DGS 254: Unlock Your Portfolio Potential: Non-QM Strategies for Real Estate Investors

As property managers you likely know a little bit about mortgages. But do you know about non-QM loan strategies and how your clients and investors can utilize them?

In this episode of the #DoorGrowShow, property management growth experts Jason and Sarah Hull sit down with Matt from Nexa Mortgage to talk about using non-QM strategies to unlock your portfolio’s potential.

[05:46] QM loans VS non-QM loans

[16:14] Why Jason and Sarah went with non-QM

[22:07] Which one should you choose?

[26:46] Why should property managers know this?

[32:23] What about long-term rentals

“If you have a great manager, it makes sense to get as many properties as you possibly can, knowing that they are in good hands and they are being taken care of because all you're doing is printing money.”

“If you have a way that you can help your investor clients get what they want, which is more deals, it's a win.”

“If you are a property manager, you should also be an investor in real estate.”

“It's great to manage properties and let's do that and build wealth ourselves.”

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[00:00:00] Sarah: He said, "I am not joking. I had to submit over 100 documents to the company in order to just see if I'm qualified to get this additional loan. And he's like, I just feel like there has to be an easier way." And there is, but sometimes people don't know about that.  

[00:00:20] Jason: Welcome DoorGrow property managers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing in business and life, and you're open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow property manager.

[00:00:39] DoorGrow property managers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you're crazy for doing it. You think they're crazy for not because you realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow we are on a mission to transform property management business owners and their businesses. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win. We're your hosts, property management, growth experts, Jason and Sarah Hull, the CEO and COO of DoorGrow. Now let's get into the show. 

[00:01:23] All right. And today we're hanging out with Matt Dean of Nexa Mortgage, and we're going to have an interesting conversation about financing and loans and I don't know, and some other stuff, but Matt welcome to the show. 

[00:01:36] Matthew: Good morning.

[00:01:37] Good morning. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:38] Jason: It's good to have you. So give us a little bit of background of how you got into the whole real estate industry and give people a little bit of background on you. 

[00:01:49] Matthew: Sure. So, after I graduated from college, which I went to college in Missouri, I ended up moving to Austin, Texas, and one of the first jobs I got was with a commercial finance company and that landed me in Lakeway, which is where I reside now, and have been for over 15 years. But the commercial finance company that I worked with was was a fairly new company that came in from California. The owners Had a mortgage background and had gotten into this commercial finance division.

[00:02:15] They had sold off a couple of mortgage companies opened up this division and Lakeway. They were also land developers and commercial finance guys. So they saw a lot of opportunity out here and opened up this company. So anyway, I got in on the ground floor. They were relocating the company here and had a couple year run with that.

[00:02:31] And then in early 2000, the .Com kind of came in and blew up that whole industry. So what we were doing was commercial finance, equipment finance really, and at the time it was a lot of computer equipment and I was working with a lot of Dell sales reps that were taking over some of their overflow that Dell didn't want to finance.

[00:02:49] So, when all that happened, and it blew up the owners who had the mortgage background really saw that "hey, we're going to see a refinance run here. The market's going to crash rates are going to come down. There's going to be a run." And so they immediately just flip. They had a mortgage company here, but it wasn't early. It was dormant. Yeah. And they flipped it open and and just started building that company out. And so that's ultimately how I got into the mortgage business. And, right after that, we had this really big refinance run. We grew that company very quickly to about 35 employees where we were doing 300 to 400 loans a month with a fairly small company.

[00:03:27] And that just, jump straight in and learn the business. And so then in about 2007 ish, 2006 ish, I really got exposed to the investment world, so to speak. I got partnered up with a real estate brokerage here in Austin that focused on investment properties and primarily what they were focusing on was duplexes.

[00:03:47] And so that year in 2006, I believe it closed 152 duplex transactions, and it was mainly California investors coming into Austin. And it really just changed my whole perspective of the mortgage industry as opposed to first time buyers or veterans, which I enjoy working with all those folks, but the commercial or the investment world, it's a different animal in that it's less emotion and more about business. And so I really just gravitated more to working with investors, started buying properties myself managed a few properties myself and then, evolved from there. But I worked with that same group and Lakeway for about 12 years and then moved around a couple of places and work for a builder and and a couple other companies.

[00:04:29] But anyway, that's how I got in it, got started. 

[00:04:31] Jason: Yeah, so you've seen it from a few different angles than the whole real estate investment industry, sounds like.

[00:04:37] Matthew: Yeah, I've been through a few of these cycles of ups and downs. Obviously the refinance run early on was, really interesting, but a lot of good, easy money on the table, so to speak, but then we had the crash, which was a very difficult time for a couple of years, although, Austin weathered that storm pretty well relative to a lot of other areas of the country.

