Gator Lending? Why? 🐊

[Steven Greenwalt]

Hey Everyone, 

Newbie here trying to get some clarity on "gator" lending. I know, it's the flavor of the day, but it at least got me to to perk up. That said, I'm either missing something or this is another snake oil scheme. So the question is - why would someone entering a deal/assignment need a gator to cover EMD?

Let's say EMD is only between $2,000 and $5,000, depending on the deal. From my POV, it worries me that the person with this deal/assignment doesn't A. have $2k - $5k free for EMD OR B. Is willing to add another person (the gator) to this transition, further complicating it for only $2k - $5k + gator fee.  

What am I missing here?

[Account Closed]

Quote from @Ned Carey:

@Steven Greenwalt I don't not know exactly how Gator lending works. However from what I have read here, it seems like a really stupid idea. Borowing an EMD is super high risk and lending to someone who can't put come up with an EMD is also high risk. It seems like a really stupid concept to me.

Perhpas some with actuall knowledge of how it work could illuniate us. My guess is though that as you and I suspect it is the "flovor of the day" as you say and a pretty bad flavor at that. 

I just saw a video of the gator guy saying he bought a property using Subject To with no money down. He used a gator lender to put in the money needed to finish the transaction. He said there was no equity in the property and yet he walked away with money at closing.

So, he buys a property that has no equity, uses an unsophisticated gator lender to overfund the deal, above the value of the property and he gets cash out.

For those of you in Rio Linda land, that means there is nothing protecting the gator lender. Nothing.

If he defaults, or the DOS is called or any number of others things, the gator lender has to either pay off the underlying loan that is taken Subject To, or lose their entire investment.

If the gator lender does pay off the underlying loan, they are stuck with about 10% costs to sell the property. So, an overleveraged property that had no equity to begin with and now an additonal loss from the costs of selling.
What could go wrong?

Now do you understand his version of "gator lending"?