Win with Nathan Gort NMLS 1093321-The Lender

09/03/2026

🚩 Overpaying doesn't age well.

I don't post this to scare anyone off — this is market-specific, not a universal truth. But it's real, and it's worth sharing.

🏠 Sold May 14, 2024 for $1,150,000 ($608/sqft)
🚨 Purchased — 10% down, second-home loan
📉 Already listed below what they paid in 2024
💵 I'm about to go in with an offer even lower than that

So many people listen to the big gurus, coaches, and YouTube channels (looking at you, BP) telling them "just buy, it won't ruin you, the market always goes up." This person is about to lose a lot of money — not because real estate doesn't work, but because the deal never worked in the first place.

When you buy rentals: run YOUR numbers. Don't buy off someone else's confidence.

09/01/2026

Big comeback energy today. 👀 (Relax — it's not a rapper. It's better.)

🔥 80% Cash-Out is BACK on Business Purpose loans — while everyone else is tightening up, we keep expanding.

🆕 First-time homebuyers are now allowed on ALL Business Purpose loans (not just DSCR) — capped at 25% down.

New guidelines just dropped and I'm here for it. If you've got a deal that didn't fit last month, it might fit now.

📞 Call today: 865.258.4678

Nathan Gort · Branch Manager · NMLS #1093321
theLender · NMLS #133519 · Equal Housing Lender

08/18/2026

📊 DATA DOESN'T LIE — BUT PEOPLE SURE DO SPIN IT.

Everywhere you look — BP, coaches, the news, realtors, haters — everyone's screaming the same thing: "Refinances are up, the market's crashing, nobody can afford anything!"

I'll tell you what I'm actually seeing on the ground.

Roughly 30% of my business right now is refinances. And almost every single one? Cash-out.

That's not distress. That's not "troubled assets." That's investors pulling equity to go BUY MORE. Scale. Grow the portfolio. Put that cash to work again.

You can spin data any way you want. But when I'm the one closing these files, I know exactly what's driving them — and it's not fear. It's strategy.

Refinances aren't a red flag. They're a growth signal. 📈

08/17/2026

🚨 NEW RECORD 🚨

"If you ain't first, you're last."

We know speed. But what a lot of people fail to realize is — it's all about the submission. The CLEAN submission. The ability to see what's needed before it's needed.

When I tell my clients it can be done, and I tell my brokers it can be done — THIS is what I mean.

Old record: 3 days. New record: 2 days. ⏱️

I love originating. I love the process. And I love proving it every single time.

08/12/2026

Yesterday I closed on my eleventh deal this year. That means I still have five outstanding waiting to be paid back. And my twelfth is already lined up to fund this month.

No, this isn't buying property. This is funding the deals. Using my SDIRA, personal savings, and a line of credit.

Back in November I laid out my buy box and my fund box. My goal was to fund three deals in 2026. Man, little did I know I would easily blow past that.

I hear a lot of people in sales say your book of business is your retirement. I always found that to be a bold faced lie. I take control of my own retirement. I have my 401k through work, I have the real estate I own, and I fund deals to get better returns than the stock market.

I honestly don't understand why more people don't do this. Tax free growth through my Roth. Love it.

08/09/2026

Vet your sources. Every time.

This morning at the gym, I watched a lending video that stopped me in my tracks — I rewound the first eight minutes three times because I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

It came from someone in one of the biggest real estate masterminds out there. And near as I could tell, the only things he got right were his own name and the name of the loan product. Everything else about how the loan actually works was flat-out wrong.

Here's the thing — this isn't really about that one video. It's about a bigger pattern. Whether it's a coach, a guru, a mastermind, or even me: always vet the source, and always ask follow-up questions.

When someone's explaining how a loan works, ask yourself what's driving the information. In my experience there are usually two explanations when something sounds this off:

They're a paid sponsor only repeating that lender's specific guidelines, not the full picture, or
They genuinely don't understand the product.

Most lenders' guidelines cluster pretty closely together — some more flexible, some tighter — but what I heard went way beyond "restricted." It didn't line up with anything I've seen in the space.

Whether you're brand new or a seasoned investor, bad lending advice can cost you real money. So before you act on something you saw in a video or a group post, pause and verify it with someone who actually underwrites these loans day to day.

I'll be breaking down specific points from the video in the comments/next post — not to call anyone out, but so you can see exactly what to watch for. Watch here: https://youtu.be/s_UcR0RT1x4

Bottom line: question everything, even when it comes from a big name.

Vet your sources. Every time.This morning at the gym, I watched a...

08/07/2026

Y'all know I've been hard on Hilton Head Island as a market to buy in, for several reasons. Lately what's really driving me crazy: agents down there pulling listings for 2 days, then relisting them as "new listing." 🙄 We can see the history, folks. Many markets do this and I get it!

My advice when you're buying: just because something is 20% off list price does NOT mean it's a good deal. It probably means that's what it's actually worth.

Case in point — this condo has been on the market for almost two years. Greedy seller? Greedy agent? Bad cash flow? Bad HOA? Who knows the truth. But that's the point — you have to look at every angle of a listing before you convince yourself you're getting a deal just because it's under list price.

Chasing a discount off an inflated number isn't a strategy. It's a good way to overpay for a property nobody else wanted either. 📉

Do your homework. Look at the full history. Ask why it's really been sitting.

08/07/2026

Had a rough day yesterday 😤 Nothing to do with work — just some frustrating stuff caused by people outside our world.

So I did what I always do when I can't hit the weights or the girlie drinks: hopped on the zero turn after hours 🚜, cranked the headphones 🎧, and started chasing my own record around the yard.