[00:04:56] So, even though our volumes were down, our real estate didn't see as big of an equity loss and the job market here in Austin's always been really strong. So, it pulled us back out of it fairly quickly. We're in a situation now where rates are high and property values have gone up.

[00:05:11] And it's a challenge for some folks here to purchase. A lot of folks are just priced out of the market and can't afford it. And property taxes aren't helping that situation. 

[00:05:19] Jason: Yeah, 

[00:05:20] Sarah: It's so pricey here. So pricey. 

[00:05:22] Matthew: But we're starting to see a little bit of pull back on the values and the houses. It's a little bit more of a buyer's market now, but it still needs to come down a little bit, I think in my opinion, it's to balance the market again. 

[00:05:34] Jason: Interesting. So the topic today is unlock your portfolio potential, non QM strategies for real estate investors. And for those that don't know what QM is, which I don't. So educate me. What's QM? 

[00:05:47] Sarah: So I handled all of this stuff and Jason got to the closing table and he's like, "I'm an owner in the LLC, right?" 

[00:05:54] Matthew: It's like, yeah, I barely talked to you along the way, but anyway, yeah, so let's talk a little bit about QM and how that all started. So, after the real estate crash in the 2006, 2007, eight ish area the CFPB was formed a consumer finance protection bureau, which took over the regulation with the mortgage industry.

[00:06:12] It took them a few years, but in 2014 they implemented what was called TRID, which you may have heard that word, but it was where we got rid of the good faith estimate and integrated the new loan estimate and closing disclosure took over. And at that same point in time, the regulations came out and then classified conventional loans or reclassified them as qualified mortgages.

[00:06:35] What that means really is the CFPB was trying to put protections in place to protect consumers and also strengthen guidelines to make sure that people or buyers had the ability to repay. So what that really meant was additional restrictions on ability to repay, debt ratio requirements, reserve assets, et cetera.

[00:06:55] So, if you do a conventional loan, which is Fannie, Freddie. Those are considered qualified mortgages. They have additional protections in that you're maxed at the amount of fees you can charge a buyer. The APR has to be within guidelines within a maximum. So all those things are really for consumer protection, right?

[00:07:14] At the same time, what caused the market crash before was what subprime mortgages. And so at the time, subprime mortgages initially had a place in the market. They really were good for investors because investors were putting money down, they had good credit typically, and they had reserve assets.

[00:07:35] When the market shifted, and they started using subprime loans to qualify buyers for primary residences that really had no business buying homes is where it got in trouble. So after QM was announced or came out with CFPB, then they also had non QM loans. What that means is any loan that falls outside of the qualified mortgage guidelines, for whatever reason, can still be funded or it would fall within non QM.

[00:07:59] Non QM just meant if you're a lender who does those type of loans, you're now required to hold additional reserve assets in your bank or your mortgage company per loan to cover for the potential higher risk and default. 

[00:08:12] Jason: Okay. 

[00:08:13] Matthew: And it took a few years from 2014. The market started to come out with products in 2015.

[00:08:18] The industry was really not sure how to handle it. A lot of banks didn't want to even dive into it. And then it started to evolve. And "okay, there's a big market here." So now it's one of the fastest growing segments of the market and banks have realize or figured out how to meet the ability to repay guidelines with alternative methods, right?

[00:08:41] So you don't have to have W2s and tax returns and pay stubs, which a conventional QM loan would require. Now, they look at different factor, like, 12 months business bank statements. I can look at a CPA prepared profit and loss statement, I can look at just the rent income on the property and that's what's classified or called DSCR.

[00:09:03] And then also it's asset based loans where we just look at the asset and we turn the asset into a revenue stream. So that's really how non QM started and really what it is. It's just an alternative way of qualifying the mortgages that falls outside of the Fannie Freddie conventional type of loans.

[00:09:21] Jason: Got it. 

[00:09:21] Sarah: So what does that mean for investors? Because we have some investors that listen to us and we have some property managers who work with investors. So what would that mean for an investor that is looking to get into more investment properties? 

[00:09:39] Matthew: Yeah, absolutely. So, the challenge that a lot of investors run into is a lot of them are self employed and a lot of them start accumulating property.

[00:09:48] So if they fall into either one of those categories, either they're self employed. Or they've accumulated a lot of properties or both, right? The challenge becomes with qualified mortgages is from an income perspective, right? So good CPAs are going to try and shelter income for self employed borrowers and for investors by showing, minimal profits or minimal or losses on their properties.

