GPARENCY’s Ira Zlotowitz on Disrupting Commercial Real Estate, Building the ‘Netflix of Mortgages’ and Why Transparency Is the Ultimate Equalizer
“Today, for those not familiar, in commercial real estate the borrower pays the broker, not the bank… And the fee, which never logically made sense — it’s just the way it is — is typically 1% of the loan amount. So a million-dollar deal is $10,000. A hundred-million-dollar deal is a million. Sometimes you work less on the $100 million deal… My model is simple. I say, ‘Pay me $4,500, just like you’d pay an attorney.’ I’m a professional who will shop your deal to all the banks, get you the best rate and terms, and you’re smart enough to finish the deal once you’ve got the right bank. That’s what people want.”
I had the pleasure of speaking with Ira Zlotowitz. Ira is a commercial real estate finance executive who has played a leading role in reshaping commercial mortgage brokerage models by combining smart technology with a renewed emphasis on transparency in an industry long dominated by opaque practices. Over a three-decade career, Zlotowitz has helped move the commercial mortgage business away from traditional relationship-based brokerage toward a model that emphasizes personal, human service — while using technology and data behind the scenes to ensure clients secure the best possible financing, all for just $4,500.
Zlotowitz began his career at the age of 21 with Meridian Capital Group, a then-small commercial mortgage brokerage. He introduced structural and operational changes — including the creation of a cold-calling division and an overhaul of the firm’s marketing and expansion — that contributed to a rapid expansion of Meridian’s loan volume. Over four years, the company grew from $300 million to more than $2 billion in annual transactions. By the time Zlotowitz left the firm at 25, he had attained the role of partner.
In 2001, he co-founded Eastern Union Funding with Abraham Bergman. Under Zlotowitz’s leadership, Eastern Union grew into one of the nation’s largest commercial real estate brokerages. The firm was known for its use of internal databases and digital submission tools to facilitate faster communication with lenders. At its peak, Eastern Union managed approximately $5 billion in annual loan volume and had relationships with over 3,000 lenders and actively closed with over 100 of them.
In 2021, after two decades at the helm of Eastern Union, Zlotowitz left to launch a new venture: GPARENCY, a commercial mortgage assurance brokerage designed to guarantee the best financing and allow direct access to lenders for a flat fee of just $4,500. The firm, which raised $15 million in its initial funding round, positioned itself as an alternative to traditional percentage-based brokerage models, charging clients $4,500 per transaction instead of the typical 1% commission. GPARENCY’s model also includes digital tools for underwriting, property data aggregation, and mapping, aiming to simplify deal-making for real estate owners of varying experience levels.
Zlotowitz has framed his approach as a response to shifting dynamics in commercial finance. With greater access to data and lender information now available online, he has argued that borrowers are increasingly seeking efficiency over hand-holding. GPARENCY is his attempt to anticipate and meet those expectations through a blend of automation and advisory services. Among the company’s innovations is a proprietary app that allows users to access ownership data, annotate properties, and perform basic underwriting functions in minutes.
Raised in a household steeped in Jewish publishing — his father founded ArtScroll, a widely known name in Orthodox Jewish literature — Zlotowitz credits his early exposure to entrepreneurship and community service for shaping his business philosophy. From a young age, he blended commercial instincts with charitable intent, organizing fundraising events and small ventures in his upstate New York community. These early experiences laid the groundwork for his belief in combining business with public value.
Throughout his career, Zlotowitz has maintained an emphasis on mentorship and talent development, often training new entrants into the commercial mortgage business. He has described his work as that of a trusted advisor, guiding clients through a complex and frequently misunderstood financial landscape. He has also shared his belief that many in the industry overestimate the sophistication of major players, noting that success in real estate often stems from timing and access rather than comprehensive expertise.
Zlotowitz’s entrepreneurial decisions have not been without setbacks. He has spoken candidly about early missteps at GPARENCY, including overestimating the market’s readiness for a fully automated brokerage experience. Initially delegating sales and relying on third-party testing, he found traction only after returning to direct client engagement. The experience, he says, reaffirmed the importance of first proving a concept through personal execution before scaling operations as a tech mortgage broker.
As AI and automation become increasingly relevant in finance, Zlotowitz has argued that the real estate sector must adapt or risk obsolescence. His long-term vision includes the development of an AI-powered broker, which he calls “Andre” — a tool designed to help clients navigate lending options while retaining human oversight for judgment-based decisions. He views this direction as analogous to the shift from Blockbuster to Netflix: a move from manual, in-person processes to software-driven platforms that reshape the user experience.
