RFG to the Rescue: We’re There When You Need Us
In an ideal world, you’d be prepared for any situation and all of the pieces to your project would
fall into place right when you need them to. If you know anything about flipping a house or
mortgage lending, however, you know that’s not how this business works. With multiple parties
involved and so many different interests at stake there is a lot that can go wrong — and no
shortage of red tape to cut through!
For whatever reason a deal hits a snag, we counsel our borrowers on the best course of action
for them to help close the deal. Weekend hours, extensive research, and personal phone calls
are all tools we use to go above and beyond for our customers in their times of need.
Quick Close – We can do it!
We recently helped a borrower close on a loan with an extremely short timeframe — even
though they chose another lender. We originally agreed on terms and a closing
in early January. While we prepared for the loan, the borrower continued to shop for better
terms, which they thought they found with another lender.
This “lower-rate” lender made promises that would convince any borrower to switch to them.
The lender made false promises like promising a close in three days without an appraisal or an
inspection, as well as offering slightly more favorable financial terms.
Not surprisingly, the loan did not close by the date they promised. Six days before closing
remained and the borrower seemed out of options. She contacted RFG, begging us to take her
back and asking if it were possible for us to rush the appraisal and inspection, rush title, and
coordinate between four other parties, some of whom didn’t exactly have the expeditious
mentality RFG has. It took working the weekend for some of us – some checked in from
business trips to offer their services. All in an effort to close for our borrower — a borrower we
just met — and we succeeded. Imagine having a lending team with this type of attitude on your
side.
We are satisfied in knowing our hard work is appreciated — appreciation that is directly
correlated with the abundance of repeat borrowers we work with. In the office of RFG, we stand
back in retrospect quite often and think, “Would any other lender do this?” But never have we
asked the question more than after our favorite story. . .
Lending Under Special Circumstances
Anybody in the real estate world knows how difficult short sales can be — now add off shore
servicing and multiple lien holders and you’ve got quite a mess.
Last month, we had a borrower in this exact position on Long Island. The mortgage had been
transferred several times, but the borrower had been able to negotiate short sale amounts with
both the first and second lien holders that worked. The first lien holder gave a drop dead date of
when the transaction had to close.
The last assignments to the second lien holder were not recorded, so even though they had a
short payoff agreement from the purported second lien holder, the title company required proof
that they were the correct party to pay off as the current ownership was not of record. The
department providing the short payoff for the second lien holder was not authorized to provide
such proof and said that they escalated the request, but would not divulge to whom or when the
request would be responded to. Other than this, everything was done to close the loan, but the
title company would not budge on the requirement.
The new owner was one of the large companies that have their servicing off shore. Anyone
who has dealt with these companies knows that getting a response is close to impossible.
Messages left by RFG at multiple phone numbers for the owner of the mortgage, including the
phone number found on the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission
were unanswered. The first lien holder was asked again to extend, given the situation with the
second lien holder, but they refused.
On the day before the last possible day for the deal to work, a member of the RFG team was
able to connect the dots for the title company, by tracking the mortgage through various
websites and connecting it to sale and merger information of parent companies found online. It
was nothing short of a miracle that she was able to create the link necessary to satisfy the title
company and the loan closed with only a few hours to spare. No other lender would go through
that for a customer!
We are lucky to have not only a great team who will work like this for our borrowers, but also
contacts at title companies, appraisers, attorneys, and inspectors who help us succeed on
behalf of our customers.
Like us, the ones we associate ourselves with jump through hoops to get the job done, and
these projects were perfect examples of that team effort.
We Work for You
RFG was founded and built on the pillars of service and experience. Although we have some
great stories from years of lending, we are glad to go above and beyond to help our borrowers
be successful. Through extensive experience in the real estate industry, we can offer unrivaled
service. This service, over everything, is the cornerstone of Rehab Financial Group. We go to
great lengths so we can ask the question, Would any other lender do this?