Latest / Private Lending Insights / Inside Yieldi: Strategic Bridge Lending for CRE, Land and Luxury Homes

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Inside Yieldi: Strategic Bridge Lending for CRE, Land and Luxury Homes · Private Lending Insights

• [00:00:00] Rocky Butani: Welcome to Private Lending Insights. I'm your host, Rocky Bati. In this episode, I interviewed Josh Lloyd and Joe Ashkouti, founders and owners of Ashkouti. This is a unique lender based in Atlanta. We've been doing business with them since 2020. They lend primarily on commercial real estate, but also residential investment properties typically. [00:00:21] Rocky Butani: Bigger deals, uh, average of a few million dollars and maybe up to $20 million. They're also one of the few lenders in our network that are currently funding land loans for experienced developers with a clear exit strategy. As with most of my interviews, we started off talking about trends that they're seeing in the market with loan requests are getting as of now. [00:00:40] Rocky Butani: In June, 2025, we talked about their guidelines for commercial properties, for residential investment properties, rehab loans, ground of construction loans, and. Land loans. We talked a little bit about their company and also their unique capital structure. I hope you find this episode to be insightful. [00:00:59] Rocky Butani: Let's get started. Here's my interview with Ashkouti. Alright, gentlemen. Thank you for joining me for this episode of Private Lending Insights. We're here to talk about Ashkouti. Let's start off by talking about what you are seeing in the market in terms of, uh, the loans that you're doing and, and the loan requests that you're getting. [00:01:17] Josh Lloyd: Yeah. Thanks for having us, Rocky. Um, you know, uh. We're now, I guess in the second quarter of 2025. And I would say that our, our pipeline of leads that we're seeing is probably as strong as it's ever been. Um, you know, a little bit of that is 'cause of us with our marketing efforts. A little bit of that is because we, we've created a reputation for being able to look at any kind of loan, whether it's on the residential or on the. [00:01:42] Josh Lloyd: Commercial side of the business. But either way, uh, the, the flow of leads has been, has been a lot. And so, you know, that, that's kind of exciting to, you know, a lot of the deals or deals that are not necessarily great. Um, but, you know, that's just part of the business. But, but overall, yeah, we're, we're seeing, you know, big influx of deals. [00:02:02] Joe Ashkouti: Just to touch on that, we are in our sixth year of business. Uh, we started the company in 2019 and I feel like the market as a whole has, we've grown with, you know, when we first started the market was maybe a billion. Now I feel like it's multiple billion. And so we, uh, when we first started the business, our average loan amount was between. [00:02:23] Joe Ashkouti: 300, 500,000 today. We, our sweet spot is between one and 10 million. Uh, we just closed a, a deal the other day that was 17 and a half million. So we're, we're really excited about the future of, of the private lending space. [00:02:38] Rocky Butani: And with all the things that have been going on in the market, maybe let's just say not the last year, let's talk about the last six months. [00:02:45] Rocky Butani: What are some of the unique things that you're seeing as far as loan requests coming in or, or, uh, default or anything? Uh, you can tell us. [00:02:54] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah. I would say we're seeing a lot of of *land deals*, um, which, you know, aren't the sexiest loans for lenders, but we, uh. We find a way to get 'em done. I mean, a lot of these guys, uh, these developers aren't able to get construction loans because of the market. [00:03:14] Joe Ashkouti: And so they need a bridge to get 'em to, you know, be able to close on the land until either construction costs come down or rates come down a little bit so they can, or banks loosen up in order for them to get a construction loan. But, um, so we, we've been a good. Source for a lot of developers on the land side of the business in the last six months. [00:03:34] Joe Ashkouti: I mean, that's probably a majority of the deals that we're getting right now. Yeah. [00:03:39] Josh Lloyd: And, and I think, you know, overall, as I mentioned at the top, we, because we look at residential, we look at commercial, we're we we're able to see a little bit of trends just within the deals that, that we see. I think, um, you know,* storage* is an interesting space right now, I think, um, just because of what's going on in the housing market and. [00:03:56] Josh Lloyd: And storage maybe is being a little bit less utilized. I think that's, that's causing a little bit of a downward, um, you know, price point for those guys. And so getting those deals done has been a little bit harder as of late. Um, I would say over the last, the last few months we've, we've had to reprice deals based on appraisal, broker's opinions and values. [00:04:15] Josh Lloyd: Lots of conversations in that space. Um, interestingly though. With a lot of talk around the lower end housing market and especially, you know, the, the bigger builders and what they're doing right now. I just, I just read an article today. They're, you know, they're offering incentives and discounts to, to move houses, trying to kind of offset the interest rates, um, that, that are out there right now. [00:04:35] Josh Lloyd: The guys that are in, in the million dollar to $2 million plus more luxury home markets, um, they're actually doing pretty well. Um, I think the buyers are less price sensitive. That, that bodes well for us because that's an area that we, we like to plan, especially in the Southeast where, where we're based out of in Atlanta. [00:04:52] Josh Lloyd: We understand the market really well. South Florida's another area that's kind of interesting in going through interesting times right now. But, um, that market seems to be doing well. Properties seem to be moving at a pretty good pace still, so, so we like that a lot. [00:05:04] Joe Ashkouti: And, and to touch on that, the* industrial market* is still, feels like the darling at the dance. [00:05:10] Joe Ashkouti: Everybody wants to, to get into the data center game. And, um, and so we're seeing a lot of, uh, we're not seeing those types of deals because those are, those are larger deals, but it's, it seems like a buzzword lately. [00:05:24] Josh Lloyd: The, the smaller industrial stuff that we, we do get an opportunity to do is a little more competitive than it used to be, I would say, with other lenders kind of jumping into that world. [00:05:32] Josh Lloyd: But, but yeah, we, we we do, we do like, uh, dealing with those a lot as well. And from a, from a default um, perspective, you know, historically. We, you know, we live in an interesting space, YDI does, because we don't really compete very well on the, I think it's called *RTL* now, or *fix and flip space*. Um, we, we, we do them, you know, they, they come up here and there, but, but it's not our bread and butter by any means. [00:05:58] Josh Lloyd: We're, we're very, very conservative by nature as an organization, and especially when it comes to loan to value, loan to cost construction budgets. That type of thing. There's a lot of other people who have figured out a different model where they're, you know, 90%, a hundred percent. We, we can't, we can't really touch that. [00:06:14] Josh Lloyd: