From California to Colorado: Discovering Real Estate Success with Summer Lee

Dylan Silver (00:01.186)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host Dylan Silver and today on the show I have broker, lender out in Denver, Colorado, Summer Lee. Summer, welcome to the show.

Summer (00:13.641)
Thank you for having me.

Dylan Silver (00:15.04)
It’s a pleasure to have you on here. know, before we were hopping on, I mentioned that I’ve been to Denver once as a kid growing up, but it’s been a while. How’s Denver out there today?

Summer (00:26.535)
It is hot, very hot.

Dylan Silver (00:28.14)
It’s a hot day in Denver. So no, no snow, because I know it stays snowy up until like May, potentially. No snow in late June, huh?

Summer (00:34.535)
Yes, absolutely. My second year here in Denver, I’m from California, but I moved to Denver about five years ago. And my second year, I went to Colorado Springs to help out a friend. And it was about, I think it was in May, actually. We had Blizzard, okay? And I didn’t know what Blizzard was. Well, I knew what the word Blizzard is, but the only Blizzard I know in California was the Dairy Queen ice cream Blizzard.

Dylan Silver (00:58.723)
Yeah.

Summer (01:05.354)
And every road was closed off and I’m trying to come back and go back to the Denver back to my home and I was like, why is it all red? Like is it is everybody having like, is there like a road work or something’s going on? Why is it all red? But I was optimistic and I got stuck in the middle of the road. I had a firefighter come rescue me and I spent the night at a fire station.

Dylan Silver (01:28.099)
no.

Dylan Silver (01:34.513)
my god, so you didn’t have the chains and the tires yet at that point.

Summer (01:35.624)
You

I have a California car, okay? Still has a California license plate.

Dylan Silver (01:43.096)
You’re holding out. You’re holding out. So I want to ask you about about moving to Denver. Did you move to Denver initially for work? Was it for the destination? How did you get out to Denver?

Summer (01:53.087)
Great question. So my brother was here. He was in the military and I visited him in 2016 and every year I visited him and I came to Denver and I saw potential in real estate because coming from California, I saw the great market space, increase in market space that Denver will have. Back then, the property here, single family residence was around two to 300,000.

while it would cost about $500,000 in California. So that really drove me to come to Denver to see how the market is. And when everyone went remote and COVID happened, everyone went remote, I took the courage to move out here and to start and expand my business here.

Dylan Silver (02:44.942)
And at that point in time, talking about getting into real estate, did you have your own business at that point in time? Were you working for someone else? What did your life look like at that point?

Summer (02:51.103)
Yes. Books. Yes, I was still at the corporate office and I had a nonprofit back then. I still have that nonprofit, but I was building, I was in a building stage. So I wanted to expand that nonprofit business here in Denver. So I’m an immigrant. I’m a first-generation immigrant and I wanted to help immigrants and young adults. So I’m navigating the American life.

Dylan Silver (03:07.394)
What was the nonprofit? What’s the nonprofit?

Dylan Silver (03:19.234)
Very cool. So I want to talk, pivot a bit here and talk a little bit about that. I think one of the unusual, I’ve traveled quite a bit, one of the unusual things about American landscape and culture is that I’ve noticed that community is a little bit harder to find here. And even, you know, in talking with other Americans,

Summer (03:24.607)
you

Dylan Silver (03:40.632)
who, you their family has been here for generations. We even struggle with making community. And then I’ll go to other places and it’s like they welcome you with open arms. you know, certain other… There’s actually like restrictions in our law that make it even difficult, like gathering laws and noise laws that make it difficult to just host people, which you don’t even think about until you travel to places where it’s like they’re dancing bachata until two in the morning. And you’re like, wow, this is kind of different. It’s a Tuesday, right?

Summer (04:01.542)
Right.

Yeah.

