Hard Money Lenders Maryland: Law, Taxes and 2025 Loan Data

What the 2025 federal record shows for Maryland investors

Hard money pages for Maryland usually list lenders that advertise. The federal Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) file lists the loans that were actually made, with the note rate. We downloaded the Maryland 2025 file of originated loans from the FFIEC and CFPB Data Browser: 126,664 originations. Of those, 10,357 were on investment property (occupancy type 3), and 7,710 of those were marked as made for a business or commercial purpose.

HMDA has no “hard money” field. We use the same proxy as our other state pages: conventional, first lien, 1-4 units, investment property, business purpose, which leaves 7,247 loans and $1,912,875,000. Three in four (5,479) have a 360-month term: they are rental and DSCR loans, with a 7.375% median. The short-term loans, with a term of 36 months or less, are the flip and bridge loans: 1,165 after we set aside 32 loans entered with a 30-month term, which look like 30-year loans keyed in the wrong unit. One reading of the numbers is therefore the reported slice, not the whole market: lenders below HMDA's reporting thresholds are not in it.

Maryland short-term business-purpose investor loans, 2025 (HMDA, our filter)

What the loans look like: 1,003 had a 12-month term and 55 had 6 months (in the full 1-4 unit proxy set); 1,160 of the 1,165 are flagged interest-only and 1,152 have a balloon payment; 1,146 are on one- or two-unit properties; the median loan-to-value ratio was 68.86% on the 1,038 loans that report it. By purpose, 1,039 were purchases (10.0% median), 47 refinances (9.25%), 26 home improvement loans (11.375%) and 21 cash-out refinances (11.24%). The rate is half of the price: on the 1,058 six- and twelve-month loans in the proxy set, discount points are reported as NA on 1,056 and origination charges on 1,056, and the prepayment-penalty term is NA on all 1,058. 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, and the national rate page for other states.

Who made the loans

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

Thirty-seven lenders reported at least one short-term loan, and five of them made 872 of the 1,165 (74.9%). Kiavi alone made 32.1%. Banks are nearly absent from this product: 39 of the 1,165 loans came from lenders whose name reads as a bank or credit union (our name rule, not an official classification). They matter on the 30-year side, where bank-named lenders made 915 of the 7,247 proxy-set loans. Their 30-year median was 7.124% against 7.375% for the other lenders. The table is the reported record, not a recommendation of any lender.

Kiavi pays us a referral fee when a loan closes through its button below. It belongs in a Maryland box because the 2025 federal file shows it as the largest short-term investor lender in the state, with 374 loans at a 10.95% median. That is a fact about 2025; Kiavi's terms and history are in our Kiavi review. Lima One Capital (28 short-term Maryland loans, 9.7875% median) and Visio Lending, a 30-year rental lender that reports no Maryland loans under its own name, pay us nothing. Lima One's side is in our Lima One Capital review.

Where in Maryland

Business-purpose investor loans by county, 2025 (HMDA, county FIPS from the file)

Baltimore city is the largest single market, 268 of the 1,165 short-term loans (23.0%), and it has the highest median rate, 10.5%, on the smallest loans, $175,000. The DC suburbs, Prince George's and Montgomery counties, together had 243 loans, with medians of $295,000 and $515,000. County is missing from the file for 137 short-term loans, so these are minimums.

Maryland interest law: 6%, 8%, 24% and “any rate”

Maryland's rules are in Title 12 of the Commercial Law Article. Three numbers are often mixed up, and one premise we started with, that 24% caps loans secured by real property, is wrong: the 24% limit is written for loans not secured by real property.

