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

The big stretch

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 given project, even when the LTV initially appears to be too high.
In particular, I profiled the following creative scenarios:
(1) We are able to base LTV on the true value of a property, as opposed to purchase price; frequently our savvy investors are able to buy under value and thus this makes a significant difference when establishing true LTV.  (It is kind of like North and True North.)
(2) We are able to base LTV on the projected value of a property when rehab or construction is involved.
(3) We will allow a seller carry back in second position when a buyer is able to negotiate this type of arrangement to his/her advantage. (We frequently lend up to 70% LTV, but may allow CLTV to exceed 100% under certain circumstances.)
(4) We will allow a borrower to pledge other real estate assets as additional collateral to make up for a shortfall in down payment money or earned equity.
And it turns out that I failed to mention one of our most effective tools for bridging the gap when the LTV ratio is running too high. My father has often said that the difference between being able to do a loan and not being able to do a loan is generally our fee. And there was a time when that was too often the case.
Well, we at Fairfield have made a conscious policy decision to not let that happen ever again. Based on the premise that a dollar tomorrow is better than no dollars today, we have decided to carry some or all of our fee (as a small second) any time that this is necessary to make an otherwise good loan fit our LTV criteria.
This is no small thing, as our fee generally runs 5% of the gross loan amount, and our originating brokers (when involved in a transaction) charge anywhere from 1-5% for their part in the loan process; so with combined fees ranging from 5-10% (I never claimed that private money was cheap; I said that it is fast and flexible), and assuming broker cooperation, we are able to stretch 70% LTV to as high as 80% LTV. That is a big stretch and frequently it has made the difference between doing a loan and frankly the opposite of that.

— Clay (clay@privatemoneysource.com, 503-476-2909)

Clay is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private money since 1964.  Fairfield is currently targeting loans in OR, WA, AK, CA, CO, ID, FL, GA, ID, MT, NV, NY, OK and TX.  To submit a loan to Fairfield for consideration: http://www.privatemoneysource.com/loanproposal.php



Share |


Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

2 Responses to “The big stretch”

  1. John Kucey says:

    I havae a Church applicant in idaho that has 5 loans totalling about $300,000 and needs about 300,000 for repairs and upgrades
    Only two of the properties are Churches and the approximate total value of the proerties is estimated to be voer $1,000,000.
    Would your firm have an interest in this? What is your interest rate and term?

    • admin says:

      Hi John,
      Well the LTV looks reasonable on the face of it. beyond that, I don’t have enough information to be able to tell you whether we could do this or not, or to quote thsi loan. Please go to the following link and fill in the short form there: http://www.privatemoneysource.com/loanproposal.php
      I will then be able to give you a proper and compete response.
      Thanks,
      Clay

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *