Flip Houses Like a Girl

How Hard Money Lenders Help First-Time Flippers Win

• The FlipSisters

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What if the fastest path to your next profitable flip isn’t a bank at all—but an asset-based loan that closes in days, not weeks? We sit down with Susie from Rehab Wallet to demystify hard money lending for fix-and-flip investors and show why speed, structure, and clear math can beat sticker-rate anxiety. From no-credit underwriting to next-day draws, we walk through a funding model built by investors who understand real timelines, real budgets, and real-world hiccups.

We start by separating myths from mechanics: how hard money compares to banks and private lenders, why higher annual rates can still be smarter on a six-month timeline, and how no prepayment penalties plus quick closings can translate to better offers and bigger spreads. Then we dig into the numbers that matter—ARV built on true comps, the 65/70% rules that anchor your max offer, and the down payment and LTV ranges that keep risk in check. Susie shares candid examples of deals saved by accurate comps—and deals stopped when “wishful ARVs” didn’t hold up.

Execution is where profit lives. You’ll hear how to line up a general contractor before you write offers, build a scoped budget that won’t blow up mid-project, and use a photo-based draw app to pay crews the next business day so you don’t lose labor to other jobs. New investors learn how to present a fundable deal—team, comps, scope, and exit plan—and what it takes to “graduate” into better terms and multiple concurrent projects. We also cover practical negotiation leverage with 7–10 business day closings and why having a reliable hard money partner can win you deals when private money falls through.

If you’re ready to move from curious to confident—running the math, writing tighter offers, and closing faster—this conversation gives you a clear playbook and a lender’s-eye view. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s ready to flip, and leave a review to tell us what deal analysis topic you want next.

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The Flipsisters
Leaving people and places better than we find them.

SPEAKER_00:

You're listening to the Flip Houses Like the Girl podcast, where we educate, empower, and celebrate everyday women who are facing their fears, doubling family and business, embracing their audience, and wholeheartedly facing their dream of flipping houses. Each episode delivers honest and goodness tools, tips, and strategies you can implement today to get closer to your first or next successful house flip.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome back to Flip Houses Like a Girl podcast. This is the show where we highlight real stories of everyday women who are learning to flip houses and create freedom for themselves and their families. I'm Blair, one of the coaches here with the Flip Sisters. I've been flipping houses for six years and have done 30 flips. Today we're excited to introduce you to Susie. Susie is the sales manager with my favorite hard money lender, Rehab Wallet. Rehab Wallet is a hard money lender based in Charleston, South Carolina. They are my personal favorite hard money lender because they are so easy to work with. The company was founded by a real estate investor who kind of just got tired of all the extra unnecessary paperwork and hoops that other hard money lenders made investors go through. Oh, and don't let me forget to mention the founder Kelly Garrett is a badass lady. And the current team is primarily almost all women, and all of them are 100% badass. So let's go ahead and dive in. I know a lot of you listening would love to know how are the ladies on your podcast and your program funding these flips? I know I personally had no money or credit when I started. So I know it was one of the biggest hurdles for me to get over mentally when I started to flip houses. Learning about hard money lenders or HMLs for short will hopefully get you to see there are lenders out there that want to lend you money and work with you. So, Susie, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited that you're here and can't wait to dive in and ask you some of our listeners' burning questions.

SPEAKER_02:

Awesome. Thank you so much, Blair, for having me. I am delighted and really honored to just be here and be able to share some of the tips and tricks that I've learned over the years. A lot of people are not familiar with hard money lender, so would love to just share a little bit of what we do and how we do it.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. Well, thank you again so much for being here. Um, so first let's do a little bit of education, right? Like we hear the term hard money loans, hard money lending, HMLs. But like for someone who's brand new to real estate investing, how would you explain what a hard money lender is and how that's different from, say, like going to my local bank and getting a loan for a home?