Well. What that means for us is that our, the vault rate's been really consistent over the six years we've been doing this. We haven't seen anything I. Go crazy this year during COVID, anytime in between really. I, I think, you know, as long as we stay in our sweet spot of 60 to 70% LTV lower on land, um, obviously we don't get ourselves into too much trouble. [00:06:35] Josh Lloyd: Our bar, our borrowers have a lot of equity in, in these projects. Um, they'll work out a forbearance agreement if they need to. The last thing they're gonna do is get foreclosed on these properties. So, so, you know, those numbers remain consistent and love us. [00:06:49] Rocky Butani: And how about, uh, uh, bridge to bridge? Have you been seeing a lot of people trying to refinance out of another private or hard money loan? [00:06:57] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, we've seen, we've seen a good bit of those. Um, typically we don't, like I. Refinancing a bridge to bridge. If we do, then, um, typically we'll require the borrower to bring some, some money to closing, whether that's in the form of interest reserve or just, uh, in order to pay the fees and costs of, of closing. [00:07:16] Joe Ashkouti: Um, but you know, it, I guess it depends on the story. It depends on the asset. It depends on the, uh, the leverage that was that was given. Um, but we're not, we're not doing a lot of it. We do see it a handful of deals though. I mean, I, I, I mean Josh can speak to like our lead flow. We see a lot of leads a lot. [00:07:35] Joe Ashkouti: I mean, it's probably between, I'd say 20 to 30 a day. [00:07:41] Josh Lloyd: Yeah. At least, at least that and, and growing. Um, it continues be continues to grow. The, the trick with the bridge to bridge stuff for us is, you know, if we like the deal, we like the deal. The problem is that if they don't have a very clearly defined exit strategy that we really believe and understand. [00:07:58] Josh Lloyd: We're not gonna, we're not gonna touch it. 'cause bridge to bridge to bridge is, you know, that's not, that's not gonna work. So we know that we'll still look at those deals and yes. I, I don't know, rocket Joe, I don't know what you think. I don't think there are any more than there used to be. I, I think, but we're very cautious, I would say, when it comes to looking where they came from and why they're coming [00:08:20] Rocky Butani: to us. [00:08:21] Rocky Butani: So you're saying that's, that's just not a new trend. It's, it's always. You've always had those requests in the past? [00:08:26] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, I would, I would say so. I will tell you what's kind of a more new, newer trend for, in my opinion, we're seeing more, uh, folks and, and Joe can probably touch on this better than me, but that have a lot of liquidity, um, in their properties that probably own them free and clear. [00:08:42] Josh Lloyd: We're seeing a lot more free and clear asking for, for financing now. [00:08:47] Rocky Butani: And are those cases typically where they, they need that money to buy other properties, or are they, or are they trying to get out of a, a, a, a situation with another property that, that they're having trouble with [00:09:01] Joe Ashkouti: Both. I mean, sometimes they need the, the cash to grow their, their business, their current business, or they needed to buy additional properties or they needed to clean up some, some bad debt or credit card debt that they had. [00:09:14] Joe Ashkouti: Um, sometimes they're inherited properties, um, and kids just, you know, while they're trying to sell or liquidate the asset, they want some short-term money. [00:09:23] Josh Lloyd: Business loans are a big one for us, you know, it's, it's less expensive, less risky for them to go with a real estate loan, um, even on a bridge basis to fund their business than to go and get, you know, a much higher interest rate on a just purely business loan. [00:09:37] Josh Lloyd: So we, we see a lot of that kind of activity as well. Um, we're really. I think overall cautious when it comes to. Uh, cash out, right? Uh, we're not gonna just, you know, write a check. Here you go. Here's, you know, a million bucks and good luck. It's, it's really understanding what is the cash for. If we can issue it in draws, we're absolutely gonna do that. [00:09:58] Josh Lloyd: If we, if it's for debt consolidation of some purpose, uh, even for their business, we're gonna go ahead and pay those bills directly. If they have a tax problem, we're gonna pay that. But we do look at the asset first, right? So if we understand, look, we're 60 cents on the dollar on this building. We know we can move it quick. [00:10:12] Josh Lloyd: We know it's a non-judicial foreclosure state. We're gonna, we're gonna have a healthier appetite for, for doing that deal. [00:10:20] Joe Ashkouti: And then, and then like when you were talking earlier about bridge to bridge, we, we see a lot of those, but we also see a lot of like foreclosure bailout loans. And we're where most lenders would probably shy away from 'em, be scared of them. [00:10:33] Joe Ashkouti: We. We'll look at 'em and we will work with the borrower to have an exit strategy in place prior to closing even. We'll even put it in our loan docs that they're required to list the property and, you know, drop the price of it by 3% every month until it, until it's liquidated or sold. So we will, we'll go into riskier propositions, like a, a foreclosure bailout loan if we can negotiate on the front end and exit strategy that makes sense for us. [00:11:02] Rocky Butani: Sure makes sense. And, and in those foreclosure bailout situations are, are those typically maturity defaults? They've, they've, they've run outta time with their current lender and they just need time to sell the property. [00:11:14] Joe Ashkouti: Some, sometimes there are maturity defaults, but sometimes they're, um, you know, payment defaults, interest payment defaults too. [00:11:21] Joe Ashkouti: Um, sometimes, and, and you know, these properties a lot, a lot of times, especially if we're gonna do a bailout loan, have a lot of equity in them. So we're willing to step up and help capture some of that equity for the borrower, um, and help 'em get to, you know, sell the property so they can get back the equity they have in [00:11:41] Josh Lloyd: it. [00:11:41] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, those deals actually typically work out really well for us and frankly for the borrower. We'll put that right up in their terms sheet and. Into their loan docs that, you know, you prop, you know, what is the list price gonna be? You're gonna have to drop the price in certain increments. Um, if you've got enough equity, we're gonna of course build in interest reserve so you don't have to be making your payments during that period of time. [00:12:01] Josh Lloyd: And, you know, they kind of know they can get outta this loan in six to nine months. We are comfortable with it as well. And you know, if we have to take it back at that point, so be it. That's obviously not what we want to have happen, but a lot of times it ends up being a mutually beneficial experience for both us and the borrower. [00:12:17] Rocky Butani: Interesting. I, you know, I've had this conversation with the, the last two interviews I've done about foreclosure bailouts. But I, I didn't, I didn't think about the, the prospect of, um, of, of having an interest reserve. 