With the end of 2013 rapidly approaching, many real estate professionals are dashing to try and close their deals before years end. There are those who have been waiting on a short sale acceptance for months, and are suddenly awarded with a December closing deadline. Or there are the banks who have decided to rid their balance sheets of toxic assets before years end. And what about those who have certain tax advantages for liquidating real estate assets before the start of the new year? With sudden opportunities in real estate, such as the ones in these three examples, real estate investors must be able to act quickly. And unless you've got a ton of cash to finance these opportunities, your best bet in such a short funding timeframe is to obtain a hard money loan.

In many cases, particularly in the case of short sales or foreclosures that banks are looking to liquidate before years end, sellers want to move quickly. And most real estate investors aren't able to come up with all of the cash quickly, particularly if more than one real estate transaction is in the works. A good example is a deal that came to us recently. The borrower had plenty of cash but he had a foreclosure purchase a few days before Thanksgiving and he also purchased a property at auction last week. And wouldn’t you know, this week a short sale he had been waiting on for 6 months finally got a settlement deadline from the bank. Because the borrower had used all of his own cash on the first two real estate transactions, he will be short on cash to close this short sale by December 18th. For this reason he came to us for a hard money loan to close the short sale transaction by the settlement deadline. Need to close a real estate transaction before years end? Consider using a hard money loan because it can function similar to an “all cash” transaction and can close before years end.

Posted by Corey Curwick Dutton