Sept. Building Opportunity

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The Journal of the American Association of Private Lenders Volume 3 - Issue 8

Building Opportunity - Discover new and innovative ways to open up opportunity in your business.

Private Lending - Here We Go Again - Matt Burk Community Meets Destiny - Larry Muck

Successful Online Marketing - Scott Corebett

Private Lending – It’s about more than money.

913-888-1250

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AAPLonline.com

C on te n ts : In This Issue: Viewpoint Community Meets Destiny - Larry Muck (pg.3)

busIness Governance - What is it ?

- Matt Burk (pg.26)

Industry

Education is Crucial to Private Lending

P.L. Saves Family Finances - Win-Win

- David Owen (pg.30)

- Carl Fischer (pg.6)

Working Hard vs. Working Smart

Crowdfunding’s Latest Invasion: Real Esate

- Paul Yevzikov (pg.34)

- David Drake (pg.9)

Private Lending - Here We Go Again - Matt Burk (pg.13)

Membership 2013 Membership Directory - Board of Advisors and Founders - Active Lender Directory - Member Service Provider Directory

M a r k e ti n g Successful Online Marketing

(pg.39-45)

- Scott Corbett (pg.20)

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AAPL V ie wp o in t : Community meets destiny - Larry Muck

What in the world is happening?

Just when I thought it was safe to come outside, I went to Washington DC where we listened to a gifted researcher with the Heritage Foundation discuss the unrelenting growth of the Federal Debt Bubble. She truly captured the impact of entitlement programs and the juggernaut that they represent. The seeming unwillingness for us as a country to gather the political will-power to solve the issues that are coming at us like a freight train is particularly unnerving.

I asked her if she thought we had reached the tipping point in this country where the entitled had developed sufficient mass to over-power those that believed in personal responsibility and community accountability. Her answer was not one of great hope.

This isn’t news to any of us, but occasionally it helps to have someone pick our head up out the

sand and shake it a little. Ultimately, we generally choose to go back to our day-to-day lives and face issues that are right in front of us. We’re left wondering why “they” don’t do something?

I have noticed lately that the conversations swirling around seem to be focused on where we are headed as an industry and as a country, but more importantly, where do our own destinies lie.

Although we all have opinions, none of us really knows what the future holds.

At our core most of us would admit to having a desire to leave a positive impact on the lives of others. In some, that desire is buried deep inside and sublimated to the need for personal gain.

Others recognize that by continuing to do the right thing we incrementally improve the communities that we touch, and that really defines where the rubber meets the road.

As private lenders we impact communities wherever we supply capital. It is essential that we now

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come to grips with this, because in so doing, we have identified the opportunity for future growth.

Today many forces are at work that gives private lenders this unprecedented opportunity: • Community banking is in its death throes. We have gone from more than 14,000 community banks in 1984 to less than 7,500 today. While we may have more banking offices, the consolidation of the banking industry has diminished local decision authority to a point that is almost non-existent.

Community banks at one time exerted considerable leadership within their respective communities. While vestiges of their leadership still remain, it is no longer the driving force.

Banks were chartered to gather local deposits from local people who considered those funds essentially risk free because of governmental support. But as interstate banking opened the flood gates of consolidation and centralized decision making, the ability to be creative in solving local issues diminished.

I am intentionally ignoring the argument that creating efficient capital markets was necessary; that is for a different day.

Investor confidence is either misplaced or • non-existent.

If you currently hold a long position in the bond market or the stock market, you need to have sophisticated strategies in place to weather the inevitable melt down. We can’t

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escape the financial situation our country is in without significant dislocation. We just do not have the political will to do so.

On behalf of our founders: Tim Bricker, Anthony Geraci, Wallace Groves and Jack Rollins

• The financial crisis of 2007/08 continues to reverberate through our economy. Poor mortgage underwriting and servicing created a foreclosure boom. The fragmentation of the CMBS pools and the severe tightening of traditional underwriting practices have created a huge financing need across our nation.

And our Board of Advisors: Josh Fischer, David Owen, David Williams, Bill Worsley, Mike Wrenn, and Robert Wallace

How does this all work together? It is up to private lenders to gather private capital and meet community needs no longer being met by the banking system. It is through meeting those community needs, and taking an activist role in re-building neighborhoods, that private lenders seize the high ground and replace the territory abandoned by traditional capital sources.

We’ll talk soon.

Larry Muck Executive Director

We say thank you for your continued support. I look forward to building this association with you and for you.

In my opinion, it is our destiny as an industry and strongly independent entrepreneurs to embrace the American spirit and provide the leadership so badly needed across our country. We can continue to work in what some would call the shadow banking system, but really, it accrues to all of our benefit to take an activist role.

In this publication you will find discussions of our annual association conference. I want you to know how important it is for us to gather together as a body and build those bridges across our community of lenders that will create a balancing of capital flows in this space – sharing deals with each other and efficiently allocating investor funds by the development of trusted relationships.

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If you are interested in becoming an AAPL Partner please contact Larry Muck at

913-888-1250 or lmuck@aaplonline.com or visit www.aaplonline.com

I n dus tr y : Private Lending saves family finances - Carl Fischer

Sam and Barb both work, have two girls ages

seven and nine, own their home worth $225,000 and have a mortgage on their primary residence owing approximately $130,000. Between the both of them they had 12 credit cards with a total balance of $50,000 at an average interest rate of 25%. The credit cards started out with teaser rates and 0% balance transfers for a fixed period, but ended up at the high rates.

The minimum payment for the credit cards averaged $800.00 per month, which did not even cover the interest. Each month they were falling deeper into debt (approximately $250) and had less money to live. They saw their financial future spiraling downward in dire peril.

They tried to get a bank home equity loan or 2nd mortgage to pay off the credit cards but their credit score was now low and the income to debt ratio was unacceptable, even though they had equity in their home.

They had a friend, Jim, who had talked about how he used his self-directed IRA to lend money. Sam

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and Barb went to see him to find out if he could help.

They explained their situation to Jim. Jim told them that with the equity in their home he would lend them the money at 12% and one point origination fee to pay off their credit cards, thus improving their credit score so they could refinance with the bank in 6 to 18 months. They borrowed $50,000, paid off all their credit cards and made interest only payments to Jim in the amount of $500.00 per month. The loan/2nd mortgage was completed in less than a week and reduced their interest payments by more than 50%, consequently increasing their monthly cash flow by more than $300.00 per month.

In addition, they had stopped the downward spiral and were able to start saving as opposed to incurring more debt each month. Sam and Barb were thankful for the advice and appreciated the loan/2nd mortgage.

A year to the date that they had talked to Jim, Sam and Barb were able to secure a 2nd mortgage bank loan at 8% and paid Jim back. In addition, they had a reduction in auto and home insurance because of their 730+ credit score. The interest was now tax deductible as well, which was an added bonus to their finances.

Sam and Barb now use one credit card each, pay it off every month, and have opened IRA’s for themselves, as well as Coverdell Education Savings Accounts for their two daughters. Sam and Barb recognize they are simple people and both acknowledge they do not know much about stocks and bonds, but they do know people who could be helped like they were. They have vowed to “pay it forward” for two reasons: To help others and to help themselves.

Sam and Barb were happy to reduce their interest rate from 25% to 12% and ultimately to 8%, in addition to making it tax deductible. They are now able to save for their retirement and their daughter’s college. Jim was content making 12+ % return on his money, tax free in his Roth IRA, with a secured loan and mortgage. He knew of friends making less than half that in CD’s. The loan officer at the bank was happy to help with the second loan when the credit score and the debt to income ratio improved. I assume the credit card company was happy to be paid off without suing or charge-offs. It seems everybody wins and it was possible because of the self-directed IRA. For questions or more details or to republish contact Carl Fischer 866-559-4430 CAMA Self-Directed IRA, LLC CamaPlan www.camaplan.com info@camaplan.com

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Contribute Content AAPL is always looking for writers with interesting and relevant viewpoints. If you have an article you would like to see in Private Lender contact us! Authors for AAPL receive a combination of free advertising and notoriety from being published.

