Hard Money Loans New Jersey: Law, Rates and Lenders (2026)
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Quick Answer
As of October 11, 2026, New Jersey's own statutes put the ceiling for an LLC borrower at 50% a year, not 16%: the criminal usury line is 30% for individuals and 50% for a corporation, LLC or LLP (N.J.S.A. 2C:21-19), and N.J.S.A. 31:1-6 says no corporation, LLC or LLP may plead the civil usury defense. The 16% civil cap in N.J.S.A. 31:1-1 still governs written contracts with individuals, but its “$50,000 or more” exemption does not cover a first lien on a building with one to six dwelling units. The 2025 federal HMDA file shows what lenders actually charged: 3,158 short-term (36 months or less) business-purpose investor loans in New Jersey, a median note rate of 10.25% (middle half 9.75% to 10.99%) on a median loan of $365,000, 94.8% of them to entities, and 30.8% of them from one lender, Kiavi (974 loans). New Jersey forecloses through the courts, and the Fair Foreclosure Act notice protects only a natural-person debtor who lives in the home, so an LLC flip loan gets none of it; the sheriff must hold the sale within 150 days of receiving the writ. Since July 10, 2025 the “mansion tax” is a graduated 1% to 3.5% fee on the seller, not a flat 1% on the buyer. We found no published New Jersey time-to-sale statistic we could read. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal, tax or lending advice.
Key Takeaways
- Usury: 16% civil cap for written contracts (N.J.S.A. 31:1-1), but no corporation, LLC or LLP may plead it (31:1-6). Criminal usury starts above 30% for individuals and 50% for corporations, LLCs and LLPs (2C:21-19). The “any rate for loans of $50,000 or more” exemption excludes first liens on buildings with one to six dwelling units, which is the opposite of how it is often described.
- Licensing: the Residential Mortgage Lending Act covers a “residential mortgage loan,” defined as a loan primarily for personal, family or household purposes. A loan to an LLC to buy and rehab an investment property is outside that definition on the statute's text. We found no Department of Banking and Insurance page that addresses business-purpose lenders either way.
- Price (2025 HMDA, New Jersey, 30-month entries set aside): 3,158 short-term business-purpose investor loans, median note rate 10.25%, 25th to 75th percentile 9.75% to 10.99%, highest 15.875%, none above 16%. The 30-year rental loans investors refinance into had a 7.375% median on 7,216 loans, 2.875 percentage points lower (our arithmetic).
- Who: 36 lenders made the short-term loans, the top ten made 89.9%, and lenders with bank-like names made 0.9%. Kiavi 974 loans (10.45% median), Loan Funder 708 (10.5%), RF Renovo 477 (9.75%), ABL RPC Residential Credit Acquisition 207 (11.365%), RCN Capital 228 across two filer numbers.
- Foreclosure: court action first, deficiency suit second within 3 months of the sale, with a fair-market-value credit (N.J.S.A. 2A:50-2 and 2A:50-3); sheriff sale within 150 days of the writ (2A:50-64). A guarantor must be made a party to the foreclosure to be sued later. The Fair Foreclosure Act's 30-day notice protects only natural-person owner-occupants.
- Transfer fee: the seller pays. On a $650,000 resale the basic, additional and general purpose fees are $4,295; on a $1,200,000 sale they are $9,035 plus a $12,000 graduated percent fee, $21,035 in all (our arithmetic from N.J.S.A. 46:15-7 and 46:15-7.2).
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New Jersey hard money law (usury, licensing, foreclosure, transfer fee, recording fees) and 2025 HMDA business-purpose investor loans in New Jersey
245 rows: New Jersey usury, licensing, foreclosure, transfer-fee and recording-fee provisions with section numbers and URLs; our HMDA 2025 counts, note-rate percentiles, borrower types, lenders and counties for New Jersey short-term and 30-year business-purpose investor loans; our transfer-fee arithmetic. One source per row.
What a New Jersey hard money loan looks like in the federal record
Hard money pages for New Jersey are mostly lender directories. This one starts from the two public records that exist: the statutes that set the limits, and the federal mortgage data lenders must file. We used the HMDA loan-level file for New Jersey (conventional originations in 2025, downloaded October 6, 2026 from the FFIEC Data Browser) and the same rule we use on our hard money loan rates page: investment property, business purpose, first lien, one to four units, closed-end, no debt-to-income ratio, and a term of 36 months or less for the “short-term” (bridge and fix-and-flip type) group or 360 months or more for the rental-loan (“DSCR-type”) group. HMDA has no field for the loan product, so this is a proxy, and it counts only lenders that file.
