Real Estate Investment Commentary REIC

Monday, January 23, 2012

Do You need FUNDING to be a Real Estate Investor?

Eventually a Real Estate Investor will hear about a deal that is too good to pass up but their CASH is all tied up in another deal. There are no funds to purchase or repair! Time to borrow money!

But before the phone call is made, Investors need to:

Act Quickly before the deal is sold to another investor.
Ask questions about:
- Will the owner accept "No Money Down?" If not, what is the minimum down payment?
- Can the down payment be something other than cash?
- Will the owner hold paper? If so, up to what percentage?
- What are the monthly carrying charges? (Insurance, utilities...)
Determine the properties Maximum Allowable Offer MAO so you can make an offer that is going to make you money quickly.
Make sure you have multiple exit strategies.

Once you feel comfortable about the terms of the deal, time to dial your Lender's number! Good Real Estate Investors always have funds available 24/7 to take advantage of transactions that magically appear.

Lenders are adverse to risk so here are some questions you should ask the funding entity:

What states are they licensed to lend money?
Will they fund the deal based on the After Repair Value ARV (good) or the contracted price on the Purchase Agreement (bad)?
Will they fund the repair costs?
Is there a Prepayment Penalty?
How long can the investor borrow the money for?
Up to what percentage will they fund? If your contracted price is $150K and they will only fund 70% what is the total amount that they will lend? Answer:$105K. That means you have to come up with $45K. OUCH!
If needed, can the investor get more time?
What are the repayment terms? Are these terms negotiable?
Are there any Closing Costs, Points, Etc.?
What are the Minimum and Maximum amounts I can borrow?
Are there funds available 24/7 to take advantage of NEW investment opportunities?

Every real estate transaction is unique so there are different type of loans you can use for each deal depending on the parameters. Here are a few names you have probably heard of:

Conventional
Hard Money (Quick but expensive)
Private Money Lender (Best Option)
Transactional Funding (Good for Short Sales)

These all serve a purpose and have advantages and disadvantages for real estate investors.

Here is a list of lenders that you can work with. Web Links are below:

Bridge Loan for Multifamily Properties

Bedford Lending Introduces 7% Interest Rate Bridge Loan
For Distressed Apartment Investors

Hard Money Lenders

Brookview Financial

Capital Funding

Financial Help Services

Hard Money Today

Hard Money Lenders Directory

Onward Financial

PeachStone Capital

Rehab Funding

Wooden Nickel Funding

Florida Hard Money Lender

Private Money Lenders

View Alan Cowgill's Private Money Webinar - Raise all the PRIVATE money you need for your Real Estate Transactions.

Mr Private Money

Trajan Financial CORP.

Transactional Funding (Good for Short Sales)

iV Transactional Funding

One Day Funding

Related Links, Blog Postings, Presentations or Articles:

Written by +Bob Burns.

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I Love Fort Myers Beach!

Real Estate Investor
about.me/RobertKBurns
Telephone #: 305-586-5280
email: sec8@planocho.com

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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Secure Your property for before Rehabbing!

After completing several property rehabs in Miami-Dade County, Florida, I wanted to try something out of the county but still in Florida. My parents lived in Sarasota, Florida so I thought this would be a nice place to start. Distance would be an issue but my father was down for the winter and he could check up on the progress being made on the individual properties. Also, my Dad is an electrical contractor which brings many rehab benefits but that is a future REIC posting.

I found a duplex FOR SALE fairly quickly on Debbie Street, Sarasota due to the advantage of attending Sarasota REIA group meetings on Florida's Gulf Coast. Other than the distance, four hour drive, I felt this would be like any other rehab.

I decided to start in February with a two week property visit. Well during that time, several problems arose that I didn't experience before, like:

Most of the properties were on well water. Hard on the pipes, fixtures and tasted awful. Our duplex had city water service which was a blessing but caused me a problem I had to resolve.
Septic Tanks! No county sewer systems had been installed. The drain field was the front lawn and it was clogged.
Clothes Washer waste water line emptied onto the backyard lawn.
Pine trees over fifty high. Pine needles build up on the roof and lawn.
Gravel driveway that the neighbors thought they could use to park their cars.
Drug addicts lived about 50 yards away in an apartment.
On and On and On....

But the one problem that cost me the most in time and money was the city water lines.

Apparently it was very expensive to get connected to Sarasota's water system due to high impact fees. Impact fees are the city's way to tax you for hooking up to the water system network. You have to pay for the following:

Impact fees
Installation fee for digging up the street and installing the water meters.
Hire a plumber to run lines from the city's water meters to the duplex's water system.
Had to pay twice since it was two separate water meters, one for each unit of the duplex.

Luckily, my duplex already had these meters installed by a previous owner. The problem was the neighbors knew this and thought they could help themselves to the city water from our duplex. They would go to our outside water fixture and fill their 5 gallon water containers.

By the end of the month, I had a very large water bill which I couldn't figure out why? My rehab contractor said he never used too much water. I thought I had a water line leak from the meter to the duplex.

One day in July, my rehab contractor said he saw one of the neighbors filling up their containers and told me about it. I was flabbergasted but realized that this was going to be an ongoing problem!

Below is picture containing the anti-theft water system parts and installation video.....