Born and raised in Lakewood, California, Craig Hill attended Lakewood High, Long Beach City College, and received his Bachelor of Science degree from California State University, Long Beach. While attending CSULB, he followed his love of baseball by making his profession buying and selling baseball cards.
In 1984, Craig took his first job in the lending industry working for Vanguard Mortgage as a loan officer and loan manager. While employed there, he met and began funding REO purchases with Bruce Norris. When Bruce officially started The Norris Group in 1994, Craig came aboard as both loan officer and investment manager and never looked back. Since that time, they have arranged hundreds of millions worth of investor loans.
Recently Craig served several years as vice chairman for Exbound, a nonprofit organization designed to help developmentally disabled adults increase their social interaction. Craig enjoys sports and spending time with his wife Laura and daughter Caitlin.
In this episode:
- Craig Evans introduces Craig Hill, his background, and early career in lending.
- Joining The Norris Group : Why Craig Hill left Vanguard Mortgage to partner with Bruce Norris.
- The Changing Landscape of Hard Money Lending:Â How investor-focused lending has evolved over the years.
- The Norris Group’s Underwriting Process.
- Property Evaluation Strategies:Â Key factors in assessing profitable investment opportunities.
- Protecting Investors & Ensuring Quality:Â How The Norris Group prioritizes investor security and deal integrity.
- Craig Hill’s insights on securing funding and making smart investment decisions.
- The importance of underwriting in building trust and long-term success in real estate investing.
Episode:
Narrator  Welcome to The Norris Group real estate podcast, a show committed to bringing you insights from thought leaders shaping the real estate industry. In each episode, we’ll dive into conversations with industry experts and local insiders, all aimed at helping you thrive in an ever-changing real estate market. continuing the legacy that Bruce Norris created, sharing valuable knowledge, and empowering you on your real estate journey. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a newcomer, this is your go-to source for insider tips, market trends and success strategies. Here’s your host, Craig Evans.
Craig Evans  Hey everybody. It is Craig Evans from The Norris Group here. We are super excited today to have a great show for you. We’ve actually got one of our internal officers with us. Craig Hill is our Loan Officer and Underwriter for The Norris group. Craig was born and raised in Lakewood, California, while Craig attended Lakewood high Long Beach City College and received his Bachelor of Science degree from California State University Long Beach. While attending CSULB, he followed his love of baseball by making his profession buying and selling baseball cards. In 1984 Craig took his first job in the lending industry, working for Vanguard Mortgage as a Loan Officer and Loan Manager. While employed there, he met and began funding REO purchases with none other than Bruce Norris. When Bruce officially started The Norris Group in 1994 Craig came aboard as both a Loan Officer and an Investment Manager, and never looked back. Since that time, they have arranged hundreds of millions worth of investor loans together between Bruce and Craig. Recently, Craig served several years as Vice Chairman for Exbound, a nonprofit organization designed to help developmentally disabled adults increase their social interaction. Craig enjoys sports and spending time with his wife, Laura and daughter, Caitlin. Craig, it is so good to have you on today, my friend. I know you’re busy and we got a lot of things going with a lot of different things.
Craig Hill  Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Craig Evans  I appreciate you carving out some time. I guess you didn’t really have an option since I said, Hey, we’re doing a piece on you today, right?
Craig Hill  Yeah, yeah, I guess not this. This one was not optional.
Craig Evans  Well, listen, let’s just jump right into stuff, okay. Because I want to get into what we do, and what we’re about and how things started, right? So, you know, I’ve heard Bruce talked a lot about in the early days of his investing career, and that he was working to find deals, and that you were a big part of that early on as his money source, right? So, do me a favor, tell our audience how you and Bruce really first started connecting and working together.
Craig Hill  Yeah. Well, it’s an interesting story for a couple reasons. This is probably going back 30 plus, maybe almost 35 years ago when, I first met Bruce. He had somebody that was actually kind of calling on hard money loan companies at the time, and he was trying to see somebody that would be a fit. Well, this person that he had come to see me, we got along real good. So Bruce, you know, Bruce set up a meeting. So Bruce and I met for the first time. Now, what’s interesting about the hard money loan loan business at this time, and a lot of people don’t realize this, because now hard money is almost synonymous with investors.
Craig Evans  Yep.
