My Story
As a history buff and a storyteller, I never expected a career in real estate finance. But I’m the kind of person who sees a newly constructed building and wonders: “What Occupancy are they at?” “How’s the lease-up going?” “What else is going up in this neighborhood?
Working as an analyst for a real estate mortgage finance company was my trial by fire education in multifamily finance, and where my career began in earnest.
I was invigorated to learn the trade of a GSE Multifamily Underwriter, a career I was not even aware existed. I saw valuable, specialized skills I could hone and forge a career from. My motivation and strong ability to research, read reports, and synopsize them analytically quickly paired me up with Underwriters instead of working in the Analyst pool.
Within 3 years, I had transferred from the DC office to Irvine, CA and was underwriting my own deals. I soon found myself underwriting more than just GSE loans. I apprenticed to a Wall Street underwriter to learn how to underwrite CMBS loans. This process was initially entirely foreign, but by leveraging my basic underwriting skills I was successful in procuring regular CMBS underwriting assignments. These also expanded my underwriting experience into other asset types: office, retail, industrial, and self-storage.
I was also now a “player coach”, a Team Leader (who still underwrote his own deals) responsible for junior underwriters and analysts, eventually co-managing the Underwriting team of four underwriters. I became a voting member of credit committee.
An ownership change prompted a mass layoff, which turned into a liberating experience. I embarked on a period of consulting to small firms, continuing to hone my underwriting and CMBS skills. The feeling of doing something familiar, but in new contexts, was stimulating.
This led to an opportunity to re-enter the world of GSE Underwriting. As a Senior Underwriter, I reviewed work done by production teams and performed credit functions and interfaced with Fannie Mae and our legal counsel directly on all our deals.
Every transaction is a story. It is also a puzzle with many interlocking pieces that are often challenging to assemble. Those intricacies are endlessly fascinating to me and provide a great opportunity to track where the overall markets are going. We are headed into some volatile economic times, often shaped by forces outside of our industry. My goal is to use my experience and insight to serve and support borrowers and help them take advantage of every opportunity to make their real estate investments successful.
