Commercial Real Estate Secrets

The New Rules of Lending in 2025

• Aviva Sonenreich • Season 14 • Episode 133

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I recently sat down with Ira Zlotowitz, founder and CEO of GParency, for a conversation that completely reimagines what mortgage brokerage should look like in 2025.

We talked about why most commercial real estate owners aren’t getting the best financing, and how Ira is flipping the industry model on its head—with flat fees, transparent data, and a Bloomberg-style app that’s free for everyone.

Here’s what we get into:

  • Why Ira only charges $4,500—and how it’s disrupting the brokerage commission model
  • What it means to be the “Netflix of commercial real estate financing”
  • How GParency’s new app gives CRE owners a Bloomberg Terminal experience
  • The big problem with how most investors track their portfolio
  • What’s really going on with lending in 2025—and why deals are still getting done
  • Why the next brokerage shakeup will come from individuals, not big brands
  • Two powerful lessons Ira has learned from watching GPs and LPs win (or fail)

If you’re an owner, broker, investor, or GP who wants to understand where the industry is heading and how to play the long game smarter—this one’s worth your time. Let’s get into it. 👇

Connect with Ira: Website | Linkedin | +1 917-597-2197 | iraz@gparency.com

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Connect with Aviva:

Aviva (00:00)
This week's listener of the week is C.P. Ellis. C.P., thank you so much for leaving us a five star review. And for those of you listening, if you leave us a five star review below, you might be next week's listener of the week, week, week. This week on Commercial Real Estate Secrets, we have Ira Zlotowitz Ira is the founder and CEO of G-Parency.

Ira, thank you for being on the show today.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (00:32)
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Aviva (00:34)
Yeah, so I believe we got connected because somebody on LinkedIn, think it was Nina Steiner said, you got to talk to Ira.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (00:42)
I appreciate that. She's my listener of the week.

Aviva (00:46)
wonderful and I adore her. Nina, you're our other listener of the week. Ira, tell the audience who you are, what you do and why we're all here today on Commercial Real Estate Secrets.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (00:58)
I'm here today because you invited me, so I appreciate that. It's an interesting meeting. I started a company called G-Parency. We are mortgage assurance brokers. The overwhelming majority of owners say when they go for financing, they don't get the best. It's close enough relationships. We solve that. We're mortgage assurance brokers. We guarantee the best financing. And we're like the Netflix of the commercial industry, revolutionizing. So we're regular mortgage brokers, but we stop at the term sheet and we only charge $4,500, no commission.

300,000 to 300 million and everything in So that's what we're here. That's some of the commercial moguls broke in my whole life.

Aviva (01:33)
How'd you get into the business?

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (01:36)
So when I was 21, I went to look for a job. My dad told me he knew someone in financing. I took an interview. While I was waiting for an answer, I interviewed another real estate company. And I got the first job as a mortgage broker. Stayed there my whole life. My whole career, same industry. there for four years as a partner. Opened up another firm. That was the top 10 in the country. Did $5 billion a year.

And then we got a venture capital offer to revolutionize to Netflix, the commercial real estate industry. And we opened up to G-Parency. So I started there. I love the business, know, financing and numbers and being a trusted advisor to people. And I started having an issue over last six years because a lot of times you find this mortgage broke, your motors are not aligned with the clients. It was bothering me. The fee structure, you only motivated to get them to go to a new bank, push the higher dollar amount. And now I have no military motive.

The biggest benefit I tell someone is my note is online with you. I don't care which bank you go to, I'll advise you what's the best and worst for you. That's the best value. So I can be a trusted advisor and incentivized to be a trusted advisor.

