Read ALL day, now depressed (HML)

I’ve been a reiclub lurker for some time now, finally decided to post. I have 5 properties and all done FHA or conventional. I decided to start looking again after about 2 years and I’m looking into HML and creative financing. off the bat I would like to know the following

  1. What books/dvd’s or cd’s are you guys using to teach you more about creative financing and short sale… I’m not trying to get any course b/c they’re all expensive and alot of these courses are just context w/o the content.

  2. For those who’ve done HML do they lend there 70/80% base on the appraisal value or purchase price?

  3. I’m looking to buy and hold. Has anyone ran into any problems trying to refi so you can pay off the HML…

I was also disappointed to read that HML don’t lend their money as Down payment.

  1. Has anyone ever used a credit card for your down payment? This economy tapped me dry b/c I had to help my family now i’m stuck with no money for down payments.

  2. Can someone list the procedure someone will go through with hard money loans, for example do they just give you a check already made out to the seller or to me? Here’s why i’m asking that question b/c if it’s made out to me. I can take the money I would need for a Down payment and put it on a credit card. while security my loan from a bank. that will give me a 100% no money down deal and anything that’s left from the HML. I use that to pay them back with their own money and then refi and pay them off the balance.

We’ve used a Realtor for all our deals thus far…that’s just the way it’s worked out. We can get cash flowing deals straight off the MLS so there’s no reason for me to take time I don’t have to do a bunch of marketing. The Realtors we use have invested in rental properties before. They can handle all the short sale paperwork for us.
We used an advance on my CC to use for the down payment on our first property. We got a good amount of money advanced to us at a rate of 3.5% for the life of the balance…better rate than just about any financing out there. Our situation was that I had a good income, but we didn’t have a lot of money saved up so we needed a chunk to throw down. It worked out well for us. I have no regrets doing it that way because of the great rate we got. I would not recommend this method to someone having to pay a much higher rate on the advance.
I haven’t had a reason to use HML yet so no experience there.

Justin thanks for the reply. so did your bank know that you’re downpayment came from your credit card or did you write it up as a gift?

This was my hometown bank that I’d been involved with for about 15 yrs. My credit was good and the advance just went into my checking acct. I don’t recall there really being any mention of where exactly it came from. It was more of them telling me “You’ll have to bring XX,XXX into this deal in order for us to do it.”