Zlotowitz sees transparency as both a challenge and a potential equalizer in commercial real estate. The traditional fee structures, he argues, often lack logic or fairness — charging percentage-based commissions regardless of the complexity or size of a deal. His flat-fee model is designed to align incentives between broker and client, and he has positioned GPARENCY as a solution for owners seeking predictability and lower costs in debt financing.
With GPARENCY now overseeing a quarter billion dollars in monthly transaction volume, Zlotowitz has begun fielding interest from institutional partners and investors. While he has not ruled out acquisition or public offering in the coming years, he has stated that continued organic growth remains his primary focus. He has cited firms such as CoStar and Blackstone as potential strategic partners, given their complementary interests in real estate data and capital deployment.
As he looks ahead, Zlotowitz remains focused on scaling GPARENCY while advancing a larger vision for industry-wide reform. Whether through automation, fixed-fee structures, or educational tools, he aims to lower the barriers to entry in commercial real estate finance — redefining what it means to broker trust in a data-driven era.
Yitzi: Ira, it’s an honor to meet you. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn about your personal origin story. Can you share with us a story of your childhood and how you grew up?
Ira: I was brought up — I still think I have to grow up — but in my formative years, my father, of blessed memory, started a publication company called ArtScroll, which revolutionized Jewish literature. I used to tell people he was the most famous Orthodox Jew. It might sound a little interesting, but there’s probably not a single Orthodox Jew in the world who doesn’t know his work and the name ArtScroll.
So obviously, I lived through watching it develop. Now, when you take a step back, you realize, wow, that’s that company. But I grew up through it. As I was growing up, I always had an affinity toward business of some sort. We were taught to always try to give back whatever you can.
My father didn’t like the fact that when I was in school, in Yeshiva, I was always trying to do some sort of business. He wasn’t into any of that. But I was able to do charitable events. In the summertime, I ran a carnival. I arranged it when I was about 12 years old to raise money for the local volunteer ambulance service — the Jewish one, called Hatzalah. I remember calling them up at 12 years old and saying, “Hey, I want to do a carnival and donate the proceeds to Hatzalah.” They didn’t know what I was doing, but I arranged for all the kids in the neighborhood, in the bungalow colony upstate, to help out.
Like I said, I got the benefit of doing business while giving back. My dad was fine with that — it fit the bucket. My first actual business was taking people’s garbage in the bungalow colony. I don’t know if you’ve ever been upstate, but in those bungalows in upstate New York, they have dumpsters, and you have to bring your garbage to the dumpster by a certain day. You couldn’t just leave it outside your house. You kept it in your bungalow, and when you were ready, you walked it down to the dumpster.
I got a wheelbarrow and charged each house a few dollars a week to take their garbage down. I learned about physical labor — and I also learned that it’s not scalable. I got a few other kids to help and made some deals. That was my first time doing business, and I realized even then that people are at different levels. Some people saw it as, “Let’s help the kid,” and others were like, “I paid you $3, you better do it exactly as I say.” So yeah, that was my first business. It was definitely a form of business.
Yitzi: That’s amazing. So tell us the next chapter. How did you start your career in real estate?
Ira: When I made the decision to go out and work, I didn’t have a clear idea of exactly what I wanted to do. Real estate interested me on some level. My father had a close friend in the real estate industry who offered me an interview.
While I was waiting to hear back from that job, I took one other interview at a similar company. When the first company gave me the offer, I accepted it. At the time, it was a very small mortgage brokerage firm. I was employee number 11. They were doing a few hundred million dollars in brokerage volume before I came in. With God’s help, I was able to use a lot of my talents and skills to contribute. I opened up all their offices, ran their marketing, built out the teams, and in the span of four years, the company went from $300 million to $2 billion.
They were eventually partially acquired by a bank, so their focus shifted toward representing the bank. But I wanted to be on the side representing the client. I started there when I was 21, and by the time I left at 25, I was a partner. That’s when I opened Eastern Union.
I tell people, even though the details may have changed over the years — and we’ll get to that part of the story — I’ve really been doing the same thing my whole life: I’m a trusted advisor in the mortgage business, helping people get the best financing. In the early days, people had no access to banks. I was the connection to get them in. Then, as the internet developed and people had access to data, the question became, how can I shop the broader market for you and find the banks you didn’t even know existed?
