All Forum Posts by: Shari Bertsch

I have a question regarding your post @Brian Gibbons.  We do owner financing now, and are looking into Lease Option. On board with the arms length option contract vs part of the lease, but am curious if rent credits are something that can be avoided altogether. 

Thanks @Bob E. I'm actually familiar with NAA. 

The only RMLO we've been pleased with is Texas Pride Lending. @Grant Kemp, @Sarah Montes and their crew are awesome, and reasonable. Turnaround time is a couple of days. Unfortunately, they're only in TX for the time being. Supposed to be adding more states in the near future. Can't be soon enough for us!  (Hint, hint, Texas Pride Lending...)

 Better, cheaper RMLO? We can't even find an RMLO in the midwest. If you don't mind asking, who are you using, and are they licensed in MO? Thanks @Bob E.

We've done this with Wells Fargo and also Bank of America.  Here's an emphatic warning; DO NOT USE THEIR TITLE COMPANY!

This for a host of reasons, the least of which is that what you pay for your 'portion' of the closing costs will actually be higher than if you use a local title company. 

The most important reason is that Banks will use some big conglomerate closing concern such as ServiceLink ore Altisource. As the process goes on it gets handed off from one department to the next. In the case of ServiceLink, they actually mailed the notarized closing docs to an abstracting company who was to deliver them to the recorder of deeds. These folks were three hundred miles away and only made the trip once a week. When the recorder denied the documents because they were missing a power of attorney page, we went into a black hole of information that took me a month of phone calls to unravel, and I do mean ME and not THEM. We had a flipped property with buyers ready but couldn't sell or legally sign a contract for that matter because we didn't hold title, 2 months after they had our funds. 

Lesson learned. All our closings since have been with a local title company, who we will then turn around and use when we resell. Everything is streamlines, and I costs us about two third of what the ServiceLink disaster cost us. Duh.

We purchase out of state, and I can tell you calling a local title company and striking up a relationship with them is easy, cost effective and a great way to protect your interests. Please take heed and don't learn the hard way like we did. 

(In case you're wondering with the help of the county recorder and, eventually a supervisor at ServiceLink who had to 'break rules' to help me, We got the property recorded and resold, and three months after that, ServiceLink actually mailed us the deed) 

Brian - thank you for cutting to the core and outlining all of this so clearly.   Even those of us who "think" we've got a handle on this it sure is good to see you doll wait out an outline form. Thanks for sharing. 

Fred Heller's suggestions are spot on. In fact you can even set up specific searches at each of the websites, and some, such as reo.wellsfargo.com, will email updates at your choosing. The pay for play sites like RealtyTrac are a wast of time AND $$$

We are working in the Sedalia, Clinton, Windsor & Warrensburg areas of MO and have purchased from Wells Fargo and some of the regional banks, and are currently in negotiations with Bank of America.  A word to the wise...(we got burned on this with our first bank property), always opt to choose your own, LOCAL title company. The big boys will use places like ServiceLink of Altisource, which will take forever to get paperwork done AND your split of the costs will be more than just paying for your own closer. 

Good luck!

Shari Bertsch

Rapid Fire Investors /TAS RE Holdings