Talking with Local Banks...

[Brad P.]

My partners and I have our first two meetings with local banks tomorrow afternoon. The main topics will be establishing a business line of credit and/or construction loans.

We have one successful flip under our belts and have created a scalable business plan to do many properties per year. One meeting is with the bank who did the financing for our first property so we have an existing relationship. The second is a new contact. We have several additional new contact meetings next week.

What kinds of questions can we expect? We are bringing a copy of our business plan and will obviously talk about that.

Any tips for "selling ourselves" as that appears to be just as important as our plan?

[Greg B.]

Your best bet would be to emphasize any experience all of you have. Provide lots of documentation to back your experience up. Also, be able to understand gross and net profits. You need to be the picture of strength and stability. Spread sheets on your past deals will help. Point out where you were awesome and where you have room to grow on your profit margins. Show the bank what resources you have in place and how you analyze a deal.

They want to know where their payments will come from. Providing several possible sources will always help move the process along.

Good luck.