Hard Money Lenders Colorado: 1,025 Loans, Denver, Law (2025)

What the 2025 federal record shows for Colorado investors

Colorado hard money pages mostly list lenders that advertise. The federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) file lists loans that were made, with the note rate. We used the FFIEC and CFPB loan-level file for 2025 and took the Colorado rows: 9,959 conventional originations on investment property, 6,726 of them marked as made for a business or commercial purpose. We then counted the headline figures a second time from the CFPB data browser file for Colorado (originated loans first, then each filter), and both counts agree to the loan.

HMDA has no “hard money” field. We use the proxy of our other state pages (Illinois, Michigan and Virginia use it too): first lien, 1-4 units, closed-end, investment property, business purpose, no debt-to-income ratio, which leaves 5,392 loans in the base group. Of those, 1,557 had a term of 360 months or more (rental and DSCR loans) and 1,033 a term of 36 months or less. We set aside 8 short-term entries with a 30-month term, 7 of them from one filer, Emporium TPO, whose median rate (7.938%) looks like 30-year loans keyed as 30 in the term field, which leaves 1,025. Our national rate page counts all 1,033 for Colorado; the median is 9.9% either way.

Colorado business-purpose investor loans, 2025 (HMDA, our filter)

Most are one-house purchases. The median loan-to-value on the 983 loans that report it was 70.0%. By purpose, 832 were purchases (81.2%), 86 rate-and-term refinances, 41 “other”, 32 cash-out refinances, 27 home improvement loans and 7 not applicable; 953 were on one-unit properties (93.0%) and 72 on two to four units. Colorado short-term loans are bigger than in Illinois (median $205,000): the median here is $445,000, and 580 of the 1,025 loans were $400,000 or more. By term, 579 had 12 months, 281 had 15 months, 53 had 18 months, 37 had 6 months, 17 had 36 months and 16 had 24 months. Term matters for price: the 12-month loans had a 9.95% median, the 15-month loans 9.75%, the 18-month loans 9.25%, the 24-month loans 8.125% and the 36-month loans 7.0%, mostly because banks write the longer ones. Loan size sets the price little above $100,000: 82 loans of $100,000 to $199,999 had a median note rate of 10.225%, 357 loans of $200,000 to $399,999 9.95% and 580 loans of $400,000 or more 9.75%; the 6 loans under $100,000 had 9.0%. Two-to-four unit loans had a 9.5% median and one-unit loans 9.9%. Points, fees and prepayment terms for business-purpose loans are not in HMDA, so use our hard money loan calculator to turn a quote into a total cost. The public file rounds each loan amount to the midpoint of a $10,000 band.

The top of the range is thin: 887 of the 1,019 loans with a reported rate (87.0%) are above 8%, 350 (34.3%) above 10%, 25 (2.5%) above 12% and none above 15%. Of the 25 above 12%, 15 came from Merchants Mortgage & Trust Corporation, 4 from Kiavi, 3 from Pacific Equity and Loan, 2 from RPE Home and 1 from Easy Street Capital. A quote above 12% was in the top 2.5% of Colorado note rates in 2025, though HMDA does not show points.

Denver, the metro and the Front Range

HMDA reports a county, not a city, so Denver County (which is the City and County of Denver) is the closest public unit to the city. We group the rest by commuting geography: the other five Denver-metro counties (Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Douglas and Jefferson) and the other Front Range counties we can name with at least 30 loans (Boulder, El Paso, Larimer, Pueblo and Weld). The file has one more group: 36 short-term loans with no county. They are lenders whose public rows leave out the location (Pacific Equity and Loan 12, Anchor Loans 9, one filer reported by LEI only 8, Rain City Capital 6, RCN Capital 1), so every county figure below is a floor.

Colorado short-term investor loans by area, 2025 (HMDA, our arithmetic)

Unlike Illinois, geography barely moves the median: 9.75% in Denver and its suburbs, 9.95% on the rest of the Front Range. What moves is who is lending. Of the 277 Denver County loans, 61 (22.0%) came from lenders whose name reads as a bank, at a 7.5% median, and 216 from all others at 10.0%. Outside Denver County the bank-like share is 71 of 748 (9.5%) at a 7.323% median. Commerce Bank made 22 of its 24 loans in Denver County, with a $735,000 median there, and MidFirst Bank 13 of its 18; Bank of Colorado, the largest bank-like lender with 29 loans, made only 4. So in this state a Denver investor can price a bank first, and the bank loans there are large ones, not small-ticket downstate loans. The Denver market is concentrated: 30 lenders reported a Denver County loan, Merchants made 89 of the 277 (32.1%), the top three made 53.8% and the top ten 86.3%. Outside Denver County, 47 lenders reported loans and Kiavi was first with 202 of 748 (27.0%).