Craig Hill  Well, when Bruce and I first met, that was not the case. Like, basically, hard money was based on, like, one fact, like, it’s worth what you pay for it. Like, so, here I am with Bruce, just kind of a quick scenario of our first transactions together. He brought me two deals in Marino Valley. He used to work a lot in Marino Valley, California. So, now the numbers aren’t going to make sense, but you’ll see the point. So they were probably worth between 90 and 100 grand when fixed up.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Craig Hill  Well, Bruce brought him to me, and he had paid 42 and 39, okay. So it was my job to convince the ownership at the time that these were good deals. Now bear in mind hard money at this time, that same house in Marino Valley, if you had somebody living there that had never made a payment and was desperate to get money, we probably would have let 60,000 to that client, okay.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Craig Hill  That’s just the nature of the business, you know? That’s who went. Now introduce Bruce, who totally throws everything upside down. Well, here’s a guy with a lot of money, good credit experience, but he’s buying these houses for, let’s just say, 40 grand, okay. So, all of a sudden, that upsets the apple cart, right?
Craig Evans  Right.
Craig Hill  Because I know Bruce is thinking “Shouldn’t I get 60?” you know? And you know, the ownership at the time was thinking, Well, geez, we should give him like 25.
Craig Evans  Yeah.
Craig Hill  So basically, what I had to do was I just basically convinced the ownership that this was transformational, like this is going to be a whole new way to do this, at least for me, personally.
Craig Evans  Sure.
Craig Hill  I don’t see anything that makes more sense than this. So I was able to get Bruce what he paid, for him.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Craig Hill  So, it was somewhat of a compromise. So Bruce was happy with that, and basically what he did to like, kind of reward the effort. I think he paid probably six months in advance of interest, so.
Craig Evans  Okay
Craig Hill  Right away, how many clients do we have that is doing that right?
Craig Evans  Right. Exactly.
Craig Hill  We’re lucky if we get one payment in six months the way the business was, okay. So all of a sudden the light went out on in my head, and I totally disregarded the hard money model that I knew.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Craig Hill  And I started working with Bruce. And what that meant was I went, this was, if people remember the dirt, you know, that go way back the HUD Auctions, right? Those were when Bruce and I first started together. Well, everybody else would be grinding for the month trying to get a few deals. I’d just wait for Bruce to go to the HUD auction and send me over like a sheet of paper with the fine deals he just bought, right? So for me, this made a lot more sense.
Craig Evans  Yep.
Craig Hill  So I just kind of started thinking, well, Bruce can’t be the only one out there. So,if anybody else, once again, long time, and even not so long, because Mike is still a prominent figure. Now, my second client was Mike Cantu.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Craig Hill  So, I was able to get Mike on board, and how we met. Mike was Robin. Robin, had up at the time. She worked in our like, kind of a doing a lot of things, but she was involved with the foreclosures too.
Craig Evans  Yeah.
Craig Hill  So Mike was trying to buy one of our foreclosures, and Robin said, ‘you should talk to Craig’. So I talked to Mike, I told him what we were doing, and all of a sudden, now I had two guys sending me all these deals.
Craig Evans  Right.
Craig Hill  Whereas I’d get more deals from those two guys in a month, and everybody else did their whole client base for two or three months.
Craig Evans  Yeah.
Craig Hill  So it’s sort of revolutionized. And now, like I say, it’s synonymous with hard money it’s investors. A lot of people don’t do what is situational hard money anymore. So it was really kind of revolutionary. And I mentioned Robin’s name because Robin, probably about a year and a half into this, maybe less, Bruce decided he wanted, it’d be a good idea to open up a hard money company of his own. And so basically, you know, that’s what he did, when he opened up The Norris Group, he asked me if I’d come and do the the long business for him.
Craig Evans  Well, so let me ask you that, why is that an aspect that you know, you’re obviously with Vanguard, you got, you’re with a company that’s got brand recognition and is already rolling. I think maybe you’ve answered it. But I want to hear if there’s other ideas there that you know, why did you feel comfortable say, Hey, I’m gonna lead what’s known and go with Bruce into in essence, let’s face it, at that time, it’s kind of a fledgling startup, right? I mean, yeah, you were doing loans and stuff. It was, it was a brand new…
Craig Hill  Yeah, yeah. And anybody that knows me that’s been around me these last 30 years, they know that is totally out of my character.
