Marketable And Unmarketable Cash Flow Notes

Knowing The Difference Is Crucial

Generally when people get into the cash flow notes business they start out as a broker searching for notes, any note! It’s true, there are notes on just about anything where money is paid to one party to another over a set period of time. By far the most well known within the industry and most utilized are real-estate secured notes. These are the staple of the cash notes industry. Although there are investors that do specialize outside the traditional real-estate secured area, as a new note broker it is recommended to concentrate on real estate in the beginning.

Brokering notes should be the first step you take into the business since brokering is essentially risk free. By risk free we mean there is little if any cost to you other than your time and whatever you choose to spend on marketing which can be entirely free for marketing savvy people. Once you begin the process of locating mortgage notes you will quickly realize not all notes are marketable. In fact, some of the people that contact you through your marketing efforts will believe they have a note they can sell. As it turns out, they are the debtor on the note responsible for paying the party which actually owns the note. However, these very people can provide you with a potential lead to follow up on by contacting the party that does own the seller financed note.

As you move along over the first few weeks and months, you will quickly begin to recognize which notes are marketable and those which are not. Apart from marketing, which almost all your time should be spent doing, recognizing potential notes is the most crucial area in the beginning. As a note broker with no risk associated with your efforts, it is important to understand the cash note investors which will buy the mortgage notes you find are assuming all the risk involved. Wasting their time with unmarketable notes is a quick way to find yourself on a investor’s ignore list. When we speak of investors we are talking about the large paper buying firms or individual private investors.

Don’t assume note investors will screen your note for you. They fully expect you to have completed all of the screening work before they receive a phone call or fax from you with details about the potential cash note. The screening process is vital to your success as a note broker. You will need to obtain important information from the mortgage note holder such as what kind of property secures the note, are all the payments current, what was the sale price when the property sold (many investors have limits), how much money did the buyer put down, what is the balance on the mortgage. These are all important issues you will need to already have been answered before you ever contact your investors.

Establish relationships with your investors. Know their limits and what their criteria is for possible purchase of a cash flow note. Do as much of the preliminary groundwork as you possible can so the investor can quickly look over your note worksheet and quote you a price so you can begin negotiations with the seller. Other than marketing, acquiring the skill to quickly determine if a mortgage note is marketable or not will increase your chances of success as a cash flow notes broker exponentially.