Aviva (02:40)
I love it as someone who talks to professionals across the country often. This is a first. Double click for me into what it means to be the Netflix of mortgage brokers.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (02:55)
So the full Netflix experience is that when Netflix first came out, they focused on the disks in the mail and you paid a monthly fee. They had a defined print at the bottom. You could get two hours of free streaming, but no one knew what the hell that meant. No one was into streaming. But so they kept it simple. I started with, I made mistakes in the launch of it when I raised the money, I told clients, but for right now, thank God, the other side of the mountain was doing like 300 million a month of business and growing.

is that I said, me just start us, I'll be able to appeal to everybody. There people who go direct, there people who use a broker just to shop, there are people who use a broker because they're married to a broker, no move without a broker. And I said, you know, all of them could benefit from my product. If you go direct, $4,500, I'll shop the market. If you use a broker just to shop, $4,500, why pay a commission? And if you're married to a broker, I'll work alongside a broker. You have Netflix and Hulu at home, you don't have to pick a choice, stay with your broker, I'll keep them in check, shop the broader market using AI.

to advise me I track 3,000 lenders and my volume of business. And I'll give you the trusted advice, how to leverage it. So we're here. That's the first stage. But what we just wrote out on app, totally free, is that what's interesting about real estate, if you talk to real estate professionals, is that if you ask the typical real estate owner, where's the list of the properties you own? We're in 2025 with all the AI and all the technology. I have a Google Sheet or an Excel Sheet or in my office an accounting software. I said, do you want any stock? Yes.

I bought last week, I bought $10 worth of stock. They have more information on their stock on their app than they have on their property. It's crazy. I built it. Imagine there's a Bloomberg terminal. All the properties you've looked at. All your documents in one place. I built an app. It's in the Google Play Store now. It should be in the App Store any day. Problem is that Apple is giving me problems because I have a YouTube video on it. This is literally what's going on right now. There's a YouTube video explaining how to use the app.

And because it goes to YouTube, the link, then I'm not, have to say that we're 17 plus because YouTube is the 17 plus. Like the whole thing is just craziness, but we'll be on in the next week, willing. And the people who are beta testing it, almost 18 % of them in the first six weeks came on five or more times. More than 50 % keep coming on. The app does three things. Totally free, we'll stay free. Whatever real estate owner needs. Number one, it's Google Maps. I made a deal with Google. It's Google Maps.

Overlay with public data, fee that property. There's the parcel shape of that property. Sales, finance, and listings in the area. And it stars every property, favorites it. So I come back, what was the deal here in Denver? What's the deal in Denver I just looked at yesterday? Oh, hover over Denver, see the red dot, drill down to it. So you never lose a property. Number two is that I built an underwriting calculator. The biggest most honest, how do you figure out the IRR? How do you get the multiple equity multiplier?

I don't know, some spreadsheet in my office, takes me, I don't know, from half hour to two, three hours. They can't do it themselves. I spent millions just on the calculator. You could underwrite a deal from the cap rate to the maximum loan from that service down to the LP's IRR in under three minutes as a novice with projections and earnouts, waterfalls, you name it, they it there. And the third thing is it has all the rates, every property type in the country. So we basically built a system where, let that be free, use it front and center.

Remember us, when you have financing, I have a property. So the biggest compliment, we do financing, $4,400. The biggest compliment I got from someone, someone said, usually someone wants me to stay front and center. Even though they don't have the best product, but when I have a mortgage, they should, I don't know choice, I'll overpay a little, I'll use you. Says, Ira, why did you waste your time building that? Your product alone speaks for itself. Like, I don't need that. So that's the idea. So the Netflix is totally finished.

I want to give people like the Bloomberg Terminal experience commercial listing with finance information, everything on list. When you need the financing, I'll be the financial employee. So that's the revolution. And we want to be involved in every deal. We got banking data. So we today have the best banking data. And we are now, I opened up a sister company called G Placer, which could just license the data. So mortgage brokers are using it. Owners are using it. Some people say, I want to go myself. I don't want someone to help me. Or mortgage brokers need better data.

They can license my data. All my banking data, they have unlimited access to them. If they want to think on themselves. that's it. Transparency. GP for general partner and transparency. That's the business plan. So that's the revolution.

Aviva (07:15)
Well.

