Hard Money - More Than Money
When selecting the lender you want to work with , you want to look at more than just the numbers. What I mean by this is you have to see what other value can your hard money lender bring to the picture. A good lender should be able to help you do a few things beyond just provide funding. One of the areas of interest would be to act as a second opinion to your deals. If your lender has to wait on an appraisal to determine if the deal is good or bad, you are dealing with someone that does not know your market. The other thing that a lender should be able to do is help you customize your current resource base to get the most out of your funds and assets in order to grow them.
When you are working with your lender, they should be able to provide feedback on your deals that you are looking to fund. Almost any out of area lender from your local market will not be able to give you this feedback. There are hundreds of deals that I have seen that my investors passed on because of something I pointed out that saved them from jumping into a bad deal. My most savvy clients tend to use me for evaluations more often than not. They know the value of asking what I see in the comps so they don't make a mistake and miss something. I never tell an investor to do a deal, but I can certainly let them know how much we are comfortable lending against a property and why.
The other crucial value that your lender should bring to the table is to be able to look at your current goals, investment style and resources on hand to help you determine the best strategy to get the most out of the funding. A common thing I see is that some investors like to pay cash for their deals but only have enough cash for one deal at a time. They then become frustrated with their lack of funds and ask how we can help. We are able to show them how their money is worth 4 or 5 times the buying power they use it for now. We can also help investors that are equity rich and cash poor close deals when they didn't think they could.
Ian Walsh
215.839.3271
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