Are hard money lenders a good choice

[Vlad Levrints]

Hello everyone

Iv been flipping houses since 2017 in New Jersey and had some out of state rentals in Indiana. Recently I’m coming across the same issue while bidding on any house in my area EVERYONE WANTS CASH! 
which is fine Iv done plenty of cash deals but always using my own money I haven’t ever borrowed someone’s money or had a hard money lender typically on deals that wore 100k-250k 

Iv also used conventional financing before for flips and so on 

But recently every house worth looking at in my area is around 400k-550k for a fixer upper. So the question is have you guys ever used a hard money lender before do you recommend it or just figure out how to get the cash yourself or find properties that can go for conventional if the seller even considers it 

I own a contracting company and a moving/junk company so our projects I know for a fact I can do at a fraction of the cost as most investors but still I’m getting out bid to no end where I can’t see the money at all I’m not sure what there seeing but that’s a whole other story

Anyways would love to hear from you guys if you used hard money lenders before and what to be careful with I’m just trying to see all my options 

Thank you in advance