Subscribe via:
Show Summary
In this conversation, Robert Stewart discusses the innovative approaches his company is taking to revolutionize real estate financing. He highlights the Flex 50 product, which allows asset-rich but cash-poor investors to access capital quickly without traditional credit checks. The discussion also covers the importance of providing value to clients, the integration of AI in the lending process, and the future of digital currency in real estate transactions. Stewart emphasizes the significance of building relationships and trust with clients as a key to business growth.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Robert Stewart (00:00)
Yeah, Michelle, our main focus is to lower the bar of entry and allow those who are up and coming investors, seasoned investors, anyone who’s looking to get in the real estate investment world, the opportunity and availability of capital just in time when they need it. And taking folks out of that normal do loop of 45, 60, 90, 120 days, do an underwriting and funding of a commercial real estate project and actually bring them into the speed of relevance in business and be able to cut that time down into days.minutes and seconds versus sometimes months and up to a year. So we’re really targeting the folks that are either you know new in the game or been here for a while and looking for alternatives to your traditional institutional funding mechanisms.
Michelle Kesil (02:15)
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil And today I’m joined by someone that I’m looking forward to chatting with, Robert Stewart, who is a private lender. He is the CEO and the founder of his company. So excited to have you on the show today, Robert.Robert Stewart (02:36)
Thanks, Michelle. I appreciate it. This is kind of a dream come true. An honor to be here with you guys and looking forward to the conversation.Michelle Kesil (02:43)
Absolutely. think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching helping people with their finances and getting into real estate in a way that maybe they weren’t able to before. So let’s dive in.Robert Stewart (02:59)
Absolutely.Michelle Kesil (03:00)
Awesome. So first off, for those not yet familiar with you and your world, can you share what your main focus is?Robert Stewart (03:07)
Yeah, Michelle, our main focus is to lower the bar of entry and allow those who are up and coming investors, seasoned investors, anyone who’s looking to get in the real estate investment world, the opportunity and availability of capital just in time when they need it. And taking folks out of that normal do loop of 45, 60, 90, 120 days, do an underwriting and funding of a commercial real estate project and actually bring them into the speed of relevance in business and be able to cut that time down into days.minutes and seconds versus sometimes months and up to a year. So we’re really targeting the folks that are either you know new in the game or been here for a while and looking for alternatives to your traditional institutional funding mechanisms.
Michelle Kesil (03:52)
Awesome, that’s exciting. And what market are you in? Are you supporting specific markets?Robert Stewart (03:58)
Well, with our AI technology, it’s immutable. ⁓ We don’t, it’s agnostic of any type of market. We typically are looking at, know, traditionally like your multi-family, ⁓ the ones that have your, what we call meat, potatoes, or peanut butter and jelly type of lending. So anything from ground up construction, mixed use, warehouses, industrial. ⁓office, retail centers, just anything that’s non-qualified mortgages, non-QM, non-occupied investment type of great properties.
Michelle Kesil (04:30)
Awesome. What got you into this? How did you create this company that has you in this position now?Robert Stewart (05:24)
Great, great question. started a company several years ago and really saw an opportunity in the market, primarily.It started off as kind of a boutique, mortgage loan origination shop. that just, for all intents and purposes, was kind of a slug. A lot of manual processes, underwriting deals, clients continuously shopping for term sheets, shopping for the best deal. And because of the time it would take us to go and try to underwrite a deal, they would go. And by the time we got to the end of the tunnel with a loan approval and ready to fund,
They had already gotten a term sheet from four five other companies or whatever else and they moved out with a better deal. So in my mind, I saw an opportunity and said, hey, you know what? This is a pretty straightforward process. We act for about the same 10 or 12 things all the time. Let’s figure out a way to develop a workflow, automate processes, utilize AI to help us kind of truncate the time it takes to underwrite these deals and get a loan decision quicker. So by putting together a proprietary set of algorithms and
performance indicators. We developed an underwriting kind of module in the background that allows
as client to come into a secure smart contracting blockchain environment and secure terms on their project within moments of actually entering the system. And then if they move forward and want to accept those terms, we do your normal, ordering your appraisal, ordering your title on escrow, open up escrow, and then move forward to funding it. The timetable reduction on this is about anywhere from 85 to 95 % of time. You can close on a $2 million or $200 million deal in a matter of
know, days versus, you know, months and sometimes, you know, half a year.
