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How Marines Built One of America’s Strongest Real Estate Lending Companies

By September 8, 2025Real Estate Pros Show


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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Pedro Pereira speaks with Kevin Parker of Lima One Company about the unique approach to real estate lending and investing. Kevin shares insights on the Marine mentality that drives their business, emphasizing resilience, dedication, and the importance of building strong relationships with clients. He discusses navigating challenges in real estate deals, the company’s future goals for market exposure, and the significance of networking and communication in the industry.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Kevin Parker (00:00)
    I had a great deal. The guy was going to end up taking the house. He was going to add a second story.

    So there’s a $500,000 budget on a house, really nice house, North Dallas. Bread and butter, right? But here’s where, and this is where communication is going to be so key, Pedro, so key, because that’s where these people don’t. And this is the pivot, but this is also where I shut it down. So this is that level of, this is that marine, like, OK, I’m going to try to adjust here for you, and then we’re going to probably kill it. And that is exactly what happened. So I was given the deal. I was given the pitch.

    Pedro Pereira (00:22)
    Yeah.

    Yep.

    hello everyone. Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host Pedro Pereira and today I’m joined by someone we’ve been looking very forward to chatting with, Kevin Parker, who’s been making some serious moves in the real estate lending and investing stage. How are we doing today, Kevin?

    Kevin Parker (02:11)
    and today I enjoyed…

    How are we doing today,

    Kevin? Pedro, I’m doing great. How are you doing, Thank you guys enough for having me on.

    Pedro Pereira (02:23)
    Doing very well.

    of course my friend we’re glad to have you here really appreciate your time i think our listeners are really going to be able to take away a lot of good ⁓ nuggets of knowledge here from how you guys are approaching the the investor and lending space you know you guys have a very individual unique mentality towards this and i think our listeners are really going to enjoy learning and hearing about it so without further ado let’s let’s dive right into it so first off for the people who may not

    be familiar with your world. ⁓ Give us a short version. What are your main focuses these days? What markets are you operating in?

    Kevin Parker (03:50)
    Yes, so actually we’re a national company. We lend nationwide. I’m in 46 states right now. With obviously the mindset of we’re always going to be running to every challenge. And I say that because, like I mentioned to you earlier, we are founded by two Marines. That’s the forefront of our company, right? John Thompson and John Warren were the master sergeants of the company. And they founded it because Lima One Company actually

    was the name of their company when they were overseas fighting. So they obviously took that mentality into everything they did. But right now we focus on fix and flip, new construction, and then we’ve got a marvelous rental 30-year fixed product that transitions well from a fix and flip product if that’s the Burr method strategy that our investors are going with. We do see a lot of that these days. New construction, I’ve seen a boom. I think the United States has seen a boom in the real estate world as far as new construction is concerned.

    I think realistically with our mortgage rates, there’s still some give and take there, but our investors, we’re all Marines in our investment mentality. So at the end of the day, we’re going find a way to overcome that challenge, regardless if we just have to wait a little bit for those mortgage rates to come down to make it perfect or what most of my customers do is they just say, you know what? It’s going to be fine. I’m going to build anyway and the market is going to take care of itself.

    Pedro Pereira (05:00)
    Perfect. I love to hear it. What really caught my attention was about how you mentioned that you guys have this marine mentality. Could you go a little bit further into that? I’d love to hear about that unique perspective into this business stage.

    Kevin Parker (05:13)
    Well, so the foundation is the most important part of any company, right? I think we could all agree on that. And when I talk about foundation, I mean, what are the morals, the principles, and the character development that creates that foundation? So when the United States, when all of us citizens, when we think of the word marine, we think of naturally badass. I mean, that’s the first thought that pops into my head, right? But it’s more than that, because what does it take to be a marine? It takes resilience.

    Pedro Pereira (05:34)
    Yeah.

