Bundle Houses for Commercial Financing & Down Payment

[Drew Castleberry]

I'm working on a deal to purchase 6-10 properties and am looking at commercial financing rather than portfolio due to better rates and terms from my lender. On the deal, I'm able to purchase all the homes at roughly 75-80% of the appraised value of the properties, they're all recently renovated, fully occupied with market rents.

My lender requires 75% LTV and I'm able to use the equity as the down payment which is awesome, so I'll only have to pay closing costs. I have 2 questions for all you fellow investors that have utilized commercial financing:

1. Is 75% LTV the norm, or is it possible to find 80% LTV? If I can find a lender that will provide 80% LTV and I have greater than 80% equity, I'd like to roll the closing costs into the loan to reduce and/or eliminate my out of pocket costs.

2. Has anyone bundled properties into one loan? If so do you recommend it? By doing this with my lender, I can reduce my rate, origination points and even get terms for a 30 year fixed with no balloon payments. Plus I think it would be a lot easier to only have to make one mortgage payment.