Contact Dan Porrevecchio to submit an article: dan@nreinsurance.com

Crowdfunding’s latest invasion: real estate - David Drake

Crowdfunding is rapidly changing the real es-

tate investment market, offering developers new ways to finance projects, allowing small investors a way in, and gives the socially conscious an avenue to support their local communities and local farms.

Here is a rundown of the real estate crowdfunding firms I think will have the biggest impact.

(Full disclosure: I have advised Primarq (number seven) on its secondary market strategy, where investors can sell their shares without having to liquidate the actual properties.)

1. Fundrise –The company lets people invest in their local communities, allowing them to earn

profits while becoming socially involved. Since its August launch it has raised $575,000 for two projects in Washington, DC such as a food market and the rehabilitation of a closed library into an apartment building with retail space.

2. Realty Mogul – Launched last month, this firm

already has funded two deals (worth about $200,000) while raising $500,000 in seed money. Accredited investors pool money to buy shares of pre-vetted investment properties for as little as $5,000. It was incubated by Microsoft Techstars and won top awards in pitch competitions.

3.

RealtyShares– This platform went on beta launch in November. It claims 289 investors intending to invest $1.5 million. As little as $500 can buy shares

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in commercial real estate, apartment buildings, and homes. A team of Berkeley students trained in finance, engineering, law, business and media studies leads this platform.

4. Fquare – The firm lets you invest in pre-vetted

farmland for as little as $5,000. Farmers sell their land for 3-6 percent annual interest on 5-20 year leasebacks. Once the lease expires investors sell the land and share the profits. There is also a program to rent farm. Instead of paying rent, the farmers deliver their harvest to food banks.

5. Collaperty – The first real estate crowdfunding

network is still little more than social. It lists real estate opportunities and connects investors. It currently has 79 members collaborating on 14 real estate deals and is raising $22,487,456 in equity.

6. Prodigy Network – This platform for Class A real

estate investments serves the United States and Latin America. It is crowdfunding for various projects in New York and Bogota. Its investors have put $171.8 million into a skyscraper that will be Colombia’s tallest building. Prodigy has produced $8 billion in sales since its 2003 launch.

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. Primarq – The NASDAQ of residential real estate equity has developed a platform where investors help consumers buy homes and homeowners can monetize the value of their homes. It also offers a secondary market where investors can sell their shares without having to sell the actual properties.

8. Globerex – Still in beta, Globerex is focused

exclusively on commercial real estate deals between $500,000 and $50 million. Users can create and track deals involving their own investors or those in the Globerex community.

9. CrowdMason – Also in beta testing, Crowd-

Mason is very basic, letting members identify and monitor commercial real estate deals. Sponsors will be required to make significant investments of their own equity.

10. iFunding – This firm chooses real estate proj-

ects for you and shares the profits. For a $1,000 minimum, members can buy into any piece of the site’s portfolio of multi-family, hospitality, office, and residential properties. Each project is a distinct limited partnership that pays dividends in as little as six months.

About The Soho Loft (www.thesoholoft.com) The Soho Loft Capital Creation Events (“TSL”) is a corporate strategy and advisory services company specializing in financial innovation and economic sustainability. Through its global events and media platform it advances diligent mainstream and alternative investing for startup entrepreneurs, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. TSL provides visionary leadership and relevant education in the areas of capital formation, crowdfunding, angel networking, non-conventional funding, eb5 green card programs, micro-finance, venture capital, private equity and hedge funds.

TSL is a subsidiary of LDJ Capital based in New York USA. Its founder and Chairman, David Drake, is a founding member of Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CFIRA) and of Crowdfunding Professional Association (CFPA). He played a key role in the passing of the JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act) in the United States. His advocacy for financial innovation has taken him to the global stage when he joined the U.S Commerce Department’s delegation to Brussels and Rome at the Transat-

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lantic Economic Forum for SME Policy last July 2012 where he met with European ministers and national legislators. He is an international speaker and prolific writer on these topics.

Overall, TSL’s mission is to bring global awareness and develop infrastruc-ture to facilitate inno-vative capital formation and access and spur job creation. As such, The Soho Loft operates as the leading global corporate strategy advisor on financial and economic policcy.

Formation. Mr. Drake is an expert and a thought leader on the USA JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Start-Ups Act) including Reg A+, Reg D 506, Crowdfunding Capital and Onramp IPO. He is a founder and former executive board member of the Crowdfund Intermediary Regulatory Advocates (CFIRA) and of the leading global trade association Crowdfunding Professional Association (CfPA). He was part of the U.S. Commerce department delegation as the JOBS Act expert at the US and European Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC) forum last July 2012 in Rome and Brussels where he met with European Ministers and national legislators. He writes extensively on these topics and his articles and editorials are published by leading industry websites such as forbes.com, pehub.com, equities.com, cfira.org, crowdsourcing.org, sme-world.com and loftfi.com to name a few.

The article also appeared in Forbes with the same title

David Drake is the founder and Chairman of LDJ Capital in New York City and of The Soho Loft Capital Creation Event Series (“TSL”) covering the Private Company Marketplace and Capital

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Private Lending – Here we go again - Matt Burk

After 11 days on the road, I landed back in

Portland. Four cities, five plane flights, two conferences, three client meals/outings, five dinners with my wife, multiple other business meetings, and more museum visits with the family than I can recount. All in all it was a great trip, combining business with our family summer vacation, not to mention the great history and learning in Washington DC. The weather cooperated beautifully. I know it can be suffocating on the East Coast in July, but we had extremely mild and pleasant conditions the entire time, which made the trip that much better.

In the earlier part of the trip I attended the AAPL Conference in Alexandria Virginia for a couple of days and met several private lenders,

note buyers, and other people engaging in this industry in one form or another. I had dinner at the Palm in DC with a private lender (and now friend). We talked all evening about various aspects of this business – underwriting philosophies, the taking on and management of credit risk, how to finance the private loans we make, different capital structures and their relative strengths and weaknesses, and how to build a private lending business for the long haul. The more I travel and the more private lenders I meet, the more I realize that no matter the location, we all have many of the same challenges, opportunities, hopes, dreams, and fears.

What I believe is the single most challenging aspect of this business compared to many other

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businesses is that private lenders are taking on credit risk. That is, we lend money to people, secured by real property, and hope and expect to get repaid both the principal and some interest.

In theory, and to a greater or lesser degree, reality, depending on fluctuating market conditions, the collateral protects the investment. This is where I see the biggest variance from one lender to another – the level of risk they are willing to accept, knowingly or unknowingly.

Different people are willing to take different levels of risk and some are willing to accept far more than they even know, or care to admit. The private lending field is exploding around the United States and many new people have come into the business in the years since the bottom fell out of the market and crushed other players, many of which had been around for decades. I see a lot of people today underwriting deals the way they were underwritten in 2005 and 2006,

but the lessons of history are lost on those who had to experience the pain. For many of these newer people, it will take a market downturn for them to understand the real risks they are now taking. This all makes for an extremely fragmented market with wide fluctuations in price and terms for similar deals.

To gain a competitive advantage, private lenders feel compelled to stretch underwriting guidelines, which can seem like the only way to differentiate oneself from the legions of small competitors in any given market. For some period of time, this decision seems justified because market momentum masks the true risks being taken. There will come a point where those who stretched the furthest will get exposed and they will experience some serious pain. It is very hard to predict when that will happen but it is only a matter of time.

These dynamics have been at play for as long as I can remember in this business. They are at play today. I have witnessed several cycles of loosening of guidelines followed by severe pain.

The lack of a secondary market for small balance loans and the regulatory burdens facing the banks almost certainly means that private lending is going to grow for the foreseeable future.

