Welcome to Lending Resources Group Inc. - Your Real Estate Financing Experts
Our clients
are a typical hardworking couple. They own a company together that imports
popular children’s music boxes from China.
They have struggled to keep ahead of an increasingly debt ridden
situation due to the economy and poor real estate values.
Two years
ago they used her IRA to purchase a 10 unit apartment building in Stockton for
$400,000. They paid all cash with the IRA. This same building sold for $800,000
in 2002. They saw this as an excellent investment with the potential to produce
$6,000 per month income – a decent retirement income. However, they weren’t
making enough money to maintain the building which had fallen into disrepair and
their bills were getting the better of them. They needed to tap into the equity
in this property to save their business and another property they owned that
was close to foreclosure.
In order to
borrow against this property, they required a non-recourse loan since the
wife’s IRA bought the property. Unfortunately, this property was not in the
kind of condition to obtain a non-recourse loan from one of the traditional
lenders for this loan type. Of the 10 units, only 4 were occupied and 1 of
those was being used to employ a property manager so only 3 of them were paying
rent. The only way we could get a
non-recourse loan would be through a private ‘hard money’ loan company.
Lending Resources Group
(LRG) has several sources for private hard money. Let’s just say that over a period of more
than 2 months, we presented this transaction to 3 hard money lenders. The first lender rejected it due to a lack of
interested investors for the Stockton, CA location. The second lender rejected
it after their 1 interested investor decided not to go forward. The first lender that we had approached
resurfaced with another possible investor. Interestingly enough, that investor
was the CEO of his own commercial real estate company. He was considering
lending 50% of the appraised value ($225,000).
He visited the property and communicated he was prepared to move forward
with the
transaction
providing he could meet with the borrower to discuss what he felt needed to be
done with the property to put it in a better position to produce income. LRG arranged an appointment through the
lender for their client to meet with the owner of the building. One day after
the appointment was set, the hard money lender received an email from their
client listing all the reasons why he chose not to pursue this investment. He
listed all 9 reasons why he didn’t want to lend the money our client was
seeking. These were all previously discussed factors that had been known to all
parties for at least 2 weeks. The hard
money broker forwarded his email to LRG and said the deal was off. This was, to
say the least, very disconcerting as a lot of work and time had been put into
this. Further, expectations had been set with the borrower who desperately
needed these funds or else major losses would be incurred both personally and
businesswise.
The Owner of
that hard money lending company was very apologetic. He referred LRG to another
hard money source in San Francisco that was known to facilitate difficult deals
such as this one. In this particular case, not only was there only 3 rental
units out of 10 producing cash flow, but there were a few structural and health
violations against it by the city of Stockton. In addition, this 3rd
hard money source had never done a non-recourse loan to an IRA before. There
were a number of hurdles to jump, but the lender was very accommodating and
wanted the business.
Keeping in
mind that the pursuit of this loan took nearly 3 months from start to finish,
this hard money lender took only 7 business days from start to finish to fund
this loan. This, in turn, provided the
borrower with the much needed $120,000 they required to keep their business in
good stead and bail another property they owned out of foreclosure.
This was a
very satisfying transaction to have closed, because of the degree of difficulty
it presented and the fact that it had been turned down by 3 other investors
from the 2 prior hard money lenders. Persistence
paid off for all parties involved. The borrower and her husband are good
clients of Lending Resources Group.
The clients, a married couple, began working with Lending Resources Group in February of 2011. They desperately wanted to buy a rental property with their respective IRA’s in the Florida Keys. They put offers in on properties on 2 occasions only to be outbid both times. Who said we’re in a down market? That doesn’t seem to be the case in the Florida Keys. Both times the property was pre-approved for a non-recourse loan, but to no avail. The third time was the charm. The clients were first in line this time to buy a single family home on ‘Beach Road.’ We started the non-recourse loan process immediately. Lending Resources Group (LRG) obtained the pre-approval from one lender after being turned down by another. However, after 3 weeks of gathering information about the rental market in the Keys and the various paperwork required, the lender decided to turn it down. Now hear this! The lender didn’t like the fact that the buyers lived in the west, more than 2000 miles away from the property and were concerned that a well known property management company couldn’t be trusted. We couldn’t overcome this.
Time was ‘awasting’ as they say and 1 of the contract’s stipulations required a $50,000 deposit by a certain date which was drawing very near. If that deposit wasn’t made on time, the seller was going to cancel the contract . Our clients were informed there were backup offers and would lose this house.