SPEAKER_02:

Great question. I get this a lot. Regardless of how experienced sometimes a borrower is or an investor is, whether they've done some deals and pay for it cash and now they're looking to scale or someone brand new looking to get started. They sometimes have had zero experience with a hard money lender. So I love sharing what we do and how we compare. So most people have heard what a traditional lender is, your Bank of America, your Wells Fargo, your local banks. They are probably going to be your lower interest rates, 30 to 45-day closings, a lot of paperwork. And I mean a lot of paperwork. And again, I can't stress enough, a lot of paperwork. Typically, minimum credit score, that will determine your rates, or in some cases, an immediate denial based on just you don't meet the minimum credit requirement. Some people might have heard what a private lender is, and they're a little bit different, uh, less time on closing, sometimes 14 to 21 days, a little bit less paperwork than your traditional, you know, Bank of America, uh Wells Fargo guys most of the time do require a minimum credit score. But one of the things we have found with a lot of private lenders or private money lenders is they run out of funds. So someone either looking to do their first deal or you know what, I have three or four I need money for. We kind of call those guys, you know, they left me stranded at the altar. So I went, you know, I'm ready. I've got the address and the ring. And I I, anyways, they they do sometimes run out of funds. So a hard money lender for us, we don't pull credit. There's no income, no asset verification. And I get a lot of times people asking, Susie, do you really not pull credit? Or do you do a soft pull instead of a hard pull? No, we really don't even have the system capacity to be able to pull credit. Beginning, middle, or end, we will not ask you for your social security number. Uh, we don't even lend to individuals, we lend to entities. So, no, we do not pull credit. Very little paperwork for a hard money lender, especially us. So we don't pull your bank statements, we don't require your W-2s. Sometimes I'll get clients that send me a whole file and they're like, I just had this prepared for the last lender. So I'll just send you that. And I'm like, oh gosh, please don't. Um I don't want all of that. So we're a lot easier to work with. We don't run out of funds. We have we have plenty of money to go around, but you know, and I like to be honest on the difference between your traditional, your private, and your hard money. Traditionals, you're gonna pay a little bit less interest rates, right? Even though right now less is still a lot. Um, hard money, you're gonna pay a little bit higher interest rates. So it depends on what you are looking for. So I often talk to a lot of our clients and say whether you have excellent credit and you don't want people pulling it because you're gonna close on five, six deals a year and you don't want someone pulling it that often. Or you're working on rebuilding your credit and you're just right about that 670, 675 to become really attractive and you don't need anybody pulling it. Either way, like I said, we don't have a way to pull those credits. So that's the main difference between working with a hard money lender is just the ease of being able to close and we work with investors. That's what we do. We don't lend to individuals. So we're looking to help those interested in ideally fix and flip loans.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that's one of the things that like I personally love about working with you guys is that you do understand, like from the other side of the table, you understand what it's like to be an investor. Most entrepreneurs, we hate paperwork. Like if you hand me a whole stack of paper and you want me to fill it out, I'm probably like not gonna do it or I'm gonna wait till the last minute because I have to. So I love that your loan process is so easy. I literally, for those of you who are looking into it, I go online, I fill out a form, and they get back to me. It's it's very minimal information. And also the no credit thing is huge. I think a lot of people get stuck in that like people's credit scores equates to like their, I don't know, worthiness or something. And I took people it's 2025 and like COVID happened and things happen, and you may have something like I went through a divorce, which is why my credit got like crashed because my ex-husband just thought you could spend money, you know. And I was like, well, we got bills, but you know, like hold on a second. So I had to rebuild mine. It didn't make me a bad investor, it didn't make me a bad borrower. And so I love that you guys are asset-based and that you're looking at like the project itself, because uh that's just to me, is puts you heads above a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02:

Um yeah, and you mentioned Kelly Garrett as our you know main founder and and managing partner. Um, she fix and flip homes for 18 years in Charleston. And um, she took all that red tape that a lot of her lenders would use on her and said, man, this is just a lot of work. Um, so and that's how she built uh really wallet. And most of us, you'll find our investors ourselves, whether we buy and hold or we fix and flip ourselves. So I think it helps that you have a team that Kelly has handpicked and built around her that we all can see and can help and can guide an investor within their journey. We have 85% return investor rate for a reason. People like us. You know, we care about the relationship. It's not a transaction to us. It's really we want them to be successful. We don't want the property back. So if a hard money lender or if rehab wallet tells you no, don't do that deal, you probably shouldn't do that deal. And we'll explain why. We'll explain, you know, so and we'll we'll dig deep a little bit into those things.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And that's I tell people that's so awesome too to have like that extra set of eyes. It's not that you're trying to like kill the deal, so to speak. It's you're just making sure it's solvent. And for me, especially like, you know, when you're a first-time flipper, or like maybe you've done one, and honestly, there's a lot of people out there who just who've done one or two and got lucky, and now we're like, okay, now we're trying it, it's helpful. So you mentioned something earlier. I know it's a hot topic around the water cooler, is interest rates. But there's so much more to a loan structure than interest rates. Can you kind of talk us through a little bit about like loan structure and terms as far as a hard money loan goes for an investment property?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, absolutely. And I think it's important for you know the audience to understand don't get stuck on that interest rate, right? First of all, it's annualized. So if it is a, you know, for us at Rehab Wallet, a standard rate, because we don't collect anything, in fact, don't give us anything, you know, it's a little high. But you're gonna take that amount, you're gonna multiply it by that interest rate and divide it by 12. And that's what your monthly interest payment will be every single month. People look at a hard money interest rate at 1375. It's for us a standard six-month loan, and they're like, oh my gosh, it's so high. You know, your traditional banks are at six or seven percent, you're paying twice as much. Yeah, but the duration of the loan's only gonna be six months. And, you know, if let's assume you close today, you're gonna skip the first month and then you're gonna pay the second month. So we've had success where some borrowers exit us way before the term of the loan. There's no prepaid penalties, you can exit at any time. And I think sometimes that just creates a little of anxiety or maybe some confusion where people are like, you know, I just don't want a loan for years at a 13475. And we have to say we don't either. We're gonna break up at six months. Where the loan value, but it's not long term. Yeah. Yeah, this is not a long-term goal. This is, you know, our goal is to help you find a great deal that makes sense that you're gonna purchase the property, it's gonna be on sale and not for sale. You're gonna make some money at the beginning, and then you're gonna exit us. And if your goal is to flip it and take the profit and use the capital for another investment or keep it as a long-term rental, that's that's up to you. But we're we're done after six or nine months. We're we helped you do it. We helped you rehab it now, it becomes a very attractive property to either sell or refinance that with a long-term lender.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice. And I loved your explanation of it being annualized because I think that's a key part that most people miss. And plus, I like to remind borrowers too like you have to pay something, right? Like someone is offering you a large sum of money for you then to turn around and use it, and then you make a large sum of money to take home. So it's to me, it's more than fair to pay an interest rate so that I can then turn around and make a large sum of money. Like it's a total win-win for me. And especially when you guys broke it down and explained it, it's annualized. And then you kind of realized, oh, cool. So, like, you know, if it's 12 months annualized, but I only have the house for three to six months, I'm really only paying half of that. So I'm kind of right there where the bank was anyway. And I had all these pluses. One of those major pluses is the speed and flexibility. I'm gonna kind of like ask this question, but also give a scenario because you kind of mentioned it earlier and you guys were awesome and helped me out in a situation. I had a private money lender who drew out the morning of clothes. Uh, they decided that they were just not comfortable with the situation. You know, they may not have actually had all the funds. I don't know. But all I know is I was, you know, on my way to the closing table and I didn't have the money for the close. So I reached out to Rehab Wallet and you guys actually, I think, turned it around in like 24, 48 hours. Like it was so fast. And so knowing that I have that ability, especially when I go to even to make offers, like I'll always kind of make a buffer because again, pay like I have to do things, right? But you guys are and hard money lenders in general are usually have like speed and flexibility. To me, that's one of the big draws. So, like, you know, obviously there's one-off situations and you guys were super helpful with that. But like, what would be like a standard expectation of like a hard money lender? Like, how long if I go make an offer tomorrow, like how long? And I wanted to use a hard money lender, like how long should I put up my contract? Seven to ten days, business days is very realistic for us.