Fund & Grow Financing

Fund & Grow Financing

Justin SheleyBusiness Member
Investor · Rockford, IL · Member since 2016 · 94 posts · 220 votes

After listening to the Clayton Morris podcast (EP115 with Mike Banks) about the company Fund & Grow, I became intrigued with the idea of using business credit cards to buy rental properties using the BRRRR method. The whole concept seemed too good to be true, so I hopped on BiggerPockets to see what people were saying about Fund & Grow. I always find great content here, and more often than not I find the answer to my question before I even need to post and ask about it. However, with Fund & Grow, I didn't find much. (If anyone knows of a discussion about Fund & Grow that I didn't find please link me to it) There are a few discussions where people were considering using Fund & Grow to finance a deal, but none that I saw that went all the way through the process and used the funds to find a deal.

That being said, I decided to start this discussion post and share my experience with the company from day 1 till I refinance and hopefully complete the BRRRR method.

For anyone not familiar with Fund & Grow, they are a company started by Ari Page that helps you establish business lines of credit for the purpose of creating working capital for small businesses. In my case, I will be using the line of credit to buy properties in Rockford, IL and rehab them into rental properties.

Phase 1:

Currently I have enrolled with Fund & Grow and completed my initial consultation. This cost $3,000 for their service of negotiating and securing the business credit cards. I spent 1 hr on the phone with a very friendly consultant and discussed my plans for the business credit and established a sole proprietorship for both my wife and I. This allows the business lines of credit to not affect my personal credit score.  The first push for business credit will begin next week, and I should have access to an anticipated 60k by the following week. My wife is not currently receiving accounts yet until a more established credit history can be created for her.  We are currently lining up several refinancing options with banks in the area so that they are aware of what we intend to do. Currently we are being told that we can refinance the properties we buy with cash after 6 months. This is key for us, because we intend to buy and hold these properties and do not want to get stuck after the initial 12 months of 0% interest expires on our business credit cards.

Phase 2 is going to be actually receiving the cash into our account and making our cash purchase. I tried for brevity sake to not go into the entire Fund & Grow concept in my initial post, but if anyone has any questions, comments, or concerns I'd love to discuss them.

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Lender · Peabody, MA · Member since 2015 · 82 posts · 49 votes
9y
I used a similar system to receive roughly $40,000 in credit cards at 0% for a 12 month period. The company I used took 10% upfront and then helped me liquidate everything so I had usable funds fairly quick. I was able to do a flip with the funding I received and pay back all the money before my interest free period ran out. It was expensive, but the flip more than covered everything and I was able to get in the game. I would do it all over again if I had to.
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  • Investor · Youngstown, OH · Member since 2017 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    7y

    @Maurice Colbert That's the name of the game; it happens. You're very lucky! I am optimistic about the long-term benefits, but I'm very disappointed that they didn't respect the wishes I conveyed to them multiple times. 

  • Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2018 · 1 post · 0 votes
    7y

    I'm a technically income-less medical student in my 3rd year who worked with Brandon K at F&G. I know that in general, you have to spend money to make money and wanted to have a chance at starting buy-and-hold real estate before I start making "real money" as an attending physician in SIX YEARS... 3.5K seems like a lot when you're already hundreds of thousands in debt, have kids, and are creatively paying down a mortgage in CA. But I probably could not be happier with taking a chance on F&G.

    Like a few others, I came across F&G through Morris Invest and figured that I would get 3-4 "rounds" of applying for business credit and assumed that each round would multiply previous acquired credit by 1.5 or 2X. Therefore, if I gained even 70K of business credit at the end of the year, that would be like getting a loan of 5% APY, which is pretty decent. The fact that I've learned a lot about the credit system and how to negotiate with agencies is a nice bonus. I just finished round 1 and ended with 34K. I'm fairly certain that I'll easily cross the 100K mark. The best part is that I have not had to take much time away from spending time with my wife and kid or from my studies and long hospital shifts. I've been using the cards to upgrade an AirBnb listing I run and it has allowed me to work a lot faster and double the amount I earn on it. I now have enough total unsecured credit (with my personal cards currently :/) that I can purchase a modest buy-and-hold property outright with Plastiq (2.5% fee) instead of applying for bridge loans that typically go for 9-12%. 