The clients had their IRA’s invested in stocks with Charles Schwab and were reluctant to cash out of those stocks right away while they were waiting for a loan approval. However, it was important for them to move their funds over to an IRA custodian in order for this transaction to close. While the accounts were in the process of being transferred, the deadline for the $50,000 deposit was drawing very near. The timing became such that the transfer of the clients’ separate IRA accounts to the Custodian couldn’t be done in time for that down payment to come from their custodial account. It had to be made from one of their Schwab accounts or they were going to lose the deal. We were literally down to the last day for this to be done.
LRG got on the phone with Mrs. Client and the Schwab company representative to make this happen. First, the transfer of Mrs. Client’s IRA funds from Schwab to the custodian company that had been set up to go through that same day had to be cancelled. Second, the paperwork to request a wire transfer of funds from Mrs. Client’s account to the escrow/title company in Florida handling this transaction had to be completed. By initiating this and getting a wire confirmation number for the seller’s agent, we were able to stave off a breach of contract and maintain control of the purchase for the clients. This was just the first of several battles to be fought to complete this transaction successfully.
Meanwhile, this loan had now been turned down by the 2 most prominent non-recourse lenders in the U.S. LRG had one other source for this loan and began the process. However, it was made known to the buyers that they didn’t have much time left to close. It became apparent that if we were to go through the typical loan process with a required appraisal, we wouldn’t be able to close by the required last day of April. We reverted to one last resort and requested that the seller carry back the mortgage balance. The buyers inquired through the seller’s agent if they would be willing to carry back the balance of the purchase price in a deed of trust; thereby making it a non-recourse mortgage as required by the IRS. The sellers agreed to do this to enable the IRA buyers to complete the transaction as soon as possible. Now the fun part was about to begin.
Mrs. Client called LRG and asked if we could arrange for the mortgage note to be written for the sellers to sign. The sellers were impatient and the clients believed they were on the verge of cancelling the transaction if they didn’t meet the deadline for closing. The clients didn’t want to deal with anyone new to get this done and requested this to be handled by LRG as soon as possible. LRG contacted a firm that they deal with for these mortgage notes. It was determined that Florida was a ‘Mortgage’ state rather than a ‘Deed’ state which meant that the note had to be written with mortgage language rather than deed language. LRG was able to get a mortgage note written by a close associate who has knowledge of these notes and knew the appropriate language to use for this particular ‘non-recourse’ mortgage. The sellers were given the note to review and approved it so we were ready to move toward closing.
At the same time, the title company was in the process of readying the paperwork and found that they didn’t have a current survey of the subject property. It took a week to get that – more valuable time lost. Once the preliminary title report was updated, we came to find out that the hazard insurance binder hadn’t been prepared as had been previously requested by the title company. The title company will not close a real estate purchase without hazard insurance in place. To make matters more complicated, it was determined that the subject property needed a new roof. The insurance company stated they wouldn’t issue coverage without a new roof and the title company said they couldn’t close the transaction without insurance. The buyer scrambled, spoke to several other insurance companies and roof contractors. After a 2 day delay the buyers were told that as long as they had an agreement with a roofer to replace the roof, an insurance company would issue the required insurance coverage and the title company could close. Whew – that was a close one!
Still, the best was yet to come.
Once the sellers approved the mortgage note, it was ready to be signed by them as well as the custodian company and the sellers. The note was written the way other non-recourse mortgage loans are written with the custodian company on title ‘for the benefit of Mr. Client’s IRA and Mrs. Client’s IRA. However, when the custodian company received the note they said it was written incorrectly. It was supposed to designate the exact percentage of ownership of each person’s IRA in addition to the other language. LRG made sure that change was made and the note had to be re-signed by all parties. The buyers and sellers signed and notarized them. Again, they were resent back to the custodian company for their signature. This time the custodian company said the wording of the title was still incorrect. Not only did the percentage of ownership have to be added but the title had to say Custodian Company ‘fbo’ Mr. Client and repeat the same wording with the custodian’s name for Mrs. Client. This was not only expressed to us by the manager of the customer service department but it was put in an email. So once again, LRG arranged for the appropriate changes to be made and again all the papers had to be changed accordingly. That meant they had to be re-signed and notarized for the third time.
After we went through all of this and 3 more days had been lost – we were already past the closing date – the custodian company again said the papers were incorrect. Now they were saying that they couldn’t be the custodian for the wife’s ownership portion because her IRA funds for the down payment made into escrow came from a different company, Charles Schwab, and not from her IRA account with the custodian. No one at the custodian company ever said this was an issue until after the third time of re-doing the paperwork.