In the beginning, even if you knew the banks, they wouldn’t take your call. Later, they’d take your call, but you didn’t know they existed. Now, everyone knows everything. So the value has shifted — how can I make it more efficient, help someone shop the market, narrow it down? And eventually, it’s going to be about AI. People will say, “I can do it myself, just give me the AI tools.” We’re working on building that as well.
Yitzi: It’s been said that sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Do you have a story about a humorous mistake you made when you were first starting, and the lesson you learned from it?
Ira: Yes, I do. It’s not exactly humorous, but I definitely agree that we learn the most from our mistakes — or as I like to say, our learning experiences. God puts you through tests. In the moment, they’re tough, but when you look back, you realize, thank God I went through that. Different stages, different challenges, all part of the journey.
I think the biggest mistake in my current business came when I opened it. Just to give a little background — I was always doing commercial mortgages. My former company was Eastern Union. We got a venture capital offer to build what was essentially the “Netflix” of commercial real estate. That’s how GPARENCY was born.
The goal was twofold: one, to build a membership-based software platform; and two, to offer clients guaranteed access to the best deals for a fixed fee, kind of like paying an attorney. The idea was to create a hybrid between a tech solution and a mortgage insurance-style brokerage.
When I launched it, I got advice from people saying, “If you want to build a company that can go public and be bigger than you, it has to function without you. You can’t be the one selling.” So I spent my time teaching others how to sell, using third-party people for market research and product testing. But I knew that when I spoke to clients, they loved the product — just not in the same way the salespeople were pitching it.
About a year ago, I realized something wasn’t clicking. We weren’t getting the right traction. I said, “Okay, something’s wrong. Let me go back to basics. I’m going to start selling myself.” That shift — going back to doing what I knew worked — was the game changer. Once I started selling, the company became successful and scalable. Then, and only then, did it make sense to scale.
I saw a clip recently of Elon Musk talking about this exact issue. He said the biggest mistake companies make is focusing on scale first — automation, process, all of that. His message was: first do the work, then make it efficient, then automate, and then scale. I couldn’t agree more. That insight really hit home for me.
Another mistake, tied into the first, was how I raised money. I sold investors on the future — on a big vision. Think about Netflix. When they started, they didn’t talk about streaming. They just offered DVDs by mail with a monthly subscription. Then they added streaming.
My mistake was that I also pitched clients on the endgame: an AI broker with a human in the loop, fully automated. But the market wasn’t ready for that. Clients didn’t want to hear about it. They didn’t want a computer helping them; they wanted a broker. So in the beginning, I was trying to sell this high-tech, automated, subscription-based solution — and it didn’t land.
Eventually, I took a step back and flipped the script. I said, let’s put all the technology in the background — even though we just rolled out our app — and focus on solving one problem with one human solution. And let me be the one selling it. Once I perfected the messaging myself, only then did we begin working on scaling.
It may sound like a nuanced change, but for me, it was the biggest game changer.
Yitzi: We love hearing stories where someone who’s a bit further ahead opens a door or creates an opportunity for somebody else, and it changes their life or career trajectory. Can you share a story where someone did that for you, or where you did that for someone else?
Ira: For me, I feel like that happens every day. I’m blessed to be in a business that’s deal-driven, high-volume, and every day brings a new story. Each of those stories opens up a different door. So for me, it wasn’t one single, defining moment — it was a series of doors. One person would help, then someone else, and I grew from each of those points. I was brought up with the mindset of paying it forward. When I meet people, I always ask myself, how can I help them in their business? I also look at it as a win-win.
I have a story about someone who was studying in Yeshiva. In the Orthodox community, it’s common for people to continue studying Talmud even after getting married. This was in the early 2000s, around the time when Google AdWords was just getting started. This guy, a neighbor of mine, was very bright and analytical — he had a real knack for marketing. He came to me and asked what I thought he could do as he transitioned into the workforce.
I told him, “If you’re interested in that, Google is doing a presentation tomorrow, and they’re offering a course.” I said, “If you want to learn it, I’ll sponsor you — but you’ll practice on my company.” And that’s exactly what happened. Today, he’s a major CMO, CTO and business consultant. He ran a company that was bought out by private equity, and now he’s opened his own consulting business at the next level. He told me that was the turning point — he saw something coming to the market and was given the opportunity to jump in.
I come from a family that gave back to the Jewish world through literature. I missed my calling to be a rabbi, so I said, let me teach as much as I can in this business. That’s been my whole career — training people in commercial real estate. If I can help someone and pay it forward, that’s my drive.
