From time to time, I post a prospectus for a loan that we are currently in the process of placing. This serves three purposes: (1) It gives readers a window into the kinds of loans that we are placing, (2) It provides an example of how are loans are initially presented, and (3) It gives investors the opportunity to inquire about the investment if they are interested in doing so.

The prospectus, which is shown here, is the high-level presentation, or executive summary, of the loan.  Having read the prospectus you should have a pretty good idea what the loan/borrower/project is all about and what this loan looks like as a potential investment.

When an investor wishes to fully evaluate a loan investment, we send a full packet in Adobe Acrobat format (generally between 50 and 200 pages) password protected, and with all backup documentation to support and inform the investor in detail regarding the known relevant particulars of the loan.

Please note that this prospectus has been redacted (name and address info) since it is being broadly distributed. If a particular investors is interested in evaluating a loan, then of course the presentation is not redacted.

If you are interested in discussing private money loans in general or this one in particular, you may contact me at sparkman@lendicom.com or Kris Gillmore, who is coordinating this loan, at 503-319-7294, or gillmore@privatemoneysource.com.

Kristopher Gillmore

Fairfield Financial Services, Inc

3327 SE 50th St, Portland, OR 9706

Phone (503) 319-7294 / Fax (503) 419-4219 / E-mail: gillmore@privatemoneysource.com

REAL ESTATE PROSPECTUS

SECURED LOAN

Cash out refi of SFR in Tahuya, WA

Loan Details

1. Loan Amount: $200,000
2. Term: 36 Months
3. 6 months minimum interest
4. Interest Rate: 13%
5. Monthly Payments: $2,166.67  Interest Only
6. Security:  Deed of Trust in 1st Position security interest in real property at XXXXXXXXXX, Tahuya, WA 98588
7. Current Value by Appraisal:  $390,000
8. LTV based on Appraisal:  51%

Loan Overview

Mr. xxx is the owner and president of a software development company, YYY, Inc.  Beginning in 2002, both the company and Mr. XXX’s family experienced some setbacks which would ultimately put him behind on his payroll taxes.  Mr. XXX’s attorney is ready to file the taxes, but they are waiting for the funds before they file.  The estimated cost of the payroll taxes is $137,000 + interest.  A detailed letter of explanation has been provided.

In 2010, Mr. XXX’s mother in law passed away, leaving the free and clear (minus 2009-2011 property taxes) subject property to Mr. XXX and his wife Mrs. XXX.  The borrowers have requested this loan to pay the back payroll taxes.  The borrowers have a great emotional attachment to this house, so their intent is to keep this property as a vacation home and exit this loan with a conventional refi.  If the payments are too much to handle, they would then consider renting the property.  As a 3^rd option, if they are unable to refi and/or find a suitable tenant they would sell the property to exit this loan.

Property

The Subject property is a 2 story 2,321sf house located on the Hood Canal in Tahuya, WA.  There are 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, and the house sits on a .15 acre lot.  Photos and more details of the property can be found in the appraisal that has been provided for your review.

Valuation

A recent appraisal with an inspection date of May 31, 2011 has been provided.  Four comps were used by the appraiser to value this property, leading to a suggested value of $390,000.  There is a large range in the date of these sales, and the appraiser does make adjustments to the price given the declining market.  A search of Zillow.com shows a number of houses (of reasonably comparable size) for sale in this area ranging from $310,000 to $795,000.  Given the decrease from original list prices on the higher priced homes on the appraisal, and the overall feel of the market right now, $390,000 seems to be a reasonably conservative estimate of value.

Income

Mr. XXX states a monthly income of $8,180 and Mrs. XXX states a monthly income of $5,000.  In addition, Mr. XXX sold a portion of his business and has been receiving monthly payments of $5,000.  There is a balloon due on May 1, 2012, in which Mr. XXX should receive approx. $100,000.  A copy of this note has been provided.   Mr. XXX and Mrs. XXX state a combined a net worth of $341,402.  A 1003 has been provided for your review.

Credit

A recent credit report has been provided showing scores of 655, 627, and 644 for Mr. XXX, and scores of 686, 698, and 705 for Mrs. XXX.  Please note – there are red flags on this report with regard to the SSN entered for Mrs. XXX.  When this credit report was pulled, 6124 was incorrectly entered as the last 4 digits of Mrs. XXX’s SSN, when it should have been 5124.

– Clay (sparkman@lendicom.com, 503-476-2909 or 800-971-1858)

Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964.  Fairfield works with a broad range of private money investors, in a broker capacity, finding, underwriting, presenting, closing, servicing, and when necessary, assisting in the workout of difficult loans.

With a double dip real estate depreciation nationwide becoming fact in April, and now with  the federal government threatening not to extend government backed financing options large (jumbo) residential loans, this market is hardly getting easier or more predictable.  So you might ask, “How do we get private money loans done in today’s real estate market?”

Well I can tell you this.  Equity comes at a premium.  A particular loan scenario may have certain flaws, but if the equity position is strong enough, we can generally place that investment with our investors and they will feel comfortable knowing that if they have to take the property back, they will be unlikely to lose principal or interest given the enormous amount of buffer involved.  And even better, if there is a large amount of equity it is very unlikely that the properties would ever come back at auction.  First of all, the borrower has a great deal at stake and thus is very likely to make loan payment a priority.  And secondly, even if the borrower gets into trouble, there is almost always one more loan or one more rescue option to come in and take you out the existing investment.

Here are a couple of examples, loans that we are currently packaging for placement.

