Private Lenders or Equity Partners? What Most Investors Get Wrong With Amanda Cruise

Most investors don't get stuck on deals, they get stuck on capital. Not knowing whether to use private lenders or equity partners can create a lot of problems that are costly and difficult to fix later. Today I'm joined by Amanda Cruz, a seasoned commercial real estate investor with experience across so many different asset types, including mobile home parks totaling more than 100 lots. She's used private money to grow her portfolio and has firsthand experience deciding when to borrow, when to partner, and when to restructure. In this episode, we cover so much, the pros, the cons of lending versus equity, where tools like lending trusts can really support your growth, and how to structure deals so you can mitigate risk. You cannot miss this episode. So Amanda, when investors ask the question, should I use private lenders or equity partners, they're worried about something. What do you think they're most worried about?

Number one, you're worried about if you can even do the deal, because if you're talking about a private lender or equity, you're talking about not doing it yourself. So you have something on your brain. How am I going to put this deal together? That's first and foremost. And I think a lot of people run into that. Maybe you're going after a bigger deal than you're used to. You're like, crap, I know I can't do this myself. How am I going to take it down? And what is the approach I'm going to use? And honestly, we've used a variety of different things from seller financing to joint ventures, private lenders, or just taking it down ourselves with bank money. We've kind of done it all. And it just makes sense to think through the deal and then what's appropriate for that situation.

Yeah, I love that. I always like to say there's tools in our toolbox and using private lender or using an equity partner are different tools that can be used for different projects, but you need to use them appropriately. And I think that's the biggest part, especially right now, right, Amanda? Being more conservative in your underwriting. Things that you may think are going to take you 12 months may take you 18 months, like timeline, budget, all of the above, which we always needed to be concerned with even in the 2 decades that I've been investing. But I feel like there's more pressure now to be more conservative, and rightfully so, especially when things are what they are with interest rates. And we don't have the crystal ball. So I love that. I think that's a really good point. And I love what you also said, Amanda, as we jump into this topic. People often say, well, should I use a lender? Should I use an equity partner? Let's talk about the deal first. Like, what can the deal bear, if you will? Like, what, what, what will the project— what is the project goals? What is the— what's the landscape of the project? And I know you— we were chatting earlier about what are the criteria that people really want to think about as they're saying, okay, do I use a lender? Do I use an equity partner? What are those core sort of criteria that they need to consider?

Yeah, so the first is going to be the amount. There are deals that are super clear you're going to need equity partners to take down, like the deals that you and Matt do, right? If you're raising $20 million, yeah, you're probably not going to do that with one partner.

So I would love those people, though, Amanda. You know, I want to find those people, but I don't know many of them. I don't know about you.

If anybody's looking for a partner to fund $20 million, Liz is your partner.

Yeah, please. Oh, I'll give you my phone number right now.

And sometimes we do deals that only require a couple hundred thousand dollars. Well, in those cases, we don't need necessarily to syndicate, and it doesn't make sense. Syndications take a lot of upfront fees. And when you're talking about, number one, $15,000 in fees to set up a full syndication and closing costs and all the components, then you have to throw in annual tax filings. It makes it so much more complicated If you're really talking about, like, a guy just bought a park from us for $350,000, he's syndicating it. And my mind exploded when he told me that.

Wow.

That's the—

yeah, I don't recall in all the syndications we've done, I think our smallest raise was $500,000 and that was one of the first ones.

And even that, I would say, try to not syndicate at $500,000 because if you think about how much effort it's going to be to put together this syndication, to do all the work for the 5 years it takes, or 3 years, or even if it's 2, you are doing all the work. If you're the one putting this together, you're the general partner. And then at the end, you know, let's say you're splitting 30% of the profits. By the time you've done all of that, there's not going to be that much profit. And there was a ton of work, a ton of effort, and a ton of overhead. A lot of people just think syndication is the way to go because they hear that in the multifamily realm, but it isn't your only option. And honestly, in the landscape we're in today, where investors are anxious, they're skeptical, they have a lot of cash flow that has stopped, paused, maybe they're losing their equity, syndications are hard to convince people to jump on board. There are alternatives like bringing on private lenders. We do that a ton. And the benefit, the biggest benefit to the investors coming in as a private lender is that your returns are set in stone. It doesn't matter if the business plan flops or if the business plan excels beyond your wildest dreams, the returns are set. Now, obviously for an investor who's coming in and maybe they are hoping to get 20% returns, well, that's not going to be the case with private lending. But you're also not taking the downside. So in today's landscape, doing, say, a 10% annual return for a private lender is a great option to the standard syndications where you're sharing in the fundraising, but you're also sharing in the risk in a syndication, where in private lending you're not. The number one thing is how much money is it going to be? I mean, honestly, we are even a, a million-dollar asset, if you only need to raise $300,000, $500,000, those are really on the low end of where you want to be syndicating. You really want to sort of save syndications for higher dollar amounts where you really can't take it down with a handful of people.