It's so funny you bring up ownership and properties. It's something I'm working on is having my answers instead of being broad, answering with data, exact data. And I noticed, you know, if I were to ask my father who

started our company. Dad, how many properties do you own? How many properties does the family own? How many properties do you manage? How many? He couldn't tell me. And it's so funny, I was thinking about that. We should be able to definitively answer these questions, but there's no reason why we have had to, except for April of every year. But no, it's

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (08:01)
Yeah. No,

but it's not really true. You do have to really answer if you think about it, because with today's data, if you have all your properties, you should really be able to see what's for sale in those area overly like you have confirmation. But that's why when I got an unsolicited offer, when we started to launch, opened up with venture capital money. Cause there was a large C grant. And when I turned to some of my clients and investors, I said,

If you realize everybody starts, all the tech companies, know, costar are amazing company, crexi. People don't like the fees, but it's amazing data. Everyone is really the second model. But yet everyone in real estate starts with a Google search, Google Maps. Why didn't someone replace Google Maps start? You will start second. If someone comes to you, Aviva, I want to get into commercial real estate. Where should I start? Oh, what do you want to do? You want to finance? Oh, go to IRA. You want this? Go here. You're leasing. There's no front door. I want to be the front door. Come to me.

And I'll guide you where to go, financing, pay me, everything else I'll give you for free. That's my vision, so to speak. So when I call people up, said, do you think people have a need for this Bloomberg terminal, the world of real estate there? And I think about AI today. is really the bigger part of it. If you think about it, you you focus on a niche. So many of your listeners are warehouses or industrial. So that typical buyer probably has seen in his state, every industrial building for sale in the last six months. And it's his email somewhere. Now.

I didn't anticipate AI when I built this, but I knew there was something like this was coming. Think about now, have a sweep that every time you have a property, you have a desktop version coming out. That sets out. Can you imagine that every time you get a property in your email, you look at 10 properties, you don't even focus on eight, two, you underwrite one, you take more service. That's like the ratios people say. Can you imagine automatically, as soon as an email comes in your inbox from a listing, it automatically pins it on the map by me. Your own personal map, no one else sees it. It uploads the documents there.

Now here's the cool part. could say, own this, I passed in it, notes. So you see the whole map. You want rental comps. You don't have to go to any of companies like CompStack or CoStar. You have rental comps. You can ask AI, based on my database, can you please tell me what rents are per square foot? And we'll go open the rent rolls, get the start and end date, and give you a spreadsheet. It's not that far in anymore. So it's just crazy. The world is changing. And there's no system. And the reason why there's no system is because no one's willing to pay big money for this.

You pay costar off a confirmed data. I'm starting the first mile. That's my idea. crap and let each person feel that crap. Excuse me, your own data. You have data to answer enough, but it's fragmented. You have a dream of accounts within your organization.

Aviva (10:39)
This business is the Wild West.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (10:42)
That's for sure.

Aviva (10:43)
And I feel so fortunate that we get to, transact, interact in this era of, as if it wasn't the Wild West years ago, 30 years ago. You know, this integration of the internet, now you're saying AI, is like, I always say we've only hit one or 2 % of our capabilities of commercial real estate professionals using the internet because

because industry has largely been hesitant to adopt new technology for one reason or the next.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (11:15)
Right. But for good,

the reason I spent a lot of time analyzing the reason, the reason is because usually who invests in technology? I have a business. I'm processing a hundred loans a day, a week, a month, a year. So I need technology to automate my process. So it's worth making investment. A big real estate owner loses out. His moat is that no one has technology. He doesn't want to share his leasing information.

That's his moat. But once everyone knows everything, it a natural equalizer. So the incumbents have an issue. Right now, today, think about it. Somebody wants to become a mortgage broker in their basement. Somebody wants to be a real, I believe the real change is coming for real estate brokers. They're not, it's gonna be like Uber. They're not gonna leave, you need real estate brokers. I'm a major proponent of real estate brokers and the fees always. That the only industry justifies that their fees should go up at the large of the deal. They created the value. They created a buyer, they created a seller.

But why are they working for a firm? I think today, if they work in their basement and they sign up to some of my services or to a Crexi or to a Costar or to a different ComStack and different pro softwares out there, and they're on anywhere on LinkedIn, like why? That's enough. the commissions, they're going to start asking for higher and higher commissions, splits with the house and it doesn't justify. That's where think the big shakeups come as we go in the future.

because there's so much money on per deal. I say technology, really. When that happens, that's the next wave of change.

