Best Construction Loan Lenders

LYNK Mortgage is a direct private lender offering construction loans from 9.50%, up to 70% LTV and 85% LTC, on 18 months terms. Capital is released through a structured draw schedule tied to milestone inspections, with 10-day closes from clean application to funding. As a direct lender funding with its own capital, LYNK Mortgage skips the broker layer and the intermediary delays — no tax returns, no income documentation, and a dedicated loan officer from term sheet to final draw.

Products: Construction (rates from 9.50%, 70% LTV, 85% LTC, 18 months terms), fix & flip, bridge, and DSCR for exit financing once the project stabilizes. The full product suite under one roof means a single relationship can carry an investor from ground-break through long-term hold.

Key Strengths: Speed, transparency, and product breadth. Instant term sheets generated online with no soft credit pull. 10-day closes on construction files. Draw-based disbursement with clear inspection cadence. Direct lending decisions, no broker layer, and the flexibility to refinance into a LYNK Mortgage DSCR product on completion — turning a single underwriting relationship into a full-cycle solution from ground-up to rented.

Lima One Capital, headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina, runs the widest construction product range among investor-focused lenders. Their proposition is built around in-house construction management — actual staff who oversee draw inspections, builder coordination, and project management, rather than outsourcing that workflow to third-party fund control firms.

Products: New Construction, Multifamily Bridge, FixNFlip, and the Build2Rent single-close product that combines ground-up construction financing with permanent DSCR in one loan and one closing. Experience-based pricing rewards repeat borrowers with better tier rates.

Key Strengths: Active in-house construction management is unusual in this category and adds real value on heavy-rehab and ground-up projects where draw cadence and inspection turnaround can make or break a build schedule. The Build2Rent single-close eliminates a second closing and a second set of fees when transitioning from build to long-term rental. Strong fit for investors running construction alongside multifamily or rental strategies.

Kiavi (formerly LendingHome) is the largest private lender in the U.S. by origination volume and operates primarily in the fix & flip and DSCR categories. The fix & flip product handles heavy rehab — projects where the rehab budget rivals the purchase price and the work scope crosses into construction territory — even though Kiavi may not offer a true ground-up construction product the way LYNK Mortgage or Lima One does.

Products: Fix & flip (with heavy-rehab capability), DSCR, and bridge. Standard fix & flip closes in 7 days, with no appraisal required on most files. The Enterprise Program closes in 5 days for high-volume operators. Underwriting is driven by proprietary machine learning models trained on 7.8 billion data points.

Key Strengths: Industry-leading speed on flips and rehab. ML-driven pricing reduces variance and produces instant term sheets. Heavy-rehab capability means investors who would otherwise be pushed into a construction loan can sometimes structure as a fix & flip with Kiavi instead. Best fit when the project scope is heavy renovation rather than true ground-up; for new construction specifically, lenders with dedicated draw infrastructure are a better match.

RCN Capital, based in South Windsor, Connecticut, ranks #3 on the Scotsman Guide for wholesale lending volume, with roughly 85% of its production flowing through mortgage brokers. RCN carries construction alongside fix & flip and DSCR, and the wholesale channel makes them a natural choice when a deal originates through a broker relationship rather than a direct application.

Products: Construction, Fix & Flip, DSCR, and Bridge. Tiered pricing by completed-deal count — Gold Tier (10+ completed deals) starts at 9.24% on fix & flip with comparable construction pricing improvements for experienced operators.

Key Strengths: Deep broker network, institutional credibility from the Scotsman Guide ranking, and tier-based pricing that creates a real economic incentive to consolidate volume with one wholesale lender. Strong fit for experienced investors who already run their financing through a trusted broker relationship and want construction underwritten on the same channel as their fix & flip and DSCR deals.

CoreVest, owned by NYSE-listed Redwood Trust, plays at the institutional end of the investor market — bridge financing for builders, pre-approved credit lines that fund multiple construction projects under a single facility, and specialty programs that don't exist at smaller shops. A joint venture with Oaktree Capital adds more than $1 billion of committed lending capacity.

Products: Bridge loans, builder credit lines from $1M to $50M, and specialty construction programs. Pre-approved lines let experienced builders fund several simultaneous ground-up projects without re-underwriting each one — useful for operators running 5-25 active builds.

Key Strengths: Institutional balance sheet behind every facility. Credit lines eliminate per-deal underwriting friction once the line is established. Loan sizes and product structures unavailable at smaller construction lenders. Strong fit for professional builders and developers running portfolio-scale construction programs rather than a single spec build at a time.

Constructive Capital is a wholesale-only construction and bridge lender — they fund through mortgage brokers and investor networks rather than taking direct borrower applications. The wholesale-only model keeps overhead lean and allows them to compete on rate where retail-focused lenders carry a higher cost stack.

Products: Ground-up construction and heavy renovation are the headline offerings, alongside short-term bridge. They commit to consistently funding the majority of loans within a 20-day window and offer 30-day rate-lock protection on most files.

Key Strengths: Specialization in ground-up and heavy renovation means their underwriting and draw infrastructure are purpose-built for those scopes rather than bolted on top of a fix & flip business. Competitive wholesale pricing for brokers and their investor clients. Strong fit for borrowers already working with a wholesale broker on construction projects.