Greg Hebner
If I was going to lend you a million dollars to ever what would I care about? Who are you?
April 8, 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
Banks Don't Want You to Know About This Man
With Greg Hebner — Managing Director, Arixa Capital
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Greg Hebner, Managing Director and majority owner of Arixa Capital (formerly Erickson), joins Taylor Avakian on the No Vacancy Podcast for an in-depth conversation on private real estate lending…
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Greg Hebner, Managing Director and majority owner of Arixa Capital (formerly Erickson), joins Taylor Avakian on the No Vacancy Podcast for an in-depth conversation on private real estate lending, scaling a multi-billion dollar platform, and navigating today's CRE market. Sponsor — Citizens Bank Connect with a banker at https://www.citizensbank.com/novacancy Sponsor – AI for CRE Collective AI for CRE Community: https://www.skool.com/ai-for-cre-collective/about?ref=3b3ff2c0ccce44ba8039fafd54bf291a From Arixa's origins in distressed lending post-2008 to managing over $2.3–2.5 billion in assets and originating nearly $1.5 billion annually across 22 states, Greg shares how they built one of the fastest-growing independent private lenders in the U.S. He discusses the differences between private credit and traditional banks, the power of sponsor-focused underwriting, avoiding re-trades, delivering white-glove service, and partnering with institutions like Oaktree Capital. Topics include: launching mortgage securitizations (bond shelves), construction and renovation lending on single-family to multifamily deals, growth strategies, hiring culture, client relationships that span a decade, and where Greg sees opportunities and challenges in residential and multifamily real estate over the next 12–36 months. A must-watch for real estate developers, investors, brokers, flippers, and anyone interested in private credit, alternative lending, or building a scalable real estate finance business in a high-interest-rate environment. Timestamps / Chapters: 00:00 - Welcome & Arixa Capital Origin Story 02:40 - Current Scale: $2.3–2.5B Assets, ~$1B Annual Originations 03:47 - What is Private Capital? How Arixa Differs from Banks 05:40 - Fund Structures, Oaktree Partnership, Mortgage Securitizations & Large Loans 10:05 - Sponsor-First Underwriting Philosophy & Why Character Beats Perfect Projects 11:25 - Why Arixa Can Say No: Private Ownership & No Quarterly Pressure 11:39 - How Arixa Makes Money: Management Fees, Origination & Servicing 13:41 - Deal Process: From Term Sheet to Funding (Speed & No Re-Trades) 18:47 - Portfolio Makeup: Single-Family vs Multifamily, Loan Sizes & Markets 19:54 - How Arixa Wins Business: Service DNA, Real Estate Experience & Flexibility 23:23 - Catalysts for Explosive Growth & Capital Partnerships 26:43 - Landing Big Partners Like Oaktree & CalSTRS 31:11 - What is a Bond Shelf / Mortgage Securitization? 34:07 - Economics of Bonds vs Warehouse Lines 38:35 - Greg Hebner's Journey: From Flipping & Special Servicing to Private Lending 46:17 - Where Greg Invests Personally (Real Estate, Europe, Private Equity & Venture) 52:26 - Pattern Recognition, Intelligence & Access in Investing 57:07 - A Day in the Life of Greg Hebner: Strategy, Culture & Client Focus 1:03:18 - Real Estate Market Outlook: Single-Family Challenges, Multifamily Opportunities & Politics 1:12:03 - Closing Thoughts #realestate #commercialrealestate #podcast Subscribe and Stay Ahead! Stay informed and empowered in the multifamily real estate market. Subscribe to the channel for exclusive insights, rental updates, and expert analyses on the Los Angeles market. 🔔 Don’t miss out on the latest trends and tips to maximize your property's potential: https://www.youtube.com/c/TaylorAvakian 📈 Connect with me: Website: https://www.thegroupcre.com/ Email: taylor@thegroupcre.com X: https://x.com/TAYVAY_ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tayloravakian/ Arixa Capital Advisors, LLC. 2026. Equal Housing Lender. Loans made or arranged pursuant to a California Finance Lenders Law license. Arixa AZ, LLC license No. BK-1029177 (NMLS ID No. 2187382) originates loans in Arizona under the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions. CFL License No. 60DBO-98673. NMLS ID. No. 2318142. Greg Hebner DRE# 01396057. For more licensing information visit www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org.
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Episode transcript
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0:00–10:00
Taylor Avakian
What are you going to do with the money? Do you know what you're doing? And do you have enough money to pay me back? Greg Hebner is a managing director and majority owner of Arixa Capital with over 25 years of experience and has deployed billions of dollars in
Greg Hebner
capital across thousands of transactions. Growth is good, but if you go too fast, like you're going to end up losing all the things that make you special. I bought my first house at 22 for $81,300 with basically 2% down. My two roommates took the front bedrooms, my mortgage was paid, then I got to live in the big bedroom. It's all about specialization. Michael Jordan was the best basketball player ever, but he was a pretty damn lousy baseball player. Yeah. There is an enormous premium on intelligence. You got to be smarter than the average bear, otherwise you're going to get an absolutely average
Taylor Avakian
return. What is specifically the real estate market in your view going to be looking like and where are the opportunities? Well, first of all, This episode is supported by Citizens Private Bank. Citizens believes your attention is a force. It's built your world, your vision, your legacy. But wealth brings financial complexity that can consume the most valuable asset, your focus. That is why Citizens Private Bank, now in Los Angeles, gives you a dedicated team with one point of contact who understands your full financial picture, including specialized real estate financing. I'm a client myself and I have been impressed by how seamlessly they bring everything together with thoughtful,
Greg Hebner
tailored support.
Taylor Avakian
Let Citizens focus on your wealth so you can focus on your world. Connect with a banker at citizensbank.com/novacancy. Member FDIC, equal housing lender. Welcome to the show. My name is Taylor Vekain and I'm here with my esteemed guest, Greg Hebner. Greg, thank you for being here.
Greg Hebner
Yeah, happy to be here.
Taylor Avakian
So, you're the managing director for Arixa Capital. Can you walk me back through how did Arixa get started? What's the What's the origin story of Arixa cuz it started in 2012, I want to say, right?
Greg Hebner
Uh before that, actually, my my former partner started it in 2006 or formed up in 2006, but probably came to light for most people in 2010. Uh he launched a an initial fund there and lending to people buying uh distressed property from the trustee sales and the foreclosures that were starting to to
Taylor Avakian
come. From the Great Depression or the Great Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was going to say don't get that, but it it felt
Greg Hebner
like a recession that we're in there, but uh he and I met like at a real estate event and I was telling him what I was doing. I was a high-volume flipper doing 50, 60 flips a year across the state and he was telling me he was buying some loans and you know, and I said, "Why don't you just you could do one of those directly with me? I've got a lot of lenders I work with." And I first interaction was I called him like on a Friday. I said, "I have a deal." I think it was down in Orange County. He drove down on a Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. and called me and said, "Looks great. We'll fund it next week." And you know, we uh doing loans directly and did that for a while.
Greg Hebner
And I started a small equity fund buying single families out in Inland Empire and things like that, which never became a big part of our business, but we did do that together. And then I had an opportunity in 2013 with a gentleman in town to, you know, put some real capital to work. He liked sort of I'll call them heavy renovations in A++ markets, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Malibu, Palisades. And we were really kind of the first game in town. So, people would buy properties for two to five million, spend a million to fix them up, million and a half, sell them for five to 10. Mhm. And it really kind of thrust us in the map here in LA. Had these beautiful homes in beautiful markets and kind of if you you've got the umbrella benefit. If you can do a seven million dollar house, you can do my $700,000
Greg Hebner
house. But you know, that taught us a little bit about how to run funds that used leverage and bank leverage and construction and things of that sort and uh that kind of went into our other funds and it's helped us to grow a lot since then. But you know, the DNA of what we do hasn't changed much. It's uh I still wanted to be the lender that I would want to borrow from. Uh-huh. And um I figured if you could satisfy what I would want, then we could satisfy others who have similar needs. You know, it's obviously expanded a lot, which I'm sure we'll talk about it in the podcast, but that was the genesis of it and he and I ran it until fall of 2023 and then he stepped back and um you know, we've kind of turbocharged it a little bit since then and things
Taylor Avakian
that we've done and it's What's the total assets or loans out right now?
Greg Hebner
Yeah, it's between two three and two five, uh 2.3 and 2.5 billion. Jeez. We're adding about a billion a year to that. Oh my goodness. Yeah, didn't you have the biggest month, 325 million Yeah, September was the biggest month we had, 325. I think December will be bigger. Wow. You know, it's we're lending in 22 states now. I think we're coming up on a thousand clients that we've served. You know, it's become quite a a national and recognizable platform, which is obviously very rewarding from the And we're we're planning our holiday party now and it's kind of funny. There's a few people that worked with me for a decade or more and I remember we had a holiday party where it was five of us around a table at like a hotel restaurant in Santa Monica.
Greg Hebner
They were all squeezed in cuz there was only room there there was five of us and and a four-person table. Yeah, now at the Academy of Sciences, I've got 200 and some people coming and uh in an Oscar-themed event that we're we're hosting for uh employees and spouses flying in from around the country.
Taylor Avakian
So, it's uh Man, that must feel incredible.
Greg Hebner
Yeah, it's fully it's fun like it's been a great year. I'm happy to have you know, I did with so many new people we've hired, it's just great to meet, you know, and see them together and you know, meet their families and stuff.
