Super Jumbo Hard Money Lenders With No Maximum

Super Jumbo Hard Money Lenders With No Maximum — The Quick Read: No regulator sets a ceiling on hard money loan size — “no maximum” is a lender-defined marketing term, not a legal category. In practice, hard money programs cap loan-to-cost and loan-to-value by tier rather than by a hard dollar ceiling, and the biggest deals still get sized against a lender’s own risk appetite. Loan amounts in Lendmire’s wholesale network commonly run up to $5,000,000, with larger deals handled by exception. The real question for an investor isn’t “does a cap exist” — it’s how the leverage tiers, experience requirements, and exit plan actually work at size.

That’s the agency world. Hard money loans don’t sell to Fannie or Freddie, so that limit doesn’t apply to them at all. “Super jumbo” and “no maximum” are phrases individual lenders use to describe their own appetite above that agency line — nothing more.

What Does “No Maximum” Actually Mean?

It means no statute caps the loan amount — not that every lender will fund any size deal. Hard money and DSCR loans are business-purpose loans, which keeps them outside consumer lending caps tied to loan size. The ceiling that does exist is set by each lender’s balance sheet and appetite for risk, and that ceiling moves file by file.

This matters because investors sometimes read “no maximum” as a promise. It isn’t one. A lender willing to fund $500,000 on a straightforward rehab may pass entirely on a $4,000,000 ground-up project in an unfamiliar market, even though nothing in federal law stops them from doing it. The absence of a legal cap just shifts the real limit onto underwriting judgment — property type, borrower experience, exit plan, and how the deal is structured.

How Underwriting Actually Treats a Large Hard Money File

Hard money underwriting is asset-based first, borrower-experience second — the property, the plan, and the exit carry more weight than income documents. That doesn’t change at size. What changes is how tightly the lender scrutinizes each piece as the dollar amount climbs.

Step by step, here’s how a file typically moves through review in Lendmire’s wholesale network:

1. Property and exit review. The lender looks at the collateral first — condition, location, and whether the exit plan (sale, refinance, or hold) is realistic given the property type. Hard money in this network covers non-owner-occupied residential property, one to four units, plus ground-up construction up to ten units. Commercial, industrial, raw land, hospitality, and owner-occupied property are not on the sheet.

2. Leverage tier assignment. Leverage on fix-and-flip deals is set on a loan-to-cost basis, tiered by the investor’s track record — up to 93% of project cost for investors with five or more completed projects, 90% at two or more, and 85% for investors with fewer than two, with every tier capped at 75% of after-repair value. Bridge purchases with no rehab component top out around 80% of purchase price. Cash-out and rate/term refinances run up to 65% of value. Ground-up construction can reach 90% of cost or 75% of completed value once the investor has three or more finished projects behind them. None of these are bare “LTV” figures above 80% — they’re cost-based, and the rehab budget itself can fund up to 100% in draws against completed work, which is a construction-draw structure, not a purchase ceiling.

3. Credit and experience check. A 620 score is the floor in this network, with added conditions below 660. First-time investors still qualify, just at the lower leverage tiers rather than being shut out.

4. Reserves and documentation. Reserve requirements vary by lender, property, and deal size — there’s no single number that applies everywhere. Bigger, more complex deals typically draw a closer look at liquidity and a completed track record before the top leverage tiers open up.

5. Structuring. Terms in this network run 6 to 18 months, interest-only, with no prepayment penalty. There’s no multi-year hard money structure on the current sheet — investors who need a longer runway typically refinance into long-term rental financing once the property is stabilized, a path Lendmire also brokers through its DSCR network.

Appraisal work follows the same forms used across the industry regardless of loan size — the Single-Family Comparable Rent Schedule (Form 1007) and the Small Residential Income Property Appraisal Report for small multifamily. These forms tie value and rent together on the file, and an underestimated rent figure has outsized consequences on a large loan because it drives both leverage and the eventual refinance math.

Where the Structures and Variations Show Up

The label “hard money” hides a fair amount of variation once loan size grows. A fix-and-flip file, a no-rehab bridge purchase, and a ground-up construction loan are underwritten differently even inside the same lender’s shop.

• Fix-and-flip. Leverage scales with completed-project count, as above. An investor with five closed flips gets meaningfully more leverage than someone on their first deal, even on an identical property.
• Bridge purchases without rehab. These are simpler files — no draw schedule, no completion risk — and leverage runs up to 80% of purchase price.
• Cash-out and rate/term refinance. Capped lower, around 65% of value, reflecting that the lender is pulling equity out rather than financing an acquisition.
• Ground-up construction. The most document-intensive structure, capped at 90% of cost or 75% of completed value for experienced builders — three or more finished projects.

The top leverage tier in every category is reserved for investors with a documented track record. That’s the actual mechanism behind “no maximum” loan size claims: size isn’t the constraint, experience and structure are.

Where the General Rule Breaks — Named Edge Cases

Short-term rental collateral breaks the standard rent-appraisal tool. The 1007 rent schedule wasn’t built for nightly-rate properties — appraisers shouldn’t multiply a nightly rate by 30 days to estimate monthly rent, because that approach ignores personal property, business expenses, and vacancy that a long-term lease doesn’t have. On a large short-term rental purchase, this gap in the standard mechanism can create real friction between the appraiser’s number and what the property actually earns.