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Now that's on your goal. Yeah, we have all your LSC documents, we've got your ID, we've got, you know, the few paperwork that we require, we can typically close within five days. I'll tell you what slows us down is not our end, our team, or what we have to do. It's sometimes the closing firm or the insurance agent can't quite get us the quote on time. And we need those things to close. So it's interesting when a borrower applies today, they automatically get an email that from Rehab Wallet that says, Have you talked to your closing firm? Have you found an insurance agent? Because if you want to close quicker, we can too. What those are the things that sometimes stop us. So, yeah, uh a brand new borrower for us, seven to ten business days. It also helps them negotiate in some cases a lower price on that purchase price because we can close super quick, but we have. It's interesting you mentioned your loan, but we've closed a loan in as little as eight hours. Um, again, title was ready, right? Insurance was ready, somebody else broke up with them. We won't mention any but any names, and then we came into the rescue, and yeah, we were able to fund it. So our team is is great. We take a lot of pride in that. Um, we want our borrowers to be able to close, and we understand that saves them time and money. Um, you don't want to start, you don't want to lose the deal, then you lose your escrow. We don't want you to, you know, potentially have an amendment uh to the contract and then you know have a new closing date and then the sellers requesting more money down, you know, whatever the case is. So, yes, uh speed and flexibility is really critical and important to us. When someone fills out an application, our sales team and and our loan originators, um, within 24 hours, we're going to email you. Whether we have questions about the deal, we want to better understand what you're trying to do and what you need and how do we best structure it so that it meets your needs. Or, you know, here's your term sheet. Let's go. Let's get it going.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And that's, I think that's important because I tell people all the time like there's more to an offer than just the price. And sometimes the speed is what will set you apart. You know, I always ask sellers like what works best for them, and I try to accommodate their timeline. And honestly, some of it is like I've had sellers that have approached me and it's, you know, somebody's left them at the altar, so to speak, at the closing table. And, you know, so we do have things like title, and it's easy for me to get the insurance for my agent. And so then I can confidently say, well, you know, hey, let me, the deal makes sense. Let me call this lender. And then you guys come back and you're like, yeah, okay, well, you know, two days, and then I can tell the seller, like, hey, super quick here. And they may be looking at two different people's offers because, you know, we know there's multiple investors out there and multiple people making offers. And it really helps set your offer ahead of everyone when you're you have that speed ability. Then maybe someone who's going through a traditional bank loan and they're like, okay, we're going to start over at like day 30. And that person, you know, in the back of their head, they're going, Oh my God, I got to pay the lights for another 30 days. I got to pay, you know, the insurance, the taxes. And maybe they don't have the money. A lot of times, you know, I deal with people that have inherited properties. So are that they're foreclosing. There is, there is a timeline and being able to be that solution backed by, you know, an HML and like rehab wallet. It just helps. It makes a win-win for everybody.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And I'll tell you, we've also told borrowers from the beginning or the get-go, like, that is not a great offer. Um, I know that the seller's agent is telling you it is the deal of the year, but you're overpaying for that property. Yeah. Um, so we'll dig a little bit deep on some of the most common missed things that we are learning because unfortunately, there's just sometimes not a lot of great agents out there. And that could really set apart, especially a brand new fix and flipper to making money on their first deal, or it being a really learning opportunity.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, I do see that a lot. I know a lot of people that listen in know I'm an agent as well as an investor. Um, and that is something I see commonly. As people like agents will advertise something as a great investment opportunity, or I'll have another investor call me, or someone from our program will be like, hey, this agent said this was awesome. I'm not taking anything away from agents. Uh, there are wonderful agents out there who are really fantastic at like your traditional, traditional bank mortgage, traditional like transaction. Um, but maybe they don't have the education on what goes into the back end as far as the financing goes and the holding costs and everything and true construction costs. So it's again, it's super awesome for borrowers that they have your extra set of eyes and super expertise to kind of help them because I unfortunately I do see that a lot where people have been led to believe that something is a great investment. They purchase it and then when they go to sell it, it's, you know, they find out it wasn't.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we, you know, we we love guiding and supporting. Um, we'll we'd love to fund it, but we want to make sure at the end of the day that borrower is gonna walk away with a great deal.