The Investor's Secret Weapon: Fund Your Deals With a Line of Credit
By Kim Tucker · 5 min read
"How do we tap into the most inexpensive money available and do it without the hassle of typical borrowing? That is the question." — Merrill Chandler, GetFundable.com
Good deals are getting harder to find, and when margins are thin, the cost of your money is the biggest lever you have. Every point, every appraisal, every set of closing costs comes straight out of your profit. That's why more investors are funding their flips and BRRRRs with a line of credit they set up once and reuse for years — and why the smartest of them reach for an unsecured business line of credit, the tool our August speaker, Merrill Chandler, has spent 30 years teaching investors to master.
A Line of Credit Is Money You Set Up Once and Use Forever
A line of credit is revolving money. Instead of borrowing a lump sum on a fixed schedule, you're approved for a maximum — say $100,000 — and draw against it whenever you need it, paying interest only on what you actually use. Pay it back down, and the full amount is available again.
Two things make it powerful. The interest is simple, not compounding — pay down the balance and your interest drops immediately, unlike a front-loaded mortgage. And it's a two-way street: you can pull money back out whenever you need it, like a checking account that pays down debt while it sits there.
That combination behaves like cash. Buy with your line and you're a cash buyer with no lien on title, so you can move fast at the courthouse steps. Rehab from the same line. Sell or refinance, pay it back to zero, and it's ready for the next deal — no new application, no new appraisal, no fresh closing costs each time.
The Rings of Other People's Money
Chandler teaches that building wealth runs on "other people's money," and that it comes in rings, each priced differently. At the center are family and friends — cheap, but heavy on what he calls "emotional overhead." One ring out are private and hard money lenders, where "the interest rates are generally higher" because "they're going to vet your deal." That's the expensive money most flippers are stuck using.
The outer ring is where the cheap money lives. There, FICO's Small Business Scoring Service can approve you for "up to a million dollars in unsecured approvals" — decisions made on you, not on a pledged asset. The prize Chandler teaches investors to reach is the unsecured business line of credit, where "my reputation stands alone... my financial reputation speaks for itself."
HELOC vs. Unsecured Business Line of Credit
Here's where the type of line matters — because most popular "line of credit" strategies are secured by something you already own.
A HELOC is secured by your home; if you don't pay, the bank can foreclose. Big lenders generally won't do HELOCs on investment properties, so it's your primary residence on the hook. The rate is usually variable, and it won't grow on its own — as Chandler notes, "every HELOC... will not give automatic limit increases; you have to go through an entire reevaluation." Above all, it requires equity you already have.
That risk isn't hypothetical. Don and Kim Tucker once flipped a rental house to an investor who was buying his rentals on a HELOC and was sure he had it all figured out. He never actually rented the properties and never paid the line down. When he lost his job, the debt didn't care — and because the HELOC was tied to his own home, that's what the lender took. His personal residence was foreclosed. That's the drawback nobody likes to mention: borrow against your house, and a deal gone sideways can cost you the roof over your head.
That's why Chandler's clear preference — and what he teaches investors to build toward — is the unsecured business line of credit. No house, no property, nothing pledged as collateral. It's extended to your business on your creditworthiness, which means you need no home equity — or any assets at all — to qualify. You're not risking your home, and unlike a HELOC, the line can grow automatically as you build your track record. Same reusable firepower, without the collateral and without the ceiling.
Getting Approved Is a Skill: Reputation and Relationship
The best news is that qualifying isn't luck — it's a skill, built on two levers Chandler names. Reputation is "what other people are saying about you," encoded in your credit profiles and broadcast to future lenders through your FICO score. Relationship is "internal performance data" — how a bank you already use measures the way you handle their money. As he puts it, "the deeper the relationship, the better the lending experience, the lower the costs, and the higher the approval amounts." Both can be deliberately built — which is exactly what makes this within reach for any investor willing to learn.
Where Rates Stand Right Now
As of mid-July 2026, the national average HELOC rate is about 7.43%, with most borrowers between roughly 4% and 12%. Unsecured business lines run wider because they're priced on fundability: Federal Reserve data puts the average business line around 7–8%, and bank-issued unsecured lines commonly start in the 9–13% range for well-qualified borrowers. Either one is a bargain next to what private and hard money cost deal by deal.
The Real Savings: No Points, No Repeat Closing Costs
The math is what makes this so powerful. Hard money lenders typically charge 2 to 4 points up front — on a $150,000 loan, 3 points is $4,500 in pure fees before you swing a hammer. Six deals a year is $27,000 in points alone. A line you set up once charges none of that, and you skip the fresh round of origination and closing costs every new loan piles on — easily $1,000+ saved over a few deals, and usually far more. Add it up, and an unsecured line in the single digits to low teens can cut thousands off the cost of every flip and BRRRR — the difference, in a tight market, between a deal that pencils and one that doesn't.
This Isn't Theory: How MAREI's Founders Fund Deals
Don and Kim Tucker have lived this for years. They stumbled into their first unsecured line early — just $25,000, used to cover the rehab on their flips. As their track record grew, that line grew to $100,000 — enough, back then, to fund the entire purchase and rehab of a house they'd renovate and sell for a profit. The only cost was interest on what they borrowed. No points, no appraisal, no filing fees.
More recently, that same line came through when it counted. A great opportunity landed with a hard deadline while every dollar of their cash was tied up in another property. The line let them seize the deal anyway, and once that house sold, they paid it right back to zero. That's the power of a reusable, unsecured line: it's there when the right deal won't wait.
Come Learn How to Get One — This August at MAREI
Getting approved for the good lines — high-limit, low-rate — isn't luck; it's about setting up your business and personal profile so banks see you as fundable. Most investors never learn how, and stay stuck paying hard money rates, or pledging their homes, when they never needed to.
That's exactly what we're teaching this August at MAREI, with Merrill Chandler of GetFundable.com — one of the country's most respected voices on business credit and author of The New F-Word — showing our members, step by step, how to build the reputation and relationships that unlock unsecured business lines of credit. Don't just read about cheaper money — come learn how to get it. [Insert MAREI August meeting date, location, and registration link here.] Bring your questions and a deal you're working on, and come ready to rethink where your money comes from.
This article is educational and not financial advice. Rates are national averages as of July 2026 and change often; your rate depends on your credit, lender, and business profile. Review terms with your lender and tax advisor before borrowing.