In today’s fast-moving investment landscape, every minute saved can give multifamily investors a leg up. Joshua Orpin, deputy chief production officer, of small balance production at Lument, explains the many benefits of tapping into Leap to Loans for faster multifamily valuation estimates and quotes.
How does Leap to Loans (LeaptoLoans.com) work and what’s the biggest draw for multifamily borrowers?
Orpin: Leap to Loans is designed for anyone seeking quick multifamily property and finance information, including small-balance loan quotes. It provides market intel around neighborhoods, rents, sales comps, demographics, and other data based on a single address. The platform is largely aimed at medium-to-smaller investors, including folks who may have an entirely different day job and invest on the side to help build generational wealth. They could also be a borrower who plans to buy or inherit multifamily assets soon without a large company or fund involved.
How can institutional investors, including mid-market borrowers, make best use of Leap to Loans?
Orpin: For real estate firms with larger staffs, Leap to Loans can help bolster their market intel. It’s especially useful for companies that are tapping into new markets where our data teams have already compiled relevant comps and values.
Can you take borrowers behind the scenes on how the technology works?
Orpin: We were able to leverageThe process of using debt as a funding source in real estate financing, usually as a strategy to pur... two main tools that we have internally at Lument. We worked with our Artemis team to build Leap to Loans in-house. Artemis is an internal proprietary engine that we use to calculate property and market valuations to help our originators with specific deals. We have a lot of vetted and curated intel in that system. We also tapped into our internal small balance loan (SBL) calculator, which our originators use for multifamily loan quotes.
We took the key factors from those data sets and created a simple form that borrowers can fill in to get valuation estimates and instant quotes through Leap to Loans. We also provide free market insights as users add relevant information.
How do Lument’s agency relationships benefit multifamily buyers who use Leap to Loans?
Orpin: One of our advantages is that, as an agency lenderThe person or party (such as a bank or corporate entity) that loans money on a commercial real estat..., we have access to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan comp data. Pair that with Lument’s $53 billion loan servicing portfolio, and we have a myriad of anonymized data points that can help us model potential loans.
How is all of this property, loan, and market data packaged for SBL borrowers?
Orpin: We take all our intel and compile it in a clean way that lets users skip filling out tons of information before receiving their valuation estimates and loan quote—what they really need. We also tap into other industry data, Census data, and additional information about specific markets that can offer a lot of value to multifamily borrowers. In the end, you get everything from average cap rateThe capitalization rate, or cap rate, is one of the most widely-used metrics for estimating the yiel..., rent, and occupancy to population, and median household income.
How much customization does Leap to Loans offer individual users?
Orpin: We can provide loans and market information based on a borrower’s interest in loan proceeds, terms, rates, and other important factors in today’s lending environment. There are different levers we can pull to customize our data to meet specific borrower needs.
Can you give borrowers a glimpse into how Leap to Loans and other Lument data platforms were developed?
Orpin: The programs we use were all built in-house by a number of team members who work collectively. We have a very robust lender technology team that develops and maintains these tools, so we’re never relying on somebody else’s ideas. We are always asking ourselves: What do we need for our clients and for our business to succeed and how do we build it and make it a product that offers value?
What was the impetus for building such an intricate platform from the ground up?
Orpin: Our SBL originators are always out talking to borrowers, brokers, and many others in the multifamily space. We started to think about additional ways that we can bring in business and better serve our clients using new technology tools combined with all of the intel we have at Lument. We looked at the many apps and platforms available on the single-family side and saw a big void on the multifamily side. With Leap to Loans, it can be as simple as entering an address and then receiving more detailed information about the property and surrounding area.
Enter the address of your next opportunity to get instant insights including real time valuations, loan quotes and more.
