Hard Money Loans in Boca Raton, FL: Flips, Bridges and Local Rules

Short answer

A hard money lender in Boca Raton funds short-term, business-purpose loans on non-owner-occupied investment property, sized on the purchase price, the rehab budget and the after-repair value (ARV), not mainly on your tax returns. With Boca's median house at $1,410,000 and median condo at $569,000 in Q3 2026, most flips here are large loans, so the deal also has to survive Boca's permit rules, the 50% flood rule on older homes and Florida's $0.70 per $100 deed tax when you sell (as of October 2026). QMS Lending, an independent broker in Miami, FL, shops 100+ lenders to match the loan to your exit.

Business purpose only: who can use a Boca Raton hard money loan

Hard money, fix-and-flip and bridge loans are business-purpose loans. They are for property you buy to renovate and sell, rent out, or hold while you arrange permanent financing. They are not for a home you, a spouse or a family member will live in, and lenders will ask you to sign an occupancy and business-purpose statement at closing.

Most investors close in an LLC or corporation. Lenders usually want the entity documents, an operating agreement, an EIN and a personal guaranty from the members. Expect questions about your track record: how many projects you have finished, how you managed the budget and how you sold or refinanced.

If you want to live in the Boca house after the remodel, this is the wrong product. Talk to us about a conventional, jumbo or construction loan instead. For the statewide basics, read our Florida hard money guide.

Rates and points vary by lender, deal and experience and change daily; call for today's pricing. All loans are subject to credit and property approval.

How ARV and loan-to-cost size a Boca flip

Hard money lenders size the loan with two tests and lend the lower of the two:

• Loan-to-cost (LTC): the loan divided by your total cost, meaning purchase price plus the rehab budget. It decides how much cash you bring at closing.
• After-repair value (ARV): what the home should appraise for once the work is done, based on renovated sales nearby. The loan cannot exceed the lender's cap on ARV. See what ARV means and what LTV means.

Each lender sets its own LTC and ARV caps, and they move with your experience, the property and the market. The rehab money is usually held back and released in draws after an inspector confirms the work, so you need cash to start each phase.

Boca's prices make ARV the center of the file. As of October 2026, Florida Realtors data published by MIAMI REALTORS shows the city's median single-family sale at $1,410,000 in Q3 2026, up 24.8% from a year earlier, on 244 sales; 147 of them were cash. The median townhouse or condo sold for $569,000 on 171 sales, 114 of them cash. Palm Beach County as a whole was much lower: $655,000 for houses and $307,500 for condos.

Two things follow. First, comparable sales in Boca swing hard from one neighborhood to the next, so an appraiser will lean on renovated sales close to your street, not the citywide median. Second, with most sales closing in cash, your exit buyer may be a cash buyer too, which can help a resale but means your ARV must hold up without an appraisal contingency to lean on.

Boca Raton permits: hire a licensed contractor

Boca Raton handles permits online. As of October 2026, the city's permit page says applications, fees, permit status and inspection scheduling run through Boca eHub, and plans are uploaded for review in Boca ePlans (ProjectDox).

The detail that matters to investors is the owner-builder rule. The city only accepts an owner-builder permit when the property is a single-family home, the owner is a person (a business cannot own the property), and the owner lives in the home and does not rent it. An investor buying in an LLC to flip fails every one of those tests, so plan on a licensed contractor pulling the permits. Lenders want that anyway: most ask for the contractor's license, insurance and a line-item budget before they approve the rehab holdback.

Build permit time into your schedule and your interest reserve. Unpermitted work found by the buyer's inspector or the appraiser can stall a sale or a refinance, and draws are usually tied to permitted, inspected work.

Buying a condo unit to flip? Boca runs a Building Recertification Inspection Program. As of October 2026 it covers condo and co-op buildings three or more stories or 50 feet tall once they are 30 years old, or 25 years old if within 3 miles of the coastline, plus threshold buildings 30 years or older. A building facing recertification repairs may raise dues or levy a special assessment, which hurts resale and can make some units hard to finance for your buyer. Ask the association for its recertification status, the milestone inspection report and the reserve study before you make an offer.

Older Boca homes and the 50% flood rule

As of October 2026, the city says a large portion of Boca Raton lies in FEMA's special flood hazard area, and new flood maps took effect December 20, 2024. Check the flood zone before you write the offer, not after.

For an older house built below today's required elevation (a non-conforming building), the city's floodplain rules set a hard line. The total cost of improvements, additions, alterations and repairs must stay below 50% of the structure's market value. Go over it and the project is a substantial improvement, and the whole house must be brought up to new-construction rules, including elevation to the minimum height for its flood zone. That can turn a cosmetic flip into a rebuild.

How Boca measures it, per the city's floodplain guidance:

• Market value is the structure only, before the work. Pools, accessory buildings and landscaping do not count.
• It can be the Property Appraiser's adjusted assessed improvement value or a qualified appraiser's figure with all depreciation deducted.
• Work is added up over 3 years. Splitting the job into several permits ("phasing") does not get around the rule.

For a lender, this changes the budget and the timeline. Get a contractor's estimate and the structure's market value before you close, and size your rehab to stay under the line or plan for elevation from day one.

Florida closing taxes on a Boca flip

A flip pays Florida's closing taxes twice: once when you buy and finance, and again when you sell. As of October 2026:

• Deed doc stamps: $0.70 per $100 of the price on every deed recorded in Palm Beach County (F.S. 201.02). Miami-Dade's lower rate does not apply here. On an $800,000 sale that is $5,600. Who pays is set in the purchase contract.
• Doc stamps on your loan: $0.35 per $100 of the note and mortgage (F.S. 201.08). A $600,000 hard money loan means $2,100.
• Intangible tax: 2 mills, or $2 per $1,000, on a mortgage on Florida real estate (F.S. 199.133). On $600,000 that is $1,200.

Add title insurance, recording, lender points and fees, interest during the project, insurance (including builder's risk and flood if required), property taxes and utilities. Read Florida doc stamp tax and intangible tax for how they work.

Your exit decides the loan. If you will sell, the math above sets your profit. If you will keep the house as a rental, line up the refinance early: a DSCR loan is sized on the rent, and some lenders want a minimum ownership period before they use the new appraised value. For a property you need to buy before you sell another, a bridge loan may fit.