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of that, like from your perspective as a lender, like when you're looking at deals and evaluating them, what helps you guys make that decision? Like, do we fund this or do we not fund this?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So I think it's important to look at your neighborhood, right? What's your next door neighbor? What's the property across the street look like? I think a lot of times we'll get, we call it wishful ARVs, which stands for after repair value. Like you really prayed hard that the after repair value comes at this market. We just had a deal that did not close because you know, the ARV the borrower gave us was significantly higher than what our agent came in. And when we asked of further details of how did you analyze that ARV, they said, well, you know, they gave us an address. Well, let's look at that address that you based it on. Well, that's a four-bedroom, three-bath, 2,200 square foot home. And you're buying a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1200 square foot from. Like that's not comparing it apples to apples. So, well, we don't have in-house agents. We do hire someone, it's a third party. You know, we do look at properties to we want to make sure that aligns, right? We also don't fund in most cases 100%. So there is some skin in the game uh from the borrowers. If you're a first-time fix and flipper, we want you to bring 20% down of that purchase price to the loan. If you're inexperienced, meaning you've done at least two deals in the last two to three years, we want you to bring 10% in as a down payment for just the purchase price. We'll still fund 100% for first-time fix and flippers. We will only lend up to 65% of that loan to value. If you're inexperienced, we'll go a little bit higher, 70%. So sometimes a lot of borrowers just don't know how to calculate that math, right? So I love teaching it. I love 100% teaching it. Let's take that ARV that someone gave you, whether it's an agent if you're working with an agent, or you came up with that number yourself, you know, multiply it times 0.7 if you're experienced, 0.65 if you're not, minus your rehab cost, whatever numbers left should not exceed what you're offering on the purchase price. And if it's not there, then don't make it be like don't push the deal, right? You can either go back to the seller and try to negotiate that price because you have X amount of work that needs to be done, or there's no comps that really push that ARV to a little bit higher number where you know they're they're wanting to sell that property for a higher value, that it's just not there. So I love teaching the math aspect of it so that people truly understand how to calculate because it does help. Another advice that I often try to hear and listen to when I talk to borrowers is do you already have someone that's going to be doing the work for you? If you're not a general contractor yourself, if you're not in that industry somehow connected, that's gotta be your first step, right? So you you want your lender, you want to know who's gonna give you the funds, but you also want to know who's gonna do the work for you. And if you're not gonna put your hands and you're gonna dig in and do it yourself, that could also make or break your deal. So we listen for that. We listen, you know, we we ask those questions. Do we require, you know, you to use a general contractor? If it's your first deal, we do. If it's your second or third, we do not, but we still want to know that you have that relationship. We've talked in some cases some some borrowers, and they're like, Well, you know, 17 years ago I used to fix it flip. Well, you know, 17 years later, things have changed a little bit, right? So we want you to have those relationships kind of someone you can pick up the phone. And and realistically, sometimes you break up with them too. Sometimes you have to let go of that general contractor for A, B, or C reason. Well, who's your plan B? Do you have a plan B? Was plan A your only plan? Because that slows down your progress, right? Now you have to go find a general contractor or find some subs to do some of the maybe unfinished work, and that delays the time that you can finish your project, which means it delays the time that you can list the property if your intent is to flip it, which guess what? Now you've you're paying extra holding cost, which means you're paying extra fees to us because we signed a six-month term, but now it's gonna take you nine months. So some of those things I think it's important when someone's interested in going to get started, right? Um, yes, you got to set up your LLC. Yes, you have to have your business account. Yes, you have to find out who's gonna give you the loan, but it's as equally important to find somebody that's gonna do the work.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. And like one of the things that we teach really heavy on is what we call our go criteria. And we teach women how to use data to look at like where is the median price point? What are buyers buying, like configuration-wise, square foot, bedroom, bathroom, so that when we put our houses on the market, like they're a desirable house in a price point that people are purchasing in. And we also talk a lot about comps. We do a lot of education on how to pull proper, like I love that you used apples to apples, because that's kind of our phrase. We're like, listen, they've got to be as close as possible, like square footage, age, bedrooms, bathrooms, finishes, like to what you're gonna put when you put it on the market. So I love that you kind of mentioned that because it'll, you know, hopefully when people hear me say it now, they're gonna be like, it's not just flair.

