Advice for Hard Money Startup

[Shawn May]

Hi Guys, I have finally decided to take the jump and get into real estate investing, through hard money lending. I am very excited, but as a newbie, I know that I have a lot to learn and figure out.  I know the business at a high level, but do not have much operational experience.  I have gotten my brokers license recently and have secured a significant amount of funds from friends/family to use for this venture.

I wanted to get some advice from fellow investors/lenders on how to go about getting set up for private lending, and have a couple of specific questions. I have gone through a lot of the posts here, but couldn't seem to find answers to these specific questions, which is why I'm asking again. BTW, I am based in CA and will be lending on business purpose non-owner occupied SFR primarily.

1) Is a brokers license sufficient to be able to lend private money on business purpose loans for non-owner occupied SFR, or do I need an NMLS and/or CFLL/DBO license as well ?

2) For loan docs, what are you guys using out there ? I have talked to a couple of servicing companies and lawyers, but their documents are not very easy to integrate into any type of LOS or require a lot of manual work, which seems inefficient and error prone.  One company did not even guarantee their documents which seemed very odd to me.  The other problem is that, not all lawyers are willing to create a set of docs and sell them for a one time fee, most require you to pay on a per deal basis in the area of $1000/deal, which seems excessive.  I have looked into DocMagic which i really like and is very cheap at around $30/month, but I'm not sure if their suite covers everything required for a private lender, and they were not able to answer that either. It seems like some additional forms may be needed from a lawyer to add default riders, etc. So if any of you guys that have worked with a good lawyer for creating re-usable docs such as promissory note, deed, etc, with riders please share.

3) Regarding lead generation, how do you guys go about sourcing deals ? Are there any particular REI clubs/meetups that you guys recommend for networking ? IS anyone doing cold calls to agents/mlo's/etc to source deals, or using a telemarketing company to generate leads ? This is my biggest hangup of all, is how to generate deal flow, any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

I know this is a lot, but I have put a lot of effort into trying to figure some of this out already but need help from some of the experts here. After coming across this site, i know the knowledge exists with the members here, so I hope you guys help out a fellow investor starting out.  Thanks...

[Mark Safrin]

Hi Shawn. I cannot answer your questions, I just wanted to wish you luck surfing up the learning curve.

Being an independent lending broker, if I understand you correctly, is not easy. You have to pander to the whims of both lenders and borrowers. We were there in the not at all dim distant past.

Eventually if you are good you will likely line up your own investors and loan clearing house or similar and become lenders with your own money to lend... Life becomes much easier.

You will find there are lenders with broker programs you can join. One such broker in our program just last week brought us a rock solid ~$30M deal. You can probably hear his heart pounding in anticipation along with his nail chewing due to worry from across the continent as we work through due process towards closing.

I can only suggest networking, networking and networking. Get to know the business and the players. I'm still very much learning and building a network myself though fortunately I joined after we finished being brokers.

Wishing you every success. 

Benjamin