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You’re listening to Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim, a podcast dedicated to the private lending industry. I’m Kevin Kim and my goal is to sit down with key figures in the private lending industry, to talk about their business and their personal lives. We’ll get their takes on market conditions, the industry at large, and their personal stories. Overall, I really want to learn more about how they started and grew their businesses. So, whether you’re a lender, a borrower, a vendor, an investor, or anyone just interested in learning more about private lending, this podcast is definitely for you. Thanks for tuning in and enjoy this week’s episode of Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim.
Kevin Kim:
Hey guys, this is Kevin Kim here for Lender Lounge with yours truly, Kevin Kim. We’re here with a very special episode with our friends Alex and Beth, and for all our listeners, you may have seen them on the podcast circuit in real estate lately, because they have recently released a very cool book. And so, I’m not going to drone on about who you guys are and what you guys have been doing and how cool you are, I’ll let you guys do that. So, why don’t you guys introduce yourself, the company, the book, and we’ll go from there?
Kevin Kim:
The book is called Lend to Live Earn Hassle Free Passive Income in Real Estate with Private Money Lending, and it all started with a dinosaur, so I’ll punt it over to Alex to tell you about how she came up with this great idea to create a community to support small and truly independent private money lenders out there. Because there just really wasn’t a place for that, and I’ll let her take it from here.
Alexandra Breshears:
Yeah. So, during COVID, the world shut down, couldn’t go out, couldn’t socialize with people. I am married to an extreme introvert, so if I get 10 words out of him at once, that’s a really chatty Kathy day for him. So, I went looking for other people to talk to, that invested in real estate in this way, and I just could not find other people for discussion to ask questions, the whole nine yards. Someone, just a friend of mine in the area, dared me to start a Facebook group and I’m like, I’m a chemistry professor, I don’t do this. He’s like, “Just do it.” So, I did it. And then, it literally just took off. The group’s just a little over two years old now, and it just became a life of its own, and it became a place for people to come together. We’ve had borrowers meet lenders, we’ve had lenders meet business partners, we’ve had other people meet business partners in real estate. It’s been just this amazing journey that I didn’t think this was where it was going to go. I just wanted people to talk to, during COVID, about private lending.
Kevin Kim:
That’s why I started the podcast. I was like, “I’m kind of bored.”
Beth Johnson:
We weren’t bored, we wanted… I mean, there’s-
Kevin Kim:
So, our audience can know what it is, what’s the name of the Facebook group?
Alexandra Breshears:
The group is called Lend to Live Private Lending Lessons.
Kevin Kim:
Okay, so listeners, if you’re not on there already, get on there. I’m on there. It’s great. So, keep going. Sorry, I didn’t mean interrupt.
Alexandra Breshears:
So, Beth and I actually met through the group and I think the first time we had actually met in person, we were probably about halfway done, if not majority done with the book, when I just flew to Seattle and I’m like, “Hey, I’m your internet friend from Zoom.”
Kevin Kim:
Really? I didn’t know that. That’s so cool.
Alexandra Breshears:
Yeah, so we’ve only been in person, what? Two, three times? Three times, three or four times now?
Kevin Kim:
Right. Because you’re on the East Coast, right Alex?
Alexandra Breshears:
Yes, I’m in Virginia.
Kevin Kim:
Beth, you’re up in Washington, right?
Beth Johnson:
In Seattle.
Kevin Kim:
In Seattle. So yeah, cross country elaboration. Things through Facebook groups.
Alexandra Breshears:
Right?
Kevin Kim:
That’s very cool.
Alexandra Breshears:
And so, it worked out kind of funny. It was always something, like we were always getting asked by people, “What’s a good book I can read about private lending?” My brain is just like, there’s just not really any good ones.
Kevin Kim:
No.
Alexandra Breshears:
There’s nothing that’s application, how to do this, and just one day I got stuck in a rainstorm on 301 in Maryland. I was going to visit more Zoom friends and I was stuck in traffic and it just hit me. I’m like, this book is done. It was already done in my brain, it just felt done. And then, I look over and I’m right next to this 25 foot dinosaur that exists on 301 in Maryland and I love dinosaurs. I’m like, “Oh, that’s a sign. There’s going to be a book,” and I think I called her on the way home from that trip, and I’m like, “Hey, do you want to do a book?” And she’s like, “Yeah, it’s kind of funny. We’ll get around to doing that when things calm down.” And then, two weeks later I’m like, “Beth, here’s some stuff like here’s 35,000 words.” She’s like, “What is this?” I’m like, “It’s the book,” and she’s like, “What? We’re doing that?”
Beth Johnson:
Yeah. Never dare her, because anytime anyone ever dares her to do something, she actually makes it come to fruition.
Kevin Kim:
I love that. I love that. There’s so many stories in our industry like that. “Hey, I bet you won’t,” and then all of a sudden, here we are.
Alexandra Breshears:
Right?
Kevin Kim:
But, I want to understand your guys’ background. You mentioned you’re a chemistry professor by trade, Alex, but Beth, a lot of our industry people up in the northwest know the business, but I want you to introduce it. And so, you guys are both private lenders, you guys are both in the industry, so give us a little bit background about the business side and your involvement in the industry. I want to translate that into the book.
Beth Johnson:
Sure. My company’s Flynn Family Lending and we operate, I call ourselves a money match maker, but really we kind of broker capital from ourselves and other capital partners, truly private individuals wanting us to help with their origination and deal flow, and place them directly with borrowers in our region. And so, that allows us the flexibility to do some creative financing, that maybe other institutionally back lenders can’t. So, seconds and cross collateralizations, things that get a little goofy but still make sense, both to the borrower and the lender. When I was growing our business with my husband Matt Flynn, I was really in a hard place because I didn’t have anybody else to talk to. I was a little bit nervous about reaching out to my cohorts in my market, because it is a competitive business. And so, I think I probably looked on Facebook and LinkedIn, and searched for groups to participate in, which is where I found Geraci and where I found Apple. But, they were geared a little bit more towards your more institutional capital and fund managers.
Beth Johnson:
And so, I think I finally found it, mid COVID, after Alex had started private lending lessons for a couple of months at least, and I just thought, “Wow, finally.” What I’d always wanted to create, but just never really wanted to manage, she put it out in the universe and it just happened to be that we get on a phone call and she’s a chem professor, and my corporate background in my former life, was 20 years in corporate training and development. So, as an instructional designer and a professor, we just had educating other people really at the core of who we are, so it made sense to bring private money out into the open, so that people like me, who were trying to just build a business and understand it, and do it legally and safely, had a place to connect with others and share best practices. Alex made all that happen.
