Bank of America to Resume Foreclosures After Final Quarter Hiatus

Bank of America, the nation’s largest mortgage service company since acquiring Countrywide in 2008, announced that they will resume foreclosing on homes Wednesday, December 1st. This comes after the banking giant self-imposed a foreclosure moratorium in the wake of the “robo-signing” scandal that received wide spread media attention in 2009. While this news is undoubtedly another blow to beleaguered homeowners, it comes none too soon for investors looking to purchase post foreclosure properties. In the final quarter of 2010, investors have found slim pickings at Trustees’ Sale auctions across the country.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also made an announcement on November 24th that they will resume the auction sale of homes that have loans serviced by Bank of America, Chase, PNC Financial and others.

The last several years have seen several cessations and moratoriums on foreclosure proceedings that have caused the pool of available investment properties to dry up until the next wave of foreclosures begins. Many agents have struggled during these times to find suitable properties for their clients. My unique approach to securing homes for my investor clients has insured that we at Wynn Realty Group have actually thrived during these past several years of market flux.

We focus on purchasing properties wherever the best deals are available at the time. This includes Trustees’ Sale acquisitions, short sales, traditional listings and REOs. Once we purchase a property, we perform the necessary rehab and find a lease option tenant. We sell the properties to our investor clients as turn-key, hands off investment opportunities. The properties are already rented to a lease option tenant with CAP rates of between 10-14%. This provides investors with a low risk, low maintenance property with high appreciation potential and built in equity. We also offer partnership opportunities for investors looking to finance our rehabs for an even larger annualized rate of return.

As an example, we recently purchased a 4 bedroom home, 1800+ square feet, only three years old for $84,100 at the Trustees’ Sale. We resold the property only 17 days from the purchase date for $110,000. This particular home did not need any rehab and my investor partner made an amazing 288% annualized return on his money.

A second deal was a 1454 square foot town home with 2 car attached garage (also built in 2007) that we purchased for $70,100. After a quick clean up, we placed a long term renter in the property and resold it 40 days from acquisition date for $88,000. We partnered with an investor on this deal who saw a $6000 return on his money in a little over a month.

We can fully document all of the 24 flips that we have completed just this year alone! If you are interested in purchasing turn-key, high quality investment properties with renter in place; or if you like the idea of partnering on our rehab projects, please contact me to talk about real estate opportunities here in Las Vegas.

Wynn Realty Group and Glenn Plantone - Go With the Flow!

Glenn Plantone
Wynn Realty Group
Office: (702) 656-3264
Mobile: (702) 769-9872
Email: gsplantone@gmail.com

www.viewpointequity.com

What is Transactional Funding and Why Do We Need It In Order to Flip Properties in Las Vegas?

I have written several articles lately announcing the return of profitable flipping conditions in Las Vegas, NV. Las Vegas has led the nation in foreclosures since the real estate bubble burst approximately three years ago, and we have seen our home prices plummet to $0.30 on the dollar or less. Simultaneously, this wave of foreclosures has created a large demand for rental properties as former home owners become home renters. This has resulted in rents that have remained relatively stable as the prices of homes have steadily dropped. This unique set of circumstances has generated positive cash flow scenarios for investor buyers that haven’t existed in Las Vegas in decades. It has also created a niche for those looking to flip properties once again.

Most of the foreclosures that are being sold at auction and through bank owned REO listings need only minor, cosmetic repairs to bring them up to rental standards. Investors willing to purchase these properties, can put $5K-$10K into them and then turn around and sell them to investors for a reasonable profit. These investors are still able to purchase the property at a price that makes it possible for the property to generate strong positive cash flow at prevailing market rents.

The catch in this process is that, in order to acquire a property at the Trustees’ Auction, the prospective buyer has to come with cash. Many flippers (such as myself) have the resources and ability to flip multiple properties simultaneously, but lack the personal cash reserves to tie up more than one or two properties at a time. This is where transactional funders enter the picture. My transactional funders loan money to me on a very short term basis in order to purchase properties at the auction or through the banks. These funds are always protected by a first position lien on the property. Once the properties have been successfully rehabbed and held for the minimum time period specified by the bank (usually 30 days), they are resold to my investor clients and my transactional funders are repaid in full. The transactional funders usually see their money tied up for no more than 35 days and they are paid 3% on their investment. This equates to 50%-125% annualized returns on the average transaction.

If you are interested in providing transactional funding for upcoming projects, or to receive more information on the over one dozen flips that I have successfully completed within the last few months, please contact me:

Glenn Plantone
gsplantone@gmail.com
(702) 769-9872

Flipping Short Sales In Las Vegas Provides a Win-Win-Win Situation in 2010

I have come across a very exciting niche in the Las Vegas Real estate market that is creating a win-win-win scenario for me, my short term funding investors, and the “end-user” investor buying our properties. Over the last several months, we have completed 10 deals and have had terrific (and fully documented) results on all of them.

