I was trying desperately to think of a way to raise money to buy a house I wanted to flip. My wife suggested I ask her brother for a short term loan, so that’s what I did. He said yes, and we’ve been working together ever since. He loaned me the balance of the money I needed to close on the property, and I paid him back six months later, along with a nice rate of return. He got what he wanted, and I got what I wanted. Since then, I’ve added other lenders to my private group of real estate lenders.