Is 100 percent of purchase plus rehab actually available right now or am I pricing a unicorn

The short answer is: it closes, but rarely, and the conditions that make it happen are specific enough that most deals do not meet all of them at once.

Here is what actually has to line up for a lender to fund 100 percent of cost (purchase plus rehab) through an ARV-based structure. The ARV has to be clean, meaning the comp is recent, close, and not a stretch. The borrower has to have a track record the lender trusts. The LTV has to leave the lender enough cushion that a 10 to 15 percent value miss still keeps them whole. Your Akron numbers, 108k cost basis against 160k ARV at 70 percent LTV giving 112k, sit right at the edge of that cushion. A lender looking at that sees maybe 4k of room before the equity cushion disappears, and in a market like Akron where comp confidence varies block by block, that is thin.

The buried equity injection you are describing is usually the lender re-underwriting the ARV downward, not the marketing being dishonest. If they come in at 65 percent instead of 70, or shade the ARV to 150k, the math no longer covers the full stack and the gap has to come from somewhere.

The thing worth asking about your Diagonal Road comp: how close is it in square footage, bed count, and sale date? If that comp is older than 90 days or a different street character, a cautious lender will discount it, and the deal structure changes.

You are essentially asking whether the lender will accept your ARV or substitute their own. That is the real negotiation, and it is borrower by borrower.

What does the lender's own BPO or appraisal process look like on deals you are considering? That would help narrow this down.

The math on your Akron deal works on paper precisely because the spread between cost basis and 70 percent ARV is positive, but most lenders who actually close full-stack deals are not underwriting to 70 percent ARV as a ceiling, they are underwriting to the lower of 70 percent ARV or 90 percent of cost, and on 108k cost that second test produces a 97,200 cap that still covers you, so this particular project is one of the rare ones where both tests pass simultaneously. The lender behavior you are describing, saying yes in the deck and then burying the equity injection, usually comes from a draw structure problem rather than an LTV problem: they will fund the purchase at 90 percent but hold the reno funds in a controlled account released against inspections, and if the borrower cannot float the first 10 to 15 percent of work before the first draw, the deal stalls and the lender calls that a borrower performance issue rather than a loan structure failure. If you are deploying capital as the lender rather than the borrower, the cleaner structure is to fund purchase in full at close and use a construction holdback with milestone draws, which keeps your LTC at whatever you are comfortable with while giving the borrower the zero-out-of-pocket entry they need, because the gap they are actually bridging is the float between starting work and the first draw reimbursement. What does your Akron note look like in terms of draw schedule, specifically whether you released in tranches or funded the reno portion all at once at close?

The gap between the deck and the term sheet is real and I have watched it happen on three deals I was close to this year alone. What actually happens is the lender loves the ARV story until their internal BPO comes in 8 to 12 percent below the comp you used, and suddenly 70 percent of their number is 70 percent of 145k not 160k, and now there is a 15k hole that did not exist in the conversation. That Diagonal Road comp is doing a lot of work in your stack and if it is a sale from more than 90 days ago or the square footage is off by more than 200 feet, a cautious underwriter discounts it without telling you why until the conditions letter. I have a tab in my spreadsheet specifically for comp haircuts because I got burned on a Columbus deal in February where the ARV I underwrote and the ARV the lender used were 22k apart and the borrower had to bring 14k they did not have.

The deals that actually close at full stack right now tend to have a borrower with a track record, a GC already under contract, and an ARV the lender can defend with at least two sales inside 60 days within half a mile. The rate environment is not the main tightening factor, it is the lender's secondary market appetite, because if they are selling the paper they need the note to be sellable and 100 percent LTC loans do not move as easily. So what I want to know is whether you are looking to hold the note yourself or are you trying to find a fund structure where your capital sits alongside others, because those two paths hit that 100 percent question from completely different angles.

Closed one of these in Q3 last year, full stack on a 94k cost basis in Memphis, 70 percent ARV covered it. But the borrower had three completed flips in the same zip with that exact lender, and I am pretty sure that relationship is doing more work than the ARV math. What's your Akron borrower's track record with whoever you're talking to?

The deals that actually close at 100 percent of cost tend to share one feature the deck never mentions: the borrower has a prior closed loan with that same lender, so the equity injection requirement gets waived as a relationship concession rather than a credit decision. First-draw borrowers almost never see it disappear, even when the ARV math is clean.

On your specific numbers, the cushion is tighter than it looks. At 70 percent of a 160k ARV you land at 112k, which is only 4k above a 108k cost basis, and most lenders will not let the loan amount sit within one bad comp of the ceiling. If Diagonal Road slips to 150k the loan gets capped at 105k and your borrower is suddenly 3k short, which is exactly when the equity injection clause surfaces in the conditions.