The county list shows where the volume is: Denver County 277 loans, Jefferson County 169 (9.75% median, $505,000), Arapahoe County 116 (9.5%, $415,000), Boulder County 73 (9.95%, $605,000), Adams County 64 (9.9%, $345,000), Pueblo County 50 (10.95%, $115,000), Larimer County 49 (9.95%, $395,000), El Paso County 49 (9.95%, $305,000), Weld County 31 (9.95%, $335,000), Douglas County 23 and Mesa County 11. Pueblo is the outlier: the highest median of any county with 30 or more loans and the smallest loans, and 39 of its 50 loans came from one lender, Kiavi. Where a county has one dominant lender, its median is mostly that lender’s price list. For the 30-year side, DSCR-type loans were 210 in Denver County (13.5% of the state’s 1,557), 483 in the rest of the metro and 535 on the other Front Range counties, with a 7.125% median in each group; see our Colorado DSCR page, which uses the same filter and adds the Colorado tax and rental rules.

Who made the loans

Largest lenders of Colorado short-term investor loans, 2025 (HMDA, names from the FFIEC 2025 filer list)

Fifty-three lenders reported at least one loan. The single largest, Merchants Mortgage & Trust Corporation, made 26.7%, and 269 of its 274 loans carry a 15-month term, a term almost nobody else uses (of the other 12 loans of that length, six came from Commerce Bank). Its rows are also unusual in another way: they carry applicant demographic codes, which the public file leaves as “not applicable” for entity borrowers, so by our rule none of its 274 loans went to an entity, and 266 were on one-unit properties. Without Merchants the entity share of the rest of the state is 639 of 751 (85.1%), close to the figures in our other state pages. Kiavi’s 235 loans, Renovo’s 131 (129 of them with a 12-month term), CV3’s 29 and Lima One’s 19 all went to entities. Conventus made 51 loans at the lowest median among the larger non-bank lenders, 9.25%; CV3 made 20 of its 29 loans in Denver County with a $2.15 million median there. The bank-like group made 132 loans (12.9%) at a 7.5% median, against 9.95% for the rest (our arithmetic). Our name rule flags the word “trust”, which would put Merchants in the bank-like group (406 loans, 39.6%, median 9.5%); we override the rule for this one name because its loans look like the non-bank group (15-month terms at a 10.0% median), and the rule is only a proxy. The table is the reported record, not a recommendation; our reviews cover Kiavi, Renovo Financial, Conventus Lending, CV3 Financial Services, Easy Street Capital, Loan Funder and Lima One Capital, and the national hard money lender comparison ranks the whole market. Lenders under HMDA’s reporting thresholds do not appear, so every count is a floor.

Kiavi pays us a referral fee when a loan closes through its button below. It belongs in a Colorado box because the 2025 federal file shows it as the state’s second-largest short-term investor lender, with 235 loans, and the largest outside Denver County. Visio Lending and Lima One Capital pay us nothing.

DSCR-type loans in Colorado: the exit

Searches for Colorado hard money and Colorado DSCR loans are two steps of one plan: the short-term loan to buy and renovate, then a 30-year rental loan to refinance it (see the BRRRR method). The same filters with a term of 360 months or more give 1,557 loans, 28.9% of the 5,392 base loans, against 19.0% for short-term loans. The market is wider: 122 lenders, the top five 33.7% and the top ten 47.9%.

Largest lenders of Colorado DSCR-type loans, 2025 (HMDA, our filters)

The short-term and DSCR tables share only Kiavi. Merchants, Renovo, Conventus and CV3 are not among the eight largest DSCR lenders, so a Colorado borrower usually changes lender at the refinance. Banks and credit unions made 128 of the 1,557 loans (8.2%), against 12.9% of the short-term loans. By purpose, 614 were cash-out refinances, 595 purchases and 323 rate-and-term refinances. The spread between the two products is 2.775 points (9.9% against 7.125%), or $12,348.75 a year of interest on $445,000 (our arithmetic). The full DSCR picture is on our Colorado DSCR page, the DSCR lender ranking and DSCR requirements.

Colorado interest law: a 45% line that counts every charge

The statute text below was read on October 26, 2026 on colorado.public.law, an unofficial mirror of the Colorado Revised Statutes that cites the General Assembly’s C.R.S. 2024 title PDF and says it is current through Fall 2025. We could not read the official edition: the General Assembly’s PDF answered our download with an empty bot-challenge response, the LexisNexis edition needs a browser application and the Internet Archive refused our requests. Every statute row in this page is therefore marked not verified against the official text.

Colorado provisions that bear on a hard money loan (text read October 26, 2026 on an unofficial mirror; not verified against the official edition)

The premise many investors carry, that business loans are exempt from usury limits, is not what this section says. On the text we read, Colorado does not exempt a commercial loan from the 45% line; it sets the line high enough that the market never reaches it, and it defines interest widely. Our arithmetic shows the room: on $445,000, 12 months of interest at the 9.9% median is $44,055.00 and two points add $8,900.00, a total of $52,955.00 or 11.9% of principal, while 45% of $445,000 is $200,250.00 (an illustration of the line, not a quote). Of the 1,025 short-term loans, 887 carry a note rate above 8%, 350 above 10% and 25 above 12%, none above 15%. We do not claim any loan is lawful or unlawful: HMDA shows no points, no default rate and no extension fees, and subsection (1) tests the rate that “could have been determined at the time of the stipulation by mathematical computation”. Subsection (4) adds that no law “limiting interest on interest” or compounding applies to a promissory note secured by a mortgage or deed of trust. What we have not read: other commercial-loan provisions that may sit outside 5-12-103, the rest of the Consumer Credit Code, and the licensing statutes for mortgage loan originators. We make no claim on whether a hard money lender needs a Colorado license; ask the lender for its license number and check it with the state regulator before you sign.