There is a ton of private capital looking for ways to earn income and this fact also attracts a lot of people to this field. In this environment, it is very hard for investors to be able to distinguish those who are taking on exorbitant risk from those who are lending more conservatively. The JOBS Act impact on general solicitation and advertising has yet to hit but is also coming. It is a wild and woolly market in the private lending business, as usual, and the market takes no prisoners. I will be very interested to see how the playing field shapes up over the next few years.

Matt Burk is CEO of Fairway America, a boutique real estate finance advisory and investment firm providing strategic business planning services nationwide to select private money lenders around the structure, architecture, and administration of proprietary mortgage pool funds. He is the founder of Fairway America who has funded more than $200,000,000 in private money trust deed investments with both individual trust deed investors and in six proprietary mortgage pool funds. He is also the Chief Investment Officer and Manager of Fairway America Fund VI, LLC, a nationwide real estate based mortgage pool fund.

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Private lending and modern banking - Vincent Spreuwenberg

Over the last couple of years private lend-

ing has become more prominent. You see it in increased media coverage and assets employed in the business. Even the creation of AAPL and similar organizations are paving a way for themselves in mainstream culture. History tells us that when something gains sufficient social momentum government attention is unavoidable.

If the current trajectory continues the government’s peaked interest may not be too far away.

Commercial banking and private lending seem closely related so on the surface similar regulation would seem logical. As a first step, we are going to take a closer look at how private lending and commercial banking are related.

The way the private money-to-bank loan transition generally works is as follows: Somebody gets a loan from a private lender and after a year or so obtains bank financing and uses those proceeds to pay off the private loan – one pool of money seamlessly turns into another one.

When we take a peek under the hood, however, it quickly becomes clear that traditional bank finance is NOT an extension of private lending, and in some ways is almost the opposite.

Let us begin by referencing a quick background on banking: Around 2000 BC a number of societies used forerunners of banks to deposit their gold and silver. Banks in those days, frequently associated with religious institutions, would charge significant safekeeping fees – sometimes up to 1/6th of the value of the gold deposited. Over time some of these safe keepers would lend out the deposited

gold to people in the community to buy for example seedgrain. Usually the loans were tied in to harvest cycles so they were short in duration. The interest paid on gold borrowed was payable in grains or whatever the farmer would cultivate. As the financial system evolved, interest became payable in gold rather than goods with a limited shelf life.

In the middle ages gold – and silver to a lesser extent – were used as money. In the late 1500’s and 1600’s goldsmiths started to provide safe keeping services for their customers. A customer would give gold to the goldsmith and receive a certificate in return. In relatively short order people started to use these certificates as payment rather than the actual gold the certificates represented. (As an aside, the goldsmith would charge the customer somewhere between 1 and 2% per year for the safekeeping services).

Goldsmiths around Europe quickly noticed that most customers did not ask for their gold back but were happy to use the certificates as payment. In order to maximize profits goldsmiths then started to make up gold certificates which in effect were not backed by gold and lend them out. That allowed them to collect interest on money they lent out but didn’t own the gold which was supposed to back it. On occasion more gold certificates were redeemed than there was gold in the safe and the goldsmith went bankrupt, leaving people who had gold certificates holding the bag.

Modern (commercial) banking is quite similar,

with the exception that currency is no longer backed by anything physical. Bank loans, to a large extent, do not transfer money from savers to lenders. Instead they create money out of thin air, then proceed to collect interest and fees on it - naturally.

When a bank makes a loan it creates money out of

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nothing: After you pay the bank for underwriting a loan, and they have decided that you’re worthy of a loan they simply increase the size of your checking account – which is a liability for the bank - (no, there is no transfer from some kind of mysterious account owned by the bank where all the savings people have entrusted to the bank, or where the bank’s own capital sits; they simply change your account balance). No money is transferred from anywhere; your account balance is simply changed.) At the same time on the other side of the banks’ balance sheet they now list a loan as an asset. Voila, money was created out of thin air by making a loan.

What most people think banks do – connecting savers to borrowers - is largely irrelevant and usually not true.

If you or I were to use our laser printer to “create money” it would be called counterfeiting and, if caught, we’d be looking at jail time. (Title 18, Section 471 of the United States Code). As a banker, the more money you “create” and receive interest on, the bigger your bonus. Actually, you are a pillar of the establishment! 1984: Some people are truly more equal than others.

Private lending on the other hand works very differently. Private lending actually transfers money from people who have saved to people who need to borrow money. (In economic terms S=I).

That may seem the same as what a commercial bank like Citibank or JPM Chase does but the effect on how much money is in circulation is quite different. Banks have to only keep a small reserve of 10% against their loans.

Through financial engineering though most of them manage to keep a margin of around 6% or so; that means that the banking system can lend somewhere between 10 and 16 times more than they have in capital. Private lenders would like to be able to do that.

The most important difference between com-

mercial lending and private lending is the impact on the amount of money in circulation. The amount of money in circulation increases when a commercial bank makes a loan. However, when a private lender makes a loan, the amount of money in circulation remains the same. The

only thing that has changed is the person who controls a particular pool of money. The importance of this difference cannot be overstated and has numerous consequences.

In private lending the number of dollars that exists before or after borrowing (and repaying money) is the same, but in commercial banking the number of dollars has to increase by the amount of interest paid. Although the rates charged in private lending are generally higher than those in commercial lending the total amount of interest paid over the life of the loan is frequently a multiple of the principal borrowed – something which private lenders can only dream of.

As long as private lending remains small relative to loans made by commercial banks, and as long as private lending does not generate too many headlines, regulation is likely to remain limited to underwriting and securities.

As long as the total amount of interest earned by the private lending world does not become a threat to the fractional reserve, commercial banking consortium the call for increased legislation is likely to remain subdued. If private lending stays on the current trajectory it is on, then do not be surprised that there will be calls for bank-sponsored legislation. Commercial banks will not act kindly to an industry that effectively takes away their license to print profits.

It is important for the private lending industry to be educated and ready to understand and respond to the arguments, which almost certainly will come its way.

Vincent Spreuwenberg is an independent financial services professional. He lives in the greater New York City area. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking http://www.econ.tcu.edu/quinn/finhist/readings/goldsmiths.pdf

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M ar k e tin g : The 5 crucial components of a successful online marketing campaign

- Scott Corbett

No single approach to marketing is a silver

bullet, but it’s no surprise that business owners are pulling money away from traditional media channels like print and radio and redirecting these dollars online. They know that having a solid online marketing campaign that integrates elements such as social media, search engines, email, and display ads will often result in new clients or customers while positioning themselves as market leaders.

But be careful… It’s easy to waste money with ineffective online ad campaigns. The purpose of the framework below is to get you to think holistically about these campaigns so that they further your brand and improve your bottom line.

Focus on these five things Here’s a short list of the five key components to an online marketing campaign:

1. Goal-setting 2. Targeting

3. Messaging 4. Lead generation & follow up 5. Tracking I’ll go into each of them in some detail, but remember that they work together synergistically, as parts of a whole.

Goal Setting I often hear prospective clients ask, “Can you get us on Facebook?” or “Can you get us on the first page of Google” or “Can you re-do our website?”

These questions usually come from a business owner or marketing manager who is frustrated at the company’s pace of growth. They correctly see social media, search engines, and their website as good tools for growth but just don’t know quite how it’s all going to work.

Maybe you’ve heard that you “need to be on Facebook” or “should be emailing more” and feel some anxiety that you’re missing out on opportunities, and that’s understandable. There may

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be a better way to approach online marketing though…

Maybe you’ve heard that you “need to be on Facebook” or “should be emailing more” and feel some anxiety that you’re missing out on opportunities…

Instead of asking whether you should be on Facebook, get as clear as possible about your marketing goals. Is it to bring in 5 new accounts a month? Get 20% more referrals from existing partners? Increase revenue-per-customer 35% over 12 months by promoting add-on services?

Once your goals are clear, the way forward is easier to map out.

