Thursday, August 6
Business · Technology · Leadership

How fundivi’s Hybrid Model Gives Business Owners More Ways to Get to Yes

A single lender, no matter how well built, can only say yes to businesses that fit its own specific criteria. fundivi‘s hybrid model was built to expand that yes considerably, combining direct lending with a network of vetted partners so more businesses walk away with a real funding option rather than a flat decline.

Why One Set of Criteria Was Never Going to Be Enough

Every lender’s underwriting model reflects specific assumptions about risk, industry, revenue pattern, and business type. No single set of criteria, regardless of how well designed, can accurately evaluate every kind of business fairly. A model built around steady, predictable monthly revenue may undervalue a seasonal business with a completely normal, industry-standard revenue pattern. fundivi’s hybrid structure acknowledges this reality directly rather than pretending a single underwriting approach can serve every legitimate business equally well.

How the Hybrid Model Turns Maybes and Nos Into Yeses

When an application doesn’t fit fundivi’s own direct lending criteria precisely, the hybrid model doesn’t stop there. The same application is evaluated against fundivi’s vetted partner network, built over years of established lending relationships, to identify a structure that genuinely fits. This means a business that might have received a flat decline from a single-product lender instead receives a real, workable offer through a partner suited to its specific profile, all within the same application and relationship.

More Paths Means More Businesses Get to Yes

This structural flexibility is a large part of why fundivi has been able to fund more than three thousand businesses across nearly every industry. A construction contractor with project-based revenue, a seasonal retailer with predictable but uneven monthly income, and a professional services firm billing on extended payment terms all represent different risk profiles that a single, narrow underwriting model would struggle to evaluate fairly and consistently. fundivi’s hybrid approach means each of these businesses has a genuine path to a yes, rather than being filtered out by a one-size-fits-all standard.

How This Applies to fundivi’s Line of Credit Product

fundivi’s flexible line of credit, offering revolving capital from ten thousand dollars to one million dollars with decisions typically available within one to three days, benefits directly from this hybrid flexibility. A business seeking ongoing, flexible access to capital might be funded directly by fundivi when its profile fits cleanly, or matched with a partner lender specializing in revolving credit structures for its specific industry or revenue pattern, all without the business owner needing to manage that complexity independently.

Why More Paths to Yes Benefits the Whole Small Business Economy

The value of this hybrid approach extends beyond any individual business’s funding outcome. When a meaningful share of otherwise creditworthy businesses are filtered out simply because they don’t match one lender’s narrow criteria, the broader economy loses out on growth, jobs, and investment that those businesses would have generated with appropriate access to capital. fundivi’s hybrid model, by expanding the range of businesses that receive a genuine funding offer, contributes to a healthier overall small business lending market, one where a business’s actual creditworthiness matters more than whether it happens to fit a single lender’s specific, sometimes arbitrary, underwriting template.

This broader impact is part of why fundivi has continued to expand its partner network over time, recognizing that every additional well-vetted partner relationship translates directly into more businesses receiving a fair, genuine opportunity rather than an automatic decline.

What This Means for Businesses With Unconventional Profiles

Businesses with less conventional financial profiles, multiple revenue streams, a recent significant change in business model, or a mix of B2B and direct consumer revenue, often struggle the most with rigid, single-lender underwriting models built around simpler, more predictable business types. fundivi’s hybrid approach is particularly valuable for exactly these kinds of businesses, since the combination of direct lending and a diverse partner network means an unconventional profile is more likely to find a genuine fit somewhere within that broader structure than it would applying to a single, narrowly-focused lender.

Business owners with this kind of complexity in their financial profile often assume, based on past experience with more rigid lenders, that they simply don’t fit any standard underwriting box. fundivi’s hybrid model is specifically designed to prove that assumption wrong more often than a single-lender alternative ever could.

How the Partner Network Continues to Expand Over Time

fundivi’s vetted partner network isn’t a static list established once and left unchanged, it continues to grow as fundivi identifies additional trusted lending relationships across new industries, regions, and specialized financing structures. This ongoing expansion means the range of businesses that can find a genuine yes through fundivi’s hybrid model keeps widening over time, rather than remaining fixed at whatever level of coverage existed when the company first launched its hybrid approach.

This continuous growth reflects fundivi’s broader operating philosophy: that the goal isn’t simply to serve the businesses that happen to fit easily within existing criteria, but to actively expand the definition of who can be served fairly and efficiently. Each new partner relationship represents another category of business that previously might have faced a decline now having a genuine, well-matched path to funding instead.

What This Means When Comparing fundivi to a Single-Product Alternative

When comparing fundivi against a lender that offers only a single financing structure, the practical difference becomes clear the moment a business’s needs shift even slightly outside that lender’s narrow specialty. A single-product lender either fits or it doesn’t, with no meaningful alternative within that same relationship if the fit isn’t there. fundivi’s hybrid model removes this all-or-nothing dynamic entirely, since the same application that might not fit fundivi’s own direct criteria can still find a home within the broader partner network, all without the business owner needing to start an entirely separate search from scratch.

This distinction becomes especially valuable for growing businesses whose financing needs evolve over time. A business that fit cleanly into fundivi’s direct lending criteria during an earlier, simpler stage might develop a more complex financial profile as it grows, and the hybrid model ensures that evolution doesn’t automatically mean outgrowing the relationship entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the hybrid model mean I have a better chance of approval with fundivi than with a single lender?

The hybrid model expands the range of business profiles that can receive a genuine funding offer, since an application that doesn’t fit fundivi’s direct criteria can still be matched with a suitable partner.

How do I know if I’ll be funded directly or matched with a partner?

fundivi’s underwriting technology evaluates this automatically as part of the application process, matching each business with whichever structure genuinely fits its specific profile.

Is a line of credit through a partner lender structured differently than one directly through fundivi?

Terms are based on the specific lender’s assessment of your business, whether that’s fundivi directly or a vetted partner, though the application and relationship remain unified either way.

Does this hybrid approach take longer than applying to a single lender?

Generally no, since the matching process happens automatically within the same fast underwriting timeline rather than requiring a separate, additional application step.

Can a business that doesn’t fit any single lender’s criteria still get funded through fundivi?

While no platform can guarantee funding for every business, fundivi’s combination of direct lending and a broad partner network is specifically designed to maximize the range of businesses that receive a genuine offer.

Does the hybrid model apply to fundivi’s other products beyond lines of credit?

