@Philip L. They have insurance requirements that they send you but nothing crazy and then I just sent that to our insurance broker who came back with 2 different quotes. The insurance for the rehab phase is different from after tenants are placed and it’s fully renovated. Rehab phase is a residential fire policy. They will also provide you with a quote from a group they work with but it was a bit more expensive so we didn’t use theirs.
Am using them right now. Supposed to close on March 15. They are sending out an appraiser to view the property and project their own ARV. They will be inspecting throughout the project to take draws on the rehab budget as well. Interest only 9.5%. Were willing to do 15% ltv and 100% of rehab.
@Philip L. We were supposed to close yesterday but being held up on the seller's attorney's end from title and search/survey. Our financing went through their underwriting and has been approved though as of mid last week so we are ready once the seller is. Had to have current and ARV appraisal done based on our work scope/rehab budget. ARV came back 30k higher than we were projecting so us and lender were happy. They are doing 85% acquisition costs and were going to do 100% of rehab. We opted out of using them for rehab to avoid additional costs at closing and draw/inspection fees during the rehab. I have been working with Max Chera primarily. So far I'm happy. He's been very responsive via text and calls which is nice to have when it's your first time using hard money.
@Philip L. They have insurance requirements that they send you but nothing crazy and then I just sent that to our insurance broker who came back with 2 different quotes. The insurance for the rehab phase is different from after tenants are placed and it’s fully renovated. Rehab phase is a residential fire policy. They will also provide you with a quote from a group they work with but it was a bit more expensive so we didn’t use theirs.
@Chelsea Knapp thanks for the info I really appreciate it - I was given a list of insurance policy requirement changes I forwarded them to my broker and they are able to make some of the changes but not all they are also saying no insurance company will offer a policy based on the request. ECF are saying to use their insurance but it's twice the price and after doing a little research they don't seem to be very well established.
@Philip L. I will say the insurance is definitely more than owner occupied which was expected but perhaps do some more searching or talk to another broker. Ping me in 6 months and I will let you know the end result. We'll be refinancing through a local bank. Not having them involved in the rehab reduces the complexity of using them so I'm looking forward to getting the closing taken care of and after that we are just making monthly payments to them til refinancing. The appraisal was done through an independent company locally that local banks use so that has given us some confidence. In fact one of the banks we may refinance with said that appraisal company is one of the main three they use and we could potentially have the ARV appraisal transferred to our file with them and save on closing costs. We'll see
Haven't checked BP in a while! Thank you, Chelsea, for sharing your experience with the community! I know I tried to do an insane amount of research, but like Phillip, came up with nothing. Trustpilot isn't trustworthy since they literally recycle reviews and there was the same user who gave few wildly different stories. That being said, I did get in touch with a Real Estate Agent in New Jersey that used them, so I know they're legit, which is when I pulled the trigger.
Unfortunately for me, the person I was working with never followed through, and for me, you get three strikes with 3-day intervals.
Thanks again! Now we have resources for others that might be looking.
@Chelsea Knapp thank you for sharing some of your journey with Express Capital. I am curious about the culmination of your experience with Martin Chera and Express Capital Financing. I am considering using them for purchase in So Cal.
@Ada Guerin-Hughes so far so good. A couple small hiccups that didn't result in anything major. Our closing kept getting delayed on account of the sellers attorney and then when we got word of closing it happened relatively quickly and Express' attorneys were working on other closings so they got our documents over to us at the final hour on a Friday and then their attorney didn't release funds to the seller until Tuesday which caused some friction amongst realtors but it got resolved. They had a steep attorney fee for not doing much (our guy did most of the work) and I had to send them a reminder to send our welcome packet to set up our payments which start this month (you prepay the first two months at closing). We have been working mostly with Max Chera (think he's Martin's son) and I have been impressed with his responsiveness. We text and he is good on the service end. He has also offered to run numbers on refinancing with them as they do 30 year fixed investment loans. He was always good about running numbers and projections back when we were analyzing properties as well. I'm shopping around small local banks for a better rate but Express would offer a faster close and we should be able to get about 5.5% with them so it's an option. We'd also keep the property in the LLC and out of our personal names as well which we are thinking of to perhaps expand into the short term rental space using personal mortgages at some point under vacation/2nd home mortgages.
I was going to do a deal in bloomfield nj with express capital , but when we were about to close the deal, they started questioning my legal status In The USA . This made me very uncomfortable and simply decided to move on . Now I'll be closing next week with Flatiron Capital, which I find them to be very responsive and helpful.
Glad this eventually got a few replies. Thank you for sharing everyone! Still looking for a good hard money lender myself, so the search continues. I'll definitely check out Flatiron Capital. Thank you, Waldy!
Initially they seemed to go really fast , then they slowed down drastically, so I had to go in a different direction. I would suggest you to go with Dominion financial. As they can qualify you for a revolving line of credit , that you'll be able to reuse again and again to fund your deals . This can give you a lot more speed .
Curious what Dominion financial offers for the revolving line of credit and how much tax return one may need. Do you have a contract info you can share?
Initially they seemed to go really fast , then they slowed down drastically, so I had to go in a different direction. I would suggest you to go with Dominion financial. As they can qualify you for a revolving line of credit , that you'll be able to reuse again and again to fund your deals . This can give you a lot more speed .
Yeah I would take a hard pass on ECF. I would think most lenders would be able to underwrite at 55% LTV, 750 credit score, no rehab, simple cash out refinance. Multi-family and owned if over 9 months, appraisal came back 10% higher then the loan app estimated value, so LTV ended up being closer to 51% LTV.
Have the rental income and expenses to back up the numbers, Plus other SFH rentals free and clear, and they can't figure out how to do that loan and get to a closing table.
Nothing funny or odd about the property, on the city records for the number of units and for the values expressed. Still no clear answer after 6 weeks of processing on a closing date. ECF was surprised I had moved on after wasting 6 weeks with them.