David Bistricer once told me the goal in life is to help people and make money — and if you can do both at the same time, that’s amazing. I’ve been fortunate enough to train and mentor many people who came in with nothing and walked out making millions, eventually even buying real estate themselves. I’m grateful for that, but I also know it’s a talent God gave me, and I believe you have to pay that forward.
Yitzi: What has been the most challenging role or the most challenging project you’ve taken on and why?
Ira: The most challenging thing for me — though also the most rewarding — was when I left that first company. When you open something new, the company you’re leaving usually isn’t thrilled, and you’re starting from scratch. You have to build a business while dealing with the fallout. Even when I opened this current company, I left during the heyday of the market. I launched GPARENCY in 2021. Business had been booming — 2019 was incredible — and people thought the brokerage world was on fire. So when I left, people thought I’d lost my mind and asked. “Why and how are you going to make this work?” they asked. But that willingness to take the risk is exactly what allowed me to succeed and raise the money we did — it was the largest seed round in our space.
But starting up GPARENY and then having the real estate market crash, seeing valuations shift, needing to bring on new people, pivoting the business — it was clearly the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. When I look back, I used to think each previous step was the big one. I helped a company go from $300 million to $2 billion. Then I opened Eastern Union, and with God’s help, we took it to $5 billion a year — number ten in the country, number three in transactional volume. I thought the next step would be a walk in the park: get big venture money, everything falls into place. I realized that everything I’d done until then was just practice. This was the real thing — showtime.
And thank God, I feel like I’m finally on the other side of the mountain. We’re gaining serious traction, getting tremendous inbound leads. I just pray that the lessons I’ve learned — and the humility I’ve been forced to develop during the tough times — stay with me. You like stories, so here’s one: someone once told my dad, “You’re very generous.” He said, “I’m not generous. I just remember when I didn’t have the money.” That stuck with me. I try to freeze moments like that and carry them with me.
Yitzi: You have so much impressive work. Can you tell us about the new projects you’re working on now?
Ira: In the business, the new project I’m working on is the rollout of an app — one I believe is going to revolutionize the industry. What’s interesting is, when it comes to commercial real estate, there really aren’t great tools to start with. It’s fragmented. You need to go all over the place to find information.
So, we’re rolling out an app because, even now, when someone’s looking to buy a piece of commercial real estate — a single building or an entire portfolio — they still start with a Google search. That’s kind of crazy, right? You’d think there’d be a better solution.
I built an app that’s like Google, overlaid with public data, so you can instantly see who owns a property and what the story is. You can drop notes, leave comments — it pins a red dot on the map. So later, if you’re thinking, “What was that building I saw in Maryland?” you just type in Maryland, hover over the map, and you’ll see the red pin. You can click in and drill down to that exact property.
We also built a $2.5mm underwriting calculator that lets you underwrite a deal in under three minutes down to the LP’s IRR and then have AI do a write-up.. Even if you don’t know real estate, you can still use it. I’ve spent my whole career teaching people, but I feel like this is the next evolution. From there, the app will eventually recommend the right lender, and the bigger vision is to build what I call “Andre” — the first AI mortgage broker with a human in the loop.
That’s the big next step: bringing it all together. If I’m lucky enough, using an analogy, my old business was like Blockbuster. Now I’ve built Netflix. And I always said I’m never going to let myself get “Netflixed” out of my own industry. When the opportunity came, people told me I was starting a few years early. But thank God, in hindsight, that timing was right.
So right now, I’m the DVDs — the $4,500 guaranteed best deal, full-service mortgage assurance broker. But the future is streaming. The streaming version in our space is: give me an AI mortgage broker that just gets it done. That’s the challenge and the opportunity — bringing AI into the business in a truly meaningful way.
Yitzi: Can you explain the story behind the name GPARENCY?
Ira: I’ve always tried to live my life as transparently as possible. I’m on LinkedIn all the time, and I posted there saying I was opening a business and asked if anyone had ideas for names. I ran an incentive program, and two names came back — one of them was GPARENCY. It really fit everything. It’s all about transparency. How can I use transparency to tell you everything? Like Sai Sim says, “The educated consumer is the best customer.”
In some industries, especially as a mortgage broker, when you’re charging someone $100,000, $200,000, $300,000, they’re going to look for 300,000 reasons to cut you out. The more they know about the industry, the more comfortable they feel — and they think they don’t need you. My product is the opposite: the more they know, the better. It’s all about being transparent.