Dylan Silver (04:08.758)
And so as someone who is a real estate guy, but also as someone who’s traveled quite a bit, I think real estate is so heavy on who you know and networking and yes, it’s logistical. You have to have the information, but it’s also who you know. And then just an establishing community, whether you’re an American or not, it can be challenging. So I’m curious, Summer, to get your perspective on that.

Summer (04:20.284)
Absolutely.

Summer (04:25.215)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (04:36.478)
community in general and then how it relates to you know people who are who are coming here trying to establish a life for themselves.

Summer (04:44.895)
Great question. And you said the word networking. My friends, we have nicknames among our friends and my friends call me Miss Networker because I will network the crap out of anywhere I go. So when I first came here, I didn’t have any connection to anybody. So I don’t know if I told you this, but I’m a commissioner for the city of Denver as well, purely because of networking.

So a lot of people underestimate the power of networking and connection. And how I network here is I would find the events, any gatherings that relate to real estate, lending, or finance, or just making friends on Facebook, Meetups, and I’ll just be present. And before my parents would say that I’m a very shy person,

But now the business owner mentality just shifted my mindset and I am not shy anymore and I’ll be the first one to introduce myself and I think that really brings the connection and people see that as a confident person and people see that as I want to work with that person. So since then, I’ve been growing and growing and growing.

Dylan Silver (05:52.962)
Yeah.

Summer (06:06.931)
to the point where I am a business owner and a commissioner and I’m just meeting people left and right here.

Dylan Silver (06:14.286)
I sometimes think that introverted people make actually the most impressive networkers. It’s almost like this like James Bond thing where it’s like they don’t say much but we see them everywhere and we do see them talking but their words are like limited. So it’s like, oh, I heard them talk again. Like what are they saying? I, yeah, I’m a naturally very, very, very shy person. I just remember growing up being like, you know, borderline distraught having to talk to people.

Summer (06:22.687)
Hahaha

Yes. Exactly how curious.

Dylan Silver (06:44.238)
And what I’ve learned and I’m curious to get your perspective on this is it’s literally a skill and That you can practice it just like you can’t go into the gym

Summer (06:44.415)
the

Summer (06:53.471)
Right, absolutely. mean, if you ask my mother how I was when I was a kid, she would say, my teachers back in Korea, my teachers would call me princess because I wouldn’t talk. I was very quiet. And my parents are very well known among the community. So I was very well dressed. I was very proper. had great manners.

I remember this thing like this one time, I have a vivid memory of this. My teacher asked me to stand up and go over my homework. I was so shy and I was so scared. had this fear just consuming me and I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t do anything. I froze right there and she just called me out of nowhere and she was like, you know what, go back to the classroom room and just reflect on your actions.

And I cried, I historically cried. That was all my trouble. So ever since then, I just didn’t, I had selective mutism where I wouldn’t talk for a long period of time. And when I came to Canada, when I went to Canada, I lived with different families and we had heavy language barrier. So I just didn’t talk at all.

Dylan Silver (07:52.142)
She roasted you, what the heck?

Summer (08:18.847)
I choose not to talk. So it took me a while for me to gain confidence in my own language and English at the top of that. So my friends, my high school friends to this day remind me like, Summer, do you remember me? Do you remember when we met in middle school where you couldn’t even finish the sentence like, hi, I’m Summer. How are you? And I’m like, don’t remind me. Yes, of course I remember. I’m sorry.

Dylan Silver (08:19.124)
my gosh.

Dylan Silver (08:43.512)
But what age were you when you went to Canada? What age were you when you went to Canada as a kid?

Summer (08:50.751)
I left Korea at age 8 so I would say 8 to 13.

Dylan Silver (08:59.054)
So 8 to in Canada. I’m curious because I have not been to Korea, can Americans, can people get by in English in Korea? Is it possible to get by in English out there? You really have to learn Korean.