    Kevin Parker (05:39)
    Persistence, the ability to pursue something regardless of the obstacle. Dedication, relentlessly, like relentlessly dedicated. So we’re going to be loyal to a fault. We’re also going to be dedicated to you and to the overall process and procedure to make sure that the level that you receive of

    of quality, of care, of everything from start to finish is at its highest level. And we’re always growing too. We’re always trying to level up our game, so to speak. It’s just like any other company when it comes down to it, we’re going to do our best to meet and exceed expectations at every level, every chance we get.

    Pedro Pereira (06:13)
    That’s great. That’s great to hear. And honestly, that’s not easy to do, especially in this climate with the volatility of the market and everything going up and down to keep that discipline, to keep that loyalty is definitely a differentiator here in the field. And could you enlighten us a little bit? How has that sort of played in to the relationship that you guys have with your clients?

    Kevin Parker (06:32)
    Yeah, well think that traditionally speaking when you think of hard money or private money in the lending world, a lot of the times, and it sounds corny to say, but a lot of the lenders miss out on that relationship piece. And when I say that, they don’t really, they’ll look at a loan, and I’ve worked with several small shops before I came onto this one, Lima One’s by far the best. And when I…

    when i say that i mean that a lot of the times are going to look at the deal and they’re gonna say are you know it’s it’s a little if if if you know we have some risk here we’ve got these things going on but you know we still want to get the deal done as a company overall so will bypass certain things that you as an investor are going to be detrimented by if i look over you know limo one company is actually owned by a publicly traded reit

    called MFA Financial and we trade on the New York Stock Exchange. So what I mean by that is obviously we have a degree of commitment and a degree of investment that we have with our current investors that we also have to uphold. So what that does is everything trickles down, right? So if our standards of commitment are that high at a level where we’re having to nationally be committed, dedicated, an

    excellence, a degree of excellence that not many people can, that obviously gets transmitted to our investors. So when I look at your deal, I’m not just looking

    Pedro Pereira (08:10)
    Mm-hmm.

    Kevin Parker (08:13)
    you know at all okay it’s as it’s a fix and flip i wanna see well yeah but you got twenty thousand dollars here on a on a budget that you know it’s a three thousand square foot house can you explain to me how there’s going to be profit because i also want to see professionally and from someone that actually cares about your real estate investing you know journey and where you’re going to go through from here what that’s going to look like and if i look at your you know look at the deal and i say there’s no profitability here based on your exit strategy in your current plan of action i’m gonna recommend a different one

    and that’s just something i don’t see many lenders do there you know all on the phones of the deal the run through the numbers okay here’s your quote i mean i could do that too but or level is just a little bit i want people that are like i sold you a rock star i want to deal with people that are that that are the rock stars because at the end of the day that’s the level that we want to stay at that’s level that we want to help everybody continue to grow too

    Pedro Pereira (08:41)
    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah.

    Kevin Parker (09:02)
    and you want somebody in your corner that’s going to sit here and say, this looks like you’re making $15,000 on a $400,000 investment, this is a bad deal, you should walk away. And that’s a partner, not just someone sitting there sending you quotes to get you to borrow your money. That’s the difference. That’s the extreme difference.

    Pedro Pereira (09:15)
    Yeah, that’s great.

    Yeah, I can see that commitment on every level from the national one to the individual client that that is special for sure. Going going into you know, some of the the nitty and gritty now, you know, every operator has had a moment where things really got real. Maybe a deal went sideways or saw in the moment we guys had to pivot fast. Do you mind sharing one of those moments with us? Yeah.

    Kevin Parker (09:40)
    Oh, you’re going to like this one. Yeah, in fact,

    I’ve got a great one. It just happened the other day. Now, first I’m going explain how we pivoted. Then I’m going to explain how our process underlined certain things that would have been seen as detrimental to us or potentially to anyone in the future. So

    Pedro Pereira (09:48)
    Mm-hmm.

    Mm-hmm.

    Kevin Parker (10:00)
    I had a great deal. The guy was going to end up taking the house. He was going to add a second story.

