Questions lenders actually ask us
These are the questions lenders and note investors ask before they hire us, answered the same way we answer them on the phone. If your question is not here, ask it on the intake call. Ten minutes, no charge.
What happens when I send you a loan to review?
The engagement starts when the scope is signed and paid. You complete a short submission form describing the transaction you are considering. We send the borrower a list of questions, document requests, and a credit authorization, along with a payment link so the borrower pays for their own credit pull. Once the borrower returns the information, we underwrite the loan the way a seasoned bank credit officer would. If the file raises more questions, we go back to the borrower and keep you posted on where things stand. Once the package is complete, you receive our detailed findings and a decision recommendation within 2 to 3 business days, and usually faster.
What do I receive at the end of a deal review?
You receive a written recommendation report, typically about seven pages, prepared on the specific loan you are considering. It works through the deal the way a bank credit file would: the proposed structure and sources of repayment, the borrower’s background, credit history, and public record, their capacity to carry the loan including what happens when the project does not go to plan, and the collateral valued against a sale you do not control the timing of. It closes with what the structure gets right, what we would change, the blind spots we see, and one of three verdicts: Proceed, Proceed with Conditions, or Do Not Proceed. Conditions are specific and name who provides what. Every fact in the report is either documented or labeled unverified, so you know exactly what is proven and what is not.
How long does a deal review take?
The report is delivered within 2 to 3 business days of receiving a complete package, and usually faster. The variable is the borrower. When the borrower and lender both move quickly, the whole engagement moves quickly. When the borrower is slow to return documents, the calendar stretches. The clock starts when the package is complete, not when the engagement is signed.
What do you need from me and from my borrower to start?
The lender’s part is short: a completed submission form describing the deal, what you like about it, and what concerns you. The borrower’s part is a document request and a set of questions tailored to the specific loan, not a generic checklist. The documents typically cover the money side, meaning the funds bringing the borrower to closing, the income or cash flow that services the loan, and the reserves behind it, plus the project itself: budget, timeline, and exit. The questions are ones only the borrower can answer, and we ask that they come back in the borrower’s own words. How a borrower answers is often as useful as the answer itself. The borrower also signs a credit authorization and pays for their own credit pull, which keeps the report independent of the lender’s wallet and tells us early how cooperative the borrower is.
Do you pull the borrower’s credit? How does consent work?
When the engagement includes a credit pull, we pull a full tri-merge report, the same three-bureau file a bank underwriter works from, not a consumer-grade soft pull or a score summary. The borrower signs an electronic credit and consent authorization before anything is pulled, and the borrower pays for the pull directly. We read the report the way a credit officer reads it: the payment patterns, the tradelines, the recent inquiries, and whether the file matches the story the borrower is telling.
Will you tell me plainly whether to do the deal?
Yes. Every deal review ends in one of three verdicts: Proceed, Proceed with Conditions, or Do Not Proceed. We do not hand you a stack of observations and leave the conclusion to you. If the loan is weak, the report says so and says why. If it can be fixed, the conditions are specific and name who provides what. The final decision is always yours. It is your capital. Our job is to make sure you make that decision with a complete file in front of you. No underwriting eliminates risk completely. Borrowers lose jobs, markets turn, and life happens. What sound underwriting does is make sure the risks you take are the ones you saw and priced, not the ones you missed.
Can you review a note purchase or a pool, not just a new loan?
Yes. We have reviewed note purchases, single notes and pools, for years. The people who handle these engagements spent years working special assets and workouts inside actual banks, and have done the same work privately for portfolio owners since. Circumstances vary more on note purchases than anywhere else in this business, which is exactly why the review is worth doing before you bid. We know of no one better qualified to consult on a loan purchase before the money goes out.
Can you review a loan I have already funded?
Yes, and it is often the smartest money a lender spends. When concerns surface on a live loan, banks re-underwrite the file the same way they did at origination, and we do the same for you: what has changed with the borrower, what the collateral is worth today, and what your options are while you still have options. The earlier a problem surfaces, the more ways out of it exist. We have years of experience helping lenders exit troubled loans as close to whole as the situation allows.
Do you work with self-directed IRA lenders?
Yes, we work with self-directed IRA lenders and note investors regularly. Our engagement covers the credit and underwriting side. The prohibited transaction rules belong to your attorney, your CPA, and your custodian, and we work alongside all three the same way those disciplines work alongside each other inside a bank. What belongs to us is whether the loan itself is sound. You worked your entire life for that money and you count on it being there. Protecting it starts with underwriting the loan before it funds, not after it stops paying.
