A small taste of what Marcy Berger does every day at Gelt Financial.
Gelt has been helping commercial real estate and investment borrowers since 1989. When your bank says NO, we say YES!
“Jack: Okay, Marcy Berger at Gelt Financial. I want to do a day in the life of a really eight hours in the life of Marcy Berger at Gelt Financial. Tell our wonderful fans on TikTok and YouTube wherever they are some of the deals you’re working on and some of the stuff you do in a day in life.
Marcy: I really, every day is an adventure here because every day is different, and I’ve been working on a lot of different deals. They all have their own story. I’m working on one deal that a person is looking to buy something in Ohio, and it’s a piece of property and a lot, and we’re looking at that as taking a first position, and then it’s a purchase – a lot of purchases. I’m working on a very rushed deal that they came to us, and they had to close within 5 business days, and they had a whole package, and that deal is in Florida. I’m working on that.
Jack: Did the lender drop the ball on that, or was it a foreclosure?
Marcy: Yes, the lender did drop the ball. A lot of times, you know, the brokers come to me with that situation because the borrower comes to them, like, “Oh, I went to this mortgage broker, you know, this mortgage broker, they’re working on my deal.” And then the mortgage broker keeps saying that they took the deal somewhere else. And this particular borrower went to a different broker because the other broker dropped the ball and really never presented the package to a lender. So, they just kept yessing the borrower, and then the borrower was in a situation with a closing date and had no loan.
Jack: Marcy, yeah, yeah, I didn’t mean to interrupt. It seems to me that a lot of the deals we do are where lenders are dropping the ball. They promise to approve the deal and they take up front fees and they don’t, or the brokers are dropping the ball.
Marcy: Right, which is really important. I mean, I guess this is kind of a shout out to borrowers and brokers because as a borrower, you have to have some evidence that your mortgage broker is working on your deal. And as a mortgage broker, you have to have evidence from whatever lender you’re placing the deal with that they’re actually working on your deal because everyone, you know, can email and “yes” you to death, but it doesn’t mean it’s really happening. And then we’re also working, you know, looking at different ways, very creative financing right now.
Jack: Can I get back? Can I say, because it’s an issue I think it’s important. One of the advantages they have with Gelt is we’re a relatively small company. They’re always going to speak to a decision maker so you can make a decision and issue a term sheet. I can, Noah can, Michael can. So, at any one time here, we don’t have a committee. You know, it’s a very small group. We work as a team, and we’re our own portfolio lenders. We’re not— we don’t need the secondary market or the bond markets. We’re not selling our loans—
Marcy: No, that’s what’s like so wonderful, and that’s why all the brokers really do enjoy, and it’s a pleasure working with us because we do everything right here. You can talk to myself, Jack. Exactly, what Jack just said, there’s always a decision to be made, and we’ll make it fast, you know.
Jack: So, there’s a lot more credibility than going with some of our competitors who have loan committees, and you’re talking—
Marcy: And it’s just too much. And also, you know, I can get an answer to you. It may be yes or maybe no, but it’s fast, and then you can move on with your day and take care of what you need to take care of.
Jack: Okay, I’m sorry to interrupt. I want to—that was a good snow. It’s a good selling point because we get tons of calls. How many times do we get a call on a Monday? “Oh, I’ll give you the deal, but you have to close Friday or Thursday, every day, every week, every day.
Marcy: Another thing that has come up so much in conversation with me, with my brokers, is appraisals, okay? So, we have adopted the way of handling that because it’s very hard to get appraisals out in the world ever since—it’s very hard to get appraisals done. And so, we, as a company, had to see, what are we going to do about this? You know, we can’t have an appraisal hold up a deal 6 weeks, 8 weeks because they’re so behind, all their appraisers, and it’s just been so difficult. So, we have taken it upon ourselves to create a team here that we will do an internal Gelt evaluation of the property, which saves you money, which I’m saying thousands and thousands of dollars—
Jack: How much do you think the average appraisal on a mixed use is now? 3500 bucks?
Marcy: It is, at least. I mean, it’s gone up incredibly, and the time to get the appraisals back is unacceptable.
Jack: Would it take like 5 – 6 weeks?
Marcy: Yes.
Jack: So, most of the deals—I’m putting words in your mouth—we’re doing 99% of the deals we’re doing are without appraisals.