Summer (09:13.501)
Yes, right now, yes, there’s a lot of foreigners in Korea because after BTS, Korean community has been booming. So there is a specific place called Hongdae. I’m not sure if you’re on social media, but there is this funny guy named Hongdae, Hongdae guy or something. Yeah. So in that city, especially that city, there’s a lot of foreigners there and a lot of Koreans take

Dylan Silver (09:20.012)
Yeah. my gosh.

Yeah

Dylan Silver (09:32.334)
Okay.

Summer (09:41.819)
English as their second language, so you can definitely go by just using the English.

Dylan Silver (09:47.106)
I’m actually grateful to BTS because we were talking about this before hopping on here, my grandmother is Japanese and BTS, I was like, why couldn’t they have been around in the 90s? This would have made things totally great for me as a kid, because it wasn’t exactly easy. And I said, wow, mean, if my grandmother is, imagine if both of my parents would have been from Japan, this would have been even more difficult, but.

It was an interesting upbringing to say the least but BTS has totally Changed the game I feel like and there was there were there were groups before them, but I’m in Dallas, Texas I was in San Antonio, Texas. You’re in Denver and my gosh summer I said I can’t believe how much people are freaking out about BTS given all of the circumstances I said whatever algorithm marketing this needs to be studied like they’re

Summer (10:16.927)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Summer (10:36.402)
you

Yes.

Dylan Silver (10:39.65)
They’re the official ambassadors for like Korea. I said this is incredible. More Americans know BTS than about anything else in Korea. it’s- I mean is there- is there ever been anybody more famous for the Western world than BTS?

Summer (10:43.881)
Absolutely. Yes.

Hahaha

Summer (10:55.337)
think Blackpink and Stray Kids are getting up there, but I think BTS are far out top them.

Dylan Silver (10:58.657)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (11:02.966)
I mean it’s at a point where I’ve said this before, was like if Texans, if we just took Texas and had to say okay you guys can either keep Samsung or BTS, which one are you going with? I was like I think Texas might just play BTS. I think it’s game over. I was like Samsung, we’ll have to go figure it out.

Summer (11:05.436)
Yeah.

Summer (11:16.351)
BTS. I love you for BTS.

Summer (11:24.863)
They’re gonna get bankrupt.

Dylan Silver (11:27.714)
Well something will figure it out, but I do want to and ask you about I believe the name of the company is Nordly US Am I pronouncing it right?

Summer (11:37.682)
Norlaeus.

Dylan Silver (11:39.02)
No-no-Nordlias, okay I mispronounced it, Nordlias.

Summer (11:40.775)
Yes. No, that’s okay. It is a funky word.

Dylan Silver (11:44.942)
Nord-Lias. Commercial lending space. think there’s a lot of investors, many who I talk with, who are in single family, maybe multi-family, and they want to get into commercial. And maybe they’re looking at commercial residential, or maybe they’re looking at more an industrial or a storage facility, this type of deal. What are the type of deals that you lend on and are your bread and butter deals when you’re operating as a lender? Broker, excuse me.

Summer (11:56.585)
Thank

Summer (12:14.313)
Great question. So we predominantly do commercial residential and commercial industry. We do offer the business loans as well, however, we don’t publicly advertise it because we want to solely focus on the fix and flip of the SCR and construction. So those are our main water right now. Fix and flip is a really big one because a of people are getting into that. I don’t know if you’ve heard about Chip and Jane.

Dylan Silver (12:35.576)
cute

Summer (12:42.975)
Chip and Joy or Chip and Jane or something like that. They have their own show. Yeah, they do fix and flip and they are incredible. So that’s what actually piqued my interest to become, to be in the fix and flipper. So yeah, I would say fix and flip in the DSR.

Dylan Silver (12:45.176)
to look it up now.

Dylan Silver (13:00.27)
Are you at all involved or have you done any deals yourself or are you looking at doing deals? And as an aside to that, you mentioned DSCR. DSCR is so big right now. Are you seeing a lot of DSCR happening?