Power turns. Reverse slides. Figure-8s in the wet grass. Going faster than I probably should've 😅

And somewhere in there my brain just... clicked into Top Gun mode 🛩️ Like I was Maverick going inverted and coming back down on target. Ridiculous. Didn't care.

Here's the point 👇 Find the dumb, simple thing that fully takes over your brain for twenty minutes. Doesn't matter what it is — hitting golf balls 🏌️, lifting heavy 🏋️, mowing like you're flying an F-14 ✈️

The goal isn't to be impressive. It's to give your head somewhere else to go so the stress can't follow you there 🙏

What's your version of the zero turn? Drop it below 👇

08/04/2026

🚨 Fannie Mae just closed a door on conventional condo financing — and it's about to open a big one for Non-QM.

In Lender Letter LL-2026-03, Fannie Mae is officially retiring the "Limited Review" process for condo projects, effective for all loan applications dated August 3, 2026 and later. Established condo projects that used to sail through with a lighter-touch review now have to go through Full Review — or qualify for the narrower Waiver of Project Review path (10 units or fewer).

Here's why that matters:

Limited Review was the express lane. It let a lot of condo buildings — especially smaller, older, or less "buttoned-up" HOAs — get financed without digging deep into reserve studies, litigation history, insurance adequacy, or investor concentration. That express lane is now gone.

Full Review is a much heavier lift: detailed HOA financials, reserve requirements (now climbing to 15% of budgeted assessments), insurance documentation, and more scrutiny on project health overall. A meaningful share of condo projects that used to breeze through Limited Review are going to stumble on Full Review — not because the units aren't good collateral, but because the paperwork and HOA finances don't hold up to a microscope.

That's the opening.

Non-QM lending was built for exactly this moment. DSCR, bank statement, and other Non-QM programs typically don't require Fannie/Freddie-style project review at all — they underwrite the loan and the borrower, not the HOA's reserve study. Buyers and investors who get shut out of conventional financing because their condo building can't clear Full Review still have a path to close, and Non-QM is that path.

If you're an LO, broker, or investor active in condos, this is the moment to: ✅ Get ahead of it — flag condo deals early and know which ones are Full-Review risks ✅ Have a Non-QM fallback ready before the conventional loan dies in underwriting ✅ Educate your realtor partners — a "no" from a conventional lender doesn't mean the deal is dead

The condo market isn't shrinking. The path to financing it is just shifting. Make sure you're positioned on the right side of that shift.

Source: Fannie Mae Lender Letter LL-2026-03 https://singlefamily.fanniemae.com/media/44986/display

08/01/2026

Over the last four weeks, I've talked to a lot of investors, and honestly, a lot of you are getting lied to. Here's my rant.

If you're working with a mortgage broker, loan officer, realtor, or coach and they're telling you things that are flat-out wrong, run. Fast.

Let's talk about the BRRRR method. I've got investors calling me constantly saying a lender told them they need six months of seasoning to get better pricing on a refinance with getting cash out. That's not true. What's actually happening is that lender simply can't fund a no-seasoning refinance with cash out, because their guidelines don't allow it. So instead of saying "we can't do this," they tell you it's a pricing issue. It's not. It's a guideline overlay, and it means they don't know the options that actually exist for investors.

On top of that, when I actually read a lot of these guidelines, those so-called "investor friendly" lenders technically can do less than 6 months, they just don't understand their own guidelines. The 6-month rule is specifically for using ARV (after-repair value). What most of them miss is that you can still use purchase price plus documented repairs prior to hitting that 6-month mark. They're not incapable of it, they just don't know their own product.

I have clients who flip a property in a month, then hold it as a rental and refinance with cash out going up to 80%, with zero seasoning. This isn't new. I've been helping investors do this for five years. It's not about "companies just recently figuring this out." It's about strategy, and strategy conversations need to happen before you go under contract, not after.

That's the other piece nobody talks about: the time to talk to an investor-friendly lender is before the deal, not once you're already locked into a contract and scrambling.

Here's another one that drives me nuts: there's a lender out there right now doing all these flashy videos bragging about how fast they close, acting like they're changing the game. They have some of the worst guidelines I've seen. Of course they're fast, everything is cookie-cutter with zero flexibility for actual investors. And yet brokers keep sending deals their way. One of their "investor friendly" rules? You have to have a lease signed and a tenant already moved in before they'll refinance your BRRRR. That's a brutal guideline for anyone actually doing this strategy.

And then there's rural properties. I hear lenders and brokers constantly say you can't do short-term rental DSCR loans in rural areas, that rural is just too tough. That's not a rule, that's an overlay some lenders have because they don't know how to work with it. Rural is actually easy, once you understand how to read the appraisal. And here's the part most investors don't realize: I'd guess 90% of loan originators out there, whether it's a broker, a bank, or a lender, don't actually know how to read an appraisal themselves. So when they tell you something can't be done, half the time it's because they don't understand the file in front of them, not because it's actually impossible.

One more thing. A lot of YouTube channels, Facebook groups, and investor communities promote certain lenders and brokers as "the go-to" people in the space. In reality, not all of them are worth it. A lot of times they're positioned that way because they're paying for the placement, not because they're actually good at what they do. There are one or two people in these groups who genuinely are great and know their stuff. But most aren't. So don't assume someone is legit just because they speak at conferences or get promoted in a group. Always vet people and do your homework before you trust them with your deal.

Bottom line: a lot of what's floated as "guidelines" out there is really just "my company can't do this" dressed up to sound like an industry-wide rule. Before you believe someone telling you what you can't do, ask yourself if they actually understand the file, or if they're just repeating what their overlay allows.

That's my little rant from the last couple weeks of conversations with investors. Curious if others have run into the same thing.