Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
Creative financing in real estate truly is a beautiful thing, because it allows so much flexibility for you the seller, and us the buyer. This can lead to a true win/win situation in many cases.
Imagine you are selling a used truck online for $20,000. You fully expect to receive lower offers and also expect to haggle with people about the final price. Eventually you will settle for the highest offer, probably around $17,000 or $18,0000. Cars and homes RARELY sell for their full asking price. But imagine if someone came along and told you they would pay you full price for the truck , maybe even a little more, if you would accept payments, spread out over time, instead of the total sale price upfront. Maybe payments would be set up over 2 years. Maybe 3 years. Maybe the buyer gives you half upfront. Maybe zero down. The terms of the deal are between you and the buyer. You simply have to come to an agreement. It's all negotiable. This is the essence and beauty of Seller Financing.
It simply depends if you want less money now (convenience) or more money later (price). Convenience and speed, vs full price.
Think about it: the traditional home buying process is expensive and costly, for both the buyer and the seller. A hopeful buyer must get pre-approved, submit mountains of paperwork, have the house appraised, then wait 4-6 weeks to find out if the lender approved everything. Sometimes deals fall through. If the deal goes through, the buyer is required to provide a 20-30% downpayment, as well as share Realtor fees and closing costs. The seller is also responsible for their share of these costs.
But with creative finance deal structures, we work directly with you to determine the terms of the deal, terms that benefit you and terms that benefit us. By streamlining the process and cutting out any middlemen, we can offer you more money, often times even helping with moving expenses and closing costs. In Seller Financing deals, you become the lender (although you're not actually lending any money, you're simply accepting a payment schedule). No bank involvement. This instantly turns you into a real estate investor and provides not just monthly cash flow for you, but tax breaks and interest earned.
Creative strategies we can discuss with you:
-Seller Financing
-Seller Financing, Subject To existing loan terms (Hybrid Model)
-Mortgage Loan assumption (when allowed by lender)
-Lease Purchase Agreement
-Lease Purchase Option
While these strategies often allow us to pay you more, the caveat is that the money we pay you is distributed over time, not as one upfront lump sum.
As real estate investors, we either add properties to our long-term rental portfolio, we fix and flip them on the retail market, or we provide a rent-to-own model, using a Land Contract. For our rent-to-own homes, we find non-qualified home buyers (people who would make great home owners, but don't qualify with a traditional lender and therefore cannot get a mortgage loan) and we offer them our own Seller Financing. To stay compliant with Federal laws, we use a Residential Mortgage Loan Originator to underwrite these deals.
We find it very rewarding to help home sellers get what they want for their home, and to then turn around and help another family buy the home of their dreams.
These situations are all too common and by no means anything to be ashamed of.
At Epic Investing LLC, we offer creative and compassionate real estate solutions, to help our clients navigate these difficult circumstances.
Specifically, we can help alleviate your financial burdens by providing you with resources and options you might not know existed. These resources may help you stop the foreclosure process. If after doing so, there truly are no other options, and you are willing to sell your home, we can purchase your home via traditional methods, or by using creative financing techniques, which allow for more flexibility for both you the seller and us the buyer. We will be happy to discuss these options with you during a consultation, and to explain them in further detail.
Everyone’s situation is different. Therefore, every solution is different.
We specialize in real estate debt relief by using creative real estate solutions. Although we don't lend money for the sake of personal debt relief, we do offer Seller Financing to those who purchase our homes. All of our "Seller Finance" loans are underwritten by a Mortgage Loan Originator.
These strategies are widely used across the country and, when structured properly in compliance with applicable laws, can be a legal and effective way to buy and sell property. Our real estate attorney and the title company we use have significant experience with these types of transactions and always make sure everything is executed both legally and ethically.
At Epic Investing LLC we maintain ethical and legally compliant best business practices. But not everyone in our profession does. There are numerous news stories of predatory real estate “investors” taking advantage of their unsuspecting clients. Many of these businesses earn bad reputations and eventually face legal trouble. Here are a few articles explaining how unscrupulous businesses take advantage of those that need their help the most, and how we at Epic Investing LLC are different:
Yes. If we enter into contract, we will pay your back taxes and missed mortgage payments (arrears).