New Jersey 2025 HMDA: business-purpose investor loans (our arithmetic)
| Measure | Short-term (36 months or less) | 30-year rental (DSCR-type) |
|---|---|---|
| Loans | 3,158 (after setting aside 324 loans of 30 months) | 7,216 |
| Note rate, 25th percentile | 9.75% | 6.99% |
| Note rate, median | 10.25% | 7.375% |
| Note rate, 75th percentile | 10.99% | 7.75% |
| Note rate, 90th percentile | 11.95% | 8.375% |
| Highest note rate | 15.875% | 12.999% |
| Median loan | $365,000 | $365,000 |
| Loans to entities (not natural persons) | 2,994 (94.8%) | 2,529 (35.0%) |
| Lenders reporting at least one | 36 | 129 |
| Top ten lenders' share | 89.9% | 48.5% |
The file has 154,396 conventional originations in New Jersey; 19,935 were on investment property, 16,021 of those for a business purpose, and 14,662 of those were first-lien closed-end loans on one to four units. Of the 14,662, 3,482 (23.7%) were short-term and 7,216 (49.2%) were 30-year or longer with no debt-to-income ratio. The short-term group has 2,774 loans with a 12-month term, 170 with 18 months and 96 with 24 months. One lender, Emporium TPO, reported all 324 loans with a 30-month term at a 7.375% median, which look like 30-year loans entered as 30, so the main column leaves them out; with them the short-term median is 10.24% on 3,482 loans.
What the file shows about how these loans are made: 2,690 of the 3,158 were for a purchase and 244 for home improvement; 2,694 were on single-family properties and 464 on two to four units; 882 came through a broker or correspondent and 2,276 directly to the lender. The gap between the short-term median (10.25%) and the rental-loan median (7.375%) is 2.875 percentage points, which is the premium paid for a one-year bridge before the refinance (our arithmetic). On the median $365,000 loan, 10.25% is $37,412.50 of interest-only interest over twelve months, before points, which HMDA does not report for business-purpose loans (our arithmetic). Our hard money loan calculator turns points and term into the full cost.
Who lends: Kiavi, Loan Funder and a short list
The 12 largest short-term business-purpose investor lenders in New Jersey, 2025 HMDA (30-month entries set aside)
| Lender (HMDA filer name) | Loans | Median note rate | Median loan |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kiavi Funding, Inc. | 974 | 10.45% | $315,000 |
| Loan Funder LLC | 708 | 10.5% | $395,000 |
| RF Renovo Management Company, LLC | 477 | 9.75% | $335,000 |
| ABL RPC Residential Credit Acquisition LLC | 207 | 11.365% | $645,000 |
| RCN Capital, LLC (first filer number) | 168 | 10.415% | $325,000 |
| Temple View Capital Funding LP | 108 | 10.5% | $715,000 |
| RCN Capital, LLC (second filer number) | 60 | 10.74% | $280,000 |
| LendingOne LLC | 52 | 9.99% | $395,000 |
| Ice Lender Holdings LLC | 46 | 9.85% | $610,000 |
| Genesis Capital, LLC | 40 | 8.875% | $500,000 |
| BPL Mortgage, LLC | 34 | 9.99% | $490,000 |
| Velocity Commercial Capital LLC | 30 | 10.365% | $235,000 |
Three readings. First, concentration: Kiavi, Loan Funder and RF Renovo made 2,159 of the 3,158 loans, 68.4% (our arithmetic), and lenders whose HMDA names contain a bank-like word made 29 loans, 0.9% (our rule on names; HMDA has no lender-type field). A New Jersey investor shopping for a bridge is shopping among non-bank lenders. Second, size: the lenders of $500,000-plus loans (ABL RPC, Temple View, Ice Lender, Genesis) are not the same as the lenders of $235,000 to $335,000 loans (Velocity, RF Renovo, Kiavi, RCN), so a quote should be compared with lenders in the same loan-size band, not with the state median. Third, the file counts only lenders that file HMDA: for New York City we showed from property records that many private lenders do not, and we have not run that test for New Jersey. See also our ranking of hard money lenders and our New York hard money page, which uses property records.
