Why Private Money Lending Is Winning in Today’s Market | Real Estate Insights with Stephanie Walter

Stephanie Walter (00:00)
even though I feel like you can feel a little bit less control of the outcome of stuff, but you can always take control of communication. And so I think those are things that I’ve definitely learned.

Quentin (00:04)
you

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today to have another fantastic guest who we are going to get a chance to glean information from to really learn about her experience. And that’s one of her strong points is that she has experience. She’s did a little bit of everything.

And so she’s going to be able to talk to you from different angles. And I’m looking forward to the knowledge that she’s going to bring to the show. And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Miss Stephanie Walter. Miss Stephanie, how you doing today, ma’am?

Stephanie Walter (02:24)
Great, thank you. How are you?

Quentin (02:26)
Oh, maam, I’m doing great. Doing great. So glad you’re here. I’m excited to have you here. Excited about the podcast. And so I am the type, Miss Stephanie, I love to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you can give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got to the space that you’re in. love your.

the origin stories and also tell them a part of the world you’re in. People like to know where people are geographically. And so what you’re up to, your origin story and where you are. Miss Stephanie, you have the floor.

Stephanie Walter (02:58)
Great. I am in Colorado, beautiful, hot today, about 80 degrees. so, yeah, I’m in Colorado. My origin story is I was heavily influenced by my dad. He was an entrepreneur and I kind of followed in his footsteps. He had rental properties and so I sort of, that always made sense to me.

So I was able to build a portfolio of small or single family homes in Colorado here. If you’re from Colorado in the Sloan’s Lake area. And then I got involved in commercial real estate and was really loved the concept of buying a property bigger than anyone could do on their.

and ended up raising about $30 million for nine projects. I guess we have over 900 doors down in Florida. some of the projects have gone, you know, some of them have gone super good, some of them have gone okay, but we’ve got, you know, there was a, I guess,

Quentin (03:55)
Mm.

Stephanie Walter (04:09)
I felt a little bit of a struggle of not really being able to control the outcome on those and really having to consider what the market has done and things like that.

So I had a mentor that was an investor in many of my deals who believed in private money lending. And so I’ve learned a lot from him.

how he vets and underwrites deals. And so now that is what I’ve leaned into and that’s what I’m primarily focusing on. It’s lending money for, you know, investors that are doing fix and flips, ground up development, ⁓ commercial, all that good stuff.

Quentin (05:39)
Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for telling us what you do, telling us about the journey. And Ms. Stephanie, as you was talking, I was actively listening and I writing some things down and I’m go over some of the things that I wrote because I’m going to make a statement and I’m going ask you a question. And so you talked about how you was heavily influenced by your dad. You bought, you had a single, you built a single family home portfolio.

You got into commercial real estate. You raised over $30 million on the project. And then you got, in the mindset, you was like, listen, I can’t really control the outcome the way that I want. so mentor, introduce private money. And so that’s what you do today. You do lending. You do lending money. And so I’m going to take those things back to you because Ms. Stephanie, I often say destiny.

has no wasted moments, right? I mean, what we go through in life, momentum is building to be the people that we are now. And we borrow from each part of the journey of our life. And so I would love to know, throughout your journey in real estate, what has these moments taught you about yourself? Has it you discipline, resilience? Like, what have these moments in the journey taught you about you, Miss Stephanie?

Stephanie Walter (06:56)
gosh, a lot of things. I I think the biggest thing is just resilience and knowing that things ⁓ don’t go, might not go exactly as you want them to. But I sort of leaned into what I was taught when I was being raised up is ⁓ like, especially with these projects where we have investors that

you know, maybe the timelines that people are getting out of the projects and different things like that have been affected by the economy, but just really being actively communicating with them, letting them know, you know, what’s happening and trying to, you know, just be very transparent on what’s going on in the projects.

And that’s just something I’ve really leaned into, even though I feel like you can feel a little bit less control of the outcome of stuff, but you can always take control of communication. And so I think those are things that I’ve definitely learned.

Quentin (07:57)
you

Yeah, I love that. never heard it quite put like that. That is one thing you can take control of is communication. And I love that because sometimes things are out of your control, but you can control talking about the things that are out of control. can control talking about the things that aren’t in your control. You can control just being transparent and being honest. And so I never heard it quite put like that, but it makes so much sense. There is one thing that you can control is communication. And so I love it.

