Finding the Great White Whale is important to me. I have spent some time now working with buyers and sellers in the REO bank owned properties arena. The Great White Whale is the infamous twenty billion dollar tape. Finding a legitimate product under 1 billion dollars is not hard. There are many REO tapes in this range that are legitimate and will go to closing.
Those of us that have been in the industry long enough realize there are many people we call intermediaries doing the same thing; Chasing the Great White Whale. Many also realize that the actual players in the game do not exist in high number. Believe it or not there are many intermediaries that believe that packages from 20 billion dollars and upwards of 800 billion dollars exist. To those that do believe these packages exist. Show Me. I have yet to see a package over 500 million close, let alone one at 500 billion.
In this industry the intermediaries chase a dream that can change their life in an instant by simply getting 1% of 100 billion dollars. Soon they find that even if they could make this deal happen there are twenty intermediaries they have to split the money with. You would be surprised at the amount of people that don’t want one twentieth of one percent of one billion dollars. Five hundred thousand dollars is not enough to make them happy for doing little or nothing.
The game is fairly simple. Put the buyer with the seller and close the deal.
Well the buyer will not release their proof of funds until the seller provides proof of goods. This would seem simple enough to most, you would think. The facts are it isn’t that simple. The problem and the solution lie in one thing. Intermediaries.
Intermediaries are to play a crucial role in the process. I find most of the intermediaries have no clue what their role is or even how a transaction takes place. They spend little or no time studying up on the process, the problems or the solutions. They jump in feet first with no due diligence expecting to look professional and close a billion dollar deal when they have not even closed a small deal. I guess I am to get in a plane and fly it with no prior training. If you got on the plane today and I was the pilot and this was my first flight. Would you stay on the plane? Oh! but you expect someone with a billion dollars to let you spend their money. I’m sure that’s how they got rich.
The Great White Whale that is a thing of beauty. Just think, you are in the real estate industry and the bubble bursts. You had been making great money. Things were looking up. Now what, I have to support my family and no one is buying.
If you were like me you got pulled into this by the sound of making billion dollar deals. I have made million dollar deals. I am a real believer that when one door shuts another opens. When I found I could take the REO tapes, sell them to one of my clients who are buying and I could make one point on 20 billion dollars; I could not pass up this opportunity.
I have been in the industry for over ten years and have made millions of dollars for investors. I have many connections. As I started calling people I found that many of them were working with hedge funds since the market dropped out. Everything pointed to me being on the correct path. When you have a buyer that says they have twenty billion dollars to spend on REO tapes, oh, you listen.
Needless to say we all have buyers in this industry that can buy. But where are these tapes? There are many things that intrigue me at this point. The sellers say they have REO tapes 20, 30, 550 billion dollars. What?! I have buyers. Send me that tape! You are excited the deal is there it will all come together.
No, the seller will only proof up after the buyer mandate proofs up.
Now we spend the time to convince your legitimate buyer that you have the access to get them what they want but they have to provide proof of funds. The funds are to be in escrow. It is my belief that if you have 20 billion dollars you are not going to let it set in an escrow account and let it loose the interest that you could be earning. So you have your buyer move their money into an escrow account and proof up. Now you know this transaction will happen. You have provided everything that you were asked for. Then you are told “I’m sorry we need a fee agreement put in place to protect all of the intermediaries”. When you get this paperwork you notice that none of them have signed it and except you to have everyone including the mandate sign and return it to the intermediary (notice you are not sending it directly to the mandate).
Fortunately for me I have good contacts that I have done business with and they are loyal. On the first transaction that I attempted to bring together the intermediary immediately called my mandate and tried to cut me out of the deal. This is what the majority of these people are trying to do out here. They are trying to shop for mandates on the buying and selling sides of the coin.
The facts are simple to me. If you had a billion dollars would you rely on someone with no real experience to help you find someone to sell a billion dollar product? Most people or companies that have that kind of buying power know the people with that kind of selling power. What you will find is that this industry is very small but gets the perception of being very big by all of the intermediaries that are trying to play the game. One of the biggest things that seem to be over looked is that there are no banks out there doing packages over one billion dollars.
So if packages do exist in the twenty billion range it would require what is called a compiler. A compiler takes packages from multiple sources and compiles them together to make bigger packages.
Ask yourself this question. How can they get the price down as low as they do if they are buying smaller packages that typically sell for more? The only way I can see this happening is if the compiler has access to the bank directly and the bank in fact is letting them take down one billion dollars a day and guarantees a takedown of a certain total amount. I am not claiming this is not how it is working but like I said before “show me the product”.
I would like to conclude by saying this. I have been in real estate for years and have met many good people along the way. Never in my years have I had to endure such crooked, lying people as I have had to in the REO industry. I have had lawyers write letters guaranteeing a sellers product under penalty of perjury who have never spoken to the seller. I have had people say they were the mandate only to find that they are just intermediaries saying they are the mandate. Ask them for a letter of authorization and you will be lucky to hear from them again. The ones you do hear from will just ask for proof of funds. If you are dealing with a real mandate, buyer or seller you will find that they have no problem releasing information. You will get proof of funds, letter of authorization, and an actual REO tape. If you are dealing with an intermediary you will be asked for everything under the sun and get nothing in return.
My company in conjunction with affiliate companies have come up with solutions for all of these problems and would love to hear from actual buyers, sellers, and mandates with letters of authorization.
Please, if you are an intermediary no matter how close you are to the buyer or seller do not apply.
If you do find the Great White Wale don’t hesitate to call. I don’t necessarily need to catch one I would just like to see one.
I hope this helps a few people save some time.
Wayne Money
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