Yeah. And I'll just mention too, when we got started, like literally if I go back to my first, uh, because we were using private lenders for the BRRRR strategy, the classic BRRRR strategy, private lenders work great, right? Because you're In essence, adding the value, refinancing, pulling that money out, paying off your private lender. One of our first projects where we started raising private capital, really having an equity partner before syndication, when we were both active partners, was two single-family homes. And it was good old Trenton, Trenton, New Jersey. And why I say that, the cost of the properties are ridiculously cheap. I'm not even going to say the cost because people are like, yeah, we're not going to find that cost of property. That doesn't matter for my example. My example, though, is where we were 50% owners with an equity partner, and it was not a syndication. Now, that's a shameless plug for my husband's book, Raising Private Capital, which I also partly wrote with him. He talks a lot about where you have to be really mindful and careful of not breaking law and filing with the SEC. One of the things we did with that project, because it was so small, we needed $50,000. You're not going to syndicate $50,000. And he didn't want to be a lender either. He was very adamant. He didn't want to lend. He really wanted to win along with us. And that's the big difference, right? We lose together, we win together. We're partners versus, like you said, Amanda, I'm lending you this at an agreed-upon interest rate, and then there's the collateral, et cetera, behind it. So we were both active in it, in the project. We were the boots on the ground. He put the money in. We did not, but he also had other roles besides the money part, the money side. He did all the bookkeeping. We had weekly calls. He visited the property. So we were both sleeves up, hands-on investors. You could do that when you have one. Now, you buy a property and, you know, you buy a 100-unit apartment, you're not gonna give roles to everybody. That doesn't even make any sense. That's obviously syndication and being, filing with the SEC. I'm not an attorney, so keep all that in mind, everybody. Please double-check everything I'm saying. But, I hear so often though, Amanda, people are like, "Oh yeah, me and my friends gonna go buy this property and it's really exciting." And then I'm like, "Well, who's doing what?" "Oh, they're putting the money in and I'm gonna do everything." That's called a syndication versus— So again, you have to be mindful obviously from the legal aspect, but also what the project will bear, meaning what are the goals of the property? We bought 2 single-family homes, having one equity partner, Worked great. And he was part of like 15 of our projects. I think he's part of mostly all of our projects. He became one of our passive partners as well. So I just wanna be very clear, active and passive, but get more information about that. I don't wanna be the attorney. I'm not an attorney. I'm just trying to give everyone some insight. So let's go down the path of lender. I'm a lender, or I'm looking for $0 to $500,000, say, let's just use it as a ballpark. Again, there's no hard and fast, but that's what I'm looking for. I'm doing a fix and flip or doing new construction, does that seem like a private lender would be appropriate for, and why?

Yes, it totally would be, as long as you're clear on when the interest is being paid and when the principal is being returned. Because if you're doing a flip, like when I do my builds for manufactured homes, there's not cash flow during that, right? So your, your private lenders are lending money The terms are set in advance. The expected timeline is set in advance. It's one project. You can bring on one person, maybe with their IRA, or you can bring on a handful of people. Like, we'll do a lending trust to bring together people who are jointly lending to us in first position. So you don't have to go first, second, third, fourth, right? So you can bring on multiple private lenders to one project, and then the payout— principal return plus interest— is when the property sells or refinances. So as long as you're very clear on the expectations and timeframes, a lot of people, they don't need the monthly small amounts of cash flow, especially if it's in a retirement account, that'd be a pain in the butt to them to get a distribution every month that then just sits there. So that would be a great option for somebody who's investing with their retirement accounts. We also bring on private lenders for parks where we are going to hold them long term and refinance or sometimes we'll sell them. Not often, we like to keep our parks, but we'll bring on private lenders to fund something like that too. In those cases, there is cash flow. So you're, you're getting paid out the same 10% annual return, but it is in the monthly distributions. And that works really great for people who want steady cash flow today. Maybe it's not in a retirement account, but they want— like, if you're retired, you want that fixed income, you want to offset some of the passive long-term gains that you're hoping to get from syndications that don't pay out right away, having the annual guaranteed return can be a great opportunity there. So you can totally bring on a private lender in the $500,000 range, or a handful of private lenders, as long as you're very clear on expectations. When is the interest going to be paid? When is principal going to be returned? And what is the timeline of the project?

