What Are Trust Deeds?

The finding and use of hard money financing may or may not be known or seen as a viable alternative to the average real estate investor, but it is a legitimate funding source that is eschewed by traditional lending sources because it cuts into their own profits. In fact, “hard money” is used all over the country to get deals done that would otherwise never be consummated. Here are three tips to get the most out of this resource:

There are as many investment needs out there as there are investors. Each person has his own financial goals and his own risk tolerance. In many cases, traditional lending institutions do not recognize these needs and try to cram an investor into one of their prepackaged deals or worse yet, will not even consider lending funds on a particular project. When this happens, the experienced investor looks to other sources of capital – typically “hard money.” Here's why:

Typically, traditional lending institutions are not really interested in any real estate deals other than those involving buyers who wish to buy and reside in a single family home. While they will offer excellent terms to these potential buyers because of FHA guarantees, investors looking for money to buy fix and flip, buy and hold, or 2-4 SFR Multifamily properties, face a far more daunting task when it comes to finding investment capital.

While hard money financing may seem like a daunting task to the uninitiated, it actually has quite a bit in common with more standard real estate deals that involve a mortgage and traditional lending institutions. Here are the three main steps to financing with hard money:

Hard money and private money are frequently used interchangeably as a way to refer to alternate financing for real estate purchases. However, they aren't always the same. Some private money gets made on loans that look and act like traditional financing, while a hard money definition should include non-private funds.

The ascendance of the Internet as the preferred mode of communicating and obtaining information has made the mobile infrastructure a must-have for anyone involved in the real estate industry. I must give full disclosure that I’m an Apple user so this list is skewed towards my personal favorites, but Android users out there may benefit as well. With that in mind, here are seven real estate investment Apps that you should use at bare minimum: