Kevin Green arranges business-purpose bridge and private money financing on high-value residential and commercial property, from $250,000 in California and $1,000,000 and above outside it, up to $50,000,000+. Underwriting is asset-based: the decision rests on the property, the equity position and the exit rather than on tax returns or W-2 income. Pre-approval typically within 12 to 24 hours. Closings typically 5 to 21 days. California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Texas, Florida and New York, with other states case by case. CA DRE Broker #01241542 · NMLS #1130752
THE UNDERWRITING PROBLEM
Why banks decline the properties that are easiest to sell
There is a persistent idea in this business that a trophy property is just a bigger version of a normal loan. It isn't, and treating it that way is why so many of these transactions stall at the bank.
A $9,000,000 oceanfront estate has a thin comparable set. Sometimes four sales in two years, none of them close enough to defend a valuation on a spreadsheet. The buyer's income often arrives as K-1 distributions, carried interest, trust income, or proceeds from a business sale, none of which fits the documentation a conventional underwriter is required to collect. Title is frequently held in an LLC or a family trust for privacy and estate reasons. Any one of those is manageable. Together they put the file outside what a bank's credit committee can approve, regardless of how strong the borrower actually is.
The property isn't the risk. The paperwork is.
That distinction is the entire basis of asset-based lending, and it's why a borrower with $40,000,000 in net worth can be declined by a retail bank and funded by a private lender in the same month.
HOW A FILE GETS DECIDED
How the underwrite actually works
Asset-based underwriting asks a different set of questions than a bank does. There are three, and the answers determine everything.
QUESTION ONE
What is the asset actually worth?
Not the automated valuation, and not the list price. On a trophy asset this usually means an appraisal from someone who has valued property in that specific market, plus a hard look at what a motivated seller would realize in 90 to 180 days. Kevin underwrites to the second number.
QUESTION TWO
What is the exit?
A private money loan is a bridge, not a destination. The credible exits are a sale, a refinance into conventional or portfolio debt once documentation catches up, or a liquidity event the borrower can evidence. A file without a specific exit doesn't get funded.
QUESTION THREE
Who is the borrower, structurally?
An LLC, a trust, a foreign national buyer, a partnership. Entity ownership is normal at this level, not a complication.
Income documentation is not on that list. Neither is a credit score threshold.
COMMERCIAL TROPHY
What makes a commercial asset a trophy
Trophy is not a property type. It is a tier, and it exists on the commercial side exactly as it does on the residential side.
A commercial trophy asset is best in class for its category. The location cannot be reproduced, the build is distinctive enough that the next buyer is choosing that specific building, and the income profile is either strong or credibly projected. The investor pool is narrow. And the comparable set is thin for the same reason it is thin on an estate: assets like this trade rarely, and when they do they often trade privately.
That last point is the whole underwriting problem. A twelve-unit apartment building in a standard submarket has a comparable set. A single-tenant landmark on a corner that exists once does not. The appraisal becomes the bottleneck, and the credit quality of the borrower never gets to be the question.
The three questions on this page are the same ones Kevin asks on a commercial trophy file: what the asset is worth to a motivated buyer, how much equity sits behind the loan, and what the exit is. Multifamily, mixed-use, industrial, retail and hospitality all qualify when the asset itself is the reason the deal is hard to place.
MARKETS
What changes from market to market
The underwrite is the same everywhere. What changes is the comparable set, and that changes a great deal from one market to the next.
La Jolla, Del Mar, Rancho Santa Fe and Coronado. A large share of transactions at the top of these markets close in cash, which thins the financed comparable set considerably. Coronado adds a wrinkle no other California market has: Naval base proximity shapes both the buyer pool and insurability.
Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Dana Point. Tighter lot geometry, more variation between blocks, and a bluff-and-coastal-zone overlay that affects both value and timeline.
