Portfolio Loans in St. Louis

Because the city and the county are two separate governments, and reconciling several rental notes against two different rulebooks gets harder with every door you add. The City of St. Louis runs its own Assessor's Office and publishes one tax-rate schedule, while St. Louis County lets each of its municipalities set its own residential levy, from Florissant's 0.0000 to Clayton's 0.4540 per $100 of assessed value. A single blanket loan with one consolidated payment, for five or more properties starting at $500K, is one note to service instead of several layered on top of that patchwork. Below the five-property floor, financing doors individually on DSCR loans is usually the simpler path. Subject to underwriting.

No. A business-purpose portfolio loan to an LLC on non-owner-occupied Missouri rentals is not a "residential mortgage loan" under Missouri law, because both of the state's licensing definitions turn on loan purpose, and one also requires a natural-person borrower, never on property type or the number of doors involved. That holds whether your portfolio sits inside the City of St. Louis, in St. Louis County, or split across both. Missouri also lets an LLC agree in writing to any rate, fee, or term on a business-purpose loan under RSMo 408.035, so the personal-purpose usury cap does not apply here. That reading rests on the statutory definitions themselves, with no Division of Finance guidance published on the point, so confirm it and your entity's own filing obligations with Missouri counsel before you close.

Every door assesses in the same 19 percent residential subclass regardless of unit count, so the classification itself does not shift door to door. What shifts is the levy: the City of St. Louis publishes one residential rate for 2025, 8.1867 per $100 of assessed value, an effective 1.556 percent of market value, while St. Louis County requires each municipality to set its own residential rate. A Clayton door and a Florissant door in the same portfolio, 0.4540 against 0.0000 in municipal levy alone, carry very different tax lines even though both are taxed as residential. Price each parcel's own jurisdiction and rate before setting the portfolio's blended pro forma, not a metro average.

Underwrite each door's policy to its actual status, because an occupied rental and a vacant rehab carry very different exposure in this metro. Severe convective storm, including the EF3 tornado that crossed north St. Louis City on May 16, 2025, is the dominant peril here, and standard commercial forms typically suspend theft, vandalism, and water-damage coverage on a building that has sat vacant more than about 60 days, which matters when one door is mid-rehab while the rest are leased. Earthquake coverage is also worth flagging statewide: New Madrid-zone take-up sat at only about 10.4 percent as of 2024, so a standard landlord policy on any door in the portfolio likely excludes it unless bought separately. Confirm each property's own coverage with your insurance agent as part of underwriting.

No. Our portfolio loans are structured with the option to release individual properties as they are resolved, so one door's foreclosure or tax sale does not force a refinance or default event across the rest of the book. Missouri forecloses by non-judicial trustee's sale with at least 20 days' notice, and a one-year post-sale redemption right under RSMo 443.410 attaches only where the lender itself credit-bids at the sale and the borrower gives timely notice and posts an approved bond within 20 days; it does not attach to a sale to a genuine third-party bidder. The City of St. Louis also runs its own judicial tax-sale process through the Sheriff, separate from St. Louis County's process, so how a single city door is resolved can look different from how a county door is resolved. How a specific release interacts with your loan documents is set at underwriting.

Yes for day-to-day compliance, but no for the rules that matter most to your rent roll. Occupancy inspection differs door to door: every rental unit inside the City of St. Louis reinspects every three years or on any change of occupancy at a $120 permit fee, while St. Louis County has no single countywide rule, and individual municipalities like University City ($25 application plus $60 per unit) and Florissant ($50, triggered even by a sale) run their own regimes. What does not differ is rent regulation: no Missouri city or county can cap rent, cap a security deposit, mandate acceptance of housing-assistance income, or restrict your screening criteria, on any door in the portfolio. Confirm each municipality's occupancy requirement before you close, and expect it to change if you add a door in a new city.

A portfolio or blanket loan rolls several rental properties into one loan with a single monthly payment, instead of a separate mortgage on each property. It simplifies your financing, frees up capital, and lets you scale a rental portfolio without managing a stack of individual loans.

These structures usually make sense at around five or more properties, though we can look at smaller groups. The portfolio can be a mix of single-family rentals, small multifamily, and other income property.

Yes. Most blanket loans include a release provision, so you can sell an individual property and pay down the loan by that property's allocated amount while the rest stays in place. We set the release terms up front.

We underwrite the combined cash flow and overall leverage of the portfolio, similar to a DSCR loan but across the whole group. Pricing depends on the asset mix, the leverage, and your experience, and loan amounts typically start around $500K.

Usually not. Like our DSCR program, a blanket rental loan qualifies on the portfolio's cash flow rather than your personal income, so tax returns are generally not required. We will want to see the rent roll and operating history.

Yes. A common use of a blanket loan is to consolidate existing mortgages and pull cash out of the combined equity, giving you capital to acquire more property. Cash-out leverage is set against the portfolio's value and cash flow.