Several Approaches To Use Hard Money Lenders For Property Investment
Hard money lenders are seeing a significant surge in the present market because a lot more real estate investors are selecting their lending services. Conventional bank lending has experienced quite the dive within recent years for real estate. Financial instability is a huge cause of the drop off in standard bank lending.
Asset based lending is what hard money lenders do. The loans are usually secured by a hard asset, in other words. Real estate will be the hard asset which is commonly used. The real estate a potential borrower wants to obtain the hard money loan for will then serve as the actual collateral to become transferred over in case of loan default.
Generally, hard money lenders will fund loans for approximately 60 to 70 percent of the property’s total value. The borrower must come up with the rest of the money for a down payment on the loan. The lender thus has a bit more security from this equity. It will ensure that if payments are not made on the loan he or she will not lose all the money lent out.
If a default occurs the collateral property is simply legally transferred to the lender. In order to get the money back from the loan the lender will sell the property as quickly as possible. Hard money lenders rarely if ever desire to foreclose on loans. They are likely to lose money or possibly break even in this event.
It is always much more preferable for the borrower to make all payments because it is more profitable for the lender. No lender wants to deal with foreclosing on a loan. Considering though that hard money lenders are doing some pretty high risk lending it is no surprise that defaults do happen.
Residential as well as commercial property investing are both uses for hard money in the industry. An example of a commercial property that an investor might purchase would be land to be developed for building office buildings or some other commercial purpose.
Apartments are an example of residential real estate that hard money can be used for. Or the land to build one on could also be financed through hard money.
Bridge loans are another common form of hard money loans. Quick financing by banks is often not available to investors when they need it. While waiting for regular bank financing hard money lenders can grant loans quickly in the meantime.
These lenders can originate loans in a period of a week and sometimes even less time than that. Until a loan can be gotten from a bank the bridge loan can finance the real estate transaction in time to make the purchase.
Rehab loans are yet another use for hard money. These loans allow an investor to buy a property that needs work before it can be marketed. Generally the loan will be enough to purchase the property and also pay for whatever improvements must be done.
Interest rates charged by hard money lenders do tend to be quite a bit higher because of the associated risk of hard money finance. And sometimes more points are charged for loan origination as well.