Competitive Advantage | Dalton Elliott, Lima One Capital

Dalton Elliott

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Dalton Elliott, the former driving force behind Lima One Capital’s Sales and Customer Experience, joined Kevin for a rapid-fire chat in this episode. Dalton unveils Lima One’s whirlwind journey—from inception to a recent game-changing acquisition by MFA. Discover their success trifecta: a fierce “Training, Culture, and Growth” mindset. Dalton’s narrative, combined with insights from his Real Estate of Things podcast, offers a compact yet dynamic exploration into Lima One Capital’s high-speed trajectory—a strategic blend of dedication, culture, and an unquenchable thirst for growth in the competitive world of real estate financing.

Dalton Elliott serves as Director of Sales and Customer Experience for Lima One Capital. In this role, Dalton ensures premier customer service across sales, underwriting, servicing, and construction management functions. He is also the host of the Real Estate of Things podcast, a show that delivers expert insights and analysis to real estate investors.

Dalton joined Lima One Capital in 2015 and previously worked as an analyst in the Rental30 department. He earned a B.A. in Political Science from Furman University and is a founding member of the National Private Lenders Association.

Episode Transcript

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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 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, be 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:
All right, guys, welcome to another episode of the podcast. This is Kevin Kim for Lender Lounge, with a wonderful guest from a good friend, Lima One Capital, Dalton Elliott. Thank you for joining us today. Please introduce to our audience and we’ll get started.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, definitely thrilled to be here with you Kevin. I’m Dalton Elliott. I’m the director of sales and customer experience here at Lima One Capital. Really appreciated y’all reaching out and eager to sit down and chat with you.

Kevin Kim:
All right. Well, we’ve been chatting about doing something like this together for a while and I met… I think we connected at an innovate show we did a couple years ago, but I had actually met Jeff years ago at a show. I think he was in Florida or something like that. And you guys had the whole squad out there. Courtney was having fun, Jeff was having fun. And it was very cool to see your guys’ journey over the years. So kind of walk us back a little bit. Tell us a little bit about the history of Lima One, how you guys got started and what you guys are about.

Dalton Elliot:
For sure. I’m a sucker for a good story, and fortunately, landed at a company that I think has a great one. So we started probably at this point 11 years ago, right around there, really lending in Atlanta, Georgia. So the two guys who started the company, John Warren and John Thompson, they were infantry Marines, right? So that’s how they met. They were deployed to Ramadi, Iraq. So John, younger guy’s probably in his late 30s now, he was a captain. John Warren. John [inaudible 00:03:34] was a master Sergeant. So he was in for 20 some odd years. So they met over there. When they came back stateside, long story short, John ended up, John Warren ended up starting the company and John Thompson was the first guy brought a board. So they started lending in Atlanta on rehabs. This is the tail end of the crash. Money was incredibly hard to get and sort of the birth of this generation of private lending that we know today. [crosstalk 00:04:06].

Kevin Kim:
So they jumped in right at the birth of hard… when hard money became a real fix, when fix and flip, when business purpose lending started becoming a thing, right?

Dalton Elliot:
That’s it. The earliest of early days.

Kevin Kim:
Very cool.

Dalton Elliot:
So they started in Atlanta and then shortly in moved to Greenville, South Carolina, which is where one of the founders is from. And where I’m talking to you from right now, we’re headquartered downtown Greenville, one block off of main street. So we love it here, but they ended up lending just the two of them for a few years. And then you fast forward to when I got here a couple weeks after graduating college in 2015.

Kevin Kim:
Out of college, first job?

Dalton Elliot:
Yap. First job.

Kevin Kim:
Wow.

Dalton Elliot:
First job, first job. So I was hired on six weeks after graduating college as an underwriter and our newly launched Rental30 product. So two months before I got here, we launched the Rental30 program. That was our first foray into anything above and beyond rehab lending.

Kevin Kim:
So this is back in… Wait, hold on. So I don’t want to stop you. This is back in ’15?

Dalton Elliot:
Yap. ’22.

Kevin Kim:
As you guys are pretty early adopters of the DSCR product.

Dalton Elliot:
Yap. Very, very, very. So we launched it. Our niche at the time was kind of the man pawn investor, right? Looking to buy your first rental property. Maybe you have a couple. We were doing small portfolios at the time. So I was an underwriter in that program for a few months and had some opportunities to travel, do due diligence trips, and then was tasked December of that year with building out our mortgage broker program, right? So at the time when I got here, I’m employee number 14, we had a handful of underwriters. And then we had some leadership. We had one guy in servicing. Today, we have probably 40 or so people in servicing. So just to give you an idea of the crazy growth that we’ve had over the last six years, we were doubling for many years, every year, it was doubling originations year over year, over year.

Dalton Elliot:
So crazy. Just unrestrained growth has been the Lima One Capital way. And then you talked about Jeff, right? So whenever John Warren, one of the co-founders decided he wanted to run for governor of South Carolina, he tapped Jeff to come in and kind of fill the role of CEO. You can’t do a CEO job full-time growing a company and try to win the seat of governor in a state, tough thing to do. So he moved on to run for that. Jeff came in and Jeff, as you know, heavy mortgage industry experience, right, decades. Probably he’s been in the mortgage industry as long as I’ve been alive. So we were super fortunate to get him at a time when we were cruising to do our first billion within a year. And so he came aboard, really continued to build out our people, processes, continued to refine the products. And yeah, 2019 was our first year where we did over a billion in a year and 2020 was COVID and 2021 has been just record month after record month for us.

Kevin Kim:
So you guys are breaking records even in ’21.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, for sure.

Kevin Kim:
That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So let’s take a step back now. You guys gave us, you gave us a very good overview and I didn’t know you guys were founded by veterans. That’s awesome. I had no idea. That’s very rare to hear in the industry, but also taking that, picking a small two man operation to… I mean, Lima One is probably one of the largest shops, if not the largest shop that right now in the industry. You guys are nationwide right now, right?

Dalton Elliot:
We are.

Kevin Kim:
Every state?

Dalton Elliot:
46 states and D.C. will be [crosstalk 00:08:16].

Kevin Kim:
There’s some hairy states we all avoid, right?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. The usual suspects, right.