[00:10:11] And so, as investors start to accumulate more properties, it becomes more challenging to qualify for conventional loans, because for every property on a conventional loan, Fannie and Freddie want additional reserve assets. So that means you start getting 6 properties, you need assets for each one of those properties on top of down payment funds for the purchase property and the reserves on that property.

[00:10:33] So, from two perspectives, either an income perspective, where we have a challenge again, a self employed borrower shows losses on his tax returns for the last 5 years by design, because he doesn't want to pay taxes, or we've got multiple properties also showing losses when I'm looking at income on a conventional loan basis, I have to use the income from the tax return.

[00:10:52] So losses can be a problem. Also, the reserve requirements, so, taking into those two scenarios, you've got a self employed borrower that, let's say they, they have gross revenue of half a million dollars, but they're showing losses of, 50-60-70,000 dollars. We're just looking at 12 months bank statements in that case, which gives us gross revenue and then we back out of a factor of say, 25 to 30 percent for taxes and we use that as revenue or income to qualify. If we have an investor that, let's say, not necessarily self employed they have multiple rental properties that are basically just, showing losses and now their income is diminished to where they can't qualify.

[00:11:32] Then we have the debt service coverage ratio programs. Like, we utilize with your property where we're looking at just the rent on the property. Right? So the rent the market rent or the short term rental just needs to cover the principal interest, taxes, insurance and fees. And so those are 2 products that we use and that's really how, I would say it helps investors in those scenarios.

[00:11:54] The other products that we could look at are P& L products meaning that ACPA provides a P& L statement, and then we can use that income, or if they have significant assets just in investment funds and whatnot, we can turn that into a revenue stream. But the bottom line is it just eliminates the need for W 2s, tax returns, or pay stubs, and we look at other alternative income sources to qualify.

[00:12:18] Sarah: It's funny. I was actually on Instagram the last week, I think. And there's this guy, he has a very large account and I can't remember his name. And he's very big on investing in real estate. And he said, "guys, like, I just need some help. I like I'm going through this whole process and you jumped through 10, 000 hoops." and he said, "I am not joking. I had to submit over 100 documents to the company in order to just see if I'm qualified to get this additional loan. And he's like, I just feel like there has to be an easier way." And there is, but sometimes people don't know about that. I still talk to investors and property managers and they don't know.

[00:13:02] They're like, "I'm just too conventional. That's like what you do. That's like the normal thing that we're all trained and used to doing." So just knowing that there are other options that don't require all of these crazy hoops to jump through and all of this documentation and lots of red tape and underwriting.

[00:13:22] It's not that it's eliminated. It's just that it's a lot easier of a process and especially if you're a savvy investor that takes a loss on your taxes, just because your tax return shows a loss, it doesn't actually mean that you're losing money, right? So there's a big difference there. So that plays a big part too.

[00:13:43] Matthew: Yeah, there are investors. Sorry. I didn't mean to jump in there, but there are definitely investors that lean on that from a documentation standpoint. Right? They've been down this road. They have multiple properties and more properties, you have the more documentation you need to provide to try and qualify for those conventional loans and it just becomes more and more challenging.

[00:14:00] And, even more so if you have a loan officer on the front end of that's trying to originate a loan, that isn't really versed in investment properties and doesn't know how to underwrite the tax returns, they can get in trouble. They look, "oh, I got good credit. I've got down payments." But when you try and pull together tax returns and the income from multiple properties and business losses and this and that, it becomes very complex. And it's honestly, a lot of loan officers don't even know how to look at that correctly. And so they just throw the file up. It goes to underwriting. And then 2 weeks later, they've got a problem. But I just closed a deal actually yesterday and it was ended up going non QM short term rental. And the gentleman is great credit owns his own businesses, owns multiple properties and schools here, but the documentation, because he owns, like, 8 companies and probably 7 or 8 rental properties, and he had a partner in this particular property that, It became so complicated with trying to pull some of that stuff together and also with the partner who wasn't necessarily as strong as him where it just made sense for us to go short term rental and move on.

[00:15:07] And that's what we did. So we just made it easy. He was happy that he didn't have to continue to jump through all those hoops. And we were able to get the property done and close in about two and a half weeks. 

[00:15:17] Jason: You said it made sense to go short term rental. You meant to go non QM. Is that what you meant?

[00:15:21] Matthew: To go non QM. Yeah. We went short term rental income, which is non QM to qualify the income on the property. This happens to be a short term rental down on the Comal River and it's got great income. It just he had a private money loan on it when he purchased it needed to refinance the note was coming due and he just has a very complex financial situation.

[00:15:43] And he got involved with a partner on this property that also created some challenges with that particular situation and just made it a lot easier to use him and go non QM short term rental income only and just get it done. 