Michelle Kesil (07:06)
Amazing. That is such an innovative idea. I know that you were mentioning that AI is really at the forefront of your services. Can you expand on how you’re integrating that?Robert Stewart (07:19)
Yeah, absolutely. We’re integrating AI in a different model than what most people look at. ⁓ In my mind, and I’m sure I could face a lot of consternation about this, think that ⁓ subscription as a service model, the SaaS model is dying. It’s dying on a vine. Now, if you have, you know, services like DocuSign or Adobe or Microsoft Office where you pay a monthly subscription for access, those things will always stand the test of the time. But as far as people coming onto a platform, paying an absorbent amount of money,and not getting anything of value, think we’re starting to see the kind of turn of that. With our platform and product, we offer value, meaning a user can come into the actual product and system itself, secure quote and terms, if they like those terms, they accept them, they pay a small NOMU fee or a terms acceptance fee, and they move through the actual funnel and get the deal funded. So unlike going on some of these other ⁓ sites or whatever else, you don’t pay anything unless you see something of value. That’s the first thing. The second thing
of
it is that in 2025 our company won what became an Inc 5000 honoree number 1036 on the list. saw a 414 % increase in revenue from the year previous primarily by providing innovation and like I said bringing the underwriting to the forefront. So Michelle imagine you come onto our site www.crequity.ai and you click submit a loan request. You register, you get your AM
your KYC. We do AML and KYC on every user, even myself. You, whoever else comes on the platform, you know who you’re dealing with. You’re in a secure blockchain environment. You don’t have any broker jokers or people, you know, running away with your information. You don’t have to worry about it being shopped. Once you get the term sheet you want, you secure that. You pay 250 bucks for your terms of acceptance fee. Doesn’t matter if you’re getting a $2 million dollar refi, $250,000 fixed and flipped, $100 million dollar ground up construction. We’ll give you a term sheet. You actually pick the date in which you
⁓ expect to close and then we notify ⁓ escrow we go ahead and open up escrow we go ahead and order your appraisal and we move forward to fully underwriting the deal getting the substantiating documentation by the time your report comes back your appraisal ⁓ and escrow astra come back you’re ready to close the deal so we’ve closed that loop from you know like I said days weeks sometimes months into a matter of moments right imagine coming on the platform typing your information in there getting verified submitting your deal in real
time getting a term sheet right there three to five minutes you got a term sheet right you move forward with that deal you accept those terms you got a funding commitment letter and you move forward through the process and you have your deal funded in two three four days a week stops and you move forward and you enjoy you know your investment property
Michelle Kesil (10:05)
Amazing. Wow. I love what you guys are doing. It sounds so unique and definitely moving forward with the times that we’re in.Robert Stewart (10:50)
Yeah, yeah, we’re seeing a lot of shifting in the market. We just came up with a new product called the Flex 50. Our Flex 50 product allows a real estate investors we found over the last year or so that most of our investors are asset rich but cash poor. So a client can actually come onto the website, get into the actual system, refile to a million dollars or 50 % loan value for their asset and have that deal funded in 24 hours. We don’t ask for any FICO. ⁓asking for any documentation. just need to understand you have clear title, first lien position on that asset. We’ll do an underwriting of that as long as it comes back clear with the title and we’re able to order the appraisal that backs up the valuation. We fund the deal the next day. ⁓ The Flex 50 has been something that our clients have really, really been excited about because it allows them clear and quick access to capital based on their portfolio.
Michelle Kesil (11:46)
Amazing. Are there any specific requirements or entry points that your clients must have to work with you?Robert Stewart (11:56)
No, Michelle, we…We like God and country on this great Veterans Day. I’m a veteran myself. We’ll take anybody. You you’re tired, you’re weak, you’re poor. Kind of like Ellis Island, we want anybody that has a dream or is looking to really get into the investment. matter if they’re a seasoned investor or they’re new, we’ll kind of whip behind the ears. Our software is pretty in tune. It’s pretty intuitive. It kind of walks you through it. Think of it almost as like the Facebook, if you will, for lending, right? You come in, it really helps you, guides you.
how-to’s, videos, and really walk you through each step of the process. Within, you know, six or seven minutes or so, you become somewhat of a what we call a know enough to be dangerous, if you will, and you’re able to go and secure terms and move forward with funding your deal.
