Joe DownsCEO & Co-Founder, Belrose Storage Group. Founder, Storage Moguls.

Million‑dollar deal bank‑only vs seller‑financed

18 Apr 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:14

In this short presentation, the speaker walks through the financing calculations for a $1,000,000 acquisition—illustrated with a boat and an RV—to compare two financing structures. The first, a conventional bank‑only loan, involves a 70% loan ($700,000) at 7% interest amortized over 25 years, requiring the buyer to provide $300,000 cash and resulting in a monthly payment of about $4,650. The second structure reduces the bank portion to 60% ($600,000) and adds a seller‑financed note of $250,000 at 6.5% amortized over 20 years. This hybrid approach lowers the buyer’s cash outlay to $150,000 and splits the monthly obligation into a $3,980 bank payment and a $1,870 seller‑note payment. The speaker highlights how the hybrid structure reduces upfront capital while altering monthly cash flow, illustrating the trade‑offs between pure bank financing and seller‑carry arrangements.

Chapters

Let's run the math on a million-dollar boat and RV acquisition. Same deal, 2 different structures so you can see it. Start with the clean conventional. Bank lends 70% at 7% over 25 years. So 70% on a million dollars, $700,000. Buyer brings $300,000 cash. The monthly bank payment on that $700,000 is approximately $4,650 per month. No seller note. Deal closes. But the buyer has now deployed $300,000 of capital. Look at a conventional note now with the seller note, seller carry. Now, and you notice that we can change the terms with the lender to make them even happier. Now we only want 60% from the lender, so that's $600,000. The seller holds a $250,000 note, let's say in this example. Okay. At 6.5%, amortized over 20 years. Now the buyer only has to bring $150,000 in cash. The monthly bank payment on the first note is $3,980. The monthly seller note payment at those terms is $1,870 approximately.