Hard Money Lending Mastery With Wendy Sweet Of Carolina Capital Management

 

Hard money lending for real estate investors isn’t just about quick cash; it’s a strategic tool that, when mastered, unlocks a whole new level of opportunity. Join Kevin Shortle as he chats with the seasoned expert Wendy Sweet of Carolina Capital Management. Wendy, a self-proclaimed “recovering mortgage broker” and seasoned investor, shares her vast experience in lending, note creation, and the intricacies of the Southeast real estate market. In this episode, we dive deep into how understanding the lending side of the business is crucial for investors, explore the nuances of short-term notes versus long-term, and hear Wendy’s no-nonsense approach to making real estate deals work. Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just getting started, this conversation packed with real-world insights will help you navigate the world of real estate financing and leverage your deals for maximum success.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Hard Money Lending Mastery With Wendy Sweet Of Carolina Capital Management

Kevin Shortle here with another episode of the show for you. I appreciate you tuning in to the show. If you like the show, please indicate that. Give us a nice five-star rating there, maybe some comments, and share it with a friend. I do appreciate it. It enables us to continue to do more of these, bringing you quality shows on real estate and real estate notes altogether, and bringing on some special guests and sponsorships. We do appreciate you all doing that and sharing it with a friend. If you belong to a real estate investment club, anything like that, or a Facebook group, I sure appreciate a shout-out to them to gain some more audience. That would be awesome.

I’m also joined by Duane Gibbs. You may recognize Duane from our Watercooler Wednesday. The Watercooler Wednesday is a half-hour to 40-minute program that we do every Wednesday. It is a live broadcast on Facebook, reproduced on the YouTube channel, and posted on the show as well. Some of you should be familiar with Duane. Hopefully, all of you will be very soon. Before I introduce our special guest, Wendy Sweet, Duane, how are you?

How’s it going?

Good. I know we’ve got specials running all the time. You’re talking with investors all the time, looking to get into the note space and everything. Tell us quickly what you do and how people can reach out to you.

We always give free gifts away to people who come on board with your website. If you go to Learn.KevinShortle.com, go in and register. What’s going to happen is you’re going to fill out a questionnaire. That questionnaire is going to help us give you and reach out to you for more information. Kevin put together a four-series video breaking down notes, what’s important, what to look for, and how to look at assets and be able to determine what’s a good deal. It’s free. Go to Learn.KevinShortle.com.

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We have a special guest here. One of the things that you will notice from her bio is that it is filled with experience, not only in real estate and real estate notes, but also lending. I like that. Real estate investors who focus on real estate without the peripherals and without understanding property renovations and the lending side of the business, the note side of the business, go in there less prepared than a well-rounded investor.

If you’re well-rounded, it opens you up to more opportunities that are everywhere. I get pigeonhole a lot when it would be real estate notes. Everybody knows me from that. I have to remind people that I do focus on real estate notes. I also come from an extensive background of flipping and renovating properties. I did the landlord and the money lending. All of that experience enables you to become an expert in the field that you are in. Your background is as diverse.

Wendy’s Path: From Mortgage Brokerage To Real Estate Expertise

It is diverse. I started as a mortgage broker for investors-only. I call myself a recovering mortgage broker. I did conventional loans only for investors. It was the hardest one to learn, the hardest lending thing to learn if you were a mortgage broker. Owner-occupied was easy, but investor stuff was really difficult. There is a lot of paperwork and red tape. Most mortgage brokers are lazy. I can say this because I was one. They’re going to want to pick the low-hanging fruit.

The low-hanging fruit were the people that nobody else was going after. That’s why I learned that investor side like I did. It was such a blessing to learn it. That’s what catapulted me into understanding how to underwrite a note, how to create a note, and how to look at the whole deal because I understood the investing side.

 

A little bit back in time in real estate, before all the internet and the fancy software, you had to learn that thing. You had to be physically able to go in there, look at documents, create documents, and do everything. In hindsight, it is such a blessing because that’s when it gets integrated into that. You started there. You now have several different companies, like your principal at Sweet Carolina Houses, Carolina Capital Management, and a short-term rental. You’ve diversified within all this. Starting on the lending side, it seems like you’ve come back to that. There was a journey there. You got into doing the properties and the hard work yourself.

