Teachers and educational institutions are mainly to blame . . .

best places/institutions to get a HELOC, im in texas

There are a fair amount of REOs on the market and some are selling (our local paper lists the transactions and one week the "sellers" of 32 of the transactions were lending institutions).

We have relationships with major banks and lending institutions such as World Savings, Indymac Bank, Countrywide Home Loans and others.

There was another investor that tried to purchase the property, but due to complications of it being tied up in a bankruptcy they were not able to close the deal.Almost a year after that I contacted the city and got a contact at the lending institution.

For example, let's say that I want to find out how a certain ARM HELOC or a HEL adjusted at a given institution over the last so many years, where would I find this?

I must then assume you have had a directly negative experience with this certain institution as to be so vitriol about it.

slaclair:First, park your money in a safe place - T-bills or CD's (if you choose CDs only park up to $100K in each CD (and at a different institution), as that's all that is insured.Then TAKE YOUR TIME.

In this day and time you're really happy that you've got a track record and a relationship with such an institution because the financing for investors can shut down rapidly--for example, the new requirement under Freddie Mac that you can only have 3 mortgaged properties plus the one you're finanacing.

For instance, I have a seller direct to an institutional trade desk, that would mean there are 3 people on the intermidaries invovled just on the seller side.