Posted by David Butler on July 22, 2001 at 18:31:39:
Hello Sean,
Hmmm… looks we missed this one the first time around. Anyway… great idea - if I could find someone to handicap horses like this, you can bet I would be living at the race track 
The biggest problem you have right now, is that there is not near enough information about the deal to even offer a remote guess. Notes, like racehorses, are subject to any number of variables that can influence the outcome.
Certainly, equity is king… and if you were attempting to sell the note shortly after creating it, it would likely be either unsaleable… or, if huge provable equity existed in the collateral property, you would likely be looking at a stiff discount - the bigger problem here would be if the balloon you are talking about is in first postition against this property… and you are sitting there on an 18 month fuse. An investor for that kind of note, would be someone with a very large and well-stocked “bomb-shelter”… in case of explosion!
Sorry I can’t offer you any more perspective than that under the circumstances, but hope it clarifies your situation. You definitely need to come up with a better strategy for diffusing the time-bomb represented by the balloon.
David P. Butler