You send us a borrower. Every loan they ever close with us pays you a $500 referral fee. Not just the first one. The same investor closing their fourth flip with me still generates your fee on deal four. Inside my system, every one of these fees carries a tag that reads 5 For Life, and that is the entire program in three words: five hundred, for life.

If you have never heard of a lender doing this, that is because most of them legally cannot. I will get to why in a minute. First, the mechanics.

How the $500 Referral Fee Works

There is no contract to negotiate and no minimum volume to hit. The whole thing is three steps:

  1. Send me a borrower. Text or email me an introduction with their name and number, or just give me a heads-up that they are coming. My personal cell is (281) 636-5682. Or create a free partner account, submit the deal in the portal, and follow every stage from your referral tracker. Either way, that contact is yours on record in the CRM.
  2. We handle the financing. We get your investor pre-approved, then handle the term sheet, underwriting, and closing documents. You are not processing paperwork or chasing conditions. Your job ended at the introduction.
  3. You collect $500 when it closes. The moment the deal funds, a fee record is created automatically on my side, and the money goes out by Zelle or wire, whichever you prefer, as fast as the same day the loan funds. When the same borrower closes again, it happens again.
Partner Portal · Referral Fees
Capital Kings partner portal earnings dashboard showing paid, upcoming, and lifetime referral fee totals above the three-step program strip ending in You collect $500.
The partner earnings dashboard. Paid, upcoming, and lifetime totals at the top, and the whole program spelled out under them.

The Application Asks Who Sent Them

"Did I actually get credit?" is the question that kills most referral arrangements, so I built the answer into the application itself. When your investor applies, one of the steps asks how they heard about Capital Kings. If they answer "Referral," it asks who sent them, right there in the flow. You do not have to log anything for your intro to count.

The Live Application
The Capital Kings loan application step titled Who referred you, collecting the referrer's name, email, and phone.
Straight from the live application. Your investor names you while applying, even if you never touched the portal.

Their answer gets saved straight to the deal on my side and stays there through closing. And if your investor blanks on your name in the middle of the application, nothing is lost. Shoot me a text and I will add you to the deal after they apply.

The Deal Record · My Side
A Capital Kings deal record showing the borrower contact card with a Referred By row crediting the referring realtor.
What I see on every referred deal (sample deal shown). The referrer rides on the borrower's contact card from application to closing.

Why Most Lenders Can't Pay You (and Why I Can)

This is the part almost nobody has explained to agents, so let me break it down simply. Consumer mortgages, the loan someone takes to buy the house they live in, are governed by a federal law called RESPA. Section 8 of RESPA bans referral fees on those loans outright. No lender, loan officer, or title company can pay you for sending them a homebuyer, and the penalties are steep enough that nobody tries.

That ban is the reason a lender offering referral fees sounds made up. For most of the mortgage world, it is.

But RESPA's prohibition covers consumer purpose loans. Business purpose loans sit outside it, and business purpose lending is all I do: fix and flip loans, DSCR rental loans, bridge loans, new construction. Money lent to an investor for an investment property. On those loans, a referral fee is legal, normal, and in my opinion the right way to treat the person who made the deal happen.

Honesty note: I am compressing a dense federal statute into three paragraphs, and I am a broker, not an attorney. If you hold a real estate license, your brokerage may also have its own policy on outside referral income. Worth a two-minute conversation with your broker before the fees start landing.

So Who Actually Pays the $500?

Me. When a loan closes, I earn a broker fee for placing it, and the $500 comes out of that. Your client's rate, origination, and cash to close are identical whether they came through you or walked in off the website. If sending me business made your client's loan more expensive, you would stop sending me business, and you would be right to.

Most of Capital Kings' business comes from realtors and the people they introduce. That is the honest reason this program exists: the people who built this brokerage should share in it.

The fee comes out of my pocket. Your client's pricing does not know you exist.