Marcy: We do our own internal evaluation, and honestly, it’s been working just fine, and so that gives us the speed that’s needed to get our deals close.
Jack: And it’s a huge savings to the borrower.
Marcy: Oh, thousands of dollars and time, and every deal that we see is really time sensitive.
Jack: What else have you been working on like in the last 24 hours?
Marcy: Oh, all sorts of deals. I’m working on a car wash. I did several presentations to different broker’s offices, which is another thing we’re very open to do that. We will speak to your office and explain what we do and how we work deals, and if you have questions, we will take the time to explain our position and the market, you know, what we do for borrowers.
Jack: So, that on to elaborate more. You were part of a sales meeting, and I think they have like 30 brokers or something.
Marcy: Yes, online, and they’re nationwide, and they’re definitely—they’re actually a merchant cash type of loan agency, but they need hard money loans because their people are in situations, and they need a place to place the hard money.
Jack: So, you educated the brokers on how to do business.
Marcy: Yeah.
Jack: Okay, good.
Marcy: Yes, and I already received three deals from this morning.
Jack: I’m going to try to talk about the stuff I want to talk about because that’s the way it is, you know. I don’t care about anything else. I know you’re working on a bunch of foreclosure bailout loans because that’s a huge product with us. Walk us through how that works at Gelt.
Marcy: So, if you’ve come across a borrower that’s in pre-foreclosure or there’s a sale date, or whatever is going on with the property, we do foreclosure bailouts. And what that means is that we will pull them out of foreclosure and save the property, in a sense. I mean, of course, there does have to be equity in the deal, and it has to make sense. You know, whenever we do a foreclosure bailout, it has to make sense because we do want the borrower to be successful and also be able to make our payment to us once we do the loan for them. But we are very familiar with the process legally, and, you know, we do help them. And we also help people that are in bankruptcy or have just settled bankruptcy or are going to declare bankruptcy, you know. So, we’ve been able to, we know how to work with people involved in the court with that, and, you know, we help people. You know, there’s been several properties that have been included in bankruptcy, and we have satisfied that part of the puzzle, and it helps them out, and it releases the property, so we’re very familiar with that also, yeah.
Jack: Also, during your— I’m trying to do a day in the life of. I know you worked on a borrower’s request to up his loan amount. Tell us a little bit about that.
Marcy: Actually, anything that has to do with the borrowers, they. I am like their contact person because I’m the first person, and Jack is who they meet at Gelt Financial. So, we, you know, we work with the borrowers, whatever they need. If they need to have their own loan longer, they can request a modification, which we will modify their loan and give them more time to get out of our loan. Or, in this situation, I had a borrower come to me looking for more money, so that’s another thing. He has the equity in the property, and we were able to give him another additional funds, and we modified his loan.
Jack: We originally lent him about 300,000 about a year ago, and now we approved him for another 200,000.
Marcy: Exactly, and he’s delighted, and it works for him, and it works for us because he was, you know, he’s a good borrower.
Jack: Okay, I think we’re trying to give everyone— Now one more thing, you’re also working on new loans.
Marcy: Every day, I’m working on new loans. I go from one email to the next, reviewing deals. I’m on the phone. I discuss the deals with the broker. I have two deals I’m working on in Colorado. I have a deal I’m working on in Ohio. I have a deal I’m working on in Texas. I have, it’s just…
Jack: You’re forgetting New York; we have two deals we’re closing…
Marcy: ..and two in New York. New York is actually our favorite state; we do a lot of business in New York.
Jack: Two deals we’re working on and closing in New York.
Marcy: Yeah, a lot, definitely a lot.
Jack: Okay, Marcy, is this a fair representation of a day at Gelt?
Marcy: Absolutely.
Jack: It seems like you pack a lot more in, and I work with you.
Marcy: Well, you can add when I was on vacation a couple weeks ago, I think you see what goes on and the day in the life in my life at this company.
Jack: We’re cancelling all vacations.
Marcy: No more vacations the rest of the year.
Jack: Marcy, if someone wants to get in touch with you, how do they get in touch with you?
Marcy: You can email me at mberger@geltfinancial.com or you can call me at 561-221-0900 extension 103.
Jack: And don’t forget, “When your bank says no, we say yes.” Like the video, leave questions. Marcy will answer them, and remember if you have a financing situation, give Marcy a call. Have a great day.”
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