Ira Zlotowitz, founder and president of Eastern Union Funding, has launched a new, separate company that educates the public on lending as a pathway for commercial real estate investment – and then helps individuals become actual lenders.
The Ira Group will focus on the lending side of the real estate investment equation, targeting a market that includes both those with past lending experience, as well as newcomers.
Zlotowitz — who will continue to lead Eastern Union — will host a seminar to educate people about becoming a lender, and spell out the steps participants can take to join the ranks of syndicated lenders at various levels of risk.
He will present the seminar in Lakewood, NJ, tonight (Wednesday) and on June 5 in Israel.
“We are educating the public to the fact that investing in real estate is not the only way to benefit from commercial real estate,” said Zlotowitz. “You can also be a private lender. People generally think that you have to be a banker to be a lender, but that’s not so,” he said. “It isn’t difficult for individual people to be lenders, too.”
The Ira Group will also introduce prospective lenders to other lenders offering opportunities covering a range of risk levels.
Eastern Union concentrates on conventional, business-to-business mortgage brokerage models through which borrowers are introduced to lenders that match their needs.
The Ira Group employs a consumer-to business approach that makes introductions that then allow individual, private lenders to collectively participate in a syndicated loan being packaged by a private, public, or institutional hard-money lender serving as the lead lender or syndicator.
Participants may lend in the $250,000 to $25,000 range.
“You don’t have to own an asset to reap the financial benefits of commercial real estate investment,” said Zlotowitz.
