Transforming Real Estate Financing with Angelo Christian Episode - 531

When I started my own business and built my lending company and realized the value of a client and trying to keep them as a client forever, friend forever, and to build a relationship with this person. And, you know, it's not just about a transaction.

So you think real estate financing is boring? Then you haven't seen how understanding a lender's mindset can completely transform the way you evaluate investing opportunities. This episode pulls back the curtain on the psychology behind high-stakes lending, revealing how top-tier professionals are using these insights to spot better deals, choose stronger operators, and invest with greater confidence. So welcome back to Streams to Impact. I'm your host, Dr. Allen.

Hi, Allen.

Psychology professor, investor, and someone who's walked the road from fulfilling career to enlightened investing. This podcast is for those of you who've climbed high in your careers— academics, doctors, attorneys, executives, visionaries, and entrepreneurs of all stripes— and yet still you feel a quiet nudge. There's more to build, more to give, and more to do. So you spent years showing up with excellence. Now it's time for your money to do the same, not by working harder, but by working wiser. So in each episode, we bring you transformative insights from people who are redefining what wealth means, not just in dollars, but in impact, alignment, and freedom. Because real prosperity, it's not found in chasing more. It's found in choosing better. So let's dive in. Today we have an alumnus of the show, Angelo Christian, who is a financial architect with a bold mission to uplift lives. As the chairman and CEO of Christian Financial, a firm recognized by CNN, Bloomberg, and Business Insider, he has guided thousands Through mortgage banking, wealth building, and real investing. What sets Angelo apart isn't just his business success, it's his heart. Whether helping first-time buyers or seasoned professionals, he's bringing a lender's precision and a visionary's passion for financial empowerment. Get ready to see real estate investing through a completely new lens. Welcome, Angelo.

Allen, I don't know if I've seen an intro like that in my life.

Well, we are glad to have you. So, Angelo, you've helped thousands of people step into homeownership and wealth building. But what was your own turning point when you realized finance could be a vehicle for life transformation as well as investing transformation and not just a simple transaction?

Well, I mean, that's a great question, Allen. I think that, um, you know, it's important to understand my background. And I know I've been on the show graciously. This is my 3rd time on your show. And but it's, it's important to look back in history, um, to see where I came from to help me determine. And, you know, you're big on psychology. You know how that is, that, um, things that happen to us especially at a young age in childhood, can affect us as we grow and mature. And so the— just quickly, you know, I grew up very poor, didn't have an idea of ever what finance was, was extremely obese, and didn't really have any future direction. And so my father was kind of absentee, as you remember the story. So I had to look externally For heroes to kind of guide me along the way. So I dropped out of school when I was in the 6th grade. So I had no idea about accounting, finance, economics, or what my future was going to be. So I hit rock bottom and had a heart attack when I was 18 years old. And that was kind of the turning point for me. And from that point, I kind of immersed myself in trying to change my life.

It was more than a heart attack. It was a near-death experience. Tell us a little bit about that.

Right. And at that same time, my father left my mother and we were living homeless in a car with my 4 brothers and sisters. So when you get to a certain point, it's either you're gonna, you know, sink or swim. And so I started to immerse myself in learning, got my GED, went back to college, and then really just studied the masters, like You know, Warren Buffett, you know, at that time there wasn't an Elon Musk, but there was, you know, Bill Gates, there was, you know, Steve Jobs, Tony Robbins, Unlimited Power, Dale Carnegie. So, learning, trying to study from the best to change my life. And then from that, I decided to get into finance and real estate, and that's what my career path was. So, I went to school for finance, economics. And when I was 22, I got into the mortgage industry. But at that time, I didn't really understand what I was doing. We were doing subprime loans back in like 2007. So, to answer your question, when I found out that it was more than a transaction or actually developing a relationship is when I started my own business and built my lending company. And realize the value of a client and trying to keep them as a client forever, friend forever, and to build a relationship with this person. And, you know, it's not just about a transaction, you can end up doing a family's, all of the family's home loans, or mortgages, and their commercial desires to remember we're a nationwide commercial, residential, and a private lender. So somebody may be as a first-time buyer buying their house, And then their cousin may be an investor that's a flipper, and then their other brother may be a large developer and he needs funding for you know construction. So taking care of your client and developing that relationship is critical because you never know how big it's going to be. I have one customer; his whole family does all of his lending with us, and we do between eighty to a hundred million dollars a year in business with him. So but I took care of him, and I realized the value. That when you're working with someone to create that value, and it's something like even Jeff Bezos talks about so well, is to create a web for your customer and just focus on adding value, add value, right? And so that's the big thing with our company.

