Hard money lender in Pittsburgh, PA.

I am a hard money lender in Pittsburgh, and the city's housing stock is shaped by its ground. Brick and frame singles sit on streets cut into the side of a hill, many with a front porch at sidewalk level and a back yard that drops away a full storey or more. Plenty of them have a retaining wall somewhere on the lot, and some have three.

That is what makes a Pittsburgh deal different from a deal in a flat city. The purchase price is often low, the renovated value is honest, and the spread between them looks generous until somebody walks the back of the lot. A leaning wall, a wet hillside or a cracked foundation pier can swallow the budget before the kitchen is even priced.

I am a private money lender, so one person reads your file and the answer comes back as a yes or a no with the reason written down. This page covers the neighborhoods where investors are buying, the kinds of deals that change hands, and how fix and flip loans in Pittsburgh, DSCR loans in Pittsburgh and new construction loans in Pittsburgh work when the property sits on a slope.

The everyday flip is a two or three bedroom single built before the war, brick or frame, on a lot that falls away behind the house. The interior work is familiar: an old boiler or forced air system, original wiring in places, a dated bath, a kitchen nobody has touched in decades. The work that varies wildly from house to house is outside, in the walls, steps, drainage and foundation that keep the house where it is.

Buy and hold on singles and duplexes is the other big trade. The basis in neighborhoods like Carrick and Brookline is low enough that a renovated single can carry as a rental, and BRRRR investors buy, renovate, lease and refinance one house at a time. The refinance appraisal will care about the condition of the lot as much as the condition of the kitchen.

Small multifamily, usually two to four units in an older building on a commercial corridor or a converted house, trades in the South Hills and on the North Side. These tend to need systems and a lease-up rather than a gut, and the rent roll decides the deal.

Infill construction exists too, typically a new single or a pair of attached homes on a vacant lot in a neighborhood where values have climbed, such as parts of Lawrenceville and Bloomfield. On those the site work is where builders lose time: excavation into a hillside, a new wall, and getting stormwater off the lot.

Pittsburgh has a long history of landslides, and a lot of its housing sits on slopes held back by retaining walls of stone, block, timber or concrete. Many of those walls are decades old, many were built without much drainage behind them, and when one sits on private property the owner of that property is generally the one responsible for it. City help for a failing private wall is limited, so the cost lands on whoever holds the deed.

The pattern that hurts investors is simple. The inspection covers the house, the scope covers the house, and nobody prices the wall at the back of the yard, the one under the driveway, or the slope beneath the neighbor's garage. Then water gets behind a wall that was already leaning, the soil moves, and the rehab budget is suddenly a structural project with an engineer, a permit and a schedule nobody planned for.

So before the contract firms up, I want the outside of the lot looked at as seriously as the inside of the house. Walk every wall, note any bulging, cracking or tilt, look for wet ground and where the downspouts actually discharge, and check whether the house itself shows settlement in the foundation or framing. If anything looks wrong, a structural or geotechnical engineer should see it during your inspection window, while you can still renegotiate or walk.

Also find out whose wall it is. A wall on a property line or holding up a neighbor's yard can become a shared problem, and a slide on the street side may involve the city. None of this rules a hillside house out. It means the wall, the drainage and the foundation are line items in my underwrite with real numbers next to them, priced before you buy rather than discovered after.

Fix and flip loans in Pittsburgh put the purchase and the rehab in one facility, with the rehab money released in draws as work is completed and inspected. On a hillside house I like to see the exterior and structural work scheduled first: walls, drainage, grading and any foundation repair, then the roof, then the systems, and only then the finishes. A buyer's inspector will look at the wall before they look at the countertop.

I set the after-repair value from renovated sales close to the subject, ideally on the same slope and the same side of the hill, because a level yard and a house with a view sell differently from one where the back of the lot is a cliff. You get a written term sheet in 24 to 48 hours, and a clean file closes in 5 to 10 days subject to title. Pricing is set per deal and stated in the term sheet.

How fix and flip loans work

DSCR loans in Pittsburgh qualify on the property's rent rather than your income, so I do not ask for tax returns or W2s. I need the lease or a market rent estimate, proof the property is in rentable condition, and a sense of what it costs to own: taxes, insurance and the maintenance that comes with an older house on a hill.

These close in 14 to 21 days and suit renovated singles and small multifamily that are already leased. A rental with a failing wall is not stabilized, however good the tenant, so if the wall work is still ahead of you, the property belongs on a bridge loan first and on a DSCR loan once that work is finished. Pricing is set per deal and stated in the term sheet.

How DSCR loans work

New construction loans in Pittsburgh cover land and vertical construction in one facility, from $150K to $1M+. Most ground-up work here is infill: one or two homes on a lot between existing houses, often in a neighborhood where finished values have risen enough to justify building.

Before closing I review the contractor bids line by line, and on a sloped lot I want the site work broken out on its own: excavation, any new retaining wall, foundation design, and stormwater. A builder who has dug into a Pittsburgh hillside before will price those honestly, and an engineer's input on the wall and foundation should already be in the plans. Draws follow inspected progress, and a complete file closes in 10 to 14 days.

How construction loans work

The bridge loan is the front half of a Pittsburgh BRRRR. You buy a dated single or duplex, fund the purchase and the renovation with me, lease it up, and refinance into a DSCR loan with the same lender once it is stabilized. Because I already know the house, the refinance does not start from zero.

The hillside matters at both ends. At purchase it decides the rehab budget, and at refinance the appraiser will note an unrepaired wall or visible movement and may value the house accordingly. Fixing the wall and drainage during the bridge period protects the refinance as much as it protects the house. Pricing is set per deal and stated in the term sheet.

How the BRRRR bridge works

The wall and the drainage are first in the budget and first in the schedule. If an engineer's look during the inspection window says the wall needs a full rebuild rather than repair, that changes the price you should pay, and the contract is the place to deal with it.

The after-repair value only holds if the finished house looks safe from the back yard. A renovated interior with a leaning wall behind it will not sell like the renovated comparables down the street.

Winter is the risk on timing. Exterior and wall work slows in cold, wet months, so a closing in late autumn should plan for the outside work to wait or to cost more.