A Request for Ed Garcia… - Posted by L.T. Walker
Posted by L.T. Walker on July 20, 2002 at 01:45:36:
OK, Ed, you’ve gained my confidence. I’ve just finished reading some of your recent, longer interchanges on this forum. I must say I am impressed with the way you handled two writers at polar opposites from each other - one so focused on the negatives he doesn’t see the positives, and the other so high on the positives that he completely ignores the potential negatives. Bravo. I enjoy the way you communicate, and I’m no longer worried you’ll think I’m “too small” to discuss my challenge with me, so here goes.
My wife and I are newbie investors in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Thanks to effort, courage, and lots of excellent training, we have located and contracted with two very motivated sellers on five properties in “bread and butter” neighborhoods - all under 60% ARV, all needing less that $6000 in repairs - and all priced between $18,000 and $32,000. In fact, we can purchase all five SFRs for a total of $108,100 - one at a time, or all together. We’ve already got tenant leases for two of them, which will service the entire interest payment debt at 75%. We plan to flip the other three properties to build cash reserves.
Our challenge? Finding a “true” hard money lender. We’ve spoken with about a dozen folks who’ve claimed to be HMLs (or brokers for one), but before you know it they wanted credit scores, income verification, proof of assets, the whole nine yards. Usually they say they want the information to “determine the interest rate”. But after all the faxing, phoning, emailing, and form 1003s, it turns out “they just can’t do a ‘stated’ loan without either a 680 credit score, or a purchase price of at least $100k per house”. They never even get around to actually considering whether the deals themselves make sense!
The two local investor groups have been very secretive about where they get their hard money loans from. (My wife thinks my native New Yorker aggressiveness makes them feel competitive, and she may be right. You can probably tell the “soft sell” approach is not my strong suit, although I do try to avoid being abrasive.)
I’ve considered doing an email/fax blast to the doctors, dentists, and other professionals in the area offering 15% on their money, but time is of the essence now - it’s been 45 days since we contracted.
To minimize the lender’s risk, we are willing to prepay the first six month’s interest payments at closing, and also create second deeds on the properties that would be held in escrow for the lender in case of default - no foreclosure hassles. I’m simply at a loss as to why folks aren’t jumping all over this deal. What am I missing?
Ed, we’re serious about doing business, and getting in position to do more business better. We’re teachable and willing to listen. If you’d be interested in helping us get started right, I’m confident it’ll be worth your while.
Thanks,
Lance T. Walker
SkyVault Real Estate Group, LLC
757-988-3119