I never really get tired of hearing your story because it truly is a story of inspiration and hope for all of us. What a journey it certainly has been. Well, Angelo, from your perspective as a lender, what are some of the most overlooked indicators? And we're talking to passive investors by and large here. So what are some of the indicators that really reveal the true strength of a passive investing opportunity? And it in any kind of really private placement, whether equity or in real estate?

Well, I think that, you know, if you're going to be doing something from the passive standpoint, you're probably going to be looking for a certain cap rate or NOI, right? I mean, those are going to be like— because different investors have different metrics. Like, we have some investors that do fix and flip, that's more of an active-type investor, and then someone that's more passive is probably going to be wanting to not do much managing themselves. I mean, they may have a property manager, um, but I mean, one of the things I see from the clients that we lend to that have large lines of credit with us that are passive, obviously location is critical, um, and then they're looking at the cap rate as their second part of underwriting, um, and then, you know, The, the size of the transaction does make a big difference too. A lot of passive investors are usually doing a larger transaction, um, you know, so it's usually a multifamily and they could be doing a syndication with other people, um, is normally what I see. And I mean, the, the biggest metrics, um, you know, is obviously It's got to make sense from the NOI. And one of the, one of the problems that I think we've all faced in the last 2 years is with inflation, higher interest rates, it's been hard to swallow and make the numbers work. But I think, yeah, location, you know, something like, you know, for example, in Boca Raton or in Austin or in, you know, San Diego, that's pristine Extremely valuable property that can never be replaced. So I know a lot of investors, passive investors, they stay away from more rural properties or things that you know if the you know the NOI doesn't make sense for their you know for their investors and the ROI, then they'll pass on it. So I've seen a lot of investors recently with more saturation in the market go to ground-up construction. And build to rent. So we've seen a lot of— because the adage before was fix and flip, you know, and now I've seen a lot of people go into buying, uh, land and taking out horizontal and vertical construction loans, um, and then keeping those assets, not selling them. A lot of private equity, and they're doing it by thousands and thousands of doors. So I think that's a new popular trend that you'll see with passive investors, is they may Hire a property manager, um, and then a developer. Um, like, we have, we have one large investor here in Houston, and, uh, he's a— he has one of the biggest law firms here, and he just does passive investing. He hired my good friend who's a builder to build him 48 townhomes, and then he's building all of them, and then he's just going to lease them all out. And, you know, he just wants to keep that passive income. And so, and he has Tarantino Properties doing the management. He has Monsanto doing the construction, and he and his uh NOI on it is it's insane. He's like gonna make like you know two and a half million dollars a year, and I mean you know just passive income off of it, you know. And why sell it with the way properties are appreciating right now, especially in Texas? I mean the appreciation rate in Texas in the right cities is is crazy right now. A lot of people are coming to Texas.

Yes, I think there's a lot of things that particularly people who are purchasing properties, multifamily or mobile home parks or whatever, and they're doing it with the intention of holding those for 5 to 7 years or so.

Yeah.

