they have the energy, they have the ambition, and they want to get paid, right?

But right now, at your age, you've been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years now, dude.

What is your why?

My why is, look, I've been through the, the ringer, right?

I've done it.

I've failed.

I've succeeded.

But if I had that person,

if I had somebody like me today,

I mean, I,

I could learn it all a lot faster instead of years.

We could speed that process up into months.

Right.

Right.

Maybe even weeks, depending on how quick of a learner somebody is.

But having that mentor relationship, you know, we see a lot like 20 years ago, you just didn't see coaching programs.

Not at all.

Not at all.

It was, you didn't see,

you would be afraid to ask somebody, hey, could you mentor me?

It just wasn't part of.

The culture.

The culture.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

And it was, go figure it out.

Nobody's going to teach you.

Yeah.

Now we have coaching, we have programs, people will teach you.

So it's more of my give back.

But remember, I always say our network, our net worth is our network.

So if I can expand this and help other people

put a few extra bucks in their pocket, I mean, it doesn't even have to be a full-time thing.

It could be a part-time deal.

Yeah.

If you could make an extra $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 a month part-time.

For some people, that might be all you need to do.

Right.

Right.

Right.

And it's quality of life, spending more time with your children, your family, doing the things you like to do.

But I've always liked to do things that are, I find interesting and are new because I'm a very classic is once I accomplish something, I've done this thing a few times.

I got to find something more challenging.

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

You're a visionary guy then.

I'm a visionary.

I'm a visionary guy, man.

You're the type of guy.

Okay.

This is the type of guys that we are, guys.

We're the type of guys that even though we might be super busy, we might have three, four things going on.

We are the type of guys that would be like, let's go start another fire.

Let's go ahead and start something else.

Just because that's the way your mind is.

That's the way that you have been

at it for years.

Right.

And I think, you know, I have a very similar background because you're military.

I'm law enforcement.

And I was very proactive.

right?

I was out there being very proactive as a cop.

So that mentality from law enforcement of me always wanted to find work, me want to stay busy, me wanted to go ahead and earn it, right?

I brought that mentality into entrepreneurship.

So I think for you, it's very similar.

You know, when we go out and earn something, we feel good about earning it.

Correct.

When we go out and take something, we don't feel good about it.

Correct.

Right.

So it's, it's

your mindset is

feel good about earning your keep.

And,

you know, some people, like I do a lot of coaching and I'm very liberal with my time.

Like people say, okay, I need somebody to set up an LLC for me.

And I say, why don't we just jump on a Zoom?

It'll take 10 minutes and I'll show you how to do it yourself.

Yeah.

Right.

And some people are like, that would be great because it's going to save them 500 bucks of paying somebody else to do it.

Absolutely.

And it's literally, and today setting up your own business only takes about 15 minutes.

But you have other companies, which is, yeah, it's part of the, part of the game.

They're brokers.

They're brokers.

They're going to charge you a thousand bucks to do the same damn thing.

I mean, and I have clients that say, Chris,

just set it up for us.

We're happy to pay your fee.

Are you sure about that?

You don't want to do it yourself or at least, see, I'm the kind of guy.

I want to know how to do everything.

You're right, man.

But see, the thing is, now in this

day and age of social media, you know, and ever since COVID, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like everybody has gotten almost trained to want insert gratification even more now.

And it's because of these applications.

You know, just think about it.

We ordered some healthy food here in Miami, but we used an application to get it, right?

We didn't have to physically drive to the location.

We didn't have to physically order it anymore.

No, everything's on the touch of your phone.

DoorDash.

So it makes it, it almost reprograms your mind.

to want to go through what I like to call the path of least resistance.

True.

Right.

So I think as a society, it's just going to get worse and worse and worse.

And it's not to say it's a bad thing because I think that's going to open a lot of more opportunities, right?

Yeah, for the entrepreneurs, the people that are smart, the people who are thinkers, just like yourself and me.

And for you guys that are listening and watching to this, if you guys do take the opportunity, you know, I had a guest yesterday, he's a former PD, and he said, you know, most people they want to be entrepreneurs, but see, they're only putting in five percent of energy to go ahead and do something that they want to accomplish.

Now, imagine if you were to go ahead and triple that, you'd be at 15.

Imagine if you gave 50%.

Imagine if you were at 100%.

How much shit you would get done on a daily basis, right?

So I think for people that really want to go out there and achieve what they want, you guys have to go ahead and take a perfect action.

I mean, you're hearing Chris's story.

Chris came from the military, didn't know much.

A mentor.

That's what I would consider.

A mentor.

The person that told you about it.

Took me under his wing.

Took you under his wing, dude.

And I had a ton of mentors.

I just didn't call them mentors at the time.

