All Forum Posts by: Rich O'Neill

Hi @Paul Vang

I think that means the debt that is currently on the property that will be wiped with the Sheriff's Deed or your state's equivalent. It might be some indication of their reserve or just disclosures in accordance with some law. Every foreclosure auction I have been to has shown that in their advertising. Not totally sure what the purpose is. 

Hope this is helpful, and hopefully someone with some more knowledge will see this and answer!

I believe that as long as you are living there you can. If you are not living there and it is a single family, you are looking for a Homestyle loan. Very similar to the 203k but allows investors to use it with a 85%LTV.

Hope this is helpful! 

Hey @Breanna Taurino! 

Welcome to the site. I am in the Philly area as well. Let me do my best to help here: 

1. In my limited experience with them, most hard money lenders will require points at closing, which basically means a percentage of the loan as a fee (does not go towards principal in any way). Then they will charge you interest only payments until they are repaid. 

2. They may run credit to make sure you aren't a terrible risk, but they mostly don't make decisions based on your credit. They just analyse the deal. 

Overall, my feeling on hard money is that you should only use Hard Money when you have the rest of your credit tied up, not to get started, but that is just my opinion. It can work if the deal is good enough and you have the money to pay your points and some interest payments during the project. 

Other options to look into are the Fannie Mae Homestyle loan, which is a renovation loan that allows 15% down. You could also try to get an unsecured personal loan to help bridge the gap. 

If you still think Hard Money is your best bet then I started working with Rehab Financial Group (http://rehabfinancial.com/)before I picked another financing option. They were polite, responded quickly, and were very helpful. Give them a call, I am sure they would be happy to go over your project with you! 

Hope this helps! Let me know if I can be helpful in any other way! 

Hi @Randy Estrella, 

It cannot hurt to just start calling. You will get people who yell at you but just remain respectful and they may come around. Or if they don't, then it's on to the next one! 

I would just start a conversation with them and look for info you can use. Do not jump right on a piece of info that is interesting to you. Hang on to it and bring it up when the time is right. Most important thing is to make a win-win situation for everyone. You are solving a problem, not negotiating. Find out what they need to get done and find a way to make it beneficial to both of you. There may not be a way to do it but that would mean you don't want the deal anyway. 

The more you do it the better you will get. The best part about a phone call is that it is free (or at least already paid for)! 

Hope this helps! 

Hey @Account Closed

Hard money definitely has its place, but in my opinion it is very risky for your first deal. I hear of it being done more often after you have so many deals going that you cannot get any more credit from the bank. 

One avenue to look into is called a HomeStyle Loan. If they are all single family properties then you can go in at 15% of total loan value as an investment property. It is a standard FannieMae mortgage that not many people know about for some reason. Here is a fact sheet they put out detailing all the info you need: https://www.fanniemae.com/content/fact_sheet/homestyle-renovation-product-matrix.pdf 

You do need a contractor to complete the work as they get paid directly from the bank, but you are allowed to complete up to $5,000 worth of work on your own. 

The biggest advantage to this mortgage is that if you want to use it as a rental property, you don't have to refinance into longer term, lower interest financing. Or, if you want to flip it, your holding costs are kept to a minimum by just paying the mortgage off. 

I was working with a guy who was really knowledgeable on the topic. I believe he is licensed in VA but I am not sure. If you are interested send me a message and I can put you in touch. If not most mortgage companies/brokers will have access to this type of loan, you just need to ask for it by name.

Hope this is helpful!

Hi @Chad K., 

Never done it, but everything I have heard and read is that it is almost identical to residential and often cheaper, you just want to make sure you don't over rehab. 

Good luck! 

Hey @Joe Mclain, 

I have never done it with land but I can't imagine it is much different than wholesaling residential property. Once you have an agreement of sale you should be able to start marketing it and starting to figure out what to do with it after closing (or prior in the case of an assignment). The neighbors of the property are a great place to start. If the price is right who wouldn't want to add onto their contiguous piece of land. That does ultimately make it more valuable. 

If you have not already signed an agreement, I would make sure you have something in there that allows assignment of contract. I don't know the laws in GA but some states allow for a "kick-out" clause which basically means the seller can take a better offer prior to closing. Make sure your contract does not have that in it! 

Good luck! Hope this is helpful. 

Hi @Dustin Verley

This could go either way. If she is really motivated and you can get a good enough deal, it may be worth putting it under contract yourself and either looking for a buyer to wholesale to or buy it yourself and flip it. 

If you want to wholesale it, go to a few title companies and ask them if they have any big cash buyers in the area they would be willing to put you in touch with. If it really is a good enough deal then you should not have any trouble at all wholesaling the property. 

If you want to buy it and flip it yourself then go for it! If you keep telling yourself you are in the "learning" phase and never take that next step, you will never do any deals. You might screw up but keep going, ask questions on here, and if the deal is good enough, it will leave enough on the plate for you to mess up and not get hurt. 

Sounds like you need to have a more in depth conversation with your coworker and put some real numbers to what she is willing to do. Remember the 75% rule. Take the ARV and subtract your renovation costs. Then multiply that by 75% and that should be around your limit of what you can pay.

Hope this helps! 

Sounds to me like you answered your own question. All of the signs point to the townhouse. Doesn't even sound like a question to me. If you do the work right on the townhouse then you will attract a better tenant and presumably have lower vacancy. Numbers even sound better on the townhouse. 

Only thing to consider would be any HOA or Condo fees and associations. Those associations can be an investor's worst nightmare. If it doesn't have any association then it is a no brainer to me.

Hi Latoria, I am not an expert in this area nor am I an attorney, but I hope I can at least help you start brainstorming. 

If the title is clearly in your seller's name, the bank should give you the info you need, which is the payoff balance on the mortgage. They may be reluctant to give you any personal info on the mortgagee, but if you explain to them that your goal is to pay it off then they should be happy to help with that. Save them money on foreclosure proceedings and get them paid sooner. Once you have the payoff balance you can figure out how to either sell the property and payoff both mortgages, or refinance the property into one note that pays off the other notes. 

If your seller was paying the mortgage directly to the bank, they should have some sort of paper trail to prove that. If they were paying the mortgagee then they may be SOL. 

I don't think it is time to panic yet, as you do not have all of the information, and foreclosure is a long process. Once you have the information then the key is finding the right person at the bank who can make decisions and authorize release of information and the like. They will be able to help if you can help them. 

Hope this helps!