In this interview, Global Integrity Finance COO Brian Ogilvie sits down with account executive and licensed loan officer Praises Awemade to explain the company’s financing solutions for real‑estate investors. They outline the two core products – bridge loans for acquisition, rehab, and ground‑up construction, and long‑term rental (DSCR) loans for buy‑and‑hold investors. Praises emphasizes that DSCR loans are essentially no‑doc: tax returns, pay stubs, or even an existing tenant are not required; qualification hinges on the property’s fair‑market rent, the borrower’s credit score (as low as 620‑650 depending on experience) and a track record of at least ten deals in three years. For bridge loans, required documents include a detailed scope of work, construction specs, permits, and similar credentials. The conversation shifts to practical advice for brokers and investors: thoroughly analyze the deal, confirm the after‑repair value (ARV), understand project costs, and provide clear scope documentation to facilitate smooth draws. Praises highlights the importance of transparent, daily communication to build trust, differentiating himself from other lenders. The interview concludes with Praises sharing his direct phone line and email, inviting listeners to contact him for financing needs.
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I'm Brian Ogilvie, Chief Operating Officer here at Global Integrity Finance, and today I have the pleasure of bringing to you Praises Awomade. He is one of our account executives. He's, he's very tenured. Uh, we also happen to have him as a licensed loan officer as well. Uh, so I'm going to go ahead and let Praises take over, introduce, you know, who Praises is, what Praises' business is all about, uh, and maybe a fun fact or two to get to learn more about him. So Go right ahead, Praises.
Hello everyone, my name is Praises Awemade. As stated earlier, I'm an account executive here at Global Integrity Finance, and although I do specialize in private equity or real estate investing investment loans, I also am an MLS licensed, and basically I can do any primary owner-occupied mortgages that my clientele come across.
Awesome. Well, that's great to know. It's great to have that kind of diversity, right? Because maybe one part of your conversation can lead you to another. But we'll focus on the private equity, the hard money, if you will, kind of conversations for today. So when it, when it comes to Global Integrity Finance and the products that you have, tell us a little bit about those products and maybe what your favorite one is.
Yeah, so we have two main products: bridge loans and long-term rental loans. Bridge loans are typically provided to investors who wish to engage in acquiring properties to fix and flip, potentially refinance, along with rehabbing those refinanced properties, and also ground-up construction loans. Uh, with regards to our long-term rental loans, uh, that's typically for investors who want to buy and hold the properties or, uh, refinance their existing rental properties so that they can either get a cash out or just, uh, have a longer loan life in general.
So when it comes— let's focus on that DSCR since you kind of finished off of that. Do you need tax returns and all that to kind of qualify somebody there, or do you even have to have a renter in the property to qualify them?
Yeah, so one of the beautiful things about our long-term rental loans or DSCR loans in general is that there are essentially no docs. So we don't care if you have any— if you're working, we don't even check to see if you have pay stubs or W-2s or whatever. If the property is performing and you as the investor have a sound reputation or credentials, then we can finance the deal most of the time, provided that you're upfront with us and that the economics and the deal itself makes sense.
You know, you, you, you qualify, you have the proper leverages or loan-to-values of that scenario in there. You actually don't even need to have a renter in there. We use the fair market rent that an appraiser goes out there and certifies. So that, that's really good as well, right? In case they're kind of in-between renters or it's just kind of that weird season right now where, you know, maybe they're out of a renter for a few months, that sort of thing. So I think that's a really great option. Tell us about your bridge product, right? What are some documents that you might need up front on those bridge to, you know, a borrower can have— a borrower and/or broker could have ready for you to make sure that they have a successful loan experience with you.
So some of the documents that will help make the loan process for bridge loans smooth are the scope of work. If it's a ground-up construction project, your specs and plans, and also your permits, even though they may not have already or immediately been approved. At the very least, it's good to have them there so that when they are finally approved by the city and the state that you're doing the project in, we can hit the ground running and make sure that loan is ready to go so that you can get started on actually building or rehabbing the project. And, uh, with regards to the credentials of the client, typically, uh, we can go down to 650 as the FICO score, 620 if the client is very experienced. And by very experienced, let's say 10+ deals in the last 3 years. And the terms get better based on the experience first, like a score said.
It's kind of like what you've done that you can prove moving forward versus just what some report says. Right. And what kind of score it calculates for you. So that is a big difference in regards to kind of the, the QM or the Fannie Freddie government-backed type loans versus what we can do here. Right. Global for our clients. So what is the best advice that you can give a broker that wants to reach out to you or a client that wants to reach out to you directly? What's the best advice that you can give them when it comes to being prepared for the process or having that initial conversation with you, right? What's the best advice you can give them?