While it’s highly unlikely, if something unforeseen were to happen, you the original seller, would get the title to the property back. Property ownership would transfer back to you. This means that we, the investors, would lose any money we spent on attorney fees, closing costs, repairing and updating the property, and would also lose any money we spent getting your loan and back taxes up to date. It would be a huge financial loss for our business. Therefore, we make sure to keep the loan current, insurance up to date, and all bases covered, with iron clad, attorney drafted contracts. The absolute worst-case scenario would be, if we go out of business, and you get the property back and can’t rent it out or afford to keep it, you might be subject to foreclosure. This would severely hurt your credit score, as well as our credit score. This scenario only applies to situations where we take over the financial responsibility of your home subject to your original loan terms.
All of this is clearly spelled out in our contracts, which are drafted by our attorney so that everyone understands their rights and responsibilities upfront.
We would love to see you stay in your home, but the majority of times it’s just not feasible. One of the main reasons is that when we renovate and update the home, using our team of contractors, it needs to be completely empty. The second reason is that if you were to face additional financial hardships in the future and became unable to meet your contractual responsibilities, we would have to evict you. We sincerely don’t want to do that. We have never evicted anyone. For that reason alone, our legal counsel has recommended we don’t offer this as an option. It creates a conflict of interest for us as a business, causing us to run afoul of best practices. When we buy your home, it is written in the contract, that the home needs to be vacant upon the date of closing.
If we buy your home from you because you are having financial trouble or just want to get rid of it, we fix it up and resell it on the market via traditional methods and your financial situation has changed by that time, at that point there is nothing conceivably stopping you from buying it back. We would love to see that.
If you need help relocating, we are happy to be of assistance.
Every situation is different. It really depends on how you choose to sell us your property. If you sell it to us via traditional methods, immediately upon closing of escrow, you no longer have home debt. This will be reflected in your credit report immediately. Your credit score will climb quickly, which greatly increases your chances of future home ownership.
If we acquire your home using creative financing techniques as described above, and you have been behind in taxes and monthly mortgage payments, your credit score will still improve. Your credit report will reflect payments as “current” instead of “past due.” But since the mortgage is still in your name, it will be reflected in your overall debt-to-income ratio (DTI). When you move out and decide to buy a house anytime in the future, the original mortgage, which is still in your name, will appear as a debt. This can negatively impact your ability to buy a house in the future. However, we have seen some lenders that will treat it as a rental property that you own. Meaning, if payments have been made on time for a year or so, they recognize your mortgage as a performing loan and may not hold it against you. When that time comes, if you ask us, we would be happy to submit paperwork to your new lender, showing receipts and proof of good standing of your loan-the loan that we took over for you.
Traditional real estate transactions, in which a property owner hires a licensed Realtor to represent them, lists the property on the market (MLS), finds a buyer, agrees upon a sale price, then closes at a title company, is the standard way of doing things. It’s tried and true. It’s proven. It’s predictable. We have personally bought and sold numerous homes this way and we will continue to buy and sell homes this way.
But. sometimes situations arise that cannot be remedied by doing business as usual. Extenuated circumstances require thinking outside the box, of solving problems creatively and on the fly. Especially when time is of the essence.
Creative financing techniques in real estate are nothing new. People have been doing them as long as mortgages and lenders have existed. But the reason most people never hear about these techniques is because they are often only used by investors, and real estate investors tend to operate in the shadows or on the fringes of the mainstream market. Real estate investors are like independent (“indie”) music artists. You don’t really hear much about them, but they are there if you go looking, and sometimes what they offer is better than the mainstream.
Unfortunately, we cannot help everyone. Sometimes a homeowner owes so much debt, or is so upside down on the house, whether due to taking out a HELOC, a reverse mortgage and/or second mortgage or has chosen to bundle other debts in with their mortgage, that it doesn’t make sense for us to get involved.
We can help most people, but not all. If we cannot help, we are glad to point you to debt specialists and credit repair companies that specialize in these matters. These companies can help guide you through the process of filing for debt relief via legal channels. We do not vet these companies, nor do we have any working relationship with them. We only offer their information as a free service to you.
National Foundation for Credit Counseling (nfcc.org) 1-800-388-2227
American Consumer Credit Counseling (consumercredit.com)
1-800-769-3571
Apprisen (apprisen.com)
700 Taylor Rd. Suite 190, Gahanna, Ohio 43230
614-714-4589
Although our main objective is to find win/win solutions for our clients, and to alleviate the financial burden of home ownership that some people find themselves in, ultimately we are a for-profit business. As such, we need to make a profit to continue our operations.