I never stopped lending. That’s always been my bread and butter, creating notes and lending. When you’re lending, you can’t help but all these other deals fall in your lap. You can’t say no to everything. Some deals are so great, you have to give them a shot. When I first started lending as a mortgage broker, part of what I was doing to pick up clients was to be able to go to every single Real Estate Investors Association meeting in North and South Carolina.

I was in nine different meetings a month. I was slammed into learning all about real estate, every part of real estate, like short sales, rehabbing, and renting. Is it a single-family, one to four units, or multifamily? Are you looking for a fix-and-flip, mobile homes on land, or mobile home parks? Everything was covered. You couldn’t help but learn as much as possible. That only makes you a better lender, note creator, or note buyer because you understand how everything works. Everybody suffers a little bit from that shiny object syndrome.

Diversifying Strategies: Expanding Beyond Notes Into Real Estate Ventures

You have to try your hand at all the things you do. I’ve got self-storage facilities, too. I love being in the real estate business, but I wouldn’t trade any of it for my notes. There’s nothing better than getting that monthly payment every month and not having to deal with the trash, the tenants, the toilets, and the liability that goes along with it. The stories, the dog ate my homework, I’ve heard them all. You can’t trade the two.

I’ve been doing a lot of things in real estate as well. It kept bringing me back to notes. I don’t remember, Duane. These videos are somewhere. At one point in time, I started doing a series on notes versus, like notes versus rehab properties, notes versus rentals, or notes versus the stock market, going through it. Part of it was a self-serving exercise to convince myself. It’s like, “This is a great part of real estate.”

If you see other opportunities, maybe we’ll take a jump at some of those. At the end of the day, you’re right. That side of it is great. Part of being the paper side is what you’re doing, which is originating funds as well. You’ve grown in the Carolinas. Duane is up there in the Carolinas as well. You primarily do your business there, but you’ve grown out to the Southeast for a bit as well. The primary focus is still on the lending and building your note portfolio.

We create notes every day, and we sell the notes that we create. A lot of people want to try their hand at lending, going ahead and creating that note to begin with. When I train people about lending, I always tell them that if you understand notes and how they work, you can make any deal in real estate work for you. There’s nothing that can come across your desk that you can’t figure out how to make it work if you understand notes. There are so many different options. We were at that note expo where we saw each other in Nashville.

It was the DME conference in Nashville.

I had a little teaching gig. You had one as well. All I taught was creating short-term notes or buying short-term notes, and what they were like for investors, because we only lend to investors. I was surprised at the amount of people who were not so much educated about short-term, how it works, and buying a note for investors versus buying the note for mom and pop, for Joe and Nancy who want to own their own home, you’d seller finance the note, or however that notes come together. I was surprised at how many people were interested in and at the short-term options that are out there.

It is like the stock market. When you’re buying notes, are you going to just buy one, or do you want to diversify? Do you want to do a short-term note, a long-term note, owner-occupied, or non-owner-occupied, and where do you want that note to be? Does that matter where it is? There are so many different things that you can think about when you’re doing the short-term. It’s a completely different section of note investing that you can take on because a lot of people don’t consider the short-term.

This is one of the things I love so much about doing short-term versus longer-term notes. I know there are great reasons to do long-term notes, but I like the short-term because we can change with the market. I’m not stuck in a low interest rate or any particular low interest rate for 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, or whatever that is. Mine are 6 to 12 months. We’re in the note for a short period of time. Especially these days, with the way the markets are changing, I don’t want to be stuck in a low note for a long-term when I can turn around and get a much higher interest rate for a short-term, get it paid off, and change that interest rate as things are going on around us. Lord knows it’s been a little bit crazy here lately.

Note Creation & Discounting: Mastering The Art Of Sellable Paper

We’re talking with Wendy Sweet of Carolina Capital Management. Something that you mentioned earlier is important as well. One of the things I run into all the time is real estate investors who now understand, “I can create a note,” and then they create a note and go to sell it. They then get upset at note investors because their discounts are so heavy. It’s like, “You created a garbage note, so you’re getting garbage offers for it. You’ve got to learn how to create a note from the eyes of somebody who’s going to buy it,” so back to that point.