If you are deploying your own capital as the lender, the more useful question is whether you want to hold the first position yourself at something like 100k and let a gap funder or the borrower cover the remaining 8k in a subordinate position, because that structure puts you at roughly 63 percent LTV on ARV and gives you the coverage ratio that makes the full-stack deal survivable if the comp does not hold. What is your appetite for being in first position on a deal where you are also the one setting the ARV?

The 70 percent ARV ceiling is exactly where the problem lives, and your Akron numbers actually clear it, which puts you in a narrower category than most people shopping this structure. What I've seen from the lender side is that they'll honor the math on paper right up until the appraisal comes back and suddenly that Diagonal Road comp gets a 10 percent haircut for condition or distance, and your 160k ARV becomes 144k, and now 70 percent is 100.8k, and you've got a 7k gap the borrower wasn't expecting. The deals that close at true zero out of pocket are almost always borrowers with two or three completed flips on file with that specific lender, not just two or three flips period. Relationship history inside that shop is what actually moves the needle on the injection requirement, not the LTC math.

The piece that bites people and nobody says out loud until it's already a problem: draw schedules. Even if the lender funds 100 percent of the reno in the commitment letter, they fund it in arrears against inspections, which means the borrower needs float cash for the first round of work before the first draw releases. On a 40k rehab that first tranche might be 12 to 15k out of pocket before they see a dime reimbursed, and that's not equity injection so it doesn't show up in the conditions section, but it absolutely kills the zero-out-of-pocket story. Have you already modeled whether a note structure where you're the lender could include a funded interest reserve and a first-draw advance to get around that specific problem, or are you looking at participating into someone else's paper?

Confirm the comp on Diagonal Road holds before anything else matters.

The assumption doing the most work in your stack is that 160k ARV, because if the appraiser comes in at 150k, your 70 percent ceiling drops to 105k and you are suddenly 3k short of cost basis, which is exactly the number a lender will use to trigger the equity injection clause they already had drafted. The borrower experience you are describing, where the deck says yes and the term sheet says 10 to 15 percent injection, is usually not bad faith. It is the lender's appraiser landing 8 to 12 percent below the sponsor's comp, and the conditions language already written to accommodate that outcome. Full-stack deals close when the borrower's ARV and the lender's ARV are within two or three percent of each other before the term sheet is signed, which means the borrower needs to have already ordered a desk review or a broker price opinion from someone the lender will accept, handed it over, and gotten verbal confirmation the number holds. If that step happens before the LOI, the equity injection clause often disappears because there is nothing left for it to protect. The lenders who actually close at 100 percent LTC in this environment are also typically doing it on borrowers with a completed project history they can point to, because the guarantee of execution is the other underwriting variable the deck glosses over. How many completed flips does your target borrower have in the file right now?

100 percent loan to cost closes, but almost never on a first deal with that lender.

The cushion doing the most work in your example is only 4k, which is 112k minus 108k, and most underwriters treat anything under a 5 percent buffer as effectively zero given draw variance and cost overruns. The lender who shaves 10 points is not being arbitrary, they are pricing the probability that your rehab budget lands at 44k instead of 40k, which flips you upside down. Where I have seen full-stack structures actually fund is when the borrower brings a completed project history with that specific lender, or when the note is cross-collateralized against another asset so the lender's effective LTV drops below 65 on the combined position. The equity injection buried in conditions is often negotiable away with either of those two substitutes. Since you already hold a note on the Akron property, the cross-collateral angle is worth pricing explicitly, because your existing position could be the thing that gets a full-stack borrower to zero out of pocket without the lender changing their underwriting standard at all. What is the remaining balance on the note you hold, and is the 160k ARV seasoned or still a projection?

Your Akron numbers are cleaner than most I see pitched for this structure, but the comp dependency is what will kill it in underwriting even if it survives the initial term sheet. I tried to push a full-stack deal in late 2023, purchase was $54k, rehab was $31k, ARV sat at $138k on one comp that was genuinely comparable, and the lender came back after the appraisal and said the comp was an outlier and adjusted ARV to $119k, which dropped the ceiling below my cost basis by about $8k and suddenly I needed cash I had already allocated elsewhere. That gap cost me the deal and about three weeks of dead time I never got back. The borrower you are underwriting needs a second comp within a half mile that is not more than four months old, because if the appraiser disagrees with Diagonal Road by even 7 or 8 percent your cushion evaporates and the lender will not eat it, the borrower will. What is the actual condition of the subject property, because a 6 bed in Akron at $68k with $40k in work could be gutted or it could be cosmetic, and that changes how aggressive any lender is going to be on the draw schedule?

Your Akron numbers work on paper precisely because the cushion is thin, and that is what kills it in practice. At 70 percent ARV you get 112k against a 108k cost basis, leaving 4k of air between the loan ceiling and total exposure. Most private lenders who will actually fund 100 percent LTC want to see that cushion closer to 15 to 20 percent of cost as a buffer, not 3.7 percent, because a single bad comp or a scope line they disagree with wipes it out before they even price their fee.