Targeting your audience Once your goals are in place, it’s likely that you’ll need to sharpen your focus on specific types of prospects in order to invest marketing resources wisely. In our company, we talk a lot about the “customer avatar,” which is a way of creating a profile of an ideal customer for a particular company or campaign.

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Where do they live? Shop? What book is on their nightstand? Do their children go to public or private schools? What charities do they support?

Romney or Obama? Jewish, Catholic, Baptist?

What’s on their TiVo? iPhone or Android? Manhattan or Montana? What do they drive? What do they invest in?...

This publication is created to provide information to the private lending industry. The American Association of Private Lenders is not engaged in rendering legal, financial, accounting, tax or other professional service. The views expressed herein may not be those of AAPL. No part of this publication may be duplicated in any way without the explicit written authorization of AAPL.

And once you have a better picture of the surface aspects of their lives, consider deeper questions:

COPYRIGHT © 2012 American Association of Private Lenders.

For example, you might ask questions like these about your clients:

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…if you can articulate your customer’s problems better than they can, they’re much more likely to believe that you also have the answers.

What are their deepest fears? What keeps them awake at night? What are their hopes for their own lives and possibly for their children or parents? What problems are they having right now that are bad enough to drive them to seek help?

At the end of this process, you should end up with a much richer understanding of your customer or client, and if you do, you’ll be able to speak to their concerns and needs in words that feel like their own, maybe even better than they can. I believe that if you can articulate your customer’s problems as well or better than they can, they’re much more likely to believe that you also have the answers.

And that leads us to…

Messaging Most businesses we work with struggle with their messaging. It’s not easy distilling your values, service offerings, and your unique qualities into a concise, clear, and compelling set of messages.

But hang on a second…

Maybe we’re starting from the wrong place.

Go back to that customer avatar we were talking about and try to see things from their point of view. What are they looking for? Wondering about? Skeptical of?

How can your messaging be re-considered as a response to the thoughts and questions that are already running through your customers’ minds?

From that perspective, your mission at least gets clearer.

Consider an example of a “We Buy Houses” company in Philadelphia. Their target customer is someone who wants to sell a property quickly with a minimum of hassle and paperwork. Often these customers are burned-out landlords, outof-state heirs to an estate, or homeowners who have tried and failed to sell a property using a real estate agent. (Each type is worthy of its own avatar, by the way.) Knowing that each of these avatars or types is afraid of being saddled with a property and the related expenses and liabilities, and each wants out as quickly and painlessly as possible, what could their message be?

If you’re asking questions like these, you’re much more likely to get good answers.

Lead Generation & Follow Up Once you nail down your goals, targeting, and messaging, you’re going to start attracting customers. If you’re smart, you’ll have a variety of

ways for prospects to engage with you once they find you, including your phone number and email, a contact form and chat box, and social media links… because different people prefer different means of communication.

Once you’re set up to capture leads, what’s next?

As soon as your prospect takes action by emailing, calling, or filling out a form, they should get an immediate response. These trails can grow cold very, very quickly. Even if you answer the phone or respond to an email immediately, however, only a percentage of your leads will convert on the spot to customers. What you do next can make a huge difference in your business.

Never forget that although your prospects want their problems solved, they’re afraid of making a mistake, they’re confused about their options, and they’re generally overwhelmed and distracted by life’s demands.

Many businesses do little or nothing after getting a lead and making initial contact. That’s not good. We’ve all heard the statistics on the number of “touches” or exposures it takes to move a prospect to a customer, and the principle is true even if they sought you out.

Never forget that although your prospects want their problems solved, they’re afraid of making a mistake, they’re confused about their options, and they’re generally overwhelmed and distracted by life’s demands. In other words, they freeze.

They forget. They dilly-dally. They lapse into apathy. They move on.

That’s why it’s critically important to keep that problem of theirs – and your solution to it – in front of your prospect. There are lots of good

ways to do that, but my favorites are emails (both custom emails and automated ones that are programmed into your CRM and triggered by certain actions), phone calls at specified intervals, and “retargeting” ad campaigns that display ads that “follow you around” the web to people who visit certain pages of your website.

Your existing customers are often a significant, untapped source of revenue and referrals. How could you do a better job staying connected to them? Making them offers? Expressing your appreciation of them? The more you keep in touch with them, the more likely they are to do more business with you and refer others to you.

Tracking The last piece of the puzzle is tracking, and it’s the section of this article that you’re most likely to skip over. Why? Because it’s math. Math is hard.

Here are my quick views on tracking, and I’ll try to keep the math simple.

Marketing is an investment in future business.

This investment has a return, positive or negative, in both tangible (revenue, accounts…) and intangible (position, reach, influence, goodwill…) currencies. Often there are intermediate steps to track, such as clicks, calls, leads, downloads, followers, and Likes.

Now, recall what we said earlier about goal setting. Let’s say that you’re an attorney who wants 3 more Personal Injury cases a month. You know that 10% of your web leads convert into clients, and each of those cases is worth $10,000. Now let’s do the math…

Holding lead quality constant, our attorney needs 30 web leads to get 3 new clients. If the

23

overall revenue generated from 3 new clients is $30,000, then the break-even point would be to spend $1000 getting each lead. Anything less than a $1000 cost-per-lead is profitable.

Take it a step further. Our attorney knows that it takes 100 website visitors to get a good lead. That means that she can pay $10 per visitor and break even.

But who wants to break even? To improve her profitability, she can work on decreasing the cost of a visitor, increasing the conversion rate of visitors to leads, increasing the conversion rate of leads to clients, and of course increasing the value per client.

how well your marketing is doing, and nothing will improve… because usually only the things we measure get better.

Wrap-up Marketing is the lifeblood of your business. It’s an investment in your future. Done right, it goes from being an expense category to a profit center. If you keep these five components in mind when you plan your next campaign, better results will be your reward. Good hunting!

Scott Corbett is the founder of Lightmark Media (lightmarkmedia.com) , a marketing firm based in Athens, GA that specializes in helping financial services companies stand out from the crowd and attract more (and better) clients. You can reach him at 706363-0530 or at scorbett@lightmarkmedia.com.

…if you don’t track your numbers, you won’t know your marketing ROI, and nothing will improve… because usually only the things we measure get better.

Here’s the exciting part…

If our attorney can increase her visitor-to-lead conversion rate from 1% to 3% by making her webform friendlier or more noticeable, here’s how her numbers would look: Previous results: $10,000 cost for 1000 visitors, 10 conversions to leads, 1 client = $10,000 in revenue Improved results: $10,000 cost for 1000 visitors, 30 conversions to leads, 3 clients = $30,000 in revenue So a tiny improvement at any stage in this process can yield huge results.

Here’s the big idea about metrics and tracking: if you don’t track your numbers, you won’t know

24

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B us in e s s : Governance – What is it and why does it matter?

- Matt Burk

We put on a webinar recently called “Fund

Governance – What is it and Why Does it Matter.” It reminded me again of some really important elements of running a 506 Regulation D mortgage pool fund successfully, and I thought I would share some of my thoughts on that topic.

It is really hard to believe how many fund managers we see who have no idea what elements go into good fund governance, how aligned or unaligned their fund structure is with their investor’s interests, and who do not understand or articulate what is in their own documents.

When we are working with clients to assist them in the business architecture of their mortgage pool fund, attempting to create alignment and appropriate fund governance standards is one of the key focal points of our discussions. The concept of governance basically refers to all of the components in a fund and its operation such as architecture and framework, economic model and fee structures, investment strategy and implementation, reporting processes and procedures, as well as ethics and codes of conduct. All of these issues and more should be weighed and

considered in conjunction with any given fund manager’s ability to apply them, given their practical day to day operational realities. As many best practices as reasonably possible should be incorporated into the fabric of the fund from the beginning.