Sample 1 – $200,000 loan on a Washington non-OO home which is free and clear.  The home is valued at $375,000 and the loan proceeds will be used to pay accumulated business taxes.

Sample 2 – $60,000 loan on an Oregon coast OO residential foreclosure bailout.  The home recently appraised at $162,500.

So you see the common theme: trouble coupled with large equity positions = good private money loan investment.  We’re seeing more and more of this kind of thing.

So remember the private money investor’s credo:  Never lend on a property that  you wouldn’t buy for the price of the loan AND any property that you would gladly buy for the price of the loan is a loan worth serious consideration.

– Clay (clay@privatemoneysource.com, 503-476-2909 or 800-971-1858)

Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964.  Fairfield works with a broad range of private money investors, in a broker capacity, finding, underwriting, presenting, closing, servicing, and when necessary, assisting in the workout of difficult loans.

We’ve been through nearly 3 ½ rough years in the real estate market—and projections seem to indicate that we will finally see clear up-turn in the second half of this year, but no one really knows for sure.  We have managed to survive this down-time (thus far) and continue doing loans even in the face of uncertainty to borrowers and investors.  Certainly our loan volume is down.  Less people are borrowing for projects at the moment (though we are starting to see some upturn there) and our investors are being more conservative given the level of uncertainty.  The key areas we look, I would say, even more carefully than we did before the crash are:  (1) LTV: we used to do a lot of stuff at 75%.  Now most of what we place is at 65% or less.  (2) Professionalism of the borrower: we want to see that the borrower is proceeding with caution, has done his/her homework, has backup strategies in place, and has a reasonable track record.  (3) Exit strategy: it is hard to be certain in this climate that an exit strategy will work, but we beat this to death to be as sure as we can that there is/are one or more ways to exit the loan.

Rigorously following these guidelines has served us well and has generally worked out well for our investors.  By way of example, here are four loans that we have closed (or are in the process of closing) recently.

Mini-condos for simple living on the Washington coast

1.     Loan Amount: $286,000

2.     Term: 1 year

3.     Interest Rate: 13%

4.     Monthly Payments: $1,895.83 Interest Only

5.     Construction Holdback Account: $265,000

6.     Security:  Deed of Trust in 1^st Position security interest in real property at xxxxxxxxxx

7.     Projected Value by Borrower Comps: $476,000

8.     As-is Value by Borrower Estimate $30,000

9.     As-Is Front End LTV Borrower Estimate:  70%

10.     Completion LTV by Borrower Comps:  62%

This loan is to provide funds to build four detached condos on the Washington Coast.  The borrowers, xxxxxxxxxx of xxxxx company requested a loan of $286,000 to provide funds for the construction and various loan costs and closing fees.  $265,000 of this was deposited into a construction holdback account.  The borrowers have $21,000 invested into the purchase and clearing of the lot so far, which is effectively being considered as their down payment or skin in the game.

This will be the 3^rd group of condos that the borrowers have built.  The first set of condos was built in the fall of 2009, and the borrowers report that they sold in approximately 2 months.  The 2^nd set was completed in the fall of 2010 (this is an existing construction loan with Fairfield), and at least one of those units has been sold for the full asking price.  The borrower reports that there has been a lot of activity and interest in the remaining units.

Partner xxxxx  is a realtor, and her husband is the contractor who will do the actual construction.  The borrower plans to exit this loan through the sale of these condos, and has requested that each condo be released with a principal reduction of $75,000.

The property is located on a cul-de-sac approximately 1,800 feet from the average high tide line, and two blocks from public beach access. These condos will be 480Sq/Ft with a full kitchen and bath, and made with eco-friendly materials.

Adult care facility in Washington

1.     Loan Amount: $270,000

2.     Term: 24 Months

3.     6 months minimum interest

4.     Interest Rate: 14%

5.     Monthly Payments: $3,150.00 Interest Only

6.     Security:  Deed of Trust in 1st Position security interest in real property at xxxxxxxxxx

7.     Value of Collateral by Appraisal:  $750,000

8.     LTV based on Appraisal:  36%

The borrower, xxxxx, inherited an adult care facility approximately 2 years ago.  She requested this loan to funds to pay the probate and costs incurred in the transferring of the estate.

The subject property is a 4402 SF 8 bedroom 3-bath home being used as an adult care facility.  There are several outbuildings being used as rentals to the borrower’s family.  Leases were provided.  The home sits on 5 acres, adjacent to a bare 5 acre parcel that is also being used as additional collateral.

Vacation rental in central Oregon

1.     Loan Amount: $120,000

2.     Term: 36 Months

3.     6 months minimum interest

4.     Interest Rate: 13%

5.     Monthly Payments: $1,300.00 Interest Only

6.     Security:  Deed of Trust in 1st Position security interest in real property at xxxxxxxxxx

7.     Value of Collateral by Borrower Comps:  $227,900

8.     LTV based on Collateral by Purchase Price:  53%

The borrower, xxxxx company had negotiated the purchase of this property for $150,000.  The seller was in financial distress and needed to sell quickly.  The borrower believed that this price was well under value (the list price was reduced to $199,500 on 12/8/10), and were requesting 10K for cosmetic improvements.  They put down 25k, and the seller is carried back another 25K to make the loan work.  The loan was personally guaranteed.

The subject property is a 1,618SF home that will be used as a vacation rental.  It is located in the xxxxx subdivision which has amenities such as a club house, swimming pool, excessive common grounds use, and paved bike paths.  The property has 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, fireplace, and wrap around deck.

