THE METRIC I'M PROUD OF DOESN'T FIT ON A HIGHLIGHT REEL

We just closed the books on the first half of 2026, and the headline is one I'm proud of: $14.4 million funded across Q1 and Q2.

That already exceeds everything we did in all of 2025 by $3.6M, in half the time.

But I've been doing this long enough to know growth numbers are the easiest thing in the world to dress up. Anyone can deploy more capital. The questions that actually matter are how you grew, and whether quality held while volume climbed.

Here is what is underneath the headline.

24 loans, $14.4M deployed. Average loan size of $600K, up from $470K last year. 33% over our entire 2025 volume in two quarters. 18 loans already paid off at an average hold time of just 7 months.

A short, self-liquidating book that turns over in seven months is not an accident. It is what happens when you underwrite conservatively enough that borrowers can actually execute and exit. Faster exits mean capital recycles and risk stays short-dated. You are never married to a deal that has gone sideways.

But there is one number I track that never makes anyone's highlight graphic. It is the one I care about most.

97.7%

Across the 18 properties that sold this year, our estimated after-repair values came in at 97.7% of what those homes actually sold for. The homes sold for slightly more than we projected.

Here is why that number matters more than any volume stat.

The entire margin of safety in this business depends on it. We underwrite to 70% of after-repair value, but that buffer only means something if the ARV is accurate and ideally conservative in the first place. If a lender's estimates run hot, their "70%" is quietly an 80%, and the safety they think they have is fiction.

Ours run the other way. At 97.7%, our valuations came in a touch below where properties actually sold. The 70% we lend against was not just real. It was a little safer than it looked on paper. We estimated conservatively, and the market confirmed it 18 times over.

That accuracy is not luck. Every valuation runs through a single accountable expert, every time, no exceptions. One source, one standard, full ownership of the number. That discipline is a big part of why, across every loan we have ever originated, we have never lost principal.

This is the Buffett principle I keep coming back to. The goal is not maximum growth. It is growth that never costs you your downside protection. Bigger loans, stronger borrowers, faster payoffs, underwritten to valuations that hold up. Most operators have to choose between growing and de-risking. The whole discipline is building something where you do not have to make that choice.

The temptation at a moment like this is to floor it. Loosen standards, chase volume, ride momentum. Phoenix is softening, which is exactly when that temptation gets expensive. Record halves are not won by aggression. They are won by the boring stuff: who you lend to, how conservatively you value the collateral, how fast the capital comes home.

That is the business I am building. Quietly, deliberately, to last.

If you want to talk through how we think about any of this,

Devon