CR Lending

I started in the real estate business around 18 yrs old . I bought my first rental property and thought i was king .... LOL ! I ended up only making $75 per month cash flow ! I had been dating my girlfriend since 14 yrs old ( now my wife ) and was always friendly with your parents neighbor when pulling up to my inlays house . She always saw me in different cars because I flipped classic cars to make money when i was younger . She approved my and said " hey your probably a good salesman, why dont you come work for this company I work at ? " At the time it was pretty much a no brainer since i was flipping classic cars and had my release license for 1 year and had made NEGATIVE -$6,000 on real estate funds my first year! So I went in for the interview and found out real quick in life it it WHO you know , not WHAT you know! I found out you needed a 2 year work history in the field and a college degree. Neither of which i had! But they took a chance on me and i was hired! It was in the subprime mortgage industry and just when I started to make some really good money ,the mortgage crisis hit and the company went out of business. I was bummed, But there was a awesome silver lining..... I met my boss and group of friends which turned out to be my best friend and friends, and still are to this day ! So after the company shut down , I went and tried to be a retail loan officer for 1 year and again .. Made nothing! But during that year, a "cash for houses" type company called me and wanted to know if i wanted to buy the rights to the Houston market, I told them" sounds interesting , but I live in Dallas, i can't do anything with that. Call me when Dallas is available. So I really wanted to buy distressed homes , but i just needed them in my backyard. So a few weeks later, they called back and said Dallas was available ! I bought he rights to the DFW market, and sure enough , sellers started to contact us wanting to sell their homes at discounted prices. There was one problem though. I had some money saved up from buying and selling classic cars. But not enough to buy a home for cash. So here's what I did, I would write a contract on a home at $50,000 that is worth $100,000. I would then sell / assign my rights to the contract to another fellow investor for $5,000 or $55,000 total. So seller was happy because they got $50k, investor was happy because they got a $100k home for $55k and I was happy because i made $5,000 with out having to send a dime! Now this was fine and dandy for a year or two, but then i realized how much money i was leaving on the table by not renovating them and selling them retail. So after saving money i started actually closing on the homes and rehabbing them . I was doing 4-6 simultaneously. If you have ever seen any of the TV shows like flip or flop or flip that house , etc..etc.. I was doing the exact same thing, just not on TV. So after many successful years of flipping homes, to be honest , i got burnt out . So i had home that i bought and was about to rehab and thought, let me try to sell it as-is to another investor. So listed it on the local MLS and a buyer came along and made an offer, But he was getting a hard money loan and not paying cash. So i asked him how much his lender was charging him and he said 14% and 4 points. I said since i already own the home , how about i do 12% and 2 points. He said ok, we had a deal and closed on the home with me as his bank. So after that a light bulb went off and i thought... hey! I should just be bank for local flippers and make interest on my money. So i started a hard money lending company and that is our main focus, although i still buy and sell homes, and have a rental portfolio.