Kevin Kim:
Understood. So, and when they started, it was fix and flip, right. When you guys started, it was just fix and flip in Atlanta. Okay. And so when was that moment when you guys really started to kind of like, all right, we got to a break out of Georgia, we got to break out of the Southeast or whatever. We got to go and expand our footprint. Because what we saw, we started to see it in probably ’16-ish, ’16 to ’18 was when you started seeing lenders do two states, three states, five states, a handful of national shops. And then all of a sudden in early ’18, ’19, we started seeing full national shops, 45 states, 50 state kind of shops. So what was it for you guys? Tell me that story.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. So shortly after I arrived here, we ended up getting an influx of institutional backing, right? So we moved away from what a lot of groups have as their start, which is you have a couple of high net worth, ultra high net worth individuals that pool up money. We moved away from that strictly into the institutional side of the fence. And so that really helped us catapult growth, drastically lowered cost of capital. And so it was in late 2015, whenever that sprint across the country started, so [crosstalk 00:09:54].

Kevin Kim:
You did a little bit bit earlier than most. A lot of folks started expanding outside of the state, they were, their home region in ’16. So ’15 for you guys.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. End of 15. I remember the floor beneath me, which is where we had a portion of the third floor in this building. We had a big map of the US and it was a race. You wanted to be the first one to close a deal in a new state. So we’d have a big party every time we closed.

Kevin Kim:
Right. And that was part of the mortgage broker program, I’m guessing, right?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. That was a huge part of growing the business, right. It’s you have only so many ways to get leads. The big buckets are web-based, marketing, boots on the ground with sales reps, and then you have your mortgage broker channels, right. And the mortgage broker channel is, at that time was the most effective way for us to build relationships nationwide. So we ended up spreading really across the Eastern US, up the seaboard and then just Lewis and Clark did out west hard and fast.

Kevin Kim:
Did you guys jump? Because a lot of lenders from the East Coast jumped to coastal cities first and then started concentrating on Midwest and MSAs. But a lot of, as you just mentioned, you just started going directly west. So, I mean, was it naturally just kind of you started picking a volume in the Midwest. Because the Midwest is kind of a forgotten region for our industries. Not a lot of lenders to do that.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. It was more so of a progression from east to west than it was jumping from one coast to the other. We built out. We have a robust outside sales team [crosstalk 00:11:39].

Kevin Kim:
Oh, I know.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, and that.

Kevin Kim:
I met a lot of them, they’re great guys, yeah.

Dalton Elliot:
For sure. Yeah. You know Courtney, you mentioned him, Matt, a bunch of other guys that have been here. And back in the day we didn’t use AMCs very much, right. We were militant about quality control, right. And we felt that at that time, in the company’s point, one of the best ways that we could make sure we had high quality control was running our own appraiser panel. So whenever we went into a new market, we were getting boots on the ground, we were making relationships with appraisers in market, having client events. So we were doing the hairs version of growth instead of just sprinting around into new markets, really trying to be about as close as we could be. So yeah, it was a natural progression and, yeah.

Kevin Kim:
That’s interesting because a lot of folks, they talked about expansion and the concentration from a retail standpoint, and you guys have taken, you guys took a wholesale standpoint. And it begs the question, that’s a benefit of having an institutional partner, right. And so before that, I’m guessing you guys had a small fund or an investor driven program that handle with investors. So when you guys… when was it? So was it ’15 or was it ’16 when you guys onboarded? Is it the same institutional partner that you have now or is it a different one?

Dalton Elliot:
It was a different one then. Yeah, ’15.

Kevin Kim:
So you approached your first financial institution to gain backing, but that was in ’15, you said?

Dalton Elliot:
Yap.

Kevin Kim:
Wow. Okay. So a little bit earlier. So I’m getting a very common thread here, right? So when most of the industry in ’15, ’14 and ’15, most of the industry was still… It was still the way it was, I guess you can say, before a lot of the aggregators on the scene came up. And institutions were always there, but they didn’t jump in until mid ’16. I’m getting an early trend, early adopter, right? So-

Dalton Elliot:
For sure.

Kevin Kim:
… let’s talk about that real quick. I mean, partnering with an institutional investor can be hairy. It can be complicated, it can be burdensome. It gives you amazing horsepower, but there’s also a lot of sticks that come with that carrot. I mean, it must have been very challenging to scale the business and build the infrastructure to accommodate those needs.

Dalton Elliot:
It was definitely a challenge. It was something that in the previous five or so years of company existence just wasn’t a thing. It was calling up.

Kevin Kim:
Before that it was like an every man wore every hat kind of let’s just get the job done kind of approach, a lot of small businesses.

Dalton Elliot:
For sure we had an investment banking group come in, and in ’15, and they kind of scratching their head. They’re like, hey, this is, you have short term finance underwriters doing like four different jobs. They’re a salesperson, they’re an underwriter, they’re a closer, they are a draw processor and they are kind of a quasi loan servicer too. So in ’15, that gave us the ability to really grow out individual divisions of the company.

Kevin Kim:
So you guys engaged an investment banker to help you find your first institutional partner.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, we, yap. We had one.

Kevin Kim:
That’s an important note because that rings true to another national shop that we interviewed at our inaugural episode was with anchor and they do the same thing, right. And I keep telling folks, there are times when you need to speak to a professional to find those times.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. I mean, this industry feels so small sometimes, right. You know everybody and same thing in the IB world that it just makes sense to plug into that relationship instead of trying to forge that path yourself. Just the most efficient way up the mountain, so.

Kevin Kim:
And so they came in and they were like, you guys have an org chart that doesn’t make any sense to us and a roles and responsibilities chart that makes no sense to us. And that really clicked for you guys.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. Like you said, it was kind of the natural startup environment where everybody’s wearing a million hats, everybody’s running around screaming, shouting, hooting and holler.

Kevin Kim:
Sure, yeah. It’s exciting.

Dalton Elliot:
[crosstalk 00:16:04].

Kevin Kim:
But to an investment banker, it’s like what? How does this business? So was it that after you guys engaged them, they really forced you guys to get really departments and roles and responsibilities, all specialized in under certain individuals.

Dalton Elliot:
I think it was more, really just a passing comment that was made and the light went off on our leadership team’s head of like, yeah, now is a great time to start building out servicing of more than one person, building out all these departments so we can have more specialization. That’s the natural progression for the company. And super fortunate on my end, big believer in good luck, bad luck stuff happens. And lucky timing was definitely a big benefit when I look back. Last week, marks the six year anniversary for me being here.

