HACKENSACK, NJ, May 06, 2005 - After 44 financial institutions turned him down, Edwin Barquet, found his $980,000 dollar loan with Kennedy Funding, a direct private lender based in Hackensack, New Jersey.

The Blue Ridge Group of North Carolina, LLC, needed funds to continue construction and marketing of undeveloped land in a scenic area of North Carolina. Barquet, one of the principals of Blue Ridge, was a former banker who fully understood the process. “We spent 14 months assembling careful market analysis and engineering reports, and we could demonstrate strong interest in the area emanating from a community in South Florida, where we have a marketing partner. Even so, the traditional funding sources simply could not deliver,” he said.

But Kennedy Funding did. The near-million-dollar loan will enable model home construction as well as improved paving, septic tank installation and drilling for water wells, all in preparation for turning 114 of these single-family lots into a community of primary and second homes in a beautiful mountain setting.

The community-in-progress, River Country Estates, began as a subdivision of single-family lots over ten years ago. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northwestern North Carolina, the land is four miles from the Virginia border and about 30 miles east of the Tennessee border; the wooded area has a variety of attractive views, including panoramas of the countryside and distant mountains as well as forested valley views and those with river frontage along the New River. Many of the lots are fully or partially improved.

“I am genuinely appreciative of Kennedy Funding in securing this loan for us,” commented Barquet. “They responded quickly and treated us fantastically well. They weren’t fazed by our models being log homes-which are quite substantial-although some lenders confused them with mobile homes. Kennedy recognized that we had considerable equity in this project, and as they like to say about themselves, they were ‘less expensive than a partner.’ That’s the truth. And they were highly professional, too, particularly in the final stages of closing the deal. I can’t say enough about them.”

Kevin Wolfer, co-CEO of Kennedy Funding, believes that his firm discerned more value in the land than other lenders did. “Even the local realtors describe River Country Estates as some of the nicest real estate in the area,” he commented, “and at Kennedy Funding, we have also learned that this area of the Blue Ridge Mountains is extremely popular with second home buyers.”

Adds Jonathan Weiner, a Kennedy Funding Loan Officer, “Our appraisal process looks to the future of the property as well as its immediate worth, and we are fully capable of lending on raw land as collateral-in other words, the range of factors we consider when making a loan enables us to do more for developers.”

Kennedy Funding has streamlined the lending process to the point where it is quick and thorough, without the usual overload of paperwork and red tape. The firm has the ability to issue loan commitments in as little as 24 hours, which often leads to closings in 2 weeks or less. Available financing ranges from $1 million to $100 million, the latter being a ’soft ceiling,’ meaning that additional funds are available for the right situation.

Kennedy Funding specializes in commercial real estate loans, yet their flexibility and diversity has also resulted in loans for high-profile golf
courses, amusement parks, TV and radio stations, airlines, and sports complexes. Like Edwin Barquet, businessmen and entrepreneurs across the country and around the world have called upon Kennedy to come through when other financial institutions cannot. They can generate up to 65% loan-to-value for commercial land development, acquisitions, workouts, refinancing, bankruptcies, and foreclosures.