Lehi is a city in Utah County named after the prophet Lehi from the Book of Mormon. It is a place where there has been rapid development in the tech industry, and Lehi is part of the larger Provo-Orem metropolitan area. It is right next to Traverse Mountain, and Lehi is currently known for its technological economy with companies like Intel and Micron combining to create a microchip plant named IM Flash Technologies — Lehi creates 1 in 14 flash memory chips in the world. Lehi is also home to numerous attractions, such as the Lehi Roller Mills.
According to Niche, Lehi is a Salt Lake City suburb with a population of just less than 67,000 people. It is one of the best places to live in Utah, known for having a lot of jobs and being a great place to raise a family. There are lots of health and fitness and outdoor activities, and is a very commutable city. Lehi has great weather year-round and has a sparse suburban feel where most people own their homes. It is home to many families and young professionals and above average public schools. It has a median home value of $378,300 and a median rent of $1510.
Right now, as of June 2022, Lehi is a buyer’s market. It’s a city where supply is outpacing demand. It’s also a city where homes are selling for lower than listing price and taking a long time to sell.
Investors in Lehi should look into hard money loans. Hard money loans are an alternative source of financing where investors try to repair a home in poor condition and then flip the home for a greater profit. In seller’s markets like Lehi, real estate investors have the advantage of having very fast speeds of approval. In buyer’s markets, however, investors have very different advantages.
In Lehi, hard money loans can help investors qualify for cash-only properties. In real estate, cash-only means a buyer or investor can only pay for a home in cash, but it also means a home is in such poor condition the bank won’t qualify the home for traditional financing.
Real estate investors in Lehi can benefit from hard money loans because sometimes, they qualify as cash in cash-only purchases. Hard money loans qualify as cash because they’re an alternative source of financing to mortgages, but also because they were specifically designed for repairing homes in poor condition.
Hard money loans are different from traditional mortgage loans because they use the property as the asset, not the credit score of the borrower. Hard money loans do use credit for minimums and for bringing down interest rates for new investors. But hard money loans use the property as collateral. If a borrower defaults a hard money loan, the lender will take on the property and becomes the homeowner. The lender will then try to flip the home themselves for profit.
However, hard money loans also have significant disadvantages. They come with higher interest rates than mortgages, at 8–15%, which are much higher than the 5.6% average interest rate of 30 year mortgages. Hard money loans also have repayment periods of more or less a year, which are much shorter than the repayment periods of traditional mortgage loans at 30 years.
It’s important for borrowers to only trust the best hard money lenders. That’s why we have made a list of the best hard money lenders in Lehi.
