Author Archives: Shawn Molem

What Are Hard Money Loans?

To get a hard money loan, you just need to have a good collateral or property, which is completely opposite to a traditional loan, where the lender is only interested in your particulars. That’s why; you are eligible of getting these loans even if you have a bad credit history or no job history.

This is the reason behind the success of hard money and fix and flip investing.
There are investors who get confused while looking for hard money loans because of the usage of terms like “hard money lender” and “private money lender” in the real estate investment business.
What I have learnt from my experiences is that a hard money lender is basically a professional lender, who is doing it for a living. They usually have higher interest rates and they also charge points, which is 1% of the total loan you are getting and you will have to pay that right after your loan is funded.
For example, a hard money lender can also charge you up to 20% interest and 4 points. Most of the lenders I have used, are the people referred to me by my friends or I have found them via internet.
On the other hand, most of the private money lenders are my friends or colleagues i.e. people who are within my social circle. They charge you less interest rates like 8 to 10% with no points.
If you are looking for good amount of money, hard money lenders could be the best choice. That’s why; they are the best options in case of mortgage as these lenders feel more secure that they will recover their money soon.
While doing my first deal in real estate, I used the services of a lender who charged me 15% interest rate and 3 points for 80% of the purchase price of the property including repairs. The rest of the funding was done by private money as I use them on second or third place.
So, basically I am using private money for 25% of my fix and flip needs.
This is basically what I know about private money versus hard money. There are some major differences but the main purpose is to have good connections and building up good relationships amongst each other to get complete funding for your deal.
I don’t use my own money for funding a deal, even though I can afford it because when there are two parties involved, the profit margin also increased and in that way, both of them can make money. It helps you in spreading wealth.


Bad Credit Hard Money Loans for Funding Your Next Fix and Flip Deal

The shakiness of today’s real estate market is pretty obvious to everyone. This is ultimately creating difficulties in finding loans for flipping properties as well and if your credit score is bad, then the situation becomes worse.

But you don’t need to worry because as a real estate investor, your ONLY job is to find good investment opportunities. If you will keep wasting your time looking for a lender instead of finding good fix and flip deals, then you are going to end up in a problem. You need to understand that if you have found a hot property, it will draw the attention of money lenders itself.

After finding a property and making sure that it is worth investing, you need to get in touch with your local lenders. It is necessary to have a sound relationship with the right hard money lender because of two basic reasons:

1. They will fund you if you have found a good deal, irrespective of your bad credit

2. They will also advice and educate you through the whole process of buying and selling your real estate investment deal

Finding money lenders for bad credit isn’t very difficult if you’ll do your research properly and it is better to start this search by contacting your own lender.

But don’t give him a call asking about what-if or imaginary situations or if they will lend you on that with bad credit or not. As an alternative, you can check their website and look at the properties they have recently funded and try to find similar properties for investing.

Every true hard money lender put all these information on their website to make things visible to their customers. You can get all the details about those funded properties on their website.

The next important step that you should take is getting a proof of funds letter. While you are trying to find a good deal and planning to take it under contract, there are people who would like to know that whether you have finances available to invest in the deal or not. For that, you need to show them your proof of funds letter.

You can easily get a proof of funds letter after paying a minimal fee to your lender. You need to understand that it doesn’t guarantee you that you will get your financing. But it gives a guarantee that there are funds available for that specific property if it gets under contract.

If you really want to get bad credit hard money loans for your property, then you need to follow every rule and regulation set by these lenders. It is very important that the property you are willing to buy meets their guidelines. You also need to check their website to know what are the states or counties, they do lend in and what types of properties they are looking for i.e. commercial or residential.

You need to make sure that you are meeting their requirements and hence, playing by their rules. If you are having difficulty in finding good properties, then your lender can always help you with that by giving you some really good advice as they are experts of real estate investing business.


Why You Should Use Private Money to Buy Real Estate

Investing in real estate is a great way to earn money nowadays. Unlike dabbling at the stock market, it offers you a continuous source of income as prices of real estate are generally stable compared to stock prices. However, one of the main problems of most real estate investors is where to find money to buy investment properties. Fortunately, there are alternative sources of funds and one of them is lenders of private money.

Basically, private money is funds being provided by private individuals or organizations. This particular type of financing is relatively easier to obtain compared to traditional bank loans and mortgages. It is because private lenders often agree to provide loans without heavy paperwork and strict regulations.

One of the biggest reasons why many real estate investors ask private money lenders for help is to protect their credit rating. When you borrow funds from these financiers, it won’t reflect on your credit history because the transaction between the two of you won’ get reported to the credit bureau unless you tell the office yourself.

