Making the offer. PART 2 I'm now under contract! but problem...

[Jonathan Jewell]

Hello fellow BP'ers   Original post was how should I make the offer which is here.   

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/432/topics/47...

<<<PART 2>>>

I now have this multi-family under contract!!!, but already have hit a bump in the road and really could use your help on this.    I'll keep everything short and to the point because now the clock is ticking.

Thought I had a private lender backing me on this, turns out he was flake, all talk all flash it was all BS. I made an offer with the intention of going in strong, $42k below listed price waiving most contingencies with a 45 day close thinking it was no problem.  Seller accepted my offer but now no financing, no backer in place.

Went in to the listing agents office with my hat in my hand.  The listing agent is a broker owner of the realty company and is very old, and pretty much has seen it all.  Explained what happened, and seemed a bit sympathetic until I gave a new offer with $20K down with seller holding a short term note for 1 year.  Agent Flat out refused, said he will advise his client (seller) not to take that deal, not for 20k down.

He countered with $20k down for a lease purchase with seller collecting the rents to go towards purchase price until I exercise my option to purchase.  I explained I don't have $85k laying around, it would be better he could hold a note so I can do a rate and term refi otherwise I'm back in the same position again of coming up with 25% down in 12 months.  His response was I don't care, this is not about making things easy for you its about whats best for my client, and $20k down to transfer ownership is just not cutting it.

I really don't like the lease purchase idea or ther terms with it.  So questions I have:

1) Does ANYONE know anyone that will do 85% LTV short term private or hard money in Pennsylvania?

2) Is there hard / private money for down payments?   for instance.  I offer seller 80k down if he carries a 1 year note.  40k my funds 40k Hard / private money.  Deal gets finalized and all parties are happy.

3) If options 1 or 2 area no go.  Do you think offering $40k will sway the listing agent and seller to go with my short term note plan?

4) Anything to add that I may have missed?

As always, thanks in advance for the help guys and gals.

[Andrew Johnson]

Jonathan Jewell Devils advocate here, but if (in your response to Jay Hinrichs ) you have mobile homes that you're liquidating, you should be able to come up with the 25% down in 12 months. Maybe the mobile home flipping profits won't be great, maybe you have to take a small loss, but it sounds like you need $65K for the 25% down ($20K down today, "$85K laying around"). If your mobile home deal(s) situation is better than this deal then pass on this until you are better capitalized.

I would also argue (like a complete jerk) that if it's impossible for you to come up with $65K in 12 months you really should rethink apartment ownership. Cap-ex costs are just plain higher if you're re-roofing 8 units instead of 1 house. Resurfacing and striping a shared parking area is expensive.

I will say that I'm 100% on the side of the broker/owner in that changing ownership (even just paying that transfer tax) isn't worth it for $20K. You're admittedly undercapitalized so you start looking at time/effort/hard costs/carrying costs if the current owner has to (essentially) foreclose and it just doesn't make sense. The lease option makes far better sense for the broker/owner or they might as well throw the deal back up on the MLS, Loopnet, etc.

Now this is all assuming that you're not a materially better offer (or the only one) and you can't gain leverage by walking away.

So my net advice, state your terms as a take-it-or-leave-it if you can't find an HML in short order.