Monte Vista Ave

We didn't wait for this deal to come to us. Less than a block from Marine Street Beach in La Jolla, a half-demolished house had been an eyesore for years. A family inheritance dispute left the lot as a pile of sticks that came on and off the market multiple times. We'd been watching it. When it listed again, we called a borrower we'd worked with before and told him to go after it.

That's a different kind of lender relationship. We weren't sitting at a desk waiting for a loan application. We identified the opportunity, connected it with a borrower we trusted, and then funded $2.65 million for the acquisition when he closed at $3.8 million. We also encouraged him to pursue the adjacent lot, which he did, giving him 10,000 combined square feet to work with for two high-end homes.

Now here's where skin in the game changes the dynamic. We have $2.65 million in this project. That means we care deeply about what gets built on this lot. So when the borrower started coming into our office once a month with updated floor plans, we didn't just nod politely. We gave real feedback. Reconfigure this bathroom. Extend that living area. Think about the view angle from the primary suite. He'd take our notes back to his architect and implement the changes.

That's not a lender being nice. That's a lender protecting and maximizing the value of its collateral. We've seen hundreds of coastal homes, what sells, what doesn't, what buyers in this price range care about. That experience is worth real money when it's applied to the design phase. Every suggestion we make that improves the floor plan improves the value of our collateral.

The construction loan is coming once permits clear. We expect these homes to be worth $12 to $15 million each. And they'll be better homes, and better collateral, because the lender was at the table during design, not just at closing.