All Forum Posts by: Patrick Desjardins

As Dion mentioned, most mortgage docs contain clauses related to maintaining the property and protecting the lender's interest.

The first thing I would do is read the documents and see what was included. Then consult with a real estate attorney and ask them what your recourse is.

I might be wrong but I believe the investors who do this are looking for cash flow, and so their goal isn't necessarily to sell the note in 6 months. 

It is an alternative to being a landlord - you're cash flowing but you resold it at fmv or higher, you received a down payment and you're dealing with a owner instead of a renter (typically different mentality).

Your issue seems recapitalizing so you can do more deals. Only a sucker would buy a seller financed note like that with little seasoning without a large discount so I'd count that out. 

If this was my business model I would try to get one or two under my belt as proof of concept and then look for JV partners to fund the deals and you get a cut of the profit.

To answer your question without all the extra text trying to make you feel bad, yes you can use a CRM like notedashboard or simply dropbox with excel spreadsheets.

No, NoteDashboard isn't "the best" as it is an entry level software and designed for smaller investors. It is more than adequate for your current needs. The advantage to using this type of software is that it looks more professional than excel if you try to raise money from investors.

It's not necessary, just a tool you can use. Many tools have fees.

I've met both Fuquan and Alberto (who is behind the CRM) and they both seem like stand up people. Nng tends to advertise uunderwater FL notes which are tougher to collect, but that's the inventory they focus on.

Good luck and feel free to connect as I got started in note investing with seconds and I can probably answer a lot of your questions.

 When there is a will there isn't always a way, and this is as far as "low hanging fruit" as you can get. Unless it's a seller financed note, the odds that you'll track down the note holder and buy it from them (ie bank, servicer, institutional investor) is slim to none.

I strongly suggest saving your energy and moving on to the next one.

Note investing works terrific but you usually pick from what's offered and not pick a house then buy the note.

 Yeah, the funny thing is I / we used to do our own collections but figured perhaps a professional company would get the same results quicker and being arms length would give us more protection against FDCPA complaints.

I was actually very surprised at how inefficient they are. They literally can't do the most basic tasks without constant monitoring.

My advice to the OP is don't expect FCI or another servicer to do much aside from sending statements. You need to be very proactive on the collections side - managing your attorney and reaching out to the borrower (FDCPA compliant).

 Good luck with that. Most servicers are horrible at collections. They couldn't care less about your loan.

For example, I used a well known and well recommended servicer recently for a first mortgage. After getting all these positive testimonials we wanted to try outsourcing it as maybe it would free up our time to look for more deals.

They spent 30 days auto-dialing the wrong number. I had to ask the rep "she called from this number on day 1, why aren't you calling her back at that number?". Then of course they reached her instantly, but got nothing done.

Same servicer told me they sent the demand letter on X date.. 3 weeks later we're hounding them about starting the FC on expiration date.. just for them to tell us oops, it wasn't sent. I wanted to beat someone up with a club.

There are 99% likelihood that they won't sell you the note, but as they indicated they might let her sell you the house as a short sale.

Your question is a bit too vague. My advice is break note investing down into steps (ie sourcing notes, due diligence, vendors, servicing, collections, exit strategies) and then research the info you're missing.

You're in luck, there is a ton of note inventory in FL still.

2 things:

1) As Mike mentioned before, always make sure to include taxes in your calculations. 2 years worth of taxes can add up. Remember that a large portion of your notes won't be DIL/workouts, but you WILL have to get far in foreclosure. 

So you're looking at note price + legal fees + court costs + taxes + boarding fees + monthly servicing fees + recording fees + commissions and fees if it ends up as a REO + mowing the yard if it has one + HOA fees if there are some + other liens + trash out + boarding / securing the premises + turning on water and electric etc. That's why sub-40 or 50k value loans can be very tricky.

2) Don't look for loans based on a discount on UPB. Always use the lower of UPB or BPO. The UPB only matters if the person restarts paying and you don't go the foreclosure route.

This leads me to what I hate about FCI. Their system is pretty smooth, but they don't control the inventory or the prices and as another poster mentioned you don't know anything about the seller or why they're selling. You can have a gem mixed in with piles of horse dung. That's "okay" if you've bought notes before and you know what to look for, but it is terrible for newer buyers. Thankfully you seem to know the area and you knew it was worth ~$25,000 but what if you were relying on that "significant discount to the UPB"?

I have heard many horror stories of people buying midwest notes thinking they got awesome deals just to realize the notes aren't worth the paper they're written on. That's not FCI's fault, but their system encourages it since the sellers aren't vetted.

Just my 2 cents

It's pretty cool that you have a positive attitude about it. I forgot to mention you should read Dave Van Horn's articles on BP and Scott Carson's videos on Vimeo or Youtube or wherever they are.

Those alone should give you a pretty good overview of the basics.

The reason I recommend going to newbie conferences isn't so much to learn but to meet the vendors who have booths there. You can pretty quickly build your list of resources and ask other active investors there for referrals.