Maryland interest rules that bear on a hard money loan (statute text saved October 11, 2026)

For an investor the exemption that matters is 12-103(e). It says “A lender may charge interest at any rate” on a loan that is a commercial loan over $15,000 and not secured by residential real property, and 12-101(c) defines a commercial loan as one made solely to acquire or carry on a business or commercial enterprise, or to any business or commercial organization. Subsection (e)(3) then defines residential real property as “owner–occupied property having a dwelling on it designated principally as a residence with accommodations for not more than 4 families.” Our reading: a loan to your LLC to buy and renovate a house you will sell or rent is a commercial loan on property that is not owner-occupied, so no rate ceiling applies. That reading is ours, from the statute text; we did not read Maryland case law on LLCs, and the rule changes if you live in the house or sign as an individual (12-103(e)(2) sends commercial loans to individuals secured by residential real property to 12-407.1, a provision on commercial-purpose secondary mortgage loans that we did not analyze).

Points matter because the statute counts them as interest, and a loan that charges more than the law allows loses interest to the borrower under 12-114. In 2025 federal data no Maryland short-term loan had a note rate above 13.49%, and 90% were at or below 11.99%, so the rates reported sit far below any 24% line; the risk to check is the total price with points and default interest, on a loan that is not exempt.

Licensing: the Mortgage Lender Law is a consumer law

A person may not act as a mortgage lender unless licensed or exempt (Financial Institutions 11-504). The question is what a “mortgage loan” is. The statute says it is “any loan primarily for personal, family, or household use that is secured by a mortgage, deed of trust, or other equivalent consensual security interest on a dwelling or residential real estate” (11-501(m)(1)). A dwelling must have at least one owner-occupied unit (11-501(c)(2)), and residential real estate is “any owner–occupied real property” (11-501(r)). Banks, credit unions and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are exempt (11-502(b)). The licence requires at least three years of experience in the mortgage lending business (11-506(b)).

What follows, by the text: a private lender making business-purpose loans on investment houses to LLCs does not meet the Mortgage Lender Law's definition of a mortgage loan, so it does not need that licence for those loans. The same lender must hold one if it lends to an owner who will live in the home, and 12-103(b)(4) says a lender making a mortgage loan as defined there is subject to the licence. We did not find a Commissioner of Financial Regulation guidance on investor loans that we could save, and we do not read this as a statement about every lender's conduct: the missing licence tells you nothing either way for a business loan. Check any lender's other licences in the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System and its history with the regulator before you sign, and look at who the funder is.

Foreclosure: assent to decree, a 45-day notice and no mediation for investors

Maryland mortgages and deeds of trust may “authorize the sale of the property or declare the borrower's assent to the passing of a decree for the sale of the property” (Real Property 7-105(b)(1)); the sale is made by an individual named or appointed, and a ratified sale passes title (7-105(c)). Two rules apply to a flip house.

• Notice of intent applies to any residential property of four or fewer units. Section 7-105.1 defines residential property as real property improved by four or fewer single family dwelling units, and it bars filing an action until the later of 90 days after default and 45 days after the notice of intent is sent. A copy goes to the Commissioner of Financial Regulation. For property that is not owner-occupied, the notice must come with a written determination that it is not owner-occupied and a phone number to contest it (7-105.1(c)(6)).
• Mediation and loss mitigation are owner-occupied only. The prefile mediation, loss mitigation application and affidavits in 7-105.1 are tied to “owner-occupied residential property.” An investor borrower does not get them under the text.

After filing, the person making the sale must register a notice with the Commissioner within 7 days (7-105.2), tell the county at least 15 days before sale (7-105.3), and mail notice of the sale to the record owner not earlier than 30 and not later than 10 days before it (7-105.4). Maryland's court rules govern advertising and ratification; we did not save the rule text and give no timeline from it. We did not find an official statistic for how long a Maryland business-purpose foreclosure takes, so we give none.

Foreclosure notices reported to the Maryland Office of Financial Regulation (statewide, all residential)

A Notice of Foreclosure is filed within 7 days after the foreclosure action starts in court, so it is the closest official count of cases begun. The office warns that its data comes from third-party filings, may contain duplicates and errors, is not a court record, and that notices of intent can also come from non-mortgage secured parties such as associations; the data includes owner-occupied homes, which are most of them. Baltimore city accounted for 2,099 of the 9,103 Notices of Foreclosure in 2025 (23.1%) and 750 of the 1,813 Foreclosure Property Registrations (41.4%) (our arithmetic).