    So there’s a $500,000 budget on a house, really nice house, North Dallas. Bread and butter, right? But here’s where, and this is where communication is going to be so key, Pedro, so key, because that’s where these people don’t. And this is the pivot, but this is also where I shut it down. So this is that level of, this is that marine, like, OK, I’m going to try to adjust here for you, and then we’re going to probably kill it. And that is exactly what happened. So I was given the deal. I was given the pitch.

    Pedro Pereira (10:23)
    Yeah.

    Yep.

    Kevin Parker (10:33)
    I was presented information that said I had done XYZ amount of deals over the last three years. That turned out to be false. But the deeper underlying issue came from this. So first of all, okay, we only had this many deals. Great, okay, but I have a GC that’s willing to partner on the deal. Okay, cool, we can overcome that. No big deal. Right? Then you dig in a little deeper. ⁓ well, the investor actually doesn’t have any experience to speak of. Well, it was under this and it was under this.

    And that’s where communication and being honest, integrity matters. But we adjusted, we were going to get it done regardless. I was like, OK, cool. We’ll bring somebody in. We can help that. That’ll cover the experience piece. You already have the credit. You’ve already got the down payment. Not a big deal. So pivot, pivot. Then I get a phone call from the GC. And as we’re on the phone, he starts talking about how he’s working at an estate sale right now. So now I’m going, wait a minute.

    What’s the address of this estate sale? He’s like, well, I’m selling my house. And I just went, and there’s no way. Surely not. But sure enough, what house was he selling? The very house that I was trying to do the loan on. So now I find out that the GC is the seller and a whole different level of, know, I got different stories now just because now they’re panicking when I figured it out. And of course, you know, like any good leader, when things don’t add up, I shut it down.

    Pedro Pereira (11:30)
    Yeah.

    Mm-hmm.

    Kevin Parker (11:47)
    we said no we’re we’re out on that there’s too many you know we that’s the but that’s also the level commitment we have you know we’re not just let any any deal go through we’re going to be you know maybe even a little more supervised of of the qualities of that deal in and what i mean by that is we’re going to look into specific particularly tell me that you’re the gc you’re selling a house that you’re the g trying to gc the project to okay kickback kickback kickback all my head says right so so we pivoted we were going to get it done i did everything i could until i got

    Pedro Pereira (12:07)
    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah.

    Kevin Parker (12:14)
    the factual statements that you know aligned with the misalignment of our

    it doesn’t align with the interest and the overall values and core, you know, core system of my company, we’re going to end up shutting it down. So that’s the one thing I would say. You know, I want to work with people that are honest, that have integrity, and that exemplify that leadership mentality in their business.

    That’s the rock stars of the world and that’s who we aim to be. At the end of the day, that’s what we want to be. But yeah, so we adapted, we got it almost done, and then I had to kill it. So, funny enough, we did pivot and then I shut it down.

    Pedro Pereira (13:29)
    Yeah.

    Wow, well that’s the kind of stuff that honestly people don’t talk about enough. Thank you for sharing that. And honestly, that’s what I believe that separates folks who just sort of dabble in the industry versus the one who’s staying the game long term. It’s important to keep that loyalty, but also not to be, as you said, Marines are loyal to a fault, but you guys are smart enough to realize when that fault is coming and to pull out when you need. So that is a special skill. Yeah, discernment.

    Kevin Parker (13:54)
    discernment discernment sir that’s the word of the and

    i i i go over it i use key to its funny i’ve started adapting all these utilities towards the only been the raising of my son and i go by like these key terms like this is to the like uh… last weekend was uh… and discernment you know well i’ve made a much three musketeers all for one and one for all we we i want this mentality ingrained in our you know

    Pedro Pereira (14:04)
    Yeah.

    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah.

    Kevin Parker (14:21)
    I see so much of it today that you just gotta kinda get it when it’s young.