Kevin Kim:
Damn, that’s a lot. That’s real cool.
Beth Johnson:
Right?
Kevin Kim:
That’s so cool.
Beth Johnson:
Really, just out of thin air, something like this happens, but I needed it so bad.
Kevin Kim:
Just like poof, it appears, and I remember during COVID, Leslie’s like, “Have you seen this Facebook group?” I’m like, I’ve been in these LinkedIn groups forever in private lending and they’ve always just been just marketing materials. I’m like, “Okay,” I get in there and it’s people that I’ve been talking to privately, because I do a lot of the consults with new lenders, and so I’m very passionate about new lenders, and then helping them get into space. But, I’m an attorney, I can’t do anything beyond the law. And so, it’s like, “Whoa, this is the best thing for the industry since the foundation of APL.” Because we didn’t have anything back then, and now the problem, like you said, the problem is the disconnect, because the industry’s grown so much. And so, there’s this massive disconnect, and it would always struck me as a big need was… Not just education, but like I said, community. So, Alex, tell us more about your private lending background, your industry background, and then we’ll start talking about the book.
Alexandra Breshears:
So, I am a military spouse. We move a lot, and part of that is, you have to restart your life every time you move. Your grocery store, your doctor’s office, your vet, everything just gets reset every time you move. And so, for me, employment has always been a problem and it’s still a very big problem for a lot of military spouses, because we’re either unemployed or underemployed, and we are literally referred to as dependents, which drives me crazy. So, I had to find a way that I could still bring in income to my household, still contribute financially to my household, but a career was obviously not on my plate. It just wasn’t going to be possible moving as much as I was.
Alexandra Breshears:
So, at this REIA meeting I happened to just bump into somebody turned out to be a private lender and a hard money loan broker, and this was 20 years ago, so back before phones were smart and we were still faxing things. I really got to see the real estate investing business from the other side, because you’re driving out to 1003s, to borrowers actually at the property, you’re walking, looking at the scope of work and it just kind of clicked like, I could do this. And then, with as much moving as we were doing, being military affiliated, you kind of run into other military affiliated people and we would work on a deal with them, we would offer some debt for it, whatever it happened to be. It was never really super formalized, it was just like, “Hey, we have cash to invest. You’re an active investor in this area, in this market, let’s do this.” And then, when COVID happened, it shut down the world here, just in general, in Virginia.
Alexandra Breshears:
A friend of mine from this real estate military Venn diagram, he was actually going to lose out on a deal because his hard money lender shut their doors three days before he was supposed to close. He just happened to be sharing the story, I was like, “Well,” I was like, “We could do that,” and he’s like, “Are you serious?” I’m like, “Why not? Let’s do it.” That kicked it off in a much more formalized manner, where it’s like okay, we could actually do this. I could make this a business in a backpack, and then everywhere my spouse gets stationed, as long as I know my market and the rules for that state, and the usury laws and licensing, I could do this from anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world really. As long as I got electricity and internet access. And, that’s what was really, the impetus for me to really say gung-ho like, this is what I can do, this is what I can do while my spouse serves, and I don’t have to constantly rebuild it every time we move.
Kevin Kim:
So, you started your own private lending business effectively, and you were self-funding?
Alexandra Breshears:
Yes.
Kevin Kim:
Oh, very cool. Very cool. How long did you do it for, because you started 20 years ago, you said?
Alexandra Breshears:
No, no, no. I started working for the hard money loan broker about 20 years ago. We had done loans off and on, different duty stations, but actually making it a formalized business, actually happened in 2020, where we got serious about it-
Kevin Kim:
There’s a lot of gaps in the market.
Alexandra Breshears:
Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Kevin Kim:
So, you’re both, effectively, you have your own lending businesses and your own local markets, but what’s fascinating to me is, you guys took it upon yourselves, to not only create this community, but also, and by the way, for those of you listening, this community is great. Even if you’re one of the bigger lenders out there, we had this interesting conversation with a big institutional client and he was looking for more counterparties to work with. Like, “Dude, this is where you got to go. If you want to find more counterparties to work with and you want more originators, that’s the place to be, because those folks have the loans that you want.” So, it’s not just for the small guys, actually, it could be useful for everybody. But, the idea of a book, because I don’t have any… Haven’t had time to even read a book these days, the fact that you guys wrote a book, but the material in the book, I can’t say I read all of it, but I read as much as I could have, in preparation for this interview.
Kevin Kim:
What was really interesting about this book, is you attacked it from two different ways, and I was interested to look at that, because you had the perspective of the investor, someone who’s really just looking to make a nice return. But, you also looked at it from, if I want to be a new lender, if I want to start figuring out how to do these kind of deals myself, you laid it out for them. What was interesting was, you guys had a fresh take in this book about a very hot topic in the industry right now, even at the institutional level. There’s the lingo that we use, the phraseology or the… I think, Beth, you said, you call it the taxonomy. That’s by the best, the most apt word for this, the terminology in this space is never consistent, and I want to hear your guys’ take on this before we get deeper in the book. Private lending, private money, hard money, and you guys differentiate this, because in my brain, it’s all kind of all the same, so I’d like to hear your distinction on this.
Beth Johnson:
To be fair, we didn’t really set the definition. The audience, the broader audience of active investors, where a lot of them now congregate and learn from bigger pockets, which I know that real estate education platform, we’re really tapping into their defined version of what a private money lender is, versus true hard money or institutional capital. So, I don’t really believe that it’s something that Alex and I are necessarily creating net new, in terms of a separate definition. We’re not challenging convention, because I don’t know if convention is the same, within our own lending industry, as it is in the broader real estate investor community, at large.
Kevin Kim:
That actually is an interesting point, because in this debate, in different communities of the industry, different organizations, and different trade associations, and different campaigns I’ve seen, there’s been the debate between private lending and hard money lending. This whole debate came up and my take on it was exactly that. I don’t care what you call it, it doesn’t matter what you think you are, it matters what your borrowers think you are. If your borrowers think you’re hard money lender, you’re a hard money lender. That was the interesting part about this, but was the noticeable distinction that I did read in the book, was the differentiation between hard money, aka private lending, which is called one big group, and then private money lending or private money. Because, this was a vast differentiation and I’m not too familiar with how big a pockets audience differentiations that, so for our audience, why don’t you guys share what the differentiation is?