Both for our own benefit in the creation of our latest proprietary fund and for our consulting practice clients, we did a considerable amount of homework around the whole topic of governance, transparency, alignment and best practices. There is a lot of material out there on this topic (as there is virtually any topic in this age of Google) and one of the best resources we found was a European non-profit association called INREV. This resource provides services and education for investors interested in the European non-listed real estate fund market. Even though it is a European association and it focuses on real estate funds (as opposed to our focus of mortgage pool funds) and more on the institutional investor side (as opposed to the individual high net worth investor set), we found much of the material valuable, relevant, and compelling.

26

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Their “INREV Guidelines” details what they believe to be best practices for reporting and governance frameworks in the non-listed real estate fund sector, which bears many similarities to the non-listed 506 Regulation D mortgage pool fund space.

Their “INREV Guidelines” details what they believe to be best practices for reporting and governance frameworks in the non-listed real estate fund sector, which bears many similarities to the non-listed 506 Regulation D mortgage pool fund space.

One of their most user-friendly tools for fund managers, as well as investors, is their Reporting Self-assessment Tool. It provides fund managers with an overview of any governance weaknesses within their fund and allows investors to see how well a given fund is conforming to relevant guidelines and best practices. They identify 18 key areas and detail what constitutes good, satisfactory and poor governance architecture in each area. Again, in the mortgage pool fund space using individual accredited investors (as opposed to institutional investors such as pension funds, endowments, etc.) one has to extrapolate which areas are relevant, practical, and realistic to implement, and to what degree. But it is absolutely eye opening to read through these standards, guidelines, and best practices to help understand

how well (or not so well) a given fund is doing in the area of governance.

The main reason that fund governance is important is that it helps provide investors with some level or degree of confidence that the fund has been structured properly, is being managed and ran effectively, and that the fund manager knows what they are doing. The better a fund is doing in this regard, the more this contributes positively (among multiple other factors) to a fund manager’s capital raising efforts. Or it should at least help to remove some of an investors concerns and objections. If a fund manager can demonstrate that he or she has actually thought through these governance issues, or better yet deliberately incorporated them into their fund at the creation stage, this immediately separates that fund manager from most others and improves his or her chances of raising capital consistently.

Unfortunately what we mostly see in the small balance 506 Regulation D mortgage pool fund world are PPMs that have been written completely one-sided in the favor of the fund manager (their well-intentioned counsel doing their job of trying to maximize protection of their client) and thus not inspiring much confidence in prospective investors.

This may work fine with investors that the fund manager knows well and starts out with (family and friends) but it starts to hurt when they must go beyond this initial group of supporters. Then when the manager cannot articulate why certain decisions were made or why things are as they are, investors

28

are underwhelmed and reluctant to hand over their money.

Not everything in the INREV Self-Assessment Tool is realistic or practical for a small private 506 Reg D fund to incorporate. But many of them are important, doable, and in fact should be part of how a fund is structured and operated. Our experience is that the vast majority of fund managers, especially first time managers, do not consider these issues when structuring their fund or understand their impact on their capital raising efforts. Most in fact do not even know they exist, and what they effectively do is hamstring themselves in their capacity to raise capital from the outset.

My message is that you do not have to do it that way. It will set you apart if you treat governance as an A-list item from the get-go. Take the time to understand the important areas, and deliberately attempt to incorporate as many best practices of good governance into your fund as you realistically can. It will help you raise capital, and most importantly, it will help you be a better manager.

RentFax bridges the gap between data and decisions. With simple input, industry leading data and analytics, we provide unbiased feedback to guide your residential real estate investment options.

Matt Burk is CEO of Fairway America, a boutique real estate finance advisory and investment firm providing strategic business planning services nationwide to select private  money lenders around the structure, architecture, and administration of proprietary mortgage pool funds.

He is the founder of Fairway America who has funded more than $200,000,000 in private money trust deed investments with both individual trust deed investors and in six proprietary mortgage pool funds. He is also the Chief Investment Officer and Manager of Fairway America Fund VI, LLC, a nationwide real estate based mortgage pool fund.

www.rentfaxpro.com 800-5551212

Education is crucial to private lending - David Owen

When attending conferences and meetings

about financing real estate with private money I engage in similar conversations time and time again. Brokers inform me how they have a great project in store that needs financing, but could not get a private lender to seriously consider it.

My response is always the same: How well did you know the project; how did you present the information to the lender; how well did you know the lender?

I will hear complaints from real estate entrepreneurs who had to give up so much of their profit to equity partners in order to be approved for a loan from a conventional lender. My response is always the same: Why did you not take your loan request to a private lender?

Finally, before the day is done, other private lenders will lament that they do not see a strong deal flow or that the loan submissions that they

30

receive are not worth considering. This of course begets the question: How can we increase deal flow to members of American Association of Private Lenders (AAPL) from informed and knowledgeable real estate and finance professionals like realtors, mortgage brokers and investors?

The solution to these problems is simple – education. Private Lenders need to better educate mortgage brokers, realtors and borrowers about their loan products and services. AAPL had made a commitment to educate the public on the value of using private lenders to fund real estate projects.

Through education brokers will be able to know their lenders and what each lender’s niche appetite is. Brokers will better package the loan summary to be more easily read and understood by the lender. Brokers will be better able to match the loan submission with the lenders that are more likely to fund the loan.

Better education will enable real estate entrepreneurs to understand the financial benefit of going with financing from a private lender as opposed to giving away profits to equity partners who can be demanding and greedy. By using a private lender, a borrower has better control over the project and keeps all the profit from the project.

Through education, real estate entrepreneurs will understand the financial benefit of going it alone with financing from a private lender as opposed to giving away profits to equity partners, who can be demanding and greedy. By using a private lender a borrower has better control over the project and keeps all the profit from the project.

With education private lenders will see an up-

tick in loan submissions from brokers, realtors and real estate investors. These entities will be better presented in an organized, logical format that allows the private lender to better assess if the loan is worth discussing and adding to their portfolio. By educating real estate professionals about private money and how to access lenders anxious to make their loans, private lenders will see an increase in the deal flow and be adding more loans to their pipeline.

Essentially education is what it is all about!

AAPL is launching a new course that will educate brokers, realtors and real estate entrepreneurs this November at the annual conference in Las Vegas – Certified Broker Associate (CBA).

With the collapse of the sub-prime and secondary markets, along with conventional banks turning away from short term lending in regard to real estate acquisition, development, and construction, there is a rise in lending from private lenders offering options for residential and commercial real estate financing. Real estate investors, mortgage brokers and realtors are encouraged to understand how available financing options through private lenders will increase their income and transaction volume.

The Certified Broker Associate designation from American Association of Private Lenders will set Real Estate Investors, Mortgage Brokers and Realtors apart from the crowd. Private Lenders will immediately recognize that a loan submission from a person with this designation is coming from a knowledgeable person who clearly understands the value of private lenders in the market and how their loan products work.

As such, generally loans submitted from people holding the CBA designation will move to

31

the front of the line when being considered by a private lender. With this designation the lender knows that the borrower being represented has been educated in the process of having a loan approved by a private lender and a clear understanding of the loan products offered.

Students obtaining the CBA designation: • Will have a deep understanding of private lending •

Will understand how this knowledge can be leveraged into making more money and building more transactions

•

Will understand the many models of private lenders and be able to determine which model is best for them or their client

•

Will have knowledge of how to navigate the underwriting practices of pri vate lenders

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• Embedded program(s) available for property managers, private lenders, and turnkey operators • Coverage available for non-US citizens

• Will be able to determine if these types of

loans will be beneficial for them or their clients •

Will be able to recognize red flags in the practices of some lenders that indicate potential harm to clients

•

Will be able to locate private lenders and build strong relationships with them to get deals funded

AAPL is developing a list of benefits for those completing the course and receiving the CBA designation. These benefits will be announced at the conference in November. Private Lend-

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er Members of AAPL are being encouraged to recognize the CBA designation and to offer incentives to CBA designees for bringing more deals to them. By adding the CBA designation to their list of accomplishments, designees will have a powerful tool to add to their toolbox to help them close more real estate transactions.