Kevin Kim:
Nice.

Dalton Elliot:
And was a little thoughtful in all right, six years, let’s take a minute to take stock of what happened, how you got.

Kevin Kim:
Six years. I mean, that’s you guys went from Southeastern shop to national shop, built a wholesale program. And of course, have been all the news, were recently acquired by a multinational financial institution. So, I mean, that’s a lot of milestones in six years, I mean.

Dalton Elliot:
It literally gives me chills as we’re talking about it now, think about.

Kevin Kim:
And you got to make sure you tell the whole team, we send our congratulations, because it’s very rare to see that kind of stuff happen. It’s you hear about deals happening here and there, but not in the speed in which… In six years time, that’s… Because from foundation to ’15 and then from 15 onwards, it sounded like you guys were two totally different companies.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, I really think so. Yeah. It was definitely you could count on one or two hands pre-’15, the number of people at the firm, and it was rehab focused. And then ’15 forward, it was really where the sprint began. And yeah, branching out into programs, multifamily. That’s something that we dove into, I think, early… beginning of 2017, multifamily space. One beautiful thing about always being in fifth gear looking back is that there is a deep… It’s deeply ingrained in our culture that where we are today is never good enough, never, ever good enough, to a painful point sometimes. It’s always forward looking. We had a record month last month. Okay. You acknowledge that and move on to the next one and we need to continue being better and better and better doing more and more. So it’s that kind of day one startup mentality is still rampant throughout the firm, and I think.

Kevin Kim:
Well, that’s a… raises an interesting question, because we’ve had that challenge here at the law firm. We’ve doubled and doubled over again, and we’ve felt significant growing pains where we had to kind of really reevaluate things. And you guys doubled and doubled in having record years and reorganizing the back office and the front office and adding people left and right, and growing. I mean, there’s had to have been a ton of growing pains over the years. How do you guys address that?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, definitely not painless, right? [crosstalk 00:19:49].

Kevin Kim:
Yeah. I mean, of course, right? I would imagine, I mean, it wouldn’t make any sense if you said it was painless.

Dalton Elliot:
No, absolutely pull out your hair moments and it kind of follows the linear progression of 25 people, 50, a hundred, 150, 200 on… When I look back, you can see noted differences and challenges that we had to keep that deep drive in the culture, the same different tech issues and hurdles that we made decisions when we had 25 people and when we got to a hundred. It’s like, all right, we need to kind of wipe everything off the whiteboard and completely rethink how we approach process, product type on different things. So yeah, we have not been without those growing pains. The biggest thing, one of the core things I think is that our retention has been incredible, right, so.

Kevin Kim:
Yeah, I was going to bring that up. You guys have all been with the company for quite a long time, not much turnover from people that I know at least, and in a hectic time. I mean, when you’re growing that fast, there is so much chaos going on and people get burnt out. I mean, how do you keep them on board?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. That’s the thing is that you… People can find themselves attracted to that environment in theory, but in practice can be very quickly turned off by it. Very young company, right? Our average age of employee, we have about 200 employees now, average age is probably 26, 25, 26.

Kevin Kim:
A lot of energy.

Dalton Elliot:
Yap. I’m 28. My colleagues who are my peers on the director side of the fence, a lot of them are early 30s, mid-30s. And so when I look back to when a lot of those folks were hired, when I was hired, this was, for most of us, our first job out of college, our first real career. If it wasn’t your job, it was the first thing that you got into that you’re like, all right, I can see growth and progression here. And the loyalty was there. We wanted to [crosstalk 00:22:12].

Kevin Kim:
But what about the company makes? Because young people, especially they get corded too, right. And it’s a growing industry and a lot of people move around, but what about the company is keeping people like you? And I know Courtney’s been there for a long time, but other folks there for just a long time, keeping that kind of loyalty.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. the incessant drive for growth is a piece. The leadership at the top of the pyramid, right, we believe in, have believed in them, right. John and John, the guys who found the company, we all to this day I have great respect and deference to them and just believed in them as people, right. John Warren, probably the most intense human being that I’ve ever met in person. And so really you take a lot of us who were getting into our first career, certainly at an impressionable state and wanting to… Highly ambitious, highly driven, first place is the only place tight mindset. And you get into an environment where there’s no BS, no excuses. There was always room for improvement across everything. So the incredibly high standards that we were all held to in the beginning, as we branched out from kind of frontline positions, moved into leadership roles, began building out our own divisions, hiring people, being on the front lines of training.

Dalton Elliot:
We all knew and talked about, and to this day, talk about culture. We had a director’s offsite yesterday and a big chunk of that is culture. We recognized that as one of biggest proprietary features, right, pricing product, all of these things are relatively commoditized at this point, and how we have… What’s your competitive advantage. If it’s pricing, if it’s product, that is shaky ground to be on, right. You can have a competitor’s partner say, okay, I understand that Lima One Capital has A, B and C product with this pricing and you need to get beneath them by 25 bits to beat them out. That’s not a fun game to play. So while we always, we work tirelessly to be competitive in those strats, I think our real competitive advantage is our people and the culture there.

Kevin Kim:
So can you describe that for me? Because a lot of firms, a lot of companies talk about culture in the form of values, right? They have company values or core value. We have core values here at the law firm and a lot of companies look at it from a customer service standpoint or they have different means of building culture and almost preaching their culture, right. What do you guys do internally?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. So a couple of the core pillars, really just honesty, integrity, transparency. Those pieces flood throughout not only people in conversations, but in the way we have always priced, the way we have had term sheets. If it’s not on the term sheet, it’s not getting charged, right. You go back a few years and you had different levels of actors in the space, more so than today. And so we were always of the mindset that we are not going to operate that way, right? We are always going to be above board in everything that we do. So from a keep that ball moving down the field mindset. The first week that an employee comes aboard, we have sun up to sun down first week corporate training, right? We have a class every month. Usually it’s the first Tuesday of every month. Because of the holiday in July, this month, it’s going to be next week. And we walk people through… We walk every new hire regardless of what department you’re being hired into. So you’re in there with accountants, software developers, [crosstalk 00:26:27].

Kevin Kim:
Even new executives, right? So even new C-level, even if you were to bring on a new C-level executive, they would be sitting in that meeting.