Aviva (12:47)
hey, I built my brokerage on that fundamentally. It was, I don't like the branding of all these big brokerages. It's not branding. It's just last names and color schemes. Our company is called the warehouse hotline. You need, you know, and we have focused our efforts digitally. Believe it or not, that's where everybody is. you know, luckily the warehouse owners who are looking for

a buyer, a seller, a tenant, they go online, they see the warehouse hotline, and they call me. You know, I don't need JLL on my no offense to JLL. I don't need them on my email signature to get a deal or get a deal done.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (13:28)
So I want to say interesting is that, when you, when someone starts in the career, there's a benefits. Like I know what my big thing is that I did a ton of training. I train more people in the business than anybody else. wrote a book on the business. was focused on the financing and training and education business. So you need to be breaking. It's really once you're successful. However, the big shift that I realized over the last few years is that it used to be that the institutions wouldn't engage. The institution wouldn't engage a non JLL name.

It's like CYA, I engage JLL, whatever went wrong. If I engage on some other company, I found that's changing now. Because as the big institutions are also more conscious of the bottom line, they're bringing in the next generation, the next generation is like, what the heck are you doing? I was on TikTok, I was on Facebook, I saw this group on LinkedIn, like we should just be selling the product. And I find that that's a big change that's taking place. And that's what setting the tone for like, why am I giving 50 % to the house on a sale?

I should be giving less or why am I not going to my basement just pale the data services and I work for LinkedIn. We all work for LinkedIn, right? We were connected on LinkedIn. That's what I got here. We all work for LinkedIn somehow. know, LinkedIn should take the commission.

Aviva (14:35)
Oi. Don't give anybody any ideas. You got enough good ones. Don't give LinkedIn any. I know we could talk about this topic for an hour, but lending in 2025 has been a bit challenging.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (14:49)
You don't say, do you?

Aviva (14:51)
It's so funny, like I have these conversations with prospects who like maybe they are used to investing in residential or something. then you start to, you you ease them into the reality of investing in commercial real estate in 2025. And it's don't want to say you can't get this done, your back is up against the wind, you know,

It's hard to get a deal done. Talk to me about that.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (15:15)
So we happen to be talking at a little bit of a turning point where I think that it's starting to get easier. the easier, you know, it's I told someone, it's really about like you're using your back against the wind. It's all about perspective. it's really the same now and six months ago as what it takes to get a deal done. But the expectations were mismanaged. What a client bar was looking for. Today, I find that people finally said, okay, this is the new world. This is the world.

I'm going to transact in this world, and that's how things take place. And as less resist, the wind is in the right direction. And I think the difference really was, and I was saying this for a while, like before Trump was elected, before the elections, people were saying, let's wait until after the elections, oh, then Trump won. Let's see when he moves into the office. There's no trigger that people are waiting for. When blank happens then, now they're coming to this is the world. This is it. If my vacancy is 80, if my accuracy is 88%, I have to make this work. If I'm in a market with these issues, these

these political climate, this is it. There's nothing changing. And once people came to that, they really just start transacting again. And I think that's it. So I think today is that it's tougher than it used to be, but it's getting done because everyone is at the point, okay, I understand what I'm getting myself into. This is the new world and let me just deal with it, so to speak. So that's what I'm trying to

Aviva (16:32)
Sure,

we've changed the way we even look at how to identify a property in order to achieve a loan. Yeah, love it. I'm glad you feel like there's brighter horizons ahead.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (16:41)
Exactly.

Well,

people say I'm the half full kind of guy. I like to say I'm the only realist that's positive. Most realist is truly a coin word for being pessimist. But that's what I'm finding the turning point. But I also think it's never coming back ever, the velocity in our lifetime that it was. And I think that for the reasons that we got to that velocity, it's never coming back is because

Aviva (16:51)
Yeah

That's funny.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (17:14)
that's when the digital age of everything became public. So at what we had rates dropping, had real estate being the hottest investment. We had, that's when people really went digital online and all these things happened over the last seven, eight, 10 years. And that momentum, the values went up because rates went down and everyone had no perceived risk. And now I think that people created, you know, more real estate brokers like yourself created sellers. Cause you call up a seller and Hey, you're selling your building? No.