Where in New Jersey: the short-term loans are in 21 counties, led by Camden (391 loans, 12.4%), Essex (322), Burlington (219), Mercer (195), Gloucester (191), Ocean (183), Bergen (176) and Monmouth (161). The median loan is $225,000 in Mercer and $265,000 in Camden but $675,000 in Bergen, $530,000 in Essex and $525,000 in Monmouth; the median rate barely moves, from 9.9% in Camden to 10.5% in Monmouth.
New Jersey interest rules: 16%, 30%, 50%, and who can raise them
The interest rules are in two places: the criminal code (N.J.S.A. 2C:21-19) and the civil usury title (N.J.S.A. 31:1-1 and 31:1-6). We read the statute text on the Justia 2025 edition of the New Jersey Revised Statutes, which states it may not be the most recent version, and N.J.A.C. 3:1-1.1 on Cornell's Legal Information Institute, on October 11, 2026. Our tools could not read the Legislature's own site.
New Jersey interest-rate rules that matter on a hard money loan (text saved October 11, 2026)
| Rule | What the text says | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Civil usury cap | 6% a year, or 16% a year when a written contract specifies a rate | N.J.S.A. 31:1-1(a) |
| First lien on a building with one to six dwelling units | The Commissioner of Banking may set a maximum rate by regulation, up to the long-term government bond index plus 8% in the statute; the regulation uses the index plus 3.5% | N.J.S.A. 31:1-1(b); N.J.A.C. 3:1-1.1(b) |
| Loans of $50,000 or more | Any rate the parties agree, except where the security is a first lien on a building with one to six dwelling units | N.J.S.A. 31:1-1(e)(1) |
| Business or agricultural loans of $1,000 or more | Capped at 5% above the New York Federal Reserve discount rate or 90-day commercial paper, where the first-lien rate in that section would otherwise exceed what could be charged | N.J.S.A. 31:1-1(g) |
| Corporations, LLCs and LLPs | May not plead or set up the defense of usury | N.J.S.A. 31:1-6 |
| Criminal usury | A rate above 30% a year is not authorized by law; 50% if the borrower is a corporation, LLC or LLP | N.J.S.A. 2C:21-19(a) |
| Penalty | Second degree crime above 50%; knowingly engaging in the business of criminal usury is a second degree crime with a fine of up to $250,000 | N.J.S.A. 2C:21-19(a), (b) |
Four points follow from the text:
- The $50,000 exemption is narrower than it sounds. It lifts the civil cap on loans of $50,000 or more, but not where the security is a first lien on a building with one to six dwelling units. A flip loan is exactly that. For a first lien on a one-to-six unit building, the ceiling is the one the Commissioner sets by regulation, the long-term bond index plus 3.5% in N.J.A.C. 3:1-1.1(b), and we did not find the monthly index value published, so we give no number for today's ceiling.
- That is why the borrower's legal form matters. Section 31:1-6 reads “No corporation, limited liability company or limited liability partnership shall plead or set up the defense of usury” to an action against it. In the HMDA file 94.8% of the short-term loans were to entities. The other 164 loans, 5.2%, were to natural persons at a 10.495% median; the statute and regulation, not the 16% figure, are what to check on a loan to an individual secured by a first lien on a one-to-six unit building, and whether a business-purpose loan is treated differently is a case-law question we did not research.
- The practical ceiling for an LLC is the criminal line. Above 50% a year is unauthorized for a corporation, LLC or LLP. No short-term loan in the 2025 file had a note rate above 16%: the highest was 15.875%, 150 were above 12% and 2 above 15%. Points, fees and default interest are not in HMDA, so the all-in cost is higher than the note rate.
- A loan made to an entity in form can be a loan to a person in substance. Secondary sources describe cases on this; we did not read them, and so we do not rely on them. If you sign personally, treat the individual rules as the ones that apply to you.
Do New Jersey hard money lenders need a license?
New Jersey's mortgage licensing statute is the Residential Mortgage Lending Act (N.J.S.A. 17:11C-51 and following). Section 17:11C-54 says “No person shall act as a residential mortgage lender or broker without first obtaining a license,” and the definition in section 17:11C-53 limits the product: a residential mortgage loan is “any loan primarily for personal, family, or household purposes” secured by a dwelling. On that text a loan to your LLC to buy, rehab and sell or rent a property is not a residential mortgage loan, which is why many private lenders that make only business-purpose loans are not licensed under the Act. The Department of Banking and Insurance's lender license page asks the question the other way: it says residential mortgage loans “include both first and second mortgage loans on New Jersey property,” lists depository institutions, certain attorneys and real estate licensees among those who do not need the license, and says nothing about business-purpose loans. We found no department page, bulletin or order on private lenders, so this page gives the statute's text and not the department's view.
