Dallas, Texas – When Carrie Cook, president of Ignite Funding, thinks about the roughly $460 million her real estate investment company is managing right before she goes to sleep at night, she sleeps just fine. While some investors might find numbers like that to be a bit intimidating even when things are going well, Cook sees it differently. “I sleep at night even with hundreds of millions of dollars under my control because I do things right,” she stated firmly at the Think Realty National Conference & Expo in Dallas, Texas, on February 24, 2018. Cook went on to explain exactly what “doing things right” in the collateralized real estate investment space means and why Ignite Funding has a successful track record of investing starting from 1995, when the company was founded.
Collateralized real estate investments are backed with real physical property, unlike non-collateralized investments in real estate funds. “When you invest in a non-collateralized real estate investment, you are investing in the people running the fund,” Cook explained. “With our collateralized investments, you are taking ownership of the property and it’s yours.” Ignite Funding’s unique structure for investing in collateralized real estate investments allows investors to make private money loans on large projects with proven builders and have land-based collateral on those loans.
“The most important thing to remember is that where you invest matters,” said Cook. “We go out and look for our borrowers because we have very specific requirements for what types of borrower we will lend money to. However, it’s not enough to be a good borrower. You also have to be borrowing in the right market.” She went on to explain that she uses five economic indicators to give her a good indication about any investment in any market:
- Supply and demand for real estate in the sector in which the borrower is working
- Job/economic growth
- Population growth
- Desirability of the area
- Affordability of the area
“We have to look closely at what types of real estate developments are needed,” Cook explained. “Are they overdeveloped on the residential side and in dire need of commercial, for example? If so, then I want to lend to a proven borrower working in commercial development.”
Cook broke down Ignite Funding’s evaluation strategy and dove into examples of markets that she is finding attractive for investing in 2018 during her presentation at the conference. Find more conference coverage and learn more about the Think Realty National Conference & Expo series at https://thinkrealty.com.
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