Self-storage facility in northern Washington

1.     Loan Amount: $375,000

2.     Term: 36 Months

3.     6 months minimum interest

4.     Interest Rate: 12%

5.     Monthly Payments: $3,750.00 Interest Only

6.     Security:  Deed of Trust in 1st Position security interest in real property at xxxxxxxxxx

7.     Value of Collateral by Purchase Price:  $565,000

8.     LTV based on Collateral by Purchase Price:  66%

The borrower, xxxxx, is an experienced owner and operator of self-storage facilities.  He had the subject property under contract for $565,000, and was seeking a loan of $375,000.  There was approximately $20,000 in credits that the seller agreed to provide, and the borrower stepped up with a down payment of approximately $200,000.

The borrower plans to live on site and manage the property which will greatly reduce his personal living expenses as well as eliminate the wages that are currently being paid to an on-site manager.  In addition, he plans to install a self-service Kiosk that would allow easier access for new tenants to sign up 24/7.  He also plans to improve the signage, making the property more visible.  Finally, he will offer a $1 first month move in special and change the name of the property from xxxxxxxxxx to yyyyyyyyyy.  He believes that this name change will improve the search engine rankings and ultimately increase occupancy.  Through these changes the borrower believes that he can increase his occupancy from the current 50% to 80% in the first year.

The borrower plans to exit this loan by refinancing with and SBA loan.  More info regarding the feasibility of this exit strategy is described below.

The subject property is consists of 2 lots with a combined 2 acres and 22,923SF of rentable space over 7 buildings.  In addition, there is a small 2br 1ba manufacture home on the property.  The property was reported to be in excellent condition, and located in a prime spot in northern Washington.  There are several self-storage facilities in this area, which are reported to have low vacancy rates.

The current occupancy rate is at 50%, which the borrower attributes to the current “absentee owner”.  As far as he can tell, there isn’t much for marketing activity and no incentive for the on-site manager to increase their workload by working to increase the occupancy.

– Clay (sparkman@lendicom.com, 503-476-2909 or 800-971-1858)

Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964.  Fairfield works with a broad range of private money investors, in a broker capacity, finding, underwriting, presenting, closing, servicing, and when necessary, assisting in the workout of difficult loans.

I’m not sure how many of you have made loans with us before, so I thought I would post a prospectus for a loan that we are currently in the process of placing.  The prospectus which is shown here is the high level presentation, or executive summary of the loan.  Having read the prospectus you should have a pretty good idea what the loan/borrower/project is all about and what this loan looks like as a potential investment.

When an investor wishes to fully evaluate a loan investment, we send a full package in Adobe Acrobat format (generally between 50 and 200 pages) password protected, and with backup documentation to support and inform the investor in detail regarding the known relevant particulars of the proposed loan.

If you are interested in discussing private money loans in general or this one in particular, you may contact me at sparkman@lendicom.com or Kris Gillmore, who is coordinating this loan, at 503-319-7294, or gillmore@privatemoneysource.com.

Kris Gillmore

Fairfield Financial Services, Inc

2727 NW Hoyt St, Portland, OR 97232

Phone 503-319-7294, e-mail: gillmore@privatemoneysource.com

REAL ESTATE PROSPECTUS

SECURED LOAN

Construction funds for a single-family home in Portland, Oregon.

Loan Details

1. Loan Amount: $355,000
2. Term: 1 year
3. Interest Rate:  13%
4. Monthly Payment: $3,845.83
5. Construction Holdback Account: $157,000
6. Interest Reserve:  $11,574 (The borrower will make ½ the monthly payment out of pocket effectively making this a 6 month partial reserve)
7. Security:  Deed of Trust in 1^st Position security interest in real property located in Portland, Oregon
8. Combined As-Is Value by Borrower / Realtor estimate:  $282,000
9. Combined Front End LTV:  70%
10. Combined Projected Value by Borrower / Realtor estimate:  $525,000
11. Combined Projected LTV:  67%

Loan Overview

The proceeds of this loan will be used to pay off an existing hard money loan.  The construction funds will be used to build a single-family residence with a full daylight basement that can be rented as a separate apartment.

The borrowers acquired these two lots in 2006. Additionally, they also acquired the property behind these lots with a house in need of repair.  They rehabbed the house, which is now held as a rental, and put in a road to access lots 2 and 3.  After the acquisition of this property, the borrowers invested approximately $42,000 out of pocket into the lot development.  They report that this figure does not include their time and labor.  The two parcels being used as collateral have been fully developed and are prepped for vertical construction.  Once construction on lot 3 has been completed and sold, the borrowers intend to build another spec home on lot 2.  The borrower’s have carefully planned the development and construction of these three lots, and they’ve been successful in their execution of this plan so far.  The borrowers are not bringing in any cash to close this loan, but they do have approximately $100,000 in equity that they are pledging as collateral.

The borrowers plan to exit this loan with the sale of the property.  They believe that the basement apartment and view will make the property more attractive than other properties currently listed in this area.  As a contingency, if the property does not sell, the borrower intends to rent both units and seek a conventional mortgage.  Total income is projected at $2,250 per month if both units are rented.

Property

The property consists of two similar lots (lot 2 and lot 3), although construction will only occur initially on lot 3.  Lot 3 is 4,750sf, with sewer, water, power, phone, and cable on site.  This property has a partial view looking south east towards Milwaukie.  Photos of the lots have been provided

The proposed single family residence will be 2,680sf, with 4 bedrooms and 3.5 baths.  There will be a two car garage, and two fireplaces.  This home will also have central air, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and will include a finished live-in basement that can be rented as a separate unit.  Half of the basement walls will be exposed with windows, and will be more like a first floor than a traditional basement.

