Hard Money Lenders California 2026: Rates, Law, Top Lenders

What California hard money costs: the loan-by-loan record

The lender websites that rank for “hard money lenders california” publish a starting rate and a range. The federal HMDA record shows what investors signed. Every year, lenders above a size threshold report each loan they originate, with its note rate, amount, term, loan-to-value ratio, purpose and county, and the FFIEC publishes the loan-level file. We took the California files for 2024 and 2025 and computed everything on this page from them (our arithmetic; the script hmda_ca_short_term.py and its output are in the data folder). HMDA is last year's loans, not today's quotes.

Two pages of ours sit next to this one. California DSCR loans covers the 30-year rental loans investors refinance into: their 2025 median was 7.125%, which puts the short-term median 2.625 points higher (our arithmetic). For the same measure in another state, see hard money loans in Florida; the California record differs in the size of the loans and in the law that decides who may charge what, which is most of this page.

How we found the loans

HMDA has no “hard money” or “fix-and-flip” field, so we built a proxy from fields that exist:

• originated, conventional, first lien, closed-end, not a reverse mortgage;
• investment property, 1 to 4 units;
• business or commercial purpose = yes, and debt-to-income ratio = NA (the lender did not underwrite your income);
• loan term of 36 months or less.

In 2025 California had 481,897 conventional originations, 64,197 on investment property and 46,350 of those for a business purpose. The 9,273 short-term loans are 14.4% of the investment-property total.

What HMDA does not cover

• Bridge loans designed to be refinanced are excluded. Regulation C excludes loans “designed to be replaced by separate permanent financing extended by any financial institution to the same borrower at a later time”, which can include a BRRRR purchase-and-rehab loan planned from day one to be refinanced. Fix-and-flip loans are in: the official interpretation's example is a nine-month loan to buy, renovate and resell a home.
• Small lenders do not report. A closed-end loan is excluded if the institution “originated fewer than 25 closed-end mortgage loans in either of the two preceding calendar years” (12 CFR 1003.3(c)(11)). Even among reporters, 29 of the 60 lenders filed fewer than 10 California short-term loans in 2025.
• No points, no fees. The share of these loans with origination charges or discount points reported as a number is 0%, and the prepayment-penalty field is NA on 100%. A hard money quote is the note rate plus points, and HMDA shows only the first half.
• LTV is reported inconsistently. In 2024, 44.6% of loans with an LTV showed one above 80%; in 2025 it was 9.7%. That looks like a change in what lenders report as the value, not a change in leverage, so we use 2025 LTVs only.
• The two years differ in vintage. The 2024 file is the FFIEC one-year dataset and 2025 the snapshot dataset, both downloaded October 6, 2026.

California short-term investor loans, 2024 vs 2025

California short-term (36 months or less) business-purpose investor loans in HMDA

Loan count rose 11.2% and dollars 25.8% while every rate percentile fell, the median by 0.75 points. The short-term premium over the DSCR-type median narrowed from 3 points to 2.625. The share of loans with a 12-month term fell from 80.5% to 72.6% as 13-to-18-month loans went from 6.2% to 15%, and the interest-only and balloon shares fell from nearly all loans to 90.3%. Whether that reflects longer rehabs or new lenders with different products, the data does not say.

The 10% line: how California lenders charge more

This is the part of California hard money that a page about another state cannot borrow. The California Constitution sets a general ceiling for a loan whose proceeds are not for personal, family or household use: a rate not exceeding “the higher of (a) 10 percent per annum or (b) 5 percent per annum plus the rate prevailing” on the advances the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco makes to member banks (Article XV, section 1, paragraph 2). The Federal Reserve's H.15 release of October 7, 2026 shows the primary credit rate at 4.00%, so the second branch gives 9% and the 10% figure is the higher (our arithmetic; the H.15 reports the New York Reserve Bank's rate, and the constitution names the San Francisco bank).

Then the same section lifts the ceiling for whole classes of lenders. It says the restrictions do not apply to “any loans made or arranged by any person licensed as a real estate broker by the State of California and secured in whole or in part by liens on real property”, nor to banks, credit unions, industrial loan companies, and “any other class of persons authorized by statute”. Civil Code 1916.1 spells out the broker exemption: the restrictions “shall not apply to any loan, or any forbearance, extension, or modification of a loan, made or arranged by any person licensed as a real estate broker by the State of California, and secured, directly or collaterally, in whole or in part by liens on real property”, and the term “made or arranged” includes a loan made by a licensed broker “as a principal or as an agent for others”. The section was last amended by Stats. 2024, Chapter 601 (SB 1146), effective January 1, 2025. The Financial Code adds the finance-lender route: the California Financing Law “creates a class of exempt persons pursuant to Section 1 of Article XV of the California Constitution” (22002), and no one may “engage in the business of a finance lender or broker without obtaining a license from the commissioner” (22100(a)).

What the loan record shows against that line (HMDA, short-term loans with a reported rate)

Read it carefully. HMDA does not say who the lender or broker is, whether a broker arranged the loan, or what licence the lender holds, so we cannot say any individual loan was or was not lawful. What the figures do say is that pricing above 10% is routine in this market (about six in ten loans in 2024, a third in 2025) and rarely goes above 12% (114 loans in 2025, 1.2% of the total, our arithmetic), so the practical limit is lender behaviour and competition. The 2025 drop from 61.6% to 34.1% went with a median that fell 0.75 points. Whether a particular lender sits inside an exemption is a question for your attorney; it is also a question you can put to the lender, because the answer is a licence number.

Share of each large lender's 2025 loans priced above 10%

Who makes California hard money loans

Top 10 short-term investor lenders in California by 2025 loans (names as filed with HMDA)

The top 3 lenders made 55.1% of the loans and the top 10 made 88.3% (our arithmetic). Four things stand out.

• Kiavi is a third of the market and sits in the middle on price. Its 3,161 loans were 34.1% of the state, at a 9.75% median that fell from 10.75% in 2024. Its median loan, $585,000, is below the state's $735,000. Our Kiavi review covers the company.
• Two lenders price in the high 8s. Genesis Capital (8.75% median, 1% of loans above 10%) and Archwest Funding (8.754%) lend big (median $1,180,000 and $1,365,000) and take almost no broker loans. A low median on large loans is partly a size effect: loans of $1,000,000 or more had a 9.5% median against 10.495% below $150,000.
• The fund vehicle in third place. “Center Street Lending Fund VIII SPE LLC” is the name that reports to HMDA, with 870 loans and the highest median among the five largest lenders (10.378%). Our Center Street Lending review covers the company and the California licence revocations on its older fund vehicles; the DFPI's own listing for one of them, Center Street Lending V SPE, LLC (CFL 60DBO-93787), shows an “Order Summarily Revoking” dated 04/19/2022. We did not check the licence status of the Fund VIII vehicle itself.
• A lender with 800 loans and none in 2024. Merchants Mortgage & Trust Corporation reported 800 California short-term loans in 2025 and none under that identifier in 2024. We do not know whether it is a new entrant or a change in how an existing lender reports.

Some lenders investors search for are small here. In 2025 Velocity Commercial Capital reported 35 California short-term loans (11% median), RCN Capital 30 (9.99%), Lima One Capital 19 (9%), LendingOne 16 (9.87%) and Temple View Capital Funding 60 (10.25%); Investor Mortgage Finance, the Visio Lending lender entity, reported none, because Visio makes 30-year rental loans. Anchor Loans, with 649 loans, is covered in our Anchor Loans review, and Easy Street Capital in our Easy Street review. A national ranking built from the same data is in our national hard money lender list.

Complaints in the CFPB database (retrieved October 8, 2026)

The CFPB database is built around consumer financial products, and a business-purpose loan sits at its edge, so small counts are weak evidence in either direction: Kiavi made 3,161 California loans in 2025 and has 2 complaints from California in the database. Searching it for Conventus, Easy Street, Archwest, Mackillie and Renovo returned no complaints on October 8, 2026. Use it as one signal, together with the DFPI licence lookup.