How were we going to resolve this? LRG suggested to the custodian company to have them wire Mr. Client’s IRA funds to escrow to substitute for Mrs. Client’s $50,000 original down payment. Then the escrow company could send the wife’s funds to the custodian company and place them in her account. The custodian company could then take claim to her IRA and officially be her custodian for this transaction. They would then send her funds back to the title company once it was time to close the purchase. Great idea, right? However, the custodian company wasn’t willing to release the husband’s funds (even at his request) without the proper language on the documentation and the proper language couldn’t be applied without the wife’s funds being in her account. Further, the title company wouldn’t release the wife’s funds to the custodian without first having equivalent funds in escrow to substitute for her funds. We were at a stalemate! The prospects of this transaction taking place began to look grim.
Being that this was a team effort, Mrs. Client sprung into action. During most of this transaction, LRG had been dealing with both Mr. Client and the custodian company. Mrs. Client decided she had had enough of the custodian’s shenanigan’s with their misinformation and misdirection concerning this entire procedure. She contacted the President of the company and told her in so many words that she needed to fix this problem asap. All the custodian company had to do was release Mr. Client’s funds to the title company. The title company would release Mrs. Client’s funds back to the custodian at which point the custodian could go on record as the custodian for both spouse’s IRA’s. Lo and behold, Mrs. Client’s efforts rung a very strong cord with the President and the custodian company. The exchange of wire transfers took place over 2 days following Mrs. Client’s efforts. The paperwork had been written correctly after being changed 3 times, maybe 4? The custodian company signed the loan papers, the deed of trust and sent them to title. Title was able to record and close after the clients’ funds and the sellers’ funds were deposited to escrow.
The Clients finally owned their charming ‘IRA purchased’ house on Beach Road in the Florida Keys. They hope to retire their some day. Until then it will be their hard fought investment in the sun!
This transaction started more than 2 months ago. Sadie Williams, the borrower and my client, made an offer on a bank owned property in Petaluma, CA. She planned to use her IRA as a down payment and obtain a non-recourse loan to complete this purchase.
The property was unique in several respects. It was a 2 acre parcel with a main house, a granny unit, an enclosed but unfinished third structure as well as a couple of open horse stalls. We knew that the usual conventional lenders would not lend on this property. A local bank, a well kept secret for doing non-recourse loans, also turned it down after considering the borrower’s loan package even though they have a branch in Petaluma and the borrower was willing to establish a substantial deposit relationship with them. Not to mention that she was willing to make a 50% down payment for the purchase.
The only way Lending Resources was going to be able to help Ms. Williams obtain this investment property was through a private hard money lender. Lending Resources knew just the company to finance this purchase.
It’s important to mention that the borrower was very motivated to buy this property so that she could eventually live on this property and have a nice place for her children and grandchildren to visit her. She is retired so at some point she will be able to use this property if she wants to and take her IRA investment as a distribution over a period of years.
The property had several problems that needed correcting. There was an abatement issue. The third building that was an unfinished structure had been built by the prior owner without updated permits. The county requires there to be only 2 structures for occupying on a 2 acre parcel. In addition, there was termite repair work needed and the borrower had to decide what to do with the extra building in order to meet the county’s permit requirements. Lending Resources recommended a general contractor to her to assess the situation, give her an estimate of the cost to do the repairs on each of the buildings and what it would cost to complete the unfinished building or knock it down.
After all was said and done, the estimate was in excess of $100,000. In addition, the purchase price at the outset of the transaction was $529,900. As a result of the analysis done by the contractor, Ms.Williams decided to use the contractor’s estimate as a sword - rather than shy away from this purchase, she decided to make a counteroffer to the bank to buy the property for approximately $436,000 plus a $20,000 credit at closing. The bank, Wells Fargo, said they would get back to her shortly through her agent. One week passed, 2 weeks passed, 3 weeks passed - still no answer; 4 weeks passed, still nothing. Then just when we all thought the bank was going to let the offer fall off the table, they came back with an acceptance of her offer except for the $20,000 closing credit. After much discussion and consideration with her agent and Lending Resources, Sadie decided to move forward and accept the bank’s terms.
Now the best part - the bank took more than 4 weeks to get back to the buyer with their answer; however, they were now requiring her to close the transaction by the end of March which was 11 days away or lose the chance. That meant we needed loan disclosure documents signed 10 days prior to closing and, most of all, we needed the loan documents drawn and signed as well as an accurate good faith estimate presented to the borrower. If the ‘gfe’ is incorrect in any way, there would not be enough time to issue another one and allow 10 days to ‘cool off’ as required by state law.