I always like to say, and I think this gets ignored a lot for people, is things have to match, meaning the goals of the property, the goals is me, like quote unquote, the general partner or the active person in the project. And then obviously your other entity of the investor, right? The private lender or the potentially equity partner. To have a successful project, all of our goals, if you will, like stakeholders, if you will, have to be met. Versus like, yeah, this, a private lender is what I need for this project. But then you enroll someone who quite honestly is not gonna meet their goals. So to your point, you know, there's been private lenders that, yeah, I don't, you know, especially fix and flips, I never wanna pay out a monthly distribution. I'm not making any money, I'm just paying money out, right? I'm trying to get that project complete and sold. So no one's like, yeah, please let me sign up for, and I've had to do that once or twice just to get the deal done. We've had to, not ideal. It's not an ideal scenario. However, you know, you do what you can for the deal and the investor and then for yourself. But I want to be mindful of everyone listening. You never want to put the deal or yourself in a situation where you can't fulfill on what, you know, obviously legally fulfill, but also just from a stress level. And again, if everything works out right now, conservative underwriting, more time, more money you're gonna need, is really where you need to be thinking conservative, conservative. Anyone that's doing well right now is thinking that way. They're projecting their numbers that way. I don't know how people are winning right now if they're not, just because of what's happening. I don't know if you would agree with that, Amanda.

I totally agree with you. If we go back even a couple of years, you had to be making conservative calls steadily over the past few years. It was so easy to get into the hype when everybody was overbidding and overpaying. And we were losing deals. And my husband's coming to me like, other people are buying stuff at this higher price. Why can't we? Like, look, I know what works for us. I know what works for our structure. If we're not buying it ourselves, and we're bringing on a partner, or we're bringing on a private lender, we have to make those numbers work. And when you are bringing on partners and/or private lenders, anytime you're sharing any part of cash flow, profits, anything, the numbers are different than if you're just buying it yourself. The risk tolerance is different. And so you have to really, really factor that in when you're bringing in a partner or a lender. And you really have to be conservative and sure about rent raises, expenses, taxes, even if taxes are lower in the current seller's financials, that's probably not going to be your case. And so some of these things, it's not fun to underwrite and not get a deal and not get a deal and not get a deal. But you know, what's way less fun is having to go back to somebody and say, I screwed up. So it's way better to be conservative on the front end than have to be apologizing and stuck into a corner on the back end.

I like that. And it's so, it's so critical because not everything goes according to the business plan. We all know that in this, in this, in this business. You have to manage that and you have to manage it with a lot of integrity and upfront communication and all of the above. But you're right, so many people get into situations they probably could have avoided, uh, in a lot of ways, uh, you know, depending on their underwriting, depending on their projections. So Again, know your market inside and out, or have people that know that market inside and out that are really boots on the ground. I think right now more than ever, that's critical.

