Transactional Lenders: What They Cost & The 6 Best (2026)

Written by

Alex Martinez — Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills. Closed over 50 wholesale and flip deals in his first year and has personally acquired 33+ residential investment properties.

RZ

Reviewed by

Ryan Zomorodi — Co-Founder & COO, Real Estate Skills. Has borrowed millions from hard money lenders, private lenders, and capital partners across a dozen states. Verified every lender term and funding figure in this guide.

✓ Updated July 2026 ✓ Fact-Checked 📄 Free Wholesale Contracts Inside Watch on YouTube

Publication history: Originally published March 20, 2024. Updated July 2026 with verified 2026 lender terms, corrected fee and coverage information for four lenders, a new cost breakdown with worked numbers, guidance on when transactional funding is the wrong tool, expanded alternatives with current hard money and private money rates, and state-by-state lender availability. Lending terms and figures verified by Ryan Zomorodi, Co-Founder & COO of Real Estate Skills.

Most people land on this page thinking transactional funding is a thing wholesalers need. It isn't.

I've been wholesaling and flipping for over 14 years. My first year I did more than 50 deals. And in the overwhelming majority of them, I never brought a dollar to the closing table — because I assigned the contract. The buyer closes with the seller, the title company wires me my fee, and I never own the property for a second. That's the whole model, and it's what makes wholesaling work with no money.

So when do you need a transactional lender? When you can't assign. The contract's a bank REO that prohibits it. Your spread is $60,000 and you don't want the buyer to see it. Your state has rules that make an assignment messy. In those cases, you have to actually buy the house — and then you need someone to fund it for the four hours you own it. That's this.

This guide covers what these lenders actually do, what they really cost, the six best ones and their current terms, and the honest cases where you shouldn't use one at all. If you'd rather skip the lender entirely, you can download our free wholesale contracts here and assign your next deal instead.

What Is Transactional Funding?

The names are all over the place. Same-day funding. Flash cash. ABC funding. One-day bridge loans. They all describe the same product: a lender wires you the money to buy a house in the morning, and you pay them back that afternoon out of what your buyer paid you.

That's a strange kind of loan, and it's worth sitting with why it exists at all.

When you wholesale a house, you have two ways to get paid. The normal way is an assignment of contract — you sign a purchase agreement with the seller, then sell your right to buy that house to a cash buyer for a fee. You never own the property. The buyer closes directly with the seller. You bring no money, and the title company hands you a check at closing.

The other way is a double close — you actually buy the house from the seller, then turn around and sell it to your buyer, usually minutes later. Two separate transactions. Two deeds. For a few hours, you're the legal owner.

And there's the problem: to buy that house, even for four hours, you have to show up with the full purchase price. If the seller wants $200,000, somebody has to wire $200,000 into escrow. Most wholesalers don't have $200,000 sitting in a bank account. That's the gap transactional funding fills — and the only gap it fills.

How The A–B–C Deal Actually Works

You'll see this called an "ABC deal" everywhere, and the letters are just the three people at the table:

• A is the seller — the person who owns the house now.
• B is you — the wholesaler in the middle.
• C is your end buyer — the cash investor who's actually keeping the house.

Two contracts, two closings, one day:

The A–B closing. You buy the house from the seller. This is the leg the transactional lender funds. They wire the purchase price into escrow on your behalf, the deed transfers from the seller to you, and for a little while, you own a house.

The B–C closing. Minutes or hours later, in the same office, you sell that same house to your end buyer at your higher price. Their money comes into escrow, the deed goes from you to them, and the title company pays back the transactional lender out of those proceeds.

What's left over is yours.

Notice what never happened: you never used your own money. You never got a credit check. The loan existed for about four hours.

The One Rule Nobody Warns You About

Every transactional lender I've looked at requires this, and it's not a preference — it's how they protect themselves. They're wiring money into an escrow account on the promise that your buyer's money is arriving in that same account hours later. If your A–B is at one title company and your B–C is at another, the lender has no way to guarantee they get paid back. They'll decline the deal.

And here's what trips people up: not every title company will even do this. A standard retail title office that mostly closes homeowner purchases may have never handled a same-day double close and won't touch it. You need an investor-friendly wholesale-friendly title company or closing attorney who does these routinely — and you need them lined up before you go under contract, not the week of closing.

Ask the question early. "Do you close same-day double closings, and will you work with a transactional lender?" If the answer is anything other than a confident yes, find someone else.

Why Transactional Funding Exists At All

Here's the part almost nobody explains, and it's the reason this entire industry exists.

There was a time when you didn't need a transactional lender at all. Pre-2008, a wholesaler could double close using nothing but the end buyer's money. The mechanics were simple: buyer C wires their $230,000 into escrow. The title company holds it, uses it to fund your $200,000 purchase from seller A, closes that deal, then closes yours to C, and hands you the difference. You brought nothing. The money just cycled through.