To further complicate matters there was a title company in northern California as well as an escrow company in southern California handling this transaction . The paperwork would have to be transacted by both companies. Once again we were racing against the clock to generate the correct paperwork and have it signed by both the borrower and her custodian, Pensco Trust.
March 31st was the deadline to get this loan closed or the bank was going to nullify the transaction and place the property back on the multiple listing service for sale. It took all of the prior week to get the the loan papers completed as well as the title and escrow companies to have a correct preliminary title report and issue accurate fees on a HUD-1 for the borrower to review.
It was now Friday, the 26th and we needed to get these papers signed by the borrower and Pensco in time to get them back to the title company in Vacaville and sent to southern California where the escrow company would take charge of recording the deed in the buyer’s name. Pensco’s Vice-President of Real Estate Investments, Jeanny Lo, stayed late on that Friday afternoon to make sure the loan papers were correct for signing. The title company sent their notary with the paperwork in hand to Pensco for signing by both the borrower and Pensco at the same time. He then would be able to deliver them back to the title office for fedexing to the escrow company in southern California for Monday delivery.
Thanks to the title company and Pensco’s VP, the papers were reviewed, signed and returned by the notary to the title company all in the same day. Special mention should be given to Becky Larson, the title officer at Fidelity National Title in Vacaville for helping get these loan papers prepared for signing, sending the notary late in the afternoon on Friday to San Francisco, returning them to her that afternoon also and then working on Saturday to package the papers for overnight delivery to the escrow company in Anaheim.
OK, so now it’s Monday, the 29th, the escrow company received the signed paperwork from the title company. The only other piece to complete this loan puzzle and allow the escrow company to record the deed in the new buyer’s name, Pensco Trust Company (fbo) Sadie Williams’ IRA, was for the required funds for the purchase to be in the title company’s account.
Well, the lender said he sent the wire for the loan amount on Monday. Pensco also sent their wire (the borrower’s funds) on Monday so it seemed like the escrow company would receive all the necessary funds by Tuesday - a day before recording which would be great. However, by the end of the day on Tuesday, the title company didn’t receive the lender’s funds and more money was also needed from the buyer’s Pensco account. Sadie approved the extra amount to be sent without a problem. However, it turned out that the lender sent his funds to the wrong account of the title company so they were returned. It was too late to resend them on Tuesday. That meant the lender had to resend them on Wednesday morning. It now became a race against time for the title company to receive the funds and be able to record the transaction before 2 PM on Wed., March 31st.
The title/escrow company would not record the transaction without good funds in their account. The lender, to his credit, made every effort to have his funds wired first thing Wednesday morning, but it can take several hours for those funds to be received by the bank. By 1PM on Wednesday, the title company hadn’t received the funds. Then at 1:05PM the title company emailed Lending Resources to let us know the funds had shown up in their account. The transaction went on record soonafter. We had done it, but not without a few heart palpitations.
Again, thanks go out to the many people that made this transaction become a reality - Sadie Williams, the buyer, for her courage to take on a property with several financial challenges, Shannon Howard, her agent, for her negotiations with the bank, the lender for making the loan and completing the paperwork in a short period of time, the title officer, Becky Larson, for arranging the notary to hand deliver the paperwork, notarize them and return them to her the same day, Jeanny Lo, Pensco’s VP of Real Estate, for coordinating the signing late on a Friday afternoon and again the title and escrow officers in both northern and southern California watching out closely for the wire and recording the deed in time to meet the bank’s deadline of March 31st. Thank you all for your hard work!
Just when you think you have everything under control and your transaction is in the home stretch of being closed, good ole’ Murphy’s Law (you know, whatever can go wrong, will?!) reared its ugly head! We were in the throes of closing another non-recourse loan on a single family home in San Jose. This was a bank owned property and the ground rules were made very clear - we had to close by Friday March 12th or the bank would pull the deal away from my investor client and re-open bidding for new offers. The borrower(also a realtor by trade) who was buying the property with his IRA knew that no other property in the same neighborhood sold for less than $350,000, but the purchase price was $280,000, a virtual steal. Nevertheless, this is the kind of market we’re in and the alert investor who studies values can pick up these types of deals.
In any case, back to what happened. We had a pre-approved non-recourse loan from the lender and had completed sending the bank all the necessary paperwork including: borrower’s application, IRA statements, purchase contract, title report, etc. The appraisal had just been ordered and the appraiser had already done the inspection of the property. This usually means we’re far along in the loan process. If the appraisal comes back with a reasonably satisfactory description of the property and the price is in line with the purchase contract, tha bank almost always proceeds to complete the loan process and grant the loan. This time things went differently. All of a sudden, the lender’s Vice-President, who we deal with on a regular basis, requested a copy of the termite report. The title report made mention of the termite report so it needed to be produced upon request. Once the VP saw the termite report he put the ‘cabosh’ on the deal. No one was trying to hide anything but it’s not often that a termite report ruins the loan. In this particular case, there was a greater amount of repair work that was needed than usual for a small single family - we’re talking at least $10,000 or more. The lender would have nothing to do with this. Even though our client already had a contract for the sale of this property as soon as he closed escrow, the lender refused to go any further. He threw it back in our lap.
