Lloyd Charton recalls a fateful knock on the door. At his Dana Point home stood a cheerful man with an impressive knowledge of Charton's personal life. It was a neighbor, Dan J. Harkey.
Harkey congratulated him on his retirement and asked about a recent vacation. He told him about his company, Point Center Financial Inc., which raised money from private investors and lent it to real estate developers.
It was Charton's introduction to the little-known and risky world of "hard-money" lending, a lightly regulated segment of the real estate business marked by short-term loans with high interest rates and fees.
In the years that followed, Charton invested more than $1.2 million with his neighbor, earning handsome returns, for a time.
Then, as the real estate market soured in 2007, borrowers started to default on their loans. Today, Harkey acknowledges that at least 60% of the loans are in default. He faces a lawsuit from more than 50 private investors -- including Charton -- whose nest eggs helped fund the bad loans.
Harkey, 62, who is married to Assemblywoman Diane Harkey (R-Dana Point), disputes the claims of the investors and blames his Aliso Viejo company's downturn on the soured real estate market.
Whether or not the investors prevail in court, real estate experts say the dispute illustrates the perils inherent in hard-money lending, which is often a final option for borrowers who can't qualify for bank loans.
The term "hard-money" lending can be traced to the Great Depression when private individuals started lending money because of the banking crisis, said Leonard Rosen, whose La Jolla-based company, Pitbull Mortgage School, teaches mortgage brokers about hard-money loans.
"No one really knows the reason they used 'hard money' as a term. It could be that it was hard to get, hard to find or because it was hard cash," Rosen said. "I'm not an advocate for hard-money lending. But it's something that has its place as long as it's done responsibly. There are some people who should not be in the lending business at all."
Hard-money lenders rely almost exclusively on the value of property used as collateral, expecting to profit when loans are repaid or to foreclose when they're not. In a good economy, investors can make significant gains. Harkey said he paid investors 9% annually, sometimes more.