Yes, the same hybrid structure applies across fundivi’s full range of funding solutions, including working capital, term loans, and bridge capital.

fundivi’s hybrid model exists because business owners deserve more than a single narrow shot at approval from one rigid underwriting model. Check your eligibility today and see how a flexible line of credit built around finding your best available option, rather than a single fixed criteria set, can turn what might have been a decline elsewhere into a genuine yes.

As Public Trust Erodes, a Former Harvard Medical School Lecturer Wrote the Book That Explains Why and Offers Understanding Over Alarm

By: Andy Carson

There is a particular kind of intellectual courage required to look at the current state of human civilization, the wars and the climate catastrophe and the epidemic of disinformation and the steady erosion of institutional trust, and say clearly and without the comfort of ideological framing: this is what human psychology actually produces under these conditions, and here is why. Michael S. Levy, PhD, has that courage, and he exercises it throughout The Splendor and Dangerousness of Homo Sapiens with the directness and the intellectual honesty of someone who has spent decades in clinical settings where comfortable fictions are a therapeutic liability. As a former clinical director of multiple mental health and substance use treatment programs and a longtime lecturer at Harvard Medical School’s Division of Addictions, he has spent his career watching human psychology produce suffering at the individual level. In this book, he broadens that observation to the species, and what he finds is both alarming and clarifying.

The clarification comes from Levy’s identification of three defining human attributes at the root of both our most extraordinary achievements and our most destructive tendencies. Refined consciousness, advanced cognitive ability, and the unmatched capacity for communication, these are not three separate phenomena that happen to coexist in human beings. They are three dimensions of a single extraordinary cognitive package that produced every significant achievement of human civilization and that, when combined with unchecked self-interest, produces the specific forms of destruction that are now threatening the civilization they helped create. Levy traces the mechanisms of that production with the precision of someone who has analyzed human psychological dynamics professionally for decades, and that precision gives the analysis its particular usefulness. He is not simply describing the problem. He explains it in a way that reveals the mechanisms that produce it, which is the necessary precondition for beginning to address it.

The book arrives at exactly the right moment. Public trust in institutions, in media, in each other, continues to erode at a pace that previous generations would have found almost unimaginable, and the frameworks that most people are using to understand that erosion, political, economic, technological- are not wrong exactly, but they are incomplete. They describe the symptoms without fully accounting for the psychology that produces them. Levy supplies that psychology with the authority of clinical expertise and the breadth of someone who has spent his career thinking seriously about what human beings are and what they are capable of becoming.

The practical suggestions he offers are not a list of easy remedies. They are the careful, evidence-based recommendations of a clinician who knows what actual change requires of actual people and who is committed to honest assessment of what is realistically achievable rather than inspiring exaggeration of human potential. That honesty is what makes them worth taking seriously, and it runs through every section of this remarkable and necessary book.

If you have been watching the current state of human civilization and wanting an explanation grounded in genuine psychological understanding rather than political analysis or moral panic, The Splendor and Dangerousness of Homo Sapiens by Michael S. Levy, PhD, is the book that provides it with the precision and the compassion that clinical expertise uniquely makes possible. The book is available on Amazon for readers who want to understand the species they belong to with the clarity that the moment demands.

After 16 Years in Law, International Trade, Leadership, and Advising CEOs, Marty Snyder Wrote a Book Only He Could Write.

By: Alfon Louge

A particular kind of credibility comes not from a single impressive achievement but from a career that has moved through enough different worlds to see the patterns that cut across them all. Marty Snyder has that credibility. In The Pinball Theory of Business and Life, he uses it to say things about leadership that most leadership books aren’t positioned to say.

His career began in law, where he spent more than two decades covering an unusually wide range of legal areas and clients. That breadth was followed by an unexpected pivot into international trade, eventually leading him into direct export operations across France, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, etc, and a business venture in Russia. The Russian experience, which ended with a sovereign debt default that the Russian government had never before declared and that sent shockwaves through every Western business operating in the country, forced him to confront a truth that changed everything about how he understood success.

Clear goals, good strategy, and excellent planning are not sufficient to reasonably assure intended results. There are forces beyond a leader’s control that no amount of preparation can fully anticipate. The question is not whether those forces will arrive. It’s what a leader does when they do.

What International Experience Adds

Marty’s time in international trade gave him something that purely domestic business experience rarely produces. Working across cultures where the rule of law and institutional reliability cannot be assumed the way they can in the United States sharpened his appreciation for genuine partners, both abroad and at home. Contracts are necessary. But the moments that matter most, when troubles or a crisis arrives, are the ones where personal integrity is the real foundation of the relationship.

That understanding, that character and trustworthiness are the actual currency of durable business relationships, runs through the entire book. It is the kind of insight that sounds obvious until you have been in a situation where it was tested and discovered what it actually means to depend on it.

Slowing Down in a Culture That Celebrates Speed

One of the book’s more counterintuitive ideas is Marty’s argument for the undervalued leadership skill of slowing down. Business culture rewards speed, urgency, and first-mover advantage. Leaders are celebrated for decisiveness and action. Marty is not arguing against any of those qualities. He is arguing that some decisions would benefit from more input, more reflection, and more genuine openness to different opinions before a course is committed to.

The cost of unnecessary rushing is real and often invisible until after the fact. Moving fast can be necessary. It is not always wise. The leader who has been rewarded their entire career for moving fast is often the hardest person to convince of that. And it is often the mistake they most regret.

What the Book Is Really After

The Pinball Theory is not a business memoir, and it is not a management framework. Marty describes it as an offering, his accumulated experiences shared in a way that might be useful to other leaders navigating their own unpredictable paths. It includes personal stories alongside professional ones because he believes that most leaders, including the hardest-driving ones, will eventually ask what it was all about. He would rather they have that conversation with themselves now, while there is still time to shape the answer, than later when the opportunities have already passed.

He says being successful in business and making money are givens. Leaders have more to seek, find, and model. The leaders who look back with genuine satisfaction are the ones who didn’t wait for a crisis or a retirement party to start thinking about what kind of person and leader they wanted to be while the game was still being played.

The pinball machine doesn’t promise an easy path. It promises that bouncing off obstacles is part of how the score gets made. And it asks whether you are prepared to play the whole game, not just the parts that go according to plan.

For leaders who want hard-earned wisdom from someone who has actually lived it, The Pinball Theory of Business and Life by Marty Snyder is available now on Amazon.

Andres Kuusk Broke Records Set by the Man Who Built DeepMind; The Skill They Share Has Nothing to Do With Any Single Domain

By: Bernard Graham

When Andres Kuusk broke the Pentamind records previously held by Demis Hassabis, the observation that struck him most wasn’t about the achievement itself. It was about what the achievement represented.