So what am I doing?

First a little background: Over the last several years, Las Vegas has received a lot of press as the “Foreclosure Capital of the Nation.” This is true…foreclosures in the Las Vegas valley in 2008 and 2009 reached record-breaking highs, and led the nation. However, what most people don’t realize is that the inventory of bank owned REO properties in Las Vegas has PLUMMETED over the last six months. Last year, 75% of all home sales in Las Vegas were foreclosures. Now, the current bank owned inventory of available homes (not pending or contingent) represents only about 10% of the total homes for sale through the MLS in Las Vegas. Additionally, over the last year, the number of homes sold in Las Vegas has drastically outweighed the number of homes returning to the banks via foreclosures. This shortage of inventory of “bargain” priced REOs has created a huge demand for the REOs that do enter the market. Many investors, including all-cash buyers, are finding themselves shut out or locked in bidding wars when trying to purchase an investment property.

The solution: I have found a solution to this predicament that provides my investor clients with a turn-key, extremely profitable property and generates a large, safe return for my transactional funding investors as well.

Here’s how it works: I continually search for and tie up short sales that have substantial equity. This process takes anywhere from two to eight months to secure bank approval. Once the short sale is approved, I use short-term transactional funding to purchase the property from the bank. My funding investors are guaranteed either a 24% annualized return on their money (if they invest for a single deal…in and out in less than 30 days typically) or 18% annualized return for long term investors who want to park their money to be used for multiple deals over a several month or year period.

After the property has been purchased, I bring in a team to quickly rehab the home and get it into turn-key condition. We then place one of our pre-screened lease-option tenants in the property. This lease-option tenant buyer puts down a nice size, non-refundable deposit on the home and then pays higher than market rent. This saves our investor property management as well as maintenance fees and provides a built-in buyer for the property down the road.

Here is an example from one of the properties that we recently flipped: It took me ten months to negotiate this particular short sale with the bank. Ultimately the home was purchased by my transactional funder and I for $109,000 (it sold new for $254,000 three years ago.) It is a 2100 square foot, four bedroom home in a newer area of Las Vegas. We were able to put a lease option tenant in place immediately who pays $1495 rent per month and put $4500 down (non refundable lease option payment.) As soon as we closed on the purchase of the home at the $109K price, we re-sold it to an investor buyer looking for a great hands off investment with a great return. The sales price to the investor was $129,000. The "cap rate" return of cash flow for the new owner is 13%. If he sells it to the lease option tenant after the 2 year option period, he will net a 27% return on his investment.

As for my transactional funder, because we had the home sold and closed within 7 days, the funder earned $2400 on his investment (he put in $80,000 and I put in the rest of the $109,000 purchase price). This $2400 in one week equated to a 156% annualized return on his money. As soon as we got out of this deal he was able to move immediately into another very similar transaction that ended up cashing out with nearly identical numbers.

In all cases, the transactional funding money is fully protected by a deed on the property that is being purchased.

If you are interested in getting these kinds of safe, guaranteed returns for transactional funding or are interested purchasing these kind of turn-key investment properties (with cap rates of 10%+ in many cases), or if you know an investor looking for these kinds of returns, please contact me for more information. I do pay referrals for those bringing investors.

Glenn Plantone
gsplantone@gmail.com
Office: 702.656.3264
Cell: 702.769.9872

Earn a 30% Return on a $1,000,000 Real Estate Backed Investment

As baby boomers mature and reach retirement age, building has accelerated in mild climates worldwide to meet the coming demand for retirement housing. Costa Rica was one such locale that has experienced tremendous growth in the last several years as it has exceptional year round weather and is one of the safest countries in the world. Recently, however, the global economic downturn, coupled with the difficulty of obtaining building permits in Costa Rica, have combined to dramatically slow this growth.


There is an American developer, however, who has been extremely successful in obtaining the required building permits from the Costa Rican government. This builder's relationships with the local and national governments, his understanding of local culture, and sheer persistence have enabled him to succeed where many others have failed. He has had several projects built over the last several years in the Central Pacific Coast region of Costa Rica and he now has three current projects that are fully permitted and ready to build.


The projects have been approved to receive a $35M Hedge Fund loan to complete building. However, a $1M bridge loan is required in order to secure the larger loan. Once the bridge loan is secured, the process to fund the larger, $35M loan should take 60-90 days. Once the larger loan is funded, the builder will take the first draw of $5M and with that will pay the entire principal balance of $1M to the bridge investor. With each subsequent monthly building draw, the bridge investor will be paid interest on their original investment. The total interest amount of $300,000 will be paid in even installments over the remaining draws of the $35M loan.


The $1M bridge loan will be secured by the property and will be immediately placed in escrow until it is needed to fund the larger loan.


If you are interested in participating in this project, please contact Glenn Plantone for more details.


gsplantone@gmail.com 702.938.8888 office or cell 702.769.9872