Every week, deals come across our desk from every corner of Ohio. Fix-and-flips, bridge-to-refi, ground-up. Big metros and small towns. Patterns show up. The ones we’re seeing this spring look different from six months ago.
Here’s what’s actually moving in Ohio right now: what’s working, what’s not, and what’s changed.
Bridge-to-refi is doing more work than fix-and-flip
Most of the volume we’ve funded in the last six months has been bridge-to-refi. Close on the property, fund the rehab, exit into a long-term DSCR refi or sale. Pure fix-and-flip is still happening, but the math is tighter than it was a year ago.
The reason is simple. Appreciation has flattened. In 2022 and early 2023, you could under-budget the rehab and the market would bail you out at exit. That’s not true anymore in most Ohio submarkets. The deals that are winning now aren’t winning on appreciation. They’re winning on the gap between purchase-plus-rehab and rented-up DSCR value. Those deals close. The “wholesale price, fingers crossed on ARV” deals are the ones we decline.
If your model assumes the next twelve months will look like the last two years, run the numbers again at flat appreciation. If it still works, it’s a deal. If it doesn’t, you’re not running a deal. You’re running a bet on the market.
What to expect after you submit
We look at every submission the day it comes in. Most of the time, you’ll hear from one of us within a few hours. That call has one purpose: figure out whether we can fund the deal, and if we can, give you a real number.
If the answer is yes, here’s what happens next. We send a term sheet the same day. You confirm. We start title and insurance. The clock from term sheet to wired funds is usually one to two weeks, depending on title turnaround and how fast you can produce the basics: entity docs, insurance binder, signed purchase agreement, ID. The bottleneck is rarely us. It’s usually waiting on a survey or a title commitment.
If the answer is no, you’ll know within a day. We tell you why. If the deal can be restructured to work, we’ll say so. If it can’t, we’ll say that too. What we don’t do is leave you wondering.
The “decision in 24 hours” line on the homepage is not marketing copy. It’s the actual median.
The rate environment
Rates aren’t moving much in the near term. Most private lenders sit between 9 and 12 percent right now. Institutional capital can sometimes go lower for the right deal and the right borrower. If rate is the only thing you’re optimizing for, you can find lenders below us.
That lower rate usually comes with tradeoffs. Less speed. Less certainty. Less access to the person actually funding your deal. Our model is built differently. We quote, we fund, we service, and we personally underwrite every deal. We close in days, not weeks. We don’t change our minds at the closing table.
For most operators working under contract with a deadline, that combination is worth more than fifty basis points. And if rate is your only variable, we’d still rather have the conversation. There are usually other levers we can work, like leverage or terms or fee structure, to land the deal where you need it. Send us the file and we’ll tell you what’s possible.
What gets approved versus what gets declined
We’ve looked at almost as many declined deals as approved ones. The split is rarely about the borrower’s experience or credit. It’s almost always three things.
The exit is real. Approved deals have a believable plan: refinance into DSCR at month six with rents that support 1.1+ DSCR, or sell to a specific buyer pool that’s active in the submarket today. Declined deals have “I’ll figure it out” energy, or assume retail buyers will materialize for a half-renovated property in a B-minus neighborhood.
The rehab budget is honest. Approved deals come in with itemized scope: roof $X, HVAC $Y, kitchen $Z, plus a contingency line. Declined deals come in with “rehab budget $35K” as a single line, no detail, and we already know that’s $50K to $60K once a real contractor touches it.
The ARV is defensible. Approved deals show three comps within a half-mile, similar finish level, sold in the last 90 days. Declined deals lean on aspirational comps from different neighborhoods, two-year-old sales, or new-construction comps for a 1955 rehab.
The single best tell? A clean submission with a detailed scope and defensible ARV. Operators who submit that way close fast. Operators who don’t, regardless of how good the underlying deal might be, take longer or lose it.