It was called single-source funding, or a dry closing. And it was everywhere.

Then the financial crisis happened, and the whole thing got looked at hard. The problem is easy to see once someone says it out loud: you were using C's money to buy a house you didn't own yet, in order to sell it to C. Their funds were being spent on your purchase before they had any legal claim to anything. If the A–B leg blew up halfway through, whose money was sitting in escrow, and who was on the hook?

Title insurance underwriters — the companies that actually stand behind the transfer — decided they weren't comfortable insuring that. And when the underwriters say no, the title company says no.

So the rule became wet funding: real money, from a real source, has to hit the escrow account for the A–B closing. Your money. Not your buyer's.

Which Left A Hole

Think about what that did to wholesalers.

You've got a house under contract at $200,000 that you can't assign — maybe it's a bank REO with a no-assignment clause, maybe your spread's too big to show. To double close it, you now have to wire $200,000 of real money into escrow. And you'll get it all back four hours later when your buyer closes.

You need $200,000 for an afternoon.

That's an absurd thing to ask a bank for. No mortgage lender writes a four-hour loan. No underwriting process on earth is built to evaluate a borrower who's giving the money back before dinner. And the deal isn't risky in any normal sense — the buyer's already signed, their money's already committed, the payoff is essentially guaranteed.

So a category of lender grew up to do exactly that one thing: park money in escrow for a few hours, take a small flat fee, and get paid back out of the resale. No interest, because there's no time for interest to accrue. No credit check, because they're not really lending against you — they're lending against a closing that's already fully assembled.

That's a transactional lender. It's not a financing strategy. It's a plumbing fix for a regulation.

Why This Matters To You Today

Two practical things fall out of this, and both will save you a deal.

The internet is full of outdated advice. Search "double closing with no money" and you'll find articles, forum posts, and videos explaining how to use your end buyer's funds to close the first leg. A lot of it was accurate when it was written. It isn't now. Walk into a title company and ask them to fund your purchase with your buyer's money, and you'll get a polite no — and you'll look like you don't know what you're doing, which is worse.

A handful of title companies will still try it. You'll hear that so-and-so's title company "does dry closings." Maybe. Rules and underwriter appetite vary, and some closing agents are more flexible than others. But you're building your deal on the one thing in the transaction that a title underwriter can refuse at the last minute — and if they refuse on closing day, you have no funding, no closing, and a seller who's about to keep your earnest money. The fee on a transactional loan is a few thousand dollars. Blowing the deal costs you the entire spread.

Bring real money. That's what these lenders are for.

This section explains how closing practices generally work, not legal or financial advice. Title, escrow, and closing requirements vary by state and by underwriter, and they change over time. Confirm current requirements with your title company and a licensed real estate attorney before structuring a deal.

When You Actually Need A Transactional Lender

Every one of these comes down to the same thing: something is stopping you from assigning the contract. If nothing is stopping you, you don't need a lender and you shouldn't be reading this section. Assign it, get paid at closing, keep your money in your pocket.

But four things genuinely do stop you.

1. The Contract Can't Be Assigned

This is the most common one by far, and it usually isn't a choice you made.

Bank-owned properties — REOs — routinely prohibit assignment in the addenda. So do HUD homes, and properties coming through Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. A lot of MLS deals from institutional sellers come with the same language buried in the paperwork. The seller isn't negotiating on this; it's boilerplate from a legal department that has never heard of you.

You can't assign a contract that says you can't assign it. But nothing stops you from buying the house and then reselling it. The restriction is on transferring your contract — not on being a person who owns real estate and sells it. So you double close, and you need someone to fund the purchase.

Worth knowing before you panic: most contracts are assignable by default, including most Realtor forms. Read yours before you assume the worst.

2. Your Spread Is Too Big To Show

On an assignment, your fee is a line item. It's on the assignment contract, and it's on the settlement statement. Your buyer sees it.

On a $10,000 fee, nobody blinks. That's a normal wholesale fee and every cash buyer in the country has paid one.

On a $60,000 fee, people blink. Your buyer looks at that number, does the math on what you're making for a few phone calls, and decides they'd rather go find the seller themselves — or they come back and squeeze you. It doesn't matter that the deal is still great for them at that price. It's not a math problem, it's a psychology problem, and you will lose deals to it.

A double close makes that number disappear. You buy at $200,000 in one transaction and sell at $260,000 in another. Your buyer sees what they're paying. The seller sees what they got. Neither sees the other, and neither sees you.