Dalton Elliot:
Yep. A hundred percent. Everybody from every part of the org, if you are coming in, you come in on that Tuesday, you sit down in the training room, which is right outside of my office here. And the first day our executive leadership team goes through talks about their piece of the pie, talks about culture and values, right? Jeff spins couple hours talking on culture, company, history, core values. And then from the second day forward, through the end of the week, we kind of structure it on life of a loan, right?

Dalton Elliot:
So we take someone, life of a loan is the theme that we landed on that you can really hang onto as a new associate and follow. Okay, I understand that loans are what drives our business. I’m going to get a lesson from every department head. It’s not frontline folks. It is compulsory that unless there is some incredible emergency going on, directors, managing directors and ELT, those are the folks who are teaching these classes. So we’re putting our highest folks on the hierarchy in front of new associates to really set the tone. What are expectations, not only from a performance standpoint, but just from the value standpoint, right?

Kevin Kim:
So very organized and a very firm and almost mandatory training from higher up leadership is. And you’re giving the actual… So like life of a loan, you’re describing it from a different department’s perspectives of start to finish of a loan?

Dalton Elliot:
Exactly. Yeah. So it’s like-

Kevin Kim:
That’s awesome.

Dalton Elliot:
… yeah, marketing.

Kevin Kim:
Not only teaching the business, you’re teaching the culture, company history. It sounds almost like the military.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, exactly. So that’s the [crosstalk 00:28:25].

Kevin Kim:
And you’re just given the training. Yeah, you’re given all the details you need from various people in charge of various different divisions. I like that.

Dalton Elliot:
You hit the nail on the head. My simple mind should have thrown that fact out quicker, but yeah. So John and John both infantry Marines and the concept, it came from there. It’s like, doesn’t matter what your history is, what your background is, where you came from, what you did. You’re a smart, ambitious person who we have tapped to come in here and help us build this further. We are going to teach you everything you need to know, top to bottom. I had no industry experience. Courtney had no industry experience. Almost none of us had industry experience whenever we came here. We were brought up through the same training regimen. The one that I described to you now, it’s evolved, it’s gotten more built out over the years, but the same training structure was in place when I got here.

Dalton Elliot:
And that’s the whole idea. We are going to build you up into a highly effective operator in this space, whether you are an accountant or a servicing person or you’re a salesperson, we are going to train you up to be the absolute best that you can be in that particular role with huge opportunity for growth. So it’s incredibly exciting. And like I said, we’re right downtown. We have company events that COVID put a kabash on, but we’re getting back to them. We have a top golf outing next week. We got a baseball team, so we’re.

Kevin Kim:
You’re also making it fun to work there.

Dalton Elliot:
Exactly. We have beer cart Thursday, which is two hours and 28 minutes away. So every Thursday we troll around a couple of carts full of random beers.

Kevin Kim:
Oh, nice. And how many employees are you guys currently have right now? You said you have 40 plus in servicing, but let’s just kind of progression-wise. I know you started with two, but in 15 when you started, how many employees?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. Mid-teens, right. So I’m employee 14. And then, challenging my memory to go year by year.

Kevin Kim:
Well, let’s just go right now, at this current moment in time, how many employees do you guys have?

Dalton Elliot:
We have right around 200 employees and-

Kevin Kim:
Wow.

Dalton Elliot:
… yeah. So the last part of 2015, really the second half of 2015, that started the flywheel of pretty much a month. Never went by where we didn’t have a hiring class. Now in 2015 and early 2016, sometimes that would be two or three people coming in, but nonetheless, we had hiring classes and now our average hiring class is 10, 15 people.

Kevin Kim:
And how would you say it kind of breaks down from back office to front office and sales and that kind of stuff?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. So if we’re looking at say the back half of this year, what we’re looking to fill, half the positions are probably sales related. Really continuing to expand our outside sales teams all over the country. Expanding our inside sales team as well. Probably the same number that we’re hiring on outside sales, we’re hiring on the inside.

Kevin Kim:
So give me. I saw that in you guys’ website, it’s not a usual descriptor being used in the space. Explain to us what outside sales versus inside sales. I mean, what does that refer to?

Dalton Elliot:
Sure. So we’ve kind of bifurcated our sales channels outside and inside. So outside is going to be kind of a lone wolf sales rep who is physically in a market that we are just always trying to grab more market share. And think Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Orlando, Miami, LA, San Francisco, big markets, right? They are pounding the pavement, getting in front of folks, going to local real estate meetups, kind of smaller and regional conferences that are in their area where we don’t need to send a contingent of 15 people like we are to IMN in a couple of weeks. They’re heading up those efforts doing client events themselves in markets. So it is really a.

Kevin Kim:
Your retail operation, your local retail operation.

Dalton Elliot:
Yap, exactly.

Kevin Kim:
Very cool.

Dalton Elliot:
And then we’ve built out our inside sales side of the fence. So those are folks that sit here, everybody’s on the fourth floor outside of me. This is our first week at a hundred percent capacity since COVID, so-

Kevin Kim:
Awesome.

Dalton Elliot:
… super excited.

Kevin Kim:
Congratulations. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Dalton Elliot:
Different vibe, right? So much more fun. Leadership, we’ve been here since June, 2020, but having everybody back in the office, it is fun. So the inside sales team, those are folks that handle most of the web leads, list buys that come in. They also travel out. So we have a couple of them going to IMN with us next week. So they’ll go out to conferences. We have a team that specializes in mortgage broker relations. So all of our sales reps can work with mortgage brokers, but we have one team that, the one that I built out starting in ’15, that their sole focus is the mortgage broker group, right. We identified early on that it’s a unique enough set of clientele in and of itself that we need to put some dedicated brain power into it, to really build out that channel and [crosstalk 00:34:06].

Kevin Kim:
Motivations are completely different. And exactly, and every geography is different too. I mean, it’s fascinating to see you… I met originators from all the country, brokers from all the country and they’re all so different in how they do business, so.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. And the fund crowd too.

Kevin Kim:
Awesome. Oh yeah.

Dalton Elliot:
That’s good.

Kevin Kim:
You want to have fun at a party? You go to a party for brokers.

Dalton Elliot:
I have yet to meet a mortgage broker, no matter the age that I can out-drink. So I’m working on it, but I have not made it to the mountaintop yet.