The Pentamind Championship doesn’t reward the best chess player. It doesn’t reward the best backgammon player or the best Scrabble player. It rewards the best all-round competitor across multiple strategic disciplines simultaneously. Breadth, not depth. The ability to perform at a high level in environments you haven’t fully mastered rather than dominating a single familiar one.

Demis Hassabis, who held those records before Andres, went on to become one of the most consequential figures in the history of artificial intelligence. Chess prodigy. Mind sports champion. Game designer. Neuroscientist. Founder of DeepMind. Fields that look completely different on the surface but share a common foundation: understanding complex systems and how intelligent agents operate within them.

Andres sees the same thread running through his own work. The domains have changed. The underlying questions haven’t.

What Versatility Actually Requires

To win a Pentamind Championship, a competitor must repeatedly learn new systems, recognize patterns in unfamiliar environments, make sound decisions under pressure in situations where their previous experience doesn’t fully apply, and do all of it while competing against specialists who have spent years mastering each individual discipline.

That combination of skills, learning speed, pattern recognition, adaptability under pressure, and cross-domain transfer turns out to be exactly what effective leadership requires. The business world changes constantly. Industries evolve. Technologies emerge. Markets shift. The leaders who thrive in that environment are rarely the ones with the deepest expertise in a single narrow domain. They are the ones who can learn quickly and apply thinking from one context to the unexpected demands of another.

Specialists still create enormous value, and Andres isn’t arguing against depth. He’s arguing for something in addition to it: at senior leadership levels, the problems leaders face are increasingly the ones nobody has encountered in quite that form before, and the ability to learn what you don’t yet know becomes as important as the depth of what you already know.

The Questions That Don’t Change

What Andres finds most interesting about his connection with Hassabis isn’t the record. It’s the recurring questions that appear throughout both of their careers, regardless of the domain they were operating in.

Why do some decisions consistently outperform others? How do small advantages accumulate over time? What hidden assumptions are shaping outcomes?

Those questions don’t belong to chess. They don’t belong to AI research or economics or mind sports. They are questions about systems, strategy, and decision-making at a level of abstraction that applies across every domain involving uncertainty, competition, and the need to think ahead.

The domains have changed. The underlying questions haven’t.

Whether you’re sitting at a chessboard, evaluating a business strategy, building an AI system, or deciding whether to launch a company, the questions remain remarkably similar. What assumptions am I making? What information am I missing? What happens next? Which decision creates the strongest future position?

Strategic Thinking Doesn’t Belong to Any One Domain

Most people think expertise is domain-specific. Andres gradually reached a different conclusion.

The strongest strategic principles don’t belong to chess or games. They don’t belong to business or investing either.

They belong to decision-making itself.

Thinking in probabilities. Thinking in sequences. Updating assumptions. Separating decision quality from outcome quality.

These principles look different on the surface, but underneath they solve exactly the same problem. Once you recognize that, knowledge begins transferring between domains in surprising ways.

That realization, that the most important lessons aren’t domain-specific but transferable, became the foundation of Unlocking the Success Puzzle. And it was built, in no small part, from decades of asking those same questions in as many different environments as Andres could find to test them in.

That’s why Andres believes one of the most valuable skills is learning how to think in ways that remain useful long after the subject matter changes. Good strategic thinking travels remarkably well.

Unlocking the Success Puzzle by Andres Kuusk is available now on Amazon.

Non-Fiction Book Writing Services by Author Path Publishers

A blog post answers a question, but a book does something much more powerful. A book develops an idea, supports a position, and guides readers through a complete journey that can influence the way they think and act. This difference is why many experts struggle when moving from articles, presentations, or professional experience into a full-length manuscript. Having valuable information is not enough to create a successful nonfiction book. A strong book requires a clear argument, a defined audience, a logical structure, and a message that continues to provide value from the first page to the last.

Professional non-fiction book writing services help transform knowledge and expertise into a structured manuscript that readers can understand, trust, and apply. At Author Path Publishers, the process begins by identifying the central idea behind the book and developing a clear foundation that supports every chapter.

Finding the Core Message Behind Your Book

The foundation of every successful nonfiction book is a strong argument. A topic alone is not enough. A topic explains what the book is about, but an argument explains what the book is trying to prove.

For example, leadership is a topic, but explaining that managers lose valuable employees because they treat exit interviews as paperwork instead of opportunities for improvement creates an argument. A strong argument gives the book direction because it creates a position that readers can understand and consider.

Before creating a nonfiction book outline, authors should understand what idea their book is defending, what problem it solves, and what change they want readers to experience after finishing the final chapter. Every chapter should contribute to that central message. Information that does not support the main argument may be useful elsewhere, but it may not belong inside the book.

Understanding the Reader Before Writing

A successful nonfiction book is not written for everyone. It is written for a specific reader with a specific need. Understanding that reader helps shape the entire writing process.

Authors should consider who they are trying to reach, what challenges that reader faces, what solutions they have already attempted, and what beliefs may prevent them from finding a better approach. This understanding influences the examples used, the language chosen, and the level of detail included throughout the manuscript.

When authors clearly understand their readers, the book becomes more focused and valuable. A targeted message does not reduce the audience; it creates stronger connections with the people who need the information most.

Creating a Framework Readers Can Apply

The strongest nonfiction books provide readers with more than information. They provide a framework that helps readers understand and apply the author’s ideas.

A framework may be a process, a model, a series of steps, or a system for making decisions. The most effective frameworks are simple, practical, and based on real experience. Readers should be able to remember the concepts and apply them in real situations.

Many experts already have valuable frameworks hidden inside their professional experience, workshops, presentations, or consulting methods. Professional nonfiction writing helps identify these ideas and develop them into a structure that can support an entire book.

Building Trust Through Evidence and Experience

Nonfiction books depend on credibility. Readers want to understand why they should trust the information being presented.

Strong nonfiction writing combines different forms of evidence, including real examples, personal experiences, research, and explanations. Case studies can demonstrate how ideas work in real situations, while personal stories can make complex concepts easier to understand. Data and research can strengthen an argument when sources are accurate and properly referenced.

Honesty is essential. Unsupported statistics or exaggerated claims can damage reader trust. When ideas come from personal experience, explaining that clearly often creates a stronger connection than using information that cannot be verified.

Developing a Strong Chapter Structure

A professional nonfiction book requires consistency. Readers should understand the rhythm and purpose of each chapter.

