Val-Chris Investments 2025 HMDA: 764 California Hard Money Loans, 411 Second Liens, 12.99% Median Rate

What this lender is, from its own file and its own website

Searchers who type “Val Chris Investments” usually want to know whether it is a fit for a flip, what it charges and whether it is legitimate. The company's website says: “Val-Chris is a hard money lending company specializing in both residential and commercial loans, providing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd trust deeds.” It states “Since 1975,” gives the main office as 2601 Main Street, Suite 400, Irvine, California 92614, and lists a California Department of Real Estate broker licence, NMLS ID 243299 and a California Finance Lenders licence from the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI). We read those claims on November 4, 2026 and did not check them against the DRE, NMLS or DFPI registers; do that before you sign anything.

The company's pages list investment, residential and commercial loans, and say “From rental properties to fix-and-flip projects and beyond.” The federal record shows what the borrowers actually took in 2025, and it is a different shape. We downloaded the lender's complete 2025 file from the FFIEC data browser (one file per Legal Entity Identifier; the FFIEC 2025 filer list names LEI 549300KP95LHU8OP0H40 “VAL-CHRIS INVESTMENTS INC.”) and counted it ourselves.

Our filter. The file has 801 records: 766 originated, 18 withdrawn by the applicant and 17 approved but not accepted. We kept action_taken = 1 (originated) and business_or_commercial_purpose = 1, which gives 764 loans. Two originated loans are coded as not business purpose and are left out. No filter on state, occupancy, lien, purpose or term was applied. The data browser interface ignores some occupancy filters, so we downloaded every record and filtered locally.

Who this lender is for: cash-out against property you own

Three facts decide whether this lender matches your project.

1. It is a cash-out lender, not a purchase lender. HMDA loan purpose code 32 is “Cash-out refinancing”. It is on 754 of the 764 loans (98.7%). Home purchase, code 1, is on 6 loans (0.8%). A fix-and-flip loan finances a purchase, so a flipper looking at this file would find almost no one like them. The company's website does say it offers “purchase and refinances transactions”; the 2025 file shows the business is overwhelmingly the second.

2. Most borrowers pledge their own home. HMDA occupancy code 1 is “Principal residence” and code 3 is “Investment property”. 637 loans (83.4%) are on a principal residence and 126 (16.5%) on an investment property. The website says: “We even offer owner-occupied loans in most states” and “They must all be for business purposes.” The file does not say what the money was used for, only that the lender coded each loan as primarily for a business or commercial purpose. What it does show is that the collateral is, for most borrowers, the home they live in.

3. Over half are second mortgages. 411 loans (53.8%) sit behind an existing first mortgage and carry the highest rates: median 13.99%, and 361 of the 411 are at 12.99% or more (87.8%, our arithmetic). A borrower with a low-rate first mortgage keeps it and adds this loan on top. The median second-lien loan is $155,000 against a median property value of $1,075,000 in the file. The lender's loan-to-value field, which the FFIEC defines as “The ratio of the total amount of debt secured by the property to the value of the property relied on in making the credit decision”, has a median of 53.37% on second liens and 40.44% on first liens. So the typical borrower pledges property worth roughly twice the combined debt, which is the “conservative loan-to-value” the website describes.

What a loan costs, in the note rate and what the file hides

The 2025 median is 12.99%, and the spread is wide: the lowest rate in the file is 8.99% and the highest 14.99%. 691 of 762 loans with a rate (90.7%) are above 10%, and 230 (30.2%) are at 13.99% or higher. The most common rate is 13.99% (154 loans), then 12.99% (67), 13.50% (66), 10.99% (59) and 14.50% (54). Rates do not move with the loan's size so much as with its lien position and term: second liens price at 13.99% and first liens at 10.99%, and the 36-month loans (473 of them) have a median of 11.99% against 13.50% for both 24-month and 12-month loans.

The rate is not the whole price. The public file has no value for total loan costs, origination charges, discount points or points and fees on any of the 764 loans, so the cost of getting the loan is not visible here. A worked example, our arithmetic:

• Take the median second lien, $155,000, interest only at 13.99%. Twelve months of interest is $21,684.50, or $1,807.04 a month. Over a 36-month term it is $65,053.50 in interest, with the $155,000 balloon due at maturity.
• Take the median first lien, $225,000, at 10.99%. Twelve months of interest is $24,727.50, or $2,060.63 a month. The first lien is a larger loan at a lower rate, which is why its yearly interest is higher in dollars.
• One point of fee on $155,000 is $1,550. The file cannot tell you whether this lender charges one.

The company's page says only “Our interest rates are constantly adjusted to remain competitive and equitable” and does not mention fees. Ask for the written term sheet.

A note on California's interest ceiling. The 13.99% second-lien median is above the 10% general limit that our California hard money lenders page explains for non-exempt business loans; that page also describes the exemptions, chiefly for loans made or arranged by a licensed real estate broker or a licensed finance lender. Val-Chris lists both kinds of licence on its website. We did not check which exemption, if any, applies to a given loan, and nothing here is a statement that any loan is unlawful. The point for a borrower is to ask the lender, in writing, what licence the loan is made under.