Alexandra Breshears:
In our eyes, when we are talking about a private money lender, we are generally talking about individuals that are lending out capital. Maybe it’s their own capital, capital they directly control, because a lot of the hard money lenders, and this is where you’re talking about it affects the borrower, the hard money lenders, well yes, they have access to millions and millions of dollars of capital. That capital comes with strings attached. They got a warehouse line of credit that they sold a bank on their business model. We will not lend to anybody under a 620 credit score. We will only lend on properties at this, this, and this metric, and if you go to a hard money lender as a borrower and you don’t check all the boxes, they can’t do the loan, because they’re either going to turn around and sell it on the secondary market, so it has to be conforming to some degree for the secondary market to want it.
Alexandra Breshears:
They’re going to have to do something for business warehouse line of credit. They’ve got their own parameters. If it’s a debt fund, they have their own parameters, so there’s a lot of strings attached. Whereas what Beth and I are talking about for private lenders, since it’s our capital or capital we directly control, we have that ability to flex and say, “Okay, we don’t care what your credit score is,” or, “We don’t need monthly payments,” or all these different variables, that aren’t really super available, honestly, in the hard money space, because they have all those strings attached to the capital they’re using.
Kevin Kim:
Interesting. So, that more flexible arrangement is what is being referred to as private money lending, because it’s private money that you control. It’s kind of interesting, because the differentiation that I’ve been making in my career, has been along the lines of the concept of private lending has become a synonym for what used to be called soft money lending, like bank lending, and what you’re describing, a lot of the institutional types, they’ve got a very, very… They’ve got a securitization driven credit box ,and they have to keep their overlords happy when it comes to the Wall Street guys. But, there’s always been this kind of small… It’s been shrinking. The industry has kind of started this way. When I started in this space, everyone did it this way, it was all… No one ran appraisals, no one ran credit, pure asset based, the deal was structured to their comfort, right?
Kevin Kim:
Yeah, they may have had a warehouse line, but it was never meant to be this massive strategy to drive the business. That strategy has really fallen by the wayside. I can name a handful of clients now, that truly go in that direction and they still exist at larger scale. But, what’s interesting is how the borrowers view this, because I’ve always told our people, our industry people, and I think I really want to [inaudible 00:19:01] during this interview today, it doesn’t matter what you call it, it matter what your borrowers call it. Because your borrowers are going to be looking for, either a private money lender or a hard money lender, and if you don’t know what the difference is, you can’t make that deal happen, plain and simple. So, from that perspective, the book… But, the book is giving tips and tricks to a lot of those people, who are like, I want to be a new lender. So, let’s talk about that. This is an educational book, but it’s also kind of a strategy guide, in a lot of ways, right?
Beth Johnson:
Well, it’s educational for somebody who’s a passive investor. I think that’s really the key distinction here. You can call us whatever you want. Even my business is a private money matchmaker, I’d argue whether or not I’m even considered… I’m more of a broker, but I’m still dealing with truly private capital. To Alex’s point, we do have direct control over our funds.
Kevin Kim:
Those folks call the shots.
Beth Johnson:
But, if you’re putting private lender on your IRS tax return, then you’re probably not a private money lender, because you may be semiretired or retired, and you’re lending out capital to the kid down the block that you saw grow up and is now a full time flipper. But, that’s not necessarily your trade, it’s not your occupation. So, we do make a distinction, like those truly small individuals who might do this as a side hustle or passively, on the side to create cash flow, that’s who we’re targeting. Not somebody who’s going to be making an active business out of this, like myself.
Kevin Kim:
Right. That’s actually what this industry was founded on, and a lot of people forget about… I would remind people that this industry was founded on that type of funding source. A vast majority of the industry is still funded by this kind of funding source. A lot of people go, “Oh yeah. But, it’s so institutionalized.” But, granted, that institutionalization is a product of the secondary market. It’s a minority of originators that are backed by these folks, and the vast majority just on pure numbers, are supported through these high net worth investors, who love this as an investment strategy. So, let’s talk about the profile of this strategy, from an investor’s perspective. Talk about that real quick, because I can talk about it all day long, but our audience is not here to listen to me, they’re here to listen to you. So, why don’t you guys talk about that real quick? Because I think that is important, the virtues of this industry, as a whole, this asset class as a whole, from an investor’s eyes.
Alexandra Breshears:
Well, I would say, going back to the book a little bit to answer that question, it’s not so much the people that just do one-sy two-sies a year, from my perspective it’s, you have to start somewhere. These are actually potentially the next generation of lenders coming down the pike to scale, in the next 5, 10 years, whatever their goal is. So, they have to get a good foundation, and if they do half a dozen loans with their own capital, they’ve literally taken on 100% of the risk because it’s their own capital, so they tend to want to learn things really well. They want to know how to safeguard their money, so they can be good fiduciaries, if they do decide to scale up. So, I would say from that perspective, it’s those people… It’s really very flexible.
Alexandra Breshears:
It could be the people that, maybe we talk about a couple different profiles in the book. Maybe it’s a retiring landlord, somebody who, maybe you have 20 single family homes and you’re getting up there in age, and you just really do not want to have your heirs worry about 20 single family homes. So, they’ll start potentially liquidating, or pulling out equity from these, to do private lending, so if something were to happen, the heirs are getting, essentially, cash or cash flow, as opposed to 20 houses with 20 mortgages and 20 roofs to deal with.
Alexandra Breshears:
There’s active investors that also private lend. I think that point isn’t brought up enough. A lot of people tend to view it as something you graduate to. Like, “I’m going to be a fix and flipper, until I can be a private lender,” and it’s like, well, you can do both at the same time. So, it’s also something that can be done while you’re an active investor. I mean, people lend out their retirement capital, while active investors and other investors deal, so it’s really something for anybody, in our opinion, and like you mentioned, the book is actually written in this very bipartisan way. So, if someone is an active investor, they can start cultivating their own capital and saying, “Hey, read this book. This is all the ways I’m going to safeguard your capital. Here you go.” It’s actually meant to be a resource for active investors and passive investors.
Kevin Kim:
But well, what I noticed was interesting was, it didn’t just extol the virtue. Extolling the virtues of this asset class as an investment, has been done before, from a book standpoint. Anthony wrote one, just purely from an investor perspective. But, the fact of the matter was, showing them how to become a lender was the hard part. Let’s talk about that real quick. What are some key things that you guys discussed in this book, to explain to them about jumping into this space now, as you’re doing these deals now? What are some of the things that they should look out for, that you guys wish you guys had known, before you wrote the book?