A strong chapter usually introduces a situation or problem, explains the author’s perspective, supports the idea with evidence, addresses possible questions or challenges, and provides a clear takeaway for the reader.

This structure helps maintain engagement and ensures every chapter contributes to the overall purpose of the book. A clear outline also prevents repetition and helps authors organize their expertise into a logical flow.

Choosing the Purpose of Your Nonfiction Book

Not every nonfiction book serves the same purpose. Some books are designed to establish authority and demonstrate expertise. Others focus on teaching readers how to solve a specific problem through practical steps and examples. Some books are written as powerful statements designed to challenge existing beliefs and introduce new ideas.

Understanding the purpose of the book before writing helps determine the structure, tone, and content needed to create the strongest impact.

How Non-Fiction Book Writing Services Support Authors

Professional nonfiction writing services provide guidance throughout the complete development process. The journey often begins with understanding the author’s experience, goals, audience, and central message. Existing materials such as articles, presentations, notes, and professional documents can be reviewed to identify valuable ideas.

After this stage, a detailed chapter outline is created and approved before writing begins. Interviews help capture the author’s knowledge and perspective, while sample chapters establish the appropriate writing style. The manuscript is then developed in sections, allowing authors to provide feedback and guide the direction of the project.

At Author Path Publishers, authors maintain full ownership of their work. Projects are handled with confidentiality, and copyright and royalties remain with the author.

Create Your Nonfiction Book With Author Path Publishers

Turning expertise into a published book requires more than knowledge. It requires structure, organization, and a clear message that readers can follow.

The non-fiction book writing services at Author Path Publishers help experts, professionals, and thought leaders transform their ideas into complete manuscripts through strategic planning, content development, and professional writing support.

Whether you want to create a business book, thought leadership book, educational guide, or another nonfiction project, our team helps shape your knowledge into a book readers can trust.

Jeremy Parsons’ “Who Was I” Turns a Misspent Youth Into First-Rate Country Storytelling

By Mason Calloway

Country music has never lacked songs about looking backward. There are old flames, old trucks, old hometowns and old photographs enough to fill every jukebox between Austin and Aberdeen. What separates Jeremy Parsons’ “Who Was I”

from the usual exercise in nostalgia is that Parsons doesn’t seem especially interested in making the past look prettier than it was.

He wants to know what the heck he was thinking.

Taken from Parsons’ five-song Life EP, “Who Was I” is a wonderfully plainspoken piece of autobiographical country-Americana about the distance between being 25 and understanding what being 25 actually meant. Parsons wrote it after a critic suggested his previous album, Things To Come, didn’t reveal enough about his personal life. What started as a slightly cheeky response became a serious examination of his younger self and everything he has learned since.

The joke, then, is on the critic. He got considerably more Jeremy Parsons than he bargained for.

Parsons begins by describing himself at 25 as a drifter getting high, sleeping away the daylight and apparently testing whether youthful recklessness came with an expiration date. There’s nothing coy about the recollection. He doesn’t turn the behavior into outlaw-country mythology, nor does he subject his younger self to a sanctimonious lecture.

He simply reports the evidence.

That restraint is crucial.

Plenty of country singers have discovered that yesterday’s bad decisions make excellent promotional copy once they’re safely in yesterday. Parsons isn’t polishing his mistakes into credentials. His vocal delivery has the warmth and conversational ease of somebody telling you this story across a table rather than performing a confession beneath a spotlight.

The production understands that distinction. Dustin Martin produced Life and handled an unusually broad collection of instrumentation, while Michael Flanders contributes steel guitar, Caleb Flanders plays bass and Chris Tuttle is among the piano contributors. The resulting sound surrounds Parsons without crowding him.

The lyric remains boss.

And there’s a terrific generational tension running through it.

By the age Parsons was busy pursuing nights and songs, his parents had already done the respectable things. There was a house, children, education and faith. Parsons looks at that traditional blueprint without quite mocking it and without pretending it was ever his blueprint.

He wanted to sing.

Country music has spent generations romanticising precisely that decision: leave home, chase the dream, make Nashville surrender.

Parsons supplies the missing second act.

He went to Nashville.

Nashville didn’t surrender.

Then Parsons moved back in with his father at 32.

That’s a country song.

The remarkable thing is how little self-pity Parsons attaches to it. He doesn’t treat returning home as proof that the dream failed. Neither does he manufacture some triumphant Hollywood moment where every setback suddenly makes perfect sense. Life rarely provides such tidy accounting.

Instead, Parsons delivers the song’s most penetrating thought when he wonders, in effect, whether he’s chasing the dream or the dream is chasing him.

Anybody who has spent years trying to make music professionally should understand that question immediately.

There comes a point when ambition stops being something you do and becomes something you are. You’ve driven too many miles, played too many rooms, written too many songs and sacrificed too much certainty to easily separate the person from the pursuit.

Parsons knows something about persistence. The San Antonio-born songwriter has released three full-length records, toured in the United States and Europe, accumulated more than 1.5 million Spotify streams, and seen songs from the Life era achieve significant independent chart success. His official biography notes that “Life Worth Dyin’ For” topped both National Radio Hits AC40 and Country airplay charts.

None of that turns “Who Was I” into an I-told-you-so song.

Thank goodness.

Instead, success merely gives Parsons enough distance to examine failure without fearing it.

That makes “Who Was I” particularly effective within Life. The EP is concerned with growth, identity and what experience does to our understanding of ourselves. Parsons has described the project as deeply personal, and “Who Was I” is its most naked piece of autobiography.

There’s even something distinctly Texas about the way Parsons handles it. Not Texas in the increasingly meaningless sense of throwing a fiddle onto a record and photographing somebody beside a Lone Star flag, but in the older singer-songwriter tradition where the story matters more than the costume.

Parsons’ strength is specificity.

Twenty-five.

Nashville.

Thirty-two.

Dad’s house.

Those details transform a generic song about “following your dreams” into an actual human life.

Most importantly, Parsons understands something Nashville occasionally forgets: a protagonist doesn’t have to be admirable to be sympathetic.

The young man in “Who Was I” isn’t presented as somebody listeners should imitate. He’s reckless, uncertain, arrogant enough to believe there must be something beyond the conventional path and naïve enough not to know what that something is.

In other words, he’s young.

The older Parsons regards him with equal measures of amusement, affection and disbelief. He knows things now that the kid couldn’t have known then. He also understands that today’s wisdom was purchased with yesterday’s mistakes.

“Who Was I” therefore isn’t really about regret.

It’s about reconciliation.