The tradeoff is real, and I'll be blunt about it below: you're paying a few thousand dollars to keep that number private. On a $60,000 spread, that's obviously worth it. On a $10,000 spread, it usually isn't.

3. Your State Makes Assignments Difficult

A growing number of states have added rules around how you can wholesale — disclosure requirements, limits on marketing a property you don't own, restrictions on how often you can assign before it starts to look like unlicensed brokering.

None of them ban wholesaling. But some of them make an assignment more complicated than a straight purchase and resale — because when you double close, you're not assigning anything. You're a buyer, then a seller. That's just real estate.

This is state-specific and it changes. Do not take a blanket rule from an article — including this one — as the answer for your market. Check whether wholesaling is legal in your state and have a local real estate attorney review your approach before you build a business around it.

4. Your End Buyer Won't Take An Assignment

Some buyers just won't. Institutional buyers and hedge funds — the ones buying at volume — frequently have internal policies against purchasing an assigned contract. It's not personal and it's not negotiable. They want to buy a house from a seller, and they want that seller to be a normal party to a normal transaction.

If that's who's buying your deal, you can argue with their acquisitions team or you can double close. Double close.

The Test

Two yeses, and you assign. You bring no money, you pay no lender, and the title company wires you your fee at closing. That's the overwhelming majority of wholesale deals, and it's how I've done most of mine.

One no, and you're double closing — which means you need to buy the house, which means you need someone to fund it. That's when you call a transactional lender.

Not before.

What Transactional Funding Actually Costs

The fee itself is straightforward. There's no interest rate to decode, no points, no amortization. You borrow $200,000 in the morning, you pay it back that afternoon, and you pay a flat fee for the privilege.

Across the lenders I checked, that fee runs from about 0.75% on the low end to 3% on the high end, calculated on your A–B purchase price. Most also charge a processing or document fee — a few hundred dollars at some lenders, up to around $1,100 at others. Almost none charge anything upfront, and almost none charge anything if the deal doesn't close.

On a $200,000 purchase, the funding fee alone lands somewhere between $1,500 and $6,000, depending on who you use. That's a wide range, and it's worth shopping. A four-fold difference in cost for an identical product — money in escrow for an afternoon — is not a small thing.

But here's what nobody tells you, and it's the part that actually costs you money.

The Cost Nobody Quotes You

When you double close, you pay closing costs twice.

You're a buyer in the A–B transaction — so you pay a buyer's closing costs. Then you're a seller in the B–C transaction — so you pay a seller's closing costs. Title fees. Escrow fees. Recording fees. Transfer taxes, in a lot of states. Two full sets, on the same house, on the same day.

Your funding fee might be $2,000. Your two sets of closing costs can easily be $3,000 to $5,000 or more, depending on your market and how brutal your state's transfer tax is.

The closing costs are the expensive part. The lender is the cheap part. Almost every article you'll read on this topic gets that backwards, because the articles are written to sell you a lender.

Let's finish the example from earlier and look at the honest number.

The Real Math On A $200,000 Deal

Same deal as before. Under contract at $200,000. Cash buyer at $230,000. Gross spread: $30,000.

The double close cost you about $7,000.

Those closing-cost figures are estimates and they'll swing hard by market — a state with a heavy transfer tax will cost you more, and a cheap-title state will cost you less. Run your actual numbers with your title company before you commit. But the shape of it holds everywhere: a double close costs you real money, and an assignment costs you nothing.

So When Is It Worth It?

Now put that $7,000 next to the four reasons you'd double close in the first place.

If you can't assign — REO, HUD, a contract that flatly prohibits it — the math doesn't matter. It's $7,000 or no deal. Pay it and be glad the option exists.

If you're hiding a big spread — say your fee is $60,000 — then $7,000 to keep that number off your buyer's settlement statement is a bargain. You're spending about 12% of your fee to protect the other 88% from a buyer who might have walked.

If your spread is $10,000 — stop. You're about to spend $7,000 to earn $10,000. Assign it, take the $10,000, and move on to the next deal. Your buyer seeing a $10,000 fee is not a crisis; it's a Tuesday. Every cash buyer in America has paid one.

The rough line is somewhere around a $20,000 to $30,000 spread. Below that, the double close eats too much of your profit to justify itself unless you have no choice. Above that, the privacy is usually worth buying.

That's not a rule. It's a starting point, and your own numbers will move it. But if you're reaching for a transactional lender on a $10,000 deal because it sounded sophisticated, you're about to hand most of your fee to a title company for no reason.

The 6 Best Transactional Lenders (2026)

These lenders all do the same job. The difference is what they charge, how fast they move, and where they'll lend — and the spread on price is bigger than you'd expect for an identical product.