Kevin Kim:
Well, that’s pretty cool though, because you guys are very, very intentional about how you’re approaching sales. And I would normally see them as done by kind of a either a kind of a unified team or… And you guys have intentionally separated it and that’s very important. And that begs the question, these outside sales executives, they’re in every state now, all 46 states?

Dalton Elliot:
They’re not in every state.

Kevin Kim:
Okay.

Dalton Elliot:
So now we have probably 15, somewhere in the high teens outside sales reps. And then we’re going to add about just as many through the end of the year. So yeah. And so we’ll have coverage by the end of the year, probably in half the states.

Kevin Kim:
Nice.

Dalton Elliot:
So yeah, we have multiple. In California we have more than one sales rep, right? We have only three or four people out there. So your more populated states, we have a higher presence of people.

Kevin Kim:
Yeah. Population density, more reps. That makes sense. I want to talk about kind of… So currently, you guys are in now in 46 states, you guys are offering all the products in the industry. Fix and flip, rehab, construction, DSCR. You’re doing commercial and multifamily, right. You’re doing a lot of different type of product right now. What is kind of Lima One’s… What are you guys really, really, really known for? What is your this is… We’re the best at this. And you can say all of them I guess, I mean, but.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. I think the one key piece that we’ve always been great at, a couple of points. One thing is scalability for an investor, right? We started off in financing. Folks who are doing their very first flip, their very first rental project. So we have kept that. We’ve always had lower low minimums than competitors. Part of that’s geography, right? We’re based in Greenville, South Carolina, started in the Southeast, whereas a lot of competition based in California, New York, Florida, higher end markets, right? So that ability for an investor to have a partner end to end from the time they step foot in real estate investing, all the way through growing their business. We’ve seen people, we have no shortage of folks who came to us for their first long ever, very first project, and then they moved up.

Dalton Elliot:
We have a tiered system based on experience and that drives pricing, a bunch of person benefits, leverage. And some of my favorite client stories are people who started off with us as a tier one, never done a deal before and now they’re tier five. They have quit the job they were doing before, they are doing this full time. They are real estate investors. They have a team built out. So that’s one piece, I think that we’ve kept, always being.

Kevin Kim:
And that’s across the spectrum on all products.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. The one caveat to that is multifamily, right.

Kevin Kim:
That’s a little bit weirder, yeah. You can’t really. Yeah.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. You don’t want to buy a $5 million multifamily project as your first deal. That’s a rare bird. But yeah, across fix and flip, rental, really light experience investors, having the support there for them to go start to finish. And we have in-house construction management and servicing. Those are two huge pieces. I’ve touched on the quality control piece. We want to control as much as we can end to end, in-house. So, the fourth floor here is all the floor beneath is where operation, servicing construction management is. And so we’ve built out organically from zero employees on up construction management and loan servicing. So when you close a loan with Lima One Capital, we’re not selling off servicing rights.

Dalton Elliot:
And then if there’s a servicing issue, we tell you to go talk to this other group. We don’t have anything to do with it. We service everything in-house. That helps with our portal integration. So we have a portal that everything is there. If you need to request a draw, if you need to make a payment, if you have servicing questions, new deal, allows us to keep everything in-house. So that’s a huge benefit, I think is that whenever… We outsource as little as possible outside of these four walls. And that allows us to tackle any issues that pop up very quickly, and allows us to keep honing the blade because we control everything, right. So the big piece now is we have product and pricing development committees where we meet constantly to make sure we’re always working on making products better. We never.

Kevin Kim:
Not necessarily cheaper, but better.

Dalton Elliot:
Right. Sometimes the answer is cheaper. We’ll find out, hey, we’ve seen a slew of data that shows us we are 25 bits high on 30 year fixed straight loans. Sometimes it is that, but more and more increasingly it has become the non pricing, non-leveraged features that really make the difference. Just because again, the commoditization, which is a great thing, it’s allowed the capital in this space is immensely greater than it was five years ago. So the accessibility is there. But working on not only the product and pricing side of the fence, but the customer experience side of the fence. I moved into that role about a year ago. And previously, we had thought about it kind of as committee, right? What does everybody think customer experience looks like?

Dalton Elliot:
And we decided it was high time to really put accountability on the shoulders of some people and think of that as really a chief competitive advantage. We have all of these great things in-house with spectacular people and a culture that helps solve issues quickly and in the most optimal way possible. And so the customer experience piece is really a huge focus and has been. We spent a lot of time during COVID, right? So March 2020, mid-March that’s when capital markets [crosstalk 00:42:10] a bit, right? And we did some volume during COVID, but we really wanted to be cautious conservative and.

Kevin Kim:
No, let’s talk about that. I mean, I always ask during these interviews. So we just got… I mean, we’re just getting out of it, right. And so you guys are back in the office now, but 2020 was a hell of a ride. The bigger you were, the more pain you felt, right, and the more institutionally tied you were, the more pain you felt. I mean, what was that like? You guys, you just said, you guys became very… You guys pulled ranks, said we’re going to be very conservative. We don’t know what’s happening, right. Was that [crosstalk 00:42:49] basically?

Dalton Elliot:
Yes. So mid-March, we were kind of leadership got pulled onto a phone call. I was going up to… We have the Whitewater Center in Charlotte an hour and a half away. So my wife and I were going up there for the day just to have fun. Stopped to get on this call, and it was like, hey, we’re starting to hear and see some things on the capital market side of the fence. There’s this virus that’s going on. Don’t really know exactly what’s happening, but starting to hear some weird murmurs and stuff. So you fast forward a couple days after that, it went from just a slightly strange phone call of hey, nobody really knows exactly what this is or what implications it’s going to have, but it’s potentially big enough that we’re going to kind of huddle up and chat about it. A couple days later, pull the plug.

Dalton Elliot:
Nobody goes to the office. Everybody is in a permanent remote state for the foreseeable future. And then, like you said, the bigger you were, the more institutionally tied you were whenever capital markets froze. We moved into just kind of a holding an observation pattern. We did some volume each month, but really used that time, productively. The biggest fear was that our people, our teams sat on the sidelines and got rusty. So we use that time for coaching across all parts of the hierarchy.

Kevin Kim:
Oh, just like the military and then.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:44:29] beyond, if not out of that.

Kevin Kim:
Train, train, train. Hurry from wait, train, train, train. Yeah.