What Maryland's recordation and transfer taxes add to a flip

Maryland taxes the paper at both ends. A recordation tax applies to each $500 or fraction of the consideration on a deed or of the debt secured on a deed of trust (Tax-Property 12-103(a)(1)), and the rate is set by each county or Baltimore City. A state transfer tax of 0.5% of the consideration applies to an instrument that conveys title (13-203(a)(1), 13-101(e)), and counties add their own transfer tax. Both taxes hit the purchase deed and the sale deed; the recordation tax also hits the loan.

County rates, fiscal year 2026 (Department of Legislative Services table)

Example flip: buy at $250,000, borrow $200,000, sell at $380,000 (our arithmetic from Tax-Property 12-103 and 13-203 and the table above)

In Baltimore city the sale deed alone costs $11,400: $3,800 recordation, $1,900 state transfer and $5,700 city transfer. The statute does not say who pays; the contract and local custom do, and an investor usually pays part at both ends, so treat these as the total on the deal, not as your share. First-time buyer exemptions are for owner-occupants (13-203(b)) and do not help a flip buyer. On the exit, a refinance is taxed only “to the extent” it exceeds the unpaid principal when the original mortgagor refinances (12-108(g)(2)); on our reading, refinancing a $200,000 bridge into a $300,000 loan in Baltimore County is taxed on $100,000, $500 instead of $1,500 (our arithmetic). Ask your title company whether that exemption is claimed on your closing, and note that an assignment of a mortgage is not subject to recordation tax (12-108(j)). Run the rest of the deal in our fix and flip calculator and, for rentals, DealCheck.

What a Maryland investor can do with this

1. Place the quote on the distribution. In 2025 a note rate at or below 9.75% was in the cheapest quarter of Maryland short-term loans and at or above 11.22% in the costliest. Baltimore city's median was 10.5%, Anne Arundel's 9.75%.
2. Check the exemption before you worry about the cap. A commercial loan to an LLC on a non-owner-occupied house is outside the 6% rule on our reading of 12-103(e); a loan to you personally on a house you live in is not. Write the business purpose into the loan papers.
3. Price the whole loan. The rate is about half of it: add points (which count as interest), the recordation tax on the deed of trust and, at both ends, the transfer taxes in the table above. Our investment property loans page compares loan types.
4. Read the default clause. In Maryland the borrower of an investment house gets the 45-day notice but not mediation, and the sale can be by power of sale or by court decree. Ask how default interest and fees accrue, and whether you sign a personal guaranty.
5. Plan the refinance. The 30-year Maryland median was 7.375% in 2025, so each month a 10% bridge stays in place costs the gap; see the BRRRR method and our bridge loan page.
6. Know the lender. Ask who funds the loan, whether it sells loans, and check its licences, the Maryland Office of Financial Regulation's enforcement actions and our private money lender page.

FAQ

Loan data: FFIEC/CFPB HMDA Data Browser, Maryland originated loans for 2025 and the FFIEC 2025 filer lists, downloaded October 11, 2026 (script hmda_md_final.py in the data folder). Statutes: Maryland Code, Commercial Law 12-101, 12-102, 12-103, 12-105 and 12-114; Financial Institutions 11-501, 11-502, 11-504 and 11-506; Real Property 7-105, 7-105.1 to 7-105.4; Tax-Property 12-103, 12-108, 13-101 and 13-203, from the Maryland General Assembly website, read October 11, 2026. County tax rates: Maryland Department of Legislative Services, Other Local Tax Rates in Maryland, fiscal year 2026. Foreclosure notices: Maryland Office of Financial Regulation Foreclosure Data Tracker and the State's open-data dataset, through September 2026. All counts, shares, medians and tax figures are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal, tax or lending advice, and not a loan offer.