Asset-based private lending — no credit check, no tax returns, fast close
“I’m a dinosaur. I’ve been originating commercial and residential mortgages for over thirty years, and I’ll be honest — I’ve cost myself a fortune because of the way I operate. Most loan officers structure commercial loans in two to three year terms. Not because it’s best for you, but because it forces you back to refinance. More transactions, more fees. I always thought that was a little shady. So I put my clients in the right loan the first time. Long-term, fixed-rate, stable. I typically only do one loan per client — because they don’t need to come back. That’s probably exactly why you should call me.”
— Hard Money Lender | 30+ Years Experience
Pure Asset-Based Private Lending
Hard Money of Texas is a direct private lender specializing in asset-based hard money loans. We lend on the property, not the borrower — no credit check, no tax returns, no income verification required. If the deal makes sense, we fund it.
We serve real estate investors, fix-and-flip buyers, builders, and landlords across all of Texas. Fast decisions, fast closings, and a lender who picks up the phone.
✓ No Credit Check
We lend on the asset. Your credit score, tax returns, and income history are not required.
✓ Up to 65% LTV
We lend up to 65% of the as-is or after-repair value. Quick in-house valuations.
✓ Fast Close
We close in days, not weeks. No appraisal delays, no bank committees, no underwriting bottlenecks.
✓ Direct Lender
You deal directly with the decision-maker — no brokers, no middlemen, no runaround.
✓ All Property Types
Fix-and-flip, DSCR rentals, new construction, commercial, land — if it has equity, we can lend.
✓ Texas Statewide
We fund deals in Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth, and every corner of Texas.
Texas real estate operates by different rules than the rest of the country — no state income tax, no deed tax, non-judicial foreclosure, and explosive population growth. Here's what that means for your deals.
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Non-Judicial Foreclosure = Lenders Lend More
Texas allows non-judicial foreclosure — if a borrower defaults, lenders can foreclose without a court proceeding. This dramatically reduces lender risk, which means lenders can offer higher LTVs and move faster. In judicial states (like Florida), lenders are more conservative because foreclosures take 12–18 months in court.
TX foreclosure: 60 days | CA: 12–18 months
🏙️
Population Growth Backstops Values
Texas added 1,000+ residents per day in 2023. Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio are among the fastest-growing metros in the US. This creates a structural floor under real estate prices — more demand means fewer distressed sales and faster absorption. Hard money lenders in Texas feel more comfortable lending on ARV because the market is liquid.
+470,000 new TX residents (2023)
💰
No State Income Tax = More Investors
Texas has zero state income tax, which attracts out-of-state investors who can keep more of their flip profits and rental cash flow. The result: more buyer competition, higher ARVs, and a deeper pool of buyers when you go to sell your renovated property. Your exit is easier in Texas than most states.
0% state income tax — keeps more profit
🔧
Contractor Availability Is Improving
Texas waived licensing requirements for many trades during COVID housing boom, and the workforce expanded significantly. DFW now has the largest construction labor pool in the Southwest. This means shorter contractor wait times and better bid competition vs. 2021–2022 when labor was nearly impossible to find.
DFW: #1 construction job market in SW US
Texas Markets: Where Hard Money Makes Sense Right Now
Energy economy, affordable entry. Best for rental holds — flip market thinner.
📊 Selective
Texas Laws That Protect Hard Money Investors
These are the Texas-specific legal facts that make the state unusually favorable for real estate investors:
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Statute of Limitations on DeficiencyTexas limits lenders' ability to pursue borrowers for deficiency judgments after foreclosure — reduces personal risk on investment properties in cases of default.
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No Transfer Tax / Deed TaxTexas has no deed transfer tax (unlike most states). Closing costs are lower, which improves your net margin on every deal — buy side AND sell side.
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Trustee Sale ProcessForeclosures go through a trustee, not a court. 21-day notice, first Tuesday auction. This predictability lets lenders and borrowers know exactly what happens in a worst case.
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No Usury on Business LoansHard money lenders in Texas can charge market-rate interest on commercial/investor loans without usury restrictions that apply in other states. This is why TX has more hard money lenders than most states.
