Why I'd break up your portfolio loan.

ANNNND WE'RE BACK.

Thanks for the patience. I was at the home office last week with the team. A lot to cover in 4 days, and a lot of clients to take care of. So I owe you some extra juice this week. Dual feature.

1/ YOUR PORTFOLIO IS PROBABLY TOO CLEVER

I see a lot of portfolios that are structured well. I see more that are way more complex than they need to be. Some frameworks that I go through with clients:

Use the cheapest money available first. Unless you're deliberately saving a bucket of it for something important down the road, single family money is almost always the cheapest money you can get. Start there.

A portfolio note is a convenience product. Conventional wisdom is that when you buy in bulk, you get a discount. That's why we all love Costco. But the reality of it in this space is that you generally are paying a bit of a premium for having it all on a single note. Let's say you have 10 properties that you would like to refinance. You would like to pull money out (but not too much), and you want a reasonable rate.

Actually ran this analysis last week. Numbers below.

Same money, two structures. Real file: 10 rentals, $300K each, client wanted $400K out. Same $1.95M debt, same $400K out — 0.49% cheaper, about $9,600 saved every year. Not a quote.

The important carve-out here. IF you are big enough to go commercial with us, and IF we can get you placed with a regional bank, they can generally do a LOT better than the traditional portfolio lenders. They may have deposit requirements/etc, but I love working with them because they are more flexible with much better terms.

2/ AI. EVERYONE'S FAVORITE BUZZWORD.

I've been using it more and more. Shocking, I know. Here's what I've found: the more you hand it the boring but critical work, the more time you get back for the human part. Because let's be honest. Most business gets DONE over golf, lunch, and dinner. But most TIME gets spent on fulfillment. AI eats the fulfillment piece very well.

What I actually run:

Claude is the brain. My daily driver. It thinks through scenarios with me, compares options, links ideas together. I've built a full operating and archive system on it, and I'm testing whether it can be templated for other people in my industry.

Grok is the hands. This is the one I'm most bullish on. It executes: the tasks, the research, the legwork. Used right, the people who harness this will be very hard to beat. I ran Manus before. Good tool, double the price, lower ceiling. Cancelled it last week in favor of GrokBot.

Brain plus hands. That's the whole stack.

THE W

THE L

Lost a deal at inspection this week. The report came back rough, the seller wouldn't make repairs and wouldn't give a credit, so my client walked. It stings, but that's the contingency doing its job. On to the next one.

ON THE RADAR

1. Seller credit strategies, featuring the one and only Dane!
2. House Hacking, MAXED out.
3. Building a portfolio to serve YOU.

Cheers,
Wyatt

The Leverage Letter | When you know the game, nobody can play you.

Numbers reflect a real client analysis, anonymized; not a quote or a commitment to lend. All loans subject to credit approval and underwriting. Next in the archive: a live Charlotte sixplex underwrite.