Top Visio Broker Joe Viganola has a “not-so secret” secret to success: partnering with hard money lenders to refinance their loans into permanent financing. Here’s how he discovered this was a need and how he implements this model to close upwards of $7 million per month just with Visio Lending.
Joe Noticed Buy and Hold Investors Struggle to Pay Off Hard Money Loans
Early in Joe’s 12-year long career, he noticed a general lack of housing inventory, which led to a boom of new construction and renovations. After dabbling in fix and flip financing, he realized there was a high demand for long-term, buy and hold loans. There was a repeat pattern of investors taking out hard money loans for construction and deciding to hold onto the property long-term. The problem was that these investors had to pay their hard money loans back within a short 12 months, and hard money lenders were not willing to risk having any 30-year loans on their books.
Joe Approaches Hard Money Lenders to Help Pay Off Their Loans
Joe took this problem and approached his first hard money client with a solution. He offered to partner with them to pay back their loans in full with Visio’s 30-year loans. This partner had no risk and was able to incorporate Joe into their system. He even got pre-approvals for refinance exit strategies.
Joe Creates a Replicable, Profitable Hard Money Exit Strategy
Now Joe is a Branch Manager for Cardinal Financial, where he has multiple hard money lender partners and helps his loan officers do the same. The need for hard money exit strategies continues to be substantial. In 2019 alone, Joe grossed over $1 million in profits from refinancing hard money loans with Visio Lending. Despite the pandemic, he also saw great success in 2020 and is on track to close $8 million in one month.
Joe encourages other residential brokers to follow suit. “NMLS guys should do this, but it is out of their comfort zones,” he said. “They are so used to Fannie/Freddie, full doc.”
However, Visio’s Broker Program is simple. All brokers need to do is send over an application, and Visio’s in-house processing team and dedicated Account Executives take over from there. If you are interested in this model, learn how to become an Approved Broker.
