Essex is the second biggest city in Vermont behind Burlington, and has a population just over 42,000 people. It is also in Chittendon County, and is known as the “Crossroads of Chittendon County.” Essex is home to the biggest Amtrak station in Vermont, and is also home to the biggest private employer in the state, GlobalFoundries. Accessible by Route 289, Essex is known for being a transportation hub but is also known for having the Harriet Farnsworth Powell Museum.
According to Niche, Essex is one of the best places to live in Vermont. It has a sparse suburban feel, and is a place where most people own their homes. Essex is a place with lots of parks and green space, and is home to a variety of young professionals. Public schools are terrific in Essex. It’s a safe city that’s a great place to raise a family, and the median home value in Essex is $316,500, while the median rent is $1276.
Right now, Essex is a seller’s market. It’s a place where demand is rapidly outpacing supply, and where homes are selling very fast and for higher than listing price. Essex is a housing bubble like the rest of Vermont and much of the rest of the country during the pandemic, and a lot of buyers are getting into bidding wars over very competitive properties.
Hard money loans might be the best way to invest in real estate in Essex. Hard money loans are an alternative source of financing to traditional mortgage loans that are used for fixing homes in disrepair and then flipping them for a substantial profit. Hard money loans give a huge advantage in seller’s markets like Essex because they can be approved in a couple of days, as opposed to traditional mortgage loans, which can take a month or more to be approved. Hard money loans can help real estate investors become very competitive in bidding wars in Essex.
These loans can be approved so quickly because they’re based on the property, not the credit score of the borrower. It’s not like credit doesn’t matter — hard money loans use credit to bring down interest rates, and all hard money loans have credit score minimums around 600. But hard money loans are inherently very different because they also use the property as collateral, which means they have a very different default process. If a borrower defaults on a hard money loan, it’s not a foreclosure — the lender takes on the property in a very fast process. This means the lender will then try to flip the home themselves in a very fast and expedient process.
The lender can also lose a lot of money, which means hard money loans have much more unforgiving rates and terms than traditional mortgage loans. Hard money loans are known for having very high interest rates. They have interest rates anywhere from 8–15%, which are substantially higher than the notoriously high 5.6% interest rates of the average 30 year mortgage in the summer 2022 housing bubble. They’re also known for shorter repayment periods — hard money loans need to be repaid around a year, whereas traditional mortgage loans can take 30 years to be repaid. Lastly, because hard money loans have lower LTV ratios, this means borrowers usually need to pay higher down payments on average.
To find the best hard money lenders, we’ve compiled a list of the best hard money lenders in Essex for your real estate transaction.
