This guy signs residential and commercial properties to represent that are in desperate need of repair.

I was using that analogy because loan sharks typically prey on the needy or desperate.

When folks are desperate enough to turn to hard money you know your now working the fringe.

The bay area has deals to be found if you work at it, and the midwest isn't just a ruse for desperate CA investors who only get burned.  

My market is absolutely desperate.

But in your own message you mention that you should wait.Rule number 1 in any investment is to not be desperate.

It's somewhere between $150,000 and $250,000 I'll need, so not those little lenders I keep running into on Google.It's not for some new, risky business I'm hoping is a homerun, but for a long time, well-established franchise that has already been doing great for a number of years.The length of the loan doesn't matter too much to me, as I could throw large chunks toward this summer, and then probably be done with it by next summer, as my current business, which is massively passive, is very seasonal (Spring time).I won't say I'm desperate, but also with the shorter nature of the loan, and proven sales, as well as the success of my other business, I would even be willing to go for higher than normal rates.Anyway, thanks for any advice on lenders you might know of that deal in this area.

If you underwrite the borrower properly and aren't desperate to make a sale it won't matter as much.

Most are just too desperate to make any and every lead work.

So if you put in an embarrassingly low Offer to start off with (because they won't let you look at it until you make an Offer) just to get a feel for their desperation or otherwise, and when that doesn't work, increase your Offer/s in increments if you are still so inclined.