When you're lending, other great deals tend to fall in your lap, and you can't say no to everything. Some deals are just so great, you have to give them a shot. Click To Tweet

If you’re not creating good, sellable notes, then it almost doesn’t matter if it’s short-term or long-term. You’re stuck with it unless you’re willing to sell at a big discount. There’s a skill involved with that. If you notice that DME, which is a collection of these investors, is missing that part of their education on short-term versus long-term, you can imagine the same thing with investors who don’t think in terms of creating a good note. They think of it in terms of creating the problem that they have right in front of them. Sometimes, that’s not the right type of thing to do in the long term.

I’m really glad that you brought that up because people will say, “If you’re in a short-term note, you’re twelve months, how are you going to discount that note to get it sold?” Here’s the thing about short-term notes. If you’re creating a short-term note, you’re making your money off the points up front. That’s where you’re making your money. You’re not making it off the interest rate because it’s so short-term. You’re not selling it at a discount. When we sell notes, we sell them at par all day long.

What we’re saying is you’re going to get this return 11.99% or 12.99%, whatever the rate is for the next 12 to 18 months, or whatever the term is. It serves a different purpose. Everybody has a goal of what they want to do, whatever that package is that they’re looking to invest in. We’re all a little bit older than 50. We know that as we change in our lives and our goals change in our lives, our investing goals change, too.

They’re going to be different from what they were when we were 30. The pie chart is going to be a little bit different, too. You want to be able to diversify and invest in stuff that works for you, for whatever your goal is right then. A lot of people miss that thought pattern when they’re going in to create, “I buy notes.” What are your goals? “I want to have ten notes.” It is great, but what do they need to look like? What do you want that return to be? How far ahead are you thinking?

What’s your risk tolerance? What kind of collateral are you comfortable with? 100%. With every consulting student I take on, that is the first thing that we do. It’s like, “Let’s figure it out, and let’s make sure it’s realistic.” Some people come in with these expectations. I’m like, “Let me bring you down to reality, and maybe we can get up here on advanced techniques, but let’s get you situated in reality.” Reality is good. In this market, we make money, whether it’s a good economy or a bad economy. We have to be adaptable enough to move around. How did you end up meeting Duane? I know you and Duane go back a bit, too. Was that when you were first getting into the note creation or the buying of notes?

It was all through note school. Kevin, you did my first note school class in Atlanta, Georgia.

I did the three-day training.

Could it be ’06?

I’m not going to know. Duane and I were going out 50 weeks or 48 weeks a year.

We went out a bunch. I think the first time I met you, Wendy, was at a Pete Young class, possibly in South Carolina. I think we did something in Atlanta.

It was in Greenville, maybe.

That’s probably about ’06. That’s when we met Larry and you, and introduced you to different ways of how to invest in the note business. When we were younger, and you look back on how to do things, that was exciting. Now, looking back on how far you’ve come to where you’re at now, you didn’t stay one-dimensional. You’ve changed. You’ve evolved. You’ve had to change so many different ways of how you look at the investing side because the market changes. Knowing that you have to change and the market’s not going to change for you allows different layers of our investing style.

 

I’m always surprised at the people who pick one little thing and go after it. You should, in the beginning. The way you should do it is to be focused on what you need to do. Learn that and then move on to the next thing. You should be focused. I’m always surprised that people stay in the same lane they’ve always been in. There’s a lot to be said for making sure that you diversify in every part of investing that you do, because the market is going to change around you.

I’ve been investing since 2001, and I have seen crazy stuff happen. You have to be ready for it. I’m also surprised at the people who claim they’ve never lost money investing. You show me somebody that says that, and I’ll show you a liar or somebody who hasn’t done enough, because there’s a risk in everything that we do. You have to be aware of that and make sure you’re making decisions based on that.

Real Estate Fund Management: Navigating Risk And Experience

I like that, too, because you’re also managing a real estate fund now. I know a lot of people who get involved in the creative space and real estate. They gravitate towards funds. They want to build a fund. I get it. There’s an attraction there. A lot of them don’t understand how much effort and how much work it is. When I see people who have been in the business for two or three years and now they’re putting a fund together, I cringe. I go like, “You haven’t seen the cycles. You haven’t seen what’s going on,” versus someone like yourself. You saw the big up, the big crash down, the recovery, and the ripple through COVID. That means a lot.