How much do you it's worth? 10 million. I have some idiots willing to pay 12. So of course the guy sold. There's no idiots anymore. Maybe there are idiots, but meaning they're not owns over 12 for 10. They may be offering 10 and the guy says, no, no, no, I once got an offer for 12 or I'm going to open nine yet. So I think it's going to take a long time until it's, it went, we went to what I call financing went to financial engineering. If you mentioned your dad started the business, when your dad bought a building.

It was about the bricks and the mortar, the replacement value. He knocked on the thing. Oh, this is a good building. said, man, this is an ugly building. No, no, no. You don't got it right. This is a good building. Across the street, the cap rate works. No, no, no. The metric went to financial engineering. So naturally, as rates dropped, values were able to go up because of better cash flow. So even if rates go down a little bit, which I don't think it is, I think it's roughly staying here, this is it. So values aren't going back to where were. And the mindset that real estate has no risk, that's gone. People realize there's risk. And people finally realize that

Aviva (18:13)
You

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (18:37)
that real estate is illiquid. know, the real estate, there two real estate jokes that have, if we could digress here. One is that, is that they say first generation is pauper, second generation buys, third generation finances, fourth generation is pauper. That's like the cycle of that, you know? So that was a one. And the other joke I say all the time is that someone is, you know, is in real estate their whole life, he dies, comes to heaven. And St. Peter says, you're great.

Take the express elevator upstairs. So he goes upstairs and he sees what heaven looks like. The door opens up. It's a real estate closing. Mahogany table, leather chairs, everyone smoking cigars. goes, wow, this is unbelievable. My whole life in a real estate is amazing. As the elevator door is about to close, he says, let me see what the dungeon looks like. Goes in, let's see what hell looks like. Goes down, door opens up. He gets a little depressed. It's also a real estate closing. So the rickety table, metal chairs, the smoking cigarettes. He says, this difference, I gave up all those temptations in life.

St. Peter says in heaven the deal closes. So that's what it is, vitalizing work in real estate until the deal closes means nothing. That's the play there.

Aviva (19:39)
Okay.

That's

funny.

Ira, I feel like I could talk to you for an hour and I feel like you got some good commercial real estate secrets. If you could share one commercial real estate secret with the listeners, what would it be?

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (20:00)
if I could split it because it's in real estate, it's two types of investors is that LP who invests in as a GP. My advice to the LP it's more important to integrity and honesty about the GP than it was about the deal. You'd rather get a not such a great deal with a great GP and an honest GP than the other way around. And many people focus the wrong direction. And for the GP to remember a deal is only as good as the financing it gets. That's the structure. It's all about the structure of the deal. So.

Finding out, and that's one of reasons I built out the calculator that way, is that a GP who's not typically into finance, they could see the full capital stack. Instead of saying, I want 80 % mortgage. No, you might be better off with 70 % with a pref this way based on your earn out, because the whole structure works out better for the IR and equity multiplier. Look at the totality of the financing is what makes the deal. That's my two secrets that I learned from watching people in real estate, people successful, fail, and comes back to these two things.

Aviva (20:54)
I think those are gonna be some clips for social media if I know my editors. Ira, where can our listeners find you, follow you, download the app? I'm gonna download the app. Talk to me.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (20:58)
Next.

So GParency is that's the app in the App Store and hopefully it's there. If it's not there by the time this comes out, then you go to my website and this app, you can fill out a form, I'll you beta access. Actually, where I'm on LinkedIn, have TikTok videos. I only check my TikTok, but it's on Instagram and other places also. But I give them my cell number. I have one cell number, I put it out there. And I try to respond to every message. So it's either my email address is iraz@gparency

G-P-A-R-E-N-C-Y, I'm sure you'll type it out at the bottom. My cell number is 917-597-2197. I have one cell number. I answer, is it? Or I don't answer. But WhatsApp or text, and I respond. That's it. That's the way to reach me. So if make me have helped anybody, question, I'll try to answer, give guidance. And no tie in. I'd rather be my, I was brought up to try to be a go-giver, try to help people. And good things, good karma should come back.

I believe in that even though every time I get messed up, I focus on the good times, not on the bad times.

Aviva (22:10)
Amen. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Ira, and for everybody listening. We'll see you next week.

Ira Zlotowitz - GPARENCY (22:11)
with.


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