Realty411 Magazine The Future of Real Estate is Here | Page 46

The Package Deal
Brett T. Immel
By Robb Magley
I
n an increasingly crowded real
estate investment company market,
Hanover Equity Group’s founders
recognized they needed a way to make
their company’s offerings truly stand
out from the competition — to differ-
entiate themselves in a way that didn’t
Preston Despenas
just bring new clients, but would keep
existing ones coming back again and again. For senior partners
Brett T. Immel and Preston Despenas, the key was looking at
the element of real estate deals that seemed to cause the most
problems for self-directed retirement account investors getting
the necessary non-recourse financing.
“The self-directed retirement account investor would go in
and find the property that they wanted to purchase and go to
contract,” said Despenas. “When they then went to find their
own non-recourse financing, they found out that there wasn’t
much available; there are really only a couple of nationwide
banks that provide non-recourse financing, and they’re very
small institutions.”
With relatively little money to lend, Despenas added, those
institutions naturally became more selective when evaluating
new deals, and many investors’ applications were declined.
Seeing the opportunity to bring value to their clients by lever-
aging their own existing relationships with private lenders,
banks and other institutions, Despenas and Immel decided to
offer their clients a package deal that’s become the cornerstone
of their business model — a genuinely “turn-key” real estate
investment that comes with all the trappings that traditionally
entails, bundled with non-recourse financing that’s already in
place.
“When you’re walking into an investment with Hanover
Equity Group, the properties have already been rehabbed —
or they’re new construction,” said Immel. “The management
team is in place, and there’s a paying tenant in the unit. But
you’re also getting financing that’s completely lined up, from
day one, with no qualifications for the individual.”
“It’s something no one else in the country offers,” said
Despenas. “Pre-qualified, pre-approved, non-recourse financ-
ing available on every single one of our assets.”
And remarkably, according to Despenas, that non-recourse
financing they offer sits just south of 5% — a market-leading
position that’s part of the attractiveness of the package. It’s
not magic, just simple due diligence bringing its own reward;
because Hanover Equity Group’s process for vetting properties
is so thorough, their lenders feel comfortable enough loaning
on the asset at highly competitive rates.
“We’re doing all the necessary front-end diligence,” said
Despenas. “We’re professional real estate investors ourselves,
we do this 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. After a property
Realty411Guide.com

Matching Non-Recourse Financing with
Investment Properties Puts
Hanover Equity Group On The Map
passes our acquisition criteria, we take that over to our third-par-
ty banks and private lenders; they put those assets through their
vetting process, and they come back to us with the pre-approval.”
Eliminating that big hurdle in the buying process is one of
several steps Hanover Equity Group takes to make investors feel
more comfortable, according to Immel; there’s a certain amount
of fear felt when tinkering with one’s retirement funds, and any-
thing that makes the process more familiar helps.
“A lot of investors have become so used to people making
decisions for them,” said Immel. “For example with their stocks,
bonds or mutual funds, all they’ve had to do is open up an
envelope, look at their accounts once a quarter, and see how it’s
doing.”
But, he added, they also know they could be doing better if
their money was in cash-flowing real estate. “Deep down they
know that there’s a better opportunity for their investment and
their retirement, and they’re sick of people making the wrong
decisions for them. When you go into self-direction, the investor
is really able to write their own story.”
“We’ve got a lot of people out there looking at fix and flips, or
rehabs on property, a lot of them are out there using hard money,”
said Despenas. “But when you’re paying for hard money, that’s
eating into your return, you have to ask: Are you better off doing
a longer term buy-and-hold with 5% on a non-recourse mortgage,
or paying 15-20% interest on hard money to rehab a property,
before you even get it rented?”
Thanks to its network of lenders, Hanover Equity Group can
follow the deals wherever they go, without being locked into a
specific market; it’s a flexibility that Immel said lets their clients
do better, more often.
Their clientele remain loyal and purchase multiple deals.
“When we have investors that come back to us month after
month, year after year, re-investing with us and purchasing real
estate with us, it’s because they know we’re not just selling
them a piece of real estate and washing our hands of them. This
is about building a relationship with each and every one of our
investors.”
“The price points that we have are very introductory, where
your mom and pop, novice investor can get in and really change
their future,” said Immel. “Whether you’re working class, a small
business owner, a successful doctor or lawyer, or just anyone who
knows they can do better than they’re doing with their retire-
ment.”
For more information about Hanover Equity Group, visit their
website: www.hanoverequitygroup.com
PAGE 46 • 2014

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