[00:15:54] Jason: So, would that be a DSCR loan going on the short term rental income?

[00:15:59] Or is that different? 

[00:15:59] Matthew: Yes, it is technically a DSCR loan, which means debt service coverage ratio. And this is what we utilize with your property as well, by the way. we're looking at either long term rents. 

[00:16:10] Jason: We should tell that story, by the way, everyone listening has no clue.

[00:16:13] Sarah: I know, right? 

[00:16:14] Jason: Why don't we have Sarah explain like why we went this route, how we ended up talking with Matt and like how this all worked out. 

[00:16:21] Sarah: Okay, let's do that. So, Jason, oddly proudly, he's like, "I've never owned a rental property and I've never managed a rental property. And I do this now." And I said, "this is nothing to be proud of. Like you're 46, you should own things. You should have assets." So like I, on the other hand, like I had, in my twenties, I started investing in real estate. So, Jason and I for a while have been saying like, "when are we going to get one together?"

[00:16:48] Because we didn't have one yet and he never had one. 

[00:16:51] Then also our circumstances in life have changed a little bit. And we thought " we need an additional property at this point." And we were in a unique situation where right now in Austin, I'll just start by saying long term rental is hard to make it make sense financially.

[00:17:10] You're probably not going to cashflow. 

[00:17:13] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:17:13] Sarah: Not right now. Anyway, it's just, it's really hard because prices are high. And interest rates are also high. This is where we are. So we couldn't have possibly done a long term rental anyway, because we needed the property to have some personal use on it.

[00:17:28] And we decided, "Hey, let's also use it for some of our DoorGrow events." Because every time that we do an event, We pay somebody else. 

[00:17:37] So let's pay ourselves through that. So for that reason, it only can really be used as a short term rental property. So we decided, "Hey, there's these kind of three components."

[00:17:48] And I'm really big on asset protection, meaning I need the property to be owned and deeded and financed in an LLC. So originally I was working with another agent. We've worked with him before on our primary home. He's a really great agent. I had asked him about, "can we fund it in the name of an LLC?"

[00:18:09] And he said, "no you can't do that. It doesn't really work that way." And it seemed like he was just trying to talk us out of it. I even talked with that he typically uses and that we used on our, Home that we live in. And he said, "Oh no, yeah, we don't do properties in the LLC. It'll be in your name. And then after closing, we could do a quick claim and then like change the deed and put the deed in the LLC name." And I said, "okay, what about the mortgage?" And he said, "no. The mortgage stays in your name." And I said, "I'm out." Like that is where I'm out. You're piercing the veil.

[00:18:44] All of my personal assets would now be exposed and on the line. And that completely defeats the purpose of having an LLC. And he was like, yeah, we just don't do that. I really don't think that's going to be a problem. So I said, "okay, do you know anybody now he's been in this business for like 20 or 30 years?"

[00:19:02] "Do you know anybody that can do that?" And he said, "Oh, not really." So that was time to start looking for somebody else because I know that it can be done. I've done it in Pennsylvania. So there's no way that Texas can't do this. Texas is far ahead of Pennsylvania in a lot of different ways. 

[00:19:19] Jason: So we found another agent.

[00:19:20] Sarah: So we found another agent who then referred us to Matt and he said, "Hey, I know a guy. He's really great. And I'm pretty sure he can do what you need." So I said, "great. What's his information?" I had a conversation with Matt and he's like, "Oh, well, yeah, we can do that." And I said, "so you can put the loan in the LLC. Not my name, the LLC. He said yeah, we can do that." Like it was easy. So it can be done. Sometimes you just have to look around a little bit. So that was how our deal was structured. So we went non QM and we ended up doing, since it is a short term rental, we went DSCR so that the rents would cover essentially your PITI.

[00:20:00] And this is how we made our deal work. So we closed PITI.

[00:20:06] Jason: PITI for the listeners is... 

[00:20:07] Sarah: principal interest taxes insurance.

[00:20:11] Matthew: Yeah, so, I know that was how our conversation started was, " can we do this in the LLC?" And we walked through that and the pros and cons a little bit, I think, and that's one thing that conventional QM loans don't really not really, they don't allow that. You cannot fund in an LLC.

[00:20:25] Now, what happens is a lot of people like you were advised, "hey, fund it in your name, slip it to the LLC later." That can cause some problems because Fannie Mae does have due on sale clauses in their loan documents. So, technically, if there's an ownership change, that note can be called due. Typically, you can just flip it back into your name and stop that process, but it becomes a cat and mouse game back and forth if you have a servicer that's trying to, exercise that for some reason, it doesn't happen very often. It's not a very high risk, but it's definitely something you need to be aware of. On the non QM side, the lenders want these, or most of them prefer them to be funded into LLCs because non QM as a whole is considered business purpose lending.