At this point my client was at wit’s end, as was I. The borrower already had a contract to sell this property for $50,000 more than the price he was paying so he stood to make a handsome profit……if we could just make him the owner first?! Lending Resources called on a ‘hard money’ lender that they knew. That was our only option. The usual non-recourse lenders had all been spoken for. Fortunately, this ‘hard money’ lender was ready to act immediately to help us close the transaction. He was not concerned about the termite report. He only required an appraisal equal to or greater than the purchase price and all the usual paperwork.
We only had 8 business days to get the appraisal done, get all disclosures signed, get the loan docs drawn for signing by both Pensco and the borrower, have funds wired and record all in a week and a half. This process usually can take 3 weeks or more from start to finish. Moreover, the hard money lender had never done a non-recourse loan for an IRA investor. As a result, he had a lot of work to edit his loan documents so they didn’t reflect the usual personal guarantee language. Further still, he was having computer trouble on the day that he was supposed to draw loan docs. Once again ole’ Murphy was at work.
The lender started to worry me. By Wed. - 2 days before we had to close - the lender said this will never close by Fri., get an extension. The seller’s (bank’s) agent said there would be no extensions. I told the lender to get the loan docs to title and we’ll take care of the rest. He was having computer problems and it was going to take longer than he thought to change the language in his standard loan docs. He almost didn’t want to do it because he didn’t think there would be a chance of it closing and why spend time on something that is futile?! Again, I said, please generate the loan docs and send them to title. We’ll handle the time frame. Lo and behold, the lender sent the newly conceived non-recourse loan docs to title by 5PM Wednesday evening and an appointment was made for the buyer to sign papers first thing in the morning on the 11th.
The fun to meet the deadline had really just begun. The buyer signed his share of the documents on Thursday morning. He took them to San Francisco himself to ensure that his custodian, Pensco, signed them and to return them to the title company by 5PM so they could be prepared correctly for recording on Friday morning, March 12th.
Pensco has risen to this challenge many times - to sign a client’s documents in the 11th hour so they can be recorded and the purchase transaction can be completed. Fortunately for us, Ms. Jeanny Lo, the Vice-President of Real Estate Investments, was available that day to make it happen. Jeanny has been our non-recourse deal saver on many occasions and this time was no exception. She was able to have her company’s notary witness the signing with time to spare. The borrower then drove them back to the title company in San Jose. This was the only way we were going to be able to go on record the following day - the deadline. The title company confirmed that they would go on record the next morning - just in time! Once the property is on record, the bank cannot retract the transaction.
The rest is elementary. The title company recorded the property in our client’s name on Friday, the 12th and received confirmation from the county the same morning that our client was on record as the new owner. Funds were also disbursed on the 12th. We made the deadline. It was really ‘nip and tuck’ but we had alot of people working on this transaction towards a common goal.
‘Kudos’ to the buyer’s realtor for putting the whole deal together, the lender who made the financing available and completed the loan docs on time, the escrow/title officer for staying late and coming in early to prepare docs for signing, the borrower for ‘taking the bull by the horns’ and driving the paperwork to and from San Francisco to get them signed, Pensco for making themselves available on very short notice to review and sign them as well as yours truly for pulling a ‘rabbit (loan) out of a hat’ in the 11th hour. What a team - congratulations to everyone on a job well done!
It seemed like a ‘no-brainer’ at first! A fully occupied mixed-use building conveniently located in Fairfax, CA - steady tenants, easy parking, back yards for each of the 3 apartments, a newly re-done coffee shop and a hair salon that’s been there forever. Furthermore, the buyer was highly qualified. She was very creditworthy and had good liquidity. So what could be wrong with this picture? In the first place, the bank that owned the mortgage would allow a borrower to assume it only if they put down a minimum of 30%. Moreover, the current rents weren’t supporting a debt ratio that was acceptable to the bank based upon the assumable loan amount and the remaining down payment.