    Brandon was professional and responded quickly to my questions and worked around my ... issues ... like having no reported income recently and low income prior to that. These rounds of funding were also complicated by my mistake of trying to apply for a HELOC at the beginning of working with them (don't do that). Yes, your credit will likely drop by 30-90 points, but they provide you with the information needed to get rid of most of the hard inquiries that caused these drops. I also don't know how to verify if these new lines are business lines vs personal, but they appear to be business cards that are under a sole proprietorship with my name, which is what most physicians do anyways. I have read through the credit agreements for each card and they do say they are business lines. To me, it doesn't matter too much since Brandon asked if I was okay with non-business cards. Overall, my ability to take risk and control assets has increased with almost no effort on my part and I learned how to "prove my worthiness" to financial entities. 10/10 experience.

  • Crosby, TX · Member since 2016 · 1 post · 0 votes
    7y

    Great experience working with Brandon at fund and grow!  He was very helpful, professional and successful at getting us the business credit that we required to move forward.  I highly recommend fund and grow and we are very pleased with Brandon's proficiency.  He made the process very smooth and simple and a complete success! Highly recommend!!

  • Member since 2018 · 2 posts · 1 vote
    7y

    It has been a little under 3 months since I signed up for Fund & Grow, and Macey Glenn has been phenomenal in following up and always asking if there is anything that I need assistance with. Although I have not received an approval on a loan yet, that is due to Macey  and the Fund & Grow team making sure that when I apply for funding, that I receive not only the best terms, the highest amount for that application. Macey's client service is a breath of fresh air considering the service you receive from customer based businesses these days.

  • Las Vegas, NV · Member since 2018 · 100 posts · 140 votes
    7y

    No more, please no more.....I feel sick like when you have eaten too much chocolate cake....

  • Member since 2018 · 8 posts · 9 votes
    7y

    Brandon Kroon did an awesome job helping my brother and I get more funding on the 1st round!

  • Real Estate Coach · Chicagoland · Member since 2013 · 502 posts · 101 votes
    7y

    I've been working with Danyelle Roller at Fund and Grow after we had Mike Banks on the REtipster podcast. 

    So far, they seem extremely professional and the process has been extremely easy. 

    I'll be starting my first round of funding tomorrow and plan on doing a full review of my experience over at REtipster.com... but so far, this has been an almost "Too-Good-To-Be-True" kind of experience - hands down one of the easiest forms of financing I've found as a real estate investor. 

  • Real Estate Investor · Saint Louis, MO · Member since 2014 · 3 posts · 2 votes
    7y

    I used f&G after seeing them advertise absolutely everywhere.lol   I will say that I hoped to receive a little more in unsecured bizcred with my credit and ratios.  However they did hit the guaranteed amount, and the team at F&G is on top of their game.  Super responsive and extremely nice to deal with!  I didn't have to follow up with them- they followed up with me.  I will probably use them again in the future to build on what they've already secured.    I would recommend ]

  • Member since 2019 · 2 posts · 0 votes
    7y

    I’ve had a good experience with Fund&Grow. Donna has helped me achieve a total of $102,000 for my real estate business.  My only suggestion would be to schedule the times when I would absolutely need to be available a bit better.

  • Member since 2018 · 1 post · 0 votes
    7y

    So far, my experience with Fund&Grow has been great!! Luis helped me achieve a total of $32,000 and I am looking forward to my next batch!! Thank you Fund&Grow

  • Member since 2019 · 1 post · 0 votes
    7y

    I received a total of 96k in funding. Anthoney Ford was a big help he made the process quick and easy.  

  • Robert ChurchPro Member
    Investor · Payson, AZ · Member since 2016 · 19 posts · 1 vote
    7y

    Hello Bigger Pockets,

    I wanted to provide my experience with John Madison of Fund&Grow,

    I worked with John Madison at Fund&Grow for the past couple months, he has helped me achieve $77,500 on my first batch. I am happy with the way they have helped me move forward in my financial life (specifically in RE investing). Hopefully, he will help me get over $100K over the next 3-6 months and I feel with his help it will be possible. Also, he is very responsive with my questions and follows through very well.

    I have read many experiences via Bigger Pockets regarding Fund&Grow so I knew alot before getting involved.  It all seems to be valid and also enlisted my wife to be involved once her recent credit account has seasoned which will in the next month or so.

    But, John and Funds&Grow in fact do as they advertise.  I think getting $100K or more is really helpful if you need funds within a years time.  Just make sure you pay it back though.  But John is a great guy to work and he has your back in getting the funds they advertise.