Another advantage of obtaining private money to buy investment properties is that private lenders are not interested with the borrower’s credit score. Unlike traditional lenders such as banks and credit unions, these private financiers will still allow you to use their money regardless if you have a bad credit history. As long as you can prove to them that the deal is worth their time and money, they will give you the funds you need.

When it comes to private lenders, there are no long lines or long waiting period. Because you only need the approval of one person, you don’t have to deal with a processing team or panel that will reject your loan application after waiting for months. In addition, you don’t have to procure tons of documents and other whatnots that could take you a lot of time.

There are a number of ways to find private money lenders. One of the most effective methods is to ask around. You can ask your friends or family to lend you some funds. Your next-door neighbor can also be a private lender.


Hard Money Lenders – The Secret of Successful Funding!

Actually, only a small number of lenders truly understands the whole concept of fix and flip investing and these private hard money lenders are categorized into the following five basic types:

1. Residential lenders

2. Commercial lenders

3. Bridge lenders

4. High end lenders

5. Development lenders

Amongst these five different types of lenders, you need to find out which lender is going to be suitable for your real estate investment. Generally people start by investing into a single family home, that’s why they choose residential hard money lenders.

But the basic difference between the lenders depends upon the source of funds. That’s why; they can be easily categorized into bank lenders and private hard money lenders.

Bank Type Lenders – If you are working with a lender who is providing you funding with the help of some financial institutions, where they will sell or leverage your paper to the Wall Street in order to get you money. These types of lenders will be following some rules and regulations specified by the banks or Wall Street.

That’s why, in order to get the loan, you need to follow these rules and regulations, which isn’t suitable for a real estate investor interested in doing fix and flip investing.

Private hard money lenders – These are the lenders who work on private basis. They usually work in a group of private lenders, who likes to lend money regularly. Their best quality is that they do not sell their paper to any financial institution or bank. They have particular rules and regulations, which are made to help a real estate investor.

Private Lenders That Are into Fix and Flip – You can easily find residential hard money lenders, who are really into fix and flip loans. Most of the real estate investors find it quite difficult to get financing for buying a property, which they have taken under contract.

And when they finally a good property and contact a lender for funding, their loans can get rejected on the basis of some neighborhood problems. Then the investor look for another property but the lender couldn’t fund them because of market depreciation.

In this way, an investor is always looking for properties. But some lenders don’t have enough money to fund their deal, whereas others are continuously increasing their interest rates, which can’t be afforded. Apart from all these issues, you can find lenders who are willing to lend money on fix and flip properties.

These lenders also have certain rules and regulations like a typical bank or financial institution but they are designed to work in favor for the real estate investor.


Direct Hard Money Lenders – How to Calculate an Offer Price of a Property?

We receive a lot of queries related to the purchase price, repair costs and offer price of the properties. People want to know the calculation process used by direct hard money lenders for making an offer because it is a known fact that hard money lenders only lend 70%of market value after the repairs have been completed on a property.

First and foremost, you need to realize that the offer price and repair costs are two separate containers of money.

Lenders can fund you up to 100% of both of these containers but both of them should be equal or less than 70% of ARV (after repair value).

This doesn’t mean that you’ll get all the money together for closing the deal.

You will get a particular amount of money for purchasing the property at closing table and the repair money will be deposited into an escrow account after the deal is closed by a hard money lender.

If you are in a perfect situation, you won’t have to add any money as repair costs into the offer.

Let me explain this in detail.

It is very important to figure out what kind of repairs you are willing to do and get an estimate. After that you should determine the ARV. You need to take 70% of after repair value and subtract the repair costs.

This is the maximum amount which you’ll get as an offer and still get financing for the purchase price and repair costs.

On the other hand, you need to be very careful while estimating the repair costs and ARV.

But you need to keep in mind that the final amount of ARV and repair costs would be based upon what have been finalized by direct hard money lenders, not you.

This is usually quite different from the calculations of an investor.

The lenders usually hire the services of two different property evaluators to determine the ARV and repair costs. Both of them send more than a dozen comps after evaluating the property.

This is an extremely efficient system for determining the ARV and repairs, which is followed by few lenders like us.

So, if you are fine with putting some money down or invest in repair costs of the property, you can amend the offer price.

Another important thing, which you should keep in your mind, is the fees that are due during loan closing because direct hard money lenders will not finance that. This would be between 4-6% of the total loan amount and you’ll have to pay it from your own pocket.

The crux of the story is that you’ll have to work on several different offers before you get the numbers that make sense.

But it’s a surety that whenever you’ll find the perfect property, it would be worthy of all your time and efforts!


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    Although Magna Enterprises, LLC and Magna Capital Group, Inc. are referred to throughout the text of this website as Magna Group of companies, they are not affiliates, parent or subsidiary companies as both companies are separate and distinct entities. Any questions or issues regarding this disclaimer should be addressed in writing c/o Shawn Molem.