You financed the sale of a house, a rental or a piece of land in Virginia and now collect the payments yourself. We shop that note to several buyers and give you the worksheet behind every offer.
Where a Virginia note holder ends up with less than the note supports.
The same worksheet comes with every offer.
| Remaining balance | $129,400 |
|---|---|
| Payments left | 168 |
| Buyer’s target yield | 8.0% |
| Purchase price | $115,000 |
| Discount from balance | 11.1% |
| Our fee | shown on every offer |
| Sell the whole note | Sell 60 payments | Keep it | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash today | $115,000 | $56,200 | $0 |
| Payments still coming to you | None | 108 payments of $1,140 | 168 payments of $1,140 |
| Total you receive | $115,000 | $179,320 | $191,520 |
| What you give up | Every future payment | The next five years | A lump sum now |
Illustrative example. Totals add up the payments as scheduled; they assume the payer keeps paying and are not adjusted for the value of money over time.
The promissory noteThe mortgage or deed of trustA payment historyThe closing statement from the saleThe document that secures a Virginia loan is commonly a deed of trust. Your note is the payer’s promise. The deed of trust is the recorded paper that attaches that promise to the property, and it names a third party, the trustee, who holds a form of title for your benefit until the loan is paid off.
If the payer defaults, the trustee can generally sell the property without a lawsuit by following the steps set out in the deed of trust and in state law, and that out-of-court trustee sale is the route commonly used in Virginia. A buyer of your deed of trust note is buying the payments and, behind them, the right to the property if the payments stop. Someone who also bids on notes in states where foreclosure runs through the courts has a little less risk to price into a Virginia offer, because the fallback costs less to use. The notices and steps involved are a matter for a Virginia attorney, who should read your document before you count on any of this.
Northern Virginia, from Arlington out through Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William, has high prices and steady demand. Richmond and Hampton Roads, which takes in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Newport News, have large numbers of older houses and small rentals. Beyond them lie farms in the Shenandoah Valley, mountain tracts along the Blue Ridge, waterfront lots on the Northern Neck and the Eastern Shore, and modest homes across Southside and the southwest coalfield counties.
Seller financing turns up in all of them. A landlord in Roanoke sells a rental to the tenant. A family sells inherited acreage in Halifax County to a neighbor. Whoever is being paid each month is the note holder, and the location of the property decides how many buyers will bid: a note on a house in Fairfax draws more of them than one on thirty wooded acres in Buchanan County, because more buyers know what the house would resell for.
A file with those points answered is what we need in order to price your Virginia note. If the trustee is gone or the recording looks doubtful, say so at the start so it does not first surface in the buyer’s title search.
Take out your copy of the deed of trust and read the first page. Note the trustee’s name and the clerk’s recording stamp, and check that the city or county on the stamp is the one where the property actually sits. If either looks wrong, a local title company can tell you what a correction involves. A replacement trustee or a re-recorded document is easier to arrange before a sale is under way than in the middle of one.
Virginia loans are commonly secured by a deed of trust, with a trustee named in the document. People still call the whole arrangement a mortgage note in everyday speech. A buyer looks at the recorded document itself, whatever it is called.
It does not stop a sale. A deed of trust generally allows a replacement trustee to be appointed. The buyer's attorney or title company will say what paperwork they want, and a Virginia attorney can confirm how it applies to yours.
It depends on the note. In a partial, a buyer purchases a set number of payments and the note returns to you afterwards. Whether a partial is offered depends on the payer's record, the equity in the property and the terms of the note.
You generally do not need the payer's permission to sell a note, though your own document may say otherwise, so read it. The payer is told where to send payments once the sale closes. Their rate, payment and balance stay the same.