The short answer is yes. Almost every hard money lender pulls credit, including this one. The longer and more useful answer is that the report is a pricing input, not the decision, and understanding the difference is the fastest way to stop guessing whether your file has a chance.
Yes, but it is not the decision
A bank underwrites you and then looks at the property. A private lender underwrites the property and then looks at you. That order changes everything about how a credit report is used.
When we open a file, the first questions are about the asset. What is the property worth today, what will it be worth when your plan is done, how much equity sits between our loan and a loss, and how does the loan get repaid. Those four answers decide whether a loan exists at all. Your credit report then helps set where inside the published band the loan lands, and it flags anything that could interfere with the exit, such as a lien, a judgment or an active foreclosure on another property.
That is why an investor with a thin file and a strong property gets a term sheet, and an investor with excellent credit and no exit does not.
The published floors, product by product
We publish our minimums rather than making borrowers guess at them.
The bridge loan program publishes a minimum credit score of 650, with no borrower experience required and non-owner occupied occupancy, and every structure on the bridge program shares that floor.
The fix and flip program publishes a minimum FICO score of 620 and allows first time flippers. The ground-up construction program publishes a minimum FICO of 600 and asks for two prior ground-up projects.
On the long term side, the rental DSCR program publishes a minimum credit score of 620 on the Non-QM tier and allows first time investors, and the rental portfolio and multifamily term loans ask for landlord experience.
Read those numbers as doors, not verdicts. Clearing a floor means the program is open to you. Where you land inside it depends on the rest of the file.
When a credit event is not the end of the file
Above the published floor, a past default, a notice of default or a matured loan is read against the property rather than treated as an automatic no, because bridge loans are made on equity and exit. That is also why a file with a credit event usually lands at the conservative end of the published leverage: 75% on residential and 70% on commercial are ceilings, not expectations. When the lender’s protection is a real equity cushion and a property that can be sold, the borrower’s payment history matters less.
This is the category that covers the borrower nobody else will talk to. A default on another property, a notice of default that needs to be cured, a matured loan that the current lender will not extend, a bailout situation where the clock is real. These are equity stories, and equity stories are underwritten on the asset.
What you trade for that is leverage. Lower LTV is the price of a credit profile that does not carry the file on its own. If you need both maximum leverage and forgiveness on credit, you are asking one deal to do two jobs.
What matters more than the score
Equity. The gap between the loan and the value is the single most important number in hard money. It is what gets a lender comfortable and what gets a borrower a better rate.
The exit. Sale or refinance, with evidence. A sale exit is supported by comparable sales. A refinance exit is supported by the numbers the takeout lender will use, which for a rental means the rent and the debt service coverage ratio. An exit you have not tested is a wish.
Liquidity. Not net worth on paper, but money you can reach. Lenders want to know you can carry the payments, cover an overrun and close on the day you said you would. Our fix and flip documentation list asks for an application, a schedule of real estate owned and proof of funds for that reason.
Experience. Three finished projects tell a lender more than a score does. Our bridge program requires none, our fix and flip program allows first time flippers, and our construction program asks for two ground-up projects, because the risk of a ground-up build genuinely depends on whether you have done one.
The property. Condition, location and how easily it can be sold. A property with a real market is a property a lender can recover from.
Credit and consumer purpose loans
There is one place where credit behaves differently. When a loan is consumer purpose, meaning the proceeds go to personal, family or household use, the lender is required to make an ability to repay determination from verified income and assets. That is a different underwriting exercise with a different set of documents and a longer timeline.
Business purpose loans on investment property are not underwritten that way, which is why they move as fast as they do. If your loan is secured by the home you live in and the money is for a personal purpose, expect a fuller review no matter how much equity is in the property. The difference is explained in full in our post on business purpose vs consumer purpose loans.
What to do before you apply
Pull your own report first so nothing in the file surprises either side. Write down anything a lender will ask about and prepare the one paragraph explanation. Gather proof of funds, an SREO and the documents that support the exit, because those move a file faster than a good score does. Then bring the deal.
If the credit conversation is the reason you have not called anyone yet, start with the bankruptcy buyout scenario, the borrower FAQ or the borrow page. Or call (619) 617-2797 and describe the property. We will tell you which program fits before we ask for a score.
