Palm Beach Gardens, FL

The Opportunity

An investor came to us with this tear down/rebuild project in South Florida in February 2020 just before the pandemic shut down everything, which caused a significant delay in getting the build started.

The project’s biggest hurdle came through permitting. Under normal circumstances, it would have taken 30 to 45 days to obtain the proper permits, but because of COVID, it took almost 100 to get the project out of permitting.

The investor was concerned about the delay, how it might affect the length of time he would end up holding onto the home, and how the pandemic might affect the sales price—especially as lumber and plywood prices skyrocketed.

The Solution

Lima One closed the loan in February 2020, and despite a four-month delay, the investor was able to finish the 5-bedroom, 4-bathroom house by October. With the ease of Lima One’s online portal and support from Lima One’s in-house servicing and construction management staff, the investor was able to finish construction in just under five months – a timeline he was very pleased with. Even better, the market boomed after the pandemic—allowing the investor to put the house under contract before the drywall was up.

The investor said, “What I like about working with Lima One is the online portal and that interface. It’s really great because I’ve worked with other construction lenders before, and this was my first deal I had done with Lima. The online portal gave us the liberty to go in schedule the values and schedule the inspection along with the times and dates, so the staff was there to meet the inspector. It was a very easy and very seamless process.”