100%. Let me add one thing there is one of the pieces of a syndication or an equity partner is like you win together, you lose together. And that can be a big benefit when things go well. Right now, we're starting 2026. Being conservative is the number one thing, especially on the passive investor side. And as somebody who's putting together an offering, the benefit on the private lending side is it's on you. The win or the loss is on you. So if you're bringing on a private lender and things don't go that well, okay, you be prepared to come out of pocket for any cash flow if that's needed. So you need to be prepared for that. But number 2, if things don't go well, let me tell you firsthand, it is so much less stressful to have a private lender. And then just keep their payments going, keep their payments going like, like you said you would, even when things aren't going well, because we have one park. I hate this park. Well, I'm thankful, I'm thankful for the park, but I hate it so much. Everything went sideways. Oh my God, everything went sideways. But we had private lenders. They have gotten their 10% annual return monthly distributions every single month like clockwork. Now, on our side, there have been blood, sweat, and tears and everything else, but we'll still be able to refinance or sell actually later this year. We're gonna barely make any money on the project. Now, lessons learned, oh my God, are we rich in lessons learned from this project, but financially, it's not gonna be a big win for us. But for a private lender side, it doesn't matter to them whether it's a big win or not a big win. They're guaranteed that distribution. And I personally find it's less stressful for me that way. And so that might be the case if you're thinking of setting up a certain deal and you're thinking through positives and different pieces, that having that guaranteed distribution is a little bit less stressful for you in that if things do fall apart and you don't make a ton of money, it doesn't matter to your private lender as long as they got paid their principal and their interest.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And when you made that decision to pay the cash flow, you must have had reserves, you must have had other buckets of money to be able to do that, right? And that means that you are, you know, when you're putting your capital stack together, you're putting your kind of financial outlook of a project, I'm working through a project right now where we were pretty clear on what we needed and that number went up a little bit because the construction costs have gone up. So, we're just 6 months ahead of it saying, okay, we're going to need to find XYZ dollars, which is not a big deal for the project. However, how do people really make sure that they're able to pay those private lenders? Because you hear often people can't. Story after story, not everyone's doing what you're doing, Amanda. What are those important steps at the beginning to ensure, obviously it's financial, you know, projections, but what were some of the things that you did to say, okay, we're gonna need, we're gonna need X, but let's put Y here. Like, walk us through a little bit of that strategic work that has to be done. 'Cause I think that's critical, especially when you bring a private lender in, right? And, or any partner. But I wanna understand your thinking, your strategy so that you could pay them that 10% and then they did not miss a beat.

That's a good point, Liz. And honestly, you need to be in a good personal financial position to where you can weather these storms if one of your projects goes south and you need to come out of pocket to put money into the project. We've certainly had to do that. You need to be in a stable financial position, and if you're not, it doesn't mean you can't start in real estate. It means you need to be thoughtful about how you go about it and how you're structuring partnerships. And probably bringing on a private lender maybe isn't the best, or maybe you bring on— if you're flipping a house and it's your first time, bring on a private lender or a hard money lender who's an expert, because then they'll also be your partner and your eyes and your ears, and they'll help you through things. And they also understand that you're first time, that, you know, they'll understand that risk more. And it's being very clear about your situation as you're going to find that hard money lender or your JV partner or your private lender. But honestly, the personal financial situation is a big one in deciding how you go. And then you will, you obviously want to have reserves when you go into a project. But hey, the reserves ran out in our case, and we had to put, I don't know, a lot more money back into it, and we just had to suck it up and do it because we were in a position where we could. And so I would be very cautious about taking on a private lender if you're not able to solve the situation. And then you want to have multiple exit strategies. For instance, we build manufactured houses on land. Those do not cash flow. Our private lenders get paid back their principal plus interest when they sell. They're affordable housing, they sell quickly. But let's say one doesn't. Well, then we need to be prepared to rent that out and then wait until it's seasoned and then get a DSCR loan on it. Well, that means instead of an 8-month project, maybe it turns into a 2-year project. But we need to be super clear about what the options are going in so our private lenders know, hey, here's what we're going for. Let's say it falls apart, here's the second option that we're gonna go with and it will take longer, your interest will still accumulate, but here is the backup plan. So they're prepared in case that does happen.

I love that. I think often people don't include the backup plan. Some people don't because they actually don't know what the backup plan is, which is also a red flag, right? And so as you're vetting operators and you're vetting people to lend to, especially on just the lending side, 'Cause we have a problem now. We have people still don't wanna put their money to work. They've been burned, or some projects have not worked out the way they thought, and they're just trying to assess what's the right partner for me? Who's the right person I want to lend to? Those are really important questions right now that many people, if not all of us, are asking both on the active side and the passive side. So mitigating risk right now, it's like the time of mitigation of risk. And as someone who is both active and passive, I wanna hear if an operator has mitigated the risk. They have plan A, they plan B, plan C. They thought about everything. That shows experience, that shows intelligence, it shows street cred, it shows they've been here and done that full cycle. That's really important to do when you're vetting people listening to this that wanna vet the operator. Now, for those listening, 'cause many women that listen, a lot of our listeners are both active and passive. Sometimes we have money to deploy that we just want passively. Walk me through the example you had in South Carolina. I thought it was a really cool project you were sharing about. It was a mobile home park. Tell us why, what it was, and why private lenders were the right choice. And walk us through the numbers. That'd be awesome.