Valuation

As-Is Value

Based on recent comps provided by the borrowers, they estimate the value of lot 2 to be $132,000.  Lot 3 is approx. 2000sf smaller, and by the same comps the borrower estimates a bare land value of $115,000.  Considering the amount of work that has been done (excavation, footing, 6 months of engineering with the city, plans) the borrowers estimate a value of approximately $150,000.  This is a combined estimated value of $282,000.

Projected Value

Recent comps were provided by the borrower.  Based on these comps, the borrower and his realtor have decided to list the property for $410,000.  A property inspection was performed by our VP, who reports that $410,000 seems like a reasonably conservative estimate of value.

When combined with lot 2 as cross collateral, the combined projected value of this property is $525,000

Financial Status

Fairfield was provided with a signed 1003 for xxxx and yyyy.  They state a combined gross income of $12,300 per month (this is an average amount based on xxxx’s variable construction income) and a net worth of $208,595.  A copy is provided for your review.

Credit

xxxx has a mid-credit score of 528, while yyyy has a mid-credit score of 527.  xxxx’s income is variable, and he is currently having some cash flow issues.  xxxx reports that he is expecting payment from a large project, and has another lined up.  It should be noted that the borrowers have a perfect pay history with Fairfield over the past 2 years.

Experience

xxxx reports that he has 40 years of construction experience.  A resume of his work over the past 15 years is provided for your review.

<end of private money loan prospectus>

– Clay (sparkman@lendicom.com, 503-476-2909 or 800-971-1858)

Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964.  Fairfield works with a broad range of private money investors, in a broker capacity, finding, underwriting, presenting, closing, servicing, and when necessary, assisting in the workout of difficult loans.

In December of 2007 we were faced with a decision.  After three years of successfully flipping properties to low and moderate income buyers, we awoke one day with no buyers and no plan to find new ones.  Our dilemma was very simple, do we dissolve the company or do we create a new viable model that will work in this new economy?  If we decided to create a new model, what would that look like?

We had just begun to hit our groove in the spring and summer of 2007.  We had successfully flipped around 100 properties in the first 2 ½ years of business and we were working at about a 4 to 5 house pace per month.  We were making money and had been in the black for quite some time.  We considered ourselves “real estate investors” and thought we were pretty darn good at it.  So when we found ourselves faced with a flight or fight decision only a few short months later, it seemed surreal.  My partner, Karen, and I spent days talking about what a viable model was for the new economy.  We had heard of other local groups “selling to out of state investors.”  We decided to attempt to replicate a similar model, but with a focus on local investors.

For three months Karen and I worked on a plan and developed systems and processes that involved Golden Key (GK) (www.gkhouses.com) selling properties to investors that wanted to invest passively in real estate.  Our vision was that everyone recognized the opportunity, but very few people had the skills to do something about it.  We thought we would approach professionals (executives, doctors, lawyers) and pitch them on the idea of owning 10 – 15 properties instead of investing all their money in the stock market.  Locally, based on our expected average sales price, this involved them investing $100K to 150K individually.  Our responsibility in this plan involved acquiring the properties, rehabilitating them, leasing them, and then finally selling them to these new found investors.  We felt this model would eliminate most of their risk and objections.  Questions like, “What would it rent for?” and “How much will the rehabilitation cost?” became commonplace in our initial pitches.  What we decided was that we really needed to mold two businesses–an acquisition business (to find the deals) and a management business (to process the houses and manage them on a go-forward).  Our office quickly became a “mission control” of spreadsheets and flow charts.

In 2008 we had only moderate success with pitching this business.  We had very little trouble getting people to agree that there was an opportunity, but a whole lot of trouble getting them to write a check.  We were able to identify some investors, but continuing changes in the lending environment made it harder and harder to close the deals and made it more difficult for one person to purchase multiple properties.  This resulted in a time intensive process of dealing with lenders during the close and constantly finding new investors.

Because we became very frustrated with how slowly the business was progressing, we decided if we could pool the investors versus dealing with them individually, this would allow us to really deal with one “client” and speed up the process.  Since we didn’t know how to put together a fund, we approached a local investment bank, Founder’s Investment Banking (FIB) (www.foundersib.com) in late 2008.  We thought FIB to be a good fit since they had a real estate practice that had previous experience putting together real estate focused funds.  At the time, they were disinterested, but we did plant the idea.  We continued to approach other similar groups, but with very little success.  So we continued to sell to both local and out of state investors, one house at a time.

In the spring of last year (2009), FIB came back to us and said they would be interested in putting together a fund.  The fund’s investment thesis was to purchase the homes, already renovated with a tenant already paying rent, and then to hold the properties in a portfolio renting them, and as the market recovered begin selling them to homeowners, preferably the tenants.  What they saw was that the current market was allowing for a unique opportunity, and they could purchase these homes at similar returns to what they could expect from an apartment community; however, apartment communities will always sell using the same criteria (cap rate, cash flow, etc.) that they used when purchasing it.  In comparison, single family homes can be sold to a homeowner who purchases for much different reasons and thus will pay a premium for that home.

FIB also saw this as an opportunity to enter the single family management business.  They asked if, that in addition to putting together the fund, they could invest as a partner in both the acquisition business and the management business.  This fund would give both businesses a tremendous amount of horsepower, so settling on a sales price was a challenge.  After a series of meetings, over about three months, we finally agreed on a sales price for a portion of our business.

