Florida DSCR cash-out refinance at 75% LTV paid off a maturing hard money loan in about a week

A Florida real estate agent and investor was one day from closing a DSCR cash-out refinance when his lender called to cut the leverage by five points — roughly $15,000 in proceeds he needed to retire a maturing hard money loan. Stonehaven arranged a replacement loan at the original 75% loan-to-value, at a lower rate, and it closed in about a week.

The situation

The borrower, a licensed real estate agent who also invests in rental property, owned a single-family rental in Florida worth about $300,000. Against it sat a hard money loan approaching maturity — the short-term, higher-cost financing investors use to acquire a property before refinancing into long-term debt. His exit plan was the standard one: a DSCR cash-out refinance, qualified on the property's rent rather than his commission income, to pay off the hard money lender and free the remaining equity for his next acquisition. His lender had the file approved at 75% loan-to-value.

The challenge

One day before closing, that lender called: the loan-to-value had to come down by five points. The revised offer stood at a 7.5% rate at 70% loan-to-value — on a $300,000 property, about $15,000 less in proceeds. That was the difference between cleanly retiring the bridge debt with cash left for the next deal and closing short. A maturing hard money loan is a hard deadline: extensions, where offered at all, cost fees or default-rate interest. A typical refinance takes weeks the borrower did not have, and as a commission-earning agent, full-documentation underwriting was never the fast path anyway.

The structure

Stonehaven placed the file with a third-party capital provider whose DSCR guidelines supported the original leverage: a loan of about $225,000 at 75% loan-to-value on the single-family rental, note rate 6.99%, as closed on August 31, 2026. Proceeds paid off the maturing hard money loan in full, and the roughly $15,000 the leverage cut would have cost him stayed in the deal — capital for his next purchase. The file moved from engagement to funding in about one week.

Why it worked

The closed loan beat the revised offer on all three terms that mattered. Leverage: 75% against 70%, worth about $15,000 in proceeds on this value. Rate: 6.99% against the 7.5% the incumbent lender had repriced to — about half a point lower. Speed: because the appraisal, title work, and payoff figures already existed, the new file could be underwritten and closed inside the hard money loan's maturity window. The qualification path mattered too: the loan was underwritten to the property's rent against its full monthly payment, so the borrower's self-employed commission income never had to be documented or debated.

What a similar borrower should know

Last-minute leverage cuts are usually not about the borrower — lenders reprice or tighten guidelines when their own investors or programs change, and it can happen at any point before funding. Three lessons travel well. First, a maturing bridge loan is a deadline, not a suggestion: start the takeout refinance early enough that a surprise still leaves room to re-place the file. Second, when a deal wobbles at the closing table, the third-party reports — appraisal, title, insurance, payoff — are largely portable, which is what makes a fast re-placement possible through a brokerage that works with many capital providers rather than one program. Third, know your property's debt-service coverage before you apply; our guide to how DSCR loans work covers the arithmetic, and a deal review can pressure-test the numbers before any credit pull. This file closed in about a week because it was complete and the reports were current; timelines always depend on the file, the provider, and the market. The rate and terms described here were as closed on August 31, 2026, and are not a current offer.