Parsons isn’t trying to kill his younger self, rescue him or rewrite his decisions. He’s simply acknowledging that every version of Jeremy Parsons, the drifter, the Nashville hopeful, the thirtysomething back under his father’s roof, and the seasoned working songwriter, belongs to the same story.

That’s country music’s natural territory.

Not perfection.

Not nostalgia.

Life as it was actually lived.

And on “Who Was I,” Jeremy Parsons tells it exceptionally well.

The Perfect Storm Looks Beyond Maiden Voyage and Toward a Legacy Built to Last

By: Ryan Caldwell

For The Perfect Storm, success has never been simply about chart positions, radio spins or industry accolades. Those milestones certainly matter, and the Albany, New York trio has accumulated its share of them. But when James Krakat, Matty Kirtoglou and Ethan Lynch talk about what Maiden Voyage has accomplished, they keep returning to something considerably more personal: people recognizing themselves in the songs.

That connection has been particularly meaningful for James.

“What is surprising is how people come up to us and start saying, ‘I really feel and relate to the songs,’” he says. Listeners have told him that “Magic Feeling” resurrected memories from their own lives, while others have responded to the emotional directness of “Lucky Guy.”

“I always knew that music was powerful,” James says, “but to see your own music connecting with people and becoming the soundtrack of their lives is amazing.”

Matty’s reaction is characteristically more measured. The response didn’t entirely surprise him because the trio had labored over Maiden Voyage until it met their collective standards. What couldn’t have been predicted was the commercial payoff.

“The three number ones really couldn’t have been planned,” he says.

That combination of optimism and pragmatism says plenty about The Perfect Storm. The three musicians aren’t carbon copies of one another, and their differences have become an essential ingredient in the band’s identity.

Ethan describes James as the eternal positive force, someone who regularly checks on his bandmates and maintains a “glass-half-full outlook.” Matty, meanwhile, supplies an infectious social energy.

Matty sees the dynamic similarly, although he describes Ethan as the group’s skeptic and himself as occupying the territory somewhere between the two.

“James’ personality is never say die, an eternal optimist,” Matty says. “Ethan is much more a skeptic. I try to be somewhere in the middle to balance that out.”

It’s an appropriate arrangement for a band called The Perfect Storm: three distinct forces colliding and somehow producing something stronger together.

The collaborative approach carries directly into songwriting. Ethan might arrive with an idea he needs to get out immediately. James may bring something to the group before everyone begins reshaping it. Other songs develop collectively.

“It’s always a work in progress,” Matty explains. “A song can be born in many ways, and like a newborn, you nurture it and see that uniqueness shine.”

James puts it more simply: “It really is a team effort.”

The themes emerging from that process aren’t particularly exotic. They’re about love, heartbreak, perseverance, loyalty, family and hope. These are the enormous emotions hiding inside ordinary lives.

That’s precisely the point.

“Who hasn’t had a rough go, been in love, or fallen out of love?” Matty asks. “Life is complicated, and I feel whatever resonates with me, if done right, will resonate with the masses.”

James agrees.

“Matty, Ethan and I are just everyday guys who want those things too.”

Perhaps that everyday quality explains why Maiden Voyage has connected. The Perfect Storm isn’t writing from some carefully constructed rock-star mythology. Its members have jobs to do, families to consider and real-world complications capable of interrupting even the best-laid musical plans.

Matty doesn’t describe those complications as major obstacles so much as life happening. An injury, an operation or a family emergency can suddenly derail a schedule.

The trick is continuing anyway.

Even increasing recognition hasn’t fundamentally altered the band’s approach. According to Matty, success hasn’t changed how The Perfect Storm writes songs because the band established its ambitions from the beginning. Recording against deadlines can present new challenges, while performing remains something the trio continually wants to improve.

Now, having demonstrated what it can do with Maiden Voyage, The Perfect Storm is preparing to stretch.

The band’s second album promises to expand its musical boundaries, including an instrumental track, new equipment and ideas that move beyond the template of its debut.

“You can’t rest on your laurels,” Matty says. “To keep it fresh, you have to push.”

That philosophy could prove particularly important for a group whose first album established an identifiable balance between accessibility and personality. Rather than attempting to reproduce what worked, The Perfect Storm appears determined to use that foundation as permission to explore.

And if the band’s members are thinking about what comes next, they’re also beginning to consider what might remain long after the charts and release campaigns have ended.

James wants the songs to be considered relatable and timeless. More importantly, he hopes people will remember that the music touched their lives.

Matty’s ambitions are equally straightforward.

“In music as in life, you just want to be remembered for doing something good in this world,” he says. “No matter what, this music is out there forever, so if you truly care about it, then hopefully that will shine through.”

For Ethan, the desired legacy begins with the relationship at the center of the band.

“I love working with James and Matty, and I hope that shines through in the music we do,” he says. “The Perfect Storm is good, and the music will stand the test of time.”

That’s a considerable ambition, but perhaps longevity begins with something much simpler.

Three friends made an album. People heard themselves in it. Now those three friends are heading back into the studio determined to make something even better.

Maiden Voyage may have launched The Perfect Storm, but judging by the band’s determination to keep pushing forward, the real journey is only beginning.

New Mexico Small Business Owners: Fast Capital for a State in Transition

New Mexico’s economy blends a genuine energy sector presence in the state’s southeastern oil producing region, a significant federal laboratory and defense contracting presence around Los Alamos and Albuquerque, and a growing film and television production industry drawn by the state’s tax incentives and varied landscapes.

The Permian Basin’s Energy Sector Financing Pattern

New Mexico’s portion of the Permian Basin has driven considerable oil and gas activity, supporting a network of service and supply businesses whose financing needs are tied to project timelines and payment terms that can shift with commodity pricing conditions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly does unsecured mean in the context of a business loan?

Unsecured means the loan is not tied to a specific piece of property, equipment, or asset that the lender could seize if the loan goes unpaid. Approval is based primarily on the business’s revenue and banking history rather than a physical asset pledged as security. This differs meaningfully from a secured loan, where a lender evaluates and often appraises a specific asset before extending credit against it.

What credit score is typically needed to qualify?

Requirements vary widely by lender, but many alternative and online lenders will consider applicants with credit scores in the 550 to 600 range, weighting recent bank account revenue and consistency more heavily than the credit score alone. A strong, growing revenue trend can often offset a credit score that would disqualify an applicant at a more traditional lender.

Can a business with seasonal revenue still qualify?