Some of the best pieces of advice that I could give to either my brokers or to my real estate investors is to, one, really analyze the deal. And to do that, first I advise that you begin with the property, make sure that the ARV really will come out, or to the best of your knowledge, will come out to, uh, what you expect it to be. And then analyze the project's cost involved with that real estate project so that when we do get to the part of it or get to the stage that involves you actually working on the project, you won't be surprised with how much, how costly it is while you're working on it and then end up getting blindsided, blindsided, or at a, or operating at a loss to where the project cost exceeds what we agreed to finance or the ARV comes in lower than what we initially expect. And then beyond that, it's really just a matter of getting docs in. Like I said before, we're pretty much no-doc. We don't require too much out of you. Um, we just need the scope of work. We want to make sure your credit score, to the best of your knowledge, is where it needs to be in order to finance the deal, and that your experience is also where it needs to be so that we can give you the proper leverage.
Absolutely right. And I would say assets— so, you know, a lot of the, the documents that we could get here, it's not like a simple pay stub. They're, they're typically documents that, you know, they have a few pages to them. Um, they're not, they're not necessarily the, the quickest thing to get off your desktop, but it's also not the hardest. And there's only a few of them, right? It's just a few things to prove kind of entity, your liquidity or your assets, uh, and then, you know, any sort of rent and/or rehab that you're doing to it. So I did want to talk about that because you kind of open up something I don't, I don't feel like a lot of people talk about as well. So, uh, Global Integrity really tries to take a lot of pride into examining that scope of work, which Praises has already talked about a few times. And so we want to make sure that post-build, as Praises was talking about, we want to make sure that you have a good draw process, right, to where things could become more expensive, things could become less expensive, right? You don't end up using the full, the full draw amount that you qualify for, which would be great, right? That means your project came in well under budget. But during that draw process, if you have a 3-unit property, and you're just saying, hey, I need $15,000 for drywall. Well, I don't know if that's $15,000 for drywall on the first unit, the second unit, third unit, all of it. I could look at the property on Zillow or something and maybe it doesn't look like it needs drywall at all. So, Praises, would you say that one of the things that you, you would really like from them is that, that in-depth explanation of kind of their vision on the rehab and where it's going? And if you have anything to add to that, could you?
Yeah, absolutely. Analyzing the scope of work is one of the most important steps when it comes to engaging in a real estate because when you have a good understanding of the scope of work, you'll also have a good idea as to how exactly you're going to make improvements on that property so that the ARB comes in to where it needs to be. Many times I've seen situations where even the client himself, maybe because he was talking with a more experienced GC, doesn't really understand why certain items are on the scope of work. So that's why I think it's important that account executives take it upon themselves, me included, to review that information with them to make sure that everyone is on the same page.
But, you know, really quick, your elevator pitch, the reasons why somebody should call Praises to say, hey, Praises, I want you to help me out with my next deal, or Praises, maybe you can just teach me something, right? Because a lot of our business in real estate is about networking, right? So while we don't directly sell to insurance people, we love talking to insurance people to learn about their business and then title companies, attorneys, the whole nine yards, right? So what would you say to people out there to say, hey, you know what, I kind of like this Praises guy and I want to give him a call. Why should they give you a call, Francis?
Uh, one of the things that sets me apart from other loan officers or account executives is that I'm very communicative. I like to give my clients updates almost on the daily so that they're aware of where exactly their loan file is going. And by doing that, it also instills a sense of trust in my clients and comfort because they know that they can reach me basically at any time in order to get a status on their project or on their loan. Communication really is important because so many lenders out there, even though they're on— even though they may originate a lot of loans, they don't really value communication. And as a result, clients either feel a bit distrustful or uncomfortable. That's what I want to avoid with my client, though.
Uh, Praises, thank you so much. If somebody wants to get a hold of you, what's your direct line? What's your email that they can reach out to?
Yeah, so my direct line is 469 325-1569, and my email address is the word praises@globaintegrityfinance.com.
All right, and just to clarify, we will have that up on the screen for you as well, uh, so you, you all understand the spelling, the phone number, the whole nine yards. Praises, thank you so much for your time today. I really do appreciate everything that you, you've done in just this small amount of time, as well as what you do for the company every day. Uh, I wish you nothing but the best of luck, and we'll talk again soon.