SPEAKER_02:

No, really. I mean, I don't believe it. We we, you know, we base our lending decision on that asset and on that after repair value. So if that number is way off, two things could happen, and neither you want. One, you need to bring more money to closing because your down payment just doubled in some cases, or two, deals off. So neither one of them are really great. So you want to make sure that after repair value, gosh, if we could do a whole class on after repair value and how to calculate it because it's it's so critical, right? The agents want to sell the property. So, in some cases, they're gonna tell you a lot of things that you just need to check and verify. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you mentioned that you kind of are willing to help with the math portion. Math has never been my strong point at all. And I I kind of understood when I first started, but like when you start throwing in like loan to value, and then you're adding an ARV and like loan to ARV, and I was like, oh my gosh, like swimmy head. I was not lucky enough. I don't know that you guys were around when I did my first flip. And I actually had a terrible experience at close. I ended up needing a lot more money than they had originally told me. And because it was a commercial loan product, like they didn't have to give me the CD three days or closing disclosure with all the information on it. So I was told one thing on a Thursday evening, I showed up Friday clothes, and the attorney was like, oh no, you need like$9,000 more. And I was like, well, but why? Like, but they had not properly talked me through the math. And then once, you know, somebody did, I was like, oh, okay. Now, luckily, I was lucky enough. I had a private lender who helped me fill in the gap there and everything turned out well. But for like a lot of people, that would be a make or break moment. And they would be like out of the deal, you know, especially I love that you guys do it early and up front and are willing to educate because I think that's such an important conversation just so that people understand like, hey, what am I what do I need to come to the table with? Can I come to the table with that? Um, and if I can't, then I need to go renegotiate my deal until it makes sense.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, 100%. And I'll tell you, Rehab Wallet has been around for five and a half years. We haven't always lended to first-time fix and flippers. We just started this program in 2025. And the reason we do it now is because so many of us are investors ourselves. So we understand it. We can hold your hand, we can guide you a little bit more. But I'll tell you, I will have, I don't know, six, seven text conversations per day with first-time fix and flippers that have not yet applied for a loan. They're looking, they're walking properties with their agents, and they'll send me, Susie, here's the address, here's what they're offering, or here's what they want for the property, here's what I want to offer. And I will text them back and tell them here's what your monthly interest payments will look like, here's about what your closing costs will look like. And I will tell them there's no meat in that bone. Like you next. You have seven on the list, that one's not it. So I think sometimes it's okay to ask for help, right? Because you don't want to sign a contract or get under contract or put an offer down, and then that's not a properly a property that we would probably lend to. So I love running numbers, especially for my first time fixing flippers and being able to help them and guide them. You know, there's so many questions and they hear so many different things. And you will sometimes attend a lot of REI meetings or belong to a lot of groups, and sometimes you just I don't know who to listen to. So I love to be able to close some of those gaps and just do the numbers. I I didn't major in math, but I've always been in business in some capacity. So I I numbers I can do it with my eyes closed.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and that's one of the things that we encourage our students to do. And like go talk to the expert. And it's okay to be a first-timer and it's okay to ask questions. Like that is they want to earn your business. And, you know, it needs to be we we always talk about relationships. But like, so let's talk a little bit. I'm so excited that you guys decided to offer a program for first-time flippers. Again, you know, shameless plug here. I just think that you guys are awesome. So to be able to hand off first-time flippers to you for me is just really amazing. Um, but for someone who is coming to you, as I'm, hey, I'm new, I've never flipped a house before, like, how can they present themselves and the deal that they're looking at like in the best light? Like, what would you, what advice would you give to somebody to come across as, you know, somebody that you'd want to continue that conversation with?