    Pedro Pereira (14:24)
    Fantastic. No, they’re honestly it’s some some great themes and concepts to honestly carry throughout anyone’s point in life It doesn’t have to be just in business. So I love the way that you guys approach this So let me ask what are you guys focused on solving or scaling next? What are what are the next real goals for you guys?

    Kevin Parker (14:41)
    You know, I don’t think we have enough of the market share. I think that right now we’re focused mainly on exposure. Realistically, not enough people know about us. You know, if I’d ask you who Lima 1 was before the phone call, did you have any background knowledge on the company?

    Pedro Pereira (14:54)
    Just the one I had to do for the podcast.

    Kevin Parker (14:56)
    See, so

    and the funny thing about that is we are one of the best. I mean and if you look at it and comparatively, comparatively and you go down the rates and you look at it from just a overview, we really do strike as one of the best lending companies for our investors and for investors as a whole. But we’re working right now I would say on that marketing exposure piece because not enough people know that we’re here.

    Pedro Pereira (15:02)
    Mm-hmm.

    Kevin Parker (15:20)
    And so as far as that’s concerned, that’s why. You’ll see my pretty face. I’m actually speaking at a conference in Dallas here next month on new construction and on the new construction process. I’ve got several friends hopefully that will be attending as well. And we just want to make sure that our presence is known because we know that we are one of the best. We exemplify that. And like a Marine, I’m going run at that challenge head on and just say, well, we’re going to do what we can to get there and we’ll put the rest together as it happens.

    Pedro Pereira (15:27)
    so.

    Yeah.

    Kevin Parker (15:45)
    So that’s kind of what I’d say the only real challenge we’re having right now. It’s not capital. We’ve got capital for days. think we do hundreds of millions of dollars a month right now. I don’t want to give you specific numbers because it always changes. We always say, it’s going to be this and it changes. But what I would say is that we are a very successful company. We are just aiming to carry that level that we have created of excellence and commitment and dedication and take it to the next level.

    Pedro Pereira (15:56)
    Mm-hmm. Yeah.

    Kevin Parker (16:09)
    while not compromising any of those key aspects, character, or overall company morality that we really wish to exemplify, not just now, but in the future, and with each investor that we work with. So I could always use more investors to work with. If you know some rock stars, them my way. Right in terms, not a problem. I can promise that, Pedro. It’s going to come down to more, what’s their experience?

    Pedro Pereira (16:09)
    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah, of course.

    Kevin Parker (16:33)
    you know, does their overall business plan align with ours? And as long as it does, I can tell you that they’re not going to be disappointed.

    Pedro Pereira (16:40)
    awesome. No, that’s that’s big. Especially when you’ve already got this unique mentality and approach to the business. The next move can either compound things or create chaos depending how you play it. So I hope that you guys end up doing both. know, organize chaos, know, chaos in the market.

    Kevin Parker (16:54)
    Organized chaos organized chaos. I like to say I live my life. I

    live my life in an organized chaos So so as far as the ability to adapt look our CEO is next level. He understands the market He’s always constantly bringing in innovations when I tell you that we’re at the forefront of the tech like tech scene There’s not many technologies you could name as far as like my marketing abilities my abilities to reach out to people my abilities to connect and just the overall

    you know resources for our just for the company even that it’s unmatched. I mean we live in a high-tech world so we all have to adapt we all have to grow and at the end of the day I’d like to think that honestly from what I’ve seen we’re one of the most tech companies I’ve ever seen. We’re always adapting. I mean we’re gonna have a great online customer portal for everybody to use so that they can monitor everything from start to finish on each of their loans. You know you’re I’m not sitting here on an excel sheet trying to get you a quote on your deal.

    I can get a deal to you in a couple minutes based on the information you provide that is nice quality, that is going to be supported as long as our appraisal checks out. I’d say technology is also a big concept of that. I think that as it’s advancing and we’re advancing, that, I mean, hey, look, every Marine has to be able to adapt. I think the ability to adapt and adjust to market share, to markets, and to new environments is something that we obviously are going to try our best to exemplify as well.

