The Scannin' Man

I’m finally in the mortgage process. But now comes the hard part: dealing with the little things and the stalling tactics that brokers do just to discourage a buyer from closing. The worst is when they ask for documents that they think I don’t have. Luckily I have the solution to that: scan like crazy.

I scan everything. Anything that I get from anyone that has to do with real estate gets scanned. Receipts, invoices, letters from the bank, W2s, tax returns, tenant leases, tenant applications, and everything else will hit the scanning bed. Sometimes I don’t have the time or the patience to label and file them in the correct folder, but I make sure it’s digitized so that I can file it later. I put everything into my property management folder on my laptop. That folder then gets backed up onto TWO separate external hard drives, just in case my computer breaks down. Every month or so, I back up the folder on the two drives so that I always have the most current copies. Living in a batcave, it’s very difficult to save documents and put them in the right “place”. There’s no such thing as the right place because it’s all dry cement and cobwebs. Let me give an example.

Once Kirsten checked my credit score, she sent an email that said this:

I will need the following documents:
2 months current bank statements
30 days current pay stubs (legible)
2012 W-2 and taxes if done
2010 W-2 and tax returns with all schedules if 2012 is not done (she already had the 2011 stuff)

mortgage statements both propeties
home owners insurance binder page both properties.

I remember when I was going through the process of buying property Alpha in 2007, an email like this would drive me crazy. I would have to look for the documents in my various folders at home. Whatever I didn’t have, I’d have to call the proper company. Since most were official documents, they could only fax or mail it to me. And when I couldn’t wait for mail, I would have to go to the copy center next to Brooklyn College and have them fax it there. And let’s not forget how lazy I was (and sometimes I still am). It was a big mess and a document order like that would take at least a week or two to deliver. It was one of the reasons why mortgage people like Dan Gaber dreaded doing business with people like me (I still consider him a jerk, btw). But because I now scan everything, I had all those documents ready to go. I saved them to my flash drive, went to work the next morning to print them out, and then I snuck out of work to give her everything. Simple. I mean, look at all the paperwork I had to get for her!

All Printed Out

Do those look like documents that I would have just laying around so neatly in the batcave? See, the more properties I get, the more business I’ll have do to. The more business I have to do, the more organized I’ll have to be. I've always had a “lazy state of mind” whenever I do business, so I looked for the simplest solution to my organization issue, even if it cost a few bucks. My printer/scanner/copier cost me $80 two years ago, and it’s still the best $80 I’ve ever spent.