One thing before the list. Verify every term below directly with the lender before you commit. I checked each of these against the lender's own website as of 2026, and I found that several widely-published figures floating around the internet — including on this page, before this update — were out of date. Fees change. Companies rebrand. States get added and dropped. Treat this as a starting point for your shortlist, not as a quote.

Straightline Funding

If you're shopping on price, start here. Straightline Funding publishes a 0.75% funding fee with no upfront fees and no fees at all if the deal doesn't close — the lowest verified rate I found across every lender on this list. They've been funding double closings since 2006, and they call themselves the country's number one provider of double-close funding for wholesalers.

The catch, and it's a big one: they don't fund in New York, California, or Utah. California is one of the most-searched states for transactional funding, and Straightline is out. If you're in one of those three, skip to the others.

No credit check, no bank statements, no tax returns. Free proof-of-funds letters. Like every lender here, they require both closings at the same title company.

EquityMax

A Florida-based lender with more than 30 years in business, and one of the few that funds 100% of the purchase price including closing costs — so nothing comes out of your pocket at the table.

For deals under $500,000, their fee is 1% of the loan amount or $1,000, whichever is greater. Read that carefully, because it matters on smaller deals: on a $60,000 purchase, 1% is $600 — but you'll pay $1,000. That's effectively a 1.7% rate on a small deal. It's still competitive, but it isn't the flat 1% it looks like at a glance.

They fund from $10,000 to $1,000,000 with no minimum or maximum limits in practice, can close in as little as one day, and maintain relationships with investor-friendly title companies across 46 states — which is genuinely useful, because finding a title company that will do a same-day double close is half the battle. Check EquityMax for current terms.

Tidal Loans

A direct lender since 2017, funding nationwide with no upfront fees, no credit check, no bank statements, and no tax returns.

Their standard fee is 2% — mid-range — but here's the angle: it drops to 1% if your end buyer uses Tidal as their hard money lender. If your cash buyer is financing the purchase and doesn't have a lender they're loyal to, that's a real conversation worth having. You just cut your funding cost in half.

Max is $1,000,000 per transaction, no minimum. Tidal Loans also offers an extended option if your resale needs more than 24 hours, which most lenders on this list don't.

Coastal Capital Funding

A Virginia-based direct private lender with a long track record and one of the faster turnarounds on this list — as little as 48 hours from clear title, funding 100% of the purchase price.

They charge no upfront fees and a $495 processing fee, which is folded into closing costs rather than coming out of your pocket in advance. Their funding fee is widely cited at 2–3% of the loan amount; I could not confirm that figure on their own site, so treat it as a range to verify rather than a quote.

To qualify, Coastal Capital Funding wants three things: a motivated seller, a business entity (LLC or corporation — not your personal name), and an end buyer ready to close immediately. Have all three ready and they'll underwrite fast.

WCP Loans (formerly Washington Capital Partners)

Note the name. Washington Capital Partners rebranded to WCP Loans and their site moved to wcp.loans. A lot of articles still send you to the old domain and quote the old fees — including, until this update, this one.

Their draw is size: loans up to $10 million, which is far beyond what any other lender here will do and makes them the option if you're double closing something large or commercial. No down payment, 100% financing, and a proof-of-funds letter within hours.

Their processing fee is now $1,100 (it was $1,000). They charge an origination fee as a percentage of the loan amount, but they don't publish the percentage — you'll have to ask. WCP Loans also assigns you a dedicated loan officer and will market your property free to their investor network, which is a genuine perk if you're funded but still shaky on your end buyer.

Paces Funding

Atlanta-based, the largest direct asset-based hard money lender in the Southeast, and they lend their own capital rather than syndicating from private investors — which is why they can move fast. Next business day closings on approved deals.

They cover Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, with additional states including Colorado, Oregon, and West Virginia. No credit score requirement, no bank statements, no tax returns. Foreclosure and bankruptcy are OK.

A word of caution on the fee. You'll see "1.75% processing fee" quoted for Paces Funding all over the internet. It does not appear anywhere on their own transactional funding page. I couldn't verify it. It may well be accurate, it may be outdated — call them and get it in writing before you plan a deal around it.

How To Actually Pick One

Four questions, in order:

1. Will they lend in my state? This eliminates lenders faster than anything else. Straightline is out in California, New York, and Utah. Paces is regional. Ask first, before you fall in love with a fee.
2. Do they have a title company relationship in my market? This is the question nobody asks and it's the one that kills deals. Your funding is worthless if you can't find a closing agent who'll run a same-day double close. EquityMax explicitly maintains title relationships across 46 states. Ask every lender on your shortlist who they've closed with near you.
3. What's the all-in cost? Not the headline rate — the fee plus the processing fee plus whatever they call the third thing. On a small deal, EquityMax's $1,000 minimum matters more than their 1% rate. Get the total.
4. Can they give me a proof-of-funds letter today? Every lender here provides them free. You'll want one long before you need funding — more on that below.