Where in California: the top 12 counties

Top 12 California counties by 2025 short-term investor loans (HMDA)

Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties together made 38.2% of the 2025 loans, and the top 12 counties 69.9%. Coastal counties priced lower on bigger loans: Santa Clara and San Diego had a 9% median and San Mateo 9.25%, on medians of $1,265,000, $885,000 and $1,390,000. Inland counties paid more on smaller ones: Fresno 10.25% ($265,000), Kern 9.95% ($225,000), Sacramento 9.925% ($375,000) and Riverside 9.9% ($445,000). Alameda (9.95% on $805,000) is the Bay Area exception. Rates differ by county partly because lenders differ by county, and HMDA does not show borrower experience or credit score.

The standard California hard money loan is 12 months, interest-only, with a balloon

California short-term investor loans in 2025 by term

By count, 6,732 loans had a 12-month term, 512 an 18-month term, 432 a 9-month term, 308 a 24-month term, 274 a 6-month term and 22 a 36-month term. The 7.25% median for 25-to-36-month loans covers only 1.2% of loans and looks like 30-year loans entered with short terms; leaving out every loan with a 30-month term leaves the statewide median at 9.75%. Interest-only (90.3%) with a balloon (90.3%) means you pay interest monthly and repay the principal at the end.

California adds a disclosure to that structure when a broker is involved. Business and Professions Code 10241(h) requires the broker's written statement to carry the term, the number and amount of the installments and the balance due at maturity, with a notice in bold type that begins: “IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE FUNDS TO PAY THE BALLOON PAYMENT WHEN IT COMES DUE, YOU MAY HAVE TO OBTAIN A NEW LOAN AGAINST YOUR PROPERTY”, and goes on to warn that you may lose the property through foreclosure.

What the rate spread costs on a California flip

The median 2025 loan was $735,000. On an interest-only loan the monthly payment is the loan times the rate divided by 12:

Monthly interest on a $735,000 interest-only loan at California 2025 rates (our arithmetic)

Twelve months at the median rate is $71,662.50 of interest, and the 25th-to-75th percentile gap is $10,731 a year on the same loan. One point at closing is $7,350. The channel matters too: loans applied for directly had a 9.75% median and broker or correspondent loans 10.45%, a 0.7-point gap worth $5,145 a year on the median loan (our arithmetic). Entities paid less than individuals (9.666% against 9.99%), possibly because repeat flippers borrow through an LLC.

California short-term investor loans in 2025: median note rate by loan size and leverage

Size is the clearest gradient in this state: each step up in loan size lowered the median, from 10.495% under $150,000 to 9.5% at $1,000,000 and above. Leverage hardly moved the price, and the loans above 80% LTV had the lowest median, which suggests pricing follows the borrower and the lender more than the LTV a lender reports.

California licensing: DFPI, the Department of Real Estate, or neither

Three regimes matter, and a hard money lender may sit in one, two or none of them. We summarize the statutes; whether a given lender needs a licence is a legal question we do not decide.

California statutes that decide who may lend and how (texts saved October 6 to 8, 2026)

Three consequences for a borrower. First, the commercial-loan test turns on the signed purpose statement: section 22502 lets the lender rely on a “written statement of intended purposes signed by the borrower”, which is why an investor signs a business-purpose statement at closing, and why signing one for a home you will live in is a bad idea. Second, the DRE disclosure is real even on a $735,000 loan: section 10245 removes first-lien loans of $30,000 or more from the fee caps and from most of Article 7, but keeps section 10240 in force, so a broker-arranged loan still comes with the written statement of costs, the broker's commission or points (10241(b)), any prepayment terms (10241(k)) and a notice if the loan is funded by money the broker controls (10241(j)). Third, the small-volume exemption is narrow: 22050(e) covers five or fewer commercial loans in 12 months that are incidental to the person's business, which does not describe a lender that makes loans as its business. Both regulators publish lookups: the DFPI's licence search and NMLS Consumer Access for finance lenders, and the Department of Real Estate's licence lookup for brokers. Ask the lender for its number and check it before you pay an application or appraisal fee.

