What to look for in a Lender

[Tyler Hardin]

I'm very new to real estate investing and am hoping to do my first deal (ideally a tri-plex or quad-plex house-hack) in around 6-9 months. I'm still firmly in the education phase, but this seems like a good starting point for me. I have a small chunk of liquid cash, and pending the outcome of this deal, have an offer of private money for a second deal, which I'd like to put around 6 months after the first.

I recently mentioned my interest to a friend who has moved into conventional lending (primarily ag-related). He is interested in moving into real-estate lending and has offered to set a meeting between him, me, and a more seasoned real-estate lender he associates with. My question for the forum is what sort of questions should I be asking? As I said, I'm new to this and still learning, but what are the valuable topics I might learn from this lender? Also, what sort of questions will help me to make a firm connection with the lender so that I'll have that connection available in the future?