And do this before you have a deal, not during one. Pick your lender, get your POF letter, confirm your title company. The worst possible time to be shopping for a transactional lender is when you're seven days from closing and the clock is running.

How To Qualify For Transactional Funding

This is the part that surprises people, so let me say it plainly: the lender does not care about you.

Not your credit score. Not your income. Not your tax returns, your bank statements, your net worth, or how many deals you've done. Most of the lenders on this list will tell you outright that they don't run credit and don't ask for financials.

That sounds too good to be true until you think about what they're actually lending against. Their money is in escrow for four hours. It gets repaid by a buyer who has already signed a contract and already wired their funds into that same escrow account. The loan isn't risky — it's practically pre-paid. There's nothing about you worth underwriting.

What they underwrite is the closing. And they want to see three things.

1. A signed contract with your seller (the A–B contract). The purchase agreement between you and the person selling the house. This is what establishes that there's a deal to fund. Your name — or more likely your entity's name — is on it as the buyer.

2. A signed contract with your end buyer (the B–C contract). This is the one that gets you approved. A signed agreement from a real, committed cash buyer to purchase the property from you, at your price, on your closing date. No end buyer, no loan. There are no exceptions to this anywhere in the industry. A transactional lender will not fund you so you can go look for a buyer. That's not what this product is. If you need money to buy a house and then find someone to sell it to, you're describing a hard money loan, and you should go read that section instead.

3. Proof your buyer's money is actually there. Not a promise. Proof. Depending on the lender, this means proof of funds from your buyer, or a lender commitment if they're financing — and in the tightest cases, written confirmation from the title company that the cash is sitting in their escrow account. The transactional lender is about to wire real money on the strength of your buyer showing up. They want to see the buyer's money before they send theirs.

The Other Things They'll Want

Beyond the three essentials, a few practical items come up:

• A business entity. Most transactional lenders want you buying in an LLC or a corporation, not your personal name. If you don't have one, you have time to set one up before closing — but don't wait until the week of.
• Both closings at the same title company. I covered this above and I'll say it again because it's the single most common reason a transactional deal falls apart. Confirm your title company handles same-day double closings and will work with your lender. Ask early.
• Preliminary closing statements for both transactions. Some lenders want to see the actual settlement figures before they fund, so they know exactly what's coming back to them.
• A clear title. Coastal can close in 48 hours from clear title — note the qualifier. Title issues on the seller's side will stop the whole thing regardless of how fast your lender is.

Get Your Proof-Of-Funds Letter First

Here's a move that has almost nothing to do with borrowing money, and it's the most useful thing in this section.

Every lender on this list will give you a proof-of-funds letter for free, before you have a deal. Straightline emails you a PDF on request. WCP turns one around in hours. It's a letter, on a lender's letterhead, saying you have access to enough capital to buy a house.

You need this more than you need the loan.

When you submit an offer — especially on the MLS — the agent has to pre-qualify you as a buyer. They want proof of funds. Show up without one and you look like every other tire-kicker who's never closed anything. Show up with a letter from an established lender and your offer gets taken seriously. A lot of agents treat a lender's proof of funds as good as cash, because it is — you're going to close on time with real money.

But don't confuse the two. A lot of beginners think they need funding when what they actually need is a letter. You can get a proof-of-funds letter from a transactional lender and then assign the deal and never borrow a dollar. You can also just ask a cash buyer you're already working with for a copy of their proof of funds and submit that with your offers — give them first right of refusal on the deal in exchange, and everybody wins.

The letter opens doors. The loan is only for when you actually have to buy the house.

When You Should NOT Use A Transactional Lender

I've been doing this for fourteen years. My first year I closed over fifty deals. I've wholesaled and flipped houses across the country, and I've taught thousands of students to do the same.

I have almost never used a transactional lender.

Not because there's anything wrong with them. Because in the overwhelming majority of deals, there's nothing to fund. You assign the contract. The buyer closes with the seller. The title company wires you your fee. You never own the property, you never bring a dollar to the table, and you never pay a lender anything.

That's not a trick. That's just what wholesaling is.

So when someone asks me how to get transactional funding for their first deal, my honest answer is usually: you don't need it, and you're about to spend money for no reason.

How To Wholesale Real Estate Step by Step [WITH $0]!

This is the alternative to borrowing money — Alex walks the entire wholesaling process, from finding the deal to getting paid at closing, without ever funding a purchase.