'cause the thinking is, is if, if a borrower is struggling to pay one lender, how are they gonna make payments to another lender? [00:12:36] Rocky Butani: They have closing costs, they've got all these other costs to deal with. Um, but that's, that's an interesting solution is, is hey, the property's gonna get sold. That you're gonna build in the interest reserve. So maybe the bar doesn't have to worry about making payments, they could just focus on getting the property sold and, and then everyone wins. [00:12:53] Josh Lloyd: That's exactly right. Generally speaking, across our portfolio, I mean, this is for me personally, I, I like it if we get, you know, six months of interest upfront, spread out over 12 months, that they have to make a half a payment. It lowers what their payment responsibility is, but it also, I. Puts the proof that they can make a payment that's just not with foreclosure bailouts, but more in general. [00:13:13] Josh Lloyd: And if something goes sideways earlier on, we have enough of a reserve cushion built in to take it through a foreclosure process and, you know, continue to, to, to make payments to our investors and so [00:13:23] Rocky Butani: forth. Let's just talk about in general, the, the, the amount of loans that you funded and let's say 2023 versus 2024. [00:13:32] Rocky Butani: And, and what are you projecting for 2025? [00:13:35] Josh Lloyd: I, I would say between 2023 and 2024, we probably went, uh, funded about 50% higher than where we were. Um, we have about $200 million actively out as a business right now. Um, and, you know, these are all 12 month loans, so unless they're extending their, we're recycling. [00:13:53] Josh Lloyd: Money and we're obviously growing and, and adding, uh, further loans, um, on, on the books. So, you know, I would say it's probably about 150 million we're gonna do in loans this year, uh, in 2025. And I would say we've grown on average about 30% every year since about [00:14:12] Rocky Butani: 2022. Nice. And uh, how about the breakdown of what, just if you were to guess, what's the percentage of commercial real estate versus residential real estate? [00:14:23] Rocky Butani: Pretty evenly split, I [00:14:25] Josh Lloyd: would say. Uh, frankly, yeah, we, we, we really like the commercial side because it's income producing. We can understand it, we know how to underwrite it. And obviously on the residential side, uh, new construction in our own backyard is, is uh, something that we like a lot. And, um, some of the luxury bridge stuff we, we like that as, as well. [00:14:45] Josh Lloyd: So, but I'd say it's about a 50 50 split. [00:14:49] Rocky Butani: It looks like the majority of your loans that you're funding, about 30% of them are in the state of Georgia, around 12% of, in Florida, and then the rest of the loans are, uh, in, in a bunch of other states. Does that sound about accurate? [00:15:02] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, that's pretty accurate. We, we like to stick to the southeast, but we'll lend all over the country. [00:15:09] Rocky Butani: Nice. And let's get into, uh, your lending guidelines, your program. You've touched on it a little bit, but, but if you could just give a quick overview of, of what are your, uh, your preferred loan types that you'd like to do, and property types, what are the loan sizes, minimum and maximum, uh, the term, uh, rates, fees, et cetera. [00:15:30] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, I would say, I would say one of the things that kind of sets us apart from, from most lenders is the fact that we'll lend on almost any asset type. Uh, we don't shy away from, um, really any property type. So we'll do residential fix and flip new construction, luxury rental, uh, retail, industrial multifamily storage, um, land. [00:15:56] Joe Ashkouti: We'll do new construction in all of those fields too. New construction, retail, build to suit. Uh, so we, we almost, we've got a huge net that we cast out. Um, and then our loan terms are 12 months. Sometimes, depending if it's a construction loan, we'll go up to 18 with the right, we'll, we'll give all of our borrowers the right to extend as long as they're in a, you know, a non-monetary default. [00:16:21] Joe Ashkouti: If they're not in a default at all, um, we'll extend their loans, uh, rates typically on the low side, 11% on the high side. Sometimes 15, 16% if it's land. Uh, we charge origination points, which, um, are between one and a half and, and three points. And then, uh, we collect deposits on most deals. On the low end, it's $2,500. [00:16:47] Joe Ashkouti: On the high end, if it's a, if it's a bigger deal, it could be 50 to 60,000. Um. Maximum leverage is 75%. We don't go over 75%. I would say our average is closer to 65%. [00:17:02] Rocky Butani: And what about the loan amounts? What's the minimum maximum that you could do? [00:17:06] Joe Ashkouti: Uh, our minimum loan amount is 350,000 and we can go up to 25 million. [00:17:12] Joe Ashkouti: Our sweet spot is between one and 10. [00:17:16] Rocky Butani: Nice. And as far as the, the de, well, we'll come back to the deposits, but as far as leverage goes, uh, if, if you do a 75% loan to value loan in, in what situation is it that high? [00:17:30] Joe Ashkouti: Um, if it's a, if it's a piece of real estate in our backyard that we understand and we can underwrite it very easily, and we, we know the property, we know the exit strategy, we know the borrower. [00:17:40] Joe Ashkouti: It's gotta have a great story. And, um. Then we, we would go up 75%, but we do that. Yeah. Remember [00:17:47] Josh Lloyd: Atlanta or Georgia is a non-judicial state as well. So it gives us a little bit more flexibility here and we can drive the properties. [00:17:55] Rocky Butani: Nice. And, uh, do you have a kind of a, a general loan to value threshold for residential versus commercial? [00:18:04] Rocky Butani: Um, or does it just kind of depend on, on the deal and various factors? [00:18:09] Joe Ashkouti: It depends on the deal. Um, you know, if it's a new construction deal, sometimes it'll be 80% of cost, but it's 65% loan to value, you know, at completion. Um, and same thing with commercial deals. If there's a tenant involved and it's a build to suit, we will sometimes be 90% of costs, which is 60% or 65% of actual value. [00:18:34] Joe Ashkouti: Uh, we'll just, we've gotta look at the deal and underwrite it. Depending on the asset class. [00:18:40] Rocky Butani: And how about those bridge loans for luxury homes? I, I've seen that you guys have done a bunch of those lately. Um, do you, do you have a, a set loan to value on those or? [00:18:51] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah. Somehow, somehow we always get stuck with the stuff that nobody else wants to do. [00:18:55] Joe Ashkouti: So, yeah, we, we've done, uh. Those were more conservative on. I mean, if, if it's a, if it's a luxury home north of $5 million, typically we're not gonna be over 60%. Uh, we don't want to, you know, we don't want to, because if we went to 65 or 70%, our entire book would be luxury construction homes. 