Taylor Avakian
Can you explain for the people who don't know, like what is private capital? What exactly does Arixa do and what makes them different from a bank?
Greg Hebner
Sure. No, it's uh have that conversation with a lot of clients these days as you might imagine. So, um in many industries what you've seen is you've seen a dislocation between typical banks, which were the primary sources of capital, and what's just broadly defined as private capital, private credit. So, we're in the giant ecosystem of private credit, which is a multi-multi-trillion-dollar base of assets that lends on everything from, you know, airplanes to infrastructure and data centers to real estate to all kinds of esoteric assets and businesses. A lot of it a lot of it is private credit to the businesses. Okay. What we're doing is indifferent from a bank in the sense that we're we're a senior secured lender. So, we're taking a first position mortgage just like your home mortgage would be with a with a deed, with a note. You pay interest.
Greg Hebner
You pay a balloon at the end, but the loans tend to be shorter term. Most banks are typically working on loans of longer terms. Our typical loan, one to two years. And the goal is to get a borrower who's going to be an investor, usually an LLC or an entity, from point A to point B. Whatever their execution plan is on the project, we're going to be the senior capital to help them get there. Obviously, having private credit and private capital, there's different ways you're regulated versus banks. The ease, the speed, the flexibility, the creativity, it's much more of a call it common sense approach. We're not dictated by a guideline that says, "You can only do this and you have to be in this box and what your credit score is 685, it's not 690, I'm sorry, I can't lend to you."
Greg Hebner
You know, we're trying to take a much more holistic and you know, if you want to dive into it, like how do I think about what the loans that we make and who we work with, it's it's a big part of what we do. But you know, you're you're we're lending on our own balance sheet for the most part. So, if if you come to me and say, "Greg, I got I'm buying an apartment building in Santa Monica." it's our funds. We're not going out and raising it.
Taylor Avakian
We have the funds available.
Greg Hebner
syndicated. Not syndicated. You know, we have funds that we do with partners such as Oaktree, uh CalSTRS. We have our own funds that we manage, which tend to be for family offices, high net worth, RIAs. And those funds have dated, you know, we've we have fund we started in 2010, 15th year, 2013, 12th year, 2014. So, these funds have been the retail funds have been around for a long time.
Taylor Avakian
They're like evergreen funds?
Greg Hebner
They are. All three of them are. Interesting. And then the other funds are more of the typical, you know, three to five year funds and then and then wind down. So, we've also done a we've done mortgage securitization where we sell we sold public bonds to more
Taylor Avakian
CMBS stuff?
Greg Hebner
No, it's it's it's it's actual bo- actual bonds. Really? Yeah. Um did that in August, which was a very interesting experience. And then we have a a sub partners that work with us on the whole loan side where we started to do some very, very large loans, um up to 75, 80 million dollars. A lot of home builder finance, large projects, um so, I got a text I was coming up here. We just won a 30 million dollar uh assignment on a beautiful building they're building in Minneapolis. Congratulations. best builders in that town. So, you know, I was noticing I walked up the stairs today. The electricity is out in West Yeah, the electricity is out in in the West LA for those of you Yeah, we're literally I don't know how we're filming this.
Taylor Avakian
The power's out in this building. Yeah, we have a good gen- you have a good generator, right? So, yeah, the generator's good on this one.
Greg Hebner
But yeah, there's you have to get a real life example. That guy's only really used banks. He's only ever used banks. He had an offer from a bank. His broker said, "Hey, you should talk to this group. I think they're doing some things that maybe maybe interest you." You know, a lot of it is just the flexibility in terms of how he wants to approach these to come in. Mhm. What the bank would want him to hold as it relates to deposits and compensating deposits and covenants. It's not part of our underwriting. I mean, it's much more of a you know, I I I tell people it's like if I was going to lend you a million dollars to ever, what would I care about? I care about, you know, who are you, your character, the kind of person you are.
Taylor Avakian
What are you going to do with the money? Do you know what you're doing? You know, you Are we putting in a project that makes sense?
Greg Hebner
Mhm.
Taylor Avakian
And do you have enough money to pay me back?
Greg Hebner
It's really, really it's sponsor, sponsor, sponsor for us much more than market and people, you know, people ask all the time. It's like, you know, would you rather have a, you know, great sponsor and a lousy project or amazing project? I'm like like you know, and I and I and I'm and I'm and I and I'm a pe- a mediocre sponsor. A great sponsor can take a very mediocre project and turn it into a winner. But I have seen the best projects in the world just get completely decimated Interesting. by bad sponsors. And it's and it's not even close. Like the the range of outcomes is as broad as you can imagine. Mhm. I mean, if you think about the last five or six years, I mean, between March 2020, when shut down LA, Mhm. to let's raise the interest rates 11 times in 18 months.
Greg Hebner
You know, I mean, just, you know, you you know, you were part of it, you know, couldn't you couldn't get containers, you couldn't get from the from the city out. Everything that could go wrong was like it like the seven plagues of real estate. All rolled into one. The guys who
10:00–20:00
Greg Hebner
got through that and the gals who got through that, I mean, they're battle-tested. And we love the folks, you know, gosh, I got decimated in '08, '09. I'm not going to do that again. I'm not going to be over-leveraged. I'm not going to be under-capitalized. I'm going to have this this I mean, they've gone through it. I mean, they have the PTSD from Totally. four bankers all, you know, rounding basically berating them and you're like, "What do you want me to do? My land is worth less than zero, you know, I can't build on it." Yeah. So, um but that you know, that sponsor has been through it, who's proven you know, I I think a lot of lenders are like, "Well, you know, I'm going to get an appraisal." Appraisals are important, sure. But you know, I was in I was in Miami this weekend with a group.
Greg Hebner
Like this guy who mostly does bigger projects, he's like, "Greg, I'm going to do this I'm going to do this flip." It's like it's like four blocks down from his house, you know, it's in South Florida. He walks his dog past there. He's like, "I'm stealing this thing." Mhm. Appraiser's coming. He's like, "Well, I don't know about this." And I'm like, "I got a guy, he's lived in the neighborhood for 6 years. He's about to put his house on the market for the highest price per square foot ever in that little sub area." "I'm never going to know more than him. So, if I trust my sponsor, which he'll know more about his little community than I would know a thousand dollars, right? I'll be okay. I'm lending 75, maybe 80% of a project. He's putting in his own money. You know, I can get very comfortable with that.
Greg Hebner
A bank wouldn't make sense. Bank would pull the appraisal. Well, you know what? That price per square foot is higher than the comps. And the appraiser may or may not know the market, probably not. It's kind of a small little enclave. It's like LA. You think of LA? And which side of which side of Sunset are you on? Which side of the 405 are you on? Like it's only half a mile away. Well, you know, one of them's on that side of the 405.
Taylor Avakian
That's a big difference, right? Different market.
Greg Hebner
Yeah. Different rents. so it's different everything, right? Really different everything. So, if you start with the sponsor, you try to lend to people that you want to lend to again and again. We don't have the pressures to have to make a loan. That's when lenders get in trouble. Like you build these you know, the traditional mortgage industry, I have 400 people in a in a giant cavernous office and I got to keep the phones ringing. They got to make loans. Why?
Taylor Avakian
Why do you guys have that luxury of not having to do that?
Greg Hebner
We're privately owned. Nobody's telling us what to do. There's no no big contra over here saying you got to do this, you got to do that. No, there's no quarterly earnings. There's no you know, there's nobody saying if you can't put out another 500 million for me this quarter, I'll find somebody who can. And you know, we've always you know, I think my partner partner and I have always had the view of like growth is good, but if you go too fast, you know, you're going to end up losing all the things that make you special. So, that is the single biggest challenge is that you've grown a business is I have 16 new people, I think, over the last 12 months. I've hired 50 or 60 people. I got to teach them the culture. I got to teach them the why, the how.
Greg Hebner
They don't have any of that institutional knowledge of I'm hiring a lot of people from banks. A lot of fantastic people who have lifetime careers in banking. And it's like I'm like, "Guy, you got to leave all that stuff you learned outside the door, you know.
Taylor Avakian
Come on in here, you know, it's a whole 'nother world, you know." the new game.
Greg Hebner
Yeah, and it's just you know, you've been trained a certain way. So, it's like the questions that you know, just the questions you would ask, you know, the things that you would think you need to ask, you know, when and then not having to sort of go down a script. It's like it's a it's a conversation. How do you guys make money?
Taylor Avakian
What is the the economics behind what you guys do?
Greg Hebner
Yeah. So, if you think about our business, it's really two lines of business. You know, first and foremost, we're private credit investment manager. So, we run we run funds, private equity funds in which we earn a fee to manage the money for our LPs. That's that's one. So, it's deliver a consistent 8, 9, 10% return payable monthly. Not a lot of volatility. Mostly it's a high yield premium to a typical fixed income investment. Which is which is alternatives, broadly defined. Uh second part of our business is um we charge our borrowers a fee to originate a loan, origination fees. And we charge some of our third parties fees to service loans. So, um perfect world, those would be 50/50. Not quite there yet. The uh the origination is a little bit larger percent of the revenue, but you know, so it's a it's a business that produces recurring revenue on
Greg Hebner
the management fee side. And um you know, so we're originating new ones, you know, you know, every
Taylor Avakian
month. And you guys have grown significantly, so those fees have uh those origi- origination points have gotten
Greg Hebner
Yeah. larger. Yeah, a lot a lot a lot. That's why That's why the Christmas party is what it is. But uh No, I know, it's a good business. It's it's about building operating leverage and scale. It's a it's a very it's a very hands-on business. I have no I have a lot of people that do the task because it it takes a lot of touches. It's not There's people in my industry that have built really hands-off high-tech platforms. You go in at 3:00 a.m. and you you do your I mean, our clients want personal attention, personal service. You know, we get calls that you'd imagine in your business. It's Saturday at 8:00 a.m. And you know what? I got to call. I got to Is this a deal?
