Creative Finance Mastery: Pace Morby’s Journey, SubTo, and Stories of Life-Changing Deals

What if you could buy homes, businesses, or even an RV without a bank saying yes?

That provocative idea threaded through a conversation with Pace Morby, a builder-turned-investor who went from swinging hammers to controlling a half billion dollars in assets — and he did it without using his own cash or credit. The story is part how-to, part moral argument about who teaches us to take risks and part radical reframing of what "ownership" actually requires.

From contractor to value-creator

Pace’s break came when a client refused to keep him as a contractor because she recognized a different kind of value: deal-finding. He learned that trading time for money was a dead end. That moment stung — and it liberated him. Within weeks he earned tens of thousands by bird-dogging deals. Within a year he scaled that to hundreds of thousands, simply by matching owners and buyers and structuring transactions creatively.

I found that small, painful firing to be oddly inspiring. It showed how a single candid critique can flip your identity from "worker" to "owner of ideas." Pace’s voice here is blunt and practical, and you can almost feel the pivot happening as he tells the story.

Creative finance: a pragmatic cheat code

Pace uses the term creative finance to describe strategies like Subject-To, where a buyer takes over an existing payment stream rather than originating a new loan. He illustrates this with an anecdote about a polished motor coach listed for $350,000. Instead of starting a months-long loan process, Pace offered to step into the seller’s payments and keep the deal intact. That simple option often saves sellers time and emotional friction while sparing buyers from expensive bank gates.

Honestly, the clarity of that motor coach example made me re-evaluate assumptions I carry about how deals must be financed. When the bank is removed as the middleman, new outcomes appear.

Community as a multiplier

Another big theme: community. Pace didn’t just teach from a webcam. He invited people into the front seat. He started ride-alongs and meetups, physically showing people how to write offers, raise capital, and close Sub2 deals. That hands-on approach boosted his students’ success rate from nearly zero to near certainty.

That surprised me. It’s so easy to assume online content is enough. But Pace’s results argue otherwise: proximity, mentorship, and shared action compound faster than tutorials alone.

Failure that forged a new path

He recounts a brutal low point — a client filed bankruptcy, wiping out millions owed to him — at the very moment his daughter was born. It’s cinematic: joy and disaster folded into a single day. Instead of collapsing, he wrote a list of what had to be true to make that day the best thing that happened to him. He then used that list as a blueprint to rebuild via creative finance.

That mental exercise felt refreshingly playable. It’s not a motivational platitude; it’s a tactical prompt: write what must be true, then find work that moves the needle toward those truths.

Homeless to homeowner — a case study in dignity

The most striking story is Maddie’s. She reached out from a shelter and, within weeks, was moving into a home purchased through creative finance — no bank, no down payment, with a sub-4% rate. She rented out spare rooms to cover payments. You read that and your chest tightens. It’s equal parts proof-of-concept and a moral argument: these strategies can move people off the margins quickly.

I found myself both moved and skeptical in the best way. The narrative forces you to interrogate why traditional systems leave so many people stranded, and how unconventional deal-making can create real dignity.

Practical takeaways

• Subject-To deals let a buyer assume a seller’s payment stream without originating a new mortgage.
• Bird-dogging can be a fast way to earn significant fees by finding off-market opportunities.
• Community-based learning (ride-alongs, local meetups) speeds skill transfer more than passive content.

He layers those tactics with a leadership posture that’s equal parts bluntness and care: call people out when they need it, but also teach them to fish. That blend of accountability and practicality is what scaled his paid community into tens of thousands of members.

Why this matters beyond real estate

There’s a deeper argument here about scarcity and systems. Pace’s methods work because they exploit mismatches: sellers who need speed or relief, buyers who can manage payment streams, and markets where banks are slow or rigid. When you understand those mismatches, novel solutions emerge. And when you combine skill with a network that can execute, those solutions scale quickly.

I left the conversation feeling a little unsettled and a lot energized. Unsettled because traditional pathways to wealth feel increasingly optional. Energized because there are alternatives that restore agency to ordinary people.

What if the most humane answer to a housing crisis is less policy and more creative deal structuring — taught in real time, with real people, and scaled through community? That question lingers long after the last anecdote finishes.