We bought a park in Columbia, South Carolina in the fall of 2023. Now, we'd been chasing this park for a while, and you know how it goes. Sometimes the owners and sellers just give you a curveball. So we were chasing it. She— her husband passed away. She wanted to sell, but she had to go through probate. You know, they didn't have it in a trust, yada yada. She gets through probate, then she wants to have it appraised. And then one day we call and she says, I decided not to appraise it. Somebody's buying it from me for $150,000 tomorrow. I'm signing the paper. Like, no, no, no, no, no, do not do that. We're driving down right now. So my husband drove down to meet her. Now I told her we could pay $275,000 for it. This is a 20-space park with about 15 tenants at the time, which was already really low, but she heard $175,000. So we bought the park for $175,000, and then we needed to put in work to it. So it was $240,000 all in. Now this is a 20-space mobile home park in Columbia, South Carolina. It is worth well more than that out of the gate. It was worth more than that. Now we needed to close in 2 weeks, she wanted to close, time was of the essence. So she didn't really care about the price, she wanted the time. So we got all of our due diligence done in a 2-week period. And we brought on private lenders. Now when you are getting a really, really, really good deal like that, you make it happen. You know what's not going to make it happen? A syndication. Absolutely, that's out of the gate. That's, that's an automatic no if you're on a crunch timeframe. $240,000 total, which we knew was an insanely good deal. So we did 100% loan to cost. So we brought on the full $240,000. We brought on a handful of private lenders to fund that. And we closed, you know, we improved the property, bought in some more homes and all that stuff. Now, one of the trade-offs of doing private lenders when you're paying 10% is you're not going to see cash flow. You are working for free. That is what you are doing. You are taking the upside risk. You are betting on yourself that you are going to make that park worth more or make that project worth more money, and that is your payoff. But paying out at 10% is a pretty high interest rate, so you're really not taking much for the first year to however many that is really getting off the gate. Most of that is going to your private lenders. And so we did that. We worked for 2 years, we brought in new homes, and we improved the community, we brought up rents, and we were planning on holding it forever, really. That's another reason that private lenders made sense in that case, is we wanted to refinance but hold forever. We aren't, we don't do much of the buy, improve it quickly, sell. So we're not often trying to just maximize IRR and get out. We like to hold assets for the long term, which again aligns more with maybe a JV, but honestly, private lenders are the best scenario when you might want to hold the park forever because oftentimes another group of people doesn't necessarily have the same forever mindset. So private lenders aligned that way as well. And we held it for 2 years. We'd never found another park in the area. We wanted to grow in that area, but we really didn't We knew there was a ton of equity, so we ended up selling it in 2025 for $735,000. And we paid back the $240,000 to our private lenders, which closed up their relationship with us. Their interest was paid throughout the term, so there was no big interest payment to them at the end, just their principal. And then we took a big upside on that. Now, we had bet on ourselves and took the big upside. You know, kind of went without the cash flow early on to make that happen. But for those, I mean, things change. That's another reason that it can be really helpful to do private lending is things change. We wanted to hold that park forever, and then we decided, hey, our money is better used, deployed into other markets where we're having more success and traction. We had said 2 to 5 years, so we went in with a 2 to 5 year threshold. It ended up being on the right across the 2-year mark. But business plans change, things change, and private lending can be a bit more flexible in that way.

That's a great, great example, Amanda. I have a couple of questions for you. You mentioned earlier about— and again, please everyone know that we're not attorneys— but you mentioned something earlier about a private lender kind of trust, if you will. So I'm curious, did you do that here? And what is that? Because my understanding of private lenders and how I've always done it is there's a first position, second position. I've even had private lenders in third position. We had done a fix and flip. It was about $300,000 we needed. We had a bank doing all of our construction loan, the debt, you know, what have you. But the down money we needed from the private lenders. So we really had, I think, up to 3 or 4 positions. Not the best for them, but they said yes. Everyone was clear and it was not, it was, you know, it was clearly labeled and we clearly, outlined in terms of the legal piece. Tell me more about what you're saying, because what— how many private lenders did you have? And was there— wasn't positions?

