Owner Financing & Note Investing Podcast with Dawn Rickabaugh · Dawn Rickabaugh | Expert Advice for building wealth through Owner Financing & Note Investing

Lost Her Home in the Altadena Fire and Now Her Rental is Strangling Her

·39 min·2 clips

Aileen says her sister lost her Altadena home and now a rental in Ojai is barely breaking even.

1. Owner Financing & Note Investing Podcast with Dawn Rickabaugh focuses on a distressed Ojai rental tied to the Altadena fire and on whether owner financing can help a landlord exit. 2. Dawn Rickabaugh leads the discussion as the host and note investor, while Aileen calls on behalf of her sister and Damon from Houston adds a separate investor perspective. 3. The episode asks what a seller should do when a rental has debt, tenant problems, tax exposure, and not much cash flow. 4. Aileen says her sister lost her home in the Altadena fire and is trying to recover while managing a problematic rental in Ojai, California. 5. She estimates the property at about $890,000 with around $600,000 owed on a first bank loan and says the rent barely covers mortgage, taxes, and insurance. 6. Dawn says the financing is "very juicy" and that the first instinct should be to avoid throwing away a favorable loan structure. 7. She says a cash sale, owner financing, or a trust structure can all be considered, but the right path depends on the seller’s goals. 8. Aileen says her sister is worried about depreciation recapture and capital gains if she sells outright. 9. Dawn tells her to get exact numbers from an accountant, a recent mortgage statement, and the note itself before making a decision. 10. Dawn also asks about the mortgage terms, the rent amount, and the all-in payment so the family can see the real margin. 11. Dawn says the title-holding trust system can help preserve the transaction structure while keeping the seller in a beneficial-interest position. 12. She says the resident beneficiary would come in with only 5% down in that system, which changes the math on equity and entry cash. 13. Damon says he has 14 rentals and about six notes, mostly in Michigan, and asks whether inflation means he is being repaid in weaker dollars. 14. He describes land contracts that led to a forfeiture, a house burning down after homeless drug addicts moved in, and another property requiring four court actions over six or seven years. 15. Dawn says those land contracts were already "bent and bruised" and points out that many note buyers overpay for trouble they did not underwrite themselves. 16. She says his 10% return is not the same as a clean passive investment and argues that time, legal risk, and property quality all affect the real yield. 17. The tone is consultative and tactical, with Dawn moving between live coaching, legal cautions, and portfolio strategy. 18. The format mixes call-in troubleshooting, anecdotal deal stories, and broader commentary on inflation, AI, gold, Bitcoin, and changing housing economics. 19. Listeners with rentals, notes, or owner-financing decisions will get the most out of it. 20. Listeners wanting a short market update without deal structure detail may skip it.

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