Every private lender’s website says fast, flexible and reliable. The words cost nothing, so they tell you nothing. What separates lenders is who owns the money, who makes the decision, what the whole loan costs and how they behave in the month when a deal goes sideways. Here is how to find that out in one conversation.
Direct lender or broker
The first question, and the one that reorganizes every answer after it. A direct lender has capital available and decides internally. A mortgage broker locates capital after you make the request, and their timeline depends on somebody you have not met.
Neither is dishonest, but the difference is real when a seller gives you seven days. A direct lender can commit. A broker can introduce. If the answer is unclear, ask a plainer version: whose money funds this loan, and who signs off on it.
We work with capital from more than one source, which is what lets the same team fund a short-term bridge on a property alone and a thirty year rental loan on a property’s cash flow. Ask any lender how their capital is structured, because the answer explains their behavior. An individual investor prices deal by deal, a fund prices steadily through a credit group, and a conduit is efficient inside its box and unable to move outside it.
Who actually approves your file
Ask to speak to the person who decides. Not the person who takes the application, the person who says yes.
Deals are lost in the gap between a loan officer’s enthusiasm and an approval nobody has secured. If the person quoting you cannot describe the approval path in one sentence, you are being sold a maybe. That matters most on the files that are worth doing: a property with a condition issue, a borrower with something on the report, a structure that is not a template.
What the whole cost is
Rate is one of three parts. The other two are points and third party costs, and the total across the months you actually hold the loan is the only comparable number. A loan at a lower rate with heavier points and a prepayment penalty can cost more on a five month project than a higher rate with neither.
Ask five questions and write down the answers.
What is the rate, and is interest charged on the full facility or only on funds drawn. On a rehab file with a holdback, that answer moves the total more than a quarter point of rate does.
How many points, and what else appears on the settlement statement.
Is there a prepayment penalty. Our bridge and fix and flip programs publish no prepayment penalties, which is the answer you want on a short project.
What does an extension cost, and is it a right or a request.
What is refundable, and when. A deposit before diligence deserves an explanation.
The pricing guide sets out how these parts assemble on a private loan.
Whether they publish anything
A lender who publishes terms is a lender who expects to be held to them. Ours are on the program pages: the bridge program publishes rates from 9.00% to 13.00%, LTV up to 75% on residential and 70% on commercial, loans from $150,000 to $25,000,000 and terms of one or two years. The fix and flip program publishes rates from 9.99% to 12.00%, up to 85% of the purchase and 100% of the rehab and terms of 6 to 18 months. The construction program publishes LTC up to 80% and terms of 12 to 18 months.
Published numbers are not a promise that every file gets the best of them. They are a statement of where the program lives, and they let you rule a lender in or out before you have spent a week.
Whether they lend on your property and your situation
Programs are narrower than websites suggest. Before anything else, confirm the property type, the occupancy, the loan size and the state.
Our bridge program is written for SFR, condo and townhome and two to four unit properties, non-owner occupied. The commercial bridge products take retail, office, industrial, multifamily, mixed use and land. Our published loan sizes run from $150,000 to $25,000,000 on business purpose bridge and from $250,000 to $10,000,000 on fix and flip. We have funded more than $1.5B across 46 states from our San Diego office.
If your property is unusual, say so first. The property types hub and the loan scenarios hub show which situations already have a home here, from non-warrantable condos to foreign national borrowers.
How they behave when something slips
This is the question nobody asks and everybody eventually needs answered. Projects run late. Contractors leave. Appraisals come in low. Buyers walk two weeks before closing.
Ask what happens then. Ask how extensions are handled, who you call, and whether the lender has worked through a difficult file with a borrower rather than simply enforcing the document. Then check the answer against evidence rather than the pitch. Reviews written by borrowers who have finished a project tell you more than a testimonial page does. We hold a 5.0 Google rating across 150+ reviews and we would rather you read them than take our word for it.
Local knowledge and licensing
A lender who knows your submarket underwrites faster, because they can read a comparable set without a consultant. That is why our home markets get the deepest attention even though we lend nationally. See where we lend and the San Diego page for how that works in practice.
Check the licensing too. Ours is published: Loan Goat Inc., NMLS 1416824, branch NMLS 2554618, on the disclosures page. A lender who will not tell you their license numbers has answered the question.
The short version
Ask who owns the money. Ask who approves the file. Ask for the whole cost, not the rate. Check that the program actually covers your property. Ask what happens when something goes wrong, and read what borrowers say about that. Then choose the lender you would want on the phone at month nine, and move quickly, because in hard money speed is most of the advantage you are paying for.
Our answers to all of the above are on the about page and the borrower FAQ. Or put us through the questions yourself at (619) 617-2797.