[00:21:11] It falls outside of the consumer protection, finance protection Bureau oversight. So, it's considered or classified more of like a commercial loan. And so most of them require, or want you to fund into an LLC. There are some that will do them in their personal names. It's interesting. They follow more of a conventional loan program, which I'm not really sure I understand, because they issue a closing disclosure and they look at loan estimates, even though it's considered a non loan. So they just handle a little bit differently. Those companies will allow you to do it in your name and some of them are doing a lot of those companies are also doing primary residences under a non QM basis. So bank statement products for somebody who may be self employed also trying to buy a primary residence. That's where I see it more. Most of the the LLC stuff is for investors and those lenders are going to. Really prefer or require it to be in an LLC.

[00:22:07] Jason: Got it. Okay, cool. So what should investors know in order to make the decision as to which way they should go? Like, how do you make the deciding factor? Like, what are some of the things that kind of weigh into this? 

[00:22:20] Matthew: Yeah, I think really it's a conversation initially of can they qualify for a conventional loan? Do they understand what non QM loans have to offer? A lot of investors aren't familiar with the details of non QM loans, how they work, how they can help them. So it's really an education conversation of, what options we may have available. Right? I would always start with the conventional loans typically and, see if we can qualify. If you can go that route and you're putting 25 percent down you're going to get a little bit better interest rates. And then you don't have some of the other key factors that come with non QM loans. So most non QM loans do have some sort of prepayment penalty because they're selling these to a secondary hedge fund investor that wants a minimum return. So, in most cases, you're going to have a prepayment penalty in a conventional loan. Stay out of point. A QM loan legally cannot have a prepayment penalty.

[00:23:14] So there's a big difference there. But as far as qualifying them, it's a really, like I said, an education and a conversation about what their profile looks like. Right? They self employed. Do they own multiple properties? Are they showing losses or profits on those properties? And then, really documenting that, 9 times out of 10, what I'm told on a verbal conversation doesn't match what I get on the documentation that way.

[00:23:38] "Oh, my business makes this," but they're talking about gross revenue, not net income. They're talking about gross rent amounts, not the net income they're showing on their tax returns. So it needs to go the next level. But that initial conversation may determine quite quickly that, hey, we need to go non for what reason or, because they want to fund it in an LLC, because the property is really a short term rental, but it doesn't but they don't have any history of short term rental management.

[00:24:07] And let's talk just a little bit about, how you look at the short term rental. I know that's what we were talking a little bit about before we talked about your loan, right? So there's 2 ways to look at that short term rental and it's either from well, the rental income short term or long term can either come from an appraiser.

[00:24:23] Or from a software program that some lenders are now using. So a lot of lenders will lean on a typical, appraisal to an appraiser to come up with whatever that market rent may be. And like, like, you said, it's difficult to cash flow properties in Austin or in Texas. On long term rents simply because the property taxes have escalated and now with higher interest rates.

[00:24:48] So a lot of times, the short term rental is really from a lending perspective an easier way to qualify the property for 1. But we do have the ability to look at it from two different perspectives and this is what we utilized on your loan. So I'll just talk about a little bit. So I have a couple lenders that will look at the short term rental from a software perspective.

[00:25:05] Right? So in your case. When we had the discussion, it was really a matter of, yeah, "I really want to put 20 percent down. I don't want to put additional money down. That would be more important to me than a little bit higher interest rate. Right?" And so, when we look at different lenders that may be leaning on an appraisal.

[00:25:21] I don't know what that number is for 2 weeks and me personally I feel like appraisers, especially in the short term rental market. Are a little bit lazy and sometimes they just don't have the data. So what happens is I submitted to the lender based on an 80 percent loan to value. And then all of a sudden, my short term rental income comes back low or lower than what we may have expected.

[00:25:42] And now that's requiring you to put an additional 5 percent down to meet their guidelines of a debt service coverage ratio less than one or go no ratio, right? We still have an option, but the option is going to require you to put a little bit more money down. And so. Again, we have two ways to look at it either an appraisals given us that number or with some investors.

[00:26:00] And this is why I like working with some of those in that case. Like I said, your most important factor is 20 percent down. so I took it to a lender that gave me that short term rental number within 48 hours. They ran it through their system. They gave it to me immediately and said, "this is where we should be." As soon as we submitted the loan to underwriting within 2 days, we had an approval and this was confirmed short term rental amount. We didn't have to wait on the appraiser and it didn't matter what the appraiser's opinion was. They already confirmed what we were going to use, which confirmed that I could get your loan approved with just 20 percent down. So, that's a preferred method in a lot of ways, especially if we're trying to keep that 20 percent down number.