We've done a few different structures. So going back to what you were saying, like, when you start bringing on private lenders, automatically, it's like, okay, first position, second position. But then when you're beyond that, it's like, do we really want to do a third position? There has to be another way. So I started asking all the questions and figuring out how are the other people doing this, right? Well, there are two ways we've really set it up. One is you can bring on all the private lenders and they are members of an LLC, and that LLC is lending to you. Technically, that's how we did it in the case of this community. The upside of that is, is super easy to close that out. I was the manager of the LLC. There's one distribution for principal at the you know, end of it. And it was super easy for distributions.

And that's not a syndication. That's not a syndication. That's totally still a debt position.

100% debt position. They own an LLC, and that LLC only exists to loan money to my LLC, basically my mobile home park. And so that's one piece of it. Now, for that one, we did do a small PPM for it, but that was way, way, way less expensive, way less. We did it in a 2-week time frame, right? That is not a full equity syndication. There was no equity sharing. As part of it. Now, sorry, the downside of that is the tax returns every year. So they are actually members of an LLC, and they have to have a K-1 because of that. And it also costs more. So I have to absorb that cost, which is not super fun. It's like $2,500 a year, which isn't a lot, but also annoying that it has to be a K-1. Now on the other side, you can bring on— if you're going beyond 2 lenders, you can do a lending trust. And there's a trust document that outlines that these 4 individuals or however many are coming together with the purpose of loaning money to this specific project. And that's it. There's a promissory note to the trust, and that is so much more simple. And they get 1099, they're just paid, you know, interest 1099s on the tax side, which is more simple. The downside of that is you're having to make sure everybody's on the distribution side when the project closes. You're going for all your lenders and they have to send in forms to the attorney that says how to distribute to them, which is just a bit more of a headache on their side at the end of the project, but on the tax side, it's easier. So those are the two structures that we've used.

Two quick questions. Attorney, who is the right attorney to structure? Because in a lot of ways, if you're looking at whether to syndicate legally or to do what you're mentioning beyond the first positions, I mean, that's easy. Not that that's easy, but certainly want to talk to an attorney about that, but that's the more common, most people that are even listening to this are aware of and they're familiar with. When you're going beyond that, right, setting it up legally and understanding the downsides and the upside is critical. I mean, period. So I'll often talk to a syndication attorney, obviously, when we're, because we've done more syndications as of late than anything else. What would you say if somebody is leaning towards the private lending side the structure would work for them, but they also don't want to miss that they may need to do a syndication based on what they're wanting to do, based on the project. Who's the right type of attorney? Not name of a person, but the type of attorney that everyone listening to be like, yeah, I need to go call this person, have them on my team as I'm looking at a few different options so I'm not missing anything.

You mentioned a syndication attorney. If you're concerned that you know, there's equity sharing, or there's a reason that you might need a syndication, just give a syndication attorney a call. There are lots of good ones. If you're looking at maybe doing a lending trust or something along those lines, ask, you know, LendRias, or wherever you go for your local real estate community where flippers are. They know the attorneys in town who are real estate attorneys. They close regular residential deals, they're closing a lot of flippers' deals. They know exactly how to do lending trusts. And I bet there are a handful of attorneys in your local market who are setting up lending trusts already for flippers and for people who often pool money together in order to loan to flippers. Whoever is doing that in your local area, pulling money together, and they are lenders— so those are the, the hard money lenders in your area— they are using lending trusts and they know the attorney to go to. So ask them.

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And just wanna be really, be really careful and talk to the right people. Talk to the attorneys that have done it and know what they're talking about versus ones that, yeah, we could figure that out together.

Oh my gosh, thank you, Liz. Don't go with an attorney that says we can figure it out. If they haven't done a lending trust, if they aren't familiar with it, move on because there are attorneys in your area who have done that.

