I don’t know about you, but I am a huge advocate of win/win/win scenarios. To that end, I want to share a win/win/win that I witnessed recently, and simultaneously use it as a means to illustrate the importance of the Realtor/Loan Officer relationship. (For the sake of privacy, the real names of the parties involved have been changed).

Bob is a self-made Texas-based investor. Twenty years ago, his empire began after he started renting out a home that had been left to him by a relative. In the years since, his empire has grown to over thirty individual properties (and over fifty different residences). For personal reasons, Bob owns and rents his properties as a sole proprietor, and he earns enough residual income to live comfortably without having to work a traditional job.

Every year or so, Bob adds another property to his empire with a one-time cash payment. This year, Bob was struck with a bit of indecision as he had identified two properties that would make ideal purchases, but only had the cash with which to buy one of them. Bob’s Realtor, Cathy, decided to utilize her Realtor/Loan Officer relationship and called Loan Officer Randy to see if there was anything that could be done.

You see, the reason that Bob had to pay cash for each one of his purchases was because no traditional lender had the capabilities to finance a loan for a man of his particular finances (as a sole proprietor, he lacked the income documents usually preferred by lenders to validate income). I say “had” in this particular instance, because recently, Randy gained access to work with a back-end lender who prefers working with investors like Bob. Not only was Randy able to connect Bob with a lender that was excited to work with him, but he was able to work out a deal whereby Bob was able to qualify for two 50% loan-to-value loans, perfect for the Texan to add both properties to his empire.

To make matters even better, this lender has a unique bank statement HELOC product, which allowed Bob to tap into the equity present in several of his properties, equity which is now being used to finance the addition of over half a dozen additional properties. More properties means more residual income to pay for themselves- Bob’s happy. Cathy the Realtor is happy to have turned one commission into eight. Randy is also happy that he not only facilitated this turn of events, but he gets to feed his family, too.

Win. Win. Win. What can be better than that?