Foreclosure: the public trustee sale, Rule 120 and why the owner’s tool is cure

Most Colorado deeds of trust are foreclosed by the public trustee of the county, not by a lawsuit. Before the sale the holder must get a court order. Section 38-38-105(2)(a) says the holder of the debt “shall obtain an order authorizing sale from a court of competent jurisdiction to issue the same pursuant to rule 120”, and that “A sale held without an order authorizing sale issued in compliance with this paragraph (a) shall be invalid.” We did not read the text of Rule 120 itself, so we say nothing about its hearing scope or deadlines beyond what the statute cites.

The calendar is set by statute. For property that is not agricultural, the first sale date is “no less than one hundred ten calendar days nor more than one hundred twenty-five calendar days after the date of recording of the notice of election and demand” (38-38-108(1)(a)); for property that is all agricultural it is 215 to 230 days. The public trustee mails a combined notice within 20 days of recording and again no more than 60 and no less than 45 calendar days before the first sale date, and publishes it once a week for five consecutive weeks (38-38-103). The owner’s tool is the right to cure. The owner, a person liable on the debt, a guarantor or a junior holder who files “no later than fifteen calendar days prior to the date of sale, a written notice of intent to cure” may cure (38-38-104(1)), and the owner as of the recording is first on that list.

After the sale, the redemption section we read, 38-38-302, is written for lienors: the lienor’s lien must be “a junior lien”, the junior lienor with the most senior recorded lien redeems first, and each later lienor gets “an additional period of five business days to redeem”. A notice of intent to redeem is due “no later than eight business days after the sale” (38-38-103(4)(a)(III)). If there are no redemption periods, title vests at the close of the eighth business day after the sale (38-38-501(1)). We did not find an owner’s right to redeem after the sale in the sections we read, and we did not read the whole article, so confirm with a Colorado attorney. The redemption interest, where it applies, runs at the default rate in the note if one is specified (38-38-302(3)(a)), which is one more reason to read the default clause.

Example public trustee calendar on a $445,000 loan at the 9.9% short-term median (our arithmetic, hypothetical dates)

The interest rows are an illustration, not a payoff: they leave out the default rate, fees and costs that the foreclosure statutes allow. The dates are the statutory bounds, and the public trustee sets the actual date. The point for a borrower is not to plan for a default: a 110-day minimum before a first sale is one reason lenders price short-term loans above 9% when the law allows it, and the cure deadline is the date to know. We did not read the sections on sale bidding, deficiency or possession, and have no source for how many Colorado foreclosures involved investor loans in 2025, so we give none.

What a Colorado investor can do with this

1. Place the quote on the distribution. A note rate at or below 9.25% was in the cheapest quarter of Colorado short-term loans in 2025; at or above 10.49% in the costliest. In Denver County the middle half was 8.5% to 10.25%.
2. Price a bank first, and start in Denver. Banks made 12.9% of the short-term loans at a 7.5% median; in Denver County 22.0%. Their loans are not small: Commerce Bank’s Denver median was $735,000. Points and draw rules are not in HMDA, so ask.
3. Add every charge before you compare. Colorado’s 45% test counts “all charges”, so a quote with points and fees is the number to compare, not the note rate. Run it in our fix and flip calculator and the extension and default interest page.
4. Read the default clause. Where redemption interest applies, the statute points to the default rate in the note.
5. Know the clock. A public trustee first sale is 110 to 125 calendar days after recording, and the cure notice is due 15 days before it. Lenders price that, and so should your reserve.
6. Plan the refinance. If a DSCR loan replaces the flip loan, the market median was 7.125%, and you will probably change lender.

FAQ

Loan data: FFIEC/CFPB HMDA 2025 loan-level national file, Colorado rows (script hmda_co.py and the filter in the sources folder), conventional loans only, headline counts re-counted from the CFPB data browser Colorado file, and the FFIEC 2025 filer list; county names from the Census Bureau county FIPS codes. Statutes: C.R.S. 5-1-201, 5-1-301, 5-12-101, 5-12-103, 18-15-104, 38-38-103, 38-38-104, 38-38-105, 38-38-108, 38-38-302 and 38-38-501, read October 26, 2026 on colorado.public.law, an unofficial mirror; the official General Assembly edition and the text of C.R.C.P. 120 were not read. All counts, shares, medians and interest figures are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal, tax or lending advice, and not a loan offer.