Craig Evans  Sure.
Craig Hill  Totally out of my character. So Bruce and I met numerous times, and I just, the more I talked with Bruce, I just felt like there were, like a lot of, there was a lot of potential for what I could do that maybe I wasn’t doing at the company I was with.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Craig Hill  It just really felt like I just really followed my gut and it seemed like the right decision, and looking back on it now, obviously I have, you know, no regrets at all. We were the perfect fit for 30 years.
Craig Evans  Yeah.
Craig Hill  But it was also a good opportunity for me. Where I was, I just did, like, one side of the business. I just generated the deals. Well, as I was near the end, getting ready to leave with Bruce, I wanted to do everything, because I talked to people about what I did, and then, well, Craig, can I get in on this? So I was doing a lot of volume, so I was able to tell them that, you know, hey, I’d like to start funding some of my own deals. So going with Bruce. It was kind of interesting the way it worked out because our, kind of, our initial plan is, you know, how those initial plans go, like, I was going to be like, the one that, like, had the borrowers, if you will, and then he would be more on the money side initially with, you know, bringing people in and ironically, the way it kind of turned out, a lot of the money, people at the company I was with wanted to follow me because they knew the quality of paper that I did, even going, you know, back before there was a Bruce. I was that they used to joke I was charging hard money rates and writing B paper like that’s kind of how, I’ve always been, that way. I’ve always wanted to write good paper. So that was natural for maybe them to want to come to my side. But it turned out to be, with all of Bruce’s, his love for speaking. It just turned into this natural chemistry where he was actually good at generating the interest in the borrowers. And then I turned out that I was really, really good with the the money side of it. Yeah, it just kind of morphed from there. And then, like I say, when Bruce started The Norris Group. Robin came with me and set up all the like the loan side of it. Anybody that say knows me knows Robin, and then say Rob did who’s still with the company, and Robin still is there as needed, kind of a part time help. Rhonda was actually the first person that Bruce hired, because she set up the whole office for and she had worked at a real estate company. So, that’s kind of how it all began. And we just, you know, the the chemistry and the camaraderie that the say, the four of us shared for all those years was, you know, it was, just was, and has been a great experience. And then, you know, the transition seems to be seamless with the, you know, how everybody feels now. So it’s, that’s kind of the background. But it really is interesting how hard money changed from being, you know, lending situationally to lending to investors.
Craig Evans  Sure. Well, you know, since I’ve taken over The Norris Group, where we’re 13 months into kind of the change of me owning now and stuff, and, you know, the interesting thing is, we still got a lot of new investors and other real estate professionals want to jump into the investment side, of hard money, trust deed lending, things like that. So, you know, so for those that are new, what I want to do is, I want to jump into the technical side of the loan business a little bit. So first of all, let’s kind of back in and because there’s a lot of, you know, there’s a lot of terms that we throw around. And in the business, we throw around between, you know, hard money lending, private lending, trust deed position, first position, trust deed position, all of these things, Bruce, or Craig, I said Bruce, Craig, if you will, kind of take us through a little bit and tell us, you know, what’s hard money, what’s private money? What’s, you know, trust deeds, walk people through that process.
Craig Hill  Yeah, well, interestingly enough, the first because I get that, that’s a question I get a lot like, it’s a term to so many people. So the first thing I say is, I start out by saying, the paperwork of it is really no different than Bank of America. So, if you understand, like when you get a first on your house with Bank of America, you understand the paperwork with hard money, it’s really not any different. So, that’s probably the easiest way say to start the conversation. The second aspect of it is a lot of people think, you know, hard money is almost a blank check for whatever they need. Like, you know. Whether it’s personal loan or we get a lot of, just there’s such a wide variety of people, they just hear the term hard money, and they think, ‘Well, geez, I can get that’.
Craig Evans  Right.