The Infinite Part Is the Whole Point

Forget the $500 for a second. The number that matters is how many times a real investor closes. The average homeowner buys a house once every seven years. An active flipper can close several loans a year, and you get paid on every file.

One Referred Flipper · First Two Years (Example)
Close 1Paid+$500total $500
Close 2Paid+$500total $1,000
Close 3Paid+$500total $1,500
Close 4Paid+$500total $2,000
Close 5Paid+$500total $2,500
∞Every close after that+$500forever
The running ledger from one referred borrower who keeps closing. This is a labeled example, not a promise: some referrals never close a deal. The ones who do tend to keep closing, and five closings over two years is a realistic pace for an active flipper.

You See Everything

The partner portal gives you a live tracker: every borrower you sent, how many times they have closed, and what each one has earned you, with every fee marked pending, approved, or paid. It updates as each deal moves.

Partner Portal · Your Referred Borrowers
Capital Kings referral tracker listing referred borrowers with closings, stage chips like terms out, and per-borrower earnings such as $1,000 paid.
The referred borrowers tracker. Every intro you make shows up here, with a stage chip while the loan is in process and a running total once fees start landing.

The Fine Print, In Plain English

  • Fees pay on funded closings only. An introduction that never closes pays nothing. I only make money when a loan closes, and your fee follows the same rule.
  • It is taxable income. Once your fees for the year pass the IRS reporting threshold, I will need a completed W-9 from you before the next payout goes out, and you will get a 1099 from me at tax time.
  • Licensed agents: check your brokerage's policy on outside referral income. Most are fine with it on business purpose loans. Ask anyway.
  • No cap, no expiration. Terms current as of August 2026. If the program ever changes, fees you have already earned do not.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is the Capital Kings referral fee?
$500 per closing. Not per borrower, per closing. If the investor you referred closes three loans with us this year, that is three separate $500 fees. There is no cap on how many people you refer and no expiration on how long a referral keeps paying.
Is it legal for a realtor to accept a referral fee from a hard money broker?
On the loans we broker, yes. RESPA's referral fee ban applies to consumer purpose mortgages, the loan someone takes to buy the home they live in. Capital Kings brokers business purpose loans to investors: fix and flip, DSCR rental, bridge, and new construction. Those sit outside RESPA's prohibition. If you hold a license, check whether your brokerage has its own policy on outside referral income.
When do I actually get paid?
When the loan funds. The moment a deal closes, a fee record is created automatically on our side, and the payout goes out by Zelle or wire, whichever you prefer, as fast as the same day. You can watch every fee move from pending to approved to paid in the partner portal. An introduction that never closes does not pay anything.
Does the referral fee cost my client anything?
No. Capital Kings earns a broker fee for placing the loan, and the $500 comes out of that. Your client's rate, origination, and cash to close are identical whether they came through a referral or found us on their own.
Does this stack with my commission if I am the agent on the deal?
Yes. If you are the agent on the purchase, nothing about your commission changes. The referral fee is separate money from a separate party: me. And it works on people you are not transacting with at all, like the investor you sold a duplex to last year or the past client who keeps texting you lending questions. Those introductions cost you nothing, and each one can turn into a fee that repeats.
What kinds of loans qualify?
Every loan we broker: fix and flip, DSCR rental, bridge, and new construction financing for real estate investors. These are business purpose loans on investment property. We do not do consumer mortgages, so there is no gray area to worry about.
Do I have to be a realtor or a wholesaler?
No. Realtors and wholesalers are who the program was built around, but anyone who knows real estate investors can refer. The partner account is free, and if you would rather skip the portal entirely, a text introduction works too.

Know One Investor? That Is a Referral.

Create a free partner account, add them to your tracker, and watch every stage from application to the day your $500 lands. Prefer to skip the portal? Text me the intro at (281) 636-5682 and I will log it on my side. The fee is the same either way. The full program, including the free deal toolkit that comes with it, lives on the partner program page.

Open the Partner Portal →