Short-term financing secured primarily by the property itself. Minimal documentation, funding in days rather than weeks, and a decision driven by equity and exit plan rather than by your income profile.
It is the most expensive money on this website, and occasionally the most profitable. Below: the four situations where it genuinely wins, what the speed actually costs in dollars, and the exit discipline that separates a good bridge from an expensive mistake.
Ranges reflect common terms across the private lenders and funds we work with. Private money is generally not available for owner-occupied property. Not an offer.
You are buying certainty and speed, and you are paying for them with rate. A private lender — often an individual, a fund, or a small group deploying its own capital — cares about one thing above all: if the loan stops performing, is there enough equity in the property to recover the money? That question can be answered in a day. Verifying two years of income, employment, and debt ratios cannot.
That is why leverage is conservative. Sixty-five percent of value sounds restrictive next to a conventional loan at ninety, but the low leverage is precisely what makes the light documentation possible. Your equity is the lender's underwriting.
"Private money" and "hard money" describe substantially the same product; the terms are used interchangeably in practice, though "private" often implies a relationship-based lender and "hard" a more institutional short-term shop. Either way the structure is short, interest-only, secured by a first lien, and written on the assumption that it will be replaced within a year.
The single discipline that makes this work is the exit. A private loan is a bridge to a defined event — a sale, a refinance, a completed renovation, a lease-up. If you cannot name the event and the date, you are not bridging; you are borrowing expensively and hoping. Every honest private lender will ask you for the exit before they ask for anything else, and if they don't, that is information about the lender.
In each of these, the alternative isn't a cheaper loan — it's no deal at all, or a materially worse outcome. That's the only test worth applying.
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When it does not fit: buying a long-term rental you intend to hold, financing a primary residence, or bridging a gap you can't define an end to. If the property is a keeper, a DSCR loan costs a fraction of this over three years. We'll say so rather than write the bridge.
Rate is the wrong unit for a six-month loan. What matters is total dollars out and whether the deal still works after them — so this prices the whole bridge and compares it against conventional financing over the same window.
The conventional comparison assumes a rate 5.00% below the private rate, one point of origination, and thirty extra days to fund. Adjust the private rate to see how the gap narrows.
Illustration only, excluding title, escrow, appraisal, and legal costs. Actual terms vary widely between private lenders. Not a quote or commitment to lend.
Every one of these is a failure of the exit, not of the loan.
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If you're on a clock, call rather than email. Same-day reads are normal here.
Talk it through →Five to fourteen days is realistic, and the binding constraint is usually title, not underwriting. A clean title commitment and a cooperative seller can produce a seven-day close; a title issue, an estate, or an unrecorded lien adds a week regardless of how fast the lender moves. Order title the day you go under contract — that single step does more for your timeline than anything else.
Usually credit yes, income rarely. Most private lenders pull credit to check for active bankruptcies, tax liens, and judgments that could cloud title or subordinate their position — not to score you. Income documentation is typically minimal or waived. A low score raises the rate rather than killing the deal, because the equity is doing the work.
Generally no. Consumer-purpose lending on an owner-occupied property triggers a different regulatory regime, and most private lenders simply decline to operate there. Nearly all private money is business-purpose, investment-property lending. If you need short-term financing tied to your primary residence, the honest answer is usually a HELOC or a non-QM loan instead.
A floor on the interest the lender collects regardless of how quickly you pay off — commonly three or six months. Pay off in month two on a six-month minimum and you still owe six months of interest. On fast deals this dwarfs the rate difference between lenders, so it's the first term to ask about and the most commonly overlooked. The calculator above lets you see it directly.
Talk to the lender early — most will grant an extension for a fee, often half a point to a point, and reasonable lenders far prefer that to a default. What you must not do is go quiet as maturity approaches. Private loans reach default and foreclosure faster than institutional mortgages, and the recovery mechanism is the property. Start the refinance or the listing at the halfway point of the term, not at the end.
They overlap but aren't identical. Fix and flip programs are structured for renovation: they include a rehab budget released in draws, and they underwrite the scope of work and after-repair value. Pure private money is simpler and faster — a lien against existing equity with no construction component. If your deal needs rehab funding, ask for a flip loan; if it needs cash against equity in days, ask for private money.
Property, value, amount needed, and how the loan gets paid off — that's the whole conversation, and it's faster by phone than by application. If a cheaper structure fits your timeline, we'll point you at it instead.