DFPI's own record shows what a lapse looks like. For Lima One Capital, the DFPI lists CFL licence 60DBO-45834 with a revocation order dated 04/03/2020 and a consent order dated 07/03/2020; the DFPI page does not show the reason, and our Lima One review reads the orders. Lima One made 19 California short-term loans in 2025.

If a California hard money loan goes wrong: foreclosure

Hard money lenders in California usually secure the loan with a deed of trust, which allows a sale without a court. The timeline in Civil Code 2924 is fixed: the lender records a notice of default, “Not less than three months shall elapse from the filing of the notice of default”, and a notice of sale can be recorded early only if the date of sale is “no earlier than three months and 20 days after the recording of the notice of default”. Reinstatement of a monetary default is allowed “until five business days prior to the date of sale” (Civil Code 2924c(e)). On a 12-month flip that stalls, the borrower keeps paying the default interest and fees the loan documents provide for during those months, which HMDA does not show.

Two California rules differ from what many borrowers expect. Several protections, including Civil Code 2923.5, “shall apply only to a first lien mortgage or deed of trust that is secured by owner-occupied residential real property containing no more than four dwelling units”, where owner-occupied means “the principal residence of the borrower” and a loan “made for personal, family, or household purposes” (2924.15). An investor loan is outside them. And the one-form-of-action rule applies to debts secured by real property: “There can be but one form of action for the recovery of any debt or the enforcement of any right secured by mortgage upon real property” (Code of Civil Procedure 726(a)). What that means for a personal guaranty on your loan is a question for a lawyer.

What a California investor can do with this

1. Place any quote on the distribution. A note rate at or below 8.99% was in the cheapest quarter of California short-term loans in 2025; at or above 10.45% it was in the costliest quarter. Use 2025 as a range, not a target; rates move.
2. Treat 10% as a signal. About a third of 2025 loans were priced above it. If your quote is above 10%, ask the lender or broker for its DFPI finance lender licence number or its DRE broker licence number, and look it up.
3. Ask for the DRE statement. If a broker is involved, the written mortgage loan disclosure statement (Business and Professions Code 10240-10241) should arrive within three business days of your completed application; it lists the commission, the costs and the balloon notice.
4. Convert points to cash. One point on the median loan is $7,350. Ask for points, extension fees and prepayment terms in writing and compare the total, not the headline rate.
5. Expect size to move your price. Loans of $1,000,000 or more had a 9.5% median against 9.99% at $150,000 to $299,999, so a small project may pay more per dollar.
6. Plan the refinance. The 30-year DSCR-type median in California was 7.125%. Our California DSCR page has that record, and the BRRRR method explains why the bridge should be as short as the rehab allows.

Kiavi pays us a referral fee when a loan closes through its button in the box below; the HMDA figures above are the same either way, and Kiavi's own 2025 California record (3,161 loans, 9.75% median) is in the lender table. Anchor Loans and Center Street Lending, also in the box, do not pay us, and each appears in the tables above with its own record.

FAQ

Loan-level data: FFIEC/CFPB HMDA Data Browser, California originated conventional loans for 2024 and 2025, downloaded October 6, 2026 (request URLs and filters in the data file; our script hmda_ca_short_term.py, its output and the extracted loan rows are in sources/); field definitions from the FFIEC public LAR field list; coverage rules from 12 CFR 1003.3 and 1003.4 and the Supplement I official interpretations (eCFR); lender names from the FFIEC filer lists; county names from the Census Bureau 2020 county list. California Constitution Article XV section 1, Civil Code 1916.1, 2924, 2924.15 and 2924c, Financial Code 22002, 22050, 22100 and 22502, Business and Professions Code 10131 and 10240-10245, and Code of Civil Procedure 726 from California Legislative Information, read October 6 to 8, 2026. Federal Reserve H.15 release of October 7, 2026. CFPB Consumer Complaint Database API and DFPI Actions and Orders pages, retrieved October 8, 2026. All percentiles, medians, shares and payment figures are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public records, not investment, legal, lending or tax advice, and not a loan offer.