Posted by Ed Garcia on November 01, 2000 at 09:36:40:
THS,
This is a common problem. There are brokers who clam to have lenders who do loans with no seasoning, that’s a bunch of bull. What happens is the broker puts one down with out seasoning form time to time, but I promise you with no consistency.
When you give a lender a REAL BORROWER with real down payment and real credit, the lender will usually turn their head on the seasoning issue and make the deal. When you give a lender a borrower that takes a can of glue with seller carry back down, less than marginal credit that sends up a red flag. (When you tell me that you needed to get rental payment history, you told me that they have no credit or their credit has derogs.) So now the lender is going to take a closer look at the deal.
Lenders don’t mind a seller carry back if you give them a respectable borrower who puts some of their own money in the deal. What the lenders are tired of is a pattern of investors buying a property below market, finding a weak borrower with no substantial credit history or real money down, and then burying them in the house to create a seller carry back, which now becomes funny money because the borrow didn’t supply it nor did the seller. True equity provided by the seller is considered when the seller weathered the storm to hold on to the property and has paid payments on it over a period of time.
That’s when 12 months becomes your magic number.
So what’s the answer? First of all you better know that if you’re going to buy a house for an immediate flip, you better find a qualified borrower with real money down. Second, if you are going to deal with a borrower that is weak and has no real money down, then you better be prepared to sell on a lease option to giving the borrower enough time to bring their credit back and create verifiable down payment. There are other options such as selling with a wraparound, creating a note to sell off at a discount etc.
Another thing I haven’t brought up is AREA. When you have a property in an area that is experiencing strong appreciation and is considered a HOT market, again the lender will turn their head. However back to the pattern, most investors find a fixer upper or rehab in a area that is marginal or below and even though lenders are not suppose to, they red line.
Redlining is a lending policy, illegal in most states, of denying real estate loans on properties in older, changing urban areas, usually with large minority populations, because of alleged higher lending risks without due consideration being given by the lending institution to the creditworthiness of the individual loan applicant.
Ed Garcia