Michelle Kesil (12:42)
Awesome. What have been some of the main keys that you would say have allowed your business to grow and to run smoothly?Robert Stewart (12:51)
⁓ I would say that people are kind of tired of your typical brick and mortar banks. I think people are tired of paying fees.unnecessarily. I think that the industry, you know, the industry is a three trillion dollar industry. The industry we’re talking about, mortgage financing, commercial lending, it’s three trillion dollars. It’s damn near the GDP of America, So there’s no question that people are willing to pay fees, right? I think what’s really upset a lot of people is paying something and not getting any value out of it, right? And that’s the thing that we really hit home on. It’s like…
I’m not, know, most people that we talk to and our user acceptance testing and engaging clients and kind of figuring out pricing and the right approach and everything like that.
we have gotten a resounding continuous thing. Hey, I’m not scared to pay X as long as I see value in Y. Right. So what we’ve done is we said, okay, look, and I took a, my, my team literally almost hung me, man. They were, they, they wanted to take me out in the square and shoot me because we had started this platform in your traditional service subscription as a service model where you came in, you put your credit card on file and we just sit there and we just bill you every month for, you know, access to the platform. Right. And then one day about, I don’t know,
six, seven months ago, I just woke up in the middle of the night and I said, you know what?
I don’t think I would want that. I don’t think that I would want to just, you know, can you imagine Michelle and just digressing for a second? You know, when you have your Apple, your iPhone or your Google Play phone and you look in there and you figure out you’ve been getting billed for like the last year and a half for like Spotify plus, or you’ve got three subscriptions to Disney. I don’t know if you have kids, but I do. Right. So I have a, I have a Disney plus subscription for my Tahoe and then I have a Disney plus subscription on my phone. Hell, I didn’t even know that for like a year and a half. So I’m over here like double paying, right? Of course they don’t tell you that. And
you’re
sitting there, you’re just paying for something and you’re not getting any value of it, right? You’re not getting anything out of that. But you just, just, the first of the month comes, you’re paying. Right? We didn’t, I didn’t want to be that, right? I’ve created, our team has created something that to me is an industry disruptor, right? And when we were developing it, we had all these people and they were like,
Rob, I don’t know, man. is new. This is techy. I don’t think it’s going to catch on. And it’s one of those things where I’m a person of faith.
We have this thing called gradually to suddenly like you continually gradually stay in the fight. Continually to make improvements to the system and add value over time. And then suddenly it hits and then people just come on the platform and start having a good time and getting their deals done. And that’s kind of where we’re at, right? Which is the challenge was we saw an opportunity in the market. We’re not a JPMorgan Chase or Bank of America. So our name hasn’t gotten out there yet. But as we continue to add value, people will find out who we are.
right? And the company just continues to grow. Every day we’ve got folks like yourself that we talk to or people want to come in because they couldn’t get financed at X, Y, and Z bank. And we’re able to make people’s dreams and investments come true by just providing value and staying in front of them.
Michelle Kesil (16:35)
That’s amazing. Yeah, I love that you are really focused on adding value to people. It’s the most important.Robert Stewart (16:42)
Absolutely.Michelle Kesil (16:42)
What are you most focusing on solving or scaling to next in your business?Robert Stewart (16:49)
I’ve given a stretch goal for the company as far as revenue wise. We’re going to try to do a minimum of 1000 loans in 2026. I want to close three loans a day on average. We are focused really is agility and speed. We’ve got a lot of features in the next.30, 60, 90, and 180 days that are not currently available, but I can give you a little sneak peek. Now when a user comes on the platform, they’ll not only be able to engage with an AI assistant through text and chat bot, but will actually have a vocal AI assistant that will reach out and call you, Michelle. So if you have a question about your term sheet, if you don’t know what DSCR is, if you have a question about interest rates or how to submit a form or
you know, what does this legal term mean of prepayment penalty or bad board carve out all these, you know, terms that you have on these documents, right? Our AI assistant will step in there and provide you with clear, plain English of exactly what we’re trying to do for you. And then you can make a decision, you know, if it’s the best deal for you. Another feature that we’ve added to the platform that’s going to be coming out soon is kind of like the price line, name your own price. So I think everybody always likes to get a good deal, right? You know, and sometimes when you’re dealing with hard and private money and different types of
Institutions, it’s kind of like a take it or leave it right so we have a we have like a name your own price function Which allows the user to come on you know and say hey Maybe I don’t need this amount term or I can deal with this interest rate Or can we do something about the points or whatever else and they can communicate directly with the AI assistant with the lender on the platform like you’re Communicated with the human that’s underwriting your deal right you say hey look if you can get me to 9 % interest for a year. I’ll do the deal right now right or whatever whatever your
you know, requirement is and then they can make a decision. We also have some auto automation alerts and features for investors and lending partners which allow, you know, if you hit a certain sweet spot for their buy box criteria, it’ll automatically accept that offer, right? And then you don’t, so it’s a lot of certainty, right? We’re trying to provide comfort so you know exactly what you’re dealing with in real time, you know, and not have to worry about like dealing with… ⁓
what we call noise to get to the signal, right? You wanna get a deal done. We want you to get a deal done. We wanna get paid. You wanna get funding or whatever else. So let’s cut out all the noise and get you exactly what you want and the time that you need it.
