Yaakov Zar.
Yaakov Zar, 28
Founder and chief executive officer at LEV
Yaakov Zar first got a taste for technology and entrepreneurship when he started a real estate app during his college years. Fast forward to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the digitalization of real estate deals is firmly and forcibly underway. Which is great for Zar, who launched Lev, a commercial real estate finance brokerage powered by both human and artificial intelligence, last September, and hasn’t looked back.
Zar’s proprietary technology, coupled with a database of nearly 10,000 lenders, gives borrowers the ability to source financing with or without the help of a debt broker.
“Things are going really well, thank God,” Zar said. “We’ve been able to double our volume quarter over quarter, which is really exciting. We’re now starting to really be able to leverage more of our relationships with lenders and their technology expertise to get much further in on the automation side. So, we’re working with a couple of national groups to do direct integrations into their operating systems. We can send them deal information, everything that they need for a deal, and get back a quote instantly and virtually.”
As for what the pandemic has taught him, Zar said he has “learned a lot about focusing on better deals. I think it’s really important to make sure that you’re spending time on good deals, and driving down the cost of handling those deals.”
And with that comes a slight change of modus operandi.
“Sometimes the game is, ‘Let’s work on a lot of deals, and some of them will hit,’” Zar said. “That’s a strategy that a lot of people take, and that was our strategy initially. Now, our strategy is ‘Let’s work on good deals, and make sure that we can get them done.’ And as COVID [shutdowns are] wrapping up, we’re being very smart about what deals we spend time on.”.
Despite a keen focus on growing a successful business, Zar is also keeping his broader priorities and values in mind.
“I have a growing family, and it’s important to us, you know, for all of us to realize what we’re in this game for,” he said. “We can all work really hard and make a bunch of money, but we’re just stewards of the money that we hold for a brief period of time. Our responsibility is to do good things with it, do good things with our employees, do good things with the people we work with, and especially do good things with our communities and the people we know and love. If I can do good things and make the world better, I’ve been successful.”
