Despite Dodd-Frank regulations, seller carry back sales had a strong year in 2014. Advanced Seller Data Services(www.notesellerlist.com) provides interesting data for those of us in our niche industry.
They survey counties across the USA for the number of seller carry back transactions closed. Not all counties respond, of course. Based on the number of counties who did, there were in excess of 116,000 1st position transactions last year, a slight increase over 2013.
Texas is by far the most active state, with close to 24,000 transactions. California was second with 11,412 sales followed by Florida with 10,137. No other state approached 5,000 sales. South Dakota was the least active state with only 12 closed sales. Not surprisingly, most of my business is in Texas and California.
I share these numbers because many sellers believe that there are a huge number of note buyers in our industry. They base this on the number of letters they receive from note buyers shortly after they record a transaction. The numbers I just shared show that our industry is niche, and small compared to the number of real estate agents and the millions of properties that are sold annually with conventional financing.
When it comes to seller carry back, though the number of transactions may increase annually, the truth is this – there are few of you and few of us.