Kayla Tausche CNBC

y felix badea
RIDING OUT
MARKET TRENDS
Tightened regulations
in the lending
industry after
the Great Recession just
don’t appear to be loosening
up in any significant
manner anytime
soon. But for savvy accredited
investors – those having a net
worth of a million dollars or more – this
isn’t necessarily negative news.
Just ask Caleb Preston, director of
marketing and a partner/owner with
McKinley Mortgage and with Alaska
Financial Company, a McKinley Mortgage
affiliate.
“Our take is that, as we look at the
overall macroeconomics, it seems we
are going to be experiencing a slow,
stagnant growth not just in the United
States, but also worldwide for
well beyond the foreseeable future,
and are likely going to see continued
low interest and probably even deflation.
How long that is going to last,
I don’t know,” Preston said. “Maybe
for three to five years plus. What I do
see is that this slow interest rate environment
is the ideal time for an investor
to consider alternatives. Real estate
income investments, such as trust deed
investing, can offer above market yields
over what typical fixed income investments,
such as bonds or the cash equivalent,
can do in these environments.”
Alaska Financial provides investors
access to a pool of first position real estate
loans for investment purposes. This
pool is characterized by loans featuring
a 35 percent or more equity protection.
It is a tactic – or perhaps more appropriately
phrased, an investment criteria
– that has helped these two firms not just
stay afloat, but calmly navigate the ups
and downs of the economy. Economic
fluctuations have tremendous impacts
on the real estate and stock markets, easily
rivaling the height of the waves in the
treacherous Gulf of Alaska waters near
Anchorage, where both firms are headquartered.
“When we are buying a real estate note
or lending against a commercial piece of
property, we want to make sure to have
at least, on average, a 40 percent margin
of equity. Our loan value is typically
at least 60 percent or less,” Preston explains.
“It allows us to have that cushion
of equity that gives some margin to handle
the ups and downs of the real estate
market.”
Taking calculated risks is nothing new
to Preston. His family hails from a commercial
fishing background and they
remain active in the summer harvest of
wild Alaskan salmon.
His parents started McKinley Mortgage
in the mid-1980s, during their college
days at the University of Alaska
campus in Fairbanks. The pair saw an
advertisement for a seminar on note-buying
and decided to attend.
“Being entrepreneurs, they got started
out, right out of their college dorms,”
Preston said. “They started brokering
the company’s first note out of the college
dorm and now today, our firm is the
largest note broker in the state of Alaska
and one of the largest in the nation.”
Learn more about McKinley Mortgage
online at www.mckinleymortgage.com
and more about Alaska Financial Company
online at www.akfinancialco.com
THE SUIT MAGAZINE p.35