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. So I'll tell you first what we don't want because of those coming easy, right? So we don't want someone that says, I have a property, I want to buy it. And when I start asking questions like, what are you gonna offer and what is your rehab budget? Then we get a blank stare or a blank response of, I have no idea how much the rehab's going to be, right? So you want to, when you look at a property and you walk it through, you know, get those quotes, have that relationship, understand about how much work needs to be done to that property, because that value will also be added into the loan. So, as important as your after repair value is, we want to know that you understand about what your scope of work would look like. Big difference if you're budgeting$50,000 and then the project ends up being$85,000. Well, once the loan is closed with rehab wallet, we can't give you that difference. Then that will have to either halt your project or you'll have to come up with the money some other creative way. So a lot of times I like to hear from a first Time fix and flipper that they're working with an agent, that they know who the general contractor is going to be, or someone that they're going to partner. Sometimes they can partner with someone that has done a deal, or um, someone that's gonna guide them, right? So, you know, I'm my buddy, he's not gonna be on the deed, he's not gonna be on the loan, but he's done, you know, a handful, or they have this mentorship, and I have someone that I'm working with that can keep a close eye with me and help me understand some of these um potential hiccups and obstacles and risks that will probably happen, most likely, on your first deal because you don't know what you don't know. So a lot of times I just want them to understand one, we are a hard money lender, we can close quickly, but we are relying on you to tell me what you know, meaning that after repair value, we based our loan on that dis on that number, right? We based our decision on the asset itself. So we're gonna look at that property. So know who your neighbors, you know, if there's a property next door to you that's a total dump, that I don't know, just a dump, you know, it's gonna make yours to sell a little bit harder. So knowing that up front is gonna be important. And then again, buying a property that's on sale and not for sale. Don't get excited that, oh my God, I just got a deal and I think it's a great one. Is it really a great one? Or are you just interested because the house came out on the market? Um, don't fall in love with these properties. If your intent is to fix and flip them or rent them, you're not gonna live in it. So don't fall in love. Go find that property and that deal that is truly on sale and not for sale. But again, I can't stress the numbers, right? That 70% rule or 65% rule, do the reverse math and truly understand are you overpaying or underpaying for that property?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's such great advice. And I think you also kind of summarize some pitfalls that you've seen from, you know, new flippers, some season flippers, I'm sure. So speaking of, we've actually kind of done some funny play on words here a lot with like marriage and wedding dress and the ring, and I love it. Um, because I do tell people like this is a relationship business, and you want to build a relationship with the lender that does start from that first phone call. So thank you for sharing, you know, how people who are reaching out to you for the first time as a first-time flipper, you know, can open the door to that relationship. So let's say, like, okay, I did my first, my first flip and I'm looking to move forward and I want to do more. You know, do you have any advice to give investors about building like a long-term relationship with hard money lenders? Um, because like as you've pointed out, and what I love about hard money lenders is y'all don't run out of money. Um when we're when we're talking about scaling or you're doing two or three projects at a time, you know, that's where hard money lenders are just such a great asset to have because of that portion. Yeah. So kind of talk to me a little bit about that. Like, what does it look like when you want to move forward with somebody, or maybe even like what did they do in their loan that makes you not want to move forward with them?