I think a lot of times they don't overlook it in their underwriting necessarily, but they don't really realize the cost of transaction. I mean, it costs money to purchase, it costs money to sell. those, and, and you could just refinance those without having to go through all of those transaction costs. And I think a lot of investors out there are, are starting to see that, that there is value in that refinance process. Well, you had mentioned inflation and high interest rates, and we've been hearing this term stagflation. And I know you don't have a crystal ball, but where do you think all of this is taking us? I hear a lot of people predicting serious recession. Others are a little more optimistic. What is your take on it as a lender?

Yeah, I mean, so it's a good question and obviously, I mean, here's— this is in my opinion. I'm not, you know, I'm not an economist. I'm not a guru or anything. I just— I'll say this, that we this year over last year, we're up by 42% in our business as far as production. And I think that we are much better off today than where we were Under the previous leadership of this country. So, and I know everyone has different opinions about that, you know, but I think that a lot of stuff that was happening prior did not make sense. And I know it's tough what we're going through right now. And I just think that we're headed in a better direction.

Is it?

It may be thorny, it may be bumpy, But I don't, I don't expect a, a recession or depression. I think it, you know, figuring out the thing, what we're doing with the taxes, the jobs, the tariffs, and how that all plugs in. I know in the short term it looks rough, but in the long run, I think that it'll be better for Americans. And if we can get, you know, interest rates down and people's income up, You know, I think that's, you know, gonna be better for everybody. So, um, so I, I'm hoping, and I mean that right now, and I'm just looking at the numbers in my business, and the numbers are much more encouraging. More people are confident to go out. Depend— now, if you were— now, if you had a job and you work with the federal government, those people are not confident right now. So, I mean, we're losing some of the people. And sad— I'm not saying it jokingly— sadly, a lot of the customers that we've had have canceled their contracts because they don't know the future of their job. So, um, yeah, it's— and I'm sad about that. I'm not happy to hear that. It bothers me. Um, but the other thing is that taxpayers cannot, you know, pay for overbloated, overinflated, uh, departments anymore. I mean, it has to be run like a business, you know. And so, um, so I understand that part of it as well because I own a business. And I would go out of business if I carried on too much staff and didn't have enough. If I couldn't make a profit, I would I would be shut down, right? So I think that we're headed in the right direction. This may not be the the best year. Maybe next year, hopefully. You know, I know that there's quarrels between Jerome Powell and the Fed and Donald Trump and what's going to happen with interest rates. But I'm hoping. That things get better. And so far they have. I just— I don't know. See how it goes, you know?

Yeah, who knows where the future is going. It's always uncertain. They call these extraordinarily uncertain times, but I don't know when the future is ever certain because you never can predict. Well, you, you often speak about empowering others, and you certainly do your best to empower others to max out their lives, not just financially but in all areas of their life. So how do you define that in your own journey, and how does that mission influence how you actually serve your clients? And, and and your team?

Yeah, I mean, I think that— so that's a good question, Alan. I mean, I think that, um, and I talked about this, I did a, a show a few weeks ago about that life is more than just a, obviously, a transaction with your customer, um, and, and your team. And you have to be able to penetrate spiritually, emotionally, uh, with your customer, go through the tough times, the good times, And really understand, and with, with your, and with your team too. So I think, um, when something is just transactional, then there's no skin in the game, you know, from both sides. And, um, you're never going to get to the heart of the matter, uh, or build, um, something that's durable. And that's really the thing, something that has intrinsic value. If you know you're treating them, you know, just as a transaction. So like we still meet with our customers. We talk to them on the phone. We haven't really. We do use a little bit of AI, and but we still believe in the human interaction, and that there that's something that can't be, you know, trade. There can't be a trade-off for that, and I think that's going to be something that helps us to kind of. I was talking with another company yesterday, and they're very concerned about. AI and some of the big companies like Quicken taking over the mortgage industry with AI, and that the small mortgage lenders are going to get wiped out in the next decade. And so, and I was thinking to myself, well, how many loans do we take from big companies every day because they make mistakes, they overlook things, they don't structure the loans properly, they don't figure out how to get the deal done. Because it's so automated. And I don't think everybody's going to want to go to an online resource to get a mortgage. Some people will, but some people still like to meet their loan officer in person. And so I think technology is good. And I think that it needs to be utilized. But I think developing a relationship with your customer And your team is paramount for success. Like, I mean, my— I haven't had anyone from the employment standpoint. We haven't had any turnover in over 3 years, you know.

