In the 2025 Top Private Lenders ranking in Scotsman Guide, Kiavi was ranked No. 1 with $5.5 billion in fix-and-flip volume, more than three times that of its nearest competitor. Its CEO and board member, Arvind Mohan, spoke with Scotsman Guide about how Kiavi grew to dominate fix-and-flip, and what it plans next.
How did you become the No. 1 private lender, with three times the volume of your nearest competitor?
By understanding our customers’ behavior and needs. Kiavi has been around for 12 years now, but our early days were spent learning about customer needs across different segments and geographies. We used that to build digital funnels with data and technology that provide feedback loops, which were instrumental to our ability to scale. They also helped us build one of the strongest capital rails in the marketplace that instilled trust with institutional investors. We use a very powerful growth flywheel with data and technology informing our outcomes, which in turn drives our capital advantage.
How is Kiavi approaching market risk? How are negative appreciation predictions changing underwriting decisions?
We take a proactive approach to risk assessment. We’re data-driven, leveraging our own internal valuation technology to determine the risk profile of each deal. A lot of our lending is done on post-renovation, forward-looking home price value (the after-repair value or ARV). So, we apply local market data and insights to inform the ARV — versus taking a broad swath approach — since the dynamics are different in each market. We overlay risk profiles to ARV predictions when we price out our loans to ensure we’re balanced from a credit loss perspective.
How has artificial intelligence transformed the private lending process?
Digitizing the process creates a real-time feedback loop that provides more certainty and confidence for our borrowers. They’re not submitting a deal and waiting for somebody to return with an answer a few days later. They’ll get clarity on if we think the deal is going to work, with a high degree of reliability, instantly. That clarity allows them to pursue deals faster and more confidently.
How is institutional capital changing private lending?
Having institutional investors creates consistency, and ultimately more liquidity. You could see fix-and-flips or other products on the business-purpose spectrum migrate towards the non-qualified mortgage playbook, where capital that came years ago started to define that product development and create scalability for brokers and loan officers. I expect you’ll continue to see that happening in the residential transition loans space.
What new opportunities are you pursuing?
We see interesting opportunities to diversify the product mix. Construction offers a good opportunity to leverage our data and technology platform while helping to combat the housing crisis we’re facing in America. You’re also seeing real estate investment lending moving from traditional banking to the non-banking, private capital world. We’re well positioned from both the customer and product perspectives to take advantage of those changes. While we have a strong presence in the renovation/fix-and-flip market, we’re excited to take advantage of our strengths to expand into more products that serve even more types of customers.
What does a human-centric AI-powered lending process look like?
We look at technology as an enabler — a scaling function more than a replacement function. Starting, maintaining and growing relationships is always going to be human driven, but we can leverage technology alongside generative AI for repetitive analytical tasks. Things that are taking away from higher-value, human-oriented, complex tasks. This will allow brokers and loan officers to really focus on the human touch. If technology can happen in the background as you’re having human conversations, you create more leverage for you and your business.
The capital environment for fix-and-flip lenders has shifted, especially with rated securitizations. What does that mean for brokers and loan officers?
If you, as a broker, could have more consistency in lenders’ terms, it offers a better opportunity to create more clarity on what’s possible for your customers. Especially if you can pair with a lender like Kiavi that can give you that kind of certainty alongside the consistency, it’s really going to allow you to operate at higher velocity at the end of the day.
What is a question that you would ask someone in your position?
I’d ask what does Kiavi’s future look like? We want to accelerate the growth flywheel we built in our core business and expand our product mix to offer a broader suite of solutions. Can Kiavi be the funnel to seamlessly offer business-purpose lending products, starting with a fix-and-flip, which can give the certainty and consistency to help real estate investors scale up? I’m excited about product mix growth and developing our indirect channel presence, all while using Kiavi’s technology and data advantage to help serve brokers and LOs. I see a lot of potential in what we can accomplish for our customers and partners in the future!