Summer (13:13.664)
yes.

Absolutely. Right now is uh, I before I would say Fix and Flip would surpass the DSLR but right now they are right next to each other.

Dylan Silver (13:29.132)
And DSCR, so correct me if I’m wrong here, it’s debt service credit ratio, is that right? Coverage ratio, debt service coverage, I was close. Debt service coverage ratio. I’ve seen a lot of people do one to four units, one to four doors, do you do more than the four?

Summer (13:36.063)
coverage.

Summer (13:47.839)
We have an option to go 5 to 10, but predominantly it be 1 to 4.

Dylan Silver (13:57.228)
So what’s interesting about DSCR for me, and I think a lot of other people who are involved in this space, is real estate investors don’t want to have this giant tax bill at the end of the year. So what are they doing? They’re creating losses. They’re taking deductions and so on and so forth. But what this ends up doing is then you show limited income, which makes it harder and harder to get these deals done. Are you seeing that because of that, and because you mentioned DSCR has capped at 10

Summer (14:17.673)
hearted.

Summer (14:21.343)
Ready.

Dylan Silver (14:26.414)
10 doors, right? I’ve seen 10, I’ve seen 16, I think a lot of people are capping it at four. That we may see a trend to where there’s gonna be more and more DSCR and then also potentially more people sticking in that number of units, four to, let’s call it one to 10 type of thing, as opposed to looking at larger builds. are you seeing a different trend?

Summer (14:32.582)
Mm-hmm.

Summer (14:54.111)
Not necessarily. I would say more document heavy, but no, not really much change in my perspective.

Dylan Silver (15:04.191)
Okay. Sure, sure, sure. I want to pivot here a little bit, Summer, and ask you about, in general, no one has a crystal ball, right? But when we look at the commercial lending space, I see so many strategies. But one of the more interesting ones that I think a lot of people are seeing as well is the opportunity for new builds, specifically. And I think I’m out here in Texas, so we’ve got lots of vacant land. We’ve got so many, it seems like there’s

Summer (15:30.399)
you

Dylan Silver (15:32.984)
commercial residential going up everywhere and we’re maybe unfortunately I don’t know depending on how people look at it moving into more of a rental economy here so more people are renting now than ever before. Do you see this continuing for a while and are you seeing a lot of people in your business putting up new builds in commercial residential?

Summer (15:55.489)
that’s a really good question. I will say most of my clients are more into residential. So I don’t see this residential industry going. Let me rephrase. I see this residential industry increasing rather than decreasing. But with the new laws coming up with, well, has been coming up for the rental and landlords and.

Airbnb laws. It is a little bit difficult for the investors and business owners to keep it up with the renting field. But I don’t think there will be too much of a challenge as long as you have a great person to work with like myself, who will be hand-holding the whole time, the whole process and informative and guiding them to the proper path.

Dylan Silver (16:42.638)
That’s right.

Dylan Silver (16:51.148)
Now are you in all 50 states or are operating in certain areas? I’m out here in Dallas, Texas. Can people in Texas and in Florida and East Coast reach out to you?

Summer (17:01.639)
Yes, absolutely. The only states that we are limited to are North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Vermont.

Dylan Silver (17:14.286)
Summer, we are coming up on time here. If folks want to reach out to you, if they’d like to learn more about the business or get in touch with you in any way, where can folks go to reach out to you?

Summer (17:27.245)
great, well they can go to my website www.NorlaesCapitol.com and my phone number is 720-588-2885 or they can email me, somewhere at NorlaesCapitol.com

Dylan Silver (17:43.534)
Thank you so much for coming on the show here today. We’ve got the rooster going off in the rack. I don’t know if you can hear that, but pleasure having you on the show. Congrats on your success and to your future success.

Summer (17:47.977)
Thank you.

Hmm.

Summer (17:54.569)
Thank you so much. You as well. Thank you.