Beth Johnson:
Well, I think the first thing that we wanted to know is how to do it legally and safely. That’s just at the very core is, we just don’t want to screw up, because this is our hard earned money. A lot of us aren’t… We might be high income earners or we’ve saved every penny or maybe we’ve rolled over a 401K that was legacy, from a previous employer, but we know the returns. Everyone talks about the returns, but nobody says, how do you actually get this across the finish line? And so, we wanted to write a book that actually helped write it out in a very process-oriented format. But, knowing that it’s not really this checkoff list of things to do, because it’s such a highly nuanced industry. Everything from vendors systems, a lot of the systems, they can’t even be hard coded, because the way you do private lending is just a hundred different lenders, will do it a hundred different ways.
Beth Johnson:
So, how can an origination software application actually suit everybody’s needs? And so, we wanted to present the contemplations that a lender needs to take, on both sides. How do you underwrite the borrower? How do you underwrite the property? How do you take into consideration this overwhelming amount and wealth of information in front of you, that you might not actually be able to do some critical thinking on some of those parts, right? Because we are lay people trying to make it happen, and there really wasn’t a book out there to do that. And so, we want to talk to people about how to build a virtual team, using great attorneys, like your firm.
Kevin Kim:
We do appreciate the shout out, I tell you that much. I really do appreciate the shout. We were reading, I was like, “Oh, hey, hey.”
Beth Johnson:
You guys have been a tremendous resource for me in building out my practice, being able to have access to you and your team has been overwhelming. To be able to come and listen to your presentations at Captivate and Innovate, and at the Apple Conference, have helped me, and you guys put out a ton of educational information that really truly is targeted at just the baseline foundation you need just to get started, and so much of what we see out there, is geared towards…
Kevin Kim:
[inaudible 00:26:25] that though. Yeah. When you’re operating, there’s so many little things that we can’t touch. So, talk about, what were some misconceptions that a lot of your audience, people that you gotten feedback on… I hear a lot of this, and so, what are some of the misconceptions that you guys… Myths you guys busted for a lot of your audience when they got the book, when they handled the book?
Alexandra Breshears:
Oh, I’m going to say number one, is that lending is risky. I get that a lot, and it’s like, okay, well yeah, it can be. I mean, driving can be risky. So, it’s just a matter of, what are you doing?
Kevin Kim:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alexandra Breshears:
I think one of the things I like about how the book was written is, we weren’t necessarily saying don’t do this and do do this, we were giving reasons like, “Hey, if you don’t do this, here’s a consideration on what could happen downstream,” so they can make their own decisions, because everybody’s risk tolerance is going to be different. Everybody’s goal is going to be different. So, we really wanted to make it where we were able to convey the flexibility. So, like Beth mentioned, it’s not a checklist, it’s not like, “Hey, what documents do I need to get from the borrower? Just give me the list,” and I’m like, “Okay, well that’s great, but what are you going to do with all that information?”
Kevin Kim:
It did raise more thought than anything else. You laid out options, which was nice, because-
Beth Johnson:
We put lessons learned at the end of each chapter, so they understood what were the pros and the pitfalls of doing lending a certain way, or if you ignored a certain aspect of it. Because that’s what I think people don’t really understand is, what is the risk and how do we mitigate as much of that risk as possible?
Kevin Kim:
Right. What I did was also, you had a general national approach to it. We’ve seen a lot of people put out content for their regional market, and it doesn’t cover, for example, the simplest concept of judicial versus nonjudicial. And so, it was really refreshing to see that, and what I liked about it the most was, and you guys mentioned this earlier on, right now, where the industry’s at right now, we as also a content provider to the space, an educator to the space, we’re concentrating on the middle market, because that’s the largest segment of the market. And so, while a lot of that stuff translates to a new lender, some of the real basic stuff is not being discussed, because it’s kind of like, well, we know who our audience is and we figure they’ve gotten there.
Kevin Kim:
But, when I get on consult calls with a brand… I do one at least three times a week. Literally, it’s an investor who’s thinking about doing this or has been doing it and knows he’s doing it wrong, or is a flipper wants to start making loans. It happens to me, I talk to these people three times a week and the amount of… They had no idea. They had no idea. And so, the fact that this exists now, for those kind of people, anyone who’s even remotely interested in this space as either an investor or someone who wants to start operating, is so necessary because there’s only so much we can do and so much APL can do, because there’s only so much time in the year.
Kevin Kim:
Another thing I want to kind of highlight, you guys are collaborating with the APL this year, aren’t we?
Beth Johnson:
Yeah, we are.
Kevin Kim:
Yeah. Let us know about that, because I want to make sure you guys say it, because it’s a very important fact, feature that the way we haven’t done in a long time.
Beth Johnson:
Well, both Alex and I are members of the education committee with Apple. We really felt it was important to participate in that actively, and still champion and create a voice for those small, truly independent private lenders. Because you’re right, I feel like we have steered towards a more graduated level of private lending in the industry, where it’s really predominantly more focused on commercial and larger loans and active business. And so, we’ve worked with Apple to create a series of round table discussions on day two. It’ll be happening during the poker charity event. But, we wanted to be able to establish a smaller community, a subset of Apple attendees and members, to be able to come together and really, truly discuss things that are important to them at the stage that they’re at.
Beth Johnson:
So, if you’re new and aspiring, you can go and talk with somebody and maybe somebody from Geraci’s there to help discuss just getting foundational awareness, legality, compliance, all that stuff. But, to Alex’s point, there’s quite a few that are learning to scale because they’re private lenders that stood up in their local REIA meeting and they became the most popular person in the room, because they had private money, and especially with the lender fragility that’s in the marketplace right now, they’re important, they’re critical to a lot of [inaudible 00:32:16]-
Kevin Kim:
That’s a term, lender fragility. That’s a good term. That’s better than volatility, I’ll tell you that much.
Beth Johnson:
That’s true. Yeah. I mean, it happened in… When COVID hit, my phones were ringing off the hook. Most of my lenders had stopped lending, my lender counterparts locally, because in the private money space or in the active private money space, you’ve got local hard money lenders and some of them were impacted because their levered funds were… They couldn’t lend out of it anymore, and then you had regional lenders and national, which were completely contingent on the secondary market. And so, it created a real good news story for private lenders like myself, because we could come in and close at the closing table in the ninth hour, when their lenders backed out, and that’s happening now, too.
