I had a deal to purchase a duplex next door to the one that I currently own. I went to Spring Valley because they are supposedly known as a bank that does hard money loans for fix and flip, buy and hold investment properties and I have a business account with the bank. The particulars on the deal are as such: The seller wanted 75k. One unit was rented with rents at $750per month. The property needed about 30-40k in repair/upgrades, and this was a high side(eyeball) estimate to leave room in case of any hiccups. I have 63k to secure the deal in which to purchase the property at 15% through the bank and secure the additional funding for rehab. I had 27k cash on hand to close the deal at 5% above their requirement if need be. I submitted the contract, waiting weeks for title search etc. to close the deal. I never got a call, so I emailed a woman at the branch to check the status of the deal. She emailed me back saying she didn't know anything, and she'd check on it for me. I then suddenly get a call from Dave Whittkamp saying, "the underwriter didn't want to do the deal" and when I asked why, he said he didn't know and promptly ended the phone call. About a week later I got a letter in the mail stating the loan was denied for insufficient collateral. In disbelief, I called the bank and got the run around and no answers. So, let's recap: 75k selling price, with the additional monies to rehab, what they stated in their letter 105k would be the price, cause it looks like they would only agree to 30k for rehab. So that's $25,200 to seal the deal, with a note at 10%, the monthly payment of $737.16 would be covered by the current tenants rents at $750. Needless to say, the property was purchased, and the current owners, who are White, did exactly what I intended to do. The tenant is still in place, rents have gone up and the unit that needed rehab is completed and on the market for rent. For the fact that this deal was solid and the bank has given no real indication as to why they would deny it, screams prejudice to me. Back tracking a bit, I was warned by a real estate agent about them. He is also Black and said he despised Spring Valley bank, but he wouldn't tell me why. That was a red flag ignored. They may be an investors bank but they surely don't seem to do business with Blacks. read more