Too many people look at funds, and they go, “This fund is paying me up to 12% and all this.” I’m like, “Look at the management. Who’s running it? Look at the experience and how long they’ve been around in the business.” Anybody who was in real estate full-time lost money in the crash somewhere or another. You had to. The writing was on the wall, but it happened that quickly. I agree with that as well. As to the fund, it is important to have an experienced team. Do you run that with your brother, Bill?

I do. We were in the business for fourteen years before we started our fund. We have been lending hard money loans since 2001. In 2012, he became my partner. We were always doing stuff separately, but he became my partner in 2012. At that time, we had about $20 million of other people’s self-directed IRA money that we were lending out to people. After two years of putting the puzzles together, we said, “We’ve got to have a fund.”

It’s a lot of responsibility when you take on other people’s money like that. It’s so much more comfortable to do it for your own benefit. When you’re lending other people’s money, it’s a lot more pressure. You’ve got to watch your P’s and Q’s and make sure that you’re making the best decisions that you can possibly make. Even in those cases, when you’re doing everything right, there’s still a risk that you have to consider on everything you do. People probably don’t use the right formulas.

My formula always uses worst-case scenario numbers. When I’m running a deal, running a scenario, or whatever that is, I’m going to use the worst-case scenario numbers. If it’s a deal when I’m using those numbers, then I’m good. So many people look at, “We could do this, and we could do that.” You could, but you don’t know what’s going on around you. There are so many things you have no control over.

I’ve said that in every single training I’ve ever done. We always hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. If you’re making money either way, then you’re good. Proceed. You can’t go in all rosy on every deal and think it’s all going to work out because sometimes, they’re not.

It’s funny how everybody has an opinion until their money goes into it, and an expectation is completely changed. All of a sudden, their money’s on the line, “I need to look at it differently versus the way that I used to because now I have some skin in the game.” With that mindset, you see a shift all the time.

There’s a difference between buying individual notes and running a fund. That’s why well-rounded experience pays off dramatically in that. I’d much rather see that in a management team than somebody who’s been focused on one thing for a couple of years and now is like, “I can put more capital together.” You shift from this mentality of “I’ll look and keep looking until I find the right note for me” to “I can’t sit with money on the sidelines for too long. I’ve got to get them into play, but I also don’t want to buy something just for the sake of buying it, have it go bad, and we’re not making money.” There’s a whole different new dynamic that comes in there, especially when you have to run multiple millions of dollars in there. There’s a lot to it.

That’s a lot of pressure. I give you a lot of credit, Wendy, because I would want to invest with someone that has 13 or 14 years of skin in the game before I would invest my money with them, versus you see somebody that’s been it for two years and they think that these funds make so much money. You don’t make as much as you think you do, as much as you think you are. Kudos to you. That’s a big responsibility.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I love what I do. One of the things that I like about how we lend in particular is that we have notes in our fund. That’s what we have. That’s what we’re doing. There are some funds that you can invest in, and they’re all worth looking at. There are some funds that you can invest in that are project-centered. You might invest in a fund that’s building an apartment complex, a fund that’s developing a neighborhood, or whatever it is. If that’s what that fund is doing, that one project is what’s carrying you.

If you understand notes and how they work, you can make any deal in real estate work for you. Click To Tweet

A lot of people here have been investing in funds that are either buying multifamily or they’re building multifamily. We all know what’s been happening with multifamily here. You’ve seen a lot of capital calls. A lot of things have changed over the past years in what they look like. If that’s what you’re invested in, you’re stuck with that one deal. I like being diversified in a bunch of different notes because if one note goes bad, there are 185 notes in there. You’re not going to feel a blip on that, which is the same if you’re buying individual notes, too. You don’t want to just buy one. You want to have ten.

Somebody is looking to borrow money. What kind of properties? What’s your process? How would people contact you if somebody is looking for a loan?

Securing Hard Money Loans: Lenders’ Requirements And Key Considerations

We lend in the Southeast, and we lend primarily to fix-and-flip and new construction. That’s what our primary deal is. We do some small commercial stuff under $1.5 million. We like strip centers with no anchor store, stuff you can’t get done on Amazon, like your nails and your hair. Those are things that are going to be in these strip centers. We like doing those as well, but mostly, we do fix-and-flip houses all over the Southeast. You can easily go to our website, CarolinaHardMoney.com. There are videos and all kinds of explanations on how the loans work and how you can get qualified for them.

