Two closers turned down the funder's escrow instructions before the third one signed

How do you pre-screen for the third closer without burning a week per deal? I'd rather build that list now while I'm still not buying anything. Is it just calling around and asking whether they've done a funded double close, or is there a better question?

@rigging the end buyer's lender accepting a commitment with a pending-transfer requirement is the whole deal and you got it on day two of a phone call chain. Which is lucky. I've underwritten files where the same lender's credit policy required 90 days of title seasoning before they'd fund, and no amount of closer cooperation moves that. Did you ever get that lender's seasoning position in writing, or did you find out by watching it work? Because those are very different levels of repeatability.

Spread was 25,000. Funding fee 1,670, second title policy and second closing call it 1,200, transfer tax on the second leg depends on your state but assume something, two wires. So you're giving up roughly 12 to 15 percent of the spread to the mechanics of taking title. On a 25k spread that's tolerable. On an 8k spread the same fixed costs eat half of it and the funder's minimum fee doesn't scale down. What's your floor spread now?

Simultaneous recording. I've now read that phrase eleven times in this room and I think I finally get why it matters. Nobody is ever the owner in any gap the funder can't control.

The two refusals interest me more than the yes. If two of three closers in your market won't touch this, the ceiling on your volume is one person's calendar. What happens in August when she's on vacation?

Does anyone run this on raw land? Fewer moving parts, no title seasoning from a rental lender because the end buyer is usually cash, but the spreads I look at are thin and the funder minimum would eat them. Curious whether anyone's actually funded a lot double close or whether it's all houses.

From the money's point of view, 1,670 for a few hours with the payoff already deposited sounds like a good trade. What I can't figure out is what the funder does when there's no deal that week. Is anyone doing this at volume or is it all people with cash sitting still anyway?

@rigging ask for the version of the instruction letter your closer actually signed and compare it to the one the funder sent you. Closers who sign these routinely often have their own markup they slide in, usually around liability for a failed second leg. You want to know now whether the released version still requires the payoff off the top, because you were told it did and you were told that before the redlining started.

The thing that breaks at ten of these a year isn't the funding, it's that you've built a process around one closer and one funder who both like you. I hit the same wall on the property side with one contractor. Second source everything that can say no to you, even if the second source is slower and costs more.