Kevin Kim:
Right. Beth to the rescue. Yeah, definitely. We’ve been putting out a lot of content on the idea of balance sheet, capital control, captive capital being the blueprint in this space for longevity. But, what’s hard to understand by a lot of people is, prove it, right? A lot of these people don’t believe it, right? It’s kind of like want you guys to give me some experience sharing about how you guys have been able to succeed when the market has been displaced like this, when the institutions are having trouble. Because honestly, from my perspective, it’s like yeah, rates are up but the borrowers have been… My theory on this has always been, the borrowers have been expecting it. They know it’s coming and they’re concentrating on getting their deals done. They’d rather get their deal done, than not. So, give me your experience share on this one, guys. Because I think a lot of people don’t believe me when I say it, because I’m not a lender, myself.
Beth Johnson:
I think a lot of borrowers expected it. Those that are experienced and those that had been investing prior to ’08. The ones that squabble over a 5% interest rate, well, they clearly haven’t been taking out loans in the 80s, 90s, or early 2000s, because that was the running interest rate. And so, for us always too, as private lenders, what we’re hearing, we always commanded higher rates. We did things that maybe other lenders wouldn’t do. And so, people who wanted and needed to work with truly private capital, because they knew that we could get across the finish line, they were willing to pay that higher interest rate, and maybe they didn’t even have to pay points with a lot of the smaller private lenders. They’re not maybe charging that much in points, or points at all, and they just want the passive interest rate.
Kevin Kim:
Right.
Beth Johnson:
And, the flexibility.
Kevin Kim:
That’s the key, right there. You just said it. It’s the ability to execute matters more than anything else, to a lot of these borrowers.
Beth Johnson:
My talk track always, when I get people out rate shopping me is, you can go to that national hard money or private money lender. Now, whether or not they can perform for you, is questionable. We know that happened in March of 2020, we know that it’s starting to happen now, in the last few months, and I’ve got local lenders here that have paused on lending, until at least the end of September, and have done so for a couple of months, and that’s local. That’s not even including regional and national hard money. And so, for us, we’ve remained true, day in, day out, pre COVID, same rates. Post COVID, same rates.
Beth Johnson:
We’ll always close, our underwriting never changes. You’re talking directly to a key decision maker, I don’t have to go and take that loan to a loan committee approval in a different part of the country. And so, there is a place for us always, in any market cycle. And so, I think that’s why we’ve seen such an influx of interest in private lending lessons, and people are reaching out to Alex all the time, to learn how to do it safely, because they are the most popular person in the room right now.
Alexandra Breshears:
What I would say is really nice about doing private lending, as an active investor, most private lenders tend to be very, very hyper local. So, they are parts of the community, they probably know vendors the borrowers are going to need like, “Hey, I need a investor friendly title company, I need a good property management company.” And so, we can bring value to that lending relationship in ways that aren’t necessarily financial, but could end up bettering the borrower in the long run.
Kevin Kim:
Adding value. Adding value.
Beth Johnson:
100%.
Alexandra Breshears:
Yes. And, national lenders can’t do that. So, when you’re talking to someone who’s private capital that’s lending in their backyard, there’s a lot more value to be brought to the situation other than, “Hey, what’s your interest rate and what’s your origination points?” There’s so many other things that you could do with a private lender, that aren’t necessarily a financial transaction.
Kevin Kim:
I guess, to drive the point home, how big do you guys think that this kind of intro level to the market, but this actual truly private level to the marketplace is? Because it’s hard to quantify. From my perspective, I think we’ve estimated the industry at large, if you include all DSCR and you include all bridge lending, that’s business purpose across the country, including construction, we estimate it to be at about $2 trillion. That’s all the institutional money, all the term rental, all the build to rent, all that combined. When we evaluated the industry back in 2013… Or 2014, I’m sorry, 2014 when this didn’t exist, we had estimated it to be at about $5 billion.
Kevin Kim:
But, I’m trying to get… I want our audience to understand, what does this part of the industry constitute? It doesn’t have to be dollars and cents, because I know it’s big. I know it’s a lot of people that are doing these deals, because we have a lot of these clients that are just solo operators. But, a lot of the market is convinced, they’re just convinced that this industry is now non QM and conventional. We are now this commoditized, institutionalized space, and we all must now become the Borg. I don’t buy it, but I’m not an operator in this space. I’m a vendor to the space. I would want to hear you guys’ take on that.
Beth Johnson:
We definitely don’t buy it.
Kevin Kim:
Yeah.
Beth Johnson:
Now, we’ve gone through two market cycles, at the beginning of COVID, and then the last two quarters, we’re absolutely proving that wrong. I kind of laugh at Apple last year, so much talk about DSCR, but right now, DSCR loans are kind of dead.
Kevin Kim:
They’re quite expensive, that’s why.
Beth Johnson:
Yeah. In a five year prepaid step down or having to buy down your rate, it’s awful. And so, this institutionally about capital will always have its place, just as much as private lenders, truly individual private lenders, will have their place too. I don’t really find these to be mutually exclusive, or we’re growing into a certain commoditized industry. The fact is, there’s active investors joining the market every single day, because they watched HGTV and they get all excited about it, then they get older and start a family, and then they want to retire and they sell off their real estate portfolio, and they want to get into private lending. This isn’t just a stopping point, this is a transition that will carry forward, from generation to generation. It just doesn’t represent a large amount of the capital in our industry.
Kevin Kim:
Well, I would beg to differ, because the issue with the large capital on capital, people forget how big some of these funds are, that are actually just backed purely by high net worth investors and their business model is 100% true… Well, how you guys call it, private money lending, because they are very flexible, they don’t do appraisal, they don’t run credit, they have their own credit box and they stick to it. There’s a still a good amount of those kind of lenders out there, what’s really weird is that, the industry doesn’t know about them that much anymore, because they’re not these big national shops. They don’t have these giant marketing budgets. But, some of these clients of ours, have been reaching numbers of, the volume of in the billions.
Kevin Kim:
That makes me scratch my head, because I know that they probably have a combination of institutional partners, as well, but if you look at pure capital driven origination, it still has to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, if not in the billions. And so, I think a lot of our industry people, thought leaders and people in influencers in this space think, “Oh, this is where it’s headed.” But, you’re right. This cycle is proving the thesis, and I’d like to ask you guys, what your guys’ take on this is, and I always talk about this a lot during panels and webinars, is the blueprint of a successful private lending business. What do you guys think that is?
Alexandra Breshears:
Oh, I’m going to go with 100% a very relationship based model. Beth and I like to talk back and forth about the jockey versus the horse, but private lending is very much, in my opinion, a relationship based model. So, I’m going to know who my borrowers are personally, I’m going to know other people in the market that they’ve done business with. It’s very similar in Beth’s market, where a lot of people know her in her given market because she’s part of that community. People have developed relationships and that, in my eyes, doesn’t seem to exist very much in the hard money space. It’s very transactional, it’s like…
Kevin Kim:
It’s lost a lot of that.
