📅 Tuesday, May 5, 2026 · By Barry Luchtel

Now Lending in Charleston: Why We're Here, Why We Charge Points, and What That Buys You

I moved to Charleston five years ago. Kayak Capital — the hard money lender my brother Landon and I founded in Phoenix in 2013 — is officially open for business in South Carolina. This is our first SC blog post, and I want to use it to be straight with you about a few things up front.

Why we're here

For 15 years, Kayak Capital has done one thing in Phoenix: fund hard money loans for real estate investors. Fast, simple, no junk fees. We've funded more than 1,700 deals across the Phoenix metro, and we've kept the team small and the pricing transparent the whole time.

When I moved to Charleston, the obvious question was whether to bring the lending business with me. I spent the first year listening — to local investors, contractors, closing attorneys, agents. The answer was yes. The Charleston metro has the same kind of investor profile we serve well in Phoenix: people who do real deals, need real money, and don't have time for a 45-day bank approval process.

Why we charge 2 points in SC when our AZ program is zero-points

In Arizona, our pricing is famously simple: zero origination points, zero processing fees, zero junk fees. The interest rate is your only cost. That works because we've done 1,700+ deals there. The volume covers our overhead.

In South Carolina, we're starting from scratch. Building local relationships, learning Lowcountry submarkets, getting our team set up to fund deals here as fast as we do in Phoenix takes time and capital. So during this ramp-up, we charge 12% interest and 2 origination points. That's it.

Here's what we still don't charge — same as Phoenix:

• No processing fee
• No underwriting fee
• No appraisal fee
• No prepayment penalty
• No extension fee if your project runs long
• No minimum interest period
• No payoff fee

For comparison, most hard money lenders in the Charleston area charge 2–3 origination points plus $500–$1,500 in processing/underwriting fees, often with prepayment penalties and minimum interest periods on top. Our 2 points and the rate are usually $1,500–$5,000 less per deal in total cost than what you'll find from a typical SC hard money lender.

What 2 points actually buys you

The 2 points cover real things:

• Direct decision-makers. When you call, you get me. I lend our own money — there's no committee, no broker chain, no junior loan officer "running it up the chain." Decisions happen in real time.
• Same-day funding. We've done this 1,700+ times. The bottleneck on a Charleston closing is usually the closing attorney's prep time, not our wire.
• Asset-based underwriting. We don't pull credit. We don't need tax returns. If the property and the deal make sense, you're in. Same as Phoenix.

Where we lend in SC

We're focused on the Charleston tri-county area to start — Charleston, Mount Pleasant, North Charleston, Summerville, and surrounding Lowcountry communities. We'll consider deals throughout the region case by case. If you have a property somewhere we haven't worked yet, call anyway. We'd rather hear about it.

What's different about SC closings

South Carolina is an attorney-state for real estate closings. Unlike Arizona where most closings happen at a title company, SC requires a licensed attorney to oversee the closing. We've started building relationships with several Lowcountry closing attorneys — you can use your own, or we can recommend one. Practically, this adds about a day to the timeline. It does not change our pricing.

What this means going forward

Two points is our market-entry pricing. It's not permanent. Once SC volume catches up to where AZ is — meaningful annual loan count, established local relationships, predictable demand — we'll re-evaluate. Until then, we're being transparent: here's what it costs, here's why, here's what you get.

If you have a Charleston-area deal in front of you and want to see how we look on it, call me at (480) 256-2274 (yes, still my AZ number — same line for both states) or apply online. First call is always free. Approval is usually within the hour.