Sometimes it’s surrendering the ability to get your money back at all… see this thread on Norada Capitalhttps://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/960/topics/1196567-nora...Unrelated to any investment I have made or even real estate, I have watched both my parents fall victim to clever marketing scams where they lost a combined 6 figure sums - both from in person marketed investments… so not something like a phone scam… but was a private placement “opportunity” not unlike how a syndications are offered, where management siphoned off investor money and used it for their own purposes.   

For our private lenders, we use people in our local real estate community.

Those people do not have a CLUE how websites and conversions work.

Conversely, advertising a 4/3, beautiful single family home to single traveling nurses (a pretty price-aware demographic post-Covid) may not work as well.When I go on ff.com to see what is out there in my area, I too often see units that are marketed to "everyone".

Should I consider private lending, HELOC or another short term lending to fund the home construction? 

I'm familiar with how a hard money loan is structured, but structuring a deal from a private lender seems like the wild west.

The number of private landlords sued for more than their insurance will cover is astronomically low.The best protection: follow the law, and treat your tenants honestly.

If you need more information pls send me a private message or just reply my post thanks

@Eddie Miretsky - Quite the list of questions, that could be a 10 hour conversation lol.

Is intentionally inflating a payoff a form of fraud - not an attorney but we do private lending and if you misrepresent the loan amount intentionally yes its fraud.