Ready to Use Texas to Your Advantage?
Get a hard money term sheet in 24 hours. No income docs, no W-2s, no long waits.
Not all fast lending is the same. Here's how your options actually compare when you need to move quickly on a deal.
Factor
Hard Money Hard Money of Texas
Traditional Bank
Private Money Individuals/Funds
Time to Close
5–10 days
45–90 days
7–21 days
Credit Score Required
580+ (flexible)
700+ (strict)
Varies by lender
Tax Returns Required
No
2 years required
Sometimes
Based On
Property value
Borrower financials
Relationship
Rate
Quoted on your deal
7%–9%
8%–15%
Loan Term
12–24 months
15–30 years
6–24 months
Max LTV
Up to 70%
Up to 80%
50%–65%
Reliability / Certainty
Very high
Low (often falls through)
Medium
Self-Employed OK?
Yes — no docs needed
Difficult
Sometimes
Distressed Property OK?
Yes
No
Sometimes
Hard money is best when speed, flexibility, or property condition rules out a bank. After rehab or stabilization, you refinance into a long-term loan at a lower rate. That's the standard Texas investor playbook.
Ten Questions to Ask a Hard Money Lender Before You Sign
Every one of these has a right answer, and a lender who dodges any
of them is telling you something. Ask them in this order — the first two eliminate
most of the problems in this industry.
Are you the lender, or are you brokering my loan?
Both are legitimate, but they behave differently when a condition needs to change three days before closing. A direct lender can decide; a broker has to go and ask, and you will not be in the room. Ask plainly, and ask whose money funds the wire.
What do I pay before I have terms in writing?
The correct answer is nothing. Application fees, "processing" fees, commitment fees and due-diligence retainers collected up front are the single most common pattern in advance-fee lending fraud. Appraisal and title are real third-party costs — they should be payable to the third party, not to the lender.
Who makes the credit decision, and have they read my file?
Ask for a name and a role. If the person you are talking to cannot tell you who decides, your file has not been underwritten yet — you are still talking to sales.
What is the all-in cost, not the rate?
Points, origination, document, processing, inspection and draw fees, plus any exit or prepayment charge. A 10% loan with four points and a six-month minimum interest clause can cost more than a 12% loan without them. Get the total in dollars for your actual term.
How do draws work, and how fast are they?
On a rehab or construction loan this matters more than the rate. Ask who inspects, how they are scheduled, how many days from request to wire, and whether you fund the first stage yourself. A lender with slow draws will stall your contractor.
What is the actual term, and what happens if I need longer?
Rehabs run late. Ask the extension terms and cost before you sign, not in month eleven. A written extension option is worth real money.
Is there a prepayment penalty or minimum interest period?
If you plan to sell in four months, a six-month minimum interest clause quietly adds two months of payments to your cost. This is the most commonly missed term in hard money.
Have you funded a deal like mine, in this market, recently?
Not total volume. A lender with a large multifamily book and no experience with rural land or a strip centre is the wrong lender for yours, however impressive the numbers sound.
Can I speak to a borrower you funded this year?
A real lender can produce one. Ask about surprises at closing and how draws went — not whether they were happy.
What kills this loan?
The best question on the list. A lender who has read your file can name two or three real risks in a sentence each. Vague reassurance means nobody has looked yet.
Our answers, in one paragraph
We are a direct Texas hard money lender. There are no upfront fees
— nothing is payable to us before you hold written terms, and appraisal and title
are paid to those vendors. The person who reads your file can approve it. Minimum
loan is $100,000. Terms, points, draw process and any minimum interest period are
stated in writing before you sign anything, and we will tell you on the first call
if your deal does not work here.
A condo conversion takes an existing building — most often an apartment complex, sometimes an older hotel
or a half-vacant office building — and repositions it into individually titled condominium units sold to
separate owners. It's a fundamentally different play than new construction: the shell already exists, the
value-add is in unit-level renovation, mechanical separation, and the legal work of creating a
condominium regime, and the exit is a string of individual retail sales rather than a single
stabilized-asset refinance or bulk sale.