 

The Four Times You're About To Waste Money

1. You can assign, and you're double closing anyway. This is the big one, and I see it constantly with newer wholesalers. They read that double closing is what "serious" investors do, or that it "protects your spread," and they reach for it on a deal that would have assigned cleanly. Look at the math from the cost section again. On a $200,000 deal, a double close cost about $7,000 — funding fee, processing fee, and two sets of closing costs. Assigning that same deal cost nothing. You just paid $7,000 to feel professional. Assign it.

2. Your spread is small. A $10,000 wholesale fee is a good deal. It's what most deals pay, and it's what most of my students make on theirs. Spend $7,000 double closing it and you've made $3,000. You did all the work — you found the deal, negotiated it, lined up a buyer, ran the closing — and you took home less than a third of your fee because you were worried the buyer might see your number. They've seen it before. Every cash buyer in America has paid a wholesale fee and knows exactly how this works. Take the money.

3. You don't have an end buyer yet. You will not get transactional funding without a signed end buyer. Not from any lender on this list, not from anyone. But I want to go further than that, because I've watched people misunderstand this in an expensive way: if you don't have a buyer, funding isn't your problem — your buyer list is. Get three to five real cash buyers in your market before you ever put a house under contract. Know what they buy, what they pay, and how fast they close. Then go find them a deal. Here's how to find cash buyers and build that list.

4. You want to hold the property, even briefly. Transactional funding is not a loan. It's a wire that exists for an afternoon. If you want to hold a house for a week, a month, or six months — to renovate it, to wait for a buyer, to do literally anything other than resell it the same day — this product does not work for you and the lender will not fund it. That's a hard money loan. Different instrument entirely, and it's covered below.

What Most People Actually Need Instead

If you're here because you don't have money and you want to do a deal, here's the truth about how that actually works.

Assign the contract. You need zero dollars. Your earnest money deposit is usually refundable inside your inspection window, and a good wholesaler's goal is to have the deal sold to a cash buyer within 72 hours anyway — often before the deposit is even due. I've built an entire business on never bringing money to closings.

Get a proof-of-funds letter, not a loan. Free from any lender here, or borrow one from a cash buyer you're working with. It's what agents actually want to see, and it costs you nothing.

If you truly need to buy and hold — because you're flipping it yourself, or you need weeks not hours — that's hard money or private money. Different product, different cost structure, and I'll break both down next.

Transactional funding solves exactly one problem: I have to buy this house for four hours and I don't have the cash. If that's not your problem, don't buy the solution.

Most Deals Don't Need A Lender. They Need The Right Contract.

The reason you can wholesale with no money isn't funding — it's the paperwork. A properly written purchase agreement gives you an assignable interest in the deal, and an assignment contract is how you sell that interest and get paid at closing without ever owning the property or borrowing a dollar. Download our attorney-drafted Wholesale Real Estate Contracts — the Purchase & Sale Agreement and the Assignment Contract — the same documents we use in our own deals and that thousands of our students have used to close across the country.

Transactional Lender Alternatives

These aren't interchangeable. They solve different problems, and picking the wrong one is expensive.

The question that sorts them is simple: how long do you need the money? Four hours — transactional funding. Six months — hard money. Somewhere in between, or you want better terms — private money. None of the above, because you never actually buy the house — assign it, and that's most deals. If you want the full landscape, here are the main real estate financing options for investors.

Assigning The Contract (The Free One)

I've said it three times already and I'll say it once more, because it's the alternative most people skip past while looking for something more complicated: you can just assign it. You never own the property. You never borrow anything. Escrow pays you at closing. Cost: zero. This is how most wholesale deals get done, including most of mine. If you can assign, assign.

Hard Money Loans

A hard money lender is a company in the business of lending to fix-and-flippers. They lend against the deal, not you — what's the property worth today, what's your purchase price, what's the rehab budget, and what will it be worth when it's done. That last number, the after-repair value, is the one that drives everything. They care a lot less about your credit and income than a bank would. What matters is whether the numbers work and whether the lender believes the project will succeed.

What it actually costs. Ryan Zomorodi, our co-founder, has personally borrowed millions from hard money lenders across more than a dozen states. Here's what a real quote looks like: on a recent fix-and-flip application, a 12-month loan came back at 8.25% to 10.45%, depending on how much leverage he took. Higher leverage — less of his own cash in the deal — meant a higher rate and an extra origination fee. Lower leverage meant a rate almost as good as a bank's.

A beginner today should expect roughly 10% to 14% annualized, interest-only, plus 1.5% to 2.5% in origination points paid in cash at closing. On a $100,000 loan at 12% for a year, that's $12,000 in interest and $1,500 to $2,500 in points. When Alex started, hard money was 13%, 15%, 16%. The rates have come down a lot as these companies have matured — some are now competitive with private money.

