General minimum criteria for hard money loans?

[Sam T.]

Hi all,

I'm thinking about trying to go the route of using hard money loans to finance discounted, off-market deals (probably mostly from wholesalers?) to take advantage of being able to pay cash for properties with instant equity, then rehab if needed, and cash-out refi to repay whatever hard money lender I'd use. At least in theory to me in the last few days of thinking about this, it seems like a solid strategy (please feel free to shoot holes in my theory, I'm here to learn!)

My question is - having never used hard/private money before - what criteria do lenders usually look for before supplying a loan? I have excellent credit and a good income with the ability to save solid chunks of cash every month that I could easily use for down payments with conventional financing if I wanted to.

I'm sure all will be at least a little different regarding borrower requirements, but how can I best prepare to seek hard/private money loans for what I'd like to do? Do they usually need to see X amount of money (maybe a certain percentage of the desired loan amount) in my bank account, or will having high credit/income alone be enough to be deemed a good borrower for these guys?