Mm-hmm.

And that's a lot of that's attributed to, you know, taking care of our team, developing, you know, deep relationships with them and really becoming, you know, not just their employer, But, you know, um, they're a friend too. And understanding when they need someone to talk to, uh, we're here for them as well. And knowing when there's a time to do business and there's, there's a time for, you know, having a good time. And so, uh, and I know a lot of companies, like, their turnover is really bad. And that's a— that's an area that I really wanted to fix with my, with my company is, you know, having someone that's with me for the rest of my life. You know, and so that— I mean, it's the same thing with our customers too. I mean, developing those valuable relationships. Because here's the thing, if you take care of somebody, they're going to refer you to other people. That's how we get most of our— we don't pay— we have zero, uh, expense in advertising. We have zero marketing expense. We're gonna pay zero for— we don't buy any leads. We don't do any— anything like that. So all of our business is coming from our social media, our podcast, And then also from referrals. So if you're, if you're doing a bad job, you're not going to get referrals, you know. So, um, so yeah, I mean, I think that's, you know, extremely valuable.

And yeah, and, and, you know, all of that, uh, you know, starts from, from really essentially you and, um, and building a relationship with yourself that Is a sustainable relationship, and that just grows from there to all of your business associates, all of those who are part of your company, and, and then they spread that out. Remarkable that you, in the, in the lending and finance business, that you aren't doing any advertising. That In and of itself just speaks volumes for sure.

Yeah, it wasn't always like that. I mean, we used to spend a lot of money in advertising, but when I started the social media in 2017, we built up a following and there was just no point to spend money on advertising anymore.

Wow. Well, that is phenomenal. Well, Angelo, I, I think I read this somewhere on your website or something. If I'm getting this wrong, let me know, but I think you said somewhere that you You want your company to be partner-owned. Is that right?

That's right.

And so, what do you mean by partner-owned?

Well, in regards to my team, one of the things that we're building is an ESOP program to where everyone on my team that works with us is going to have equity and stock in the company. So, I love that model and I think it's a great one because it keeps people uh, you know, locked in forever. If they have a piece of the company, then, um, like, why would they— why would they leave?

Yeah.

They're fully vested. So, um, next year we'll have that conversion done and we'll be a full 100% ESOP, uh, you know, company where, you know, depending on the department that you're in and the, um, the— if you're C-suite or, you know, if you're executive or what, depending on what team you're on, You're going to be assigned a certain amount of shares and equity in the company. A lot— and you also have the option for deferred equity and stock options as well. So, um, so that's what I meant by, you know, partner-owned. I want everyone that's been with the company, um, that gets tenure and that's fully vested— they have to be here at least 5 years— and they have the option, uh, for stock in the company. And that's something that is just, uh, really important to me. And I know a lot of business owners, um, especially my friends that They have children and they think that, um, just because they have children, that their children should be entitled to owning the business if something happens to them. And I have children too. I have 3 kids. But what I tell my kids is that you have to earn it and you have to deserve it, you know, because you're not going to— I don't want to give my children, have them come take over the business and run it, and they run it to the ground. Because they don't know what they're doing. I had a— I have a business partner, um, he just retired and he gave his son, who knew nothing about his business, gave him full 100% control, and within 18 months it shut down because he didn't know what he was doing.

Yeah.

So I may have someone that's a top manager that might not be related to me by blood, but he acts hardworking and he's— he knows my business inside and out and I trust him. I feel a lot more comfortable with that person running my business than my son if my son didn't deserve it. So I think that even though if you're blood, that doesn't make— that doesn't grant— that doesn't grant you in. You still got to work through it and learn the business and understand and deserve it. So I don't know if that makes sense or, you know.