SPEAKER_02:

Sure. Yeah, I think, you know, communication is key from the get-go, right? And it goes with our saying of do what you say you're gonna do and don't just sugarcoat certain things at the beginning, right? If you tell us you're gonna add a bedroom to that house, then add a bedroom to the house. If you say you're going to make your monthly interest payments, then don't be late on your monthly interest payments. If you say you're going to exit the loan in six months, then exit the loan in six months. So a lot of times it's just do what you say that you're gonna do because we do check and balance that at the at on the back end. But you know, for us, someone that does a first-time fix and flip loan with us and they exit that one successfully, they automatically graduate to our better terms. So you no longer have to put 20% down. Now you can only put 10% down, and now you're not limited to one deal with rehab wallet. Now you can do multiple deals at the same time. So that's that's critical for us because we do, you know, you from your draws, um, which I don't know that we talked a lot about the draw process, how we hold that rehab budget as as in our escrow and it's released as draws, right? So we use a third-party app now. You're not waiting on a third-party inspection. A lot of hard money lenders schedule an agent to come in to inspect the work that you did. We don't do that. We understand the value, and Kelly Garrett understands the value and has instilled that in us that the relationship that you start and that you keep with your general contractor or your subs is so important. But the best way they break up with you is you don't pay them. Absolutely. We don't want to hold those funds. So, you know, scheduling an inspection like a lot of hard money lenders do delays you getting that payment. So we don't need, we don't do that. We use a third-party app, you download that app into your phone, you take pictures of what you have completed, you submit that via email, and then boom, next business day, you get your funds deposited into your account. So a lot of times I like to tell my borrowers submit that on a Thursday morning, you will have your funds eight o'clock on Friday morning. And now you can pay your team, you can keep the project going. Because what a lot of contractors do is if you don't pay me today, I'm taking another job on Monday because I need to keep my crew paid, right? So we don't want to damage that relationship. That's critical for us, and we know it's critical for you to, you know, ultimately exit the loan successfully.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, Susie, thank you so much for being here with us today and kind of really introducing our audience to, you know, not only hard money lenders and kind of answering some questions, but also rehab wallet um in yourself because you're wonderful in yourself and you're you're just so great to talk to and you do such a great job of educating. And I think people, I really want to lean on that and let people know how important that is because there are lenders out there who don't care. And they will just take your money and they will see you in 12, six months, nine months. They'll foreclose on your house. They don't care. Like they're like, oh, sorry, that was your bad decision to buy that house. So I love that you guys offer that sort of you know partnership in a way and nurture that relationship moving forward, and everyone's successful and it's just it's a win-win. So I just, it's so cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, we take a lot of pride. We don't unfortunately, more fortunately, lend in all states. Um, we purposely stay pretty local. So we do, you know, handful of states, North, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia. We just added Tennessee and certain areas in Ohio. But yeah, anybody within our team, you can pick up the phone and we will answer. So you don't have to press two to then go to three to then press four to then realize I've lost where the heck I'm supposed to press things. Like one of us will pick up the phone.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, that's so awesome. Well, again, thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Thank you. All right, and thank you so much for joining us today on the Flip House's Like a Girl podcast. I hope you found some inspiration and practical takeaways from Susie's interview. Remember, every successful flip starts with one brave decision to get in the game. And you don't have to do it alone. If you're ready to take the next step forward, flipping your first house, we'd love for you to learn more about the Flip Sisters program. It's the leading coaching program and community designed specifically for women across the country who are ready to flip houses in their local markets. To connect with us, check out the program, or to just get inspired by more stories like this one, visit us at www.theflipsisters.com. And as always, thank you for listening, subscribing, and sharing this podcast with other women who are ready to step into the world of flipping houses. Until next time, keep going, keep growing, and remember, you absolutely can do this.