Atherton, Portola Valley and Woodside. The most equity-rich and most liquidity-constrained buyers in the country. Wealth is concentrated in stock that can't always be sold on the transaction's timeline, which is precisely the problem a bridge solves.
Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Texas, Florida and New York, with other states case by case. Requirements vary meaningfully; Florida in particular treats business-purpose loans differently than many people assume.
Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Bel Air, Brentwood and Santa Monica. Valuation is the recurring obstacle: gated compounds and canyon lots rarely leave a clean comparable set, and Santa Monica behaves as five distinct markets rather than one. Holmby Hills is the extreme case — some months close one or two sales, enough that a single unusual transaction moves the reported median.
Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. One ZIP code, 90274, spans both Palos Verdes Estates and Rolling Hills despite a price gap of several million dollars, so automated valuation tools misprice the Peninsula routinely. Rolling Hills compounds it — fewer than a dozen active listings at any time and roughly 60% cash sales, which leaves almost nothing to appraise against.
Downtown, East Village, UTC, North Park and Little Italy — commercial, mixed-use and maturing CRE rather than residential. Mixed-use assets get declined routinely because they don't fit a single loan category, and downtown office availability above 25% makes conventional underwriting impossible mid-repositioning. The 2026–2027 maturity wall is the recurring one: banks refinance at reduced proceeds, and the equity gap has to come from somewhere.
Spec homes, entitled land and multifamily across the Peninsula, South Bay and East Bay — the development side rather than the finished estate. Value sits in work not yet done: a custom spec home has almost no comp set, a near-complete multifamily needs completion and lease-up assumptions, and entitled land is routinely worth far more than the developer's basis with nothing standard to appraise against. Matured construction loans and capital calls set the clock.
The fifty priciest ZIP codes in the country — thirty of them in California, the rest spread from the Hamptons and Greenwich to Aspen, Medina and Sea Island. The same pattern holds across all of them: off-market transactions dominate, so public pricing data thins out and comparables get hard to establish, and ownership through LLCs, trusts and offshore structures doesn't match what a W-2 underwrite expects to see. Board and architectural review add their own windows after close — Fisher Island runs 60 to 90 days.
Estates, trophy commercial, hospitality and ground-up development — California-weighted but national, and across acquisitions, refinances and 1031 exchanges. What makes these assets hard to finance isn't price, it's that the value sits in things an appraisal struggles to hold: views, architectural significance, coastal access, provenance. True comparable sales are rare, pricing is subjective, and an appraiser unfamiliar with the ultra-luxury tier becomes the bottleneck.
Montecito, Hope Ranch, Padaro Lane, Carpinteria and the Santa Ynez Valley. Hope Ranch is the tightest: 773 homes and roughly thirty trades a year, which leaves almost nothing to appraise against. Beachfront prices on frontage rather than square footage, and Santa Ynez ranches carry land, water and vineyard value no residential comparison will pick up.
Pebble Beach, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Carmel Valley, the Santa Lucia Preserve and Carmel Highlands. Only five homes sit on the 18th hole at Pebble Beach, and one set the county record at $45 million. Carmel has never used street numbers, so an appraiser can't even pull the property by address, and on the Preserve, value sits in land, water and building envelopes.
Belvedere Island, the Tiburon Peninsula, Ross, Kentfield and Stinson Beach. The top of Marin trades off-market: the county’s largest 2025 sale, $43.5 million on Belvedere Island, never appeared in the public top-ten list, so the comparable set an appraiser pulls can miss the real market by a factor of three.
Martis Camp, Northstar, Olympic Valley, Tahoe City and the West Shore from Homewood to Meeks Bay. Only eight to ten exceptional Martis Camp estates reach the open market in a year, and West Shore family compounds trade once in a generation. What sells is shoreline and the buoy and pier permits attached to it, which no square-footage comp captures.
The Oaks, Mountain View Estates, Calabasas Park Estates, Bellagio, Vista Pointe and Calabasas Country Estates. One city name covers six guard-gated markets with a $7 million price spread, so a citywide median misprices almost every home in it. The Oaks is the thinnest: a $9.1 million median and only three sales in March 2026. Calabasas Country Estates has roughly 60 homes in total.