The name itself stands for GP, which is short for General Partner — that’s what a real estate owner is — and transparency. I’m going to be fully transparent with you as a GP. Whatever you need to know, I’ll give you the advice and guidance. And hopefully, as the app develops, it’ll become a web-based tool that puts everything they need right in the palm of their hands.
Yitzi: I was thinking that you were ahead of ChatGPT. GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer.
Ira: Oh, that’s good. That’s good. No, but this was before — actually, in 2021, you didn’t have GPTs yet. Very good, I like that.
Yitzi: Okay, beautiful. Let’s jump to the core of our interview. Can you share with us a few things that most concern you about the real estate industry right now? And if you had the ability to improve them, what would you suggest?
Ira: The biggest concern is really the lack of transparency. If I’m successful in the mission, everything will shift — it’ll become a game of chess. Everyone will know everything. If you’re creative and willing to take certain risks, you’ll know going in what you’re willing to do, and you’ll understand the landscape. But right now, it’s very opaque. People don’t know what others are paying in fees or how deal structures work. People get messed up by assumptions. The more transparency out there, the better.
I built a business model that’s aligned with that. The more transparent it is, the better it is for me.
Today, for those not familiar, in commercial real estate the borrower pays the broker, not the bank. On a home mortgage, if you use a mortgage broker, it probably doesn’t affect you much since the lender pays. In many industries, the other side pays. But here, the client pays. And the fee, which never logically made sense — it’s just the way it is — is typically 1% of the loan amount. So a million-dollar deal is $10,000. A hundred-million-dollar deal is a million. Sometimes you work less on the $100 million deal, because you’re dealing with a sophisticated person and the bank’s desperate for the business.
As you go up the flag pole, it’s different. If you’re walking into Chase with a million-dollar deal, it’s a whole process if an issue arises. But if you’re walking in with a $100 million deal, it might cross Jamie Dimon’s desk — or someone just below him. You’re dealing with people who can make decisions quickly.
I gave someone this example: Imagine you call me and say, “Ira, do me a favor. My son’s buying his first building in my backyard. It’s a small $1mm project — $800,000 loan, and he’s putting in $200,000 to fix it up. Can you help get him a loan?” He has no track record. So I call a bank and say, “Listen, I know this guy Yitzi, he’s good for it. Underwrite the deal, you can trust him.” I’m using a favor to get that deal done. When it closes — the financing is $800,000 — my fee is $8,000. Maybe you tell your son to round it up to $10,000, be generous, send me a gift before the holiday. That makes sense.
Then, all of a sudden, I get a call from a big real estate tycoon — someone I trained who once brokered for Donald Trump, back before he was president. Imagine they say, “I’ve got my first building. It’s worth $100 million, I want to borrow $40 million.” Every bank is begging for that deal — it’s a game changer. My fee would be $400,000. Then the night before closing, I get a call: “Can you do me a favor? The estate says we should really borrow $47 million.” I call the bank — no problem. There’s $100 million in value, they’ll do it all day. My fee jumps from $400,000 to $470,000. On what planet does that make sense? It doesn’t. But it’s just how it works.
What people also don’t realize is that 80% of owners go direct to the bank without a broker. You’re in a business where people just don’t know how brokerage fees work, why people are paying at different price points, who’s in on the deal and who’s not.
So my model is simple. I say, “Pay me $4,500, just like you’d pay an attorney.” I’m a professional who will shop your deal to all the banks, get you the best rate and terms, and you’re smart enough to finish the deal once you’ve got the right bank. That’s what people want. They want an insurance-style broker — someone who guarantees a solid outcome.The best is they can also stay with their own broker.
If you’re going direct, you’re part of the 80%. Don’t you want to shop the broader market? For $4,500, you can. If you already have a broker you love, for $4,500 I’ll keep them in check, shop the broader market, and advise you without any ulterior motive.
So at $4,500, as the market becomes more automated and transparent, my cost to process a loan goes down, and I’m still profitable. Over time, it only gets better. When I was in the old model, I made money because people didn’t know which banks were out there. The more informed the client was, they’d still use me, but they’d negotiate my fee down. Now, my motive is aligned at every step to move things in the right direction. I’ve positioned myself in a way where I make money and my motives are aligned. I always wanted to be in that kind of boat. I tell owners, I’ll be the only person in the deal with no ulterior motive. If I’m charging you a fee, I’m motivated to win your business and guide you in the best direction — even if that means advising against going with a particular bank. Transparency is what’s going to fix the industry. I think we’re getting there.
