Real estate investors turn to several different funding sources when they find an acquisition opportunity. Some use all cash (which may be conglomerated from several different investors) and some use bank financing. Many investors consider using hard money. But what are they talking about when discussing the use of hard money?

Hard money is nothing more than private funding from a professional lender. In other words, a hard money lender is one that uses loaning funds to investors as their own form of investing. Sometimes you will hear people talk about investing in paper assets. An example of a paper asset would be the note a hard money lender takes from a borrower.