Aspen, Snowmass Village, Woody Creek, Old Snowmass, Basalt and Carbondale. Aspen’s 2025 median single-family price sat just under $14 million, and the city’s demolition-cap and historic-landmark review can hold up a teardown or renovation for months. Rental-pool rules make much of the Aspen and Snowmass Village condo inventory non-warrantable. Woody Creek and Old Snowmass trade so rarely that there are often no comps within miles.
WHO THIS IS FOR
When Kevin gets this call
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A buyer who needs to close before a sale, a liquidity event or a refinance completes
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Significant equity, complicated or non-traditional income documentation
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Property held in an entity or trust
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A conventional application already declined on documentation rather than on the asset
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A transaction where speed is worth more than the lowest available pricing
FOR AGENTS, BROKERS AND ADVISORS
Most of these arrive through someone else
The listing agent, the buyer's mortgage broker, the CPA, the 1031 intermediary, the family office. If you're holding a file your usual lender has declined, the useful question is not who has the best rate. It's whether the deal can be structured at all, and on what timeline.
That answer takes one call and does not require a package. Property, position, rough value, the borrower's situation, and what the exit looks like is enough to get a straight yes or no.
Kevin has been a licensed California real estate professional since 1998 and has worked on this type of transaction for more than 28 years.
Loan parameters
Loan size | $250,000 to $50,000,000+ in California. $1,000,000 and above outside California |
Purpose | Business-purpose only |
Property types | High-value residential held for investment, commercial, mixed-use, land, ground-up construction |
Underwriting basis | Asset, equity position and exit, rather than income documentation |
Loan-to-value | Typically up to 65%. On larger commercial deals and select residential transactions, higher LTV is considered |
Borrower structures | Individual, LLC, partnership, trust, foreign national |
Pre-approval | Typically 12 to 24 hours |
Funding timeline | Typically 5 to 21 days |
Territory | California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Texas, Florida and New York. Other states case by case |
Pricing | Quoted per transaction based on asset, position, term and exit |
WHO YOU ARE ACTUALLY DEALING WITH
Call me and you reach the person who decides.
I have been licensed in California real estate since 1998 and I have spent that time arranging financing secured by real property. I fund from my own capital on most transactions and place the balance with private investors when a loan falls outside my internal guidelines.
Every lender competing for this business is a fund, a firm or a directory. Call one and you reach an intake desk, and the person who decides sits somewhere behind it.
Kevin Green · California DRE Broker #01241542 · NMLS #1130752
QUESTIONS THAT COME UP ON EVERY DEAL
Asked and answered
Do you need tax returns or income documentation?
No. These are business-purpose loans underwritten on the asset, the equity position and the exit. Kevin Green does not require tax returns or W-2 income documentation on this type of transaction.
How fast can a trophy property loan actually close?
Typically 5 to 21 days from a complete file. Pre-approval is typically 12 to 24 hours. The variable that moves the timeline most is the appraisal on a property with a thin comparable set, not the underwriting.
Can the property be held in an LLC or a trust?
Yes. Entity and trust ownership is standard at this level and is not an obstacle. Individual, LLC, partnership, trust and foreign national borrowers are all workable.
What makes financing a trophy property different from a jumbo loan?
A jumbo loan is a conventional product with conventional documentation requirements at a higher balance. Trophy property financing is asset-based, which means the underwrite turns on the property and the exit rather than on income documentation. The two get declined for different reasons entirely.
Do you lend outside California?
California is the largest market. Kevin also arranges business-purpose transactions secured by property in Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Texas, Florida and New York, with other states case by case.
What does it cost?
Pricing is quoted per transaction and depends on the asset, the loan position, the term and the exit. There is no rate sheet for this type of lending because no two of these transactions carry the same risk profile.