I think with Trump in office — not because of Trump himself, but I’ll share something interesting. I don’t know when this will air, but here’s what I’ve noticed: I get people to speak and open up — that’s one of my strengths. I started to notice that people who used to hate politics, who hated talking about certain policies or topics, now they’re speaking freely. They’ll say what they think about the president, about how fast he’s doing things — good, bad, whatever. You can have an opinion now. It’s not like before, where people didn’t want to talk. Now everyone’s opening up.
So I think what’s really going to change things is automation — government systems becoming digital, will create more streamlining and efficiency. That’s going to make a massive difference. There are still a few people making money on “off-market” CRE deals, but really, there’s no such thing as off-market anymore. That’s basically gone — and very soon it will be gone for good.
You’ve got bots now, you’ve got people building with AI. My son has a company where he acts like an outsourced CAO — Chief Automation Officer. The future is clear. Everyone’s going to know everything. You’ll still need advisors along the way, and that’s the role I want to be in. Every time someone asks me what I’m going to do with AI, I say it’s replacing 80% of jobs.not because AI will replace us but each person can do 5x the norm. I want to be positioned like Wayne Gretzky said — go where the puck is going. And for me, the puck is going toward automation.
Thank God I made that move. I don’t know where I’d be right heading right now long term if I’d just built a big brokerage firm still doing things the old-school way. Now I’m hedged on both sides of the coin.
Yitzi: On the flip side, aside from what you just said, can you share a few things that most excite you about the real estate industry?
Ira: What I love most about the real estate industry is that people don’t realize how vast and big it really is. You can be creative every single day. There’s always something new happening. It’s not like doing a loan with a 30-year fixed rate — things are adjustable, dynamic. You have to adapt. You bring your creativity as the market shifts in different areas.
For example, I just did presentation on autonomous cars and how I think they’ll affect commercial real estate. If you think about it, people might not mind living in the suburbs anymore, because they won’t be driving — they’ll just be sitting in a car. If that’s the case, how does that impact certain areas? What happens with parking lots or parking stations? You can start planning around these trends. And as long as you have the capital and the appetite for risk, you can play. The whole country becomes your backyard — your playing field.
There are so many different levels you can operate on. And because real estate is backed by something tangible, there are always people willing to take different layers of risk. So there’s really no end to the creativity. But the issue, like we talked about before, is the lack of transparency.
The bigger players, historically, had a motive to keep things opaque and unautomated. In contrast, look at tech companies like Google — the more transparent and automated they are, the more profitable they become. But in real estate, a big owner gains an edge from keeping things under wraps. If everyone knows everything, those big players lose their advantage and get marginalized on the playing field.
Yitzi: This is our signature question, the center part of our interview. Ira, you’re a real estate insider, you’ve been blessed with a lot of success. If you had to advise somebody about five non-intuitive things to succeed in the real estate industry, what would you say?
Ira: I think what’s non-intuitive is that a lot of these things are actually transferable to other industries.
Number one, don’t assume that just because someone is more successful or owns more real estate, they’re more knowledgeable overall. Aside from the luck, the mazal that comes from God, let’s talk about it practically. I look at it like this: our job is to focus on our inputs — doing the work — and God takes care of the outputs. In most industries, the most successful person — like Elon Musk — is brilliant in all areas. In real estate, it doesn’t work that way. Someone could have just gotten lucky. They knew one thing, bought in the right market, and it took off. That’s it. They weren’t a genius. They can’t necessarily advise on anything else. I’ll never forget this story. A major real estate player told me — he owns big office buildings — he gets a call from his nephew who says, “Uncle Abe, can you help me out? I’m buying a building.” He wants advice. So he tells him, “I’m buying a small building, one store with two apartments upstairs.” And the guy thinks, “I can’t advise him. I don’t own buildings that small. I don’t know what it’s like to run a building without a $250,000 executive manager and a whole team. I don’t know what it’s like when you lose one tenant.” The biggest names in the business — don’t assume they know everything. They know their one thing, and that’s it.
Two, it’s the same on the banking side. People think, “Oh, this bank, I’ve got to position myself perfectly.” But there are just people on the other side who have a quota to fill. If you fit what they need, great. If not, then not. Once a bank is interested in your type of deal, they’ll do your loan. The hard part is just finding the right bank. But people think, “Even if Bank A is perfect for me, they’re not going to like me because I’m small.” No. That’s exactly why we brought you to Bank A — because they’re looking for people like you. They’d rather deal with you directly.