'cause everybody would become a to us. [00:19:17] Joe Ashkouti: But no, we, we try to stay a little bit more conservative on those just because, um, you know, the risk of downside is a lot bigger. [00:19:25] Rocky Butani: All right, and let's get into that a little bit. As far as those luxury homes where you do a bridge loan, um, uh, what are some of those scenarios? Where, where does someone have a luxury home that's an investment property where, where they need a bridge loan to cash out or, or to purchase that property? [00:19:43] Joe Ashkouti: So we did one in San Francisco where he was buying the new property and had at home a luxury home that was already paid off and he needed quick money to be able to close on the other house. So we gave him a loan in first position on the, on the house that he had. And then we crossed, collateralized it with the house that he was buying and he listed the house he moved out of and sold it to pay us off. [00:20:07] Joe Ashkouti: So that that was one example. [00:20:10] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, he was with JP Morgan and I think they, they had some limits on what they were gonna allow him to do, and so he needed to close quickly and, and we were able to do that. We have a loan closing this, I think tomorrow, actually. Um, it's a very similar situation, um, that they have not sold the previous house, and, and that's something that's coming up more and more as well. [00:20:31] Josh Lloyd: But there's an opportunity on a, in a neighborhood, they really like the property. They, they don't wanna. Lose that property and, and that's something we're able to help them bridge that until they get their property sold, which will pay us off. So we'll do that. We get, we, you know, we get, we get vacation homes. [00:20:45] Josh Lloyd: We had another one in Texas. We did, they bought a house on the lake. I forget the name of the lake. They, that's already paid us off, but same exact situation. They were in their primary residence. They were planning to move to the lake, had to sell that house. So that, you know, that happens, you know, fair bit with us. [00:20:59] Joe Ashkouti: We're seeing a lot of luxury homes that are like 75 to 80%. Complete where they're coming up on maturity and they're looking to refi, we, we shy away from those just because it's a lot of underwriting and it's hard to get your hands around something that's mid-construction. You know, you've gotta have affidavits from all the contractors. [00:21:16] Joe Ashkouti: It's just a, there's a lot more work that goes into it, and especially if it's not something that we can jump in the car and drive to, it's, it's really hard for us to get our hands around. So we try to shy away from those deals. [00:21:28] Rocky Butani: With the situation that you talked about in, let's say in San Francisco and, and maybe others where, uh, someone's moving to a new home that's essentially a consumer purpose mortgage. [00:21:39] Rocky Butani: Right? I, when California does have an exception for that, and in California there is, it, it's kind of a common. Loan that, that a lot of lenders do here where, um, where there's an exception in, in the California law where, where you can use, where private lenders can do that type of bridge loan, uh, as long as the term's less than 12 months. [00:22:00] Rocky Butani: Um, but are you able to do those types of loans in other states outside of California, or have you done 'em in the past? [00:22:07] Joe Ashkouti: We don't do many of them, but the ones that we do. We make sure that, that, that they're not living in the house and that the house is listed for sale and it's, it's typically a second home at that point, so it's not their primary residence. [00:22:22] Rocky Butani: Got it. Makes sense. All right. And let's talk about some of the, um, some of the land loans that you've done recently since, uh, since you said that's become a common loan request that you have. Uh, uh, if you could give us a couple of examples and tell some of the, the guidelines that you would have for doing a land loan. [00:22:40] Joe Ashkouti: Sure. So we did, um, let's see. We did a 17 and a half million dollar loan on a piece of property that was, uh, purchased. By a developer who, um, who actually closed on it with a owner finance deal. Uh, the, they held back, they paid 23 and a half million for the property. The owner held back 15 million and it was coming up on maturity. [00:23:07] Joe Ashkouti: Well, and that one year, the developer rezoned the property. It was zoned office. Originally it was 40 acre site. He rezoned it to multifamily. Um, town, homes, retail, hotel, and at two ho hotel sites. So, um, he added. I mean, he paid 23.5 million and with all those new uses, he added about $23 million in value. I mean, the property was worth around 45, 50 million after the rezoning. [00:23:40] Joe Ashkouti: So he, he had contracts when he came to us to refinance it, he had contracts with a multifamily developer to buy one of the sites. He had a contract, and that was for 13 million. He had a contract with a town home developer to sell that site for 19 million. And, uh, he was, he was gonna. Build a hotel and then he had the retail portion already under contract. [00:24:02] Joe Ashkouti: So he basically brought it to us and we're going, okay, well this is pretty easy to analyze. I mean, we see that there's exit strategies on, on almost every single one of these sites. If two of them sell, we're gonna get paid back our loan. Um, and so we closed it and literally three months later, the apartment parcels. [00:24:19] Joe Ashkouti: He sold it off and, and paid us down, I think 80% of our loan. So now we've got like four, four and a half million left in the deal. And, um, the retail, I think is the next parcel to close in the next 30 or 60 days, and we'll get paid off completely. So that's, that's one deal where we, I. Um, that we just did. [00:24:38] Rocky Butani: And on and sorry, on that deal, uh, what was your loan to value coming into the deal before he started paying off? [00:24:44] Joe Ashkouti: We valued the property around 50 million and the loan was 17 and a half, so I don't know what that is. 33% something, 33%, something like that. So we felt really comfortable with the deal and we knew it was a clear exit strategy. [00:24:58] Joe Ashkouti: It was a developer that had done it before. So it was a good story behind it. [00:25:03] Rocky Butani: And was there any debt on the property that you refinanced? [00:25:06] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, so they had, when they closed on the property, they had the original owners hold back a note for 15 million. They brought seven and a half million to closing. And then the, uh, the original owner held back 15. [00:25:17] Joe Ashkouti: That's who we refinanced. And then we, we bumped the loan to 17 and a half to cover interest reserves and closing costs and whatnot. But we, we didn't give him any cash out. That was just to cover most of the cost of the loan. Yeah. [00:25:31] Rocky Butani: Nice. Uh, any other land deals that you can tell [00:25:34] Joe Ashkouti: us about? [00:25:35] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, Joe, we had the one on wind drive as well [00:25:37] Joe Ashkouti: down in Hampton. [00:25:39] Joe Ashkouti: Yep. We had a big 520 acre site in, uh, south Georgia, in, in Hampton, Georgia. That was, uh, same sort of situation. There was a loan on the property by a previous owner and the developer went and rezoned it. Um, he zoned it for. A thousand single family homes, you know, I think 600 units of apartments, um, retail on the front. [00:26:07] Joe Ashkouti: He had a big anchor with a grocery store. Um, and uh, he had another site that was industrial that he teamed up with a data. A data center developer and sold par. I mean, so basically it's like the same story. He was flipping out parcels to pay us down. Uh, it was a $10 million loan on a piece of property that we valued at 40 million. [00:26:31] Joe Ashkouti: So our loan to value was great and um, we've