Best Loan option for Buy and Hold property 5 units plus

[Jonathan M.]

Looking at buying a mixed use property multifamily/office with 4 occupied apartments and 2 offices. It will be owner occupied, I would like to finance the property with the lowest down payment possible and a decent interest rate with long payment term. Does anyone have any recommendations?

[Nathan Grabau]

I would google banks near you, and go to the main branch of any banks with less that 5 branches and ask to talk to someone about lending. I think it is going to be hard to check the low down payment, low interest rate, and long am period boxes, but small banks are largely free to create products the way they want. I would start the conversation with questions like "what are you looking to lend on?" and similar general questions, then ask about your property specifically. It is likely that for most of these, your loan will be designed and approved by a few people sitting around a table in a weekly meeting, one of which will be the person you are talking to. How agreeable you are absolutely will impact the type of product you will get offered, so if you are not getting the responses you want you can ask things like "is there a way we can make xyz work?". There also are going to be some banks that refuse to be creative and have a very small box and other banks that are up for being more creative, massaging their LTV, changing their rates if you will shorten your arm, etc. I would look for the later type.

When I did this, I had a list of about 10 near me, and it took me 2 stops to find a good one, so it is okay to move on to the next one if you do not think you guys are going to mesh.