In 2014 AAPL will be seeking designation approval and acceptance from the National Association of Realtors so that this course can be offered to realtors nationwide. Additionally in 2014, the CBA course is being expanded into a nine-hour continuing education course for real estate licensees and will be submitted to the Texas Real Estate Commission for approval as a TREC approved course. Once the course is approved by TREC and the marketing of the course is well underway in Texas, it is the intention of AAPL to seek approval with real estate commissions in other states.

Education is the foundation to success and

AAPL is committed to education!

David Owen, PhD, is an 8th generation Texan who knows his market well in Central Texas. A multi-degreed professional, David is one of Austin’s leading real estate professionals and is focused on providing the highest quality real estate representation possible to investors, borrowers, buyers and sellers. Through education and experience, he has accrued leadership skills that have given him insight into how to manage successful businesses. Growing up in a successful family of real estate and finance professionals David has an inane ability to find solutions to any financial problem and a keen sense of determining real estate trends. He is the visionary founder of the Pride of Austin family of companies: Pride of Austin Capital Partners, LLC, Pride of Austin Homes, LLC and, Pride of Austin Realty, LLC. David F. Owen, Ph.D. Managing Member Pride of Austin Capital Partners, LLC 512.687.3456 dfo@prideofaustin.com www.PrideOfAustin.com

Working Hard vs Working Smart as an Investor - How to become strategic and cure yourself of the “opportunity seeking” created by Real Estate Education Gurus

This article is for everyone who is learning how

to invest in real estate, or currently invests but is not getting the results they want. If you are like most people, then after you have worked hard and saved up some money, you now find yourself faced with a new challenge: how to keep your money safe and make it grow into wealth and passive income. In other words, you have to learn investing. But how can you tell if you are going about it the right way? Time is valuable – how can you tell if your plan will leave you rich or leave you frustrated and full of regrets?

There is an easy way to tell, and all you have to do is study your behavior and thoughts to tell whether you are a “strategic investor” or what I like to call an “opportunity seeker.” Do not be so quick to answer until you have read this article because the result may surprise you. Many people feel that their current investing plan will make life easier and take them to financial freedom, but many do not realize it will not get them to their goals.

First let us define what exactly a “strategic investor” is. When you use your saved capital and your brain to make a profit by leveraging other people’s time, talent, and money, you are a “strategic investor.” You do not do any of the things involved in finding and bringing a real estate investment together, you are leveraging others for that. Your main activities are screening reliable “other people” and evaluating if their “deals” make sense.

- Paul Yevzikov

The best way to illustrate this is with a true story.

I remember my little investment group once found a house for $225,000 which we bought and sold a month later for $360,000 “as is” without making a single repair. That is close to a $90,000 profit after all costs. But let me tell you who was the real “investor” on that deal. If you listen to enough real estate gurus you will think it was the investment group or I, but it was not I. The investor was the friend who I called up a few days before closing to borrow the $225,000 purchase price. He made a 10 percent profit, or $22,500 in 30 days lending the money with almost zero risk because a house at about 60 percent of the market value secured his private loan.

Even if something “went wrong” he could easily sell it to get his money back plus a healthy profit.

In that deal I had a full time job – that whole process of marketing, screening leads, visiting properties, negotiating offers, and managing the two other people involved was quite a job.

It took a lot of time and experience to make it happen, which I was able to pull off only after spending the previous few years tackling the learning curve of flipping houses full time, and building the knowledge and the network to get that deal done.

In sharp contrast my friend who lent the money fit all the definitions of a real investor. In fact he told me he was eating dinner when he got my phone call, and after a brief 15 minutes he knew the deal was good and he would be making a

34

B ecome A M e mber T oda y !

Formed in 2009, the American Association of Private Lenders (AAPL) is the national organization represent-

ing the private real estate and peer-to-peer lending industry. Our membership includes private money lenders, hard money lenders, mortgage fund managers, brokers, and service providers from around the United States. We believe our principles – excellence, ethics, and education – are the cornerstone for success in the industry. AAPL members are leaders in the industry and embody the character, dedication, and experience critical for success.

Our vision is a national industry of private lenders that is clearly defined and well organized around the shared principles of cooperation, education, ethics, and accountability. AAPL operates as a codifying force and an unbiased knowledge custodian for lenders, investors, borrowers, media, and general public.

J oin

th e

AAPL C ommun ity T o d a y :

Explore our Membership Options for Private Lenders Here Explore our Membership Options for Service Providers Here

More info at aaplonline.com Larry Muck | 913-599-2020 | David Lang | 913-599-2020

a large safe return, and calmly went back to eating his food. In the morning he would call his lawyer to make sure the details checked out.

Sounds good, right? While my time in the deal numbered in the months, his total time into the deal was just a couple hours of due diligence.

The rest of his days were free to line up an investment from the next guy, into which he would be rolling his money the day after our sale. I was working hard, but he was working smart.

Now take a look at your approach and your plan for investing. Are you the guy running around and going through the trial-and-error process, or are you the guy relaxing at dinner and taking the $22,500 phone call? If you plan to be the guy running around, it might be time to evaluate as

to whether that makes sense, and whether that could actually get you to your goals.

Here are a few signs that you may want to re-evaluate your approach: •

You have been learning investing for months or years and still have no good results

•

You feel frustrated that things are not working as fast as you want them to

•

You feel overwhelmed by all the things you need to learn to make it work

•

You are spending the equivalent of a part or full-time job investing

•

You are worried about your financial future based on lack of results

•

You are constantly interested in all the latest educational products or strategies

•

You have been evaluating strategies for a long time and still have not picked one (or two)

•

You are telling yourself that all the effort will pay off from the huge profit on the first deal (if you ever get to it)

If any of that sounds familiar, it may mean you have drifted away from what real investing means, and are likely to remain frustrated with the current plan. That is because your current plan involves you doing and learning a lot of things that do not make money, instead of focusing on what does. You may want to refocus and go back to the common sense, passive strategies that are proven to make money without effort. That means investing in real estate by leveraging the effort of others. It could be private lending, it could be “turn-key” rental investing. Another option might be multifamily buildings or investing in funds and ventures ran by experienced professionals who are acquiring mortgage notes, commercial buildings, and other cash-flowing assets.

Based on what I have seen, the investing world is full of misguided but well-intentioned people moving from one strategy to the next and never getting any real results. It is not their fault; they just never realized what they were up against. A lot of this is the fault of “guru-based” real estate education which glamorizes getting rich fast with the “big check” from the “big deal,” instead of the less sexy but much more profitable-in-

the-long-run passive investing strategies. Is it really that surprising that if the real estate gurus ever revealed the true amount of work required for long-term success with active investment strategies, or how few of their students are actually capable of (or even want) the full time job that comes with it, their products would not sell as much.

Most people who just wanted to be real estate investors to make a better future for themselves and their family, ended up being convinced they have to learn marketing, sales, lead generation, business systems, repairs, management, and a ton of other things tangential to actually earning money. Meanwhile those who started out with a firm decision to AVOID all of that, and to instead focus on leveraging other people’s transactions, ended up profiting the most.

Some might be quick to point out that in the case study our profit was $90,000 but the lender made “only” $22,500. But after you look at the bigger picture you will realize you would gladly take his position over mine any day (as I realized). The ironic reality is, as a private lender, my friend is able to make money with much less time, effort, risk, and learning curve compared to myself because all his time is free to generate more money and find more opportunities. As any really experienced solo investor will tell you, those kinds of deals are few and far between and usually not as juicy. Generating them almost always requires a serious full time, or at best part-time, effort.

Even though this lender knew much less about real estate than I did, he did not need to know as much as me. He gets to avoid that whole learning curve, because his decision to be a smart passive investor means that he has trusted profes-

36

sionals to help screen the deal and make sure it is safe. When presented with a deal, it is always much easier to get a second or third opinion from an expert on the spot, rather than spending years trying to become an expert yourself.