[00:26:38] If we have somebody that's putting 25-30 percent down, then it's. A little bit less relevant and we can, decide what option might be best for them at that point. 

[00:26:46] Jason: Got it. So why should property managers who are constantly wanting to do more deals, help more investors, why should they have somebody like Matt in their back pocket?

[00:26:57] Sarah: Oh, that's such a good question. Well, I want to think of it kind of twofold. One, I feel like if you are a property manager, you should also be an investor in real estate. Real estate agents just by having access to the MLS. No, that's not where all deals come from. I know that, but just by having access to the MLS and the connections that you have as a real estate agent and property manager, there's no chance that you don't come across amazing deals all the time.

[00:27:23] There's no chance. So capitalize on that. 

[00:27:26] You should also be an investor yourself. It's great to manage properties and let's do that and build wealth ourselves. Yeah. So that's number one. But number two is if you're like, "well, I like, I don't know, I'm unsure, or maybe I have one property or two properties and I don't know if I'm ready to continue to build a portfolio."

[00:27:46] Or you're like, "Hey, I have X many properties and I'm happy right here. I don't want any more." I don't know why, but maybe you are. So if that's the case and you have investor clients that very likely would love to get into more deals themselves. And it would be great for you because now if you have an investor and they manage five doors, but that same investor can now manage 10, 20, 38.

[00:28:11] That's fantastic because now your business is growing. So if you have a way that you can help your investor clients get what they want, which is more deals, it's a win because yes, the savvy investors, they're always looking for more deals. Jason's hooked now. He said to me, we closed and he was like, "how do we do another one? like, how do we do another one?" He's like, "how fast can we do another one? Like Sarah, is it possible if we do like one property a year," right? And he did. Yeah, he did. There's a lot of investors like that because once you get it. Once you really get to see all of the benefits and just how freaking beautiful it is to be a real estate investor and make money and get all of the tax benefits that you don't get in almost any other sector.

[00:28:54] It's amazing. So why would you not want more of that? So if you're a property manager, it would make so much sense for you to just be able to educate your investor clients. "Hey, have you ever thought of picking up more properties?" The answer probably is going to be "yes," especially if you're doing a great job for them as a property manager.

[00:29:14] Because that's a tricky part is, "well, I could buy a bunch of properties, but who's going to manage them?" If you have a great manager, it makes sense to get as many properties as you possibly can, knowing that they are in good hands and they are being taken care of because all you're doing is printing money.

[00:29:30] So if you want to grow your portfolio by adding additional deals to the clients that you already have. It's like so simple, right? Why would we not do that? So having options. that not everybody knows about. It's fantastic. 

[00:29:47] Jason: So in short, this just gives them a lot more options to work with because investors want to invest, and they may think, "Oh, well, I've only got this much down or I can only do a conventional, I can only do it this way. I need to meet certain criteria" or "I've just declared all these losses." 

[00:30:04] Sarah: "Like I have too much debt." Maybe their like debt to income is a little maxed out because we're, keeping up with the Joneses. This is so normal, right? So that and Matt's laughing. He sees it all the time.

[00:30:15] I bet he's like, "Oh, we went a little too high on that one."

[00:30:18] there's good debt and bad debt though as well, right? 

[00:30:21] Correct. However, if you own five properties or six properties or seven properties, every additional property that you have that is leveraged, meaning that you have a mortgage on it, that's counting against you and your debt to income ratio.

[00:30:35] Jason: Right. So it gets harder and harder using conventional to get into more property. 

[00:30:40] Sarah: Unless you're the Fed and you can just print money. 

[00:30:42] Jason: Well, I don't know if they're buying 

[00:30:44] Matthew: a lot of money. 

[00:30:44] But you bring up a good point and just to clarify when we do a debt service coverage ratio program, I'm not looking at any of your debt.

[00:30:52] I'm not looking at a debt ratio calculation at all. And if you own multiple properties, I'm not even looking at any of those other properties for any sort of rent, income, verification, mortgage, anything. This one is a business, right? Correct. It's it. Well, it's just debt service coverage on that subject property, right?

[00:31:10] Does the rent cover the note? And do we have enough money for down payment and reserves on that property alone? We don't look at reserves for those additional properties like you would a conventional. So you got five properties. I don't care about reserves on those. I'm only looking at the subject property.

[00:31:24] So, yes, debt to income is a big factor and I think, if we're talking to property management companies, it's really just an education or a knowledge of what potentially could be out there. Right? Like you said, they have opportunities to buy all the time. I would think that the savvy property manager is going to scoop those up if they can, but are they aware of these programs?

