Thank you for the many, many educational and (usually) entertaining reads for the past 6 months or so, since I stumbled onto this blog. I have been lurking ever since, and this particular post inspired me to finally chime in.
Regarding the question of what to do with your (American) dollars these days, does anyone out there have any experience (good, bad, ugly) in making/holding private mortgages? I’m talking arm’s length mortgages to strangers, not family members. Yes, obviously the property, price, and borrower all have to be carefully veted, but (for example) what about backing the Temecula-Guy types who have been carefully doing their homework and finally buy the right property at the “right” price? I don’t need another home to live in, bargain-priced or otherwise, and I don’t want to a landlord (ever again), so why not take advantage of the “recalibrated” prices (when and where they start happening) from a different angle? If lenders start jacking rates up over 7-8%, as may very well happen, it’s starting to look like a favorable investment, again, assuming the property price is back in line with a sustainable value.
For you realtors(R), is this sort of private party lending very common???