Right.

i didn't know we wouldn't call him a coach or a mentor but no we wouldn't without even understanding what the person was showing you exactly he was showing you another like you know doug mccabe showed me a different way how to that's really where i became an entrepreneur was okay in this real estate i was wholesaling i was knocking pre-foreclosures doors uh and i was buying people's houses at a discount right yeah and so if i'd get one locked up under contract i would take my contract and assign it to mccabe and he would pay me 10 of the profit, right?

That's what he would pay me.

Because

I had no skin in the game other than my own

two feet and door knockers, my fist, and that's it and my mouth,

you know, and that's what made me money.

And sometimes I was making even when I was like 24, 25, 26,

20,000 bucks a week back then.

Yeah.

Which is insane.

Right.

And think about it.

Now,

it's much more difficult today

because of the competitive environment we're in.

We have technology.

There's five other people to that same door, but not so much in surplus proceeds.

Right.

So the surplus proceeds,

it's the new vehicle, essentially.

It's the new window of opportunity right now in 2025 and beyond.

So, all right, let's get back into the

foreclosure surplus proceeds now.

So your method.

That you're creating.

I know you're coming out with this new community.

It's a free general community where you're going to be teaching people on a weekly basis how to do this, right?

Right.

We'll hold weekly Zooms.

And then you're also speaking at Swipe to Freedom, which is my event, guys.

It's for one of my portfolio companies, Cashwipe.

As you guys know, we do credit card processing.

Christopher Craig, he's going to be speaking to over 400 entrepreneurs there, talking about surplus proceeds, which is going to be great.

I know there's going to be a lot of people interested in that.

And then another thing that you're doing is you're essentially, you're doing like almost like a done with you, done for you concept with the surplus proceeds, where you're going to help people find the actual auctions where all they have to do is essentially just show up, show up to the auction, show up, and be ready to make some deals and then to partner up with you.

And then some people don't even need to have the money to go ahead and do that.

They just need to go ahead and do the work and follow your advice, right?

We need somebody to go out and make contact so that we can make a deal with the homeowner.

Yeah.

The homeowner makes money.

You make money.

I make money.

We all make money together.

Man, that's amazing.

And then we just grow the network.

Yeah.

because collaboration is key.

Yep.

You know, instead of competition, why, why, why, why compete?

Collaborate.

Right.

Right.

Because we can grow faster

and we can cover more ground and maybe reach more lives, help more people.

What state, Chris, would you say right now is really thriving with this opportunity with the surplus proceeds?

Let's see, I think certain parts of Texas, like, you know, well, Las Vegas is the number one foreclosure spot in the U.S.

right now.

And I guess that depends on, you know, what news source we get, right?

But Florida is getting hit pretty hard right now.

Yeah.

So what's happening in the foreclosure market or distressed property is during the pandemic, during COVID, where you saw the biggest run-up in housing prices, which was Florida.

Your red states, which didn't have restrictions, grew like crazy, right?

And so now there's a correction.

But at the same time i mean look spirit airlines just filed bankruptcy again yesterday

there's some economic factors right as well interest rates are high some of these people that got covered relief in their houses they got like a forbearance on the mortgage which a forbearance that says okay you're behind 12 payments we'll go ahead and we'll push them out four or five years or we'll push them out three years, depending on what agreement they got with their lender or servicer.

Well, now all these things are come and due.

Now, people that got, like, say,

adjustable rate mortgages a couple of years ago where they were got like a low 3% introductory, then it went four, then five, then six, then seven, they can't afford it at seven.

They could afford it at three, four, five, but not six and seven.

So you're seeing these types of properties foreclose.

Then you've got the, you know, you're always going to have divorce.

You're always going to have alcohol, drugs, depression, and those other mental type factors.

That's relevant always

but the economic impact right now companies are closing big businesses filing bankruptcy so what's this really looking like and people's we have like job or wage stagflation your wages aren't going up when inflation is outpacing your wages uh so with those factors foreclosures are up nationwide uh there's a really good um it's a service i've said it's like 99 bucks a year maybe 200 bucks a year it's called resi club R-E-S-I-Club.com.

And that gives some of the best analytical data on the residential real estate market nationally.

And so it will list out like where all the top foreclosure cities are right now.

So those are the cities.

Like you just go pick 25 foreclosure cities.

I team up with any of these, anybody listening here.

You know, if we had one or two people in each of these, these counties, these jurisdictions, we can cover a lot of ground with a lot of people.

Now, let's say you go, hey, man, I got some extra money I want to invest.

We're great.

We pool our money together.

We buy these claims together.

We profit together.

Wow.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

So, Chris, where can they find you?

On Instagram, it's Christopher CraigOfficial.

And on LinkedIn, it's the same thing.

Okay.

And then you have a website?

We have a website called surpluswithchris.com.

It's a nice catchy name, dude.

Yep.