Taylor Avakian
Can you do this deal? Is something we could do? Things you know, things don't always happen
Greg Hebner
the service business. Really in the service business. It's it's a premium product compared to a service. And when you need us, you need us. And it it may not always be between the hours of 9:00 to
Taylor Avakian
5:00.
Greg Hebner
Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
What what goes into actually getting a deal from zero to you guys finding it? Like what what is the process look like for you guys?
Greg Hebner
So, one of the things that was really important to me in the very beginning, I I still think we're one of the only groups that do this is I didn't want to send a term sheet out to later on retrade the term sheet. Right? So, it's like, "Let me get you a loan Let me get you loan terms." I'm actually going to do work up front. And I'm going to have this this basically three people on our team, myself, my partner Seth who you know, my chief credit officer. We're actually approving the term sheet. Every single one. Wow. I've probably done 10,000 term sheets in my my days. But that doesn't mean we get those deals. But I don't want to send you something that we can't do. So, we're going to say, "All right, Seth, you tell me all the inputs." Okay. I'm going to take everything at face.
Greg Hebner
If all these things hold true, we'll lend you a million dollars at this rate and this term and these fees and this this I'll put it in front of you. Does it look like it makes sense? Yes. Then we'll go to work. We'll validate the things you told us. And for the most part, it should check out. I mean, otherwise we're wasting each other's time. Yeah. But you know, once the term sheet comes back, it goes into a typical credit process. We have a really talented underwriting team. If there's a large construction, there's a construction underwriting sort of process. We do our own valuation. Some cases we're doing appraisals. Um and then it comes right back to those same three people that are then going
Taylor Avakian
to sign off on the investment. Um And how fast can that take place? Well, I mean, how how fast can it take place?
Greg Hebner
Take place in a couple days. We try not to do that. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
I mean, do your due diligence.
Greg Hebner
Like what's a typical Yeah, typical's going to be two 14 to 21 days on a single family or multi-family. As you start getting into more complex deals, they're almost always going to be refis. I want to be ready when I have my permits. I want to be ready to break ground when I I get this back. So, those are often and we're doing some big ones now that have been out there for three to six months just because they don't want to borrow 34 million dollars if they can't start construction. But I'll give you a real life example just this last couple days. We had a borrower on a 17 million dollar project up in Big Sky in Montana. A great builder. He's had some pretty unpleasant experiences with some other private lenders.
Greg Hebner
The this the worst of the retrade, which is I'm going to cut your proceeds three days before
Taylor Avakian
closing. biggest thing people have issues with with private credit is the
Greg Hebner
retrades. Well, I mean, I it's just I mean, I can tell you I've been on this side. I mean, when you go if you're raising money, you're syndicating, you're doing a deal. I I you understand this. Like you go out and you say, "Okay, I need 2 million dollars for this deal." Boom boom boom boom boom. I got my 2 million. I'm good. Then I get to I get ready to close and I'm like, "No, you need 2.4."
Taylor Avakian
What do you do? Do you bridge it? Do you go back to all your people and say, "You know what?
Greg Hebner
I told you guys I needed two, but I need 2.4." You've automatically lost credibility with all your friends. So, it's just it's a terrible position to be in. And sometimes you're getting no lead time. It's like But that in this case, this gentleman actually I mean, I we started talking about it. I mean, you could actually tell like it was like I mean, it was like he had he had a really bad experience. And um I think with a massive deposit on the line and having to Oh, jeez. all the imagine all the Everything that could go could go wrong. Yeah. So, he's like, he's like, "I really like you guys. I like what you guys are doing. I'd love to work with you. I need to know this loan is approved." I'm like, "Well, I mean, I'm going to get like all this stuff it checks out.
Greg Hebner
I mean, it's totally we can do this loan. These are the terms." He goes, "I hear you, but I need to know it's approved." I'm like, I'm like, "Okay. Um if I you give me everything, my team will do all the work and I'll I'll be ready to issue docs." He goes, "How fast can you do that?" This was a Tuesday. I said, "Well, when do you need to make a decision?" He goes, "I need to make a decision by Friday." Okay. So, literally a great broker from JLL was was was on the lead with my team. And they gave us every So, we sent the term sheet out on Tuesday afternoon. He signed it. By Tuesday night, they'd given us the entire file because they had it. Yeah. Um cuz they had another loan that they were looking at.
Greg Hebner
By the end of the day Wednesday, they'd prepared all the investment stuff. And yesterday, we signed off on the loan, which is two days. And we can now issue docs if he once he's ready, which will be about the 10th That's a really unusual case. Sure. But part of me just wanted to prove to this guy like there's a little bit of like he I just couldn't get him comfortable. Like it's no matter what I said. I'm like, "You're talking to the owner. You're talking to the decision maker. If I tell you we can do this, we can do this." I mean, all the things I would typically say and people are like, "Okay. I I believe you." But he had been so burnt that it's like he's like, "You seem like a great guy. You seem like a nice guy. Everything I hear about you is good.
Taylor Avakian
I just I I I got to know to have the have it in writing, right? He needs to have it in writing.
Greg Hebner
It's interesting. But no, I mean, we do a lot of
20:00–30:00
Greg Hebner
flips where it you know, they're 7 to 10 days. Like you go into markets like we're in we're pretty active in Denver and like you know, the flipper is basically right 10-day offers. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
And you got to be there and and you know those sponsors obviously, so you know Yeah, they you can trust them. These are These are simple These are pretty simple deals, you know what I What's the makeup of the portfolio in terms of asset types across the loans?
Greg Hebner
You know, so on a on a unit basis, it's probably 75/25 one to four. Okay. dollar basis, it's probably 60/40. Okay. Um and you know, some of the bigger ones that we've done are you know, you have condos over over some retail, multi over retail and you know, we've been pretty active kind of the 10 to 30 million-dollar loan range has been a really really good area for us. There's a lot of fantastic institutional sponsors who like 50's my minimum. Maybe I'll go down to 40. And then most lenders in town or around town around the country you get over 10 million dollars, it starts to be stretch. A lot of them five is a stretch. So if I go into Minneapolis and I write a 30-million-dollar loan for this gentleman, there's not that many players. There's There's probably nobody local. Got it.
Greg Hebner
competing with the banks who are in construction financing. Three to five competitors who are always the same competitors. You know, and I like I like our positioning vis-a-vis our competitors and it's that's part of the fun. I'm I'm I'm competitive and you know, I could be in a if it's a great sponsor and a great project, I'm going to I'm going to throw my weight around and see if I can win the win the
Taylor Avakian
bid. So so how do you win the business? What separates you from the other five people that you're competing against?
Greg Hebner
Yeah, I mean, well, I'll say it's not it's not because we're cheaper and it's not because we're going to win more. So I tell people up front. I think more than anything is we just have built a we built a service DNA where everybody in our organization understands what the borrowers are trying to do and have aligned themselves in a way that's actually going to serve their needs and it's it it it seems simple. I you know, you're just providing good service, but I think it's the you know, all the leadership in our company, I'm a real estate guy. I'm a real estate builder developer. I know what they need. I know I know the things that they need that they don't even know they can ask for. And the people that I've surrounded myself with on the you know, all kind they all come from real estate.
Greg Hebner
They they get real estate. My head of construction who's fantastic. He was a project manager on big projects. You know, he was wearing a hard hat and and and muddy boots, you know, for a long time. You know, the people that are he's hired a lot of them on the construction side who are dealing with borrowers. They're They're project superintendents. They're people that worked for builders developers. Um Yeah, I just hired is going to be one of my marketing heads. You know, her father's a giant developer in in Colorado and and she grew she grew up on job sites, you know, but but I think it's it's having the control over your capital. It's being able to do the things the right things for your client. Um and invest in the client relationships. And I think for an organization our size, again, it's harder and harder for me now.
Greg Hebner
I I wish I could pick up the phone and everyone wanted to talk to me, but if you need something, you can get really senior attention with an empathetic ear that most of our competitors you know, I mean, this is going to sound a little weird, but I mean, COVID was an enormous growth driver for my business. Because every lender decided to get stupid. I'm like, you know, "Oh my gosh, the world is so I'm calling your loan Taylor. I'm not going to fund your draws. I'm not going to extend your loans." I mean, I It's not my fault. I can't get anybody from the city to come out.
Taylor Avakian
What do you want me to do?
Greg Hebner
Like it just people started acting like this irrational fear of I know you've been my client for 10 years, but sorry. Like it just So you know what? I'm I'm telling you this I've told this in other in other in other interviews like the first thing I did when they shut down the city is I made sure I went to all the job sites in LA. I basically told my clients everything's good. Your draws are coming. We're not slowing down. Cuz everyone was scared like what happens if the money stops? Cuz people were still working, you remember? Yeah, of course. Like lenders weren't. Like Like big lenders were just like, uh we don't really have anybody to process your draws or we don't we don't have a system set up to allow you to do something cuz we're not in the office. Wow. Or like nobody answers the phone. Yeah.