Why Banks Pass on This Deal Type
Banks like collateral they can categorize cleanly: an apartment loan, an office loan, a construction loan.
A conversion in progress is none of those — it's a multifamily or commercial asset mid-transition to a
for-sale product, with an uncertain absorption schedule and a blanket lien that has to release units one
at a time as they close. That "moving target" collateral profile, combined with a business plan that
depends on retail sale velocity rather than lease-up, is exactly the kind of deal conventional CRE
underwriting is built to decline rather than price.
The Texas Legal Mechanics
Converting a building to condominium ownership in Texas means recording a condominium declaration under
the Texas Uniform Condominium Act, platting the individual unit interests and common-element percentages,
and forming the homeowners' association that will govern the property going forward — all before the
first unit can close to an individual buyer. None of that paperwork moves quickly, and a lender unwilling
to fund past the point where a clean, bank-financeable single asset exists is a lender who can't carry a
conversion project through its most legally complex phase.
What the Bridge Actually Funds
Beyond acquisition of the underlying building, conversion capital typically covers unit-level renovation
(finishes, appliances, in some cases separating shared mechanical systems so each unit can be individually
metered for utilities — a common requirement before individual units can be sold and financed
separately), common-area and amenity upgrades that support a higher per-unit sale price, and carrying
costs during the legal conversion process itself. Draw-based hard money structures this the same way we
structure any value-add renovation loan — funds released against completed, inspected work — while
building in the release-price mechanics a conversion actually needs: as each unit sells, a
pre-negotiated release amount pays down the blanket loan rather than requiring the entire balance to be
retired before any capital comes back to the sponsor.
Office-to-Condo: A Growing Variant
Underused office buildings converting to for-sale residential condos has become a more common conversation
in Texas metros with soft office occupancy, alongside the more traditional apartment-to-condo play. The
underwriting logic is the same — real estate collateral, a value-add buildout, and a retail-sale exit —
but office-to-residential conversions carry their own added complexity around plumbing/riser
relocation, egress and window requirements for habitable space, and floorplate depth, all of which needs
an experienced sponsor and a lender comfortable underwriting an unconventional collateral transition.
Exit Strategy
The exit on a condo conversion isn't a single refinance event — it's a sequence of individual unit sales,
each one closing with its own buyer and, typically, its own conventional mortgage. The hard money bridge's
job is to carry the sponsor from acquisition of the whole building through legal conversion and
renovation to the point where individual units are ready to list and close, releasing loan balance unit
by unit along the way rather than waiting for one final payoff.
Restaurant & Food Service Real Estate Hard Money Loans in Texas
Restaurant real estate is one of the hardest property types to finance through a bank — not because the building
is a bad asset, but because banks underwrite the business sitting inside it. Restaurant failure-rate
statistics scare conventional lenders off even strong locations, and any hint of a startup concept, a first-time
operator, or a change of use gets a fast decline. Hard money solves this because we lend against the real
property — the building, the land, the improvements — not the P&L of the restaurant operating inside it.
What We're Actually Financing
A hard money loan on a restaurant property is a real estate loan, full stop. We're not underwriting the
liquor license, the point-of-sale numbers, or the franchise agreement — those stay with the operator and any
business-side lender they use. What we lend against is the acquisition price or appraised value of a
freestanding restaurant building, a retail or strip-center bay being converted to food service, or an
existing restaurant shell being repositioned for a new concept. That distinction is what lets us close in
days instead of the 60-90 days a bank spends trying to underwrite a restaurant's future revenue.
The Buildout Problem Banks Won't Touch
Converting a vanilla retail box into a working kitchen means grease trap installation, Type I hood and
exhaust systems, upgraded electrical service for cooking equipment, ADA-compliant restroom counts, and a
walk-in cooler pad — all of it inspected and signed off before a Certificate of Occupancy is issued for food
service use. Every one of those line items is a real cost against the real property, and every one of them
has to clear a local health department and building inspection before doors open. Draw-based hard money
financing is built for exactly this kind of sequenced, inspection-gated construction — funds release as
each phase passes inspection, so the lender's exposure tracks completed, verified work rather than a
projection of future restaurant sales.
