One of the most common questions we get is simple on the surface, but complicated underneath:

“How are you buying rental properties without using banks—and without constantly coming out of pocket?”

The answer is private money.

But the real story is how we learned to use it responsibly, conservatively, and in a way that supports a long-term life—not just short-term deals.

We’re Marco and Hilary Romero, a husband-and-wife real estate team based in San Antonio, Texas. Over the last several years, we’ve acquired dozens of properties, built a rental portfolio, raised private capital, run a wholesaling company, and evolved our strategy multiple times. We’ve done this while growing a business, raising young kids, and learning—sometimes the hard way—what actually works in real-world real estate.

This article lays out exactly how we buy rental properties using private money, why we structure deals the way we do, and what we learned along the way. Nothing here is theoretical. Every part of this comes from lived experience.

What We Mean by “Private Money”

When people hear the phrase private money, they often imagine something risky, opaque, or overly complex. In practice, it’s the opposite.

Private money simply means capital from individuals rather than institutions. Not banks. Not hedge funds. Real people.

Most of our private lenders are not professional investors trying to chase yield. They are people who already had money sitting somewhere and were looking for a better, more reliable way to put it to work.

Typically, they fall into a few categories:

• People with money sitting idle in savings or retirement accounts

• Former landlords who are tired of managing properties themselves

• Clients Marco represented years earlier as a real estate agent

• Friends, family friends, and long-term professional connections

What matters most is not sophistication. It’s trust.

This is also important to clarify: private money is not hard money, and it is usually not a partnership.

Hard money is short-term, high-interest, and designed for flips. That’s not our model.

Partnerships, especially early on, can work—but they often introduce friction that slows everything down. We’ll talk more about that later.

Private money, for us, is about creating clean, clearly defined roles. The lender provides capital. We do everything else.

What We Use Private Money For (and What We Don’t)

We use private money almost exclusively for buy-and-hold rental properties.

We are not flippers. We are not speculators. We are not chasing appreciation-only deals or short-term arbitrage.

Our long-term goal has always been freedom—freedom of time, freedom of movement, and freedom from being tied to a traditional job. Rental real estate fits that goal better than anything else we’ve found.

That means our private money is used for:

• Purchasing rental properties

• Funding rehab and make-ready work

• Covering closing costs

In most deals, we do not come out of pocket, aside from small contingency reserves for unexpected issues. And unexpected issues do happen.

What we do not use private money for is just as important. We don’t use it to bail out bad wholesale deals. We don’t use it to gamble on properties that only work if the market keeps rising. And we don’t stretch leverage to make marginal deals look good on paper.

If a deal doesn’t work conservatively, we don’t do it.

How a Typical Bella Buyers Deal Is Structured

A normal Bella Buyers acquisition follows a very repeatable pattern.

First, we find the property. Sometimes that comes through our own wholesaling company. Other times it comes from other wholesalers in the San Antonio market who know how we buy and what we look for.

Once we identify a property, we run the numbers conservatively. We assume things will go wrong, because sometimes they do. If the deal still works under conservative assumptions, we move forward.

At that point, private money funds the deal. That typically includes the purchase price, rehab costs, and closing costs. We structure deals so that the total loan stays within our internal leverage limits, which we’ll explain shortly.

We then manage the rehab, handle tenant placement, and stabilize the property as a long-term rental.

Occasionally, surprises happen. We’ve had situations where foundation work caused structural shifting that damaged a roof that looked perfectly fine at purchase. In those cases, we cover the difference out of contingency funds. That’s why we always plan for the unexpected, even if we don’t end up needing it.

Once the property is stabilized, it becomes part of the long-term portfolio.

Why We Cap Leverage at Around 78% LTV

One of the most important decisions we ever made was to limit leverage.

Early on, we capped deals at 75% loan-to-value. Over time, we intentionally reduced that number to about 78% LTV.

That change may sound minor, but it makes a meaningful difference.

At higher leverage levels, deals become fragile. There’s less margin for error if the market shifts, if a refinance doesn’t appraise as expected, or if an exit needs to happen sooner than planned.

By staying slightly more conservative, we create breathing room.

That cushion protects everyone involved. It protects us operationally, and it protects the lender’s capital as well. If something unexpected happens, we’re not forced into bad decisions just to stay afloat.

We would rather pass on a deal than push leverage to make it work.

What Private Lenders Typically Earn

Returns on our deals vary, but most of our private lenders earn between 7.5% and 10%, with our average landing around 8.25%.

There is no fixed rate across all deals because every property is different. Rehab budgets vary. Cash flow varies by neighborhood. Some deals are stronger than others.

We price returns based on the actual performance and risk profile of each property. That means some deals support higher returns and some don’t.

We would rather structure honest, sustainable returns than promise something that forces us to take unnecessary risk.

How We Raised Our First Private Money (The “Big List”)

We didn’t start with wealthy investors or a massive database. We started with a list.

When we committed to buying our own rental properties, Marco made what we still call the big list. It included everyone we could think of who already knew us and trusted us in some way.

That list included friends, family members, family friends, old coworkers, former bosses, college connections, and past real estate clients.

Most people never do this because fear kicks in immediately. People tell themselves stories about why it won’t work. They assume conversations will be awkward or that people won’t be interested.

Our first private lender turned out to be a college friend who had known Marco was in real estate for years. He trusted Marco. That was enough.

We got a lot of no’s. We got a lot of maybes. And eventually, we got yeses.

Private money works the same way wholesaling does. It’s about conversations, follow-up, and long-term relationships.

Why We Moved Away from Partnerships

Our first few deals were structured as partnerships, typically with a 50/50 profit split. They worked, but they slowed us down.

Even when partners are supportive, partnerships introduce friction. Decisions take longer. Communication becomes more complicated. Every choice carries more emotional weight.

We realized that if we wanted to scale responsibly, we needed lenders, not partners.

Private lenders want clear terms, consistent communication, and reliable execution. That structure allows us to move efficiently while still protecting everyone involved.

Trust Matters More Than Spreadsheets

Some private lenders are very savvy. Others are not. What they all have in common is that they care about trust.

Many of our lenders don’t fixate on spreadsheets or exact LTV calculations. They want to know that we believe in the deal and that we are operating conservatively.

We take that trust seriously. We communicate regularly, share updates, and stay in front of people even when we’re not actively raising money.

Private money is not transactional. It’s relational.

Our Strategy Has Changed—and That’s Intentional

Our plan today is not the plan we started with.

We began by taking any deal we could do without coming out of pocket. We moved into owner financing because it looked attractive on the surface. Then we learned about the tax consequences and adjusted.

Today, our focus is on holding properties for at least a year, selling selectively, and eventually transitioning into small multifamily properties using 1031 exchanges.

We revisit our strategy regularly. Markets change. Life changes. Goals evolve.

If you’re not willing to adjust your plan, you’ll eventually get stuck defending decisions that no longer serve you.

Why We Do This at All

This isn’t about units or ego.

Years ago, we wrote down a number. That number represented what it would take for us to be free.

Freedom means not dreading Sundays. It means not asking permission to travel. It means being present with our kids and building a life together rather than around a job.

What we’re building is hard. But it’s better than where we were.

Want to Follow Along?

We regularly share deal updates, market insights, and lessons learned—both successes and mistakes.

If you want to see how this works in real time, join the Bella Buyers newsletter. You’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at how we think about deals, risk, and long-term investing.