Lending Resources Group (LRG) was asked by the borrower’s experienced agent to structure the loan so that it worked for the borrower and was still acceptable to the seller. We still had to find a lender that was willing to permit the seller to carry back a portion of the required down payment, because the borrower did not want to put down more than 20%. Most lenders wanted a 30% down payment from the buyer. After several inquiries, LRG decided that Bank of Marin suited its client’s needs and requirements. It went like this: the borrower would put down 20% of the purchase price which was established at $680,000. That amounted to $136,000. The seller would carry back 10% or $68,000 which this bank permitted. Bank of Marin would supply the remainder of $476,000 which gives us a total of $680,000. OK, so far so good. Now all we needed was a supportive appraisal. The appraisal was ordered by the bank after the buyer approved the inspection report.
The bank received the appraisal report about 2 weeks after ordering it. The report was very comprehensive and the value of the building was established at $690,000. Sounds good, right? The value was $10,000 higher than the purchase price. You would think we were good to go with the loan? NOT SO FAST! The appraiser chose to reduce the rents of the 3 residential units by a total of $550.00 claiming they were not supported by the rental market in Fairfax. Lending Resources called the appraiser to speak with him about this. He said he would raise the rents if we could provide additional comps supporting the rents they were paying. The seller’s agent and LRG had a conference call with him also and he repeated the same thing, “find me other comps to support the current rents and I’ll raise them back up.” The only trouble was 2-fold, he had found all the comps available in Fairfax for his appraisal and he wouldn’t accept comps even 4 blocks away in the next town of San Anselmo - he only wanted comps in Fairfax. This was despite the fact that the seller’s agent had worked with this property over the past 7 years, knew the tenants very well and knew they preferred living there instead of other locations in Fairfax that might be larger or have higher ceilings. The lowering of rents had never been done with any prior appraisals on this property.
One of the key elements that the appraiser used for reducing the rents was the lower ceilings in 2 of the 3 units. The seller’s agent said in all the years she had seen appraisals done on this property, no one ever made that an issue. Murphy’s Law seemed to be at work here - once again something was interferring with getting this loan approved. You ask WHY? The reason is simple. If the rents are lowered by the appraiser, the debt ratio is not going to work according to the bank’s requirement of at least 1.2:1.0. They’re either going to refuse to do the loan or lower the loan amount. In this case, they chose to lower the loan amount by $40,000, so instead of lending $476,000, they were only willing to lend $436,000.
Who was going to make up this shortfall? I can tell you it wasn’t going to be the seller, because he felt he had lowered his asking price enough. Nor, did the buyer want to put in any additional funds. The deal looked like it was falling apart. What were the seller and buyer willing to do? After much haggling with the appraiser and a strong effort by both LRG and the bank’s business development officer with the underwriting manager, Bank of Marin agreed to increase the loan amount to $456,000. That only left a shortfall of $20,000. The seller agreed to add another $10,000 to his carry back to make that $78,000 and he also agreed to allow the buyer to sign a separate promissory note for $10,000.
This was a team effort no doubt by everyone involved. The seller’s agent did an excellent job of dealing with the difficult appraisal and a somewhat disgruntled seller. The buyer’s agent did an excellent job of negotiating on behalf of his buyer and helping her stay cool since this was the first real estate investment transaction for her besides her house. Bank of Marin was cooperative in the long run despite a difficult appraisal. Lending Resources kept the wheels turning by informing all parties what was needed to make this transaction work. Everyone knew what had to take place and everyone pulled together to make this deal successful. It’s a very difficult lending environment even when all the ingredients for a successful transaction are present. Kudos to all involved!
My clients were a team of a very savvy realtor, Joe Velasco, and a Pensco Trust client, Peter Sanchez. Their concept was simple enough: refinance an IRA property that had recently been purchased with all cash; then use that cash along with Mr. Sanchez’s other IRA funds to purchase a second rental home for his IRA. One issue we had to deal with was the renovation work being done on the home that had just been purchased. This had to be completed before we could get it appraised. However, it had to be appraised before they could go forward with the other purchase. After some delays the appraisal was done so the refinance loan could be finished. Then the purchase was ready to be made. So far, so good – we were on schedule to close the purchase on time according to the contract.
Guess what? The fun of overcoming another adversity to be able to close on time was just beginning. The problem was with the title report that was filed on the property that had already been purchased which we needed to refinance. This property was an REO (a bank owned property). As such, it was necessary to have the name of the state on the grant deed where the bank that owned the property originated. In addition, the title company handling this transaction also required the signed power of attorney to be recorded, but it wasn’t. To make this more interesting, the title company that handled this original transaction of Mr. Sanchez’s first IRA purchase was a division of the same title company (in a different city) that was handling the refinance of the same property. So this was an internal problem that the Chicago Title Company was dealing with. The escrow officer in the office where the title insurance was issued when the first purchase was made insisted that the grant deed didn’t need to name the state in which the lender (from whom the property was purchased) was located. Nor, did they require the power of attorney to be recorded. The Senior Title Officer for Chicago Title insisted the state was required to be named on the grant deed and the power of attorney had to be recorded. In the end he was correct; however, we lost more than a week due to this mistake and internal issue at the title company. The title officer handling this escrow said she had never seen this occur in her 20 years in the business.
