Since 2000 New Mexico’s self-employed and retiree populations have surged by over 40% and 30% respectively.
Michael Slavin, Privlo CEO, observed:
“That’s a huge increase of people who are being left out of the state’s housing market. Banks still use a very narrow lens. If you’re not a W2 employee or your tax returns don’t reflect steady income, you’re out of luck. But we look beyond that and consider a wide range of alternative documentation to find highly qualified borrowers that are slipping through the cracks.”
The State is an ideal locality for Privlo to operate in. Places like Santa Fe, Las Cruces and Silver City have many retirees independent artists and writers for whom home ownership is out of reach, as they are rejected by banks due to their ‘complex’ financial histories.
Privlo specializes in lending to:
- Small business owners, entrepreneurs, and self-employed 1099 workers with spiky income
- Retirees with significant assets who may be lacking in regular income
- Credit rebuilders who have a single negative credit event (bankruptcy or foreclosure as recent as a year old, or a short sale 6 months or older, as compared to the general standard of two years or more among traditional lenders)
- Those with a limited credit history, Millennials with non-traditional career paths, and foreign nationals with work visas
Saro Vasudevan, Privlo’s Chief Credit & Product Officer, commented:
“We know W2s and tax returns don’t always tell the whole story, and that’s why we dig a lot deeper to help people who deserve to be homeowners but are unfairly turned away. Qualified borrowers like these have given up, and those are exactly the kinds of people we want to bring back into the housing market.”
Privlo is currently operating in 10 states, including California, Washington, and Texas. The platform has ambitious plans to continue growing. It aims to be active in 21 states (90% of the market) by the end of the year.