Alexandra Breshears:
… “Hey, what are your rates? What are your face…” It’s lost a whole lot of that, and I think more active investors are looking more for that personal touch, because they love the idea of being able to text a private lender an address, and in a closing date and how much they need, and potentially a private lender getting back to them in a couple hours and say, “Sure, let’s go.” We actually know people in our network that, that’s how they operate. That’s how borrowers submit information to them, because they’ve built such a strong relationship with their borrowers, that you’re not going to be able to do that with a national shop.
Kevin Kim:
So, implicitly then, then it means that either a handful of states at most, that’s your market and you better have boots on the ground. You better have a team that can do that for your borrowing clients or just concentrate on your local market. I think that that’s like… We saw a huge expansion to multi-state lending starting in ’16, and that kind of triggered the institutionalization of the space. Oh, well there’s actually some scales of the space. That’s what I think once what Wall Street realized. But, a lot of the success stories that we’ve been hearing lately, have been with folks that are like that. They’re lending in one, two, maybe three markets. Maybe two states, at most. But, they’re doing very well. They’re weathering every single storm that’s being thrown at them. And so…
Beth Johnson:
Well, we’re easier to work with. We have less requirements. During the times of rate compression, of course, it was a little bit more difficult for us to justify ourselves, right?
Kevin Kim:
Sure.
Beth Johnson:
But, those days are gone. And so, now, when you have the disparity between institutionally backed private money and truly private individual capital, like us and some funds, then that’s kind of a no brainer choice, because you only have to have one bad experience where you’re left… I mean, I can’t tell you how many people called us where their deals and their non-refundable earnest money was at risk, because their lender just backed out.
Kevin Kim:
Yeah. Left the [inaudible 00:43:50]…
Beth Johnson:
And so…
Kevin Kim:
… So many times.
Beth Johnson:
So many times. Or, they were promised a 95% loan to cost, 90% loan to cost, and then all of a sudden, in the ninth hour, the underwriter comes back and says, “I’m sorry, you’re going to need to put 15% to 20% down.” That’s a huge change. And so, maybe things don’t change a whole lot in the commercial asset class base, but when you’re talking about resi private lending, it absolutely has flattened the competition here. We’re just looking that much better, because we’ve remained the same, we’ve been able to perform, our rates and terms haven’t really adjusted very much, because we were never trying to lower them. My investors don’t want lower interest rates. Right? They hated the rate-
Kevin Kim:
How was your volume… Actually, [inaudible 00:44:35] you don’t have to give me numbers, but you can give me general… I guess, on a feel. How much has your volume increased, since this recent lender fragility, as you call it, as things have… That’s good. As a lot of these national shops have been struggling to perform, how much has your business grown, actually?
Beth Johnson:
Well, I guess since COVID, it’s tripled.
Kevin Kim:
Tripled?
Beth Johnson:
In my volume.
Kevin Kim:
And, it’s still just right there in the Washington area, or are you guys having to expand?
Beth Johnson:
No, we’re not looking to expand. We do do some cross collateralizations, where we help them take down properties in other states, but it’s really dependent on my capital partners comfort level.
Kevin Kim:
Fair enough.
Beth Johnson:
And, legalities too.
Kevin Kim:
Of course. Yeah. Licensing and legalities. Yeah.
Beth Johnson:
I didn’t have to do a whole lot advertising and marketing wise when COVID hit, to really shore up who we were and what our core value was, we’re never going to be the Walmart out there. I will not compete with single digit rates, and I hope you can make good on that LOI from your lender. I hope they follow through, because I never want to pay more than I have to either, but if and when they can’t perform for you in the way that they need to, then we’ll always be there.
Kevin Kim:
I think that’s a segment of the market that is oftentimes undervalued, and I think that a lot of people are opening their eyes to it. But, we’re starting to see some interesting conversations and asks from some of these institutional shops, and they’re starting to kind of realize, maybe a smaller operation or maybe a fun… Or, maybe… Something that they can keep themselves in a much more long lasting position.
Beth Johnson:
It’s definitely more sustainable.
Kevin Kim:
That’s what I was talking about.
Beth Johnson:
We always call ourselves the little lender that could. I don’t want to get too big because then I still can’t perform at the same level, in the same business model that has helped us get to where we are today.
Kevin Kim:
Right, Exactly. A lot of people in this market who are so institutionally dependent, forget that that market, it’s not what you think it is. It’s really an amalgamation of maybe three or four institutions that buy this stuff on volume, and at the end of the day, none of this is government backed. And so, you really don’t have… Because a lot of these folks come from the conventional markets. “Oh yeah, it’d be fine. Look at Fanny Freddy.” There’s no Fanny Freddy in this space, guys. I’ve always scratched my head and I never understood it, but I’m biased because I draw up funds for a living, so I’m biased. But, still, it’s so refreshing to see it and I’m really happy that you guys spent the time and energy to really encourage and excite the new lender, jumping into the space.
Kevin Kim:
I really want our audience to pay attention to the Facebook group. And then, if you’re a new lender, come to the round tables because this kind of education is not prevalently available anymore. It’s hard to find good education on this kind of stuff, what better to get it from the ladies that wrote the book? So, we’re going to go into the lightning round now. I want to make sure we have time for lightning round, get to know you guys a little better, personally. First question that we have in our lightning round is, what was your very first job? Very first. We had some really good ones lately, so I got to ask, what was your very first job?
Alexandra Breshears:
I was a baker at a cookie company, at the mall.
Kevin Kim:
At Mrs. Fields?
Beth Johnson:
[inaudible 00:48:15].
Alexandra Breshears:
No, I think it was called the Great American Cookie Company.
Kevin Kim:
Oh, yeah.
Alexandra Breshears:
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Kim:
Oh cool. Nice.
Beth Johnson:
I didn’t know, that Alex. Mine was at a chocolate shop, so it’s kind of funny how many similarities we have.
Kevin Kim:
See? A lot of this stuff was meant to be fun, guys. Very cool. All right, so the next question is, when you’re not dominating the lending world, the private lending world, what do you guys do in your spare time?
Alexandra Breshears:
I recently bought a horse. I’m a horse person by nature. So, I am at the barn pretty much every day I can possibly be at the barn.
Kevin Kim:
The city boy here in California, that’s just like, “Whoa, what?” Very cool. What kind of horse is it? Are there kinds of horses? There are kinds of horses, right?