The third thing, which is interesting, is that no matter how big someone is, they always think they’re small.
I’ll tell you a great story. When we started out, we went to the shopping center show. I think we were the second mortgage broker ever to take a booth there. The show’s for landlords and tenants. I figured, landlords and tenants are there — I want to be there. It’s a very expensive show, so anyone there must be important, because in big organizations, only the important people get sent. We were brand new, had a booth, and I remember this one guy walks up and says, “I’m a small guy. I have like 20 centers, but each one is less than $10 million.” And we’re thinking, “You’re a big guy to us — if we got you as a client, that’d be huge.” But in his mind, he’s small. So my top broker told him, “Normally we have a $10 million minimum, but if you commit that if we do a good job, you’ll give us all your deals — we’ll start.” Everyone thinks they’re small, no matter how big they are. In real estate, you might be talking to someone who’s a billionaire, but they own nine buildings. And there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of buildings out there. They don’t realize how big they actually are. Once you get comfortable with the idea that this industry is full of regular people — people like me and you — that’s the game changer.
Yitzi: This is our final aspirational question. Ira, because of your great work and the platform that you’ve built, you’re a person of enormous influence. If you could put out an idea, spread an idea, or inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Ira: I have a lot of different answers. It all ties back to charity and giving back. I know with my drive, my goal — God willing — is to build the business to the level I envision, hopefully with a unicorn exit. And my plan is that, as an Orthodox Jew, there’s no centralized app right now because technology was frowned upon for a while in our community. But I want to create a platform where everything an Orthodox Jew might need — from cradle to grave — is incorporated into one app. Bringing everyone’s talents together to build it.
The idea is to get people to pay it forward. Everyone has their own talents. Use your talent — you don’t need to be something different. Come together like a team. I said “baseball team,” but maybe that’s not the best analogy. The point is, everyone brings something different to the table. Just start doing something.
The message I always tell people is this: every big idea starts with just taking a step. People imagine these massive plans, but it doesn’t begin that way. My father, for example, was a graphic artist. When his friend passed away, he translated the Book of Esther in his memory. He never thought it would go anywhere. It sold out, then the next edition did too, and one day he realized how far it had gone. Same thing in business — ask most people how they started, and it began with one simple step.
So the movement is: if you have a good idea, act on it. Take that step. Try to give back as much as you can.
And I have to say, you asked some great questions. They weren’t the obvious ones, and I hadn’t seen them beforehand. But really, the message is just to give back.
I also think we’re on the verge of something massive with AI. I don’t think people are ready for it. A lot of people have their heads in the sand. Hopefully, they pull them out in time. I tell people all the time — my belief is that 80% of current jobs will be gone. What will be recreated? I don’t know. But if 80% of jobs disappear, and my network represents less than 20% of the world, then if that small group of people takes AI seriously — learns the tools and gets comfortable with them — they’ll be part of the group that always has work and thrives going forward.
Yitzi: Great. I wasn’t planning to ask this, but I might as well, since we’re already being aspirational. Who would be the dream company — the dream private equity or VC firm — that you’d love to talk to, that might consider an acquisition?
Ira: We think about that all the time. One of the things we’ve even discussed is whether we could license out our proprietary banking data. What I have, better than anyone else, is banking data. No one else has what I have.
To get real banking data, there are only three ways: you can buy public data, you can talk to banks and get what they’ll tell you — because they don’t post commercial rates — or you learn it by actually doing deals and having a lot of deal flow.
So, best-case scenario? We become something like a Bloomberg Terminal — steady cash flow and never sell. Go public. But if not that, then we think about who would be the right acquirer. Maybe a company like CoStar, who would want our data sets to enhance their platform. Or someone trying to compete with Bloomberg, who needs banking, real estate, and finance information — we have that, and they don’t.
Or maybe we go to a bank or private equity firm like Blackstone. They have plenty of capital but need deal flow. And that’s what we can provide. These are the things we’re always thinking about. It’s similar to how someone might think about ChatGPT — maybe acquiring it not just for the tech, but for the unique data you can’t get anywhere else.
The original plan was always a five-to-seven-year play. So going into 2026 is really when we’re planning to start taking exit opportunities seriously. The question is, where do we want to be long-term? Do we go public? Stay private? Bring in more capital to scale to the next level? That’s what we’re working through now.
