Part 1 of "I Spent a Month Answering BiggerPockets Posts So You Don't Have To."
Most BiggerPockets "need a lender" posts aren't looking for a lender. They're looking for someone to put up 100% of the money at lender rates — a partner's capital at a lender's price. If you broker hard money, learn to spot it in the first reply or you'll burn hours on deals that were never deals.
I spent the last month answering lending questions on BiggerPockets. Dozens of posts. Same question, different zip code: "looking for a private lender for my deal."
Here's what I learned: most of them aren't looking for a lender at all.
Read past the headline. The post says "need private money for a flip." Then the details come out in the comments:
One guy wrote it out plainly: "I am offering 12% returns." For a full year of bullshit — finding the deal, managing the rehab, carrying the risk, doing all the work — the money partner gets 12%.
That's fucking crazy. And it's the whole post in one sentence.
Here's how the world actually works, for anyone who needs it spelled out:
When someone brings 100% of the money to a deal, they're a partner, not a lender. And partners bringing the money get half or more of the deal. That's the trade for putting up every dollar and taking equity risk — they share the upside because they're sharing the downside.
A lender gets a fixed return — 10, 12% — because the lender is protected: first position, real collateral, and a borrower with actual skin in the game. The lender's return is capped because the lender's risk is capped. That's the deal. Lower return in exchange for being first in line and holding the security.
You cannot offer somebody the risk of a partner and the return of a lender. Nobody takes that deal. The people who do take it aren't lenders — they're marks.
If you're a broker answering these posts, here's how I qualify them before I spend a minute:
"How much of your own cash is going into this?"
That's it. That's the whole screen. Everything else is details.
Follow-ups for the ones who pass the first question: What's the ARV, and is it real sold comprables or a Zillow number? If it appraises 10% light, who covers the gap? What's your exit — sell or refi — and what happens if neither happens on schedule?
A real borrower answers these without flinching. A fisher argues with the questions.
Here's the part that makes it worse. These posters want lender pricing — 12%, first position, clean terms — but most of them wouldn't qualify for lender rates if a lender actually looked at them. Thin credit. No track record. No liquidity. No skin in the game.
Lender rates go to borrowers a lender wants. Experience, cash, credit, a real deal with real equity. You don't get lender pricing by asking nicely on a forum. You get it by being fundable.
So the typical post is really two fantasies stacked: I want 100% financing (a partner's commitment) at 12% (a lender's price) — from someone who qualifies for neither.
I still answer the posts. But I answer with questions, not pitches. Two or three sharp ones, right in the thread:
How much of your own money is in this? What's the ARV based on? What happens when it appraises light?
The real borrowers answer. The fishers disappear. And every once in a while, a real borrower DMs me — because I'm the only one in the thread who asked like someone who's actually closed a loan.
That's the whole game on BiggerPockets. Stop pitching. Start qualifying. The deals find you.
Justin Dube has spent 23 years as a hard money broker and MLO, closing 1,000+ deals. Broker Cheetah matches brokers to lenders by actual underwriting criteria — so the first lender you call already fits your deal.
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