Does that make it a scam?

If you have bad credit etc. and getting hard money if its under 12% then its probably a scam. 

He has since ghosted me.Is it a scam? 

Scam from day 1.Now some investments can fall between there numbers, or have aspects of 2 or more.  

I know what you shared is  happening out there and we need to be cautious.Strictly speaking about our practices and how we operate to minimize fraud and scams.

Accused of stealing money from many out of state investors for a scam he was running in the Chicago market.Be careful who you invest with___Bob Prisco / Bob StevensLongtime spammer here on the site.

We write on the topic of loan scams often and we always get a lot of responses from victims of these scams.

Yes most of them are more like yours, not outright scams but semi-scams.

Unfortunately, these sort of scams are not uncommon when buying turnkey, which is always marketed as somehow being a safer way to start investing.....

Nationally I think there is a lot more fraud overall, not only rental applciations but loan applications, social engineering scam with emails etc.