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You’re not alone. Nearly one year ago, lenders across the United States froze their fix-and-flip lending programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, the market is strong and a resurgence of programs abounds—with one pesky problem: they’re nearly all the same.

Correctly calculating ARV (After Repair Value) is no cakewalk. The market changes daily – by city, neighborhood, and street. To be a great ARV calculator, you must be equal parts historian, detective, and fortune teller. Perhaps Zen master, too, because the stakes are high: calculating ARV incorrectly can literally cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Panic is the enemy to your investment strategy. Choosing the right hard money lender might just be the antidote.

As a relationship-oriented private lender, Residential Capital Partners takes pride in who we hire. Our criteria are simple, yet stringent: personal experience in real estate investing and a proven track record of treating investors like partners — as opposed to a transaction. Which is why we’re especially excited to welcome Rodney Young, a former HomeVestors loan development manager — and very familiar face — to our team.

The coronavirus outbreak— and the subsequent turbulence of the stock market—has revealed stark differences between private lenders’ customer service models:

1. There are hard money lenders that rely on Wall Street to buy loans they have placed on a warehouse line. They treat loans as transactions.
2. And, there are lenders that have used their own balance sheet to fund loans. They treat loans as relationships.

Coronavirus has spread across the globe in rapid time, disrupting nearly every industry in its wake. House flipping is no exception. Real estate investors are now forced to navigate new challenges to secure funding. Banks are preoccupied and most hard money or private lenders are either sidelined, denying loans or raising interest rates and cash reserve requirements. The clock is ticking—what do you do?