This is a question that has come up a million times and will continue coming up forever in Chicago unless eventually things change one way or another.

If you’re considering leveraging hard money lending (HML) for this flip, it could be a strong alternative to traditional financing—especially since HML is quicker to secure and designed for investors aiming to flip properties fast.With HML, you’re typically looking at covering a significant portion of both purchase price and rehab costs, which keeps more of your cash free for other expenses or emergencies.

Be first position until he gets the construction loan, at that time he then will have the construction loan buy out his PML out an pay any accrual interest and origination fees.

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

•Every time you fill a rental, you open the door to a conversation about full management services.

this works well if the tenant is a national user or multi unit operator who has built these buildings many times. 

I’ve run into this many times on deals I acquired and rehabbed utilizing hard money.  

It was kind of a bad spot in my life at the time.

During that 7-year time period, the median number of sales per year was 1259, about the same as in 2024.

Do that a couple times.