Texas-Specific Timeline Risk
Texas restaurant projects carry two permitting tracks that rarely move on the same calendar: the local
health department's food-service permit and, for anywhere alcohol will be served, TABC licensing. TABC
applications routinely take weeks to months depending on the county and whether the location requires
posted notice or has any protest window. A conventional construction loan with a hard maturity and no
tolerance for permitting delay can put a deal in default before the doors even open. Hard money bridge
terms are structured with that reality in mind — short initial terms with extension options tied to
milestones, not a fixed close-of-escrow assumption that ignores how long TABC and local health inspections
actually take.
Exit Strategy
Once a restaurant location has occupancy, a functioning kitchen, and — ideally — a few months of lease or
operating history, it becomes a much more financeable asset to a conventional CRE lender or an SBA 504/7(a)
lender if the borrower also owns the operating business. The hard money bridge exists specifically to get a
property from "vacant shell with permitting risk" to "stabilized, occupied restaurant real estate" —
the point at which long-term, lower-cost capital actually wants the deal.
Veterinary Clinic & Animal Hospital Hard Money Financing
Veterinary real estate has become one of the more active corners of commercial acquisition in Texas over
the last several years, driven by both independent practitioners buying their own building and the
national wave of private-equity veterinary roll-ups acquiring standalone hospitals and consolidating them
under regional platforms. Both buyer types run into the same wall with conventional bank financing:
closing timelines that don't match a competitive acquisition, and appraisal/underwriting processes that
don't know what to do with a building full of surgical suites, imaging rooms, and boarding kennels.
Specialized Buildout, Real Collateral
An animal hospital is not a generic medical office. Surgical suites need dedicated ventilation and
scrub-sink plumbing; digital radiography and ultrasound rooms often need shielding and electrical upgrades
beyond standard office wiring; boarding and recovery kennel runs need washable flooring, drainage, and
sound-dampening construction to satisfy both code and neighboring-tenant noise complaints; and many
clinics need a fenced outdoor relief yard. All of that is real, appraisable improvement value — exactly the
kind of asset-based collateral hard money is built to lend against, regardless of whether a bank's
standard medical-office comp set knows how to price it.
The Zoning & CUP Timeline Problem
Because of the noise, odor, and outdoor-animal-area considerations, a meaningful number of Texas
municipalities classify animal hospitals and boarding kennels as a conditional use rather than a
by-right use in standard commercial and retail zoning districts — meaning a hearing, posted notice, and
planning-commission approval before a Certificate of Occupancy can even be pursued. That process can run
months longer than a typical retail or office build-out approval, and it's exactly the kind of open-ended
timeline a bank construction loan with a fixed draw schedule and hard maturity date is not built to
absorb. A hard money bridge, sized and structured around the real estate rather than a projected practice
revenue ramp, can carry a deal through CUP approval and buildout without forcing a refinance race against
an arbitrary calendar.
Acquisition-Plus-Real-Estate Scenarios
A common structure we see: a veterinarian (or a consolidator) is acquiring both the practice and the real
estate it sits in at the same time, on a compressed seller timeline. Practice-acquisition lenders and
banks move at very different speeds and rarely close simultaneously without friction. Financing the real
estate piece separately through a hard money bridge lets the real property close on the seller's schedule
while the practice-side financing (SBA, a specialty veterinary lender, or a PE platform's own capital)
catches up behind it — then refinances the real estate into permanent debt once both pieces are stabilized
under common ownership.
Exit Strategy
Stabilized veterinary real estate with an operating, licensed practice inside it is a well-understood asset
class to SBA 504/7(a) lenders and to conventional medical-office CRE lenders — both routinely finance
owner-occupied and investor-owned veterinary buildings once the CUP/zoning question is resolved and the
clinic has occupancy. The hard money bridge's job is simply to get the property from raw acquisition or
mid-buildout to that stabilized, licensed, occupied point.