A conventional bank loan takes 30 to 60 days to close. Most fix-and-flip deals can't wait that long.
This isn't about banks being slow or poorly run. It's about a fundamental mismatch between what banks are built to finance and what a fix-and-flip deal actually is. Understanding where and why banks slow down — and what that costs you on a real project — makes it a lot easier to decide when a hard money loan is the right call from the start.
Every conventional mortgage requires a standard appraisal. That appraisal values the property in its current condition, by a licensed appraiser, scheduled at the lender's discretion.
There are two issues here for a fix-and-flip investor.
First, scheduling. Appraisers aren't on call. In active markets, a 7–14 day wait for an appraisal appointment is normal, and that's before the report is written and reviewed. Some lenders won't even open your file until the appraisal is ordered.
Second, the value itself. Banks lend against what the property is worth today. A distressed house with a leaking roof and no HVAC appraises at distressed-house values, which may not support the loan you need. The bank isn't wrong to use that number. It's just the wrong number for the investment you're making.
Hard money lenders underwrite against ARV — the after-repair value. The financing is built around what the property will be worth when the work is done. That's the correct number for a fix and flip, and it's the reason hard money can fund deals that banks can't touch.
Conventional loan underwriting requires a borrower package that wasn't designed for investors. Two years of tax returns. W-2s or a full self-employment income analysis. Bank statements across multiple accounts. Business entity documents. A written explanation for every deposit that looks unusual. Proof of any gift funds. The list keeps going.
For a salaried employee buying a primary residence, most of this is straightforward. For a real estate investor who is self-employed, runs income through multiple LLCs, writes off expenses aggressively, and owns several properties, the same documentation requirement turns into weeks of back-and-forth with a loan processor.
And every time the underwriter sends a conditions list, the clock starts over.
Hard money lenders don't underwrite the borrower the same way. The loan is secured by the asset. What matters is the deal — the property, the ARV, the rehab plan, and whether the borrower can execute it. For most hard money lenders, the basic information needed for a decision fits on one page.
Regional banks and conventional lenders often run credit decisions through a committee or a centralized underwriting team. The loan officer who takes your application isn't the person who approves it. They submit the file, it gets reviewed by someone who has never talked to you, and the decision comes back through a process that has nothing to do with your timeline.
If the underwriter has a question — and they usually do — the loan officer goes back to the borrower, waits for a response, resubmits, and waits again. One back-and-forth can cost a week. Multiple rounds of conditions are common.
Hard money lenders, especially smaller private lenders, make their own decisions. There's one call. One decision maker who can look at the deal, understand the market, and give you an answer the same day. At Jet Lending, Eddie Gant has been buying and selling Texas investment properties since 1999 — so when he looks at a deal, he's not checking boxes. He's evaluating whether it makes sense.
Banks need mortgageable collateral. That means the property has to meet minimum property standards — a working roof, functional HVAC, no open permits, no significant structural issues. An appraiser flags any of these problems in the report, and the bank either kills the deal or makes repairs a condition of funding.
For a fix-and-flip investor, this is backwards. The whole point is that the property has problems. That's why you're buying it below market value. The distressed condition is the opportunity.
Asking a bank to finance a property in poor condition is asking them to use a product that wasn't built for this. They'll either decline, or they'll issue a construction-to-perm loan that has its own timeline, draw process, and documentation requirements — none of which move at fix and flip speed.
When a bank issues a rate lock, it comes with an expiration date. If your closing slips past that date — because of appraisal delays, additional underwriting conditions, or title issues — you either pay to extend or lose the rate entirely.
For a 30-to-45-day close on a deal with a motivated seller, a 30-day rate lock leaves almost no margin for error. Any single delay cascades.
Hard money loans don't work this way. The pricing is set at closing, not locked in advance, and the entire process from application to funded typically fits inside the window where a bank loan is still waiting on its appraisal.
Here's a straightforward checklist. If any of these are true, you should probably be talking to a hard money lender before you talk to a bank:
The property is distressed. If a conventional appraiser is going to flag the condition as unmortgageable, a bank loan isn't available to you regardless of your qualifications.
You need to close in under 30 days. Whether it's seller preference, auction terms, or competition from other buyers, a 30-day close is unreliable with conventional financing and routine with hard money.
Your income is self-employment or entity-based. If your tax returns don't show the income a bank needs to see — even if your cash flow is strong — hard money's asset-based underwriting removes that obstacle entirely.
You're running multiple deals at once. Conventional lenders limit financed properties. Hard money lenders don't. If you have three active rehabs and you're trying to add a fourth, a portfolio or blanket loan structure is built for that situation.
The ARV is what makes the deal work, not the as-is value. Banks lend against today's value. Hard money lenders lend against tomorrow's.
A conventional bank loan — optimistically — closes in 30 days. More realistically, 45 to 60 when you factor in appraisal scheduling, underwriting conditions, and the normal back-and-forth of a full documentation file. If anything goes sideways, you're at 60 to 90 days.
A hard money loan from Jet Lending closes in 5–7 business days. The only pre-closing cost is the appraisal. There are no upfront fees, no application fees, and no income verification. If the deal works and you can execute the rehab, we can have you funded before most banks have even ordered their appraisal.
Banks aren't slow because they're inefficient. They're slow because they're doing a different job — evaluating 30-year credit risk on owner-occupied collateral. Fix and flip financing is a short-term, asset-based decision on a project in progress. Those are two different lending problems, and they require two different lending products.
If you're working a deal in Texas and the timeline matters, contact Jet Lending and let's look at the numbers.
Steve Waller
(281) 975-1670
steve@jetlending.com
Jet Lending, LLC — Houston, Texas — jetlending.com