Hard money loans in Tampa: funded fast, funded direct

Why Tampa investors choose hard money over conventional loans

Quick summary: Bank underwriting timelines don’t match how Tampa deals move, especially at auction or on a tight contract deadline. We fund from our own capital, so the person underwriting your deal is the person who can say yes and close it.

A bank loan committee doesn’t know your deal. It doesn’t know the seller, the contract deadline, or why the Hillsborough County courthouse auction schedule doesn’t wait for a 45-day underwrite. We do. Conventional financing runs on a process built for owner-occupants — appraisal contingencies, income verification, committee sign-off. None of that fits an investor closing on a distressed property in three weeks.

Here’s the thing nobody tells new investors: the rate on your loan doesn’t matter if the deal falls through before you close. A buyer with a great contract and a bank that needs another round of conditions right before the closing date. By then the seller’s gone, or the auction property’s sold to someone with cash in hand.

We fund every loan from our own capital, through our own fund. There’s no outside credit committee that can add a condition or pull funding days before closing. That’s not a sales line, it’s just how the structure works. When we tell you we’re in, we’re in.

• No credit score minimum — decisions are based on the property and your equity position
• Draws on construction and rehab funds go out in no more than 48 hours
• Cross-collateral and blanket loans are standard tools, not exceptions, for investors holding equity across multiple properties
• Direct access to the person making the call, not a processor reading from a checklist

Speed matters, sure. But what protects your deal is certainty. Founded in 2013, we’ve funded more than 230 loans totaling over $67 million across Florida.

How draw schedules work on rehab and construction loans

Rehab and ground-up construction loans don’t fund all at once. The purchase funds at closing, and the rehab budget releases in draws as work gets done. This is where a lot of Tampa investors get burned by lenders who treat every draw request like a fresh underwrite.

We built our draw process around one idea. Your contractor doesn’t wait, so we don’t make him wait. Once we’ve verified the completed work, we release funds. No committee has to sign off first, because there isn’t one.

1. You or your contractor finish a phase of work and submit a draw request.
2. We verify the completed work.
3. Funds go out. Draws are never more than 48 hours, and we do everything in our power to get them to you the same day.
4. You move to the next phase and the cycle repeats until the project’s done.

That 48-hour ceiling matters more than it sounds like it should. A drywall crew sitting idle for two weeks because a lender’s draw coordinator is backed up costs you real money. Draw delays are one of the most common complaints we hear about other lenders when a borrower comes to us mid-project.

Need more time on a phase, or a schedule adjustment because permitting ran long? Extensions are available on request. We’d rather talk through a delay than let a technicality stall your draw.

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Direct lender versus broker-placed capital

Here’s the thing most Tampa investors learn the hard way. A broker can quote you a great sounding term sheet, then the actual money sits with a fund three states away that’s never seen your property. That fund has its own credit committee. It can add conditions. It can decide, four days before your closing, that it doesn’t like something in the file.

Our capital comes from our own fund, not a broker’s network. There’s no committee reviewing your deal after we’ve already told you yes. When we commit, the person you talked to is the person who approved it, and that’s also the person who funds it.

That matters most on the deals with a real deadline attached. Maybe you’re closing on an auction property with a hard date. Maybe your current lender pulled out with days left on the contract, and you need a rescue closing before you lose your deposit. Broker-placed capital isn’t built for that kind of pressure — it depends on approvals we don’t have to wait for.

• One decision maker reviews your deal, not a committee you never speak to
• Terms don’t shift late because an outside investor changed its mind
• Draws on funded projects go out in 48 hours or less
• Extensions are available on request if your project needs more runway

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What disqualifies a deal from hard money financing

Not every deal fits a hard money structure, and we’ll tell you that straight if yours doesn’t. This isn’t unlimited money for any situation. We’re lending against real property, for a business purpose, and the equity has to be there.

Owner-occupied residential doesn’t work here. If you’re buying a home to live in yourself, this isn’t your product — that’s a conventional mortgage conversation, not ours.

• Deals with no real equity position — if the numbers don’t support a reasonable cushion, we can’t get comfortable
• Consumer purpose loans on a primary residence
• Property with title issues or liens we can’t get resolved before closing
• Deals where the exit plan doesn’t hold up — we ask how you get out before we ask anything else

Here’s what doesn’t disqualify you, and this trips people up constantly. There’s no credit score minimum. The collateral and the equity are what drive our decision, not a FICO number pulled from a file.

A tight timeline doesn’t disqualify you either. Neither does owning the property free and clear with no cash on hand, or holding equity spread across three separate parcels instead of one clean asset. We structure around that with cross-collateral and blanket loans when a single property can’t carry the deal alone.

So what kills a deal at our desk? Weak or nonexistent equity, and no credible way to exit. Everything else is a conversation worth having.

How hard money pricing is structured

Every hard money deal gets priced on its own. There’s no rate card taped to the wall here. What moves your terms is the collateral, the equity you’re bringing, the exit plan, and how fast you need to close. A borrower pulling cash out of a paid-off duplex looks different than someone buying at auction with a ten-day clock. Both can get funded, they just get priced differently.

We look at the deal in front of us, not a credit score. There’s no minimum score that knocks you out of the conversation. What we care about is the asset, your equity position, and whether the numbers make sense if things go sideways. Got equity sitting in three properties and no cash on hand? That’s exactly the kind of situation cross-collateral and blanket loans exist for. We treat those as standard tools, not a special exception someone has to talk us into.

So what swings pricing in this industry? A few things, every time.

• How much equity or down payment you’re bringing to the deal
• The condition and marketability of the collateral itself
• How fast you need funds and how complex the closing is
• Whether it’s a purchase, a refinance, or a rescue closing on a tight deadline
• The exit — meaning how and when the loan gets paid off

We won’t quote a rate or a point count on a page like this, and we won’t publish a leverage number either. Anyone who tells you their pricing in a blog post is guessing at your deal before they’ve seen it. Get your rate the right way: tell us about the property and the plan, and we’ll give you real numbers, not a placeholder.

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