    Thanks John and Funds&Grow for your help.

    Robert Church

  • Winston Salem, NC · Member since 2014 · 21 posts · 17 votes
    7y

    For anyone interested, I was inspired by @Justin Sheley to create my own case study, you can keep up with it here: 

    https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/50/topics/656...

  • Springfield, MO · Member since 2016 · 1 post · 0 votes
    7y

    Luis and all the folks at F&G were very thorough and a pleasure to work with. Being a victim of the whole Morris Invest / Oceanpointe fiasco, F&G was able to secure enough credit for us to get some very necessary rehabs done on 3 out of 4 of our rental properties (had to sell the 4th). Now that the rehabs are done we are now beginning to add tenants and starting the process of securing long term financing. F&G really helped us out of a real bind.

  • Queens, NY · Member since 2019 · 5 posts · 1 vote
    7y

    Just completed my first round with Luis Luperena from F&G, couldn't be happier. $50k in the first round alone!! Cant wait for the next rounds

  • Professional · Columbia, SC · Member since 2016 · 35 posts · 2 votes
    7y

    Luis Luperena was very thorough and detailed about the Fund and grow process. He also was also extremely prompt about responding to my many emails. All in all I am very happy with my business with the Fund and Grow company. I am looking forward for my next round of business credit.

  • Daphne, AL · Member since 2018 · 4 posts · 1 vote
    7y

    John Madison has been taking care of my account for a few weeks now and I couldn't be happier. Very professional and prompt communication. I really appreciate the thorough email instructions which make it super easy to know where we are and what to do next. 

    Looking forward to future rounds to see how high we can take this. 

  • Rental Property Investor · Newark, NJ · Member since 2018 · 13 posts · 5 votes
    7y

    @Corey Robinson hey Corey i wanted to get an update as to hkw your experience with fund and grow has been till now. Ive been contemplating on signing up. And a major detail has been how i can pull out cash or checks from the Bus. C.C?? Thanks

  • Rental Property Investor · Atlanta, GA · Member since 2018 · 73 posts · 18 votes
    7y

    What kind of inquiries are they removing, soft or hard? And how? If it's the soft inquiries, why, because I thought those did not effect your credit score.

    Also, what are they doing to negotiate a bigger credit limit when the cards are new to start with?  

    I'm not sure why some are referring to this as an unsecured LOC. It's just a bunch of credit cards, right? I'm not against this concept per se, just trying to understand.

  • Normal, IL · Member since 2016 · 8 posts · 5 votes
    7y

    I started with Fund and Grow a little over a month ago and they have secured $60,000 in credit for me so far. I plan on using that credit to obtain buy-and-hold rental properties through High Return Real Estate, paying down the credit cards as much as possible during the zero interest period and then applying for long term mortgages before the high interest rates kick in. 

    Is this the general plan for most of you on here with this, and have any of you done it this way? How difficult was it to roll your properties into more traditional financing? 

  • Member since 2019 · 2 posts · 0 votes
    7y

    I first heard about Fund&Grow through a referral to a webinar because I was looking for funding to invest in real estate. I was able to get $21,000 in my first 30 days due to the assistance of John Madison from the company who was a pleasure to work with and definitely a master at obtaining credit lines. Between me and my partner working with this company we have more than enough to getting started with our business. Thanks John and thank you, Fund&Grow!

  • Queens, NY · Member since 2019 · 5 posts · 1 vote
    7y

    Just Start your membership, they can definitely help with less than perfect credit. They seem to work pretty fast too. Really satisfied so far, looking forward to my next rounds of funding with them!

  • Rental Property Investor · NJ/PA · Member since 2016 · 555 posts · 149 votes
    7y

    WOw, many people are paying for this service. 

    Each one is paying $3000 for the program.   How do you cash out when you get the credit cards?   Is there a fee to do so? or use plastiq?

    Business cards really no impact to person credit score?

    Plan to set up LLC and create EIN.

  • Battle Creek, MI · Member since 2018 · 38 posts · 3 votes
    7y

    Interested.  Keep posting progress.

  • Member since 2019 · 1 post · 0 votes
    7y

    I have worked with F&G now for a couple of months, I specifically worked with Brandon Kroon.  He has been very responsive, helpful and informative. I have learned quite a bit and look forward to doing more with the company.  The $$3,000+ investment is well worth the return and information you learn.  

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