Posted by NC Paul on March 03, 2001 at 24:06:07:
I have managed to find out how to cross lines in this business quite efficiently. I have my main note buyer that I was lucky and found right from jump-street. This buyer is fast, not too expensive, and an easy person to work with. (Funded our first deal today and should see our commission soon!) However, that buyer however doesn?t cotton to lots of the clients I have. (For my Yankee friends, ?cotton to?=?likes?) For some strange reason he doesn?t like 400-500 scores! I then got back online and pulled up a massive list of ?buyers? and started dialing for dollars to find the buyer to handle our tough deals. I did my level best to screen other brokers to find an actual buyer, or at least an organization that was able to evaluate and fund the deal on their own.
What I found the first day was a broker who claimed to be ?sitting on a pile of money?. This guy knew what to say and how to say it so I didn?t realize that he was a broker until we had already sent several deals in and received some quotes. (I think we faxed him seven or so.) At that time I decided to continue dialing through my list in the hope of finding a real buyer instead of this broker. Not far down my list was the buyer who had provided several quotes for our deals. (I left a voice mail and moved on, didn’t talk to him that time.) This buyer recognized our name from the deals he had received the day before and contacted the broker to find out why we were trying to go around him. Basically we said that we had not tried to go around the broker but that we didn?t like the quotes we received and were searching for a better deal. The buyer told us that we could deal directly with him but the broker would continue to get his premium. That dog won?t hunt but I want to know is this normal? If it is, how can I have a file evaluated and test the waters without closing doors down the road? Is there a standard procedure in the industry to do this or do we have to take our chances and hope for the best?