January 1^st of this year the deal was completed and the fund was closed.  The fund has purchased around 35 properties to date.  It takes us about 75 days from the time we acquire the property until the time we are able to sell it to the fund.  The fund has provided us exactly what we expected.  We’ve been able to produce product with speed.  Our margins are about 70% of what they were in the past, but we expect to do significantly more deals under this new model.

Our story is one of reinventing ourselves for the new economy.  Our biggest challenge these days is finding something that is sustainable long past the opportunities the current economy is presenting.  We never want to find ourselves in the same position we were in three years ago.  Our management company has grown from 20 houses in 2007 to almost 300 today.  We believe that the challenging market will be an opportunity for quite some time; maybe not as BIG of an opportunity as it is today, but we believe the U.S. will feel this pain for the next four to five years.  Additionally, single family management will benefit from the slow recovery and continue to grow over that same time period.

We’ve learned quite a few lessons over the last three years which will probably be, as we look back, the greatest return on our adventure reinventing Golden Key.

Our first lesson is that very few people really understand real estate investing.  This is very dangerous in a business where we talk about leverage being able to multiply an investor’s returns and the same holds true for his losses.  Becoming intimate with the actual data is a very healthy process.  What are the real expenses?  What are the real revenues?  How might they change?

Secondly, we’ve learned that investing for value over investing based on speculation is a whole lot less sexy, but it sure pays the bills.  In the past we purchased properties based on what we “thought” we could sell them for.  Today we purchase properties based on what we KNOW they will sell for.  Rental value is a much more accurate measure of intrinsic value than a sales price.

Lastly, it is hard to both manage and invest–so no matter how emotional the month is, you have to examine your business as both the operator AND the investor.  Make sure it makes sense for both.

We continue to grow and learn daily and I hope that our story will add some value to what you are doing.

Matthew Whitaker is Managing Member of Magnolia Partners, LLC and Golden Key, LLC (www.gkhouses.com) in Birmingham, Alabama.  He has been investing in single family houses since 2004.  He has acquired over 150 houses personally and has a team that has the collected wisdom of acquiring over 400 houses.

Sure, we each have “teams” of lawyers, Realtors, title agencies, finance people, insurance agents, and contractors working with us, but don’t kid yourself – real estate investing is largely an individual sport.  Many investors have neither receptionists to greet them when they show up to work nor water coolers around which to shoot the bull with co-workers.  Besides the lack of regular camaraderie, we don’t get a lot of feedback from others in how we’re doing at our jobs, either.  Whereas W-2 employees get performance reviews, we just get rent checks and mortgage statements.  I frequently feel like no one else understands what I’m going through, so first, let me express my appreciation for all the encouragement I received from my peers, the other players in this life-sized game of Monopoly, on my earlier article, “Grumblings of a Slum Lord in the Post-Bust Environment.”  I pride myself on my logical and critical thinking, as I’m sure do many of you, which is certainly the source of much of my frustration in the face of illogical and reactionary lending policies.  When I wrote my earlier article, it was just a way to get those frustrations off my chest, but it’s been reassuring to know that others can understand and appreciate my pain, and even share some of my perspectives.  It helps me know I’m not crazy.

Thank you also for the compliments on the clarity of my writing and how it explained challenging concepts in everyday layman’s terms.  I’m thrilled that the article was so well-received and that my peers found it entertaining, if not helpful.  I often debate with people who don’t appear to understand the workings of a “market,” and one of my goals in writing the article was to help enlighten them.  Many of them believe that rents would skyrocket without rent controls or that wages would plummet without a minimum wage, whereas you are much more likely to agree that artificial controls worsen the very problems they’re created to solve.

But that’s enough gushing and philosophizing; let’s jump into the epilogue to my earlier rant. …

Congratulations are in order!  …for me!  We finally closed on that six-unit apartment building we were in contract to purchase as a short sale.  (It only took ten months to bring that deal to the closing table!)  We have some minor repairs and maintenance to perform there, and one vacancy yet to fill, but the hard part is finished – any decent managing company could handle the ongoing responsibilities … and we’re giving some thought to formalizing our management company.  When we close on our next building, I’ll have enough “equivalent experience” to permit me to become a NY-licensed real estate broker without having to apprentice as a salesperson, and then we can hire a salesperson to be our in-house property manager.  If we join the association, we’ll even be able to list our own rentals in MLS to save on commissions.

Getting the word out about our borrowing gripes, both through my earlier article and by crying on the shoulders of anyone who would listen, we actually found leads for a few reasonable lenders that may want to work with us.  We also stumbled into an introduction to a private lending consortium that might want equity stakes in our future deals.  Consequently, we’re moving forward on the seven-unit building we mentioned in the last article.  We conducted our inspection last week and my “team” is hashing out the contract terms at this very moment.  I’m much more confident that we’ll actually be able to get financing … but I’m still insisting on a financing contingency, just in case.

The bank that initially denied our application to refinance our two-family house rather than make a counteroffer has surprisingly reconsidered their position.  I’m shocked.  One day I got a denial letter and my application fee refunded, the next day I got phone calls asking for the application fee back, and the next day I got a letter with a counteroffer.  Apparently their left hand doesn’t know what their right hand is doing.  These are also the guys who wouldn’t give me a straight answer as to whether I was employed (70% LTV limit) or self-employed (50% LTV limit), and *surprise*, I’m apparently employed!  I promptly accepted their commitment and hired a title company.  There are a few final due diligence items we have to provide, and we’re hoping to close in 2-3 weeks.  Incidentally, I haven’t sent back the application fee, and they seem to have forgotten about it.  (I hope they’re not reading this…)  Depending on how everything turns out, I may even give them a shot at financing the seven-unit building, too.  …but I still wouldn’t want to own shares of their corporation.

