Most hard money lenders will tell you they look at LTV, ARV, FICO, DSCR, DTI, and a list of other acronyms long enough to fill a glossary. They'll send you a checklist before they'll send you a yes. That's not how we underwrite — and honestly, it's not how good lending should work. Here's what we actually do at Harvey Capital Funding, and why our process gets you to "yes" or "no" faster than anyone else in Central VA.
The Problem With Rule-Based Underwriting
Walk into a bank and ask for a fix-and-flip loan. Within five minutes, somebody is running you through a flowchart. Credit score over 680? Tick. Two years of W-2s? Tick. Six months of reserves? Tick. DTI under 43%? Tick.
If any box doesn't tick, you're done. It doesn't matter that you've flipped 14 houses, that you have $400K of equity in your last project, or that your contractor lives next door to the deal.
Rules are a substitute for judgment. They protect lenders who don't understand their own product. They reject good borrowers and approve bad ones — because real-world risk doesn't fit in a spreadsheet.
We don't run that playbook. Here's the one we do run.
The Seven Things We Actually Care About
Every loan we make has the same seven risks. We've thought hard about each one, and we've boiled each down to a single question with a clear answer. That's it. No flowcharts, no scorecards.
1. Can the borrower actually pay?
We're not asking for two years of tax returns. We're asking two real questions: do you have enough liquidity to carry this project if something goes sideways, and is your exit plan realistic?
If you've got $80K in the bank and you're flipping a $250K house with a $50K rehab, we're comfortable. If you've got $5K in the bank and you're hoping to refi out in 90 days based on a Zillow estimate, we're going to ask hard questions — not because a rule says to, but because that deal is one bad inspection away from a problem.
2. If we have to take the property back, can we recover our money?
This is collateral valuation. Most lenders do one appraisal and call it a day. We look at the deal three ways: what could we sell it for as-is tomorrow, what's it actually going to be worth after rehab, and could we finish it ourselves and break even if we had to?
If all three answers point the same direction, we're in. If they don't line up, we either restructure the loan or pass.
3. What happens if the property burns down?
Builder's risk insurance with HCF named as mortgagee. Real coverage, not a $300 placeholder policy. We've seen too many lenders skip this and get burned — literally. It's a five-minute conversation with your insurance agent and we're done.
4. Do we actually have a first lien?
Title work, lender's title policy, CPL letter from the closing agent. These three documents protect us from every title surprise that's ever ended a hard money loan badly. We don't negotiate on these. Not because of a rule — because we've seen what happens when you skip them.
5. Is the wire going to the right place?
Wire fraud is the single biggest threat to closings right now, and most lenders are sloppy about it. We verify wire instructions verbally with the closing agent on a number we independently looked up. Every time. No exceptions, no convenience overrides.
6. Are we lending to a real person who tells the truth?
This is the most important one, and it's the one no checklist can capture. We get on the phone with you. We look at your past deals. We ask questions a fraudster can't answer. If something feels off, we don't lend — even if the deal looks great on paper.
If something feels right and the deal has a small flaw on paper, we usually still lend. Because a great borrower with an imperfect deal beats a perfect deal with a sketchy borrower every time.
7. Is this loan actually exempt from consumer lending regulations?
Business purpose, not owner-occupied, real estate as collateral. Three boxes, easy to verify, dead simple. We document it once and move on.
Why This Matters for You
When you call a national hard money lender, you're talking to somebody who has no authority to override the rules. They can sympathize, but they can't say yes if the spreadsheet says no.
When you call us, you're talking to the person making the decision. If something about your deal doesn't fit the standard mold but makes sense, we can say yes. If everything fits the standard mold but our gut says no, we can say no. That's the entire point of being a local lender run by an actual investor.
It also means we close faster. Most of our loans go from application to wire in 7–10 days. Not because we cut corners — we don't — but because we're not running every file through committees and overlays. The seven questions above are the entire underwrite. If we like the answers, we fund.
The One Rule We Don't Break
There's exactly one place where we are completely rigid: borrower selection.
If we don't trust you, we don't lend to you — period. No matter how good the deal looks, no matter how much equity is in it, no matter what your credit score is. Most of the bad loans in our industry don't fail because the lender missed a number. They fail because the lender lent to somebody they shouldn't have.
So yes, we're flexible on the math. We're flexible on the structure. We're flexible on creative deals.
We're not flexible on who we work with. Once we know we want to work with you, the rest of it gets easy.
The Bottom Line
Most lender process exists because the lender doesn't trust their own judgment. Ours exists because we do.
If you've got a Central VA real estate deal that makes sense — even one that's a little weird, a little fast, or a little outside the box — call us. We'll give you a real answer in 24 hours, and if we say yes, we'll close in days, not weeks.
That's not a marketing claim. That's just what happens when common sense is the underwriting standard, and rules are kept to the seven that actually matter.