Entity vs. individual borrower changes which laws apply at all. A loan made to an LLC is treated differently than one made to a person under Truth in Lending, per the CFPB’s own TILA reference guide, which lays out the multi-factor business-purpose test. Most hard money rental loans stack both exemptions — an entity borrower using the funds for a rental property — but a loan to a person secured by a property that will be owner-occupied doesn’t automatically qualify, and Lendmire’s network doesn’t lend on owner-occupied collateral in the first place.

State usury law doesn’t disappear just because a loan is business-purpose or large. Treatment varies enormously by state. New York exempts loans over $2.5 million from usury caps entirely, regardless of borrower type. California’s exemption runs through licensed brokers and certain loan sizes rather than a flat dollar threshold — Washington State’s Department of Financial Institutions lays out a similar business/investment-purpose carve-out under its own statute. An investor moving into an unfamiliar state should check whether that state’s exemption test is entity-based, purpose-based, or size-based before assuming a large loan automatically clears the bar.

“No maximum” still runs into a footprint. Lendmire’s DSCR and hard money programs are placed across 40 markets, including Washington, D.C. — but the network doesn’t currently place loans in Louisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, or South Dakota, or on collateral in Baltimore, Chicago, or Detroit. A “no maximum” claim never overrides geography.

Property type is a harder wall than loan size. Commercial buildings, industrial property, raw land, and hospitality assets simply aren’t offered in this hard money product — not “harder to finance,” just not on the sheet, regardless of how much capital the investor brings.

A Practical Scenario

Picture an investor with four completed flips buying a distressed single-family property for renovation and resale. At five-plus completed projects the leverage runs up to 93% of project cost, capped at 75% of after-repair value — with four projects closed, this investor sits at the 90%-of-cost tier instead, still bounded by the same 75% ARV ceiling. The rehab budget itself can draw up to 100% against completed work as construction phases finish. None of this depends on the purchase price being $400,000 or $4,000,000 — the same tiers apply. What changes at the larger dollar amount is the depth of documentation the lender wants on the exit: a buyer letter of intent, comparable sales, and a realistic resale timeline carry more weight the higher the number gets.

Once the property stabilizes as a rental instead of a flip, many investors in this position refinance out of the short-term hard money loan into a longer DSCR loan sized to the property’s rent-to-payment ratio rather than the investor’s personal income — a path outlined in Lendmire’s complete DSCR loans guide. That’s the standard bridge-to-permanent sequence: hard money moves fast on acquisition and rehab risk, DSCR financing carries the asset long-term.

Key Terms Defined

Loan-to-cost (LTC): the loan amount expressed as a percentage of the total project cost — purchase price plus rehab budget — rather than the finished value of the property.

After-repair value (ARV): the estimated market value of a property once planned renovations are complete; hard money leverage tiers are typically capped against this figure regardless of the loan-to-cost percentage.

Business-purpose loan: a loan made for an investment, rental, or commercial reason rather than personal, family, or household use — this classification is what keeps hard money and DSCR loans outside most consumer-lending disclosure rules.

Usury exemption: a state-law carve-out that removes a loan from that state’s interest-rate cap, typically based on the borrower’s entity type, the loan’s purpose, or the loan amount.

Form 1007: the standard rent schedule appraisers use to support a property’s market rent conclusion on one-unit investment properties, used across the industry regardless of whether the loan is agency or non-agency.

What This Means for Sizing a Deal

Most hard money and DSCR loans in Lendmire’s network land between roughly $100,000 and $3,000,000 on the DSCR side, and up to $5,000,000 on the hard money side, with larger files handled case by case. Above roughly $2,500,000, DSCR structures in this network generally hold to 30-year fixed terms rather than adjustable products — a stability preference that shows up more often as loan size climbs. None of these figures represent a ceiling set by law; they represent where a given lender’s appetite and warehouse capacity currently sit, which is exactly why “no maximum” is accurate as a legal statement and misleading as a sales pitch.

Investors comparing quotes on a large deal should treat every “no cap” claim the same way: ask what the actual leverage tier looks like at their experience level, what the exit plan needs to show, and which states and property types the lender actually serves. For a broader comparison of how hard money leverage compares to standard programs, Lendmire’s guide to super jumbo 75% LTV hard money covers the leverage side in more depth, and investors newer to this asset class may find the beginner’s guide to hard money lenders useful before their first large file. Terms vary by lender guidelines, property type, leverage, credit profile, and full file review.

Tax treatment can depend on how the funds are used and how the property is held; investors should keep clear records and speak with a qualified tax professional before relying on any deduction.

For deeper background on the mechanics discussed here, see FHFA News Release – 2026 CLL Values.

About Lendmire

A non-QM mortgage broker (NMLS# 2371349), Lendmire arranges DSCR financing for real estate investors in 40 markets — 39 states plus Washington, D.C. Because deals are underwritten primarily on property cash flow rather than personal income documentation, the structure suits self-employed buyers and entity-owned portfolios. Lendmire places loans through wholesale investor lenders; it is not a direct lender. Scotsman Guide named Lendmire a Top Mortgage Workplace in both 2025 and 2026.

Short-term financing tends to work best when the long-term plan is decided early – see how DSCR loans work as the long-term exit.

References

1. Fannie Mae – Form 1007 (Single-Family Comparable Rent Schedule)

2. FHFA News Release – 2026 CLL Values