Ryan Gadles, Gadles Development, LLC

As I read all the articles being published today, I see so much information on the “cranes” being seen in the Boston skyline, the billion dollar real estate projects in the Seaport and all the other sexy headlining projects downtown. I can only speak from my own personal experience as a lender, financier and developer, but I find the middle market commercial residential space to be less discussed about, but creating mini millionaires every single day.

To me, that’s the real story. What lies beneath the headlines affects more people more closely than the next 65 story tower in the Seaport. Now, admittedly I too am enamored with the level of development taking place in the city right now and surely expect to be participating in it as my career grows, but exploring what I see from the street level entrepreneur is really something that is amazing.

Over the past 5 years, we have written over 275 loans and closed more than $100 million in funding for real estate renovations or new construction projects. Just the past 2 years comprises 60% of that business. We have the best job in the world. We get to originate the loans, sit in the front during the construction phase and then watch the sales take place. Fortunately, the sales over the past 2 years have been very frequent and high in value. When we see those closing statements, we witness first hand mini millionaires being created. We literally see these real estate entrepreneurs profiting. We see lifestyles changed, we see philanthropy increased, we see neighborhoods booming in value and quality, and we see personal and business growth. It’s an honor to provide the capital and watch this flourish.  Plus, we LOVE doing deals.

Now don’t get me wrong, we see the occasional flash in the pan real estate guy, but maybe that’s for a different article. For this piece, I wanted to let people know how much business is being done at the street level.

From South Boston to Somerville, to Cambridge to Quincy, hundreds of millions of private capital, is flowing to small real estate entrepreneurs, and they are killing it.  At $100 million over the past 5 years, we are probably only 20% of the local market place, and that is just a rough estimate based on the volume our competitive financiers are doing.

Middle market real estate entrepreneurs BOOMED in 2015. From what I can see 2016 will create more of a BOOM and many more mini millionaire real estate entrepreneurs. Keep a look out!

Ryan Gadles is co-founder of Gadles Development, LLC, Quincy, MA