Toby Cobb, Justin Kennedy and Jonathan Roth

For a borrower, there’s something uncommonly comfortable about knowing that your lender is committed to servicing your loan the full 3,650 days of its 10-year span.

But, for the three men who founded 3650 REIT, that promise is the ethos of the firm. And the commitment that Toby Cobb, Justin Kennedy and Jonathan Roth have shown to their largely repeat borrower base helped the firm originate $851.3 million in loans in 2023.

The firm’s principals leaned into their role as stewards and loan servicers during an era of uncertainty as borrowers faced higher interest rates than any time in the past 16 years. “I think it was that fluid and consistent communication and contact with our borrowers that allowed us to sit here a year later with no loans that are not current as to the principal and interest in our portfolio,” said Toby Cobb.

As usual, 3650 REIT played up and down the capital stack in 2023, providing flexible bridge capital for acquisitions, developments and refinancings; structured capital and equity capital for those sponsors looking to be rescued from broken deal structures; and long-term, fixed-rate capital as an alternative to CMBS financing.

With each loan, no matter the complexity, the firm prized the personal touch.

“The founding differentiation of the firm is that we identified the lack of relationship and lack of ability to touch the asset and understand the ongoing borrower business plan was the material flaw in structured credit real estate origination and management,” said Justin Kennedy. “On the first day, we take a viewpoint of understanding the forward business plan, and the ability of this borrower, in this location, in this submarket — depending on the competition — to complete that business plan and outperform the competitive assets.”

To this end, since its 2016 founding, the firm has made almost 1,000 loans for a total origination volume of $16 billion. “It’s starting to be a rule of large numbers,” said Cobb. “You can’t just say these guys are lucky or have younger vintage assets. We would almost insist the industry recognize that we are doing something that is better.”

Ironically, borrowers are getting the message because their lender is actually listening to them.

“Our messaging is certainly resonating within the borrowing community,” explained Jonathan Roth. “They understand that we live in an imperfect world, things will happen, and having a lender who can listen and respond in a timely fashion, and come to a table with solutions as opposed to roadblocks — it’s powerful.”