Greg Hebner
For weeks. The one thing you care about as a as a sponsor is am I going to get the money on Friday to pay my people, right? I mean, that's what you care about. So it was really unusual to see clients just be so poorly treated. Like they come over to us and there's been a lot of M&A in our space where the leadership has changed. We've had a lot of consistency. I mean, if you kind of go through my team, I've been doing this forever, but I have a lot of my people who've worked with clients for many many many years. And I always kind of say I've always pitched the you know, Main Street versus Wall Street like you know, love Wall Street, have many friends who've built fantastic careers, but they're they're being managed and judged and they operate a different way.
Taylor Avakian
Why do you think you guys have grown so fast? What do you think has been a catalyst for you? Obviously the COVID, right? But you got to do marketing or you got to have word of mouth or there's some sort of lead quote unquote generation that has occurred.
Greg Hebner
Like why do you think you guys have It's not the lat- It's not the latter, I'll tell you that. Okay. But I've gotten this question cuz I mean, our business is I mean, if I go back I mean, we've we've tripled the business in 3 years. 3 years. And then it's honestly, it'll be by the time we finish 2026, we'll probably be four to five times what we were. I mean, it'll be a four or 500%. Massive. So what I tell people is for most of the time we're in this business we always had far more borrowers who wanted to work with us than we had capital. Always. Um I remember early days where like, you know, I I got to put $300,000 in the fund to fund some I mean, it was you know, we were always always challenged because and it really forced us to stay in California.
Greg Hebner
People are like, "Gosh, why were you always in LA?" I'm like, "I don't have any more money." I'm like, I got great clients that are in LA. They're busy. They want to do more and more with me. I got to serve my first clients first. So I was literally it was like a it was like the door was closed to new clients. I could barely bring in new clients. And you know, CalSTRS opened up some capital. And then really the relationship with Oaktree really gave us a a large base. And then now this last relationship has given us even more. So we're really doing the same thing. We're just now able to serve a lot more people doing the same thing because we have the capital to do it. So really over the last year is the first year where it's really no holds barred in capital.
Greg Hebner
Like I have every partner I work with wants a lot more of what we have. And when you think about the world of private credit there's billions and billions and billions of dollars of capital dry powder ready to deploy.
Taylor Avakian
What's the single hardest thing for them?
Greg Hebner
Source. I need the loan. I need to make Taylor's $2 million loan in Santa Monica. I don't know who Taylor is. I don't have enough people. I've got 30 people managing a trillion dollars over here. So how do I get the loan with Taylor that I want to put into my vehicle whatever it is? And that gap is massive, right? I mean, you know, cuz this institution money is coming from sovereign wealth and you know, this and I mean I mean, I mean, our partners are massive. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of I mean, Oaktree's at 200 plus billion. They're now owned by Brookfield, which is a almost a trillion dollars, right? It's a crazy amount of money. I think they love your credit, but they don't want to They don't want to fund
Taylor Avakian
the time.
Greg Hebner
Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
They they couldn't if they in a million years. what this reminds me of? Popped in my head. It's funny. Uh you know bookies, right? You know how bookies have their people who then go It's the you know, it's FanDuel. Literally, you got the big guy and they got to go find the people who need to do the bets. Like and you're facilitating that and then you get a piece of whatever that is, right? What I want to understand is how did you guys lock down those big massive partners? Like what goes into Greg finding an Oaktree and saying, "Hey, believe in us. I believe in us. We're going to do this.
Greg Hebner
Trust your money with us." Yeah, I mean, it's uh a lot of things as you can imagine. Um I mean, first of all, you've got to be I think working with uh we worked with an emerging manager program with CalSTRS was a tremendous learning experience of what that type of capital I mean, they put you through ringer after ringer after ringer. And again, I'll give my partner credit from the very beginning. We always tried to run Like it was funny it's I was thinking about this the other day. I basically had this this thing for [snorts] the first seven or eight or nine years, I didn't want anybody to know anything about us. I didn't want to know if we were doing a million dollars a year or a billion dollars a year. I wanted to be completely under the radar.
Greg Hebner
So people often thought given how we operated that we were much much much bigger company. Um and we're very institutional. Um you know, my partner was at Goldman. I've I've worked at large companies and you know, so we we always presented ourselves in a very institutional way. So even as a tiny company, like we had we had quarterly newsletters. We did really nice events. Like we did really institutional stuff that far outweighed the size of our organization. Um but it you know, we you know, the the audits that we we had good systems and good reporting and always we always imagined a bigger platform. Easier to get the stuff right as a small platform. But that is like that is like the ante. If you if you can't go through all of those things, you don't have good data, you don't have good security I mean it's an instant no.
Greg Hebner
But then it's like, you know, we we went through a period before we we chose to work with Oaktree. We talked to a lot of folks. And it's it's really you got to find a group The group we work with Oaktree had invested in another competitive platform before called Genesis Capital. Mhm. They knew the space.
30:00–40:00
Greg Hebner
They've invested in home builder businesses. They had a great residential uh team focus capital dedicated to it. And we're sort of looking for getting back in the space. The the market opportunity felt right to them again to re-engage. And I can only imagine how many people they probably talked to before they sort of honed in on us. And we had our first conversation with Oaktree I think in like eight or nine years before. Wow. Not about this specifically, but just Sure. ideas. So, but we talked to a lot of groups where uh we like you guys. We don't really like you're too California focused or uh residential construction or your loan sizes are this. But it really you know you've got to get you've got to get the meetings and there's got to be something in the end you know I think they felt that we
Greg Hebner
we cared about the credit. They really wanted to look at our customers or loans, our track record. We had an amazing track record Mhm. making good loans and making good investments. But in the end it's like it's a partnership. It's the heritage. I mean you're we're managing the money jointly or we're co-GPs. So, they've got to feel comfortable that there's alignment, the philosophical way to think about uh managing money and serving clients. And they all get They've made us better too. I mean they've brought us to the mortgage bond market. Um it's not something that we would have probably done in our own, but you know it they taught us sort of a different way to run a fund and a different way to tap markets. So, again it's it's all part of making yourself better and you've got to walk with people who've walked ahead of you.
Greg Hebner
You know, so now and now we're going to probably do our own bonds in '26. Just you know our own our own shelves and you know and we're being approached all the time. It's it's it's kind of it's kind of funny, right? It's like you know it's you know once you're off the market everybody wants to everybody wants to talk to you. No, we get some amazing calls from some amazing firms like oh we'd love to do with you what you're doing with this group. We'd love to do with you what you're doing with this group. Yeah. It's kind of nice to say well probably now is not the time, you know we're we're we're doing good on that side and um and people calling you know could could we buy you?
Taylor Avakian
Could we could we own you? Could we help you get to the next level? You get these kind of calls.
Greg Hebner
you're doing well people people want to jump on the ship. Yeah. Yeah, hired a marketing guy and now you I'm sure you looked us up. I mean we're all over social media. Yeah, so that makes sense. So, like when we first started doing it I was like holy crap. I didn't know you guys were doing it. I didn't know you did that. I didn't know you like It's just like It's like literally you know we showed up with it we showed up to the ball and we walked in like surprise. Surprise. Yeah. But uh it's been fun. It's been fun. Now it's now it's there's a lot more recognition. And and by the way it really helps with clients. Really helps with employees. And employees want to be in Like athletes want to be on winning teams. Employees want to be on winning teams.
Greg Hebner
I think seeing some of the growth and success has allowed us to attract some of the talent that we've been
Taylor Avakian
able I might sound like a a lot out here, but what is a bond shelf? What what is that uh investment vehicle and what does that look like?
Greg Hebner
Yeah. No, no, not at all. By the way I would ask the same question before I did it. So, um So, just think of a think of a bond it's a public offering in our case. It could be a rated bond or an unrated bond. Um an agency would rate it. It allows certain types of investors to own it. Where a non-rated bond could be owned by a a wider range, but it's a much smaller market. So, the most of what you would see a Fannie bond or Freddie bond these are all rated. Different tranches. And basically they're just collateralized structure of finance. In this case the collateral is loans. So, CLOs? CLOs tend to be a tend to be single assets, right? Got it. This this will be a diversified pool. Got it. It will revolve the way we set up. So, a shelf is
Greg Hebner
basically We have a RRECS RTL-2025 is the shelf that we have. We will go back with it another RRECS bond. But we sort of it it gives you sort of the platform to be able to go out and do future
Taylor Avakian
issues.
Greg Hebner
Mhm. Um so, think of a collateralized pool of let's keep it simple. 100 loans with a million dollars each. You have 100 million dollars of of collateral. Mhm. And basically a bond will have various tranches. It's funny I was explaining this to my team and I was like you remember the movie when Margot Robbie was trying to explain bond tranches, you know, in a bubble bath with champagne? Uh-huh. I'm not nearly as attention grabbing as she was, but you know you basically have an A tranche, maybe an A1 and an A2 which are kind of this the first people to get repaid. Okay. Then you might have a B1 or a B2 which further goes up and you'll have an equity piece. And the most aggressive bonds that equity piece might only be four, five, six percent of the 100 million.
Taylor Avakian
Got it.
Greg Hebner
So, it's the riskiest. It's the last dollar out. Yeah. Yeah. But the you know your lowest yielding will be the most senior and you'll get a premium as you move up. And some investors want to be in the B piece. A little bit higher yielding. Some people only want to be in the A piece. And so, for example in our bond we only issued the highest tranche A. We weren't trying to maximize it. So, there were investors that we met with that said we don't the yields aren't high enough. When you have a B or a what they call mezzanine piece, we'd like that. Mhm. Uh we want to be a little higher a little bit.
