When I joined Anchor Loans as CEO in March of last year, I strongly believed our company and our industry were at an inflection point—a moment of great risk and great opportunity. The Fed raised interest rates nine times in the 12 months before I joined Anchor, and the U.S. housing market faced a storm of unprecedented challenges: post-Covid population shifts, nationwide inventory shortages, rising home prices, falling home sales and mortgage rates that were keeping first-time home buyers out of the market.
From the midst of that market turbulence, one thing was made abundantly clear — the enduring strength of residential real estate investors. A mid-year report published by CoreLogic showed the resilience of real estate entrepreneurs who clearly saw the demand for new and upgraded housing in their local markets. In fact, the data reveals that these investors were responsible for 26% of all single-family home purchases.
Another key takeaway was the fact that small investors, those who own between three and nine properties, emerged as a formidable force — accounting for 47% of all investor purchases. As mega-investors and large investors were taking a step back, smaller investors stepped up, suggesting that the market is becoming more accessible to a wider range of participants.
Unfortunately, the lending landscape for these investors took a major hit last year as regional banks paused or ceased their construction and renovation lending. Traditional capital sources became more risk averse, and many private lenders capped loan amounts below $1MM or stopped their SFR investment lending altogether.
At Anchor Loans, we did not pause or pull back. We recognized the crucial need for access to financing, expanded our offerings, improved leverage and opened the aperture of our approval guidelines to accommodate both seasoned investors and newer entrants whose business is the building or repair of U.S. homes.
Experts agree America desperately needs more housing. It is estimated that we are currently short somewhere between 4 to 5 million units. Some inventory relief will come as our nation’s Baby Boomers transition out of their current homes into shared or assisted housing—but the aging properties they leave will require renovation to ready them for Millennial homebuyers and their families. U.S. Census data reveals that nearly half of all owner-occupied homes in the U.S. were built before 1980, with around 35% built before 1970.
Anchor’s parent company, Pretium Partners, released a report this year, "Long-Term Bullish Outlook for the Housing Rehabilitation Industry," making a strong case for the future of single-family residential rehabilitation and remodeling. Pretium and Anchor Loans are fiercely committed to financing the improvement and the construction of U.S. housing to help ease the inventory constraints so many American home buyers and renters face.
One of my very first leadership priorities last year was to demonstrate that in uncertain times Anchor Loans would remain the nation’s leading dependable source of private capital for professional real estate investors and developers. We lived up to that promise in 2023, and as we approach the coming year, the question that guides our planning, our operations and our decision-making is “How can Anchor Loans help more investors build and improve more homes in 2024 and beyond?” Our answer to that question lies in three focus areas:
1. Perfecting Our Infrastructure
Anchor enters 2024 with 25+ years in business, a parent company with $50B in assets and an infrastructure of expert account executives, processing teams, loan servicers, asset managers, support personnel and leadership teams who are obsessed with providing an exceptional customer experience for our borrowers.
Guided by that customer-centered obsession, we invested considerable resources in the past year perfecting our infrastructure by:
• Improving our application and doc drawing processes with advanced automations and web-based integrations to further reduce turnaround times.
• Offering TruePic inspection technology to speed up draw request funding.
• Integrating advanced analytics to provide more individualized insight and support to our customers based on their business goals.
• Building a loyalty structure to reward our customers who have trusted Anchor to finance multiple projects.
2. Advanced Analytics Integrations and Elevated Market Research
In 2024 we’re investing in further advancements to our proprietary technology platform, augmenting our AI and neural network technology to provide:
• Faster and more precise property valuation and loan pricing.
• Even faster turnaround times—from application, to funding, to payoff.
• Loan journey monitoring to provide borrower support at key milestones.
• CRM integrations to facilitate seamless borrower/Anchor Team communication.
In 2024 Anchor will continue to expand and elevate our market research efforts to provide our customers with deep-dive industry insights and exclusive MSA-level market analytics.
3. Expanding Our Geographic Footprint
Anchor Loans currently operates in 48 states, but we are best known on the West Coast. In 2023 we significantly stepped up our lending in several new markets in the Southeast, Northeast and Midwest, and as other lenders pulled back on flip and construction lending, we stepped up and reached out to builders and rehabbers nationwide who were seeking new partners to replace the banking relationships they lost. Our 2024 growth strategy is to continue to expand our footprint to become more widely recognized as the number one lender to real estate investors—not just in the West, but nationwide.
I’d love to hear from you and learn more about how we can help you grow your business. Are there pain points impeding your business goals that we can help with? Do you have feedback for Anchor that will help us serve you better? Reach out to me at RaymanMathoda (@) anchorloans.com if you’d like to set up a time to meet and discuss!
—Ray Mathoda, CEO