Craig Hill  So, that’s kind of a misconception. From a borrower’s point of view, hard money, it’s going to be easier in some ways, because the qualifying isn’t there, you know, at the Norris group, we’ve got to develop our own process based on just, just a couple different factors, like we’re looking at, we are looking at credit, and primarily we’re looking at liquid cash, because, you know, somebody really needs to have the ability to do this business before they should do it, you know? And this doesn’t limit, you know, we get a lot of new calls, a lot of new people that want to do this. So it’s not discouraging to them. It’s just that, when, we get somebody we’re probably different in the sense that we really want to make sure that they’re successful. So you know, if they might not have the liquid cash that we’re looking for, I always ask them, like, Well, do you have somebody that is unique to you, that would be willing to work with you, mainly, like a family member this or that, you know, somebody that’s unique to them. So, we’re pretty flexible in that way. So when it comes to hard money, there is a lot more flexibility. And then a lot of people think hard money will lend you more on a deal. Well, if you want to get 90% or something on a typical deal. Now, I’ll have to backtrack a little bit, but the bank will lend you that on a property that’s fixed up. So, we’re dealing with the property that needs work. So the numbers work a little differently, but it’s really a combination of, like, what the property will be worth when it’s fixed up, what you’re buying it for, and then how much the repairs are. So you’re kind of looking at and I’m kind of jumping around a little bit, so kind of straight me out, if you feel that…
Craig Evans  Well, yeah, I want to because, I was actually about to go there, as far as what that from an asset lending, what we’re looking at in those components, and how we’re judging the money that’s given out, and how, from an underwriting perspective, what you’re viewing, but I want to clear up a few things, because, you know, we do things a lot different than other people, right? So, you’ve got hard money lending that comes out of funds. You’ve got hard money lending that comes from certain individuals, from groups, things like that. I think I want to clear up and make sure that our audience understands currently and in the past, how most of our trust deeds, or how most of our hard money loans have, have transpired is kind of in a first position trust deed perspective, you know. So can you walk them through what that? Because I still get that asked probably at least once or twice a month, saying, hey, what’s the real difference in a first position trust deed? Because, that’s kind of unique to California and a few other states, but there are so many other states that don’t have trust deeds. You know that it’s a mortgage, right? But it’s who owns that. So I wanted to get you to kind of go through and explain, like, Hey, what is that trust deed? What’s that first position in that spot? And what does that mean, you know?
Craig Hill  Yeah, so basically a mortgage in first position, or a trust deed they are going to be similar. So where we’re unique on that part of it is a lot of companies have gone to like funds and things like that. So we’re still doing business, I guess you can almost call it the old fashioned way. At least part of our business, we are developing a fund that will also help increase it from what the buyers are looking for, but most of the loans we do, it’s just one investor in one trust deed. So going back to the Bank of America, example, you know, John Smith has a first trust deed on the property, so he’s secured that way, there’s nothing before him. So that’s how we do it. So it’s just, you know, it’s just one investor, one trust deed, and the people that invest with us, the money side of it, they really like that, because it’s not as easy to find that, going back, you know, 20 years, that’s all was, we’re one of the unique options with that.
Craig Evans  Yeah, and there’s a lot of value to that when you’re doing kind of a private one to one relationship of lending, because you don’t have a conglomerate in there, you know, going in, okay, here’s the paper you’re writing. This is the relationship that’s coming out of that. And there’s no other people stepping in and making decisions that make that, you know, start to get awkward, and there’s relationships that start to be built out of that, you know, I think that’s a lot of the key, that people sometimes miss, that where a value to a one-to-one trust deed is it’s a different way. It’s an old school way of kind of doing things, but it’s still a very valuable way between the borrower and the lender, providing, you know, a good appetite or a good option to be able to get loans when they need them, and also investments for investors, right? And I think that’s a lot of times what people miss out of that, so.
Craig Hill  Yeah, I mean, they’re able to, basically, when we sell a trustee, you know, to an investor, they’re able to look at the appraisal, they see what the house is, they see where it is, that they know that the worst case scenario on that is they could ultimately end up with that as a rental.
Craig Evans  Yeah.
Craig Hill  You know, so that they have a very clear path of what all the options are. Fortunately for us, you know, we have had very, very few that are in that situation. So most of the time they’re just going to get payments, and that’s going to, you know, then they’re going to get paid off. But you always got to make them aware of what that worst case scenario would be. And once again, it’s a very rational, you know, easy to understand scenario, because it’s one house, one trust deed, they know what the property is, you know? So, it’s, it’s easy in that respect.
Craig Evans  Well, you know, let’s kind of go back to the B of A analogy, you know, so many people call what we do, you know, from an like asset based lending.