Being blinded by the lure or promise of the $90,000 check on a single deal, without seeing all the real work, effort, risk, and opportunity costs that come from chasing those kinds of deals is what I call opportunity seeking. It usually does not work long term compared with smarter passive investing methods.

If you have capital to invest consider focusing on the tried-and-true methods of generating wealth through PASSIVE real estate investing which is as simple as:

1.

Pick the right strategy that meets your financial and personal goals.

Do your due-diligence on pre-screened passive investment opportunities, and the

2.

reputable and experienced invest ment operators that present them.

3. Fund the deal.

4. Get paid.

5. Repeat.

The first day that you receive a check from real estate that someone else worked hard to generate, is one of the most satisfying financial moments for many people. It is the point they realize they have a solid plan to build wealth that frees up their time, now all they have to do is stick with it.

Paul Yevzikov

New York City -- completed his first distressed property deal at the age of 23, and since then has founded several real estate ventures including a boutique consulting firm actively negotiating $30M in non-performing distressed institutional mortgage debt as of Q3 2013.

He is also growing an investment research and consulting firm focused on helping busy professionals to create wealth and early retirement through passive real estate investing. His mission is to research and present safe, common�sense real estate strategies, and based on the simple idea that you don’t have to take big risks to make big and consistent returns through property investing. Paul graduated with

Real Estate Investing Alliance Guide Wrenn Enterprises is an alliance of industry leading companies. We provide a broad range of strategic resources to improve revenue and expedite investment activities for residential real estate investors and property managers.

Together this enterprise of companies gives you the tools to be successful in this industry. Everything from finding the right investment location, insuring it, discounts on products/services, and providing leading education options to help better your business. We are leading the way for you!

NREIG/AGM – Is a nationwide Insurance program specifically tailored to the needs of Property investors.

AAPL – Represents the private lending and peer-to-peer lending industry by raising the standards through their three pillars to success “Excellence - Ethics - Education.”

PREIMA – Brings together industry leading companies dedicated to elevating the performance of our membership and our industry through legislation, networking, education and benefits.

PMLG

Private Money Lending Guide

LoanMLS – Gives you the power to connect with over 20,000 loan professionals and investors - all interested in buying, selling and investing in existing loans, pools or new loan originations.

PMLG – Online guide that helps private investors and borrowers get a better understanding of the private investors requirements. While also helping you find quality private lenders and investment opportunities.

RentFax – Is the bridge between data and decisions. With simple input, industry leading data and analytics, we provide unbiased feedback to guide your residential real estate investment options.

CBG – Allows individual investors to leverage the buying power of a company through supplier incentives and discounts, allowing members to increase business opportunities.

Rate Tenant - Lets you rate tenants and perform unlimited searches on tenants as posted by Managers.

C2C - Is an educational and networking provider that creates opportunities for its members in new and innovative ways.

For more information on any of these Wrenn companies contact us at: 913-599-2020

M embe r s h ip : 2013 Member Directory AAPL Lenders are established, proven Private Lenders in the private lending industry. They are able to display the AAPL logo in their promotional materials as a symbol of their commitment to quality and

Does your lender belong to the AAPL and adhere to a code of ethics? Learn more about our membership requirements.

excellence.

NOT A MEMBER? JOIN NOW! Click here to go directly to the AAPL website directory.

Board of Advisors and Founders Company Name

Contact Name

City

State

Membership Level

Affinity Group Management, Inc

Mike Wrenn

Kansas City

MO

Board of Advisors

Geraci Law Firm

Anthony Geraci

Irvine

CA

Founder

Investors Choice Funding

David Williams

Louisville CO

Board of Advisors

Pacific Residential Mortgage, LLC

Bob Cox

Medford

OR

Individual

Pride of Austin Capital Partners, LLC

David Owen

Austin

TX

Board of Advisors

Rollins Consulting Group, LLC

Jack Rollins

Ponce Inlet

FL

Board of Advisors/Founder

Sterling Pacific Financial

Joshua Fisher

Watsonville CA

Board of Advisors

New York

NY

Individual

Boston

MA

Board of Advisors

Vincent Spreuwenberg Wallace Capital

Robert Wallace

39

Corporate Active Lender Directory Company Name

Contact Name

City

State

Membership Level

Bay Mountain Capital

Phill Sanchez

Dallas

TX

Lender

Carolina Private Lending, LLC

Wallace Groves

Raleigh

NC

Lender

Carolina Private Lending, LLC

Bill Worsley

Davidson NC

Lender

Dusek Network, Inc

Brenda Dusek

Orchard Lake

MI

Lender

Eastern Capital

Joseph Tomasso

Atlanta

GA

Lender

Fairway America, LLC

Darris Cassidy

Portland

OR

Lender

Fairway America, LLC

Matt Burk

Portland

OR

Lender

Fairway America, LLC

Lance Pederson

Portland

OR

Lender

Fidelity National Investment Group

David Javdan

McLean

VA

Lender

FutureGen Capital

Hazel Cunanan

Washington DC

Lender

FutureGen Capital

Jessica Austin

Washington DC

Lender

FutureGen Capital

Lawrence Schmidt

Washington DC

Lender

FutureGen Capital

Martin Lundgren

Washington DC

Lender

FutureGen Capital

Patrick Donoghue

Washington DC

Lender

Joseki Ventures, LLC

Colin McClive

Stamford CT

Lender

Northfield Capital LLC

Robert Kiley

Andover

MA

Lender

Peak Asset Management

Shane Sauer

Lenexa

KS

Lender

Pride of Austin Capital Partners, LLC

Robert Buchanan

Austin

TX

Lender

Real Estate Private Funding

Michael Mackay

Cincinnati OH

Lender

Rehab Cash Now

Rehab Cash Now

South Windsor CT

Lender

Stallion Funding

Vincent Balagia

Cedar Park

TX

Lender

Sterling Pacific Financial

Josh Fischer

Watsonville CA

Lender

Trilion Capital

Charles Evans

San Diego

CA

Lender

Wallace Capital

Robert Wallace

Boston

MA

Lender

40

Corporate Active Lender Directory Cont.

Company Name

Contact Name

City

State

Membership Level

Washington Capital Partners

Daniel Huertas

Falls Church

VA

Lender

Washington Capital Partners

Leo Pareja

Falls Church

VA

Lender

WDB Funding LLC

Aaron Garcia

West Valley City UT

Lender

WDB Funding LLC

Jennifer Watkins

West Valley City UT

Lender

Individual Active Lender Directory Company Name

Contact Name

City

State

Membership Level

Adobe Realty

Russell Singer

Laguna Beach

CA

Lender

Advance America Property & Fin

Guy Cook

Baltimore MD

Lender

AJTM Financial

Anthony Tomasi

Delray Beach

FL

Lender

Alpha Funding Solutions

David Hansel

Lakehurst NJ

Lender

Anthony Lervolino

Flushing

Lender

Asset Based Lending, LLC

Daniel Leyden

Hoboken NJ

Lender

Asset Based Lending, LLC

Paul Ullman

Hokoben NJ

Lender

Bay Mountain Capital

Dean Lontos

Dallas

TX

Lender

Bay Mountain Capital

Wayne Corley

Dallas

TX

Lender

BG Real Estate

Jerry Bouchard

Fairfax

VA

Lender

Bolour Associates, Inc.

Elliot Shirwo

Beverly Hills

CA

Lender

Bridge Capital Resources, LLC

Greg Osborne

Greenwood Village,CO

Lender

Buy Now, LLC

Ann Bellamy

Tyngsborough MA

Lender

California Private Investors, Inc.

Cina Sandoval

San Dimas

CA

Lender

Celtic Funding Corp

Raymond Loughlin

Plainsville MA

Lender

Centennial Properties

Robert Dodge

Lee’s Summit

Lender

41

NY

MO

Individual Active Lender Directory Cont.