[00:31:44] Or do they think that? "Oh, my debt to income is too high or I have losses on my tax returns that I'm going to have trouble qualifying." And then you also have your network of investors that you manage those properties for that potentially are looking for additional doors, but they're not aware of these programs in some cases.

[00:32:00] So, yeah, it's just a matter of, I think, education and just getting the information out there. So that some of these people know what options are available. 

[00:32:09] Jason: Well, it sounds like it shifts the conversation from, "can we?" Yeah. Maybe it's a no, in their thought, in their mind to "how can we?" Like, there's other creative ways that things could be done instead of saying, "Oh, it's gotta be this one way we've always done it. That's the only way." So, what about for long term rentals? Which like some of the investors listening and a lot of our clients listening may not do a short term. 

[00:32:32] Sarah: You can still do a non QM on a long term, especially in Austin. Now, other markets, you might find a cashflow. Like I have a cashflow property in Pennsylvania.

[00:32:40] It's a rare gem guys, but in Austin, it's hard to get something to cashflow, especially right now. 

[00:32:47] Matthew: Okay, so there's two ways to look at it again. There's, or I guess, multiple ways to look at it. Not just two, but bank statements if I'm looking at it. So, if they're self employed, and they have a business that we can lean on the bank statements, right?

[00:32:59] That's my income qualifier and no longer care about that negative potential cash flow on the property in the rent. Right? So that's one way. If I'm doing debt service coverage and I'm looking at long term rental, I have a client that wants to long term rented. They're not going to be comfortable stating short term rental on the application.

[00:33:17] They really have no desire to do that. Then I have to look at the short term rent. Now, what that's typically going to end up, at least in Austin, what's typically going to end up happening is that property is going to have a problem cash flowing at 20 percent down or 80 percent equity. Right? So what happens is it now pushes us to.

[00:33:34] A bigger down payment, a larger down payment, 25 percent 30%. And then we have the options with those lower loan values to do either no ratio or lower debt coverage ratio loan programs. Right? So. If it falls below 100%, meaning 100 percent rent coverage with PITI coverage which principal interest taxes, insurance and HOA fees all come into that play. But let's just say it's a little bit short. I've got a PITI of 2000 dollars of my rent's 1800. well, the lender is going to do one or two things. Are you going to say, "well, we need more down to get that to 100%." Or "we're going to reclassify it as a higher risk and we'll do, some of them will go down to 75 percent debt coverage, but it's a little bit higher rate."

[00:34:18] Or "we have to go to a little bit larger down payment and go no ratio, right?" No ratio means we just eliminate that altogether. And it's typically 30 percent down. So, we have options to look at but it is definitely a little bit harder if we're looking at long term rents simply because it's harder to cash flows at 20%, unless again, unless we have larger down payments or larger equity positions, for refinances to soak.

[00:34:42] A lot of these let's talk about that too, you have some of your property management clients that may want to purchase more properties where they could extract equity out of these homes to use to purchase more property. So there's a lot of the refinance going on with those properties to under a non QM basis, because they again, they can't qualify for a full doc for whatever reasons.

[00:35:03] Right? But there are options to pull cash out under a non QM basis and utilize those funds to reinvest. 

[00:35:09] Jason: Got it. So say they've got five, 10 properties, it's getting really difficult for them to qualify for a QM loan. They could maybe pull some equity out of their existing properties, do like a cash out refi, and then use that money to fund a bigger down payment to do a non QM scenario.

[00:35:28] Matthew: Absolutely. Absolutely. The challenge right now in the market with refinances in general is a lot of these people have really good rates on those properties. And so they don't necessarily want to refinance and lose that low rate understandably. Right? So. In other states, you have a the ability to do HELOCs or he loans, which are second liens, Texas, it's a little bit limited.

[00:35:47] There's not as many products available, especially on the investment side. There are ways to extract some of that equity and reposition it to be reinvested in other investment opportunities. And I will say that we do have the ability to do the same type of loans on small commercial properties.

[00:36:04] Like, up to I've got one lender that kind of specializes in that small commercial that goes up to 24 units. So, between 5 and 24 unit apartment buildings, we're also looking at a non QM type debt service coverage loan, which is what commercial loans look at in general anyway. Commercial loans are based on cash flow, right?

[00:36:23] It's all debt service coverage based on that. But in that small apartment complex arena, you've got a lot of these kind of more residential lenders that are focusing and specializing in it. Because it's a piece of the market that's left out, right? Your commercial lenders don't want to touch something that's a few 100, 000 dollars. They have minimums of 5Million dollars, 3Million dollars. And so you have these smaller properties that are great investments in some cases that also have challenges getting loans, not because of the property, but because of the size of the loan. 