The lender would not wire the funds to Mr. Sanchez’s Pensco Trust account for the refinance until this issue was settled. The title company handled their internal discrepancies and re-did the title insurance policy for the first purchase correctly so the lender could wire the funds to Mr. Sanchez’s Pensco account providing enough funds to fund the purchase of the second home. All in all, Mr. Joe Velasco, the ‘savvy’ realtor kept it all together and obtained the necessary extension from the sellers to make it work. The purchase was concluded successfully only 2 days later than the contract date. The transactions were done within days of each other and Mr. Sanchez now owns 2 properties in his IRA.
Well here’s another one for the books. The ingredients are these:
1. Take one hard working man with excellent credit who has suffered through numerous financial setbacks over the past 30 years.
2. Mix in a business that has been in both Mill Valley and Tiburon for 46 years which he has been running for the past 10 years.
3. Throw in the finest soft frozen yogurt ice cream this side of the Mississippi.
4. Complete this recipe with a consistent net profit each year for the past 4 plus years.
5. And, WHAT DO YOU GET?
I’ll tell you what you get, a successful cash flowing business that cannot get one bank to provide this hard working Marinite a line of credit for $35,000. Every bank we turned to - some major name banks, some community banks - all said, “we’re not comfortable with the amount of his debt.” However, he has proven consistent record of paying all of his bills early or on time, he has paid down principal portions of his debt throughout the year, he has maintained 700 credit scores throughout the year, yet no bank would lend him any money. He simply needed a small line of credit to get him through the 3 leanest months of the year for his business - the winter months - November, December and January.
Let’s not forget that he has been running this business for 10 years, lost $200,000 when the town of Tiburon forced his business to close after driving traffic away from Main Street where he had set up shop. All the while Woody’s has been serving the community with not only his phenomenal, sweet tasting, soft yogurt ice cream but supporting local schools by volunteering his time and his business name to their money raising campaigns. Yet, no bank would step up to the plate and provide WOODY’S YOGURT PLACE with a small business loan.
This all points to a bigger issue - the TARP money. Where did all the money that the federal government gave to the banks go and what did it get used for? Wasn’t it supposed to be used to infuse the economy by helping the small business person? If the banks got bailed out, shouldn’t they help ‘bail out’ the small businessman who desperately needs financial assistance to get him through some tight times? Well, my experience as a commercial loan broker proves otherwise. That money hasn’t been provided to the local economy the way it was designed. The banks have kept those funds, fattened up their balance sheets, bought other failing banks and, in general, horded that money.
To be fair, perhaps some of the banks that turned Woody’s loan request down didn’t get TARP money, or if they did, maybe they have helped some business people with their financial needs. However, we do know that the big banks we approached definitely did get TARP money. Matter of fact, Woody’s owner has accounts at both of those banks, yet they wouldn’t lend him the much needed $35,000. We’re talking about a business that grosses $650,000 to $700,000 per year. Moreover, Woody’s owner is not the only businessman that I have seen this happen to. There’s some second thoughts about continuing to do business with these banks.
Lending Resources Group was not to be deterred. We continued to seek out a lender that would hear Mike Woodson’s (Woody’s) story and understand his predicament. One local bank which refused the loan was still good enough to refer us to a community center serving a local foreign community in San Francisco which makes some of its money by arranging small business loans through the SBA! Can you believe that? A foreign community service center who is granting small business loans to hard working, steady Eddy’s like Mike Woodson who need some cushion to get them through a few tough months of their cyclical business year. What a concept? A foreign community service center that is helping a local American obtain a loan that he couldn’t get from the banks in his own back yard including the bank that he uses for his payroll and credit card services.
That’s exactly how we ended up getting the $35,000 that Mike needed - through the foreign community center. They were very polite, very knowledgeable and very cordial to Mr. Woodson. They visited his place of business, interviewed him and were sufficiently impressed as Lending Resources Group has been all along. Mike Woodson is a standup businessman who has persevered and succeeded in the face of great adversity over the past decade while making Woody’s Yogurt Place a household name for soft frozen yogurt ice cream in Marin County!