Terms, structure and what changed from 2024

Three changes stand out, all from the lender's own files. First, loans fell by 16.6% while dollars grew 8.2%, because the median loan rose from $155,000 to $185,000 (our arithmetic). Second, the mix moved from 36-month loans (85.9% of the 2024 loans, 61.9% of 2025's) toward 24-month and 12-month loans. Third, the share of second liens fell from 62.9% to 53.8% of loans (576 of 916 against 411 of 764). The median note rate fell 0.385 of a point, from 13.375% to 12.99%.

One caution on the purpose codes. In 2024 the file splits 490 cash-out refinancing and 396 refinancing; in 2025 it shows 754 and 1. We do not know whether the loans changed or the way they are coded did. Do not use the 2024-to-2025 purpose change as evidence of a change in what borrowers do.

Applications: the 2025 file holds no denials. It has 18 applications withdrawn by the applicant and 17 approved but not accepted, against 79 withdrawn in 2024. That is not an approval rate: a lender that screens applicants before they formally apply will show few denials, and HMDA does not record screening.

Where the loans are

California accounts for 635 of 764 loans (83.1%) and $219,885,000 of $250,580,000. Arizona has 43 loans (median rate 13.50%), Florida 37 (10.99%), Hawaii 17 (12.50%), Texas 17 (12.00%) and Nevada 8. Florida and Texas loans are cheaper and smaller, with medians of $155,000 and $105,000. The five largest California counties by loan count are Los Angeles (168), Orange (104), San Diego (61), Riverside (58) and San Bernardino (48). The website names Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio among its cities; the file's 17 Texas loans are a small part of the book.

Val-Chris is a small, regional lender next to the national bridge lenders. For the different, much larger market of short-term first-lien loans on investment property in California, see our California hard money lenders page (median 9.75% on a $735,000 median loan); the two groups are not comparable, because that page filters to first-lien, investment-property loans of 36 months or less. The 78 first-lien investment-property loans in the Val-Chris file are the closest equivalent here: median loan $305,000, median rate 11.50%.

Who buys these loans?

HMDA purchaser type 9 is “Other type of purchaser”. It is on 750 of 764 loans; the other 14 are code 0 (not applicable). The file does not say who the purchasers are. The company describes itself as providing trust deeds. We cannot tell from public data whether the 750 loans were funded by investors, sold to a fund or sold to another lender, and we make no claim about it. For a borrower, the practical question is who services the loan and who you pay each month; that goes in the loan documents, not the HMDA file.

What a reader can do with this

1. Decide which box you are in. If you want to buy a house and renovate it, this lender's file shows 6 purchase loans in 764; a purchase-focused lender is a better fit. If you own a property and want cash for a business need, a second-lien or cash-out loan is the product in the file, and its note rate of 13.99% at the median is the number to compare with a business line of credit, a HELOC and a cash-out refinance.
2. Price the second lien against the first mortgage you would give up. A cash-out refinance replaces your first mortgage; a second lien keeps it. With a low-rate first mortgage (an example, not a figure from the file), the cost of the second at 13.99% is the cost of the money you borrow, while refinancing everything changes the rate on your whole balance. Our cash-out refinance on investment property page walks through that comparison.
3. Ask for the full cost, in writing. Points, fees, extension fee, prepayment terms and the balloon date on a 12-, 24- or 36-month term. HMDA shows none of them. Our hard money loan extension, default interest and points page lists what to look for.
4. Check the licence and the lender. Verify the DRE, NMLS and DFPI numbers the company lists on the official registers, and check how the loan is made under California law. Our private money lender page explains how to check one.
5. Plan the balloon. 763 of the 764 loans have a balloon payment. A 36-month loan with a balloon at the end means a refinance or a sale on a fixed date.
6. Compare with a lender built for flips if that is your project. The lenders in the box below are purchase and rehab lenders; Kiavi pays us a referral fee when a loan closes through the button, and the HMDA counts above are the same either way. Val-Chris is not one of them and is not an affiliate.

FAQ

Related reads: Hard money lenders in California, Private money lenders, Hard money loan rates 2026 and Cash-out refinance on an investment property.

Sources: loan-level data from the FFIEC HMDA Data Browser, 2025 and 2024 files for Val-Chris Investments Inc. (LEI 549300KP95LHU8OP0H40), all action types, downloaded November 4, 2026 through the public API; the FFIEC 2025 filer list; the FFIEC public loan application register data-field list (codes for occupancy, loan purpose, lien status, action taken and purchaser type); the company's website pages val-chris.com and val-chris.com/borrowers, read November 4, 2026. Our recount scripts and their output are in sources/. All percentages, differences and “our arithmetic” figures are calculated by us. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. Compiled by CrowdfundedWealth on November 4, 2026.