Taylor Avakian
And what are those what are those returns typically? To the bond investors?
Greg Hebner
Yeah. Yeah, they're getting a yield, right? So, they're buying a bond. Yeah. You know, depending on what the the purchase price is, but they're getting somewhere between five and a half to six. Okay. Rated it's more like five to five and a half. Okay. So, it's for us a very good cost of borrowing. Yeah. Um they're looking at it as a margin to treasuries. So, the way they quote it is like our bond price is like 205 over treasuries. And that's like a blended rate cuz our bond is a two-year bond. So, it's kind of a two to three-year blended rate with a margin.
Taylor Avakian
Got it.
Greg Hebner
And rated is probably 50 basis points lower.
Taylor Avakian
And so you make your money by doing the bonds because you lend at an eight and they sell at a six blended or let's say six and a half after you sell all the tranches. Is that is that how it works from a money making perspective or why would you go do that?
Greg Hebner
So, typically firms like us use bank warehouse lines. Okay. And bank warehouse lines would tend to be SOFR. So, let's just call it seven to make it simple. And the amount that you'd be able to borrow would be quite a bit less. So, here you're getting a higher borrowing. Could be 150 basis points lower and it's fixed. So, we got as you can imagine extremely challenged when SOFR went from basically zero to five or six at the time. 15 bips to 400 bips. Yeah. So, I write fixed rate loans. And my cost of borrowing just skyrocketed. And it was fast. Wow. So, you don't you can't reprice these loans. You take out a loan with me for a year. The rate is eight. The rate is eight. You didn't really care that my borrowing costs were now eight.
Taylor Avakian
Well, that's what happened to First Republic except they had long-term fixed rate debt, right? So, yours were shorter fortunately, but
Greg Hebner
thank goodness. these guys had five, 10 They have 30 years like with me. 30 years. Yeah, and 2.7% I'll never pay it off.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah, exactly. You're you're done, right?
Greg Hebner
It's never happening. Never really, yeah. God I blew it in the 30th year if I you know you're on the But so, what the bond does is give you fixed rates. So, you can absolutely know what the cost of your money's going to But you're paying an interest rate. So, if we do a $100 million bond at 5% it's a $5 million annual interest expense. If you don't use the 100 it's still 5 million. Got it. With a warehouse line my 100 million could be 30, 40, 50, 80, 70, 100 up and down. So, it's it's very different. So, you have to be able to you have to be able to use the bond. Got it. Don't borrow the bond if you can't keep the bond working. Interesting. But now that you're out there we've got I don't know 15 investors in the bond. Way oversubscribed.
Greg Hebner
We sold a $275 million bond. We had over a billion some of of orders. So, what it tells you as you're sitting there is like people are really have an appetite for this product. And if if you do this and we you know our bond performs which I expect it will, we'll come back out. Maybe we do a three or $400 million bond. But you could easily accumulate and we have a competitor in our space who has five or six billion dollars of bonds on the street. You know.
Taylor Avakian
Wow. You know, it's There's a massive upside for you guys to be able to unlock that channel.
Greg Hebner
Yeah, no there's yeah it's it's a little less flexible when it goes into a bond. There's things you can and can't do. And you know as you can imagine the collateral is very particular and controlled and there's a thousand little sub limits and things that they they design to get it you know to get investors comfortable.
Taylor Avakian
Mhm.
Greg Hebner
Like one interesting thing cuz I know you're in the space is like they did not want multi-family in our in our security. Like it was like um there's one extremely large investor. Giant giant giant investor in mortgage bonds who was like if you have more than 5% multi-family we're just not going to do it. No way. So, our bond has a max of 10% non-residential one to four.
Taylor Avakian
What?
Greg Hebner
And the reason is is a lot of these securities that got done with multi-family with '21, '22 vintages have really high delinquency. There's I mean I'm I'm sure you're not surprised to hear No, man. But these investors are they feel burned. They even though I'm pretty bullish and you know talk about if you want to where multi-family opportunities is alive. Yeah. The investors who participated and kind of jumped into these bonds
Taylor Avakian
Mhm.
Greg Hebner
they've seen a lot of performance issues and they're some of them were purchasing whole loans. Those did not end well. They took capital losses. You know, they're fighting through delinquencies and these could be really long arduous workouts as you can imagine. Yeah. You know, and yeah I was very surprised to be sitting here like like 10%? Oh, okay. And it's more than five These guys actually had 5%. So, yes our bond I think had I don't know two multi-family ones.
Taylor Avakian
Man, we have a sponsor for today's episode and that is AI for Siri Collective. 25 listings at the moment. We're closing four or five deals a month. It's been incredible. So, if you want to learn if you're in commercial real estate how to use AI in your business whether you're a property manager, a broker, an investor, really anyone. We have a huge group over 400 people in this community. And the website, if you want to go check that out, is ai4crecollective.com. So, appreciate you guys. Now, back to the episode. Okay, take me back to getting into
40:00–50:00
Taylor Avakian
the private capital side because obviously you were on the principal side. There's different verticals. There's There's the brokerage side, right? Mortgage brokers. There's the principal side, which is the private credit, kind of what you're doing there. There's the actual investor principal side. Like, what attracted you to private capital versus any of the other verticals of real estate that you could have, I guess, grown into? Was it a timing thing? Was it the opportunity cost? Like, why did you choose to go do private capital?
Greg Hebner
Well, so I I'm a I was a real estate guy. I was converted to real estate. I graduated from college, had a VA loan. I bought my first house at 22 for $81,300 with basically 2% down. I was, you know, that's a VA loan. I paid the closing costs. So, here I am with an $81,000 asset with a $1,600 investment. I took the master bedroom. My two roommates took the front bedrooms. My mortgage was paid. They paid the principal every month and I got to live in the big bedroom. Wow. I was hooked, right? Pretty good at math, as you might imagine. I'm like, okay, wait a second. So, if this just appreciates 3%, that's $2,400 a year of appreciation on my $1,600 investment. I'm making 150% on my money every year. So, That was not bad. That was not bad. Yeah. So, I bought that
Greg Hebner
um ended up uh buying a few more, went to business school, so actually sold this house. Interestingly enough, I sold this house for $140,000 before I went to business school, helped pay for business school. And not a year I maybe maybe it was 8 years or 10 months later the guy sold it for like 190. And when I I it was just pretty funny cuz like my market was it was appreciating.
Taylor Avakian
Uh-huh.
Greg Hebner
Well, then I sold it. I'm like, you know, I Right. One lesson there, don't sell it if you don't have to. Um but then I came back after business school and I started buying a bunch of houses in the Midwest where my family was from, put together a little fund and I bought 20, 30 properties, held them for income, fixed them up. This is a hobby. This was a side gig. Uh-huh. Um and then I I ended up going to work for the parent company of uh realtor.com, which is Move Inc. So, got really embedded in sort of the real estate ecosystem. Um and then the uh crisis started. I was running a uh special servicing platform down in Orange County. Also offices in Virginia. So, it was basically helping work out non-performing loans for giant, you know, Citibank and you know, Nationstar and Fannie and people like that.
Greg Hebner
Then I got to see sort of another side of it. Um we set up a whole special servicing um loss mitigation platform for PIMCO back in the day. Wow. And I started having some opportunities. I was talking to the asset managers and like I was like, gosh, you guys are selling this stuff for it's sold for 400 and you guys are selling it for like 140. I'm like I was like We're fine at 140. I'm like And they didn't care who bought it. So, I'm like, yeah, I you buy it. I buy it. It's it's a coin toss. I'm like, okay. I'm like Can I buy some Is there I can I can I participate? Yeah, we don't care. If you want If you want to buy for 140, buy for 140.
Taylor Avakian
What do we care, you know?
Greg Hebner
So, I just bought a few things and I So, I should have said it was like I mean, I was buying things at a third of what they traded for. I mean, like these were '05, '06 $400,000 houses I was buying for 140, 150, spend 20, 25,000 hours cuz these things, if you can imagine, they're all foreclosed at the time. So, they've been somebody decided to spray paint the walls, you know, and my favorite story about that is I walked into this dark house and somebody had written red rum, red rum, red rum on the walls, you know. Oh, good.
Taylor Avakian
You know, so they're not even shining.
Greg Hebner
I'm like, it's like you can't make this up. I saw some crazy stuff. That's That's a whole That's another part of my life. Yeah. But I'm like, it was such an inefficient market and you know, I had some money saved. I was able to bring some money together. All of a sudden I'm like, this is pretty easy. And I was really really a side hustle at the time. Like, you know what? It's time. I've I've got enough of a a nest egg that I can go out and I'd worked in corporate America. So, what did I lose? 2011, 2010, something like that. Anyway, I'm in my early 40s. Okay. I'm like, okay. But I think I can do this. Let's take the chance. Take the chance. Um and I did it for, you know, 2, 3 years. Really successful. But it was also an incredible grind.
Greg Hebner
I think we processed I think we bought and sold over 200
Taylor Avakian
properties.
Greg Hebner
Oh my goodness.
Taylor Avakian
In 3 years?