Yes, though lenders typically want to see that the seasonal pattern is consistent and predictable rather than erratic. Some repayment structures, particularly revenue based ones, are specifically designed to flex with seasonal ups and downs rather than requiring a fixed payment year round, which can make a meaningful difference for a business whose revenue genuinely varies month to month.

Los Alamos and Albuquerque’s Federal Research Presence

New Mexico’s significant federal laboratory and defense contracting presence, anchored by Los Alamos National Laboratory and considerable activity around Albuquerque, supports smaller companies providing specialized engineering and technical services whose financing needs mirror patterns found in other states with significant federal contracting activity.

New Mexico’s Growing Film Production Industry

New Mexico’s film tax incentive program has attracted considerable production activity, supporting a growing ecosystem of smaller businesses providing equipment, catering, and specialized production services. These businesses often operate on genuinely project based, unpredictable revenue cycles that traditional bank underwriting struggles to evaluate confidently.

Same Day Funding Across New Mexico’s Varied Economy

This hybrid approach, where a platform funds directly but also maintains partner access for situations that call for a different fit, is exactly what companies like fundivi have built their process around, aiming for same day funding once an application clears underwriting. The practical benefit is that a business owner gets the speed of a direct lending relationship without losing the broader optionality a marketplace can offer, all within a single application. Whether the specific need comes from an energy services company, a federal research support business, or a film production company, this same day structure addresses New Mexico’s genuinely varied financing needs.

How to Research and Choose the Right Commercial Lending Company

Finding the right commercial lender is less about landing on the first search result and more about building a habit of comparison before urgency sets in. Business owners who take the time to look at multiple lenders, rather than defaulting to whichever company appears first, tend to end up with better rates, clearer terms, and fewer surprises once the paperwork is signed.

A good starting point is looking at how a lender is actually rated by other business owners rather than relying on its own marketing copy. Resources such as businessloansiq.com bring together comparisons of top rated business loan companies in one place, which makes it easier to see how different lenders stack up on speed, transparency, and overall customer experience before ever submitting an application.

From there, it helps to look past the advertised rate and understand the full cost of capital, including any origination fees, prepayment terms, and how repayment actually gets structured against day to day cash flow.

Side by side comparisons are especially useful at this stage of the process. A site like comparebusinessloansonline.com lets a business owner line up reliable business lenders against one another using the same criteria, so the comparison is grounded in real terms rather than a single company’s pitch.

Reputation and track record matter just as much as pricing, particularly for a business owner who may need to return to the same lender for future capital down the road.

Checking independent ratings, rather than only the testimonials posted on a lender’s own website, is one of the more reliable ways to spot a pattern of poor communication or hidden fees before it becomes your problem. Platforms including bestratedbusinessloans.com compile ratings across a range of business lenders, offering another useful reference point while narrowing down the list of who to actually call.

None of this needs to take more than an afternoon, and doing it before a cash flow gap actually arrives means a business owner is choosing from options they have already vetted, rather than scrambling to evaluate a lender for the first time under real pressure.

Santa Fe and New Mexico’s Creative and Tourism Economy

Santa Fe’s genuine arts and tourism economy adds another dimension to New Mexico’s already varied small business landscape, supporting galleries, hospitality businesses, and creative services that face financing needs distinct from the state’s energy, defense, and film production sectors.

What New Mexico Business Owners Should Verify Before Committing

Before accepting any unsecured financing offer, New Mexico business owners should confirm the total repayment cost, whether a personal guarantee is required, and how the lender handles a genuine payment difficulty, regardless of whether the business operates in the Permian Basin’s energy sector, Los Alamos’s federal research economy, or the state’s growing film production industry.

Building Long Term Financial Preparedness

Business owners in this category who take the time to understand their financing options well before an urgent need actually arises consistently navigate genuine emergencies with considerably less stress than those researching options for the first time under pressure. This preparation costs nothing beyond a few minutes spent completing a soft prequalification, a process that typically doesn’t affect your credit score and provides a clear, concrete picture of what your specific business actually qualifies for right now. Knowing this information in advance, rather than discovering it for the first time during a genuine crisis, removes much of the scramble and uncertainty that otherwise accompanies an urgent capital need, whether that need arrives as an equipment failure, an unexpected opportunity, or a seasonal cash flow gap that caught the business off guard. The businesses that handle financing decisions most successfully over time are consistently the ones that treat this kind of preparation as an ongoing practice rather than a one time event tied to a single specific crisis.

The Real Cost of Waiting on a Slower Financing Option

It’s easy to underestimate what a financing delay actually costs a business until that cost is calculated directly and honestly. A missed opportunity to secure favorable terms with a supplier, a delayed repair that costs additional lost revenue for every day equipment remains out of service, or a staffing gap that damages client relationships and team morale all represent real, if sometimes invisible, costs of waiting on a slower financing timeline when a faster option was genuinely available and appropriate for the situation. Business owners evaluating financing options should weigh not just the advertised cost of capital itself, but the full, genuine cost of any delay a slower option would introduce, since in many cases that delay cost meaningfully outweighs a modest difference in the financing rate between two specific offers under serious consideration.

Comparing Multiple Offers Before Committing to Any Lender

Business owners should resist the temptation to accept the first financing offer that arrives, even when a genuine need feels urgent and time sensitive. Requesting prequalification from two or three lenders, a process that typically takes only a few minutes per lender and commonly doesn’t affect your credit score at the initial soft pull stage, consistently produces meaningfully better terms than committing to a single offer without any real point of comparison. Converting every resulting offer into total dollars owed for the identical amount and repayment timeline, rather than comparing headline rates that may use entirely different pricing conventions, remains the single most reliable method for identifying which specific offer genuinely serves the business best. This discipline matters regardless of how urgent the underlying situation feels, since a fast decision on an offer that doesn’t actually fit the business’s genuine repayment capacity solves one problem while quietly creating another, potentially larger one down the road.

What to Verify Before Signing Any Financing Agreement

Before accepting any unsecured financing offer, business owners should confirm several specific details directly with the lender rather than assuming based on general marketing language or a quick summary. These include the total dollar repayment cost for the exact amount and timeline needed, whether a personal guarantee is required as part of the agreement, whether the lender reports account activity to personal credit bureaus, and how the lender genuinely handles a temporary payment difficulty should one arise during the repayment period. Taking the time to ask each of these questions directly, rather than relying on assumptions, protects against exactly the kind of unpleasant surprise that can turn an otherwise convenient and genuinely useful financing decision into a lasting source of financial and personal stress well after the original need has already been resolved.