Lending Resources Group doesn’t get the easiest deals to work on. One client recently referred to us by their attorney is a company that has been installing granite and marble for residential and commercial properties since the early 1990’s. As a result of the dramatic downturn in the economy in general and the real estate industry specifically, this granite business has suffered severely. They have gone into default on their building. In addition, one of the 2 banks that have mortgages on their building also have liens on their residence and business inventory. Despite this difficult financial scenario, Lending Resources Group found a private lending source based in New York that was willing to provide this borrower with a Letter of Interest (LOI) to help them obtain up to $3 million in financing to pay off their bank loans and pay the fees involved. At this point the borrowers are still considering this LOI. They’re not sure if the banks will reduce the principal enough to coincide with the reduction in value of their building to enable them to get a large enough loan to satisfy the mortgage debts and cover the lending points and fees.
Most lenders that were sought out for this loan turned it down without blinking. It’s hard enough these days to refinance a commercial property where the borrowers have good credit let alone a property where the borrowers are in bankruptcy court. The lending source stated very clearly that they believed they could get a loan commitment for this situation. The main question is still what will their building appraise for in the current real estate devaluation marketplace in order to arrive at a loan commitment amount. Then the question will be whether that loan amount will be enough to cover the mortgages and loan fees. This will depend on whether or not they’re willing to pay a $5,000 retainer for the lender to perform the proper due diligence to make that determination. One thing is for certain, if they don’t pay the retainer they’ll never know what loan amount they could obtain. Only time will tell!
A recent real estate purchase with an IRA secured by a non-recourse loan was finally completed by a determined client of Lending Resources. The client, a ‘mild mannered insurance agent’, had originally located a bank owned property (in foreclosure) and made an offer subject to a physical inspection. All the proper paper preparations for obtaining a non-recourse loan were done while awaiting the inspection results. After more than a month of gyrations, the inspection indicated more repairs were needed to the subject property than were anticipated. The client decided to reject the transaction and keep searching.
He found a newly renovated single family home in Vallejo, California. It was clear this property would not need any further work and was ready to be rented, one of the key requirements by the lender. For whatever reason, these transactions always seem to have their own twists and turns. This one came down to the wire per the seller’s deadline. It was another month of dealing with appraisal delays, the seller’s agent, the client’s agent, the title company and the lender. A non-recourse loan for 50% of the purchase price for this IRA investment was completed by Lending Resources Group with the cooperation of many parties and no time to spare. Special recognition should go to the Miller Real Estate Team and Fidelity National Title company who helped in every way they could to get all parties to work together for a satisfactory closing. Thank you Gang!
Our client is a businessman and an investor who lives in Massachusetts. He wanted to buy an investment property rental in Florida. That seems reasonable enough…doesn’t it? OK, so he goes shopping with a realtor in Kissimmee, FL and finds a property he wants to buy with his IRA. Of course, he needs a non-recourse loan if he wants to leverage his money and not pay all cash. Once he found the property, Lending Resources sent a written profile of it to the bank for a pre-approval and got the ‘green light’ to move forward.
In his case, the investor had established an LLC to hold the IRA that would own the property. We obtained the necessary LLC paperwork along with numerous other papers required and pursued our course of action to obtain the loan. About 1 month into the process, we discovered that the name of the LLC, while approved by the state of Massachusetts, where the investor lived, was not valid in Florida, where the property existed. That LLC name was already being used by another entity in Florida. This created several issues and resulted in a time extension of at least an additional month.
The investor and his LLC Manager now had to scurry to change the name on his asset statement with his custodian, Equity Trust; had to change the name on his agreement with Equity Trust; had to open a new bank account at Bank of America which was the original holder of his IRA funds to show where the funds originated from under the correct LLC name; had to change the LLC name on the loan application with the lender; and had to change the name on the purchase contract and get all parties to re-sign. In addition, we had to obtain Certificates of Good Standing for the LLC from both Massachusetts and Florida. This was on top of all the usual requirements of getting the appraisal, title report, property survey (now being required by the bank), etc. Needless to say, this LLC name change plus obtaining the Certificates of Good Standing from both states set us back a good month or more.
Nevertheless, the investor and his LLC Manager didn’t lose their cool. They went about working closely with Lending Resources to meet all the loan requirements and we closed the loan successfully with the title company’s diligent assistance. The sellers were in Europe, the buyer was in Massachusetts, the LLC Manager was in New Hampshire, the subject property is in Florida (as stated), the custodian is in Ohio, and yet, the title company was able to coordinate all signatures and obtain all paperwork back to the bank within 3-4 business days in order for the loan to be funded and closed. Halleluyah!!