Company Name

Contact Name

City

State

Membership Level

Clear Mortgage, LLC

Michael Coffman

Tempe

AZ

Lender

Columns Capital

Patricia Ray

Savannah GA

Lender

Conquest Funding, Inc

Jeff Cella

Allentown PA

Lender

Crowne Pointe Capital Partners

Robert Napolitano

Red Bank

NJ

Lender

CSRE Investments, LLC

Marifrances Kudla

Glendale

CA

Lender

Dalin Financial, LLC

David Morgan

Feasterville PA

Lender

Del Toro Loan Servicing, Inc

Drew Louis

San Diego

CA

Lender

DHLC Investments, Inc.

Rob Barney

Dallas

TX

Lender

Elares Capital Partners

Robert Woodcock

San Diego

CA

Lender

Embarq Services

Bill Gallipo

Denver

CO

Lender

ENR Financial Services

Greg Bernett

Scottsdale AZ

Lender

EZ Money Lending Company

Jay Dackman

Baltimore MD

Lender

First Capital Real Estate Investments

Suneet Singal

Sacramento CA

Lender

First Republic Investment Corp

David Fenoglio

Montague TX

Lender

Forrest Financial Group

Charles Townsend

Denver

CO

Lender

Geld Arts, LLC

Glenn Froehlich

Bellevue

WA

Lender

General Service, LLC

Bernardo Torres

Ridgewood NY

Lender

GMA Factor

Jacob Sacks

Pittsburgh PA

Lender

Grand Coast Capital

Jeff Carter

Boston

MA

Lender

Granite Loan Solutions

Jeff Merrick

Irvine

CA

Lender

Great Central Mortgage Acceptance Co.

Chris Dickson

San Antonio

TX

Lender

Greystone Management Group

John Jones

Woodland Hills CA

Lender

Gronewoller & Associates

Paul Gronewoller

Fort Collins

CO

Lender

Harbinger Funding

Chris Jones

Cordova

CA

Lender

42

Individual Active Lender Directory Cont.

Company Name

Contact Name

City

Hellstein Lending, Inc.

Kimberly Palmer

Fayetteville NC

Lender

Hilco Real Estate, LLC

Ron Lubin

Boston

Lender

iBridging.com

Steven McColl

London England

Inverse Investments

Scott Carson

San Antonio

TX

Lender

Investors Choice Funding

David Williams

Louisville CO

Lender

Iron Bridge Lending

Gerard Stascausky

Portland

OR

Lender

JG Invests LLC

Jonathan Gould

New York

NY

Lender

JGAM , LLC

Jason Golush

New York

NY

Lender

LaMaison Properties

Charles Campagnet

Alameda CA

Lender

Legacy Group Capital, LLC

Brent Eley

Bellevue

WA

Lender

Mardavsco, LLC

Alan Weinstock

Northridge CA

Lender

MI Realty Investments

Tom Lytle

Detroit

MI

Lender

Micon Properties, LLC

Michael Vavricek

El Doraado Hills CA

Lender

Mike O’Meara

Irvine

CA

Lender

MMG Capital

Chris Gleason

Simi Valley

CA

Lender

Oasis Loan Advisors

Candi Poole

Las Vegas

NV

Lender

Pacific Private Money

Mark Hanf

Novato

CA

Lender

Peak Asset Management

Dan Brewer

Lenexa

KS

Lender

Peak Asset Management

Paul Sauer

Lenexa

KS

Lender

Point Center Financial

Patti McLoon

Aliso Viejo

CA

Lender

Premier Mortgage Lending

Rick Piette

Las Vegas

NV

Lender

Pride of Austin Capital Partners

Robert Buchanan

Austin

TX

Lender

Prime Commercial Lending

Kris Roglieri

Albany

NY

Lender

Principal Partners Lending

Troy Blessing

Denver

CO

Lender

43

State

MA

Membership Level

Lender

Individual Active Lender Directory Cont.

Company Name

Contact Name

City

State

Membership Level

Private Lender 4 U

Steve Nye

Flushing

NY

Lender

Private Loan Store

Scott Ferguson

Tempe

AZ

Lender

Private Mortgage Financing & Invest.

Don Konipol

Tempe

AZ

Lender

Realinvestors, LLC

Sherman Ragland

Bowie

MD

Lender

Red Cardinal Capital Asset Manag.

Marucia Rella

Rockville Centre NY

Lender

Red Dirt Lending

Scott McLain

Oklahoma City OK

Lender

RevitaLending, LLC

William Lansing

Bethesda MD

Lender

Richard Louis Urias Sole Proprietor

Richard Urias

San Jose

CA

Lender

Richmond Mortgage, Inc.

Mike Kurmbein

Richmond VA

Lender

Silver Arrow Investments

Damon Prouty

El Dorado Hills CA

Lender

Silverado Funding, LLC

David Scott

Lake Oswego

OR

Lender

SMCC Capital, LLC

Steve McCondichie

Newnan

GA

Lender

Source Capital

Sacha Ferrandi

San Diego

CA

Lender

Specialty Lending Group

Jeffrey Levin

Greenbelt MD

Lender

Spotlight Lending

David Bacon

Cupertino CA

Lender

Stallion Funding

Ray Walter

Austin

TX

Lender

Steal Water Holdings, LLC

Layna Haitsch Palumbo

Bethel

CT

Lender

Steve Thomas

Sarasota

FL

Lender

Tempo Funding LLC

Mike Zlotnik

San Francisco

CA

Lender

Tempo Funding, LLC

Yuriy Novodvorskiy

San Francisco

CA

Lender

The Binstead Institute

JT Binstead

Narberth PA

Lender

The Grossman Companies

David Grossman

Quincy

MA

Lender

TLC Investments, LLC

Terry Moore

Charleston WV

Lender

Trilion Capital

David Weiner

San Diego

Lender

44

CA

Individual Active Lender Directory Cont.

Company Name

Contact Name

City

State

Membership Level

Trustee Corps

Rande Johnsen

Irvine CA

Lender

US Private Lenders

Cynthia Wall

Odessa TX

Lender

V.R.M. Capital Corporation

Tom Van Erp

Conifer CO

Lender

www.PrivateLender.Pro

Michael Emens

San Jose CA

Lender

Active Service Provider Directory Company Name

Contact Name

City

State

Membership Level

Applied Business Software

A.J. Poulin

Long Beach

CA

Service Provider

Armanino McKenna, LLP

Josh Nevarez

San Ramon

CA

Service Provider

FCI Lender Services

Gordon Albrecht

Anaheim Hills

FL

Service Provider

Feldman & Roback

Marc Feldman

Bradenton CA

Service Provider

Geraci Law Firm

Anthony Geraci

Irvine

CA

Service Provider

IRA Trust Services

Agatha Javellana

San Carlos

CA

Service Provider

Loan MLS

Robin Alridge

San Diego

CA

Service Provider

Loan MLS / Residential Capital

Mike Driscoll

San Diego

VA

Service Provider

National Real Estate Insurance Group

Mike Wrenn

Kansa City

MO

Service Provider

NCO Financial Investigative Services

Paul Morrow

Metairie LA

Rollins Consulting Group, LLC

Jack Rollins

Ponce Inlet

FL

Service Provider

Thinking Bigger Business Media

Kelly Scanlon

Shawnee Mission KS

Service Provider

Community Buying Group

Ben Rao

Lee’s Summit

MO

Service Provider

Construction Inspection Specialists

Steve Clark

Windsor

CA

Service Provider

MidAtlanticIRA

Scott Blair

Frederick MD

Service Provider

North Bay Real Estate Services

Stephen Loomis

Santa Rosa

CA

Service Provider

SBS Trust Deed Network

Rory Cambra

Westlake Village CA

Service Provider

Weltman, Weinberg & Reis

Robert Hanna

Warren

Service Provider

Service Provider

NJ