I went with Roofstock's recommended lender, Northpointe Bank. Corbin Radabaugh is my loan officer, and he has been great through this process. I highly recommend him! The pre-qual process was super easy. I needed to provide him with:
- Copy of 2016 & 2017 W2’s
- 30 days of most current paystubs
- Copy of rent/lease agreement
- 2 months current bank statements for bank accounts and investments, all pages
- Copy of Driver License or photo I.D.
After getting pre-qualified for $250k (to be safe since at that point I hadn't chosen a property), I went ahead and made an offer for $100k. This is very easy to do on Roofstock.com. The seller countered with $118k. I then responded with $115k, which was accepted.
Jason Pabon, Roofstock Business Associate, has been helping me through the selection and purchase process. He has been providing me with some leads on properties and making sure I know how to use the site properly. He is also a Roofstock investor and has a property of his own. We have been in contact almost daily until I entered contract.
Then, somewhat surprisingly, my interaction with him almost disappeared and I was now mainly dealing with Alexis Duarte, a Transaction Coordinator. Although I realized that the roles are different (he is focused on helping customers get to contract, while she works on managing the closing), it felt a bit abrupt. Don't get me wrong, Alexis and Jason are both great, and Jason is still available should I have questions, but I just think the process could be better with one person following you through the entire process. I'm guessing this is less efficient for Roofstock which is why they go with the approach that they do. Big picture, not a big deal.
One thing that was not clear to me at the beginning is that Roofstock is not the buyer's broker. In fact, they mainly represent the seller. I didn't fully realize this until now, after entering into contract. It definitely makes me more wary about what I confide in my Roofstock associates. Although I doubt they are using my information to tip negotiations to favor the seller, I'd hate to expose crucial information such as my negotiation strategy to the seller through conversation with a Roofstock associate. It would be nice if they had someone that clearly represented the buyer as well.
On that note, it also makes me a bit uncomfortable with how they are totally the middle men throughout this entire process and receive a portion of the closing cost. This feels like there could be conflict of interest going on as the buyer has no direct contact with the seller. I've noticed in practice this is not the case, but still something that may make some investors uncomfortable.
Alexis contacted me after entering contract and said she'd have a PSA for me within a few days time. I need to provide her with my pre-qualification letter as well as the contact info for the bank.
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