Aspen Capital

Aspen specialized in hard money loans to commercial borrowers who might not qualify for conventional real-estate financing. Such loans are made based on value of the collateral rather than the creditworthiness of the borrower, and they typically carry relatively high interest rates. During the housing boom of the early 2000s, Aspen Capital expanded into the residential mortgage business. an Aspen-affiliated company called Gregory Funding made loans to homeowners to help pay off delinquent mortgages. High-risk borrowers paid interest rates as high as 11% plus fees. The short-term loans, which often carried balloon payments, seemingly made sense only as home prices continued to rise. The Oregonian found that about 49% of the company’s mortgages in the Portland area over five years fell into foreclosure.