Crazy Bankers and Dealing With Them

One of the biggest deals that I could have done, was on an apartment complex.

I found a bank that had made a loan for 1,800,000.00

Then the owner had stopped making payments and the bank foreclosed and took the property back from him.

I called the bank and asked them if they would sell the apartment complex to me for $350,000.00

The banker said that I had to give them all my credit information and fill out a loan application. I said I would pay cash, he sounded confused and said that I still had to provide all my credit information and they would have to do a credit check on me.

I thought this was a complete waste of time, since I was not asking for any credit. The guy didn’t say anything about the price, he didn’t really care about that he just wanted me to fill out a credit application for no reason and then send it to someone else.

I thought this was a waste of time, so I got a cashiers check for $350,000 and wrote a little note that explained that if he accepted my cashiers check then he didn’t need to worry about my credit since they would not own the property any longer, I would.

I faxed the note and the cashiers check to him, and then called a couple days later. He still was mumbling about I had to give them my credit information and then he wanted me to do some other stuff, and fill out a loan application. I thought the guy must not have the authority to sell the property or something.

I waited a couple months, then I was looking up some stuff at the recorders office and I happened to notice a document that was recorded where they sold the apartment complex to someone else…

And they sold it for $250,000.00

So it looks like the other guy filled out the loan application and then gave them all the credit information they asked for, then probably paid cash for the place like the goof ball banker asked me to do.

So the lesson is that when you talk to people who work for banks, they do not have to make any sense at all. Just do what they say and try to make them happy. I developed a new attitude about dealing with them.

If a banker is talking about selling me something at around 20% of the value of the loan that they made. If he says go outside and swing a chicken around over my head, then I run to get the nearest chicken I can find. Don’t really question them too much, just do what they ask no matter how crazy it sounds to you.

After you do what they say, they just might sell you the property and give you another $100,000 off.