Why Speed and Accessibility Have Become Genuinely Standard Expectations

The broader shift toward faster, more accessible business financing reflects a genuine change in how small business owners now expect financial services to operate generally, shaped considerably by experiences with fast, digital first services in nearly every other part of daily commercial life. A business owner who can check their bank balance instantly, transfer funds in seconds, and manage most aspects of daily operations through a smartphone naturally expects business financing to move with comparable speed rather than requiring weeks of waiting and extensive paperwork the way it may have decades ago. This shift has genuinely benefited business owners across virtually every industry, giving newer and smaller businesses meaningful access to working capital that a purely traditional banking relationship, built around older underwriting assumptions, might have made considerably more difficult or slower to obtain.

Why Bank Account Based Evaluation Changes Who Can Access Capital

Traditional bank underwriting was built decades ago around evaluating physical collateral and lengthy credit histories, an approach that made sense for the kinds of businesses and lending relationships common at the time but that increasingly leaves many genuinely healthy modern businesses underserved. A business generating strong, consistent revenue but lacking substantial physical assets to pledge, whether because it leases its space and equipment or because its value lies primarily in client relationships and expertise rather than owned property, often doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional bank’s evaluation model regardless of how financially sound the business actually is. Unsecured lenders evaluating actual bank account cash flow directly address this gap, opening genuine access to working capital for a considerably broader range of businesses than traditional collateral focused underwriting was ever built to accommodate fairly.

AI Is Changing How Buyers Find Homes. Will New Construction Be Easy to Find?

By: Susan Rogers, NewsWorthy Homes Editor

As artificial intelligence begins reshaping home search, new-construction strategist Lori Lane says builders should be thinking beyond where their homes are listed, and about how they will be discovered.

For decades, the first steps of buying a home followed a familiar pattern: choose an area, set a price range, enter a bedroom count and scroll through listings.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to rewrite that process.

At HousingWire’s AI Summit on August 11, real estate executives predicted that AI agents will increasingly play a role in home discovery, helping consumers search for homes based on individual goals and preferences rather than traditional filters alone. HouseCanary CEO Chris Rediger also discussed the company’s national pilot with Google that places real estate listings directly within Google search results.

For Lori Lane, President and CEO of LLANE & Co., the shift represents something much bigger than another new technology for the real estate industry to adopt.

It could change how buyers discover homes in the first place.

Lori Lane has spent more than two decades specializing in new construction, leading the sales, marketing, and sellout of more than 400 new-home communities across Georgia. A frequent media source on new-home trends, she has been featured by outlets including Business Insider, USA Today, and Yahoo Finance and has earned more than 500 industry awards throughout her career.

Now, Lane says builders should be watching how rapidly AI is moving from a behind-the-scenes business tool to something consumers may increasingly use at the very beginning of their home search.

“For years, builders have focused on whether their communities could be found on Google, the MLS and the major real estate portals,” Lane said. “The next question may be different: When a buyer asks AI to help find the right home, will it understand enough about your community to recommend it?”

Home Search Is Becoming a Conversation

That shift is already underway.

Realtor.com recently introduced RealAssist AI, developed in collaboration with Google using Gemini, allowing home shoppers to research properties through natural-language conversations rather than relying exclusively on traditional search filters.

Instead of simply entering “four bedrooms, three bathrooms, under $800,000,” consumers can ask questions about affordability, neighborhoods, commutes, and how a particular home might fit their lives.

According to Realtor.com, 83% of early RealAssist interactions involve users requesting additional context, financial calculations, neighborhood assessments, or discussing how a property fits their needs. The company has also launched a Realtor.com experience within ChatGPT designed to reach consumers during the earliest stages of home search. Realtor.com reports that buyers are using these tools not simply to find listings, but to understand them.

Lane sees an important lesson in that behavior.

“This is much closer to the conversation a great new-home salesperson has always had with a buyer,” Lane said. “The best sales professionals don’t just ask how many bedrooms someone needs. They ask how they live. Where do they work? What does their family need? What are they trying to change about the home they have today? Technology is beginning to bring that kind of conversation into the discovery process.”

A Particular Opportunity for New Construction

For builders, AI-powered search presents an especially interesting opportunity because a new-home community is far more complex than a single listing.

A buyer may be choosing among multiple floor plans, homesites, inventory homes, and stages of construction. Pricing and incentives may change. Some homes may be available immediately while others can be personalized. And the appeal of the community often extends far beyond the specifications of an individual house.

That means helping technology understand new construction requires more than simply publishing an address, price, and bedroom count.

“A community may have exactly what a buyer is looking for, but the information has to clearly communicate that,” Lane said. “The home matters, but so do the lifestyle, location, amenities, floor plan, availability, timing, and value proposition. The more sophisticated the buyer’s question becomes, the more clearly we have to communicate why a particular community is the right answer.”

The issue is already drawing industry attention. The National Association of Realtors recently highlighted the fragmented nature of new-construction information, which can be distributed among builder websites, sales centers, email updates, and third-party platforms rather than one centralized source. NAR called greater accessibility to new-construction information an industry opportunity.

For Lane, the rise of conversational search makes getting that digital foundation right even more important.

The Next Search May Start With a Story, Not a Filter

Imagine a buyer asking:

Find me a new home in an active adult community within 1 hour of Atlanta with pickleball courts, a clubhouse with a bar, plenty of social events, low-maintenance living, and enough space for the grandkids to visit.

That is a very different search from checking boxes for ZIP code, square footage, and bedroom count.

And it creates an opportunity for builders who have clearly defined both who their community is for and why someone should want to live there.

“We’ve always talked about knowing your buyer,” Lane said. “AI may make that more important, not less. If consumers can describe exactly what they want, builders need to be equally good at describing exactly what they offer.”

Lane believes that could ultimately elevate the importance of branding and storytelling in new-home marketing.

Technology can compare price, location, square footage, and specifications with increasing sophistication. What is harder to reduce to a filter is the experience of living somewhere: the streetscape, architecture, community design, amenities, personality and emotional connection that transforms a house into a place a buyer can picture calling home.

AI Can Make the Introduction. Builders Still Create the Desire.

Lane does not see AI replacing the human component of buying and selling real estate. She sees it potentially changing the path consumers take before they reach the builder, community or salesperson.

That distinction matters.

“AI may become incredibly good at narrowing hundreds of possibilities into the homes a buyer should consider,” Lane said. “But buying a home isn’t the same as buying a commodity. A buyer still has to walk into a community and feel something. Great product matters. Thoughtful development matters. The sales experience matters. The story matters.”