Yitzi: Was it Blackstone or BlackRock?
Ira: So, Blackstone does more in real estate. BlackRock has more money, right? But really, it’s about finding the right fit. You need someone who needs deal flow. There’s a company called Benefit Street Partners, for example — not as big as the others, but they need deal flow.
If I’m being successful in streamlining and bringing in all the deal flow — especially at my price point, $4,500 per deal and using AI — then I don’t believe you need that many lenders. Some people say go the other way: raise more money and buy a bank. Others say partner with a bank that wants that flow. Maybe it’s an insurance company that sees the value.
But if we’re talking about someone like Blackstone — they’re in real estate and have capital to deploy. What I’ve learned is that the big players want to stroke $100 million, $250 million checks. They don’t want to deal with smaller loans. I’m fine with that. When we did $5 billion worth of loans, we were number 10 in the country, and we did that through a thousand deals. Average loan size? $5 million.
Right now, we’re doing around $250 million a month, and growing every month, thank God. I hope to get to a place where we’re controlling $50 to $100 billion in deal flow — getting paid $4,500 per transaction. So the right partner is someone who wants to benefit from that.
Do we partner up to do table funding deals? Do we buy a bank? Somewhere along the way, someone’s going to come and say, “Ira, we’ll supercharge you.” Or maybe we take it the other way and do it ourselves. If there’s going to be an exit, it’s probably going to be to a bank or an institution along those lines.
I hadn’t really thought specifically about Blackstone or BlackRock, but it depends. Someone once told me, “If your vision is strong enough, you can take it to the end of the movie yourself.” But let’s be real — if I’m worth a dollar and someone offers me five, you sell. That’s the question. If the offer is good enough, you walk.
But right now, I’m having a lot of fun. A year or two ago, it was much more stressful. Thank God, we’ve got momentum now, and hopefully it continues.
Yitzi: We’re very blessed that prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person you’d like to sit down and have lunch with or collaborate with? Because we could tag them on social media — maybe we could connect you.
Ira: I’ll tell you — when Howard Lutnick came on the scene and started working with the Trump Organization, that was a game-changer. He’s someone who would’ve definitely been on my list. He’s in real estate, he’s transactional, and he believes in AI — so a lot of alignment there. The question now is, with his kids taking over the business, what’s the best way to approach that?
But I’ve also learned in this business that you keep your head down and just keep doing deals, over and over again. Especially in a volume business like ours. In the last few months, thank God, we broke out — we’re doing a quarter billion dollars a month. Once we hit $400 million, $500 million a month, the big players take notice.
Howard Lutnick was definitely one of the names that came up in early discussions about a potential exit. But again, I try to follow the same advice I give others: just do your job every single day. If you try to force an exit or chase the big meeting, it usually doesn’t go well. Stay focused, stay consistent, and when the timing is right, those opportunities will come. Let’s just keep growing.
Yitzi: How can our readers get in touch with you? How can they continue to follow your work? How can our readers support you in any possible way?
Ira: I appreciate it. The way readers can support me in any way is just to pay it forward. If they know someone who’s looking for a mortgage, or they’re investing with someone in a deal, they can say, “Hey, for $4,500, there’s a due diligence product.” They should make sure that if someone is investing, they’re double-checking everything, getting the best deal, and making sure there’s nothing they’re missing that could come back to hurt them. That’s one way. Every one of your readers is involved in real estate at some level — they invest in it, or they know someone who does. I believe in that 100%. And as a way to give back and help them, I’ve created a free app with all the tools they might need. That’s my way of contributing.
And then, of course, they can use the app. I’ll give my contact information too. What’s interesting is that, even though I’m a big delegator, I have one phone number and I give it out. I try to respond to every message. My cell is 917–597–2197. My email is [email protected]. I’m also on LinkedIn — I personally manage my LinkedIn 100%. For the other social platforms, I oversee them, but as they’ve started to pick up, I’m not sure how they’ll be managed going forward. I’m on TikTok too, as long as TikTok stays around. We’ll take it from there.
Yitzi: Amazing. Well Ira, it’s been a delight and an honor to meet you and talk to you. Wish you continued success and good health. I hope we can do this again next year.
Ira: Amen. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Yitzi: Thank you. My pleasure.
GPARENCY’s Ira Zlotowitz on Disrupting Commercial Real Estate, Building the ‘Netflix of Mortgages’… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.