Small time Private Lending in CA

[Christina Fleet]

As far as companies go, I don't have a lot of capital.  But as a single person starting out, I have a sizable amount of cash and I would like to get started with lending. I could only fund rehabs or very inexpensive foreclosures as of now. I will be seeking legal counsel to find out how to establish my business structure and to create the appropriate documents.  And I have a couple of books to buy - Making the Yield and Invest in Debt.  For anyone else who has done this, do you have any tips on getting started and minimizing risk? Thank you!

[Kyle J.]

@Christina Fleet You should check out the following thread (in particular the response in it from Jeff):

Becoming a Private lender

It’s one of the better posts on here (in my opinion) for what you’re trying to do. 

As for minimizing risk, I would suggest things like: sticking to doing first position loans, making sure you lend to experienced borrowers who do this for a living and aren’t trying to learn with your money, making sure you get a lender’s title policy (your borrower should pay for it), proper hazard insurance is in place and you’re named on the policy, etc.

I could go on, but if you read the above post I linked to, as well as the following one (also coincidentally the response in this one from Jeff is particularly good), you’ll be off to a good start:

Private lender - forms required??

Good luck to you!