Before this thread spins out of control into opining on the relative merits of various forms of government and moral outrage at "people today". 

A simple; “we evaluate each and every situation based on its merits.

You evaluate the specific property on its merits and you are forced to live with that through the life of the investment.

They also only put these offers in on very specific types of properties, because they feel confident in their qualifications to assess the technical merits and weaknesses of these properties by themselves.

It would seem the more we put into those properties the cash on cash ROI decreases but there is definitely merit in paying down the PB.

Every deal has to be analyzed based on its own merit, and it's own numbers. 

The practice has some merit but as mentioned so many times in BP forums “experience and knowledge” is priceless. 

Not every inconvenience in one's life merits a compensation from someone else.  

My definition of Private is the loan is made primarily on the merits of your relationship with the lender.

In other words, it's a personal favor to you based on your existing relationship, rather than from someone who's savvy in real estate and loaning on the merits of the deal.I don't know of any list or software to tell a good private/hard money lender from a bad, but in general feel free to ask for a track record, other borrowers who borrowed from them and were happy.