The parts nobody explains. Two things are worth understanding. First, it's interest-only. Unlike a mortgage, you're not paying down principal every month. You pay the interest and nothing else, which keeps your monthly payment lower than you'd expect for the same loan size. Second, it's usually non-recourse. The loan is tied to that one house. If the project goes badly and the property goes back to the lender, your personal home and personal assets stay intact. That's why Ryan chose a professional lender for his first rehab rather than borrowing from friends and family — he'd rather put a lending company's money at risk than his family's.

When it's right: you're actually buying and holding — a flip, a rehab, a property you need for weeks or months. It's the wrong tool for a same-day double close, and most hard money lenders won't structure one. Build a relationship with one and they'll give you a proof-of-funds letter you can submit with offers, which a lot of agents treat as good as cash. Here's more on how hard money lenders work.

Private Money Lenders

Private money is any individual or company lending you their own money — friends, family, a fellow investor, a high-net-worth person who'd rather earn 8% on a real asset than watch cash lose value in a savings account.

The rates are better and the terms are yours to negotiate. Alex has borrowed private money anywhere from 6% to 12%, and often with zero origination points — meaning it costs you nothing to get into the loan. Compare that to hard money at 12% plus two points, and the difference on a real deal is significant. The catch is that you have to lead. A private lender who's never funded a real estate deal doesn't know what rate to charge or how the paperwork works. That's on you to educate and structure.

The best-kept secret in private money: real estate agents make the best private money lenders. Think about why. They already understand the numbers. They look at houses every day. They know whether your ARV is realistic — unlike a friend or family member who's guessing. But the real magic is the trade. You borrow their money to buy the flip, and you agree to use them to list it when it's done. Now they're not just earning interest — they're earning a commission on the sale too. So an agent will happily lend to you at 8% instead of 12%, because when you stack the commission on top, their effective annual return is closer to 15–20%. You pay less. They earn more. Everyone wins, and you build a relationship that keeps producing deals.

One more layer, if you're really short on cash: use a private lender's money as the down payment for a hard money loan. The agent takes second position behind the hard money lender — a bit riskier for them, so you pay a slightly higher rate — but you get into a deal with none of your own money. And ask for advice, not money. This is the single best piece of lending advice Alex ever got: ask someone for money and you'll get advice. Ask for advice and you'll often get money. Take a successful person to coffee, show them what you're building, ask what they think. People who want to put their capital to work will frequently offer it themselves.

Joint Ventures

Sometimes the cleanest answer isn't a loan at all. In a JV, a partner with capital funds the deal, you bring the deal and do the work, and you split the profit. No assignment, no double close, no lender, no funding fee.

One of our students recently ran a deal exactly this way. He found a fixer, negotiated it, and instead of assigning or double closing, he handed it to a JV partner who bought it directly — and paid him a fee for bringing it. Two hours of actual work, and he never touched a contract assignment or a lender. That's worth remembering. When you have real relationships with real buyers, a lot of the financial engineering just evaporates. The partner buys the house, you get paid, and nobody needs to fund anything.

Home Equity Lines Of Credit

A HELOC lets you borrow against equity in a property you already own, usually at a lower rate than hard money. Straightforward to say, harder to recommend. You're securing an investment against your own real estate — often your home. If the deal goes sideways, that's not an abstract loss.

A HELOC puts your own property at risk to fund an investment. Understand exactly what you're securing the loan against before you use one, and talk to a licensed financial professional. This is educational information, not financial advice.

Transactional Funding By State

Two things vary by state, and people usually worry about the wrong one. What people worry about: whether a lender will fund in their state. What actually stops deals: whether a title company in their market will run a same-day double close.

Money is portable. Most of these lenders wire funds nationwide. But your closing has to happen at a physical title company or closing attorney in your market — and if they've never done a back-to-back double close, or their underwriter won't approve it, your funding is worthless. Solve the title company first. Then find a lender who covers you.

Where The Major Lenders Actually Lend

Coverage as of 2026, from each lender's own materials — confirm before you plan a deal around it:

• Tidal Loans — nationwide.
• EquityMax — maintains investor-friendly title company relationships across 46 states, which is arguably more useful than the lending footprint itself.
• Straightline Funding — nationwide except New York, California, and Utah.
• WCP Loans — multi-state, headquartered in Virginia.
• Coastal Capital Funding — direct lender with a Mid-Atlantic base.
• Paces Funding — Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia, with additional coverage including Colorado, Oregon, and West Virginia.

California

If you're wholesaling in California, this is the section that matters most to you. Straightline — the cheapest lender on this list at 0.75% — does not fund in California. Neither do a number of other transactional lenders. It's one of three states they exclude, alongside New York and Utah.