How is this different from what my attorney or CPA does?
Your attorney handles the legal side: documents, enforceability, and your rights when something goes wrong. Your CPA handles the accounting and the tax treatment. Neither one underwrites the loan. Whether the borrower can repay, whether the collateral truly covers the debt, and whether the structure holds up in a default are credit questions, and credit is its own profession. Banks staff it with formally trained underwriters who do nothing else. Most private lenders have no one doing it at all. That is the role we fill, and it works best alongside your attorney and CPA, not instead of them.
How does pricing work?
Pricing follows the engagement, and every engagement is scoped in writing before work begins. A lender who wants one loan or one note underwritten pays for that review. A lender with recurring deal flow moves to a retainer that covers deals as they come. Note buyers evaluating a pool engage us on the whole portfolio. Clients who commit to volume receive significantly discounted bundled pricing, which also carries a standing weekly call, 48 weeks a year, where volume clients bring live situations to the group and everyone learns from every answer. The lender pays us directly, up front, and the fee is the same whether we recommend proceeding or walking away. Our advice is never contingent on the deal closing. That said, banks charge borrowers an underwriting fee on every loan they make, and you can do the same: many lenders recover our cost by charging their borrower an underwriting fee at settlement. We do not publish a rate card because no two lending operations have the same scope. You will know the full cost in writing before we begin.
Are you a broker? Do you earn anything from my deal besides my fee?
No. The Mad Lender is a consulting practice, not a loan broker. We do not originate your loans, we do not sell you deals, and we do not earn a fee from any party to your transaction other than you. No referral fees, no vendor kickbacks, no stake in whether the loan closes. We are paid the same when we tell you to walk as when we tell you to proceed. That independence is the point of the practice. Advice from someone who profits when you fund is not advice.
What is the intake call?
The intake call is a short conversation, about ten minutes, at no charge. You tell us what you are lending into and what prompted the call. We tell you whether we are the right resource, and which engagement fits if we are. If we are not, we say so and you have lost ten minutes. It is not a sales presentation, and it is not a free consulting session. It is two professionals deciding whether working together makes sense. Start with the contact form below and we will reach out directly to schedule it.
What happens if a loan you reviewed later defaults?
Some loans default no matter how well they were underwritten. Borrowers lose jobs, health fails, markets turn, and even the best underwriters miss things. No underwriting eliminates risk completely, and our recommendation is a professional credit opinion, not a guarantee. What a sound review does is put you in a defensible position before trouble starts: a structure built for stress, a documented decision, and collateral valued against a sale you do not control. And when a loan stops performing, call us. Default, workout, and recovery are where our background runs deepest. The lender who acts early has options the lender who waits does not.
When does the bundle or a retainer make more sense than one-off reviews?
If you fund a loan now and then, single deal reviews fit. Lenders and note buyers doing volume qualify for bundled review pricing at a significant discount, and the arithmetic starts favoring the bundle at about seven reviews a year. Bundle clients also join the weekly group call, 48 weeks a year, where live situations get worked through as a group and everyone learns from every answer. Beyond deal reviews, we take on larger engagements scoped separately: due diligence on bulk note portfolio acquisitions, building a written credit policy for your lending operation, developing underwriting templates, and ongoing retainer work for lenders who want a credit professional embedded in their process.
Who is not a fit for this practice?
A few groups, and it saves everyone time to say so up front. Borrowers looking for a loan: we do not lend money and we do not broker loans, so we have nothing to offer you. Lenders who want their decision blessed rather than underwritten: if your mind is already made up and you want a professional signature on it, we are the wrong hire, because sometimes the answer is no. People hoping we will refer business to them, and vendors selling software or services: the contact form is not a sales channel. And dabblers. Private lending done casually is how principal gets lost. If you are not serious about the capital you are deploying, no review we write will change that.
Why should I trust your credit judgment?
The practice is built on 35 years of formal bank credit training and experience, including time inside three of the largest banks in the world. We have underwritten or made thousands of loans of many kinds, and we have worked both ends of the business: origination, where loans get made, and special assets, where they get collected. That includes full credit cycles with default, workout, and liquidation, which means our underwriting is shaped by watching what actually breaks loans, not by theory. Our principal wrote the book on this discipline, The Mad Lender’s Guide to Private Lending and Note Investing, and answers questions in public forums nearly every day. But credentials only carry an introduction so far. Judge us by the questions we ask about your first deal. That is where credit experience shows.
Ready to protect your capital?
Start with a short intake call at no charge. If we are not the right resource, we will tell you.