How To Safely Invest in Real Estate Trust Deed Loans

Ideally, a real estate investor borrows funds from the trust deed investor, which he or she uses to buy and fix up real estate. The real estate professional then sells the property for a profit and pays back the trust deed loan and interest. In the period of the deed loan, the property is the security. Unfortunately, the real estate market is quite unpredictable and sometimes the investment doesn’t sell. In rare instances, the trust deed investor may face one of the possible risks of trust deed investing: losing money. Below, we will look at tips on how to avoid losing funds in trust deed investing.

Get Maximum Title Insurance as a Lender

A title insurance policy might sound unnecessary, but a title policy can protect the lender’s interest—especially if he needs to sell the loan in the secondary market. Getting title insurance is also the best way of having professionals verify the integrity of a property’s documents for you. How come? Basically, the insurance company will conduct an extensive research on the property before selling you a policy. If they find any problems, they will not sell you the policy. In turn, you will avoid a bad deal.

Inspect the Property and Its Documents Personally

Before lending any money or signing a deed of trust loan agreement, go out and physically inspect the property against which the loan is being taken out. This way, you will be in a good position to assess the risk involved. Having professionals in real estate and construction businesses accompany you to the inspection is helpful because they will help evaluating the property’s worth.

After the physical inspection, proceed to take a look at the documents. If you are uncertain about any document, do not hesitate to call us or a lawyer for advice.

Diversify

Diversification helps spread risk and reduces your exposure. In trust deed investments, you can diversify by buying in on a deal structured in a way that you don’t provide the whole amount for the loan. This means that each involved party will risk only a small amount on the trust deed loan. The returns on each single deal might be lower, but when you compound that with many small deals, you end up with a relatively low-risk investment portfolio.

These tips should set you on your way to arranging a mortgage deed of trust with greater confidence. When you know what you are doing, this is one of those safer investment vehicles that a relatively small investor can take advantage of. The “big boys” of Wall Street are not particularly interested in this type of investment since it is not easily scalable. That being said, it’s always best to choose an investment vehicle that you feel you understand well.

You may also contact us at any time to talk to one of our specialists about potential investment opportunities