Builder spec home financing and spec construction loans, funding speculative residential builds from lot acquisition through certificate of occupancy. Structured draws, no prepayment penalty, and the flexibility to build and sell on your timeline.
Business-purpose financing for licensed builders and developers. Not available for primary or personal residences.
A spec home is a residential property built without a pre-committed buyer. The builder identifies the lot, designs the home, and constructs it to sell on the open market. It takes capital, experience, and the right lending partner to execute consistently.
Our spec home construction loans provide the leverage you need to move from lot acquisition through vertical construction and into the sale. Funding is released through a draw schedule tied to construction milestones, so you only pay interest on what you've drawn. This keeps your carrying costs predictable and your capital efficient.
Unlike conventional lenders, we underwrite based on the project and the builder, not just the borrower's personal balance sheet. If the deal makes sense and you have the track record to back it up, we can move quickly. Learn more about how we measure leverage using LTC vs. LTV.
$150,000 to $5,000,000 per loan. Multi-loan structures available for builders running multiple specs.
12-18 months with extension options
As fast as 21 days
Milestone-based draws, funded as fast as 48 hours
Our spec home construction loans are designed for experienced builders who know their market and have a track record of delivering completed projects on time and on budget.
Building your first spec home? See our first-time builder construction loan program for builders with fewer than 5 completed projects.
If you're weighing how to finance a spec home, there are three realistic paths: cash, a bank construction line, or a private spec construction loan. Cash caps how many projects you can run at once. Bank lines carry the lowest rates, but they're slow to originate, capped by the bank's exposure limits, and typically require tax returns, global cash flow analysis, and an established depository relationship before the bank will touch a speculative build.
Builder spec home financing from a private lender prices higher than a bank line, but it's underwritten on the project and the builder's track record rather than the borrower's tax returns. In practice that means approval driven by your completed-project history, the budget, and the as-completed value; leverage up to 90% of total project cost; closings in as fast as 21 days; and no prepayment penalty, so a fast sale never costs you extra interest.
Spec lenders size loans two ways at once: loan-to-cost (LTC) and loan-to-after-repair-value (LTARV). Ledger goes up to 90% LTC and 75% LTARV, and funding is released through a milestone draw schedule, so interest accrues only on drawn balances rather than the full commitment from day one.
The exit is the sale at certificate of occupancy, with the loan paid off at closing. If the market slows, the fallback is refinancing into a DSCR rental loan and leasing the home until conditions improve. That optionality is why experienced spec builders keep a private lending relationship active even when they also hold bank lines.