Craig Hill  Right.
Craig Evans  In that process, you know, let’s kind of go back again and just discuss briefly the differences between how we approve a borrower, approve them credit worthy to do this deal, even though, yes, we’re asset based lending, compared to a conventional qualifying situation through a B of A, something like that.
Craig Hill  Yeah, ourselves, maybe even comparison which would be more appropriate to other like hard money companies, okay.
Craig Evans  Yeah.
Craig Hill  A lot of them really are almost strictly asset based, like they’re they’re not looking at the borrower, probably in the common sense way that we do, like we’re trying to look at it, we’re not we don’t have a a form and a set of numbers that they have to get these numbers to qualify. As I’ve mentioned earlier, we’re really looking. We want to make sure that this person is going to have a successful outcome.
Craig Evans  Yep.
Craig Hill  And there is a way to do that. You can look at the property. And you know, once again, with some of these newer clients that want to get into buying aspect of it, in the property, the whole deal is more than just numbers. And sometimes new people don’t understand, like, well, it could show you a deal with certain numbers that look better, but it’s not as good a deal as the one next to it. So..
Craig Evans  When you’re talking about a borrower where it comes into us, right? Let’s say we get an application that comes in and you or Joey, you know, as our team is looking at these applications when they’re coming in, your head of underwriting. So what are some of the first things that you look for in application before you even have the conversation with the borrower?
Craig Hill  Yeah, no, the first thing I do, and this almost it’s so Elementary, but this has changed over the last 10 plus years probably the first thing I do is look at the Google overhead.
Craig Evans  Okay.
Craig Hill  Because that will tell you a lot, like, some of these are easy, but there are other things. But for instance, is it next to a commercial building?
Craig Evans  Sure.
Craig Hill  Because there are so many things that like would make this house less sellable than another, okay? Or you’re looking at the overhead, and there’s a street of houses, and then the neighborhood right behind it, and almost everything around it is a brand new track, okay, well, when you’re just pulling numbers, you’re pulling numbers from this track. You’re not pulling numbers from just that street. So there’s a lot of things that can be ascertained by just looking at the overhead. You know, you can see, is it? Is it like not too far from a freeway, you know? Are there railroad tracks nearby? Is there a huge power, you know, sometimes there’s a huge power pole in the backyard. I mean, if the husband and wife go to look at that house, the wife’s going to say, you know, I don’t want that. And especially right now, we’re not in a market now, you know, unfortunately, some people will get into this business when, like, you know, you could almost sell a box, you know.
Craig Evans  Yep.
Craig Hill  Because it’s so frantic, but you kind of have to deal with it like in a market where you have to feel like there could be competition.
Craig Evans  Yep.
Craig Hill  And what are all the reasons that would make the couple decide this house is better than yours. It doesn’t mean that you still but that all affects price and things, because too often, with new people, they want to just when it’s a newer deal, they want to just they so want to say yes to the, you know, they’re trying to find a reason. They want to say yes.
Craig Evans  Right?
Craig Hill  And see once again, anybody that knows me, I want to say no. Well, I just want to make sure that I give them, they make sure they answer all the questions, and as long as they’re all, you know, then it’s a good deal. But you want to make sure you ask all those questions.
Craig Evans  Well, you know, Craig, as I’m sitting here listening, I’m thinking about, you know, one of the things that I looked at when I was buying The Norris Group, and Bruce and I were coming down to, okay, it’s coming down to the end of 2023, 2024 would be the date we do this. Am I really going to buy this company, right? One of the things that I really had to look at was, what was the history of the paper that The Norris Group has written, right? What’s, what’s the quality of paper? How many defaults had we had all that kind of stuff, right? Because that tells us, how are we underwriting, from a borrower perspective, how are we underwriting and protecting our investors? Those were things that I had to look at, right? And obviously that as The Norris Group, we’ve got a great track record in what we do there. And I think what I want to make sure our audience catches out of this is, this isn’t just about like what you’re looking at or what they need to think about, but if they can really understand how you’re viewing a property, and that’s not setting you on a pedestal, or things like that. But the reality is, you got, you know, almost three decades of history of looking at the at deals and understanding, ‘Hey, where’s a good deal at’, right? And, and so, like you say, so many people want to jump in, and this is their first deal, or their third deal, and they think this is great, and they’re missing the important things that you as that objective third party looked at it on Google overhead and just said, ‘you missed it, there’s a grow house, two houses…’
Craig Hill  Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, yeah. It is important that they start to look for like, okay, and like, I always tell them I don’t have all the answers, but I’m going to try to give you as many questions as I can so you can find out the answers, you know, sometimes might be something on title that doesn’t make sense.
