{"id":10141,"date":"2015-02-16T00:06:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T05:06:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/?p=10141"},"modified":"2015-02-14T15:07:51","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T20:07:51","slug":"filling-in-banks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/2015\/02\/filling-in-banks\/","title":{"rendered":"Filling In: Banks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Rochester Savings Bank [PHOTO: Rochester Public Library]\" rel=\"lightbox-fillingInBanks\" href=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/Rochester_Savings_Bank.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom:6px\" src=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/Rochester_Savings_Bank.jpg\" border=\"1\" alt=\"Rochester Savings Bank [PHOTO: Rochester Public Library]\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<small><i>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/2009\/01\/contributors\/#about-matthew-denker\">Matthew Denker<\/a><\/i><\/small><\/p>\n<p>Today I\u2019d like to take a slight departure from our normal Filling In fare. No, I don\u2019t propose to fill in all the banks in Rochester, although that\u2019s not such a bad idea, now that I think about it. What I\u2019d like to talk about is banks and buying stuff. Well, not just any stuff, specifically real estate&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><a title=\"Flour City National Bank [PHOTO: Albert R. Stone]\" rel=\"lightbox-fillingInBanks\" href=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/Flour_City_National_Bank.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom:6px\" src=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/Flour_City_National_Bank.jpg\" border=\"1\" alt=\"Flour City National Bank [PHOTO: Albert R. Stone]\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nBack in the heady days of 2007 \u2018banks\u2019 (with quotes, because it was really any company with some cash and not just actual banks where you might have a checking account specifically) money was available for anyone to do anything. For example, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/10\/16\/magazine\/what-went-wrong-at-one-madison-park.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0\" target=\"_new\">these guys <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"external link\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/icon_link.gif\" width=\"15\" height=\"11\" border=\"0\"><\/a> got the money to build a skyscraper, despite never having built a skyscraper before and having no money of their own. It&#8217;s materially similar to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/how-john-spano-bought-the-islanders-2013-10\" target=\"_new\">John Spano <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"external link\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/images\/icon_link.gif\" width=\"15\" height=\"11\" border=\"0\"><\/a>  a decade earlier, but they got the building up whereas he didn&#8217;t quite buy the Islanders. <\/p>\n<p><a title=\"National Bank of Rochester [PHOTO: Rochester Public Library]\" rel=\"lightbox-fillingInBanks\" href=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/National_Bank_of_Rochester.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom:6px\" src=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/National_Bank_of_Rochester.jpg\" border=\"1\" alt=\"National Bank of Rochester [PHOTO: Rochester Public Library]\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nBut before you run out to your local bank to try any of those tricks, let me warn you that you are approximately 8 years too late. If you are undeterred and still want to run to your bank and try to get some money to build something, ask yourself these two questions:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"margin:0px 0px 10px -10px;\">Am I building self storage?<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:0px 0px 10px -10px;\">Am I building something with a drive-through and a national brand, such as Dunkin Donuts, or McDonalds?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If you answered no to both questions, don\u2019t bother going to a bank.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center;margin:20px 0px 20px 0px\">\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/div>\n<p><a title=\"Rochester Savings and Trust Company [PHOTO: Albert R. Stone]\" rel=\"lightbox-fillingInBanks\" href=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/Rochester_Trust_and_Safe_Deposit_Company.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom:6px\" src=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/Rochester_Trust_and_Safe_Deposit_Company.jpg\" border=\"1\" alt=\"Rochester Savings and Trust Company [PHOTO: Albert R. Stone]\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nOk, so maybe you just want to buy a house for you and your family, or maybe a house to rent to some college kids who will each pay effectively the price of an entire one bedroom apartment to live in just one bedroom of the house. This is a thing you could theoretically do, but I again wish you luck. If you&#8217;re still committed, allow me to offer the following recommendations before you head to a bank:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"margin:0px 0px 10px -10px;\">Move all of the money necessary to buy the property into a bank account owned (having the names of) only by the exact same people attempting to buy the house. For example, even though you have a savings account with your 8 year old son to teach him good money habits, don\u2019t have the money for the purchase come from this account, or you\u2019ll need additional letters signed by your son legally relinquishing the money in the account.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:0px 0px 10px -10px;\">Do step one at least 6 months before going to the bank, so that when they ask for 6 months worth of bank statements, they don\u2019t then also ask you for another few years of bank statements proving where the money came from.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:0px 0px 10px -10px;\">If you are a member of a partnership, don\u2019t bother expecting any privacy for the business, apparently banks don\u2019t care about K1s any more and want instead to see the entire tax return of any business in which you happen to be a partner. Can I recommend never going into business if you want to buy a house?<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:0px 0px 10px -10px;\">Are you buying in a condo association? Congrats! Make sure you go to a bank that already has loans in that association, or about a week before the sale, the bank you are working with is going to realize they don\u2019t already have any units in the association financed, and you owe them an extra 5% down to close because they haven\u2019t fully evaluated the association\u2019s finances.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:0px 0px 10px -10px;\">Find a bank that IS in the condo association? Make sure they don\u2019t have too many units financed in the association (usually 20% or so). They won\u2019t check until the end, and then about a week before the sale they\u2019ll actually decline to underwrite your loan because they have too much exposure in the association. Not surprisingly you\u2019ll be the one left in the lurch, not them.<\/li>\n<li style=\"margin:0px 0px 10px -10px;\">Own anything else? Land? A car? Be prepared to produce proof of insurance for all those other things so that the bank knows you\u2019ll be sure to pay insurance on the property they\u2019re about to own while charging rent, I mean interest, for the next 30 years. What\u2019s that, you don\u2019t insure your land? Prepare to get that in writing as well.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>And now a bonus tip for the buying process: Once you\u2019re in it, it is too late to change ANY of these things without everything blowing up. Make sure to do it all in advance. Further, don\u2019t even think about buying something else (like a car) or opening a new line of credit (like a Chipotle Burrito Visa Rewards Card) while you are in the process of closing on your new home. Doing so will screw everything up.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center;margin:20px 0px 20px 0px\">\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/div>\n<p><a title=\"Rochester City Bank [PHOTO: Rochester Public Library]\" rel=\"lightbox-fillingInBanks\" href=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/Rochester_City_Bank.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin-bottom:6px\" src=\"http:\/\/rochestersubway.com\/images\/photos\/denker\/banks\/Rochester_City_Bank.jpg\" border=\"1\" alt=\"Rochester City Bank [PHOTO: Rochester Public Library]\" width=\"100%\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nIf you follow this advice, you might just end up with a house. If not, at least you can sleep at night knowing that your rent is going right back to the bank who was willing to lend the money to a large corporation that is infinitely more responsible than you are, as evidenced by you renting your home from them.<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align:center;margin:20px 0px 20px 0px\">\u2022 \u2022 \u2022<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Matthew Denker Today I\u2019d like to take a slight departure from our normal Filling In fare. No, I don\u2019t propose to fill in all the banks in Rochester, although that\u2019s not such a bad idea, now that I think about it. What I\u2019d like to talk about is banks and buying stuff. Well, not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3095,4,2514,788,79],"tags":[3169,1647,3170,3175,3171,3174,76,3172,3173,1108],"class_list":["post-10141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-architecture-2","category-opinion","category-rochester-homes-for-sale","category-old-photos-of-rochester-ny","category-urban_development","tag-banks","tag-filling-in","tag-financing","tag-flour-city-national-bank","tag-loans","tag-national-bank-of-rochester","tag-real-estate","tag-rochester-city-bank","tag-rochester-savings-and-trust-company","tag-rochester-savings-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10141"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10251,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10141\/revisions\/10251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}