already been paid down 5 million. He sold a parcel to a data center developer, and we're sitting on, I think that was 70 acres of the 500. So we've still got 400 acres of collateral that we've got 5 million of debt on. [00:26:50] Josh Lloyd: Yeah. And it's a, even though it's in South Georgia, it happens to be in a great area. [00:26:53] Josh Lloyd: There's a ton of, um, development happening down there. It's, you know, people that wanna look down, there's a little less expensive and so on. [00:27:01] Joe Ashkouti: And today we closed the deal in Prosper, Texas. Um, which is another land loan. It was a developer is having trouble getting his permits. Uh, he, there's some right of way that the city's taking and so he had to finish negotiating the right of way and closing that before he could move forward getting his permits. [00:27:19] Joe Ashkouti: He had already graded the property. Um, he had. I think a million and a half in debt. Uh, the appraisal came back at 7.8. Um, and so we, we refinanced his debt on that deal and, uh, gave him a little bit of interest reserve so he could get through the process. Uh, the, the right of way was actually closing at the same time simultaneously close so that now he can get his permit to start work and get us refinanced with the construction loan. [00:27:48] Rocky Butani: And Prosper is a, a quite a booming area. I, I visited there a few months ago and um, yeah, the amount of house home building that they've got going on there is, is quite incredible. [00:27:57] Joe Ashkouti: Oh really? I didn't know people visited Prosper Texas. [00:28:03] Rocky Butani: It's just north of Dallas. So while I was in Dallas, a friend moved, a friend bought a house out there within the last two years and showed me the area. [00:28:11] Josh Lloyd: Oh great. Yeah. But you can see, like with Joe's story, of all three of those land loans, clearly defined exit strategies or pay down strategies, clear a loan to value, you know? But if we, we probably see seriously. 50, at least 50 land deals a week that we just, you know, we, we shy away from. We're very particular. [00:28:30] Josh Lloyd: So it's gonna have to be a deal, like one of those for us to get excited about it. [00:28:34] Joe Ashkouti: And I like land because I, I at heart, you know, my background is in development, so I like underwriting land deals. Nice. Let's, so I get, get exci, I get excited to talk about 'em. Yeah. I don't like talking about a fix and flip or a, you know, a, a 300,000 new construction, but I'll talk about land all day. [00:28:53] Rocky Butani: Nice. Love it. Uh, and that is quite a unique offering. You know, even, even the, the few lenders I know that do consider land, um, it, it's, it's very localized to where. Where they live and, and, and operate and work. Um, but, but to do these larger land deals is, is quite unique. And when you do these land deals, are you typically asking for additional collateral? [00:29:17] Joe Ashkouti: Sometimes. Um, I'm trying to think the last time we, we did [00:29:23] Josh Lloyd: a land deal where we acquired it. Yeah. We've taken extra parcels, um, elsewhere to, to make the numbers work, just to have more security. Yeah, for sure. Listen, if we can get it, we're gonna take it. [00:29:35] Rocky Butani: Sure, yeah. Makes sense. And, uh, on other bridge loans that you do outside of land deals, um, uh, are, do you do a lot of cross collateral? [00:29:43] Rocky Butani: We do, [00:29:44] Josh Lloyd: yeah. Um, it, it helps to make the numbers work, uh, when ABER policy, but we'll, we'll cross up other properties, um, and, and try to get to the number that they need to get out. For sure. [00:29:56] Rocky Butani: And is it ever possible to cross collateralize in second position? [00:30:00] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, so we'll take a first on the primary property and then we'll take a second on something else that they have as long as the combined LTV on that stack and doesn't exceed 65%, and we obviously have to like the property. [00:30:14] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, we're, we're doing a deal like that right now in, um, South Carolina. It's, they're repeat borrowers, but it's, it's a little bit out of our comfort zone 'cause it's a special use. It's a bed and breakfast and, um, they've got seven or eight different buildings in the market that they own and operate either a restaurant or another bed and breakfast out of. [00:30:33] Joe Ashkouti: And so we're doing a blanket second mortgage on all their other assets and a first mortgage on this one. [00:30:41] Josh Lloyd: They're, it's actually, um, I think it's Wilmington, North Carolina. Um, it's a great market. I'm sorry, North Carolina. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great market over there. These guys, um, we like them as borrowers. [00:30:52] Josh Lloyd: They, they exited wealth along First loan we did with them. And, uh, they, they really believe in that market. They moved down from New York. They bought a bunch of other real estate down there, and we were able to. To get them what they needed to get us comfortable. Yeah. Like Joe said, we cross collateralized three or four other properties outside of the, the main one, um, that they needed the cash for. [00:31:13] Joe Ashkouti: They're, they're, they've got a proven track record and hospitality. Um, and, you know, it's a lot of active businesses that are managing. So we, we took a special risk just, just for them because of their backgrounds and experience. But typically we don't, we don't love doing. You know, restaurants and, and small hotels like that. [00:31:37] Joe Ashkouti: Do you like larger hotels? We do. We, we, you know, hospitality is the one thing that. We don't have a strong background in, but we have partners that understand it and own it, and so we always bring in one of them to help us underwrite those deals. And sometimes they'll participate in the loans with us. Um, but, but yeah, we'll, we don't shy away from hospitality. [00:31:58] Joe Ashkouti: We look at a lot of the, we look a lot of, um, deals and we probably closed three or four in the last 12 months. [00:32:06] Rocky Butani: Nice. And how about some other unique situations? Do you consider four nationals, for example? [00:32:12] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, we've done foreign national deals both here in Georgia and Florida as well, which kind of makes sense, I guess. [00:32:18] Josh Lloyd: Um, but yeah, as, as long as they can show liquidity and, um, you know, those are more on purchases, I would say, frankly, uh, than, than a cash at refi. But yeah, we, we like those deals. [00:32:31] Rocky Butani: And I'm assuming the loan to value is typically lower on, on those when it's a foreign national? [00:32:36] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, they, [00:32:36] Rocky Butani: it is. Okay. All right. [00:32:38] Rocky Butani: And how about, uh, recourse? Do you ever do any non-recourse loans? [00:32:43] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, we will. Yeah, go ahead. I mean, very rarely. Um, I would say 90% of our deals are, are full recourse. If we do a non-recourse, it's because our loan to value is just so low that we don't think there's ever gonna be a need. Yeah. Or we really a corporate [00:33:01] Josh Lloyd: guarantee. [00:33:02] Josh Lloyd: Um. We'll try to get some pledges of stock. We'll, we'll try to do something else to make up for that. But yeah, it has to be, if it's [00:33:09] Joe Ashkouti: not recourse, we're