Craig Evans  Well, I think that’s important as people, especially our borrowers, right? There’s a huge protection on our investors, understanding that that’s the approach you take to protect their money, right? So when you’re talking to investors on a one to one relationship of a trust deed, they they know they can trust you in the paper you’re bringing to them, right? It should make that, that decision a lot easier. But I think the thing that’s interesting out of this, Craig is I really want our audience to hear if there are borrowers and if they’re considering being, you know, being borrowing, or being someone is borrowing from us. Boy, you know, so often I know in my past that the underwriter is like, that’s the one you want to fight with. It’s like, come on, you know? Boy, I think if more people would listen to some of the wisdom that you bring to that table, there’s a lot of things they can glean and start to understand, how do they better vet a product before they even start making, you know, offers and trying to, you know, take them down. There’s a lot of things that I’m seeing out of that I wanted our audience to hear, versus just these are questions you’re asking, right?
Craig Hill  Oh, yeah, no. And I have a whole laundry list of people that I’ve talked to about deals, and like, you know, they haven’t done them, and they’ve thanked me, you know. And in all honesty, to be fair, there’s always, you know, used to be at least one guy in a seminar that would search me out said he bought the deal anyway, and he turned out great, which is good, I’m glad, you know. But overall, you just try to make sure that you make everybody aware of all the different aspects that they that could come up. Because often, you know, a lot of times Craig, it’s interesting too, the new people. You just go through the numbers with them, like, did they tell they tell me they have this deal, and I break it down, kind of like, I’ll say, ‘Okay, what are you going to be able to sell the house for? What are you buying it for? What are your repairs?’, okay? And I always try to emphasize to them, you can’t miss on the repairs, and you can’t miss on the ARV, because, as you know, they’re always high on the ARV and low on the repair. So human nature, that’s right, you know. And if I, if I just look at a very, you know, second grade math formula, and I add up the purchase price and the repairs, and it’s well over 80% of the ARV, there not enough room in there for. I mean, you know, and so many of them are so grateful for that little bit of information, just like, because they’re thinking, you know, it’s 500 and they’re getting 480 they’re going to make out, you know what I mean? They just, sometimes you just, the simplest things are a useful tool for them. So now, when they’re analyzing the next deal, that they’re going to kind of at least break it down and start backing it out that way. Because, you know, by the times you put in cost, and you know, everything else, that 20% turns into 10, like, nobody’s business.
Craig Evans  Sure.
Craig Hill  So, you know, sometimes it’s just a matter of a simple formula, you know, to help them, like, start to see the deals and what I’ll do with new people, and I can’t do this, like, indefinitely, but if somebody is really close and looking at a deal. I say, hey, just send it over, give me just some basic details. And I said, we’ll go over it. We’ll go over, you know, we’ll, you know, we’ll take a look at it to see, you know, if you’re in the ballpark or something, because, you know, you like to get them off to a star. And I always tell them, you can never tell somebody, okay, you’re gonna make money here, you know. But what we try to do is say, you know, ‘this really looks like you might lose money,’ which is even a better service.
Craig Evans  Yep, that’s right.
Craig Hill  You know. So if I used to have a guy where I used, which I am worn Italian, I don’t know how many years, but when I did, I told him, You don’t have to tell me, I look good, but if like this is really stupid, just tell me right now. You know, I’d rather know that, sign up.
Craig Evans  Hey, everybody that’s going to do it for part one with Craig Hill, we’ll look forward to see you next week.
Narrator  For more information on hard money loans, trust deed investing, and upcoming events with The Norris group. Check out thenorrisgroup.com. For more information on passive investing through the DBL Capital Real Estate Investment Fund, please visit dblapital.com.
Joey Romero The Norris group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE license 01219911. Florida mortgage lender license 1577 and NMLS license 1623669. For more information on hard money lending go to thenorrisgroup.com and click the hard money tab.