Greg Hebner
Yeah. It was crazy. From Sacramento to San Diego. I had Yeah. And just just imagine the number of offers I made, the number of contracts I negotiated, the number of realtors. It was just it was an absolute, you know, a [bleep] show. It was crazy, right? Um so, when I saw the opportunity on the private credit side, it's like, okay, it's all the same skills that we had [snorts] here. I've always I've always loved numbers and structure and deals. I was a total junkie when it comes to that. Um but this is something as a as a platform. It's a business. You can you can create an actual durable enterprise. I mean, my business without me wasn't a business.
Taylor Avakian
There was no enterprise value without you. The key man risk for you was massive.
Greg Hebner
I mean, I was I had all the relationships to buy the properties. I had all the capital relationships. I had I was a I was a one I mean, I had a lot of people working for me, but Sure. I was a one-man band. You know, now when I you know, I think about this as I'm getting older, it's like like if if I walked away tomorrow and decided I've got a I've got an absolutely incredible platform. I have an incredible team. You know, they can take care of the clients. They can take care of the employees. And obviously there's meaningful enterprise value that's been created because you've built it you built it
Taylor Avakian
You could sell that. You could sell your business if you wanted to, right?
Greg Hebner
You're creating equity. For yeah, for a significant amount of money. Yes. If that was the If that was If I walked out of here and said, you know what, after this podcast with Taylor, I don't want to do this anymore. Yes.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah, we'll go buy a mansion in Beverly Hills.
Greg Hebner
I mean, like to be. I mean, like, you know, I get this question a lot from Craig. It's still fun for me. Yeah. I mean, it's I enjoy it. I enjoy the clients. Now you're thinking about things like, you know, legacy things and you know, I it's really I'm so proud of some of the employees who've been with me for a long time and they're they're reaching certain levels and achieving things that maybe they never thought they were going to achieve and clients have all the time, you know, you know, it's like I wouldn't I wouldn't be able to be putting my kids through this Catholic school or this great school without you and Wow. Yeah, because you know, we've got people that we Of course. started with flippers and now they're owning, you know, thousands of units. I mean, it's a great success story. It's been magnificent to see.
Greg Hebner
Geez. You know, and then we were there. Sometimes we took a chance with people that maybe hadn't had Yeah. the opportunity and I mean, that's there's a lot of power in being able to make people's lives better. I mean, I don't want to sit here and say, oh, I run a private equity fund. I'm I'm the master of philanthropy, you know, cuz I mean, my investors expect me to make money. Of course. And my clients are trying to make money. But you know, it is it's become very satisfying over 15 years to say, okay, I mean, we funded billions of dollars. I mean, that's between the housing we've helped create, the people we've helped employ, the employees we take care of and their families, the investors who we've made hundreds of millions of dollars for.
Greg Hebner
Like, you know, you you can kind of go to bed at night and say, you know, like are you leaving the world a little better place in whatever it is that we all do and even you doing this as you sit here doing it. You're giving information to people. You're sharing things with people. You're making the world a better place and Trying to. No, but but I think I get To me, I don't know about you, it gives me Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
gives me a lot of uh satisfaction. There's more of a why behind it, right? So, if it's just the money, like at a certain point people make enough money and they're like, ah It's not a It's not about the money anymore. It really isn't, right?
Greg Hebner
think the younger people way more than the older people like me who are a bit jaded, they don't want to they don't want to work for the money. They want to work for the reason. They do really care about the the why. You know, why do I want to devote my time when I could be doing uh you know, like working on my Instagram store, you know, to come into your office and work, you know, it's like we didn't have these There wasn't a gig economy, you know, like you know,
Taylor Avakian
and mean, you're you're competing with people who can make money on the internet from their phone, right? The The economy of how you can make a living online now is completely different than what it was before. And people have so many options. So, if if your option is maybe a little bit more money, but the quality of life, I guess what you want to say, is not where they need it to be or where they want it to be, they'll do something else. They'll go do something else. Exactly. Where are you putting your own money? Where are you investing Craig's assets?
Greg Hebner
Yeah, I mean, as you'd expect, I'm heavily invested in our funds. As you know, I mean, it it it was funny. It took many years for me to have a big enough nest egg where I could sit across from an investor and say, you know, I've got enough Yeah. If you're going to put in X, I've got, [Laughter] you know, if I've got I've got this much and you're coming in this much. If you're so good at what you do, why do you only got this much? Uh-huh. Um you know, I own I own a fair bit of real estate as you'd expect. You understand that. Um but you know, more recently I've I've started doing some investing, interestingly enough, in Europe. I have I have quite a number of investments in Europe. Really? Yeah, I've started doing some private loans. Just just to learn about markets.
Greg Hebner
It's very interesting how capital flows are so different in the US. When you go to Europe or other parts of the world, like the things we talk about here are totally Greek. Like it doesn't exist. There's banks provide low leverage. Banks don't want construction loans. It's almost all equity. I was with a group in Miami this past weekend who were they're actually British, but they're incredibly successful um flippers in Dubai. Okay. And they are buying these villas in a very, very very affluent part of Dubai called the Palms. You know, they are were built between kind of the late '90s to the mid 2015, let's say. And they're just dated. But they come in, they buy them for, you know, I won't get to deer arms, right? But you know, they buy them for two to four million, they spend one to two, they sell them for six to nine.
Greg Hebner
And they I mean, they do 10, 12, and it I mean, it's it's it's insane. Jeez. I'm with them in Miami, and and they found out what I did, and they said, "Why aren't you lending in Dubai?" I'm like, "Isn't Dubai like where all these rich people are?" It's like, "There's no capital." I'm like, "Well, how do you find your deals?" "All equity." Like, 100%? "Every deal. We've never been able to get
50:00–1:00:00
Greg Hebner
a single dollar of debt and anything that we do."
Taylor Avakian
What?
Greg Hebner
These guys have a factory. I mean, they've got a machine. I mean, they've I mean, really a They're very flippy. I looked at the track record. You know, it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's The Lil Jon in you goes, "Wait a second." like I'll I'll give you a 30% No, I'm like I'm like, "So, if I give you 30% of your project, you know, at 15%?" "Still better than what we're getting now." I'm like, "You know, we should talk."
Taylor Avakian
Whoa. Um that I'm not doing yet, but that's exciting.
Greg Hebner
Not to That's more intellectually interesting to me just to you know, in 45 minutes I learned more about the Dubai residential flipping market. Yeah. But, the UK is a big market. There's opportunities in you know, the Iberian Peninsula. But, I also do I do a fair bit of private investing. I'm invested in a number of um private equity and venture funds. I have a few people who are um really plugged in. Um I got last week I invested in Palantir market in a private deal.
Taylor Avakian
Do you Do you know about Palantir market?
Greg Hebner
Yeah. course. So, a young lady who's a fantastic fund manager um has given me the opportunity to invest in some AI and some blockchain. These aren't startups. These are companies that have I mean, I think we invested at an $11 billion valuation in Palantir market. But, but she says it's worth 20, so I said, "That's good." Yes. But, you know, this is my barbell of like I have my you know, single-digit, low double-digit debt funds. These are things which I tend to invest in things that are just intellectually interesting. And I I'm the first to tell you I'm like, you know, people who know me I'm I'm a Luddite A Luddite of Luddites. Yeah, like don't ask me to explain blockchain or crypto or these things, but but I know there's things happening in the world that are going to be important. [clears throat] Mhm.
Greg Hebner
And just like my investor clients say, "You know what? Greg knows a lot more about real estate private credit. I'm going to invest with him." I've realized in the world of investing, it's all about specialization. Mhm. You know, it's it's it's it's it's like athletes. Like, you know, Michael Jordan was the best basketball player ever, but he's a pretty damn lousy baseball player. Yeah. Still made it into the Yeah, he still made it for the most, yeah. But, he went from being the very best at what he did to being very
Taylor Avakian
athletic.
Greg Hebner
Yeah, but not the best. Not even good enough to get into the you know, so as an investor, I think I'm really good at what I'm knowledgeable about. If I'm going to invest in other categories, I want to find people who I think are you know, they spend all their time thinking about the things like I think about real estate all the time, right? That's what I do. I don't think about how blockchain is going to impact the new financial markets or you know, I invested in a healthcare company in Spain recently, too, an AI-enabled healthcare company. So, it's things I find interesting. Things that are you know, as you get older, like it forces you to to learn new things, stay curious, and not be a one-trick pony. But, you know, these are This is not what I do for a living.
Greg Hebner
This You asked me a general question, so it's No, I appreciate you sharing that.
Taylor Avakian
It's I I'm intellectually intellectually curious about where people who are so good at their crafts look to invest too, because I get the question a lot from my clients. Like, "Okay, are you buying deals in LA? Right? Are you do Are you buying the deals that you're selling?" And I have to ask myself like, "Where do I want to invest my money? Where do I see opportunities?" Again, my specialization is in one, growing my business, so I think investing reinvesting in my business is What is your best What the best ROI that I can get. But, also when you have
Greg Hebner
Now, you need to choose another business.
Taylor Avakian
Exactly.
Greg Hebner
Exactly.
Taylor Avakian
[Laughter] But, when you have excess cash, okay, where do I see opportunities? Because I think anyone who's built a high-functioning machine when it comes to a company, there's skill sets that you pick up. And I told some of this the other day, I think skills, someone who's older, right? And very skilled, what they've mastered and what skills they have that you don't is something called pattern recognition.
Greg Hebner
That's right.