My own bank continues to baffle me.  After accepting that commitment from another bank to refinance the two-family house we own outright, I went back to the lending officer at my bank who didn’t want us using his HELOC as a down payment for a new loan.  I told him we’d use this cashout as the down payment for our next loan, but he still wouldn’t do it, arguing that we’d still be financing the new building entirely with debt, and that his underwriters weren’t comfortable with that.  I can see his point (if I really squint and crane my neck), and the crazy thing is that after debating with him, I honestly believe he can see my point, too.  Our total property value is greater than our total debt, so overall we have a reasonable LTV ratio.  However, since we own several properties, you could juggle the numbers to argue that any one individual property is 100% financed.  Logically, if you want to assign that much of our debt to the one property, it only makes the other properties look proportionally better, but if you then myopically only consider the one property that you’ve made appear over-leveraged by unfairly assigning debt to it, you end up with his underwriters’ concerns.

It’s not just the lenders who are as sharp as marbles, either.  The two side-by-side three-family buildings we wanted seem to have fallen through.  I thought we would have been considered for sainthood for our offer to this seller; he accepted it without a moment’s hesitation.  We wanted both buildings and were willing to pay cash.  He had four different loans that were going to need short sale approval and only two of the six units were rented.  Most people wouldn’t have touched it.  We paid for the inspection and there were no big surprises in the report.  We were all ready to negotiate contracts, but the seller’s attorney advised his client not to accept *any* contract changes we requested … and wouldn’t return my attorney’s calls.  Many of the changes we requested were just boilerplate minutia that we would have been happy to negotiate or concede, but there were a few deal-breakers that we just couldn’t waive.  For one, the two buildings share a common furnace, gas meter, superintendent, and fenced back yard, even though they were two lots.  We didn’t want to end up owning just one of the buildings under any circumstance – both or neither.  We needed each contract to be contingent on the other, and we couldn’t get their attorney to even discuss it with our attorney.  In hindsight, I think there are better deals out there anyway – in fact, my broker keeps sending them to me.

So, that’s it, then – you’re all caught up on our exploits and adventures.  We’re still looking at new opportunities and still trying to streamline and improve operations on our existing ones.  I’ll contact those new leads I got to lenders and mortgage brokers until I find some that want to make loans.  (Hopefully this means the pendulum has started swinging back to center.)  I’ll still consider other options, like private borrowing from friends, relatives, and associates, paying them more on their loans than their banks would pay them for savings.  I’ll negotiate with sellers to try to get them to hold notes on the buildings I buy from them.  I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for other opportunities to finance my investments, and I’ll try to keep my mind open to new ideas.  If anyone reading this is or knows of any banks, brokers, or private lenders who want to work with investors buying multi-family commercial-sized buildings, please contact me!  I don’t want to publish my email address here, but you can find it at http://MaverickStructures.com.

Brian Blum is the founder and operating manager of Maverick Structures LLC, a real estate investment, rental, and management company.  He owns, rents, and manages several pieces of investment real estate, and is always on the lookout for good opportunities, reasonable lenders, and rational partners.  Brian also founded, owns, and operates Maverick Solutions IT, Inc, a technology consultancy and support provider, serving mostly schools, NFPs, and SO/HOs in the New York Metro Area.

I have always believed—and history seems to bear this out—that when the status quo becomes problematic, new opportunities present themselves.   Certainly the real estate economy of the past three years has proved problematic, and so as private money investors we are called upon to seek out those borrowers/investors who have encountered and successfully engaged those new hidden opportunities to create wealth in difficult times.

I would like to present here, by way of example, one real estate investor in particular who has done precisely that.   Mr. X saw opportunity in a Las Vegas real estate market turned upside down.   He assembled a crack team and began buying REO properties at heavily discounted prices from banks.   He used private money, along with his own funds, to buy, rehab, and either quick-flip or hold (depending on the particular circumstances) single family residences and multi-unit properties in the city.

He came to us to help fund his projects, and we have been thrilled to see him perform impeccably on loan after loan, grow his wealth position, and persistently decrease his leverage position (at a time when many real estate investors are doing just the opposite).

Our private money lenders are coming to us and asking for the chance to do more loans for Mr. X.   We just finished closing another 4-plex rehab loan for him and are now in the process of placing a very attractive 10-plex acquisition and rehab opportunity.   By way of illustration, I have provided the prospectus below.

Kristopher Gillmore

Fairfield Financial Services, Inc

3327 SE 50th St, Portland, OR 9706

Phone (503) 319-7294 / Fax (503) 419-4219 / E-mail: gillmore@privatemoneysource.com

REAL ESTATE PROSPECTUS

SECURED LOAN

Purchase and Rehab of 10-plex in Las Vegas, Nevada

Loan Details

1. Loan Amount: $210,000
2. Term: 2 yr
3. Interest Rate: 13%
4. Monthly Payments: $2,275.33 Interest Only
5. Security:  Deed of Trust in 1st Position security interest in real property in Las Vegas, NV 89102
6. Value by Borrower Estimate / Comps is $350,000
7. LTV by Borrower Estimate / Comps is 60%

Loan Overview

A loan for the purchase and rehab of this property has been requested by Mr. X’s company, xxx, LLC.   Mr. X is requesting $98,200 for the rehab of this property, and will be making a down payment of approximately $16,000.   Mr. X will personally guarantee this loan.

