Re: **Getting The Construction Loan** | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David L. Mandel (75407.2361compuserve.com) | |
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 01:36:36 -0600 |
John Major asks about how many "pre-sold" units impress the bank and Rob Sandelin says it's money -- like 40 percent of the amount of the loan -- that impresses them more. We had raised among ourselves about $350,000 by the time we got our $1.9 million bank construction loan. So that's less than 20 percent, and it was a tremendous effort to raise that much. Forty percent sounds out of sight unless a group has some very rich people in it. Moreover, the $1.9 million wasn't nearly enough; we got our loan in fall 1992, when there was nearly zero construction being started, particularly condo construction, so the bank was VERY conservative. I say THE bank because there was only one, a locally owned savings bank (which has since been bought up by a larger corporation, boo) that expressed serious interest at the time. Many others turned us down. We got the rest of the construction money we needed from the local housing agency, which helped us because we were building in a depressed neighborhood it cared about preserving and because we agreed to conditions that enabled a certain number of low-income members to buy in. I'm not sure how to count this help (about $750,000 in loans in all) -- as additional loans so that our $350,000 was really more like 15 percent of the total -- or as additional capital in the eyes of the commercial bank, which might have seen the total leveraging capital as $1.1 million, more than 50 percent of the bank loan. Whatever... Regarding pre-sales: California law forbids actual sales of any real estate at such an early stage in the project. But I believe the fact that we had 20 households (out of 25) at that point that had invested large amounts of money and/or effort was instrumental in getting the bank to make the loan at such a bad time. Finally, our construction loan application did emphasize the cohousing aspect as a selling point. In retrospect, perhaps it would have been better to describe the project as a vanilla condo development. On the other hand, it would have been hard to explain the high level of commitment among future residents that was a major selling point. David Mandel, Southside Park, Sacramento
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**Getting The Construction Loan** John Major, January 11 1996
- RE: **Getting The Construction Loan** Rob Sandelin (Exchange), January 11 1996
- Re: **Getting The Construction Loan** David L. Mandel, January 11 1996
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