Taylor Avakian
So, they can take little less information and recognize a pattern quicker or more effectively or more efficiently or see what that pattern means. Including someone Including Including people. Including reading people, right? Versus someone who's never experienced that pattern, never seen that in in their work, which is why experience is so highly valued, because you've seen a bunch of different things and can recognize different patterns. So, it's it's interesting to to see someone who you've seen a lot of different deals, right? A lot of different things happening, where your patterns start to lead you and and take
Greg Hebner
you. I will say my patterns are more what I think I think I've gotten good at after a lot of mistakes and trial and error, is identifying there in the world of investing, there is an enormous premium on intelligence. Mhm. Like, you got to be Like, you got to be smarter than the average bear. Otherwise, you're going to get an absolutely average return. And again, I have a high respect for doctors, lawyers, and everything, but the people who are actually turning a dollar into two or three in arguably the most competitive space of people because of how lucrative it is, you don't get the Warren Buffett can be all shocks. I'm Warren Buffett. He's freaking genius. Brilliant. Brilliant. You know, a Ray Dalio. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. You know, they're off the spectrum brilliant. Yeah.
Greg Hebner
You know, he's he's not like you know, he's he's not like Buffett just seems like an old Yeah. They play the fool, yeah, but in reality But, but you just his level of seeing around corners and I mean, no one has more pattern recognition than he would have in his career. You know, it's it really is Now, I will say this, in real estate credit, you've got to be smart. But, I think I think you got to be different level smart to go into a you know, into a new industry. Mhm. Like, let's be honest, what I do, what you do, hasn't changed that much. No. I mean, you're using using mobile phones instead of landlines. Yeah, exactly. You know, email versus fax, but we're still you know, it's still real building. People still pay rent. We still negotiate on a contract. You know, it hasn't changed that much.
Greg Hebner
But, you're talking about people who are disintermediating markets. And like, when these guys I was at an event the other night, these guys were all part of this Palantir market thing. I mean, they're talking about like this kind of They're creating a token to you know, be able to function on this market. And like, they they go through this stuff. I mean, it's it's kind of mind-blowing stuff. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
Is that the Is that where the world goes?
Greg Hebner
I mean, you know, I wasn't the guy who said, "Hey, this whole the video chip, that might actually be important." Uh-huh.
Taylor Avakian
But, but some people did.
Greg Hebner
Yeah. Some people were right. Some people bought the Bitcoin at $100 a coin. I thought it was expensive at the time. Um So, you know, I think if you find brilliant people who have a knack for understanding things far beyond what you can do, that's far better than I'm not going to find that opportunity. So, you need two things. You need to identify those people, and you need access. So, the other thing I've learned over time is like the reason successful people get into deals is because they know other people who are successful. And you see this all the time. All the time. You know, you have the deal of the century. Did you call me?
Taylor Avakian
Or did you call the other guy?
Greg Hebner
Yeah. And they're like, "Well, Taylor's a smart guy. He just found this amazing deal. Greg, I need a co-LP." Okay. You called me. If you called me, I'm now in your great deal. You didn't call the other person. So, like unfortunately, a lot of I think the haves and the have-nots in our in our world is most people that don't have the access, they get lousy index funds with high fees. You know, they get into bad investments. They own a laundromat, a gas station, a restaurant. I mean, it's you know, Totally. You know, not that I haven't done some bad deals. I mean, that's It's been hours talking about bad deals. But, you know, if you if you do have access to people that are and I'm very blessed just in some incredibly successful people who are just good investors. Um it is a really powerful thing to have.
Greg Hebner
And again, one of the things that makes me really proud is there are people that I've built relationships with. Like, if I do it, they do it. Like, it's I don't care. K, if you're putting in a dollar, I'm putting in a dollar. Yeah. And that's sort of the ultimate ultimate I mean, don't you want to see the pro forma No. No. No. No. Yeah. If If you like it, I like it. And I don't ever put anybody in a deal I'm not in. Even though I did the the the the all my stuff. Like, I was always the first I was the last dollar out, first dollar in. Never would I tell you, "Hey, and this drives me crazy. It's like, "I got the best deal, Greg." "Well, what are you going to put in?" "I'm not going to invest in this one."
Greg Hebner
"Oh, but this is the best deal, Greg."
Taylor Avakian
Yeah, no.
Greg Hebner
It just doesn't make any sense. Like, I can't No, it's it's all relative. Like, I'm not saying, "Okay, you have $100 in the bank. I need you to put all 100 in the deal." But, don't don't convince me how wonderful a deal is, but it's not wonderful
Taylor Avakian
enough for you. Yeah, to to put put some skin in the game, for sure. Let me ask you what What now are you at in your your company, right? In the beginning, you were doing and probably wearing a lot of hats. What does a day look like for you? What is your like main driving North Star in the day-to-day process for for you?
Greg Hebner
Yeah. It took a year with my business coach to kind of hone this down. I will tell you. So, uh first off, I am a I am a notoriously bad delegator and have been and a bit of a control freak. So, those are two life life limitations I'm working on.
Taylor Avakian
Um Awareness is there, though.
Greg Hebner
Yeah, we have That's exactly I have I I am that person. So, um So, again, I think a lot of it for me was I had to get people around me. And you have to have This is the challenge as an organization. In order to have extremely talented and successful people in key positions, you got to have some size and scale. Mhm. Like I mean, you're a fantastic CFO, you're not going to work for me, you know, for half the value of a world-class CFO. You need to be paid as a CFO with your skills, your caliber, your background, and pedigree. You got to have a business I mean, unless you're you know, unless you're unless you're Elon Musk and you can lose money for 10 years, you know, sell the stock options, which is I'm not selling.
Greg Hebner
I got to be able to to pay good people and have the right people
1:00:00–1:10:00
Greg Hebner
attract people. And then when you attract good people, they attract good people, and so it's really over the last couple years that we've built a team where I can realistically feel like I can take some steps back. But in terms of like, where do I focus on? Um I think my number one role is really, you know, setting the strategic direction and being sort of the I call it the culture warrior. Mhm. I've got to be the one who makes sure that everyone understands what we're doing and why we're doing it. And help explain what it is that makes us successful, try to get everybody on the same page. So, that's a big focus. I I try to do that in in many of the interactions I can. I do a call every Friday. I did it before this with everybody in my sales organization, which is 20-some people.
Greg Hebner
We spend a few minutes. I'm kind of giving them some thoughts, ideas, trying to make it kind of a fun interactive meeting, but trying to leave them with some things so they who we are, what we're trying to do, what I want you guys to be thinking about. You know, I I try to do those kind of things, and then our biggest challenge as a business
Taylor Avakian
is like, what do we not do?
Greg Hebner
Mhm. You know, like we're debating now, do we want to be in the 30-year DSCR product? I don't know. At first I said, "Yeah, we have to have that cuz our clients need it." And then I'm like, I'm not sure we can ever really win. I think we'll be another me too. Mhm. So, maybe maybe I'm going to go become a lender in Europe, I don't know, or or move into another market or do something else that that more aligns Strategy. Strategy Strategy is not just of the what, but the resources.
Taylor Avakian
Ah.
Greg Hebner
So, you know, I only have certain people in my organization. You know, if you worked for me and you know, you're on my team, you already have a full-time job, right? Hey Hey there, I know you're super busy being excellent at this, but I have another thing I want you to work on. Yeah, well, what about this thing? Next thing before you do is you like you dilute things down. There's a There's a book that I'd highly recommend your listeners, if they haven't seen it, called The Science of Scaling.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah. I've heard of the name.
Greg Hebner
Dr. Benjamin Hardy. But basically his concept in a in a simplified form is that, you know, any business that's trying to scale at a rapid pace, and he uses kind of a 10x as a scaling, right? Is like, you got to have you have to set a floor, you have to set a ceiling. And usually the ceiling is way too low, and usually the floor is too high. And basically if it doesn't clear your floor, you just can't do it. So, you have to say no no no no no to the few things that are basically going to drive that Ah. huge growth. And and depending where that floor is, you set a very aggressive timeline. It really forces you to focus on the things that make the biggest It's a really powerful book. It's a simple read. It's not a long book.
Greg Hebner
But it just all those things we say no to. Yeah. You know, like somebody approaches and say, "Hey Greg, we want to start another this." Or Greg, "We want to do this." Or Greg, "We want to do this." Okay. And they may all be good ideas. Maybe there's probably merit in every idea. But what are the things that are really, you know, like you know, I I look out and people ask me, "Well, what do you see the business in two or three years?" I'd like to be doing five I think I think a $5 platform with, you know, $5 loans and $5 uh of loan origination, it's a great business. Great business. I I think that's a reasonable three-year plan. Now, a lot has to happen, right? We have to keep doing what we're doing.