That's not a coincidence, and it's not a knock on California. States differ enormously in how their closing process works, what underwriters will insure, and how the paperwork flows. California closings run through both a title company and a separate escrow company — a structure a lot of out-of-state lenders simply don't want to underwrite around. So in California your list is shorter, and your lender is likelier to be nationwide (Tidal), or one with deep title relationships (EquityMax). Ask the state question in your first phone call.

Texas

Texas is the single most-searched state for transactional funding, and you have good options. Paces Funding lends in Texas. Tidal Loans is a Texas-based direct lender operating nationwide — and being local to the market is a real advantage when you're trying to line up a title company.

Jet Lending also offers transactional funding, and this deserves a clarification, because it's widely misreported — including in the previous version of this article. Jet Lending is a hard money lender that's been operating since 2004 with over 4,000 loans funded. Their transactional funding product is Texas-only. Their broader hard money and DSCR products are available more widely, but if you're reading about Jet Lending as a nationwide transactional lender, that's out of date. In Texas, they're a legitimate option — 100% financing, closing within three days of clear title. If you're outside Texas, look elsewhere for transactional funding — but keep them in mind for hard money if you're in their footprint.

Everywhere Else

Florida — EquityMax is Florida-based and one of the most established transactional lenders in the country. Paces also covers Florida.

The Southeast (Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia) — Paces Funding is the regional specialist and lends its own capital, which is why they can move quickly.

The Mid-Atlantic — Coastal Capital Funding and WCP Loans both have a strong presence here.

Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, and most of the country — you're covered by the nationwide lenders. Straightline (0.75%) and Tidal both fund in all of these. Your work is on the title company side, not the lender side.

New York and Utah — same warning as California. Straightline excludes both. Confirm coverage before you get attached to a lender's rate.

A Note On State Wholesaling Rules

Funding availability is one thing. Whether and how you can wholesale in your state is another, and it's changed fast in the last couple of years. Several states have added disclosure requirements, marketing restrictions, and in a few cases licensing rules for certain wholesaling activity. None of them ban wholesaling. But some of them change the calculus on whether you assign or double close — which is exactly the decision that determines whether you need a lender at all.

Those rules are state-specific and they move. Check your state's current wholesaling requirements and have a local real estate attorney review your approach before you do a deal. This article covers funding, not law, and the two shouldn't be confused.

Transactional Lender FAQs

Final Thoughts On Transactional Lenders

Transactional lenders are a plumbing fix. That's the honest way to think about them.

They exist because a regulation closed a door — you can't fund a double close with your buyer's money anymore — and somebody had to open a window. So a small industry grew up around wiring money into escrow for four hours at a time and charging a modest fee for it. There's nothing wrong with that. When you genuinely need it, it's an elegant solution to a problem that would otherwise kill your deal.

But you probably don't need it.

Most wholesale deals assign cleanly. You put the property under contract, you sell your right to buy it to a cash buyer, and the title company wires you your fee at closing. You never own the house. You never borrow anything. It costs you nothing. That's the model, and it's why wholesaling is the lowest-capital way into real estate that exists.

The wholesalers who struggle aren't the ones without funding. They're the ones without buyers. Every problem that sends someone looking for a transactional lender — I can't close, I don't have the money, I'm going to lose this deal — traces back to the same place. Line up three to five real cash buyers before you ever put a house under contract, and most of those problems disappear on their own.

So here's what to actually do.

If you don't have a deal yet: don't call a lender. Build your buyer list. Get a free proof-of-funds letter from any lender on this list, or borrow one from a cash buyer you're working with, and start submitting offers. That's the whole job.

If you have a deal and you can assign it: assign it. Take the fee. Move to the next one.

If you have a deal and you genuinely can't assign it — the contract prohibits it, your spread's too big to show, your buyer won't take an assignment — then this is exactly the tool you need. Get quotes from two or three of the lenders above, confirm they lend in your state, and confirm your title company will run a same-day double close before you get anywhere near closing day.

The fee is the small part. Being ready is everything.

About The Author

Alex Martinez

Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills

Alex Martinez is the Founder and CEO of Real Estate Skills. He closed over 50 wholesale and flip deals in his first year and has personally acquired 33+ residential investment properties across the country. Through Real Estate Skills, Alex and his team have helped thousands of students learn how to find deals, fund them the right way, and close profitable real estate transactions — usually without ever bringing money to the closing table.

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Real Estate Skills is not a law firm or a financial advisor, and the information in this article is provided for educational purposes only — it does not constitute legal, tax, or financial advice. Transactional funding terms, lender fees, and state wholesaling laws vary and change over time, and the figures here were verified as of 2026. Real estate investing carries risk, and past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Always confirm current lender terms directly, and consult a licensed real estate attorney and your own tax and financial advisors before entering into any contract or transaction.