Her advice to builders is not to chase every emerging AI platform. It is to make sure the fundamentals of their digital marketing are ready for a world in which consumers increasingly search by asking questions rather than clicking filters.

Accurate information. Clear positioning. Complete community details. Consistent messaging. And a compelling explanation of what makes the product different.

Because the technology surrounding home search may be changing quickly, but the buyer’s fundamental question has not:

Which home is right for me?

“AI may help decide which homes make the shortlist,” Lane said. “But builders still have to create the product, place, and story that make someone want to come see it. Technology can make the introduction. We still have to create the desire.”

Is HomeWise a Scam? Six Checks That Separate a Real Cash Buyer From a Fraud

A homeowner searching “HomeWise scam” after an offer or a text can settle the question with six checks that apply to any cash buyer: no upfront fees, proof of funds on request, an independent title company holding the deposit, a registered business, a written purchase agreement, and time to review it before signing. Below, each check is applied to HomeWise, with the pattern a fraud shows instead.

Consider a homeowner in Marietta, Georgia, with a 1979 ranch house. In March 2026 she gets two offers in one week. The first buyer sends a one-page letter of intent at $262,000, asks for a $1,800 “title search deposit” by wire, and wants a signature within 48 hours. The second sends a full purchase agreement at $255,000, names a title company in Atlanta, and tells her to take the week. The higher number has the shape most cash home buyer scams take: money moving from seller to buyer before anything has closed.

What do searches for “we buy houses scams” turn up?

The same few patterns. The Federal Trade Commission’s September 2022 guide on mortgage relief scams opens its warning signs with one sentence: “Scammers will demand payment upfront, before you get any services.” It adds, “Scammers may try to convince you to transfer the deed to your home to them.” The guide also describes schemes in which an owner is talked into selling for cash far below what nearby houses bring. None of those schemes survive the six checks.

How does each check apply to HomeWise?

  1. No upfront fees. A legitimate buyer never asks the seller for money before closing: no application fee, no processing charge, no deposit to hold the price. HomeWise’s published terms state that requesting an offer is free and carries no obligation and that it charges no agent commissions, listing fees or service fees. Prorated property taxes and HOA dues owed at settlement may apply, at closing, not before.
  2. Proof of funds on request. A bank statement or lender letter, dated within the last 30 days, in the buyer’s own name. A seller can ask HomeWise for it before signing, as with any buyer; a company advertising a closing in as little as seven days needs the money on hand. A fraud stalls, sends a cropped screenshot, or names a funding partner nobody can reach.
  3. An independent title company holds the deposit. Earnest money goes into escrow at the title company or closing attorney named in the contract, never to the buyer. The seller looks up that company’s number independently and confirms the file is open. For HomeWise, the purchase agreement should name the title company handling the closing.
  4. A registered business. Every state’s Secretary of State keeps a searchable business registry, and the name on the contract should match an entity in good standing. HomeWise does most of its buying in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona and Georgia; a search of the relevant registry takes minutes.
  5. A written purchase agreement. Price, closing date, the earnest money amount and where it is held, who pays which closing costs, and any contingency. HomeWise’s stated terms, standard closing costs covered in most cases and a closing date up to 60 days out, belong in that document, not in a text message.
  6. Time to review it. The same Federal Trade Commission guide describes the pressure pattern in its section on rescue loan schemes: “They may pressure you to sign the papers quickly, without giving you a chance to read them thoroughly or giving you time to follow up on any sections that you don’t understand.” A no-obligation offer with a closing window of up to 60 days leaves room for that review; a signature demanded inside 48 hours is the commonest sign of fraud.

A seller unsure about a clause can have a licensed attorney in that state read the agreement first; a flat-fee review costs little next to a house.

Where does the money sit before closing?

In a legitimate cash sale the seller never sends money anywhere. The buyer’s earnest money and purchase funds go to the title company, which pays the seller and the mortgage payoff out of those funds at closing. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s June 2019 report on mortgage closing scams, attempts to redirect closing funds rose 1,100 percent between 2015 and 2017, and 2017 alone brought an estimated loss of nearly $1 billion in real estate transaction costs. The method is a spoofed email with changed wiring instructions, and the Bureau is blunt: “Never follow instructions contained in an email.”

Stage

What a legitimate cash buyer does

What a fraudulent buyer does

First contact

Company name, business address, a number that matches its website

First name, spoofed number, a link to click

Offer

Price and terms in a purchase agreement

Letter of intent plus a fee to lock in the price

Deposit

Earnest money to the title company’s escrow account

Seller asked to wire money, or deed signed before funds arrive

Closing

Title company disburses proceeds at closing

Wiring instructions change by email the day before

Where does HomeWise fit?

HomeWise, a direct home-buying company that purchases distressed single-family houses in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia and other states, has bought more than 500 homes and publishes the terms a seller needs for the checks above: a free offer that carries no obligation and can arrive within an hour, a closing in as little as seven days once title is clear or on a date the seller picks up to 60 days out, and no commissions, listing fees or service fees. The HomeWise cash home buyer homepage lists those terms. Published terms are a starting point; the checks are the seller’s to run.

Fraudulent offers sometimes borrow a real company’s name, so a seller who gets a letter or text from a known buyer should confirm it through that company’s own site. For HomeWise, the HomeWise contact page lists its published channels. Buyers such as HomeWise have no reason to object to that call; a fraud under a borrowed name cannot survive it.

Frequently asked questions

Photo Courtesy: Unsplash.com

Is HomeWise a legitimate cash buyer or a scam?

HomeWise publishes the terms a seller needs to verify it: a free offer with no obligation, no service fees, a closing in as little as seven days once title is clear, and more than 500 homes purchased. Whether any buyer passes the six checks is decided by the seller’s own verification, which takes under an hour.

How can a seller tell honest cash buyers for houses apart from house buying scams?

By watching where the money moves. Honest cash buyers for houses send earnest money to a title company and pay the seller at closing; house buying scams ask the seller to send money first or sign the deed before funds arrive. The second tell is pressure; a real buyer allows time to review the contract.

Should a seller ever pay a fee to a cash buyer before closing?

No. Application fees, processing fees, title search deposits and appraisal charges paid to the buyer are all signs of fraud. Legitimate costs of a sale, such as prorated property taxes or a mortgage payoff, are deducted by the title company from the proceeds at closing, and the seller never wires money to the buyer.

What should a seller do if wiring instructions change before closing?

Stop and call the title company at a number found independently, never one from the email. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s guidance is to ignore wiring instructions that arrive by email. If money has already gone, the bank should be asked for a wire recall at once and a report filed with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.