What type of properties?

We prefer 1 to 4 single-family units.

Are there any guidelines, or what should people be prepared to deliver for you? Do you want a whole proposal put together, an outline, or a two-pager? What’s a smart way for people?

The application that you go through is a short application that takes you about three minutes and asks you all the questions that we need to know. I’m surprised that people don’t know this when they’re searching for loans. When you’re trying to get a hard money loan, there are a couple of things you need to know. What’s the after-repair value? What’s it going to cost to fix it up? It’s that simple. You’d be surprised at how many people don’t know that.

Hard money lenders lend up to about 70% of the after-repair value. Whether you’re planning on keeping it as a rental or not, everything is based on that after-repair value. You have to know what that is. You also have to know what it’s going to cost to fix it up because that determines what you’re going to pay for the house. Those three things are important. Know the after-repair value and what it’s going to cost to fix it up, then we know what you can pay for it.

As a real estate investor, you should also know time-wise what it’s going to cost you to rehab. There’s a lot more that the real estate investor should know that you don’t necessarily have to pass on to the lender if they’re looking for specifics. I love it when investors come prepared. They know what you’re looking for. They know what they’re supposed to have. I like seeing proof of all that stuff. There are a lot of investors who don’t realize they could hire, because everybody does stuff remotely. They can hire a real estate agent to do an after-repair value assessment.

It’s called a BPO.

Yes, it is the broker price opinion. They can do it with an after-repair value versus the current condition. A lot of people don’t know they can do that either. I imagine you have a lot of repeat business.

Probably 70% of our business is repeat. We like that. They get to know us. We get to know them. We have a really good relationship. Draws are released in an after-you’ve-done-the-work fashion, like a regular construction loan. It takes about 48 hours to get that inspection done and get that money in your bank account. People think that when they go to get a hard money loan, it doesn’t matter what their credit scores are or how much money they have in the bank. With us, that’s not true. We care about your credit score, and we care about how much money you have in the bank because we’d like our money paid back.

There's a risk in everything we've done and everything we do, and you have to be aware of it and ensure your decisions reflect that. Click To Tweet

There are companies out there that do asset-based lending. They don’t care about what your credit score is, and they don’t care how much money you have in the bank. You’re going to pay a lot more money for that kind of loan, but they’re there to get the job done. People need to understand that when you go to a company like that to get a loan, you better know what you’re doing because they’re not going to talk you out of it. They want your house.

You’re in relationship lending. You want to have a good, successful transaction, as does the borrower. Let’s do another one because then everybody is making money. For someone who doesn’t qualify, they’re like, “They do this deal, or they don’t. If they do, maybe they’ll do business again. If not, we’re going to end up with their house. They probably won’t do business.”

They won’t be able to. They’ve got a foreclosure on their record, so it’s going to be hard for them to get a loan. I’d love to do everybody’s loan. I can’t do that if you’re out of business. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that you’ve done your homework and that I can help drag you across the finish line, get it done right, and make money. Now, you can continue to do it and grow your business. That’s what it’s all about.

We’ve got some mutual friends up there, Noah and Christy. Are you okay with mobile homes as well?

Yes, we are. Mobile homes on land are probably one of my favorite things to do outside of lending.

I’ve got some friends I trained in the business years ago. Their specialty is mobile homes, manufactured homes in the Carolinas. I’ll introduce you guys.

That would be great. I love doing it. I’m closing on my third lot.

Are these outside of parks?

I don’t buy in parks. That’s not bad either. A lot of people do that, too, but it is not my thing.

It’s a niche. Somebody buys in the Carolinas since it’s popular. In other spots of the country, such as Florida and Arizona, it is as well. Somebody buys a plot of land, and they put a manufactured home out there. They make that a part of the real property instead of a vehicle. Those can be good investments.

You can seller finance it, Kevin. Turn it around, sell a portion of that note, so I can get my cash back, and go do another one. I love it.

It’s understanding all the moving parts here. How’s self-storage been going for you?