Dalton Elliot:
[crosstalk 00:44:33] we go vigor. So that’s it. We had leadership training ongoing. I did a lot of gamification with sales. So we had a March madness bracket where we got all the company on to really vote on who was pitching better. And then we used the time, it’s really retool processes. We came out with our new line of credit products. So really made the best of it, right. We did not want people to get rusty. We did not want to fall behind because [crosstalk 00:45:05].

Kevin Kim:
That must have been painful, I mean, from a balance sheet standpoint, from a bottom line standpoint. I mean, production’s down, you’re doing a lot of administrative process building and training. But I mean, everyone felt the pain, especially larger shops. Production was down, right. We’re going to fraction what we used to do. I mean, how was company health? I mean, you guys’ culture, you’re a young team. Was retention an issue? I mean.

Dalton Elliot:
Retention was not an issue. We kept everybody who wanted to keep on a board. It was, we moved people around, right. So we had a highly skilled sales team that didn’t really need to go do a bunch of selling right now. So we [crosstalk 00:45:49].

Kevin Kim:
I couldn’t really either. All they could do was through this, so.

Dalton Elliot:
Exactly, right. And a lot of investors were also kind of waiting to see what was going to happen. We did not know… The best guess was, hey, this is not going to be a great recession type thing in terms of what happened with real estate, because you had true… You had fraud and underlying issues in 07/08 contributing to that collapse that just weren’t here. This was a.

Kevin Kim:
Liquidity event. This is basically, there’s no money. Sorry guys. Yeah. We can’t give you money right now. Yeah.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. And of course as you’re leading to that was healthcare related, right. So-

Kevin Kim:
Of course.

Dalton Elliot:
… the underlying who was not real estate. So we knew we were going to come back online fully at some time, just didn’t know what the timeline was. [crosstalk 00:46:40].

Kevin Kim:
So the executive understood that this is not going to be like, ’08.

Dalton Elliot:
Right. Yap. Right out of the gate. And that’s why we were dead set. We want to keep everybody aboard the ship, keep people active, train, train, train, like you said. We repositioned people. What we wanted to get out in front of was anything servicing-related, right, right. So we didn’t know what loan performance was going to look like. And [crosstalk 00:47:03].

Kevin Kim:
Right. And everyone was expecting a massive wave of defaults, massive wave of foreclosures and evictions, and.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. The daily reporting that we all moved to on the leadership side for servicing, because we all had people tasked out to the servicing team. Yeah. It was a nail biter every time you opened the email and it was like, please, we don’t want to see a drop [crosstalk 00:47:26]. And thankfully, performance held way stronger than I anticipated. I think way stronger than anybody anticipated.

Kevin Kim:
On the construction side, you guys didn’t feel as much pain. There were certain markets where they couldn’t build anymore for a while and they could stall three months, right?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. That was probably the biggest issue that we had. Not that it was a large issue, but the most pronounced.

Kevin Kim:
That’s what everyone was telling me, it’s the builders that are causing us the biggest pain, so.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. And like you said, it’s no… They want to get out there and they want to build, but you had offices shut. Permitting was just non-existent in a lot of markets. It was.

Kevin Kim:
Well, the government wouldn’t let them do it either. I mean, in certain cities. I mean north, in New York and I was stopped for a long time. Strangely enough, here in California, they let them build, but let me ask you this though. I mean, so when we’re dealing with… So the model, so this is Latin 2020. You guys, is pretty big announcement for you guys and we’ll get to that in a second. And so the model you guys were… You guys have your wholesale arm, you have an institutional partner. And the model at the time was it balance sheet, sell off, was it secure type? What was the model from a capital market standpoint for Lima One?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. All three you noted there. Balance sheet, sell off and securitize. That we had gone through securitizing some batches of the long term Rental30 product really successful there. So I forget the time, but probably 2017 or ’18 was our first securitization there, so.

Kevin Kim:
Once again, early adopter. Very good.

Dalton Elliot:
I know. Yeah. Yeah. It’s good to be though.

Kevin Kim:
Well, that’s interesting. So during that crisis, I mean, since in the past and you guys are killing now. You guys have a record month over record month. I mean, let’s talk about that real quick. I mean, how bad was it for you guys from a production standpoint?

Dalton Elliot:
Production was incredibly low. The e-brake was put on, right. Without attaching a hard number, the e-brake was put on to it.

Kevin Kim:
Fair enough. And then you are being honest about it because I know it’s a sensitive issue, but I feel like you guys have really jumped, got out of that mess, but we were all in, so.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, the big thing for us was communication. We identified immediately. We got to start talking to people. So that’s where we tasked folks from sales and underwriting to, hey, you are now a loan servicer. You’re now a senior portfolio analyst. We moved people kind of laterally into the servicing realm because they needed… Their phone volume went through the roof, their conversations, because like you said, you had people who needed some help, needed some assistance. They needed some work arounds. They had issues that were well above and beyond their control and they just needed to talk to their lending partner to see how can we get through this together? The last thing we ever [crosstalk 00:50:19].

Kevin Kim:
That must have been great for cross-training though. So now your sales team, now your sales guys understand the pain of servicing and vice versa and… Awesome.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, it was great. We ended up having some folks finding roles for them carved out in the servicing world for them to have a jump up, right? Like, hey, you’re a frontline underwriter, but there’s one fellow who in particular, I’m thinking of. This is underwriter on the fix and flip side of the fence and then moved into a senior role in the servicing team whereas a team underneath him and helps guide, coach, mentor those folks. And brings a different approach, different background. I’m a huge believer in diversity and thought.

Dalton Elliot:
As I built out my team, I was always looking for signs that you just think differently than I do. And I don’t exactly put my finger on what it is, but I value the fact that you approach things differently, think differently. If you build out a team of people, a company, whatever it may be with, with people who think and act like you, it’s just a recipe for disaster because you all have.

Kevin Kim:
Echo chamber.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. You have group think going on and it’s just, you all see the same problems. You all look down the fairway, see the same thing. And so it was great to be able to, hey, temporarily reposition people to solve a need in the business. The cross training piece, keeping people busy, not just sitting there stale, nothing to do. So we really did make the best of the COVID.