    Pedro Pereira (17:46)
    Mm-hmm.

    Yeah.

    That’s That’s great to hear. Now, I know a lot of people listening here are either very early in their real estate investing journey or just, you know, looking to level up. And I think they’d really benefit from, you know, getting this information or hearing this from you. But when it comes to building relationships and growing your network, you said, you know, we’re always going to invite some more investors, always could have more people to work with. What has made the biggest difference for you in the real estate journey and market, you know, building these relationships?

    Kevin Parker (18:38)
    You know, it’s a lot of communication, but I think there’s a difference between sales and building a true book of business and having a relationship with your clients. What I mean by that is if you’re sitting there and you’re calling 300 people a day and you’re getting this person on the phone and you’re trying to have a communication with them,

    You know, a lot of times what I like to do, and this is something that sets us apart too, and we recommend this, is when you’re an investor, you’re starting out, hey, you’re in Dallas, I’m right down the road, how about we go grab a coffee? Tell me about your business. Tell me about what successes you’ve had, what failures you’ve had. Is there anything you learned from it? Great.

    I’ve used these lenders in the past. Awesome. you know, some of these lenders aren’t, you know, aren’t, I’m not going to ever talk bad about everybody. Like I’m not one of that guy that’s going to go behind your back and say, well, this lender is just bad for this reason. Okay. Well, tell me what are some things you liked? What are some things you didn’t like? mean, because at end of the day, I won’t do first time investors, but I’m not saying that you should, that should limit you from starting a real estate journey. You know, so if you do, you know, if you, found a lender, you did your first couple of deals. Great. mean, I, I can maybe take it to the next level, but at the same time, you know,

    Pedro Pereira (19:33)
    Uh-huh.

    Kevin Parker (19:42)
    you had to start somewhere and that business that relationship aspect of it is just being a friend first and foremost like how are your kids? What’s going on? How’s your kids? what? You’re going on vacation Pedro, have a great vacation you know it’s the little things man that stand apart and it’s simply just understanding and listening more than you speak a lot of the times except when you’re on a podcast and you you just kind of run your mouth a lot but

    Pedro Pereira (19:52)
    Yeah.

    Thank you.

    Kevin Parker (20:10)
    But, you know, you get what I’m saying. think realistically at the end of the day, relationship building is built based not just on getting something from somebody but adding value as much as you can.

    Pedro Pereira (20:08)
    That’s what we’re here for.

    That was great. I feel the audience will feel that connection with you as well, which is ⁓ why I wanted to ask before we wrap, if someone did want to reach out, if they wanted to connect with you, collaborate, or just even learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?

    Kevin Parker (20:35)
    The simplest way, this is my direct cell phone number. It’s 903-744-3330. You can call me day or night or shoot me a text. That’s the easiest way. Now I’ve got all sorts of links and things I can send you that are going to make your life a little easier, but just pick up the phone and call me.

    Pedro Pereira (20:52)
    Perfect. Perfect. I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of listeners wanting to feel that connection to learn more about what you guys are doing. But Kevin, I want to say that we appreciate your time, your story and your perspective on this. This has been very, very enlightening. We definitely need more people in this space that are doing things right. And my friend, I would like to say that congratulations. I believe that you are one of them. You guys are definitely going in the right direction. I think the sky is the limit for those of you tuning in. If you got value from this, make sure that you are subscribed.

    Kevin Parker (21:17)
    Those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure that you are subscribed. We’ve

    Pedro Pereira (21:21)
    more conversations coming up with operators just like

    Kevin Parker (21:21)
    got more conversations coming up with operators just…

    Pedro Pereira (21:25)
    Kevin, who are out there building real businesses. Kevin, thank you so much for your time today.

    Kevin Parker (21:28)
    Kevin, thank you so much for your time

    today. Thank you, Pedro. I appreciate you. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it, guys. We’ll see

    Pedro Pereira (21:33)
    Appreciate it guys, we’ll see you on the

    next

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