 

Self-storage has been stagnant in the past two years. People have a love affair with their stuff. It amazes me. I have two facilities, one in Missouri and one in Tennessee. I’m amazed when we have to take a self-storage unit back and kick people out because they haven’t paid. You open it up, and they’ve been spending $125 a month to keep grandma’s wrapping paper in the back with old hangers and socks. What are you thinking? It amazes me what people will pay for storage. I had one woman who had been renting for seventeen years. We bought this unit, so we didn’t own it for seventeen years. Do you know how much money that is? It’s crazy.

Self-storage has been slow. People refuse to believe that we’ve been in a recession. We can’t say the R word. “We’re not really in a recession. It’s just an illusion.” When you’re in a situation like that, the people who suffer the most from that are the ones who have been renting storage space. That’s what’s going to hurt the most, but we’re seeing that start to pick up a little bit, which we’re happy about, but they make great tax deductions, too.

Creative Investing Solutions: Notes, Self-Storage & Problem-Solving

Self-storage became a big, flashy object. I go, “There’s a lot more to it than you realize. You have to know the numbers. You’d better know the laws. You’ve got to have management in place. There’s a lot more to that, as always.” Not that notes are complex, but in a way, there’s a simplicity to notes once you understand the very fundamentals of them, and then you start to tag on the creative aspects of it. It can solve so many different problems.

At the end of the day, whether you’re investing in real estate, mobile homes, self-storage, or notes, you make your money by solving problems. That’s what it comes down to. Identify the problems, come up with a good solution, and be there for it. That’s where the money, money is made. Overall, they are great opportunities in all aspects of real estate. I agree with you. Creating paper, holding paper, and trading paper are all a big part of it. Any real estate investor who’s not paying attention to that is leaving money and opportunity on the table.

We even have notes on self-storage. We have four of them, and they’re doing great. They’ve been very consistent. You have control of the unit without having any of the responsibility. You have control of the deal without having any of the responsibility because you’re getting a monthly payment on it.

That’s the way to go. What was that website again?

It’s CarolinaHardMoney.com.

Go check that out. She’s got videos and everything else on there as well, so you can see how that works. If you’re in the Southeast and you’re looking for money, single-family homes, as she said, up to four units, or you’re looking at manufactured mobile homes, please go check out CarolinaHardMoney.com. Wendy, it’s a pleasure to see you again.

Can I also tell you about a group that I lead? On Friday mornings at 7:30 AM on Zoom, I lead a group called Sonrisers. It’s a faith-based real estate group, and it’s free. I’d love for any of your crew, anybody tuning in to this, to come and join us. We spend about 30 minutes doing a devotional, and then we talk about real estate for an hour. It’s all kinds of real estate, including notes.

Everybody, please check that out. Wendy, once again, thank you so much for being on.

Thank you.

Duane, thanks for being on here as well and getting Wendy on the show. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it. Once again, please give us a nice rating and review. Please subscribe, go ahead, and pass the information along, so we can increase our viewership. Perhaps, we’ll build more shows for you in the very near future. Thanks again, everybody. If you want to watch the video, check out the YouTube channel. Just look up my name.

 

Important Links

• Wendy Sweet on LinkedIn
• Learn with Kevin Shortle
• Sweet Carolina Houses
• Carolina Capital Management
• Sonrisers on Facebook
• Kevin Shortle on YouTube

 

About Wendy Sweet

Wendy Sweet has been lending money to investors since 2001 as both a conventional lender and Hard Money lender. In 2008, she along with countless others tossed conventional lending to the trash pile. She dug in by growing her Hard Money Company offering funds to the investors who were able to navigate the changing world of real estate.

She and her partner who is also her brother, Bill Fairman have been successfully lending money in the Southeast primarily in the Carolinas to Landlords, rehabbers, builders and commercial Investors. They now manage a real estate fund for accredited & non-accredited investors in addition to brokering loans for those with money to invest.

Wendy has been a licensed real estate broker in both Carolinas since 1981 and her side gig is fix n refi short term Rentals and now Self Storage Facilities. She combines her selling knowledge with her long-time lending expertise in order to provide top-notch service to her borrowers and investor lenders.

Their goal is to guide and assist like-minded people to build their wealth allowing them to impact the lives of family, friends, and community by building wealth through a proven lending model in the Carolina’s while providing strong returns for real estate investors.

 

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