Michelle Kesil (19:17)
Amazing. That’s a great model to really steer people on the path of what they’re needing. There’s so much noise out there, like you mentioned.Robert Stewart (19:26)
There is, unfortunately, which is an opportunity for us, Michelle. So we want that noise because we provide that signal. So we want all that noise and when people are ready to get their deal funded, they’ll come to see our equity.Michelle Kesil (19:30)
Bye.Of course. When it comes to your business growth, what has made the biggest difference for you?
Robert Stewart (19:46)
wow, ⁓ I would say believe it not my faith and our clients. ⁓ I think we have the best clients in the world. ⁓We have not really hit the public market yet because we’ve still kind of been in that quasi public still UAT final testing stages. And we’ve already hit some amazing numbers, right? By just kind of being that really kind of what I call purgatory, right? And the main reason that we’re in that space is that I’m scared as hell. mean, Michelle, we’ve done kind of well in the darkness and nobody really knows, we’re like the smart kid that nobody knows. I can just imagine when we started like going full on with our Google, Facebook.
and all kinds of AI generated content what’s gonna happen. So it’s kind of scary. It’s like that calm nervousness right before the first shot is fired across the battlefield or something like that. But I would say that…
Realistically, it’s the relationships. We’ve had a lot of good feedback ⁓ from some very avid people who want to see change in the industry. ⁓ to be transparent, even some of the feedback that I haven’t been very favorable has been good because this is not for everybody. There’s some people that still are going to want to walk into a credit union or a bank and go down through there and be six months down the road and get taken for pain and all that
kind of stuff. They’re just people that they just you know they want to do it right they still use a dial-up internet or you know an old you know CDMA phone you know non-digital whatever some people are just they just like pain. ⁓
But for us and what we think things are going, especially in crypto, tokenization of real estate, I that’s another thing that CR Equity offers. We actually are the first direct lender that actually can pay or fund in crypto. We have a crypto integration, fiat integration within the platform itself, along with your blockchain and immutable ledger, which allows the client to have that bank level security in the background, but also be able to fund their deal either in fiat, which is, know, paper money, or in digital currency as well, which, you know, again, when we talk about SWOT analysis, you actually look at
the features associated with the platform. I don’t see any other platform that’s in the same ballpark as where we’re at.
Michelle Kesil (21:57)
Yeah, absolutely. That is cutting edge. I definitely don’t hear that often that people are integrating these other modalities like crypto and stuff. So that’s really exciting.Robert Stewart (22:08)
Yeah, know, Michelle, I really is, if you really look at the landscape and what the administration is doing and trying to really bring the United States back in the 21st century, mean, you the dollar is the world currency. Oil is trading the dollar, major commodities are trading the dollar. So it only makes a natural sense to a natural progression that we move digital currency as a forefront of the United States. So for me, any business that’s not integrating AI and digital currency in their normal operations probably is going to go by wayWindows 95 and the diners for Y2K. I think that it’s not prudent to be and to not consider those ⁓ as you continue to innovate within your company.
Michelle Kesil (22:49)
Yeah, absolutely, I would agree with you. So before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more about what you’re doing, where can people find you?Robert Stewart (22:59)
Well, Michelle, I would like to give you and Mike credit. We would love for them to come through you. We offer a great affiliate referral program. Wink, wink, nod, nod. But if they want to come directly to us, that’s fine too. They can email me at rob at CR Charlie Romeo Equity, EQUITY.AI. They can also find us on the web at www.crequity.ai.Michelle Kesil (23:24)
Perfect. Well, I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. Thank you so much for being here.Robert Stewart (23:30)
Thanks for showing.Michelle Kesil (23:31)
Of course. And for those tuning into the show, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like Rob, who are building real businesses. you on our next episode.
