circumstances it takes a minimum of 10 months to be approved for a HUF loan Good comments, davewindsor.

However, Ferchill had no liability for repaying any of the Book debt. He did have equity in the deal as a result of his developer's interest and he did pledge that interest for a part of the financing. What Ferchill did have was a fairly good development track record.

There is little or no chance Sasser is applying for HUD financing. There are onerous restrictions on who hgets HUD loans, and the developer must have a very substantial net worth [[a percentage of the loan as I recall) and most importantly, an excellent development track record. Also, under the best of circumstances it takes a minimum of 10 months to get approved and usually at least a year. Finally, it would cost a minimum of $1.5 million in legal fees, architectural fees, CPA fees etc to get to the approval stage; it's more expensive when you're rehabbing a building vs building new. Of course, if Sasser has a deep pockets partner it would help and would be absolutely necessary if he doesn't have the required net worth but the big hurdle would be the development record.

HUD only has so much money as authorized by Congress and there is concern that HUD may not be funded sufficiently in the future. Reduced funding would make it much more difficult to get such financing as only the most experienced and financial heavy hitter would get loans.

I am told that it would be impossible to do a Lee Plaza rehab without HUD financing [[and other financing sources as well). Conventional wisdom is there is no way it would be economical to use conventional [[bank/institutional lenders) financing as the numbers could not possibly work.

Why hasn't the City/DEGC made any announcements about this [[have they?) as it's a pretty major development?