Mr. X is experienced flipping homes and multi-family homes in Las Vegas, and has rehabbed well over 200 properties in this area.   He currently holds 65 properties in his inventory.  38 of these homes are free and clear and all but 2 of his properties are rented and producing income.  Mr. X reports that these properties are for sale or pending renters.

Mr. X has successfully completed four loans with Fairfield over this past two years.  In each of these loans the construction was completed and the properties were listed in under a month.  Both houses were sold and the loans paid in full well before the loans matured and Mr. X has never been late with a payment.  In addition, Mr. X currently has five active loans through Fairfield.  These five loans are on 4-plexes that he is holding as rentals, and like the first four loans.  Each of these rehabs was completed and rented in approximately one month.  Each property has a positive cash flow and Mr. X has never been late with a payment.  To exit this loan, Mr. X will seek conventional financing once renters are in place.  He anticipates that it will take around a year to get this financing in place.

Property

The subject property is 5,500 SF and has 10 units.  There are eight 1 bedroom and 1 bath units, and two 2 bedroom, 2 bath units.  The 10-plex was built in 1956 and sits on a .15 acre lot.

Based on other rental properties that Mr. X owns in this area, he anticipates that property will rent for $4,300 / month total ($400 / 1-bed and $550 / 2-bed).  Mr. X aggressively markets his rentals which are all newly renovated and priced lower than his competitors.

The building is structurally sound, but is in need of cosmetic repairs.  Mr. X has agreed to make all of the repairs to this property out of pocked ($98,200), and will submit one final draw for reimbursement once this property has been completed.

This property is in a prime location, within walking distance from the Las Vegas strip.  It is located approximately ½ mile from the Stratosphere hotel and casino, in close proximity to some high end developments like Allure Towers, Soho Lofts, and Newport Lofts.

Valuation

Comps by Borrower

To determine the completion Value, Mr. X’s partner and realtor, Mr. Y, has provided some recent comps for multi-unit properties.  Based on the price per unit of these comps, location, and expected rents, Mr. X estimates a conservative value of at least $350,000 for this property.

In July 2010, a property inspection was performed for a 4-plex in a similar neighborhood (829 Held Road).  It was suggested by our inspector that a conservative value for this property would be $180,000.  Because these are both multi-unit income properties, the approach used to calculate this value should be similar.  Based on the inspectors estimate of value for this 4-plex, Mr. X’s estimate of $350,000 for a 10-plex seems reasonable.

Income

We were provided with a signed 1003 for Mr. X, which states a monthly income of $30,000.  In addition, he states a net rental income (not including taxes and insurance) of $72,180, and a net worth of $7,258,000.   A copy is provided here for your review

Credit

Mr. X has a mid credit score 575.  His credit score has dropped substantially due to late payments on a Mercedes for which his ex-wife is responsible.  Mr. X said that his name should not be on that anymore and he will look into it.

Market Analysis

There is ample information available for residential market conditions.  By utilizing sites like zillow.com and altosresearch.com, we can see that the residential market has been in decline for the past 2 years.  Altos research.com provides graphs of the average price, price/SF, days on market, and the number of homes on the market.  These graphs are provided for your review.

Most notably, the graph showing the number of homes on the market (and recent reports of a 2^nd wave of foreclosures) suggests that increased foreclosures continue to force people out of their homes.  The number of homes on the market has increased by approximately 10% over the past 6 months.

Mr. X states that this downturn in the residential real estate market has been one of the keys to his success.  Mr. X stopped flipping houses approximately one year ago, and started buying rentals.  In this market he’s able to purchase these properties below market value and rehab them quickly, so that they cash flow with hard money rates with minimal vacancy.  The fact that these rentals are newly renovated and competitively priced in a market where more people are renting, has allowed Mr. X to make a lot of money over this past year.

Now that’s some kind of lemonade!

– Clay (clay@privatemoneysource.com, 503-476-2909 or 800-971-1858)

Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money loans since 1964.  Fairfield works with a broad range of private money investors, in a broker capacity, finding, underwriting, presenting, closing, servicing, and when necessary, assisting in the workout of difficult loans.

The runway was drenched in sunlight as our plane touched down that morning at LAX.  It was a golden balmy day.  We grabbed our bags and headed for the rental car kiosks.  I don’t recall how it happened exactly, but the fellow at the counter said something like, “I can make you a real good deal on a sporty little convertible.  Do you want it?”  We looked at each other and shrugged, “Why not, let’s have some fun.”

It was a business trip, me traveling as a private money loan broker and accompanied by Alan, a stalwart friend and investor of many years.  Over the past two weeks we had been carefully picking our way through a loan file for a request to loan money on a bare land parcel in the Malibu hills.  This was not a normal loan for us.  At this point, we had not expanded our regional boundaries much beyond Oregon and Washington.  California would have seemed strange to us, but Malibu was like another planet.  Still, this was in the glory days of the California Empire, back when money ran free in the streets, and we were having a hard time finding good reasons not to like the loan, so we finally decided it was time to go have a look for ourselves.

We hopped into the little red convertible—top down, ready to go.  I don’t recall who navigated and who drove, but eventually we found ourselves cruising south along the coast and really enjoying the ride, the sunshine, and the beautiful sparking blue sea.  “I’m sure we must be quite a sight,” said Alan, “two pasty white Oregonians on the California coast riding high in a bright red convertible.”  Some SP 40 and a couple of old baseball hats would have been useful, but we were in a hurry to get to our meeting and couldn’t stop to shop.

