Every broker has felt it: a deal with real momentum that stalls out because the file is missing something the lender needed on day one. In hard money lending, speed is often the entire value proposition, so a slow submission process can undercut the reason a client came to a private lender in the first place.
The good news is that funding speed is mostly predictable, and it's driven by what's in the initial package, not by luck. A complete submission includes a clear picture of the property (address, photos if available, and the borrower's intended use, whether that's a purchase, a refinance, or a bridge to a longer term loan), a straightforward statement of the exit strategy, and enough information on the borrower to confirm they can execute that plan. That last piece doesn't need to be exhaustive. It needs to be honest and complete.
Where brokers lose time is usually in the follow up rounds: a missing entity document, an unclear payoff amount on an existing lien, a purchase contract that hasn't been fully executed. Each of these is a small thing individually, but each one adds a day or more to the timeline while the file sits in a queue waiting for a response.
The fix is front-loading the file. Before submitting, brokers can ask themselves three questions: Is the exit strategy stated plainly? Are the numbers on the property and the payoff current? Is there anything about the borrower's file, credit, income, or history, that the lender will ask about anyway? Answering those up front, even briefly, is usually the difference between a deal that closes in days and one that drags into weeks. At JMJ Funding, a complete file is the fastest path to a term sheet, and a fast term sheet is what keeps your client's deal, and your reputation, intact.
