Boulder is the famous home to the University of Colorado — Boulder, the biggest and most popular state university in the state. It is also the 12th biggest city in Colorado with a population of just over 108,000 people. Boulder is located at the bottom of the Rocky Mountains, and as a Denver suburb, it’s only 25 miles away from the capital of the state. With its mountainous atmosphere and its status as a college town, Boulder is a terrific place to invest in real estate since there’s always a lot to do.
According to Niche, Boulder is one of the best places to live in Colorado. It gives its residents an urban suburban mixed feel, and is known for having terrific public schools and being a great place to raise a family. Boulder has lots of bars and restaurants to give people a great nightlife, and it’s also a great place to pursue health and fitness and outdoor activities. It’s very easy to get around in Boulder as well, since it’s very accessible through transportation. Boulder’s median home value is $736,000 and its median rent is $1588, which means its high quality of living has a significant cost.
Right now, Boulder is a seller’s market. It’s a place where demand is drastically outpacing supply. It’s also a place where real estate investors are getting into bidding wars over very expensive and appealing housing. Boulder’s skyrocketing home and rental prices make it a housing bubble, much like the rest of the country during the pandemic.
Hard money loans might be the best way to invest in real estate in Boulder. These loans are an alternative to traditional financing where a lot of real estate investors use them to buy homes then flip them for a greater profit. Hard money loans are mainly used in transactions like fix and flips, and in a market where homes are selling very fast and for higher than listing price, they give investors the tremendous advantage of having very fast speeds of approval. Since traditional financing has a speed of approval of more or less a month, buyers who use mortgage financing to buy competitive homes may have already lost out on the property of their dreams. With hard money loans, however, buyers can get approved in only a couple of days, which instantly make them more competitive than buyers who use traditional financing.
Hard money loans also have plenty of disadvantages in a market like Boulder, however. They’re known for being very expensive and having very unforgiving terms and rates. Hard money loans have interest rates anywhere from 8–15%, depending on factors like the property, experience of the borrower, and financial standing. By contrast, traditional mortgage loans have interest rates around 5.6% for 30 year mortgages right now. Hard money loans also have repayment periods of more or less a year, which is much lower than the repayment periods of traditional mortgage loans. Lastly, hard money loans have much lower LTV ratios, which means they require higher down payments than traditional mortgage loans.
The reason hard money loans are so expensive and have such fast speeds of approval is because they use the property as the asset. They don’t rely as much on the credit score of the borrower, and they have a different process when a borrower defaults on a loan.
It’s important to only trust reputable lenders, and that’s where we have you covered at Hard Money Lenders IO. Here are the best lenders in Boulder.
