Your nine-month flip is now in month ten. The note is due, the house still hasn't sold, and you're sitting across the table asking your lender for more time — out of runway, with no leverage, at the exact moment the lender has all of it. That conversation is one most operators have at least once. It doesn't have to go that way, and on our loans it can't.
Every loan we write at Harvey Capital Funding comes with two 90-day extensions already built into the note. That's 180 additional days of runway, and the cost is set on day one: 2 points — 2% of the loan amount — for each extension, in writing, in the documents you sign at closing. It isn't a favor you call and ask for at maturity. It isn't a renegotiation. It's a right you already hold.
What "built into the note" actually means
When you sign a loan with us, the extension terms are already in the paperwork. The note states that you have the option to extend the maturity twice, 90 days each time, and it states the price: 2 points per extension. Nothing about that gets decided later. Nothing about it depends on the market, your remaining balance, or how the lender is feeling about your deal that week.
So if a common 9-month note runs out and you need more time, you exercise an option you already hold at a price you already know. You're not negotiating from a corner. You're using a term you agreed to on the front end, at a number you knew before you funded.
The reason we structure it that way is simple: the time you might need shouldn't become leverage someone uses against you. Pricing the extension up front takes it off the table as a pressure point. (Points, if it's a new term to you: a point is 1% of the loan amount, paid as a fee.)
Why this changes how you underwrite the deal
Here's the part that matters most to the way you actually run a project. Because the cost of more time is known before you ever need it, you can price it into the deal from the start.
Run the math on a $200,000 loan. A single 90-day extension is 2 points — $4,000. The second one, if you ever use it, is another $4,000. Those are knowable numbers you can drop into your spreadsheet the day you're deciding whether to buy. On a larger loan the dollar figure scales — it's always 2% of your loan amount, so a $400,000 loan runs $8,000 per extension — but you run it the same way before you commit. You're not guessing at what a maturity-date renegotiation might cost you. You're underwriting a fixed, disclosed figure.
That turns a timing overrun from a crisis into a line item. Three situations come up over and over:
- A rehab hits a permit delay and the whole schedule slides four to six weeks.
- The house is done and listed, but the sale takes an extra 60 days to get to the closing table.
- You planned to refinance into a rental loan, and the refi slips a month behind the appraisal and underwriting.
None of those are failures. They're the normal friction of doing real projects in the real world. With the extension already priced and already yours, each one is a planned contingency — you exercise the time you bought and keep working. The deal doesn't blow up because a calendar date arrived a few weeks early.
The trap this is built to keep you out of
There's a version of this business that runs the other way, and a lot of operators have lived it.
A lender writes a short note, watches the maturity date come, and waits. They know the house isn't sold yet. They know you can't pay the loan off on the dot, and they know you can't walk away — your money is in the deal, the property is the collateral, and you're not handing it back over a timing issue. That's the moment some lenders choose to renegotiate from strength.
The terms that show up at that point tend to look the same: fresh points to grant the extension, a higher rate going forward, and a default-interest clock that starts ticking the day the note matures. None of it was disclosed up front, because the leverage only exists if you don't know the cost until you've already run out of time. The lender isn't pricing risk at that point. They're pricing your lack of options.
We don't run it that way on purpose. The extension is priced on day one specifically so the time you might need never becomes a tool used against you at the worst possible moment. You should know the cost of more time before you need it — not the day you run out of it.
What you should be able to see on day one
When you're comparing lenders, the extension policy belongs in the conversation right alongside points, term, and loan amount. The questions are plain:
- Are extensions written into the note, or handled "case by case" at maturity?
- What does each extension cost, in points, and is that number in the documents I'm signing today?
- How many extensions, and how long is each one?
A lender who has priced this up front will answer all three without hesitating, because the answers are already in your paperwork. Ours are: two 90-day extensions, 2 points each, 180 days of total runway, written into the note you sign at closing. You'll know every one of those numbers before you fund — which is the whole point.
Bring us the deal
If you're buying, renovating, and selling or refinancing investment property in Virginia and you want terms where the cost of more time is on the table from day one, let's talk it through. Tell us about your deal on Discuss My Deal and we'll get back to you with the numbers on your specific project.
This article is for informational purposes only and is not legal or financial advice. Harvey Capital Funding lends on Virginia investment property.