Greg Hebner
But now, if you'd asked me two years ago, I would have said, "Gosh, if we could get to $3 billion." If you'd asked me five years ago, I said, "If we ever got to a billion down." Mhm. So, again, it's it's resetting the ceiling, Yeah. resetting the timeline, and trying to manage that floors. And then I think the third thing is I still I love the clients. I don't have nearly time, but I've opened up a ton of markets over the last six or so. Nashville, Austin, Miami, Carolina, you know, Pacific Northwest, Denver. I go out for a day or two, you know, try to get a sense of the market, which is super fun for a deal junkie. I'm sure it'll be for you, too. Yeah. Look at the markets and the development and what's happening in the city and the town and what they're trying to build and
Greg Hebner
how they make money. And you and you and you and you you know, your pattern recognition point, you know, I see this happening in Austin and this happening in Nashville. Nashville was Austin 10 years ago. Yeah. You see this happening in South Florida, you see this happening in Phoenix. Like you see all the different dynamics of what they're building. And I hear people say, "Yeah, I'm building these four to guess. I'm building the California style." I'm like, "Yeah, not really. I don't You know, if you're going to take you out of California, I'll sell you California style." That's quite it, but better than it's better than the typical Florida style, but um but yeah, I think that's that's the other part of being there to help, you know, like the Minnesota deal. Like, you know, on the phone with the client, kind of helping, you know, if you're
Greg Hebner
a baseball fan, I'm I'm like the Mariano Rivera. I'll come in and get the last out. You know, I mean, you He was the guy. That walk-up song. He was the guy. But you know, don't ask me to give you seven innings. I'll come in, you know, and be and be part of that process, which is just fun. And then obviously, you're working with your large investors. Yeah, it's just that's the I've got to keep enough uh electricity pumping through the wires and cords to to operate this business.
Taylor Avakian
Totally.
Greg Hebner
And you know, and then that's keep you know, keep keeping keeping the team together. But those That's really where my focus has has been. Not shifted a lot in the last year or two.
Taylor Avakian
Before we wrap up, last question I have for you, and this is a big one, so take it or make it as small as you like. Over the next 12 to 36 months, what is specifically the real estate market, in your view, going to be looking like, and where are the opportunities?
Greg Hebner
Okay. Do you want me to be very LA-focused, or do you want me to be a little bit more
Taylor Avakian
national?
Greg Hebner
be whatever you want. Okay. Well, I'll be It's one thing I've been thinking a lot about. Well, first of all, I think that the single-family residential market is going to be challenged for a while. I just think that the combination of probably false inflation reports that are far underestimating the real cost of living, cuz I'm just telling them, I mean, it's twice as expensive for me to go to the grocery store. I don't know about you. You know, I mean, it's just everything to me feels like it's 20 to 30% higher. Um so, I don't know who's keeping track of things back in there, but it's It ain't It ain't 2 or 3%. No, it's not. So, you know, cost of living, you know, combined with cost of housing, um combined with high interest rates, it's just it's a brutal trifecta of bad stuff for residential housing.
Greg Hebner
And um you take a market like LA, I mean, literally, it's crickets. I mean, call your escrow officer and ask him how many live deals they've got going on right now. Brutal. It's bad. Yeah. Yeah. Call the realtors. I mean, you know, it's just a transaction volume in LA has plummeted. Um ULA has been an absolute horrific horrific program at every level, and it's done exactly the opposite of what somebody who doesn't work in real estate thought it would do. I think I think the rent control is going to have the exact same thing. So, I think the the resi market is you know, it's going to have a fight for the next 12 to 18 months. I mean, I think it's going to be It's going to be challenging. You know, there's still a massive number of people that are stuck with an existing mortgage, and there's
Greg Hebner
no there's no change in their job that's going to say, "I'm going to get out of a 2 and 1/2% or 3 or 3 and 1/2% mortgage and go to a 6 or 6 and 1/2% mortgage, unless I absolutely have to." And like And in fact, if I'm going to do that, I might keep the property I have and just rent it. Yeah. That mortgage is my asset. I mean, it's it's really interesting to see. I've got a few properties that I've got fixed mortgages. I'm like, this is an amazing asset. I'm borrowing X dollars at
Taylor Avakian
sub-3%. Basically free money.
Greg Hebner
So, I mean, so if I just hold back to our analogy, if I just hold at CPI, I I'm getting this mad um appreciation. It gets money. But I'm I'm you know, I think the single family is going to going to have challenges. I think there's pockets of the United States, you know, as you'd expect in real estate. It is very different in Nashville and South Florida than it is in LA. It is humming. Buying, selling, closing, building, it is like a completely different universe. Parallel universe. Wow. Realtors are making more money than they've ever made. Jeez. No, it's just a completely different market. People are moving there. They're with high jobs and high pay, and they're coming from California. No, gosh, shoot, $3 million. This is a steal on the water? Sign me up. Right. Um so, the the action is is there.
Greg Hebner
I think in terms of opportunities, look, if I didn't say private real estate credit, I you know, I I'm in the wrong job. But look, I I I love the future of what we're doing, and I've invested in my funds for 15 years, and you know, making 10% over 15 years, you know, it's your money triples. Yeah. You know, and I sleep at night. I don't worry about it. It's just you know, I have lots of other stuff that I worry about. I'm like, "Yeah, that's what just happened to my MicroStrategy." Um But um yeah, it's just literally it's like half in the last week. But um but I still think it's a great place to get a yield. And I think the difference between an equity return and a debt return today, I think that that margin is tighter than I've seen it
Greg Hebner
in If you came to me and said, "Hey Greg, I want you to do an equity deal today." I'd want 25 or 30%. That's what I want. Yeah. Cuz I think the risk in that is 3x what I'm getting in my debt funds. Yeah. To do the 12 to 18% IRR equity deal, makes zero sense to me. So, I think the the danger there is I think a lot of sponsors are going to have a real oh my moment as they try to raise equity. Because a lot of equity investors who thought these deals were safe deals got subsequent capital calls, they got no yields, some took some losses. Maybe they weren't with you, but they still remember it. Yeah. Um best opportunities outside of private credit, again I still think multi-family when you just think about where we are as a as a as a
Greg Hebner
population and where people I mean I I saw a stat that the average age of the first-time home owners now approaching 40. That's crazy to me. Insane. That sounds like 18 years living with your parents. Yeah. Twice twice,
1:10:00–1:20:00
Greg Hebner
right? Yeah. Um you got out of college, you went back.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah, went back for another 18.
Greg Hebner
Although I spent some time in Europe. It's actually much more common in Europe to live with your parents, which is kind of a weird it's kind of a weird thing. But I'm like I have to do what you do. They could never could never could afford the house their parents have. Impossible, right? So But you know you think like if you don't build in cities where I mean people are getting older and there's demographic drivers that you can't get away. I know you're in that space. Yeah. Some point it catches up. Yeah. So I think people now who are doing good infill multi-family in locations there's not a single person in the world that would not rather live in a 26 building than a 1986 building. Yeah.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Greg Hebner
It's just for those of you who are who are tenants and lease the difference between those buildings is what it's like driving a 1986 Ferrari and a 2026 Ferrari. Trust me, it's very different. Yeah. And you're going to get a premium, you're going to be able to keep those things leased. Um I think there's going to be demographic down sizing. I think the build to rent people that want to come out of their house, they're 65, they don't want a mortgage, they want to have a place in a community and things like that. Um I think that's got a long long long road to go. But you know you you do unfortunately in today's real estate world you you do have to think about politics. More than ever in my career, the things that I'm seeing come out of people who make policies mouth it's just like
Taylor Avakian
wow. Right?
Greg Hebner
That's the only thing you can never owned a building. If I told you you couldn't ever make money on your building are you going to put more money in your building? I mean it's just it's a it seems to you and I like you want me to invest in my building to create better housing so that I can take care of the people that are my clients, you've basically made it impossible for me to do so. Yeah. So unless I want to basically devote my real estate career to philanthropy Mhm. which many of the people you know in this community are incredibly philanthropic. Yeah. But let them to be philanthropic in the way they they want to be, not in the buildings that they own and make a living.
Greg Hebner
But again, this is the challenge I have in I have in so many levels of politics of like the people that write the laws and make the rules are not the people that have ever done it. I mean I it's Trump is out there, he does a lot of things. But he has done some business. You know we can argue people can say whatever they want. But like you can have a conversation with a Jamie Diamond or a a Jeff Bezos and they can talk about customers and market and investment and capital. Yeah. You know I worry that the people, you know, not picking I don't want to call it names, but the people on every side of the political spectrum, there's people that are in very significant roles in major cities who none of those words mean anything. Yeah. It's constituents. It's They don't have pattern recognition. Right.
Greg Hebner
Or any or any experience to know the implications. And I mean LA is such a prime example. You created something where nobody ever sells anything between 5 million and 5.3. Like it's the silliest thing ever. So it's basically 000 oh you know
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Greg Hebner
d d d 10, you know, like Yeah. It doesn't base on profit, it isn't based on basis. It's just a completely misguided way and what it's done is it's cut shares actions what 70%?
Taylor Avakian
Yeah, at least.
Greg Hebner
And people don't think about that. I don't want to buy in city of LA, I'm going to buy in Beverly Hills. They don't have it.
Taylor Avakian
Yeah.
Greg Hebner
I'm not going to buy in city of Santa Monica cuz I'm going to buy in you know in in Culver City. And like it's it's created like a have and have nots in contiguous cities. Hidden Hills, that's unincorporated LA. They don't have it.
Taylor Avakian
Like Yeah.
Greg Hebner
Totally. It's com Did anybody think about that? Like you know I mean city of Beverly Hills did. They said we're not we're not putting this in. But so it's it's it's interesting. But again, I think there's opportunity and look real estate is always it's a wildly inefficient market. You're always going to have opportunities, but you know, it's you do have to be more careful and selective these days than I think maybe you had to be a decade ago.
Taylor Avakian
Greg, I'm excited to see in 3 years that you're not only at 5 billion, but hopefully even 10 billion dollars cuz let's just push that ceiling push that ceiling even higher. I appreciate that you know Greg, thank you very much for being here. I appreciate it. This is a great conversation.
Greg Hebner
Enjoyed it, Tyler. Thank you.