All Forum Posts by: Lian Shi

@Cesar Lopez

I feel more and more people are using hard money is because it is much more marketed to the investment community than others. People fail to investigate other sources of money before going "hard". I know of people with reasonably good credit (720+) taking hard money, when they could've just gotten a signature loan from a 3 major banks at 6%.

So, my advise, look at the following

1. Community Bank or CU (You need good liquidity and financials here)

2. HELOC (You need enough equity on your primary residence here)

3. Refi your car (car has to be under 50k miles or newer than 2010, check with bank/CU)

4. Signature loans (need a reasonable Credit score (680+) and paystubs)

5. P2P loans - LendingClub or Prosper (little higher loans %, but they're non-recourse)

6. If all other options are exhausted, go "hard", :)

I do private lending but don't charge anything up front. My borrowers do pay all closing costs, but those are paid at time of closing and not before. The only fee I could fathom having a borrower pay for before closing would be an appraisal, but I don't require those. I would definitely get at LEAST four or five references before I paid 800 or 900 dollars. Keep in mind, there are lots of dishonest people always looking to rip off unsuspecting consumers. Be care, get references, and also you might want to check with the BBB. Good luck.

p.s. "registration fee" sounds totally bogus

@Lian Shi

As a private lender I can tell you there are upfront costs on our end.  Generally, paying an attorney to handle the loan docs, title review, things of that nature that we can't recoup if the deal doesn't close.  Although, if they are unknown to you and reached out via Facebook, I would probably steer clear.  

@Lian Shi

Have you tried these sites

prosper.com

patchofland.com

I see a lot of people use it here in the forum and they are public.

Hi Daria,

Thank you very much for letting me know these two websites. We checked out both of them and patchofland doesn't do Gap funding and they do 80% of purchase price + rehab costs and some points upfront. So we may go with prosper to get a partial of the Gap we need. Thank you very much again.