Kevin Kim:
Crisis. Yeah. So let’s transition because earlier this year, I mean this big news in the industry. You guys were acquired by MFA and I was… we were all very, very happy to hear that and big congrats to you and the team. It must have been a very, very long due diligence process and closing process and kudos to you guys for getting that done. But now what does that put you guys? I mean, it’s exciting stuff. I mean, you guys are now I think this is the third or fourth group that we know now that has been acquired by a major institution, but different in the sense that you guys have been… You guys have had a relationship for a while before this, right?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the due diligence process was actually pretty painless at this point. Years ago, whenever MFA took a position in Lima One Capital, yeah, they’ve been a partner for a number of years now. They had a stake and then.

Kevin Kim:
And they had a ownership stake at the company.

Dalton Elliot:
Yap. Yeah. They owned part of us. We had a great relationship through a number of functions, loan sale out of the fence and really good relationship with them, since the relationship was established. And whatever kind of things transpired to have the conversation of hey, we’re interested in wholly acquiring the rest of the company. It’s an incredible testament to the small square footage and number of offices that this started off as… When I got here in 2015, what I saw, to how we are today to really seeing that next chapter come in. The good thing about them having been a partial owner previously is that they knew us, we knew them. So I think.

Kevin Kim:
Right, no surprises.

Dalton Elliot:
Exactly. And that helped, I think, especially for a younger staff, that helped quell lot of potential concerns of like, we just got acquired. What does that mean? Are they going to lay off [crosstalk 00:54:12].

Kevin Kim:
Usual fears when M&A happens is that are they going to clear house? What’s going on?

Dalton Elliot:
Exactly.

Kevin Kim:
Are we going to be… Or do we have a job? That happens. Very natural question.

Dalton Elliot:
And even not just frontline, but yeah, all the way up [crosstalk 00:54:22].

Kevin Kim:
Throughout the organization. Yeah. Even C-level. Yeah.

Dalton Elliot:
Exactly. So that was something that was not even a question, right.

Kevin Kim:
Fantastic.

Dalton Elliot:
They knew us. Jeff had been of course working with them since he came aboard. So very tight and positive relationship. Always great. And so that was a big piece that made the transition, not much of a transition, right.

Kevin Kim:
And so that’s the big question I want to ask you, right? Because Lima One’s still Lima One. You have new owners, but Lima one is still Lima One. No rebrand, no change of name, no change of… Jeff’s still there, you’re still, everyone’s still there.

Dalton Elliot:
Yap. All of them [crosstalk 00:55:05].

Kevin Kim:
Operations still seem to be the same. So what’s different, right. What has changed now that you have a new… MFA now owns the company? Is it just a horsepower capabilities and reach? You guys now have more of that or is it something else? Are there new markets? Are there new endeavors that Lima One’s going to tap into now?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. So a little bit of both, right? So we have now a consistent source of funding that’s really going to help us continue to improve the offering to clients. Whereas previously I mentioned we were selling securitizing, balance sheeting some stuff, now, every loan we originate at Lima One Capital is… That’s a Lima One Capital loan, because we are wholly owned by MFA. So we have to think of it through that lens. But it helps simplify things on that side of the fence. A lot from a capital standpoint.

Kevin Kim:
Capital constraints are no longer a problem. Liquidity is no longer a problem.

Dalton Elliot:
Right. Exactly. And we’ve had a great team or our CFO, our capital markets team have always been spectacular in looking down the field, making sure that we had what we needed, not for today, but for 1, 2, 6, 12 months down the road for growth. That’s always been you have to stay in front of the tiger that’s constantly chasing you. Everybody’s worst fear, especially in the earlier days, you never wanted to be in a position where you didn’t have enough money to fund alone, right. That’s a lender’s nightmare. So that hasn’t been the case for us for many, many, many, many years. Well, before I got here, but this puts us in a different realm where we have a partner, our interests are singularly and wholly aligned and there’s nothing but genuine excitement. Like you said, our company is still wholly intact down to a single person, right. Jeff’s going to be here for the foreseeable future, the rest of the executive leadership team.

Kevin Kim:
And that’s also very rare by the way. I mean, I’ve watched different acquisitions happen and this is not… I think this is the first where the entire team is intact. That raises a very interesting question from the strategy because having them as a minority partner before, or a smaller partner before really cements the existing team, so you don’t rock the boat as much. Because we have seen struggles. Once they’ve been acquired, they do the traditional let’s gut it, feel it with our people and they don’t do so hot, right. And I know you guys are killing it right now. You guys are having record months. No new… But you guys aren’t expanding the product offering or you guys aren’t going to jump into all of a sudden doing non-QM or something like that, right?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. That’s not the game plan. The idea is that we’re a well oiled, big machine and we do well. We’re really, because they were partial and now full, we’re just carrying on the same conversations that we were having-

Kevin Kim:
Fantastic.

Dalton Elliot:
… pre-acquisition from a product and pricing [crosstalk 00:58:19].

Kevin Kim:
All those relationships remain with the company. And that’s the most important thing I think. Well, I mean, so looking into 2021, we’re officially past the half year, mark, we’re almost out of COVID. You guys have really not shocked the industry, but really impressed the industry with this new arrangement, but also retention and all that kind of fun stuff. We’re looking at forward. We just talked about what you guys are going to be working on and concentrating, doubling down on what you guys are doing well. But let’s look forward. I mean, because you guys are a national shop, right. And I want to ask you guys kind of what you guys are thinking about when it comes to both the national market, residential real estate market as a whole, but especially in your primary MSAs, right.

Kevin Kim:
Where you guys are really hot, right? How are things looking for you guys? I mean, we have to have the crystal ball discussion and we’ve had some national shops, some of these local shops on, but there’s a pretty consistent line of thought right now is they’re all still very optimistic and things are looking very positive. And a lot of folks have echoed your sentiments about record months, right? I’ve had many balance sheet clients, fund managers, retail operators telling me, we’re having a record month. So clearly, the market is hot right now. Because you guys are looking and you guys have a much larger team with a lot of people thinking in different ways, what are you guys thinking about going forward into the next year and beyond that?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, I think a couple things. The biggest thing on my radar, and I think a lot of my colleagues’ radar has been new construction. We have a huge backlog of inventory that needs to be filled. Usually you have six months of housing stock of dry powder and it’s half that right now. So that demand is not going away. So new construction, if you asked me today, what is the strongest single product offering? If you had to close off everything else, do one thing. This is my personal piece, just Dalton Elliot, my pick would be new construction. I think we do it incredibly well.