Alexandra Breshears:
Yeah. It’s draft cross. So, she’s a big chunky, little bit of a flake right now, but we’re working on it.
Kevin Kim:
So, is it meant for just for training, or is it for riding, or for shows?
Alexandra Breshears:
She will ride and drive.
Kevin Kim:
Oh, nice. Very cool. I think you’re the first-
Beth Johnson:
This is one of her why’s, for getting into private landing, by the way too. So, I just think it’s awesome that she-
Kevin Kim:
The fun her.
Beth Johnson:
Yeah.
Kevin Kim:
Get a horse?
Alexandra Breshears:
Yes, 100%. That’s exactly why I did it.
Kevin Kim:
I hope my daughters don’t see this. Dad, you can really buy us a pony, can’t you? I was [inaudible 00:49:41], I’m telling you.
Beth Johnson:
It’s an expensive habit.
Kevin Kim:
I know. Beth, how about you?
Beth Johnson:
I am a mother of three, so we have a blended family of five, and we like to travel a lot. I bought a second home in the suburbs of Vegas last year, so that we could spend some downtime there. My husband and I like playing poker and running, although we don’t do quite as much of those. Lately, we’ve been kind of busy.
Kevin Kim:
Oh, that poker tournament. Man, if we have to…
Beth Johnson:
Well, I can’t do it because I’m going to be hosting round tables instead, which is way more important.
Kevin Kim:
I’m sure the…
Beth Johnson:
I’ll get some poker in.
Kevin Kim:
… Most of the players are glad you’re not going to be coming in and winning everything. This is more of a business question for you guys. What is one business tool that you cannot live without?
Alexandra Breshears:
Oh, for me, I’d say social media.
Kevin Kim:
Okay.
Beth Johnson:
Oh, that’s a good one.
Kevin Kim:
Expand.
Alexandra Breshears:
Just being able to put yourself out there, as to what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, who you’re doing it with, where you’re doing it. I think it’s just, there’s a lot of people… Think about people bored, scrolling on their lunch break. They want to be somewhere else other than their job. Well, they’re going to go to some sort of social media and consume something, some sort of information on there, and that’s honestly where I got my start, meeting other people in this space.
Kevin Kim:
Right.
Beth Johnson:
It’s really good Alex, you right, because I think what she and I do so well together, is adding value and leading with that first. And so, it gains people’s buy-in and Facebook has actually been… It’s probably contributed about 70% to 80% of my business, from the borrower side. It’s also brought investors to me, not because I’m actively promoting or going and putting out ads, I don’t pay a dollar. I just write blog posts and I go and comment for people and provide values. Alex has done so much education, one-on-one, taking phone calls, text exchanges, posting and commenting, especially through private lending lessons, and given so much value to other people in return, and that creates stickiness.
Kevin Kim:
Oh yeah. There have been so many great exchanges on there, and I watch it every night now, because Nema and I are on there every night, because there’s some really good questions on there. Like, “Whoa, these are good. These are actually…”
Beth Johnson:
They’re awesome. They’re thought provoking, right?
Kevin Kim:
They’re really thoughtful questions. It’s not just like, “Hey, I need a good title company.” It’s really interesting questions, that if you weren’t being creative, you wouldn’t be thinking about it this way. Also, just some really good questions for the audience, because that are oftentimes overlooked. Like last night, there was that note investment, a question, when does a note become a security base? Like, oh thank you. You didn’t just assume that it wasn’t.
Beth Johnson:
Right?
Kevin Kim:
It was great. It was great, and I love that about these kind of community, because they’re not scared to ask the questions. I think that’s what the problem right now is, in our space, is a lot of people are kind of scared, because they don’t want to look stupid. But, it’s okay, just ask the question, and no one’s going to judge you. Just ask. And, you can insert your, “Here’s what I think about the situation, am I wrong?” Or, however you want to do it, and I see people do that and it’s great, and there’s no… I don’t see any flaming, I don’t see any, what we call it, shit talking on there. It’s been great. I was expecting a lot of flaming on there, because to be honest with you, because you know how it can be on social media.
Beth Johnson:
Well, every private lender wants to think that the way that they’re doing it is right. But, I love that creative banter that, we call it… I don’t know, discourse, creative discourse, because that’s what shapes your perspective.
Kevin Kim:
A lot of good energy.
Beth Johnson:
As new lenders, we have no perspectives, so we can only lean on what other people have done, the mistakes they’ve made, or the contemplations that they’ve taken into consideration, so-
Kevin Kim:
And, I’ve some exchanges on there that were really, really advanced level stuff. This is stuff that, on the highest little funds that we work on, we were doing offshore blockers, and withholding, and very complex tax issues, and it was like, wow, they’re really asking very good questions on here. I love the fact that people aren’t flaming each other, they’re not trolling each other. It’s been very productive and it’s very cohesive, while being still being quite active, which is really rare to see, because you see a lot of… I guess you can sell it, it’s called trolls on a lot of different forms.
Beth Johnson:
Well, I think you see how hungry people are, the appetite they have for private lending education, because it just never existed before Alex created the book.
Kevin Kim:
Right. Exactly.
Beth Johnson:
Which,, by the way, I’ll say that my business tool that I can’t live without is partnership. Being able to partner with somebody like Alex, because, and I think that this is probably true for a lot of private lenders out there that are getting started, you can’t be all things to all people. And so, you really need to have that balancing act and partnership, where someone’s probably a visionary and the other person’s probably an integrator. Alex had this vision, by way of a dinosaur, which is weird in and of itself, but…
Kevin Kim:
Whatever-
Beth Johnson:
… Man, she came through. She went out and said, I’m going to get this published, I’m going to get us contracts, and she didn’t just get us one, she got us two offers and with the biggest real estate education platform in the world. And so, I think that a lot of lenders out there are people, fund managers who are wanting to create a business, really need to rethink whether or not they have that right partnership with somebody that can run deep on operations and be that integrator. But, somebody that can see the long range vision and help come up with new ideas and innovate, in the private lending space. It’s so important.
Kevin Kim:
And, there’s so many different types of partnerships, and you need to have those key relationships in the space, and I see a lot of people that like… Oh yeah, I see this all the time. Nema and I joke about it. That guy, just the smartest guy in the room, he has to be the smartest guy in the room and he just puts everyone off. You’re not winning yourself any favors running things like that, because if you collaborate with the guy sitting next to you, you never know what opportunity may come your way, but yet you had to let your ego do the talking. Or, you never know what kind of partnership could have created. I think it’s a boy thing. These boys are just, they’re bad. They don’t always listen. They think they’re the best.
