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20 When one thinks of industry trailblazers, the name Beth O'Brien is sure to come to mind. In 2014, she founded and became CEO of CoreVest Finance (CoreVest), a leading private lender to residential real estate investors. e idea behind CoreVest, originally known as Colony American Finance, was to address the unique needs of investors in the single-family rental and bridge loan space who were not served well by either commercial or residential products. Under O'Brien's leadership, CoreVest has closed $3 billion in loans in the investor loan market and has financed more than 20,000 investment properties. Previously, she was EVP at Auction.com, where she ran residential capital markets, and was President of AuctionFinance.com, where she ran the financing strategy for the platform. Catch up with O'Brien and the latest investment trends right here. What led you to found CoreVest? I had the idea to start a private lender when I was at a previous employer, and we did actually start a private lender there. At the time, we had about half the capital, and were looking for a partner in the business. One of the companies that we went to was actually Colony, but they were not interested at the time. ey thought it was a little bit too early. We wound up using a different capital partner but fast-forward three years and Colony American Homes had just launched, and saw they need in the marketplace for investor financing. How did the conversations with Colony resume since they had originally stayed away from the project? I think the good news is that there are very strong tailwinds in that market. If you look at the household formation rates in the U.S., you'll see they're incredibly strong right now and projected to remain strong and really grow. e largest cohort in the household formation rates is really a group of households that are very well suited by the single-family rental market. What I mean by that is it's more affordable for the type of family that's being formed in the household formation rates. ey're located in the cities and the towns where people want to live and work. I went to a recent roundtable that FHFA gave on this topic, and one of the speakers mentioned it's really the first time more than 50 percent of families who live in a rental property right now are living in a single-family rental, not multifamily. It's actually a huge piece of the U.S. housing market. As a female CEO, which is rare in our industry, what advice do you have for women who are starting a career in finance? ere are definitely unique challenges that women face, but I don't feel that being a woman has been detrimental to me in my career. I think one of the reasons why is because the good news about a finance career in general is that it tends to be numbers based, and if you produce, you tend to get promoted based on your production. I would actually encourage women, even though there aren't that many women in finance, to strongly pursue it, because you can actually measure your success very easily. Sometimes, it is uncomfortable for people, and having been in the business for more than 25 years at this point, I've FIVE MINUTES WITH Get to Know Industry Executives Beyond the Boardroom "If you look at the household formation rates in the U.S., you'll see they're incredibly strong right now and projected to remain strong and really grow. The largest cohort in the household formation rates is really a group of households that are very well suited by the single-family rental market." Ali Haralson EVP of Client Management, Auction.com Beth O'Brien CEO, CoreVest Finance