Buying Mortgage Notes-Why Would A Lender of Bank Rep Sell?
Friday, March 27th, 2009
Below is a question I got asked recently. I thought this was valuable info, so I am sharing it with you here:
“I have been doing some reading on all the reasons why lenders would sell properties at big discounts…
What I want to know specifically is what criteria do lenders base their decision on when selling their mortgage notes at discounts. With focuses on LMREP, it would benefit me tremendously if I was selling my services based on their criterias”.
Here is my response: First of all make sure that you are using the correct terms when trying to express your points. You need to differentiate the difference between mortagage notes and properties. You mentioned both in your question.
You mention both in a question to a bank rep and if I were them, I’d immediately write you off as a knucklehead who doesn’t know a deed of trust from a deed and wouldn’t respond to any further emails or calls from you.
A Tip on Buying Mortgage Notes
Just a word of caution to bone up on your note lingo before you talk to the banks:
Remember that when you are talking to that key person when buying mortgage notes, you have only one chance to make a great impression.
How is that for wisdom?
A few reasons:
Institutional-Level Reasons to Sell Mortgage Notes:
a) banks in the process of merging, or posting quarter/annual financials and needs to get assets off its balance sheet. Quick way is to sell the notes
b) bank may have a “relationship” with the borrower, or there are extenuating circumstances.
c) in certain cases, the bank might now want to foreclose on borrowers because of the negative press they will get. These actions may affect their public image.
d) although the banks have no problem starting the foreclosure process, a lot of them do not want to carry our the actual foreclosure. When buying mortgage notes, you may see a lot a week away from foreclosure proceedings.
e) loan is upside down and doesn’t warrant recovery action/expense (small 1sts sub $20k on properties of similar value may never be foreclosed on by certain banks – great opportunities in buying mortgage notes present themselves in many cases)
f) In order to see what the market would pay for these loans, banks may price a part of its non performing book and send it out.
Reasons to Sell Mortgage Notes at the Individual Reps
a) Borrowers can be flaky, they won’t follow through on payments, or just unwilling to work with the bank. The loss mitigation rep does not want to work them anymore as well.
b) borrower is non-responsive, no contact
c) foreclosure processes in their state are too long
e) the rep doesn’t want to go above their head to get an approval for a write off or mortgage note sale. So they sell at their authroziation level or at the direct managers.
f) the rep might be shooting for their monthly bonus and sell off some mortgage notes to reach this. Sometimes it could just be a matter of meetin a monthly quota.
Hope this was useful to you.