Fairfield Financial Services, Inc. - Private Money Loans, Lending & Borrowing

Structuring loans

Creative Funding

Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

Clay Sparkman

As you all know, sometimes we have to be creative to get loans done in this market. One of the most critical aspects of any loan is the Loan to Value ratio, and there are often options for reducing the LTV to make the deal more attractive.
For purchases, the seller carry back is a [...]

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Make your borrower’s projects and submissions More robust

Monday, March 26th, 2012

Clay Sparkman

In the current climate, it’s getting harder than ever to impress potential lenders with your client’s loan scenarios. It may be that times have changed permanently and that it will be years before lenders return to their pre-2007 comfort level. Until then I thought I would make some suggestions to help you to re-think [...]

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Calculating LTVs for rehab, development, and construction loans

Friday, January 20th, 2012

Clay Sparkman

We thought a quick primer on LTV calculation for projects involving construction would be of use to most of those who utilize or broker private money.
You really need to use two LTVs. We use a Front End LTV (F-LTV) as well as an After Repair Value (ARV) or Final LTV (LTV), when evaluating loans. [...]

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Private money – getting from point A to point D

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

Clay Sparkman
In the spirit of learning by example, I’d like to take the opportunity to describe an interesting scenario that we put together.
They say that when it rains, it pours. Well, for our borrower it had been pouring for a long time. A long run of bad luck had left him in a difficult situation, [...]

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Private Money – 5 DONT’s and 5 DOs

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Clay Sparkman

I would say that as much as 75% of our loans are initiated by third-party loan brokers.  We rely heavily on our wholesale broker relationships and dearly value the strong working relationships that we have.  As much as we love our relationships with brokers, it is an ongoing challenge to develop new relationships.
Perhaps the [...]

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Private Money Loan Simulator

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

Clay Sparkman
I firmly believe that the best way to learn about anything complex is by doing.  The second best way is by example.  If I could provide you with a private money loan simulator I would, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet (though I assure you, we haven’t given up on [...]

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Auction Buyers Take Note

Monday, October 24th, 2011

Clay Sparkman
Most likely you have clients who buy distressed properties from time to time–with the intention of making a profit–and need a source of funding to fuel their activities. There are three common ways to buy distressed properties: pre-auction, auction, and post auction (generally referred to as REO). Most investors are forced to buy either [...]

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On the art of handcrafting loans

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

Clay Sparkman
As I pointed out in a previous mailing, our private money lending programs tend to be fairly rigid with regard to LTV requirements, but quite forgiving with regard to other issues. One of the nice things about private money is that it allows for creative problems solving. I have put many transactions together that [...]

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How to broker private money loans when real estate markets are uncertain

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

Clay Sparkman
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 (all who are still present please take a moment [...]

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The big stretch

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

Clay Sparkman
In a prior posting, I pointed out that one of the primary advantages of private money is that it allows for creative problem solving due to the flexible nature of the beast.  I went on to discuss some of the ways in which one can often make a private money transaction work, on any [...]

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