gonna have a bad boy carve out in there. Yeah, [00:33:13] Rocky Butani: sure. Makes sense. Alright, and then let's talk about, uh, rehab and construction projects. Uh, do you do any rehab value add deals that are not ground up? [00:33:25] Joe Ashkouti: We do, but it's hard for us to compete because. It's a saturated market with lenders that are chasing, you know, fix and flip deals. And typically it's below our, where we, where we like to be on a loan amount. Um, we'll do 'em, especially if we can get 'em in Atlanta and, and. It's close by to us. Uh, but we don't, we don't do much of 'em just because we can't, we can't compete with, you know, 90% of purchase or a hundred percent of purchase and a hundred percent of rehab costs. [00:33:55] Joe Ashkouti: And the rates [00:33:55] Josh Lloyd: are just, you know, driving to the bottom. So, you know, we're a balance sheet lender, right? So a lot of these guys will do this 'cause they can sell those loans off or whatever they, they need to do to operate their best. But like Joe said too, like, you know, we'll do higher end. Value add, fixing what won a million dollar plus house if we like it and understand it. [00:34:15] Rocky Butani: And how about commercial properties? Do you do any value add on commercial? [00:34:19] Joe Ashkouti: Mm-hmm. Yeah, we do value add on retail. Um, somebody's buying a retail center that's 50% vacant and they wanna fix it up and try to tenant it. We'll do, uh, we'll do a loan on that. We're, we're working on, you know, new construction. Uh, storage deal. [00:34:37] Joe Ashkouti: Storage. Yes. Storage, [00:34:38] Josh Lloyd: retail, industrial, basically not hospitality. We're, we want that, we want that thing to be up and running and have good numbers behind it with, well, [00:34:46] Joe Ashkouti: yeah. We haven't done much office, but we're not, if somebody's got a value add office deal where they're buying it at pennies on the dollar, you know, we're not, we, we'd look at a deal like that. [00:34:56] Rocky Butani: And what's the typical leverage on deal like that? What, what's the loan to cost and uh, loan to after repair value? [00:35:03] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, it's gonna depend on, office is just such a hard asset class to underwrite today because really you don't know what your leasing activity is gonna be like. You don't know how much ti you're gonna need to have to give, you know, an office user to come into the market and lease from you. [00:35:21] Joe Ashkouti: So. They're really hard to underwrite. We're gonna be extremely conservative on 'em. Probably 50% of cost. [00:35:28] Rocky Butani: And what about the other asset classes like retail or industrial? [00:35:32] Joe Ashkouti: Retail will get more aggressive on, um, seven, we'll go up 70% probably, and then we'll fund some of the build out if it's needed or some of the renovations, probably 80% of that. [00:35:43] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, [00:35:44] Josh Lloyd: and like Joe had mentioned earlier, if it's build dispute, like we did a, we did about 14 mobiles last year for a T-Mobile developer. We can get more aggressive on there too. 'cause there's a clearly defined exit, um, and good experience with them. You know, we'd rather do that all day long than do a $200,000 fix and flip frankly. [00:36:02] Rocky Butani: Nice. All right. Let's talk about valuation. Uh, how, what's your process for valuing a property? Are you doing it in-house or do you require formal appraisals and let's just focus on commercial real estate or, or larger residential deals? I. [00:36:16] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, typically, we'll, we'll run our own underwriting in-house, um, through different softwares that we use, like XI or FMLS or MLS or whatever softwares we have available to us. [00:36:29] Joe Ashkouti: And then we'll come up with what we think the value is and then we'll compare that to whatever. If the appraisal comes back at, sometimes if it's in our backyard and it's a quick close, we don't acquire the appraisal, we'll just get a broker's opinion of value because frankly, we believe the broker who is in the market selling this product knows better what it's worth than an appraiser who maybe isn't in the market. [00:36:51] Joe Ashkouti: Right. Um, so we, we really lean mostly on our internal review and then a broker's opinion of value, and then we compare it to the appraisal. If we get one. [00:37:02] Josh Lloyd: We've developed some really nice relationships with some brokerage firms as well, like Matthews or Marcus Miller Chap down the street from us. And so, um, we can get some of them to really give us some guidance. [00:37:14] Josh Lloyd: And, and, and frankly, funny enough, a lot of them will look at the deals and they like the deals and they're like, Hey, we wanna throw a couple of dollars in this deal, which, that obviously makes us feel more comfortable all the time whenever that happens. So that, that's a big one. [00:37:27] Joe Ashkouti: Then if it's, if it's an asset class that maybe we don't understand a hundred percent. [00:37:31] Joe Ashkouti: I think I spoke to this earlier, but like hospitality, we've got investors and owners in that, in that asset class that will help us underwrite the deals. Um, and we, we have investors that are in the storage ga, uh, that have storage developers. So they'll help us underwrite storage. [00:37:49] Rocky Butani: Nice. And how about site visits? [00:37:51] Rocky Butani: I've, I've seen some videos on social media of, of you guys flying out in a little plane to go visit a property. Yeah. Jo, Josh will fly us [00:37:59] Josh Lloyd: right into the front door. Yeah. Rocky. Yeah. Wherever you, wherever you want me to fly you, I'll take it. Yeah, we, we absolutely. If it's, if it's in the southeast, we're gonna go put eyeballs on it. [00:38:10] Josh Lloyd: If it's a larger deal somewhere else, we're gonna put eyeballs on it. Um, we're gonna send somebody to that. Pretty much every deal we do, we're sending somebody to physically go look at it. Even if it's not someone in our office, if it's a trusted partner or broker, we have a friend that lives in the neighborhood or whatever. [00:38:26] Josh Lloyd: We're, we're looking at every, you know, we're looking at everything I. [00:38:29] Rocky Butani: All right. And then the ones that you personally fly to, what's, what's the, the region, uh, what's the coverage area? Can you, can you fly to, to North Carolina, South Carolina? Well, yeah, [00:38:39] Josh Lloyd: I mean, listen, if it's a cool vacation spot and there's an excuse, we did a deal in Montauk, uh, recently. [00:38:44] Josh Lloyd: I'm going up there at the end of the month, so I'm gonna go go to the shop center and, and check it out. Uh, that's a little far, but yeah, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Southeast, you know, Atlanta obviously. Um, we'll go, we'll go fly and take a look at it for sure. If we need [00:38:57] Rocky Butani: to. Louisiana, I. So how does that work? [00:39:00] Rocky Butani: You fly in there has to be a, a small regional airport, fairly close to the property. Does the, the borrower come and pick you up? [00:39:07] Josh Lloyd: It varies. Yeah. They'll pick us up, but there's a guy up in, uh. Calhoun, Georgia, which is in, it's kind of funny that I flew there, but it's a, it was a 10 minute flight. It's a, with traffic, it could be an hour and a half drive, even though it's not that far. [00:39:20] Josh Lloyd: Uh, but we bounced up there and our borrower, um, great