Well, yeah, I mean, it does definitely. And of course, you know, it's not just whether our children have the skills or not, you know, our kids just have different interests than we have.

Yeah.

And I know I had different interests than my parents, and, and my daughter has very different interests than I had. So, so yeah, there's, there's that to consider as well.

Right.

Well, Angelo, You, if I understand this correctly, you envision Christian Financial as one of the greatest enduring organizations on the planet. So that's a pretty bold vision. So, so how did you come to that? How do you install that sense of ownership and pride and purpose and essentially legacy within your team?

And yeah, I mean, the thing that, uh, I, I— so we operate on, um, a few different core values that are the pillars and hallmark to, to my existence, my success. And one of them is extreme ownership. You have to take extreme ownership. I mean, you probably read the book by Jocko Willink, but, um, you— when you're working at a company I don't care if you're working at Dunkin' Donuts, you know, or you're working for Apple. You have to have the mindset if you want to do anything powerful, impactful, to have extreme ownership. You, you act like an owner, you become an owner. That's what I tell my people, my team. Don't act like an employee. If you think like an employee, you're going to stay as an employee. So I think this is one of the most important core values is extreme ownership. Okay, the other one is, I think that's also extremely, uh, paramount, is I always tell my team there's 3 3 things. Focus on effort, attitude, and focus. These 3 things will determine what happens in your career and in your life. Your attitude, the amount of effort you put in, and your focus. You have to control your focus, you have to control your attitude, and you have to put in a massive amount of effort. So, and, and I, I mean, I tell my children this myself this, everyone that I meet, that if you embody these things and you really do it, it's going to make all the difference. And then building the right culture, actually having a mindset of leaving no stones unturned. And so many real estate companies, so many mortgage companies, when things get difficult, or let's say there's a problem with someone's credit, or there's a problem with the property, it's easy for lenders just to deny it. Kill the deal, walk away. They don't want to fight through it to work through it to figure out this problem solved. So having the mindset to leave no stones unturned, meaning that you check everything to make sure that you did all you could to help that customer to you know to get their deal funded. Did you help to boost up their credit score? Did you order another comparable to get the value? Did you you know make sure you got them the best interest rate? That you got them the least amount of closing costs? Did you put them on the right product? You know, well, maybe their credit score came back too low. Maybe there's a problem with the property. There's a hazard, and now you need to fix that. So I think these are things that, like the Bible has the Ten Commandments. These are commandments. I think in business that you have to embody and embrace. At least that's what we do that helps us, and then teaching that to the team that have that culture because I'm not going to be there. To watch everybody, to see what they're doing day in, day out. So I push this spiritual embodiment on my team, and then that, that's infectious onto my customers. So they can feel that when they're talking to someone, this person actually cares. They're not just an order taker. They're not thinking about when they get off on the weekend or going on a vacation. They're thinking about me right here, right now, trying to solve this problem. So that's, that's, I think, one of the most important things that you can do as a leader. is give your team the right tenets to live by and operate by, the right code. And if they operate with that code, your company will be taken care of.

Well, Angelo, always a pleasure being with you. As we close today, what are your, your last words of inspiration?

I would say, Allen, make, make the most of yourself. Because that's all you got.

That is for sure. Well, Angelo, tell us how we can find you.

Yeah, yeah. If you guys remember, we're a nationwide commercial residential private lender. You can call or text us at 832- 431-633. We're open 7 days a week. You can hit us on our website, Official Angelo Christian, our social media handles. We're on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Angelo Christian Financial, and on Google. So anything we can help to add value with our mortgage lending or our real estate university, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

Well, thank you so much, Angelo and Enlightened Investors. Thank you once again for being with us, and I hope you'll take a moment to like, share, and subscribe, and we will see you in the next episode.

Thank you, Allen. Thank you so much, man.

Thank you.

We appreciate you. All right, take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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