Dalton Elliot:
And I think the environment over the next few years is highly favorable for that to be continued, to be a core product set of ours, but be one of the biggest areas of growth for us. And like you said, so many folks were just completely sidelined. You had no shortages of lots and subdivisions, you just couldn’t build. So that building backlog of materials, prices skyrocketed, right. We could spend another hour talking about lumber, logistics, and pricing and manufacturing and all of that. So you have so much of that that hurt… Has an impact on your standard rehabs, but.

Kevin Kim:
Construction, it’s really start to sustain.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. Many magnitudes greater.

Kevin Kim:
So, but I mean, you said… I want to follow up on something you said though, because you said about new lots being built. Where we are right now, there’s a problem because not only do we have an inventory issue, but we’ve got a density problem where we can’t build anymore. We’re really in a place where we have to tear down and rebuild or move to the desert or somewhere else that’s not so attractive to live. In your, I guess your primary MSAs, is there still a lot of room to build?

Dalton Elliot:
It depends. So we have a lot of the same stuff that you mentioned, Pacific Northwest.

Kevin Kim:
Yeah. There’s no room left.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. So we have markets where we are heavy on the tear down rebuilds, right? Complete gut jobs. Yeah. So that all rolls into the new construction project for us. For loan metrics and pricing, we view the risks similar there, and so we bundle it up in the same project, and the expertise required. So we bundle that in the same product. But yeah, the same kind of things that you’re seeing in your market, that’s what we are hearing and running into. So the one stop shop piece you asked about kind of competitive advantages, that’s one thing, again, that has been super helpful over the years. Is that we have a pretty big tent and it’s not just, lot, let’s go vertical. We have the capacity to, from a risk standpoint, really look at and manage the risk on tear down rebuilds, fullbacks, everything there as well.

Dalton Elliot:
So the new construction piece is big. Rental has far outpaced everybody’s expectations. So you’re coming out of COVID from a lending standpoint. I think June of last year is when the engine started to turn back on for most everybody, and.

Kevin Kim:
But it was rental wells first.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah. Rental has been sprinting. Rental has been incredible. It’s far outpaced projections, and which is absolutely wonderful thing. Rental is from one standpoint, easier to underwrite than rehabs or new construction, right. You were looking at the as is value and the current cash flow or projected cash flow, which those are pretty easily obtainable and reliable metrics. Now, the one piece that I guess, two pieces looking over the next 12, 18 months, you have, you have the market as a whole, right? So you look at prices which have just been on fire. I think Austin, the other day I saw as numero uno at 38% year over a year as of May.

Dalton Elliot:
Insane increases. Literally insane in some areas, right. You’re absolutely going to see some markets that have some hard pullbacks. It is a guessing game as to which, but then you have markets that have more. They had call it kind of a backlog of appreciation that was due. I look at our market here in Greenville, South Carolina, and a place that has… I came up here for college in 2011. So I’ve been here for 10 years, be there next month. And the city itself has grown so much. And so you can really point to, all right, where is this appreciation coming from? What’s the root, what’s the reason? There are definitely some markets that are on fire because they were close to the fire. So that’s going to be something that we’re going to have to watch out and try to figure that out.

Kevin Kim:
You’re hitting something there that everyone talks about is valuations, right? Because valuations are a good thing, but they’re also an indicator of bad things, right. And I’ve had a lot of discussions with who are on the other side of the coin, right. They invest in rental real estate, they hold these assets. And the sentiment from their perspective seems to be that we can’t get our hands on the stuff that we want because the big shops are buying up everything. And when they say the big shops, they’re talking the rocks and the stones, the actual institutions. They’re benefiting because it’s increasing the pricing, but they’re also suffering because they can’t get stuff. They want to invest, they can’t. They really can’t get their hands on it. They’re losing bids every day.

Kevin Kim:
And so it’s an interesting component where if more of these assets get into a rental situation, what does that situate us on construction, on rehab and everything else, and ownership in general. It’s a kind of, is this the, what do you call it? The snake that eats itself, almost, right. Is it going to kind of… Is it going to hurt us in the long run? Is it kind of what a top has been brought up? Not by lenders actually by the investor side. But I mean, most of us in our industry, we kind of look at it from a 12, like you said, 12 to 18 months, right. So I mean, I always ask, just general. And be when I’m in the interviews, looking into the rest of ’21 into ’22, all ’22, bullish, bearish, what do you think?

Dalton Elliot:
Bullish.

Kevin Kim:
All right.

Dalton Elliot:
Bullish, very bullish.

Kevin Kim:
Very bullish. Very bullish. All right.

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, I think, there are new… There are a few signs that as much as you can prognosticate 12 months, 18 months is the upper edge of any appetite for prognostication. But I think we are… All of the levers are just in the on and up position right now. And like you said, we’re going to see some indicators whenever the cool off starts to happen and nobody’s expecting a precipitous drop off or anything like that. You’re just going to have.

Kevin Kim:
Also fingers.

Dalton Elliot:
Right. But we don’t expect Austin have a year from now another 38% year over year.

Kevin Kim:
Right. I mean, after 2020, man, I don’t… I mean, all of a sudden aliens can drop from the sky, who knows?

Dalton Elliot:
Yeah, it is.

Kevin Kim:
Yeah, such a wild ride last year. I mean, by just guess.

Dalton Elliot:
So yeah. I’m super bullish. The team as a whole, we talk about it on a weekly basis, just broad market outlook-

Kevin Kim:
I see.

Dalton Elliot:
… and our capital markets team circulates, kind of their reading of the leaves as well to keep solid.

Kevin Kim:
Very cool.

Dalton Elliot:
And so extremely bullish. Yeah.

Kevin Kim:
Well, that’s a really good note to close the podcast on. I want to thank you for taking the time today. I’ve been wanting to sit down with you for some time just in general and really appreciate you guys taking the time. And hopefully we’ll see you in person at the next trade show. Because we’re all out there now. We’re all back in the office and we’re all out there at trade shows. We’ll see you soon out there. This is Kevin Kim for season two of the Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim. And we’ll see you on the next one. Thank you Dalton for joining us today.

Dalton Elliot:
Thanks Kevin.

Kevin Kim:
All right.

Thanks for listening to Lender Lounge with Kevin Kim. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode as much as I did. If you did enjoy, please leave us a five star view 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. See you next time. This is Kevin Kim signing off.