LOOKING for lender recommendation for HELOC on primary in FL

[David Brown]

Hi guys, 

I just recently relocated from NY to FL where i'm trying to continue to grow my real estate portfolio. I paid cash for my house, (381k) invested another 60kish into the rehab, and believe the value to be around $600k. I did this with the intention that I would immediately be able to get an 80-90% ltv heloc which would allow me to have buying power when the right opportunity arises, without having to pay debt day one with a mortgage. 

I have two issues that I am trying to work through & looking for the help of the group.

I have called 6+ banks, and ALL are requiring a 12 month seasoning period to lend based off of appraisal.. They WILL give me a heloc, but only on $381k, in which I would lose out on not only the ARV value, but the 60k cash I invested into the rehab. Is there ANY bank that does not require the seasoning period? In NY, this would not be an issue at all. FYI, I have owned the home for about 4 months now, and by the time a closing would occur, likely 6 months.

Second issue - I accepted that I would have to refinance the line of credit again after 12 months, to unlock the additional equity in the home, (hesitantly) and applied for the heloc with BB&T who was offering 90% LTV & was actually DENIED because "my debt to income ratio was too high". I've been approved for substantially bigger loans, with less reported income & was shocked.

My NOI for 2020 was $240k, adding back in depreciation im over $300k+, 2019 was not substantially less.... I have like ZERO bad debt, no car loans, no personal loans, like 3k in credit cards which I can pay off at any second, im insanely underleveraged on my investment real estate, have 820k in cash liquid, among other liquid assets like silver bullion, crypto, ect. My credits also like a 790.. I spoke to a good friend of mine who is the VP of commercial lending for a credit union in NY who advised there is absolutely no reason I should have been denied this heloc.. After emailing the bank & asking them if they could have an underwriting manager look at the file, the denial stood & they sent me the email below.

"Hey David,I am sending this email, but I wanted to remind you that I am not the underwriter. That being said, this is what the underwriter looks at.

For schedule E income (real estate etc),

In most cases, They will take the total income after expenses (line 26), then add back Depreciation and Interest expense (lines 23c & 23d) to come up with a total number.

They will do that for two most recent years (at least) and then take the average of those.

Then of course add any other income that is usable, example would be your K1 income or any W2 etc.

Then that is the total annual income number that is used to come up with the monthly number.

As I stated before, I am not the underwriter and I am sure there is a lot more involved that just that, but that is a good estimate on what they do to come up with your monthly income we can use to qualify for a loan."

While my credit is really good at around 790, I've been getting a lot of "factual data" inquiries lately from banks I have existing loans with, and I feel its starting to bring my score down.

I'm looking for recommendations/help on a lender that will approve me for this heloc based on the info provided above, and give me 80-90% of appraisal, and not what I paid for the property, (a rehab) before I invested any money into it... I do not NEED the money currently so I am not interested in high interest hard money loan or anything, but I would like as much capital at my disposal as possible, in the event a score of an opportunity arises. 

Thanks in advance