Let me ask you this, because of course, every business bumps up against adversity. And so I would love to know how, how do adversity pop up his head within your world and how do you deal with it?

Stephanie Walter (09:19)
think probably the biggest thing in private money lending is just the uncertainty. Again, the outside sources of the war ⁓ banks in general and private money is no different. Do not like uncertainty. And so when we have wars and different stuff like that going on, there can be a lot of uncertainty in the market. And so people tend to pull back a bit.

on wanting to invest, but I’m trying to be optimistic and hoping that it sounds like when we get a new Fed chair in that we’re gonna get maybe some lower interest rates, maybe not forever, but certainly maybe I’m hoping for a little bit.

Quentin (10:07)
Yeah, no, understand. Absolutely. think we are open. So I’m with you. Absolutely, my dear. Let me ask you this. What is the next real goal for you? What are you looking to solve or scale next?

Stephanie Walter (10:18)
looking to really lean into the private money lending. I really love it. I love working with investors. Like the things I love about real estate are looking at deals and working and then pairing that with working with people that are very entrepreneurial minded and wanting to improve a property, you know, or have a vision of what they want to accomplish.

And then me helping them realize that vision by ⁓ contributing and helping them with the money. Yeah, definitely that’s what I view my future as. And I’m just very excited to continue lending money.

Quentin (11:01)
Yeah, yeah, I love it. ⁓ Let me ask you this, because I want to get your perspective on this. When it comes to the word relationship, relationship within business, relationship within the process and the journey, what is your philosophy on relationship and relationship building within business? Has it served you well? Talk to me a little bit about relationships.

Stephanie Walter (11:22)
Yeah, relationships are kind of everything as far as I’m concerned. Because you before I did any of the real estate, I was a business owner. owned a farmers agency for 20 years. I sold it in 2021. But the foundation of that business is relationships and really the foundation of when I was raising money, the people are trusting you.

to put their great sums of money with your investments, again, it comes back to relationships. But I find with private money lending, it’s even more important to build those relationships. ⁓ Yeah.

Quentin (11:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Well, listen, let me ask you this. Is there any topic that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Or is there any other words of inspiration, education, motivation? Because I don’t know. Maybe if you came in with something on your mind like, hey, I need to make sure the viewers notice, I kind of just want to open up space. If there’s a message that you want to deliver, I just want to give you space to deliver it.

Stephanie Walter (13:09)
I think that just genuinely being curious and creative in this environment, like people are always like asking me, you bought, you know, a lot of your properties 20, 25 years ago and well, what, but you can’t do that well now because, you know, things are different.

Quentin (13:31)
Mm.

Stephanie Walter (13:33)
But the truth is, is there’s always creative things. There’s always new opportunities and especially honestly working with a private money lender. I work with people to establish a relationship so that they can see what I can do and I can see what they’re gonna do. And then my goal is to help someone build.

Quentin (13:52)
you

Stephanie Walter (13:56)
their business and they get to maybe their third deal. And what I’ll do then is JV with them and provide 100 % of the funding. And so I just look at that there is opportunities. Don’t every person I’ve ever met that’s been successful in this business in real estate in general has always been a glass half full person, completely optimistic, just

that you need to keep working until you find the deal that works, I guess.

Quentin (14:28)
Yeah, I love it. love it. Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, Miss Stephanie?

Stephanie Walter (14:40)
Yeah, well, I sent you a link that’s sort of long to go over that will connect you to my page, my landing page, my website that just kind of goes over the things that I do. But I am happy to give out my email address and my cell phone number because I love talking to investors even if they choose are not ready to do business or

Just wanting to learn, I’m happy to be a resource. My phone number is 303-995-0928. And my email address is [email protected]

Quentin (15:20)
Absolutely. I love it. And I just want to say three things to you. First, thank you for your time. You could have been doing anything else you wanted to do, but you chose to spend time with us. So thank you for your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. I really appreciate your transparency, your authenticity. I believe stories have a way of planting seeds in people. We may never see the growth, but the seed is there. And at any given time, that seed can literally course correct their life.

So thank you for the seeds of your story. And lastly, thank you for your mindset and your perspective in bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today, Ms. Stephanie.

Stephanie Walter (15:58)
Well, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity. I appreciate it.

Quentin (16:03)
Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Miss Stephanie. Miss Stephanie, you got the nuggets, you got the value. Look in the show notes. All our information is there in the show notes. That way you can get in contact with her. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Miss Stephanie. So ma’am, thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.