The borrowers I see actually close zero-out-of-pocket deals are bringing something other than equity, usually a cross-collateralized asset, a completed project on the same street, or a track record with that specific lender where the relationship substitutes for the skin in the game. The lender's real objection is not the LTC math, it is that a borrower with nothing in the deal has no cost to walking away if the reno runs long or the ARV softens. When you are on the lending side of this, the question worth pricing is what collateral or structure makes walking away expensive for the borrower, because that is what a 10 to 15 percent equity injection is actually buying you, not additional security on the note.

If your Akron comp on Diagonal Road is recent and tight, one structure worth modeling is a first lien at 65 percent ARV with a small second you hold that covers the gap, so the borrower still closes without cash but you have two instruments and the blended rate reflects the actual risk. What does your note on the Akron property currently look like in terms of position and rate?

Your Akron numbers are clean enough that the deal isn't the problem, the borrower profile is. Every full-stack close I've heard about firsthand had either a repeat borrower with 3-plus exits on file with that specific lender, or the ARV was so conservative the lender felt like they were doing 60 percent not 70. That cushion on your deal, 112k against 108k cost, is about 4k and most underwriters I've talked to treat anything under 10 percent spread as noise, not cushion. What does the borrower's track record look like with this lender specifically?

What you're describing closes, but the underwriting that gets it there almost always rests on the borrower's track record rather than the math alone. At 70 percent ARV your stack works on paper, but most hard money shops that see a 108k cost basis against a 160k ARV on a six-bed in Akron will want to know how many times that specific borrower has executed a project of comparable scope, because the rehab number is where the deal bleeds if anything goes wrong. The lender who finds a reason to shave 10 points late is usually finding a reason to price the borrower, not the asset. The checklist a careful operator would run here: verify that the draw schedule matches the scope line by line before signing, because a lender who controls draws tightly can functionally create a gap mid-project even when the initial advance looks clean; confirm whether the 40k rehab figure is a contractor bid or an estimate, since hard money shops that do full-stack will sometimes require a signed GC contract as a condition of closing; ask specifically whether the loan is cross-collateralized against anything else the borrower holds, because that is a common structure for getting a lender comfortable with zero equity at close; and pull the actual recorded comps on Diagonal Road rather than relying on a listed or pending sale, because if that comp falls out your 160k ARV moves and your cushion evaporates. If you are deploying capital into this kind of loan rather than taking it, the question I would be asking is what the borrower's liquidity looks like after close, not at close.

Full-stack deals close, but the equity injection you keep finding buried in conditions is usually the lender's response to one specific risk: the borrower having no skin in the game means the lender absorbs 100 percent of execution risk on the rehab, and in a soft secondary market for non-performing or distressed paper, that is exactly where losses concentrate. The 70 percent ARV math works on your numbers, but the question the term sheet is actually answering is what happens if the Diagonal Road comp is a one-off and ARV lands at 140k instead of 160k, because at 140k your 112k loan is suddenly 80 percent ARV and the lender's cushion is gone before the first draw.

What actually gets borrowers to zero out of pocket in practice is not the ARV ceiling alone, it is the borrower's track record substituting for the equity injection as the risk offset, sometimes paired with a cross-collateralized asset or a holdback structure where the reno funds release in draws against inspected completion rather than upfront.

If you are evaluating this from the capital deployment side, the question worth pinning down is whether you are willing to underwrite the borrower's execution history as a first-order input, because that is the variable separating the lenders who actually close full-stack from the ones whose deck says yes and whose term sheet says bring 15 points. What does the Akron borrower's completed-project track record look like?

The misconception worth correcting first: 100 percent loan to cost and 70 percent ARV are not the same constraint, and conflating them is what makes borrowers think they qualify when they do not. Your Akron numbers show exactly why. 70 percent of 160k is 112k, and 108k cost basis fits inside that, so yes, the ARV math works. What most term sheets actually cap is loan to cost directly, typically at 90 percent, independent of where ARV lands. That 10 percent equity injection you keep seeing in the conditions is not the lender shaving points arbitrarily; it is a separate underwrite on cost exposure that survives even when the ARV coverage looks clean. So a borrower on your deal would need to bring roughly 10,800 to close regardless of what the deck implied, because the LTC floor triggers before the ARV ceiling even becomes relevant.

Whether true 100 percent LTC closes right now in this rate environment: it does, but the structure is almost always a cross-collateral arrangement or a blanket lien against existing equity elsewhere, not a single-asset loan with no skin in the game. The lender gets to zero borrower contribution by taking a second position on another asset the borrower holds, so they are covered on cost even without a cash injection. That is what "no money down" actually looks like in practice when it closes. For your Akron position specifically, if you are evaluating whether to hold the note or redeploy into originating, the more important question is whether the comp on Diagonal Road is a sale or a list, because at 160k ARV your 112k loan has about 48k of cushion that evaporates quickly if that comp is six months stale. What is the sale date on that comparable?