Two things to do with that. A lender that makes both consumer and investor loans, or that will lend to you personally on a property you will live in, does fall under the Act, and NMLS Consumer Access (nmlsconsumeraccess.org) is where a license is checked. And the licence status of a business-purpose lender says little about it: check the lender's record in the property records and the federal data, as in our guide to who private money lenders are. Kiavi's website says its bridge loans on New Jersey property are “originated and funded by Kiavi Funding, LLC,” with NMLS ID 1125207 (the company's claim, October 11, 2026).
Judicial foreclosure in New Jersey: what an LLC borrower gets
New Jersey forecloses through the courts, and the order of events is written in statute.
New Jersey foreclosure on an investor loan compared with an owner-occupied home (statute text saved October 11, 2026)
| Step | LLC or investor borrower | Natural person living in the home (up to four units) | Section |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notice before suing | No statutory notice of intention | Written notice at least 30 days and not more than 180 days before the action, with a right to cure | N.J.S.A. 2A:50-56 |
| Who is protected | Not a “residential mortgage” | Security is a residence “occupied, or is to be occupied, by the debtor, who is a natural person” | N.J.S.A. 2A:50-55 |
| Order of collection | Foreclose first, then sue on the note for any deficiency | Same | N.J.S.A. 2A:50-2 |
| Deficiency suit | Within 3 months of the sale or its confirmation; if the obligor disputes the amount, the court deducts the fair market value of the premises from the debt | Same | N.J.S.A. 2A:50-2, 2A:50-3 |
| Guarantor | Cannot be sued on the note later unless made a party to the foreclosure | Same | N.J.S.A. 2A:50-2 |
| Sheriff sale | Within 150 days of the sheriff's receipt of the writ of execution; successful bidder pays a 20 percent deposit | Same, with extra notices and lower deposits for owner-occupant bidders | N.J.S.A. 2A:50-64 |
| After a deficiency judgment | The debtor may bring an action to redeem within 6 months | Same | N.J.S.A. 2A:50-4 |
For a lender, the New Jersey-specific risk is the sequence: the property must be sold at the sheriff sale before a deficiency suit, and if the obligor disputes the deficiency, the court measures it against fair market value, not the bid. A guarantor who was not named in the foreclosure cannot be sued on the guaranty afterwards. For a borrower, the point is the reverse: the long notice-and-cure steps people associate with New Jersey foreclosure belong to the Fair Foreclosure Act, which on its definition covers natural-person owner-occupants, and an LLC flip loan is outside it. The Act's cure right, which lasts until final judgment, is also an owner-occupant right.
How long it takes: the one hard number in statute is the sheriff's 150 days from receipt of the writ, and the Act's 30-day minimum notice for owner-occupants. For the time from complaint to sale the Department of Banking and Insurance's foreclosure statistics page says the Administrative Office of the Courts compiles the filing counts and calls its numbers “the definitive numbers,” but the AOC report linked from that page returned a not-found error on October 11, 2026, and njcourts.gov refused our automated reads. We did not find an official New Jersey time-to-sale statistic we could save, so we give none; a lender's pricing for New Jersey reflects that, and you can ask a lender how many months it assumes. Our New York page shows the same pattern for another judicial state.
Transfer fee, “mansion tax” and recording fees on a flip
New Jersey has no tax on recording a mortgage that we found in the statutes we read, but it charges a county recording fee ($30 for the first page and $10 for each additional page, N.J.S.A. 22A:4-4.1; $420 for a 40-page mortgage, our arithmetic) and a realty transfer fee on every deed. The transfer fee is imposed on the seller: the Division of Taxation's page says the State imposes it “on the seller of real property for recording a deed for the sale,” and its July 9, 2025 memorandum says that for deeds submitted on or after July 10, 2025 “the statutes put legal responsibility for payment of all transfer fees on the seller.” A flipper is the seller on the resale, and the buyer on the purchase, where the seller's fee is a negotiating point in the contract.
