Building Relationships with banks

[Kelsey Teague]

So now that the project I was working on at work has simmered down, I can get back networking and focus on building my RE portfolio. My question is how do you guys go about building relationships with banks? Do you just walk in a say hey you guys! How do you establish your reputation? I recently bought my own condo and am renting a room out of it, within a year or 2 would like to rent the whole place out. (Baby steps) :).  I'm about to start analyzing different markets and would like to get this thing rolling again. Thanks for you alls insights!

[Stephen Herbert]

Hi Kelsey -

Given than you're looking to build a local real estate investing-based relationship with the bank, a small, local bank would likely be a better fit. Of all the investors I work with that have strong relationships with banks for their take out financing, they are almost always small regional banks. These ones are willing to add value to their immediate community and can assist in more ways than the larger players.