guy, he picked us up. He has, uh, we did a loan on two industrial buildings. Uh, his primary building, he runs, uh, uh, ammunition business. He, he makes gunpowder for ammunition companies. Uh, his secondary. Property that he needed a loan on. Um, he has these old 1960s Paris jets up there and he's selling them. [00:39:42] Josh Lloyd: That's how he's gonna pay us off on that property. So, you know, he was just a good old boy and, um, he picked us up and drove us around and showed us everything. And it, you know, there's really no better way, honestly, to know you're gonna like the deal and getting face to face with your borrower and. [00:39:58] Josh Lloyd: Having them share their passion about the project. You see that, you're like, all right, I, you know, I believe in this guy. I see what he's doing, and I see what it looks like. So, we'll, we'll do that if we have opportunity for sure. [00:40:10] Rocky Butani: Nice. All right. With that, let's take a break and we'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Ross Diversified Insurance Services. [00:40:19] Rocky Butani: All real estate investors and all private mortgage lenders need insurance. More specifically, they need the right insurance partner. For over 35 years, ROS diverse Fight has been the trusted partner for over 3000 property investors and 500 lenders throughout the United States. If you are a real estate investor, ROS diverse fight can help you. [00:40:37] Rocky Butani: Whether you're managing a single rental property or a large portfolio of rentals, and if you are a lender, ROS Deverse Fight can protect you with force Place insurance for when a borrower's policy lapses or with REO insurance in the case of a foreclosure, they offer competitive rates and hassle-free claims assistance. [00:40:56] Rocky Butani: Licensed in all 50 states. Ross Diversified understands the unique challenges of real estate investing and provides customized solutions To safeguard your assets, visit their website, ross diviv.com to learn more and request a quote. That's R-O-S-S-D-I v.com. Please mention that you heard about them from Lender Link and the Private Lending Insights podcast. [00:41:18] Rocky Butani: All right, and we're back with Josh and Joe from Ashkouti. Uh, let's talk about your company. Tell us a little bit about your operation, the number of people, a little bit about the history, and anything else you could share with us. [00:41:31] Josh Lloyd: Yeah. Um, the history is the fun part. I. I guess, um, so Joe, Joe, as you probably can tell from a lot of this podcast, he's got a significant wealth, real estate development. [00:41:41] Josh Lloyd: He's third generation. Been doing this for, for a very long time from different aspects. My background is in technology, so anything to make us efficient, which goes to kind of the size of our company. Um, but we met Joe and I met. At six o'clock in the morning at a gym, or we were out outside, the trainer was late and we were running around the building and started talking to each other, both annoyed at the trainer for not being there on time. [00:42:03] Josh Lloyd: And uh, you know, Joe was telling me what he did and I was telling him, I had just told my last technology company and was lending money. And, you know, from there we developed a great friendship and then eventually a, a business. Um, what makes us unique, I think is. We're a balance sheet lender first. Um, and we used our own capital. [00:42:23] Josh Lloyd: We continue to use our own capital every day, so we're very hands-on with, with everything from origination through servicing in-house. And, um, we grew the business through friends, uh, well really through family first. Um, tested what we're doing through friends after that. And then it's all sort of been word of mouth. [00:42:42] Josh Lloyd: And only recently actually. We've started to do some marketing to expand outside of our own sort of friend and family network to continue to to, to grow the business. Um, Joe kinda add on to that. [00:42:54] Joe Ashkouti: Uh, yeah, so I started with a rebuying mortgage backed security. So I started analyzing risk and then I got into development and we were building a lot of grocery anchor shopping centers. [00:43:07] Joe Ashkouti: So out of analyzing risk into taking risk. Now back to analyzing risk and doing lending again, um, which is a lot easier than development. Um, and like Josh said, with his technology background, you know, we've been able to grow the business with a small team. We've got my brother Chris, who is the head of originations, and he's got. [00:43:30] Joe Ashkouti: Three originators that work under 'em. Um, and they analyze and look at every deal. We, we, Josh and I service the loans, um, handle the books. And we, uh, we've got a closing, um, title girl Heather, who is, uh, kind of the glue that holds everything together. And, uh, she's got a wealth of knowledge in the industry and, and title work. [00:43:51] Joe Ashkouti: So she helps a lot. But that, that's the team. It's like six or seven of us. Yeah, the cool [00:43:57] Josh Lloyd: thing, the cool thing that's happened, just, you know, timing being what it was when we got into this space back in 2019, um, a few things have happened that really have helped us to be able to stay lean. Um, one of which is sort of standardization of the docs. [00:44:11] Josh Lloyd: Companies like, you know, like in Docs and Go Docs and these guys, um, they help us to be able to really scale, um, with, with Heather being in here, obviously to help manage that process. And lately, you know, over the last two years we've taken a. A deep dive and, and, and putting a, a good amount of money and, and time into ai. [00:44:30] Josh Lloyd: Uh, and, you know, we, we think over the, the long term, um, it's gonna help us to be able to scale the business, to handle more leads, close more deals, service them and and so forth. So we're, you know, we're really long on the business and, and obviously long on the technology side to help us scale the business. [00:44:47] Rocky Butani: Nice. And tell us about the capital, how, how's your capital structure work and um, um, what's, you know, what's your model essentially when it comes to capital and, and recapitalizing? [00:45:00] Josh Lloyd: Well, we'll take anybody's capital, not just kidding. Um, so, you know, I mentioned earlier we. You know, we started with just our, our capital. [00:45:09] Josh Lloyd: And so the way our business model works effectively is, um, we have retail investors, high net worth individuals. They must be accredited investors. Helped us set up our fund back in 2019. Um, and we use a, an instrument called a borrower payment dependent note, or A-A-B-P-D-N, which effectively is a promissory note that allows us to fractionalize the loans, um, and put the borrowers into those loans. [00:45:32] Josh Lloyd: So, you know, the way our capital cost works is we'll take whatever the loan amount is and typically we're making a, you know, two and a half, 3% spread. What we're servicing the loan at and what we're paying out to our investors. Um, effectively we've got about, you know, $200 million out, like I said, right about, uh, these days. [00:45:52] Josh Lloyd: And, um, you know, just growing the business sort of organically that way. We have no Deb on the books at this time. [00:45:58] Rocky Butani: And are you typically putting your own money into every deal? [00:46:03] Joe Ashkouti: We co-invest in in every single loan. We, I mean, we started the business with just our own capital