Realty transfer fee on a sale (our arithmetic from N.J.S.A. 46:15-7 and 46:15-7.2)
| Sale price | Basic fee | Additional fee | General purpose fee | Graduated percent fee | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $400,000 | $1,400 | $375 | $720 | none | $2,495 |
| $650,000 | $2,275 | $750 | $1,270 | none | $4,295 |
| $1,200,000 | $4,200 | $1,575 | $3,260 | $12,000 | $21,035 |
The basic fee is $1.75 per $500 (state $1.25 plus county $0.50), the additional fee is $0.75 per $500 above $150,000, and the general purpose fee steps from $0.90 to $2.15 per $500 (none at $350,000 or less). The statute text we saved has clauses that turn off parts of the basic and additional fees on a Treasury certification; we computed with all parts in force and the Division's own rate table was not readable by our tools, so confirm the figure with the title company. The “mansion tax” is section 46:15-7.2. It used to be a flat 1% on the buyer for deeds over $1,000,000. For deeds submitted on or after July 10, 2025 it is a graduated percent fee on the grantor, applied to the entire consideration: 1% from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000, 2% to $2,500,000, 2.5% to $3,000,000, 3% to $3,500,000 and 3.5% above that, on residential, cooperative and Class 4A commercial property. For a flipper, the effect is at the top of the market: a $1,200,000 resale carries a $12,000 graduated fee that a $999,999 resale does not.
What a New Jersey investor can do with this
- Decide whose name is on the note before you decide the rate. The LLC borrower is the common form here (94.8% of the short-term loans), and N.J.S.A. 31:1-6 is one reason a lender may prefer it. If a lender asks you to sign personally, ask it in writing which rate rule it relies on.
- Place the quote on the 2025 distribution, by loan size. A rate at or below 9.75% was in the cheapest quarter of New Jersey short-term loans in 2025 and 10.99% or more in the costliest. Add the points, which HMDA does not show, and test the all-in cost with our hard money loan calculator.
- Ask how the lender treats the guaranty. The foreclosure comes first and a guarantor must be named in it. Ask whether the lender will name you, and what it assumes for time to sale.
- Budget the seller's fee into the exit. On a $650,000 resale the transfer fee is $4,295; above $1,000,000 it is 1% or more of the whole price. Our fix and flip calculator has a line for selling costs, and a rental-numbers tool such as DealCheck helps if the plan is to hold.
- Plan the refinance. The 30-year rental loans investors refinance into had a 7.375% median in New Jersey in 2025, and 35.0% of them went to entities; our DSCR LLC guide covers who requires one. The bridge pays 2.875 points more, so a shorter rehab saves real money (BRRRR method).
- Check the lender in two places. The property records for what it actually records, and NMLS Consumer Access for any license. A missing Residential Mortgage Lending Act license is not by itself a red flag on a business-purpose loan.
Kiavi pays us a referral fee when a loan closes through its button below. It belongs in a New Jersey box because it lends on flips and bridges here: it made 974 short-term New Jersey loans in the 2025 HMDA file, the most of any lender, at a 10.45% median on a $315,000 median loan, and its website lists New Jersey among the states where Kiavi Funding, LLC funds bridge loans (October 11, 2026). Kiavi's loans are the smaller end of the market; the lenders making $500,000-plus loans in the table above are different. Visio Lending appears for the rental refinance (its affiliate filed 114 New Jersey 30-year loans in 2025 at a 7.362% median) and Lima One Capital for both (26 short-term loans at a 10.15% median). Neither pays us. Our Kiavi review has the rest of Kiavi's record.
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FAQ
Statutes: New Jersey Revised Statutes N.J.S.A. 2C:21-19, 31:1-1, 31:1-6, 17:11C-51 to 17:11C-55, 2A:50-2, 2A:50-3, 2A:50-4, 2A:50-55, 2A:50-56, 2A:50-64, 22A:4-4.1, 46:15-5, 46:15-7 and 46:15-7.2, text from the Justia 2025 edition (which states it may not be the most recent), and N.J.A.C. 3:1-1.1 from Cornell LII, read October 11, 2026. Regulators: New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance (Residential Mortgage Lender page and Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Statistics page) and Division of Taxation (Realty Transfer Fee page and its July 9, 2025 memorandum on the graduated percent fee), read October 11, 2026. Loan data: FFIEC/CFPB HMDA Data Browser, New Jersey originated conventional loans for 2025 (snapshot downloaded October 6, 2026) and the 2025 filer list, analyzed by our script hmda_nj.py on October 11, 2026. Lender claim: Kiavi's “States We Lend In” page, read October 11, 2026. All counts, percentiles, shares and fee figures are our arithmetic. Individual borrowers are never named. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal, tax or lending advice, and not a loan offer.
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