You hire a transaction coordinator, send over a subject-to, and eleven days later nothing has happened. The title company has questions nobody answered. The seller's lender was never called. Your TC has been waiting for someone to tell her what to do, and you have been assuming she knew.
She probably is good at her job. It is a different job.
What a retail TC is actually good at
A retail transaction coordinator runs a financed purchase between two represented parties. Buyer's agent, listing agent, a lender who has done ten thousand of these, a title company that has done more.
The work is real and the deadlines are unforgiving. Inspection period, appraisal, loan contingency, final walkthrough, signing. Everyone knows what the documents are. Nobody is arguing about the structure, because there is only one structure.
A good retail TC keeps thirty of those moving at once and never misses a date. That skill does not transfer the way you would expect.
What breaks on an investor file
Nobody agrees what the documents are. On a subject-to the deed transfers and the loan does not. That needs documents a retail file never produces, and the people who have to accept them have usually not seen them before. Somebody has to know which documents the structure requires and get them in front of the right parties in the right order.
Title can kill it by saying nothing. A title officer who has never closed a subject-to rarely says "we won't do this." The file just gets quiet. A week goes by. Then two. If nobody is chasing and nobody is escalating, the deal dies of silence and everyone blames the seller for getting cold feet.
The seller is not a seller, they are a situation. Retail sellers have an agent who manages their expectations. Creative sellers often have no agent, a payment problem, and a reason to be nervous about a structure they do not fully understand. Somebody has to keep them informed without giving them advice.
The clock runs differently. On a retail file the dates come from the contract. On yours they come from reality: when the seller's next payment is due, how long your lender's draw takes, how many days until the lien hits. Those are not in the purchase agreement and nobody will remind you.
Your exit changes the file. This is the part most people miss. The same subject-to purchase needs different work depending on what you are doing with the house:
| If you are | The file also has to handle |
|---|---|
| Flipping it | Rehab scope and budget, contractor bids, draw schedule, resale readiness |
| Holding it | Insurance that matches the condition, servicing set up, payment transfer, records clean enough to refinance |
| Wholesaling it | Assignment paperwork, and whether your state lets you market that contract |
A coordinator who only knows the purchase side hands you a closed file and a set of problems.
The question that sorts them
When you are interviewing, do not ask whether they work with investors. Everyone says yes.
Ask: "Walk me through the last subject-to you closed. Who prepared the documents, and what did the title company push back on?"
Someone who has done it will answer in about forty seconds, with a specific complaint. They will tell you which title company, what went wrong, how long it took. Someone who has not will talk about how they are detail oriented.
The same question works for a wrap, an assignment, or a novation. Swap the structure, keep the structure of the question.
When a retail TC is the right call
If you are buying with conventional financing, closing in thirty days, with an agent on both sides and no rehab, a good retail TC is cheaper and completely sufficient. Pay the few hundred dollars a file and move on.
The case for an investor coordinator starts when any of these are true:
- The financing is anything other than a bank loan or cash
- There is a rehab with a lender who wants draws
- You are closing in a state you have never closed in
- The seller has no agent
- You are doing enough deals that one stalled file costs you the next one
What it costs
Investor coordination runs more than retail, because the work is more. Most of the market prices it per file with extras bolted on, and most of the market will not tell you the number until you are on a call.
We publish ours, on the packages and pricing page, and the prices are the whole page rather than a range you have to ask about. Two things are worth knowing before you look. The price is the same whether the deal is cash or a wrap, because we do not charge more for a structure being complicated. And it is a flat fee, never a percentage, so we never take a cut of your spread.
If the deal has a rehab, BUILDER adds the scope, the leveled bids, and weekly budget tracking on top of the coordination. If it does not, CLOSER is the one you want.
The honest version
Most deals do not die because the investor was wrong about the house. They die in the middle, where somebody was supposed to be running the file and nobody was.
A transaction coordinator is not the glamorous line in your budget. It is the one that decides whether the other lines ever happen.
If you want to see how we run one, the whole path is written out here, or send us the deal and we will read it before the call.