to put it to work. And then it was really a litmus test. [00:46:11] Joe Ashkouti: We did it for about a year, year and a half, and realized, wow, this is working. Let's bring in some, let's bring in some family. They wanna invest alongside us. And then we opened it up, um, to outside investors. And really the growth has just been word of mouth. We've never missed a payment to an investor. [00:46:27] Joe Ashkouti: Even if a deal goes south, we, uh, we just deal with it. We pay. We pay, uh, interest current and then we, uh, deal with getting our hands around the property if we need to and selling it, reimbursing ourselves. [00:46:42] Rocky Butani: Yeah. Nice. All right, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about, uh, geography. Uh, what are your, some of your favorite states to London, [00:46:49] Joe Ashkouti: Atlanta, [00:46:50] Josh Lloyd: Georgia? [00:46:53] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, I have a, I have a map over my head. I can show it to you more clearly if you wanna see it, but if it's non-judicial, we love it. If it's judicial, we'll do it, but not love it as much. [00:47:03] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah. But we, we like, I mean we, we lend a lot in Atlanta, a lot in Florida, um, Texas. North Carolina, South Carolina, [00:47:13] Josh Lloyd: Tennessee. [00:47:14] Josh Lloyd: Well, I The South Tennessee. [00:47:15] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah. [00:47:16] Josh Lloyd: Texas. We [00:47:16] Joe Ashkouti: like a lot though, for sure, Joe said. And then we've done, we've done a lot of loans in like high end vacation areas like Aspen, uh, the Hamptons, uh uh, where? Um, salt Lake City. Deer. Deer Valley, park City. Yeah. [00:47:35] Rocky Butani: Interesting. And, um, well, speaking of Park City, uh, Utah has a lot of regulations. [00:47:42] Rocky Butani: Um, uh, how about lending in Western states? Is that something you're able to do? Do you have to have a, a local broker involved in those deals? [00:47:51] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We buy, buy whatever the local laws are as far as broker licensing and 80% of our [00:47:57] Joe Ashkouti: deals. Typically come from brokers. So we, we've got a really strong broker network. [00:48:03] Joe Ashkouti: Um, we take care of our brokers too. [00:48:07] Rocky Butani: Nice. And, uh, hopefully they [00:48:08] Joe Ashkouti: like working with us. [00:48:10] Rocky Butani: I'm sure they do. Um, are there any particular, uh, regions that you avoid? Uh, like let's say the New York metro area? [00:48:18] Joe Ashkouti: Um, New York, California, Alaska, and the Dakotas. Yeah. Just 'cause it's, I mean, New York and California is so. [00:48:26] Joe Ashkouti: Borrower friendly on their, on their laws. It's, we don't want to get into a situation where, you know, we get, we get in business with a bad actor and next thing you know, it's been seven years and we still can't get to the real estate or get our money. We've heard too many horror stories. [00:48:43] Rocky Butani: Sure, makes sense. [00:48:45] Rocky Butani: Um, let's talk about Georgia a little bit. Um, within Georgia, there's obviously at Atlanta Metro, do you consider properties in other parts of Georgia, outside of Atlanta? [00:48:56] Josh Lloyd: Yeah, for sure. Savannah is a great area. It's a great market. We've done a bunch of stuff there. Augusta, obviously the masters is there. [00:49:03] Josh Lloyd: Um, outside of Augusta, there's a couple little pockets like Aiken and Evans and, and in Atlanta everything's called Atlanta Metro, but it. You know, if you'd really take a deep dive into it, there's a million little suburbs all over the place. And so we've got dealer right now that we're working in the pipeline in Aqua, um, Alpharetta, Roswell, [00:49:22] Joe Ashkouti: flowered Branch, um, really all over the place. [00:49:25] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah. Georgia's got the most counties of any state. So, and, and Georgia grows like this. I mean, Atlanta's like, it grows outward. There's nothing keeping it, you know, there's no body of water or anything, so, we'll, we'll grow with it. And we, we like going to the suburbs and doing deals outside of Atlanta. [00:49:44] Joe Ashkouti: 'cause they're all, there's so many growing markets in little pockets that we like to invest in. [00:49:51] Rocky Butani: Are there any challenges within Georgia in terms of uni, municipalities that you have to deal with that have, that might have certain regulations that others don't? [00:50:00] Joe Ashkouti: Uh, municipalities are all a pain in the butt. [00:50:03] Joe Ashkouti: I don't think there's one that's easy to deal with, but that's why I like the lending side because we don't typically have to deal with them. Somebody else, the developer or whoever the property owner is, has to deal with it and they, by the time they bring it to us, it's already bowed up and, and. It's a, you know, nicely presented to us with everything done. [00:50:23] Joe Ashkouti: Um, but yes, um, to answer your question, if we have to. It is tough dealing with a lot of these municipalities. It's just inefficient takes forever. You think you're gonna get permits or something done, something else pops up, there's a stream you gotta go through a stream buffer bearing. I mean, all kinds of stuff comes up as, uh, that the developer has to work through. [00:50:44] Rocky Butani: And what about foreclosing in Georgia? If you have to take back a property, is it fairly easy to do? [00:50:50] Joe Ashkouti: Yeah, it's a non-judicial state, so you, you have to advertise for 30 days and then on the following Tuesday, the next month you can pull closer. It's, it, it's usually a 60 day process. Yeah. [00:51:01] Josh Lloyd: Tennessee's the same way. [00:51:03] Josh Lloyd: You know, so we like the taxes is similar. Um, we're, we'll, that's why we like, we'll, we'll get a little more aggressive in Georgia and some of these other states that are like that. Florida's a huge pain. We understand the value we're, you know, what we're lending on, and we take that into account when we underwrite. [00:51:21] Rocky Butani: All right, sounds good. Alright, gentlemen, that's all I had on my list. Was there anything else that you wanted to add? [00:51:27] Joe Ashkouti: If you're an, if you're an investor looking to invest in loans, give us a call. We, we, Josh, and I would love to talk to you. If you're a borrower and you're looking for money, reach out to us. [00:51:36] Joe Ashkouti: We'll, we'll, you know, we, we answer emails and phone calls every hour on the hour, so we'll get back to you very quickly with an answer. [00:51:44] Rocky Butani: All right, gentlemen. Thanks for your time. We'll see you soon. Thank you. And that's a wrap for this episode of Private Lending Insights. Ydi is listed on private lender link.com. [00:51:54] Rocky Butani: They've been on there for over five years. I'll put a link to their profile in the description. You can also find them by searching on the site. They're listed in most states in the South, southeast, Midwest, northeast. Check out their profile to learn more about their guidelines and find their contact information. [00:52:12] Rocky Butani: You can call them, send 'em a short email form or a long loan request form. When you reach out, please be sure to tell 'em that you heard about them from Lender Link and the Private Lending Insights podcast. I hope you found this episode to be insightful. Thank you for tuning in and listening all the way to the end.