Am I supposed to contact refinancing lenders before purchasing?

[Roi C.]

Hi,

I guess this is a newbie question, I'm sure this has been covered before but I couldn't find the exact answer for my question.

I'm looking to purchase a few properties and rehab them with my own cash. Once the properties are fixed up they will be rented.

At that point I would like to refinance these properties and pull out as much cash as I possible can from each property.

I've contacted a few lenders to ask about a cash-out refinance and they don't really want to talk with me right now. I'm getting a feeling like they want me to contact them only once I buy and fix these properties and have all my numbers straight. However, refinancing is a crucial step in my strategy and I would like to know what I'm getting into beforehand. Also, its important for me to know what the closing costs and the LTV cash-out is going to look like.

Some lenders mentioned that I will need to wait a 6 month seasoning period for them to offer me an X percentage of the value, and If I want to refinance sooner they'll give me less. I don't know if these are the state laws or if these are lender specific policies.

Important to mention, the properties that I want to buy are in TX and I do not own these properties yet.

I though it would be pretty simple for a lender to tell me what my refinance options (and costs) are if I tell them the value of the property, how much equity I currently have in it (100%) and my credit score.

Am I approaching this the wrong way? Is there something that I'm missing here, or did I just contact really unprofessional lenders?

I understand that these people don't want to waste their time over "hypothetical" questions like "if I were to buy at X and do Y, how much can you finance for Z..." but I do feel it's important for me to understand the full process and get a clear picture of what to expect a few months from now when I try to refinance one of these properties.

Any suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!