Alexandra Breshears:
I’m so happy you said that and not-
Kevin Kim:
It is. It really is.
Beth Johnson:
She and I say that all the time, because we have no ego.
Kevin Kim:
It’s an ego thing, and I shout out to Ruby for setting up women in private lending, because I think it’s one of the best things ever, because this industry could use a little bit of putting ego aside. Unfortunately, being in mortgage, it comes with a lot of real estate bros and finance bros, and it’s not good for the space because partnerships and really thinking about, hey, how can we work together? How can I help you? How can you help me, is way better than, look at me, I’m so cool, and I know everything.
Beth Johnson:
Kevin, do you know the conversation… Women in private lending is such a great group and I went to that first luncheon last year at Apple, and we didn’t start conversations about what asset class you lend in. We talked about impending wedding nuptials with Dana and raising small children with Christina and Kendra, and that’s how women lead in, because people don’t care about what until they know that you care. But, I think in a male dominated industry, it ends up becoming a peacock syndrome issue, where everyone just wants to talk about who’s bigger and better, and their assets under management. But, then, for smaller lenders like myself, who don’t have any desire to really scale significantly, and for women who are trying to just struggle to run a business or manage careers while we are raising children, we bring something completely different to this space. A totally different tone to the topic.
Kevin Kim:
And, I think this will be a dynamic that’s been produced from it, has been really nice, because a lot of times what is… It’s been very productive for the industry, because starting this conversation and we’re trying to talk about it, and people are realizing there’s a lot of value in something like this. Beyond just networking, it allows for a deeper kind of investment in the industry. Because, like you said, a lot of times you’re going to have these, I like to call them real estate bros, in their blue suits and brown shoes, even though I wear blue suit and brown shoes, peacocking around. We see that every day, doesn’t help. It’s not moving the industry forward, because we want to invite everyone to the industry. We want every active investor who wants to start becoming a private lender, of all shapes and sizes, to the space. Well, we have to be able to invite them. We can’t put them off.
Beth Johnson:
That’s usually one of the first three questions I get asked, is how much I fund, annually? I can’t tell you how [inaudible 00:59:03]-
Kevin Kim:
Yeah, what’s your volume? What’s your volume? What’s your volume? What do you lend? What do you lend?
Beth Johnson:
Yes. I can’t stand that.
Kevin Kim:
No. Yeah, it’s cut to the chase type sales tactics and it’s out there. I think that a lot has been lost in this space about relationship building. When the industry was a lot smaller, it wasn’t like that. I think that the fact is, that we’re growing and the industry’s growing, and there’s positives and negatives that come with that. I like the fact that we’re concentrating on the relationships and the partnerships, I think that’s going to take us further, as a whole. I really appreciate you guys getting involved the way you have, because you didn’t have to, you really didn’t have to. You could’ve just concentrated on what you’re doing and let everyone else kind of figure it out. But thankfully, this investment has reaped dividends for both your business and you guys. So, I’m really, really glad you guys did it. One thing, I guess the last question for you guys is, what’s next? What’s next for you guys? What’s next for you guys, in the next incoming year? Is it another book? Is it a book tour? You going to see a TV show? What’s going on?
Alexandra Breshears:
I had someone joke around about a TV show and they’re like, “Next, coming up next. Extreme signers.” And I’m like, “Nobody’s going to make a TV show about private lending.”
Kevin Kim:
You’d be surprised. You’d be surprised. I have reviewed contracts for [inaudible 01:00:22]-
Alexandra Breshears:
Extreme signers.
Kevin Kim:
Doing spots on HGTV. You’d be surprised. I’m telling you.
Alexandra Breshears:
Oh, my god. I would love to have extreme signers.
Beth Johnson:
That’d be fun, because my husband would be such TV gold, it’d be amazing. It would be. He’d make it amazing. Well, if Alex has her way, we’ll end up on TV someday. There are talks about another book. We’re in discussions about some training content out there.
Kevin Kim:
Cool.
Beth Johnson:
We’re going to be doing some speaking engagements at Bigger Pockets annual conference, here in October.
Kevin Kim:
The one in San Diego?
Beth Johnson:
Yeah.
Kevin Kim:
Yeah, yeah. A lot of folks don’t know about that. We’re going to be popping in for that. Bigger Pockets annual conference.
Beth Johnson:
This is good, because we’re delivering a 90 minute presentation and you were kind of on our minds to…
Kevin Kim:
Well, there you go.
Beth Johnson:
… Bring into the [inaudible 01:01:13]-
Kevin Kim:
I want to go down for that one, because I couldn’t go last year, because it’s in New Orleans and it’s just too hard to get there. But, being in San Diego, I have no excuse and it’s a great place for… Because they’re really understanding now, that the private lending is something that their audience wants to know more about. So, it’s worth the investment in time. Okay. But, the next thing on the radar is going to be the Bigger Pockets speaking engagement. That’s great. Hopefully, a TV show, hopefully another book. For what I want everyone to know about, the round tables are really a big thing, where I’m super excited for them because this is what I’ve always dreamed of for APL, to give really good opportunity for new lenders, beyond just what us attorneys can provide. So, it’s awesome that we’re doing that.
Beth Johnson:
Well, we’re going to have it catered to four different groups too, new and inspiring, those that are established, just want to stabilize and streamline, and those that want to scale, and those that are managing funds. They all bring very different unique challenges and current issues and trends to overcome. And so, we’ll have four separate groups associated with that.
Kevin Kim:
Even better.
Beth Johnson:
Yeah.
Kevin Kim:
So, for our listeners out there, if you aren’t already signed up for the APL conference coming up in October, you better sign up, and we’ll all be there. You got to make sure you go, because it’s the biggest industry event for the year. But, this year’s going to be extra special, with all these round tables, so please join us there and I think we can sign off with that note. Once again, I want to thank everyone for listening. Alex, Beth, thank you for joining us on the show, and we’ll see you guys in person, at APL and it’ll be a fun time. For those of you listening, this is Kevin Kim for Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim. Thank you very much.
Thanks for listening to Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. If you did enjoy, please leave us a five star review on your podcast platform and be sure to follow our show to be notified of new episodes. If you’re on YouTube, don’t forget to smash that like button and hit subscribe for more content, from all of us here at Geraci. Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim is available on all podcast platforms. Referrals really help us spread the word, so please send this over to someone you think might enjoy it. See you next time, this is Kevin Kim signing off.
