One of my coaching students recent asked me how to raise money for real estate deals since she was having NO luck raising money through hard money lenders.
 In fact, she had just paid some "guru" $25,000 to take a course and the whole course was about how to raise hard money.
  Once she and many of the other students in the Guru's class start talking they discover that no one was having any luck raising money with money hard lenders.
 They quickly learn that most hard lender money are out of business.
The few that remain have such high lending requirements that the deals made no sense when you have to put up 50% of the proceeds, sign personally, put up cash reserves and pay interests north of 25%.
She was very confused and upset to pay this kind of money to get information that was grossly outdated and useless in today's world.
I quickly explained that the answer of how to raise money for real estate deals today is to use "private money" not hard money.
 The difference is with private lending you are dealing directly one-on-one with a private person who may want to invest in your business.
 You are not dealing with banks or hard money lenders who have no money in today's post financial crises.
Private lending is a consistent source of money to purchase discount real estate deals that you can go back to again and again and again.
 The more you use private money lenders, the more money that will become available as you as you develop that relationship.
  It is important that real estate investors understand that for the next several years you will need to use and develop a private lending program as other sources of money will dry up and be very difficult to get.