Episode 476: Jake Rome on Leverage, Underwriting, and the Future of Real Estate Financing: How Backflip Is Revolutionizing Fix & Flip Lending

Straight Up Chicago Investor · Sep 3, 2026 · 1h

Jake Rome, co-founder of Backflip, joins us to share the wild journey from institutional real estate private equity to building a vertically integrated lending platform for fix-and-flip investors! Jake breaks down the return-on-equity math that makes single-family flips so powerful, then digs into the leverage and risk decisions that separate successful investors from those who blow up their portfolios. He explains why Backflip decided to service and securitize its own loans, what red flags show up in underwriting (wholesaler markups, seller concessions), and how Chicago's Cook County…