Yeah, especially within, you know, the communities that we're both part of, right? With InvestHer, with, you know, it's a great lead-in where we're gonna be speaking at Best Ever Conference, and that's the type of networking and resources that really make the difference as we are growing our business and really saying, okay, based on what I know, based on what I know, but I don't, and, and what I don't know, what are the gaps and who are the people I need to surround myself with? That's what I'm most excited about with Best Ever Conference. And I know you're speaking at it. I am as well. Um, what are you, what are you speaking about? Why are you most excited? Because I have to tell you from a serious, like real estate investment conference, best ever conference besides InvestorCon is a place to be. It really is just a sophisticated investor. These aren't people confused or not sure why they're there. These are very capable, sophisticated investors that are taking their business to the next level, hands down. So what are you speaking about? Why are you so excited about it? And why should everyone listening be joining us in February?

Yeah, I hope everyone listening is joining us in February in Salt Lake City. So honestly, I am part of the Best Ever community now. I'm on their podcast. So this is Joe Fairless's brand. He's a huge multifamily investor. On Wednesdays, I run the Beyond Multifamily segment of the podcast.

And I was on her show and I loved it.

So yes, and we had Liz on recently, and hers should be launching any day if it hasn't. So go listen to Liz's episode on Best Ever CRE Show podcast. But I went to that conference before I was even part of Best Ever because it truly is— if you are let's say you've done residential deals and you're ready to go to the next level. This is the next level. This is where the next level of investors is hanging out. I think something like 95% of the individuals there have done an active deal in the past 6 months. People are active. So if you're active and you're looking to go to the next level, make sure you're there. The conversations are phenomenal. Everybody is intelligent in their area. And it's a mix. It's a very diverse mix of commercial, multifamily. I do mobile home parks. And so it's a really, really good group of sophisticated investors you can really learn from. Joe Fairless always does a really good keynote, so make sure you hit that. And I know Liz, you're doing one of the keynotes also, which I'm really excited about. I'll be talking about niche investing with a handful of others. So I'll be hitting affordable housing specifically and what we're doing in the manufactured housing space. But it's a conference I look forward to every year, so I hope that everybody listening will be there.

I love that. It's happening, just so everyone has a date, February 18th to the 20th in Salt Lake City. So if you're a skier, you can incorporate that in. But really, really excited about what I'm talking about. I'm doing a couple sessions. I'm doing a women's mastermind, which I'm super excited about, where we're going to unpack challenges, issues for each, for the women that are attending, almost like a workshop type of event. And I'm keynoting talking about capital raising, but how the landscape of capital raising is changing and who are those, who are the new LPs and how do we need to enroll private lenders, private equity partners, everything that Amanda and I have been talking about. Because there's one thing about everything we've said about the deal, you know, what's gonna work both structure and for the deal itself. And then there's another side of it as saying what's important to people to lend to you. Or partner with you and to be able to know that. So, I'm not gonna tell you more than that, but I'm gonna, you know, really talk through strategically how we can bring more people onto our, you know, be able to capital raise with the right partners. So, please join us. We'll both be there. Really, really excited. February 18th to the 20th. We'll put the link in the show notes below. Amanda, this has been great. And it's like anything, right? It's like kind of like Pandora's box. Um, and I, I think we talked about some really critical things in, in today's episode so that women can take action and take a next step forward, right? We're not gonna be 10 years, um, brilliant in capital raising if we don't take one step forward. Private lending and equity are two tools, both effective in, in their use in different ways. And starting that journey, which I think we did really well today, will help you get there. So where can everyone listening learn more about you and follow you on your journey? You're doing some really cool projects. When it comes to manufactured homes, which I love because I don't have any of those in my portfolio. So, you know, you need to keep me posted on the cool stuff you're doing. So where can everyone listening learn more about you?

Absolutely. So my company is Voyage Investing. That's our website, voyageinvesting.com. You can sign up there for our newsletter, which I send out every other week, and that's who also gets our investment opportunities. And I post a lot on LinkedIn. Amanda Cruise, C-R-U-I-S-E. It's just off-the-cuff stuff. You know, I like to just share the wins and also what is a pain in the butt at the moment. So come, let's connect on there too.

I love that, Amanda. And all that will be in the show notes, by the way. Amanda, thank you so much for being on. And, uh, can't wait to see you very soon at Best Ever Conference. And everyone better be there with us. We're gonna really be able to take things deeper and connect with what— 1,000 investors are gonna be there, high level. Like, this is definitely the place you need to be. So Can't wait to see you and everyone listening do something with what you got today. And, uh, hope you can join us in February.