So, Chris, what would you tell everyone right now that are interested in actually making money with foreclosure surplus proceeds?

I mean, I feel like this is such a great opportunity.

I'm even thinking of investing into this as well.

But what would you say to the beginner entrepreneur right now,

possibly people in the military, possibly people in law enforcement, right?

First responders that are looking to get into entrepreneurship.

What are some words of advice that you would tell the audience right now, brother?

The very first step is setting, is getting your entity structure set up right.

You know, going into business, that new LLC.

Now, you don't necessarily need to have

an LLC in the state you reside.

You want a friendly LLC like Nevada, New Mexico, Texas.

You want states that don't tax you on your profits.

Okay.

So Florida is a good one.

So there's a lot of states, and I can help you walk you through.

We can go on the Secretary of State's website and literally you can incorporate or organize your LLC in 10, 15 minutes.

And I will coach you how to to do that so you can save a few bucks.

It's going to empower you to learn.

Okay, so then it's property entity structure and tax structure.

You might have your W-2.

Well, you make extra money.

It's getting taxed too, but how do you minimize that?

There's ways to do that.

Now, as an enrolled agent, licensed to practice before the Internal Revenue Service, plus I have a Master's of Laws and Taxation.

So yeah, I have a lot of couple graduate degrees as well.

And so

I call it tax efficiency, right?

And I will guide you and coach you.

So if you have children, for instance, like simple things like paying your kids can reduce your taxes.

Yeah.

Not really the subject of what we're talking today, but when you work with me, you get all this knowledge built in 25 years and a lot of graduate education.

Right.

So I've got an MBA, a JD, and an LLM.

Wow.

That's amazing, man.

That's amazing.

So that's

four,

two, and two eight years of graduate education.

I love that, brother.

I love that.

So you guys will be teaming up with the best of the best when it comes into this industry, guys.

So, Chris, anything else, any words of motivation or anything else you want to leave with the audience?

It all comes down to action, guys.

You have to be able to willing to take the step.

You know, I was about 40 pounds just my own personal journey.

I was about to, about five months ago, I was like 280 pounds.

And then actually, maybe even like June, May 31st, we went to Mexico.

I take my kids, my wife.

My wife's from Mexico.

Her parents still live there.

They're in their 80s, so they don't travel so well.

So we go for five weeks to Puerto Vallarta every year.

I had a hard time doing 20 push-ups.

Now, I'm a Marine that usually could do knockout 50 push-ups like any given day, no matter how bad a shape I was in.

I could always do knockout 50 push-ups.

It just might take me a few minutes to do it, right?

But when I struggled with 20 push-ups and I had this fat belly, I was like, okay, I got to take action.

Right.

And that's that, you know, I was like, I got to be healthy for my family because I might stroke out or have a heart attack.

I'm getting up there in that age where it's going to be common.

So

be willing to take action.

Be willing to learn.

Okay.

Be willing to accept constructive criticism.

Oh, yeah.

You know, I'm always willing.

Look,

what can somebody tell me that can help me make me better?

Yeah.

Because we can't see it in ourselves half the time.

We can't.

We can't.

People are a better judge of you than you are yourself.

Just like we criticize, well, you know, if you change this, change that.

But, you know, it's just being willing to accept,

right?

Take it in and

build the thing that you want, but you got to start somewhere.

It's baby.

We crawl before we walk.

That's right.

And then once you get a little confidence, once you do, you know, a deal or two or a transaction, you get a little bit more confident.

You know, knowledge and education is power.

Remember this.

The more you learn, nobody can ever take that from you unless you get a head injury.

Absolutely, brother.

I thought you were about to say the more that you learn, the more that you earn.

But hey, I like what you just said too, Chris.

Guys, that is the level up with Christopher Craig.

He is a foreclosure, a surplus proceed expert, guys, and tax advisor.

So if you guys want to go ahead and actually contact Chris, you could go to Christopher Craig official on Instagram and surpluswithchris.com guys.

This is Paul Alex with the Level Up Podcast.

Leave a five star review on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and on YouTube, guys.

Because of you guys, the 4 million downloads a month, we are top four in all categories and number one in business currently.

With that being said, we'll catch you on the next one.

Thanks for listening up to the Level Up Podcast.

If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to share with a family, friend, and everyone you know who's ready to level up.

Leave a five-star review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you tune in.

It really helps spreading the word and don't forget to check out officialpawalex.com for more episodes and resources to kickstart your journey.

Let's level up together.

Every minute your finance team spends wrestling with data is a minute lost.

Insight Software's AI-powered insights instantly move you from complexity to clarity.

Automated analysis, real-time reporting, strategic recommendations, all at your fingertips.

Transform how your finance team works and watch your business grow.

Stop wasting time, start making smarter decisions.

Learn more at insightsoftware.com/slash AI.