[00:36:55] Jason: It's just not big enough for him.

[00:36:56] So Matt what areas do you cover personally? And then how do people find somebody like you, how did they find somebody like you? Like, this was a challenge we had to ask around what do people look for to find somebody that can help them with some more creative options? 

[00:37:11] Matthew: That's a good question. I wish more people would know how to find me. So maybe you can help me with that. But yeah, it's just, it's interesting. There's a lot of loan officers that just don't, I guess maybe they're scared of the non QM space. They don't understand it. They're scared of change, so to speak, and so they just go, "I've never done that. And I don't know anything about it and they don't want to learn about it." it's the fastest growing segment of the market right now. Fannie Mae is pushing a lot of the paper towards non QM from a risk perspective. They want to get away from it. They're making investment rates in terms unattractive, so to speak, so they're offloading it that way. But, I think it's really through the real estate agents is probably the best way to get in touch with somebody like me, if they're familiar with it. But what's interesting is even your agent from McLean that I work a lot with Brett.

[00:38:00] He wasn't 100 percent versed in these products either. So. Fortunately, he got me, right? 

[00:38:05] Sarah: Yeah. Thank you, Brett. 

[00:38:07] Matthew: But, yeah, as far as if you have somebody that's questions, I'm always available to potentially educate people in regards to these programs. As far as where I do business, I'm legally licensed in Texas and Arizona, meaning national mortgage licensing, which is the, the CFPB license.

[00:38:22] Now, with non QM loans about 35 states don't require you to have a license within that state. So I can do non QM debt service coverage all these type of loans that we talked about in about 34 different states. Just with my national license and because they consider a business purpose use, it's classified as a commercial loan in those states, and they don't have these overbearing laws like California does or Nevada. So there are some states that it's difficult unless you want to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it. And unless there's enough volume, there hasn't made sense for me to do it.

[00:38:55] I just focus on the ones that I can, which is a big piece of the country and we can help folks in those 30 some states, 34 states, whatever it is. 

[00:39:03] Jason: So there's maybe 15, 16 states that you can't cover. 

[00:39:06] Matthew: It's the New York the Pacific Northwest and California, most of the middle of the country around Texas we can do.

[00:39:14] I know you, you referred me to somebody in Utah the other day, they happen to be a state that requires licensing, but their licensing is pretty reasonable. So, if there was an opportunity or a reason, for some volume to come out of there, I could get licensed fairly quickly.

[00:39:28] And some of these states, because I already hold a national license within them. I passed the test for that, which means you just have to take the state piece of that exam to then get licensed. Be able to do loans there, which is fairly simple. And as long as you're not in New York or California or somebody that has these crazy laws, 

[00:39:44] Sarah: What's to invest there anyway, come on, like squatters and all this, like?

[00:39:48] Matthew: I know, right?

[00:39:49] I don't know how everybody does loans in New York. I hear it takes 90 days to close a loan. 

[00:39:54] Jason: There's plenty of investors in those markets. I'm sure people listening. All right. Cool. Well, Matt, it's been great having you here on the DoorGrow show. Appreciate you being our guest. How can people find you or get in touch with you?

[00:40:06] If they're wanting to reach out and find out if they're one of those 34 states. 

[00:40:10] Matthew: Well, my number if you want my phone number is 512 415 6142. You can Google Nexa my name. I think if you Google my name and Nexa mortgage that come up quite a bit on the Google nexahomelending.Com is my personal website.

[00:40:27] That's probably the two best ways to reach out to me just text or email and I'm more than happy to help you in any way that I can. 

[00:40:34] Jason: Perfect. Well, it sounds like this is at least a key or just a tool or an idea that every property manager listening should probably have in their back pocket.

[00:40:44] You should have some sort of connection to a more creative lender than you may have currently. And so, connect with Matt or maybe, I don't know, start Googling non QM lenders in your market. I don't know, but find somebody or ask around to some real estate agents, but see if you can get somebody that can help with getting some of these deals because investors, they have money, they have equity and, but they're not doing deals and they want to probably do more deals and they just need somebody creative enough to help them find some solutions or interesting ways to make it happen.

[00:41:13] So, all right. Well, again, Matt, thanks for being on the show. Appreciate you. 

[00:41:17] Matthew: My pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. 

[00:41:19] Jason: All right. Well, everybody, if you are interested in growing your business, your property management business, reach out to us, you can check us out at doorgrow.Com. And until next time, everybody to our mutual growth. Bye everyone. 

[00:41:30] Matthew: Great. Thank you. Talk to you guys soon. Bye.

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