Our designated meeting spot was just off highway 101 near a small Realtors office at a cross-road leading into the Malibu hills.  We pulled up a few minutes late and found two cars and three people waiting.  The loan broker who had been the point man on the project was there.  He was standing and talking to two other guys.  We were introduced to our borrower.  He was quite young (maybe mid-twenties), well dressed with a pony tail and friendly enough but a bit on the slick side (at least by Oregon hick standards, that is).  His sports car—an Audi TT—was a real sports car, unlike our little domestic model.  The other fellow (quite young himself) was introduced by the borrower.  The introduction was a bit vague and came out sort of mumbled; somewhere in there, we thought we heard the word “appraiser.”  We noticed quickly that he and the borrower appeared to be quite friendly with one other—a couple of old pals maybe.

After exchanging pleasantries, we all hopped into our respective vehicles and fell in line behind the TT.  The kid was working the peddle hard and seemed to be making a point as we wound our way around hairpin turns on this high windy gravel road; we struggled to keep up with the spray of gravel.  Somehow we eventually managed to arrive alive and intact at the subject property, and everyone got out and stomped around in the dirt for awhile.

The circumstances were pretty simple.  The kid’s father owned the property and was holding it as part of the kid’s inheritance.  The kid planned to use the free and clear property as collateral for a loan that he would utilize to pay for tuition (or some such thing).  There were no immediate plans for development, but we were told that the property was fully accredited, meaning it was fully qualified as a buildable parcel for one residence.  (Of course this is no small thing; in the hills of Malibu, CA the ecosystem of these hills has been seriously stressed due to over-building and becoming accredited for a new structure is no easy task.)

So after some walking and pointing and a series of questions and explanations, I lead into my most pressing concern.  It had occurred to me on the flight down that there was a potentially serious error with the appraisal.  This error (assuming it was an error in this case) is a surprisingly frequent error in appraisals; I have seen it many times over the years.  Let’s call it the Fallacy of Infinite Scalability.  In order to demonstrate the Fallacy of Infinite Scalability, I’ll use an example.  Let’s say that our subject property is a five acre parcel and that we are looking at a comp which is a one acre parcel.  Assuming that the one acre parcel qualifies as a buildable parcel by virtue of size (say it was grandfathered in when the zoning was changed to 5 acre minimum size per site) and that the five acre parcel cannot be subdivided further (due to the change in zoning), then we cannot compare these properties acre for acre.  If the one acre comp parcel sold for $800,000, then we would not be correct to say that the five acre parcel, all other things being equal, is worth $4,000,000.  That would be the Fallacy of Infinite Scalability.  Instead we must determine the base price of one home site–in this case the first acre–and then determine the incremental value of each additional (incremental) acre.  So for example, we might determine that the one acre parcel is worth $800,000 and that each incremental acre is worth $50,000, giving us a total of $1,000,000.

However, by my interpretation of the appraisal and in the absence of further information, the appraiser had committed this error in determining the value of our subject property.  So I asked of the third fellow, “Are you the appraiser?”  “Uh … well no, I’m not the appraiser,” he muttered, “I’m his assistant.”  This seemed odd.  I couldn’t recall a time that an appraiser’s assistant had ever been sent to a site review.  At any rate, I went ahead and asked him about the appraisal and in particular whether or not the Fallacy of Infinite Scalability was at work here.  He scratched his head a bit, looked kind of confused, rocked back and forth with his hands in his pockets, and indicated that he really didn’t know the answer to my question.  “Okay, I’m going to have to speak to the appraiser,” I said.  At which point the assistant most adamantly explained that the actual appraiser did not like to talk to clients and could not be talked to (or something to that effect).

I countered that without a reasonable explanation for the apparent Fallacy of Infinite Scalability error I could not proceed and that I really needed to speak to the appraiser.  There was much commotion and back and forth between the kid and the assistant, until finally the assistant said that he would call the appraiser and see if he would speak to me.  Eventually he managed to get a signal and contacted the appraiser who apparently agreed to have me put on the line.  I took the phone and proceeded to ask about the appraisal and to what extent the Fallacy of Infinite Scalability applied.  The appraiser sounded frail and confused and was barely audible.  I walked him as carefully as I could back through the question a second time, much as I did for you the reader above, but he still didn’t answer.  It became clear that he simply could not respond to my question.

Well … at this point I glanced at my watch and I looked over at Alan. He looked back and said, “You know what?  We’ve got a flight to make.  We’ve gotta get back to Oregon.”  “That’s right,” I said.  “We’ll call you all once we’ve had a chance to talk this over,” and away we went.  And as we drove back up the coast the horror stories played out in our minds:  an appraiser held captive in his own home, tied to a chair, perhaps drugged into submission, or just a very old man gone senile and his son taking over his work, his license … and maybe his signature.  There were many possible interpretations, and we tended to favor the most hideous.

I learned a long time ago that a loan not done for the right reasons is a successful loan and so I put this one in the win column (and so did Alan, I believe).  On the flight back that evening we looked down at the sea and felt grateful for our pleasant journey, for the tragedy narrowly averted, and just to be on our way back to Portland in time for dinner, whole, intact, and more or less unscathed by the experience.  Of course, there was the small matter of our bright red sunburned heads which were—surprisingly–beginning to approximate the color of that cute little California sports car which we had just left behind.

– Clay (clay@privatemoneysource.com)