Lima One Capital Review 2026: NYSE-Parent BPL Lender with a Public Consent Order

Why this review exists

Lima One is one of two top-five US business-purpose lenders that almost every consumer review website covers wrong. The recurring mistakes you'll see in competing reviews:

1. The CEO is misidentified. John Warren left in 2019. Jeff Tennyson then ran the company for approximately six years. Josh Woodward has been CEO since July 25, 2024. Aggregator reviews still cite Warren as if he's the current CEO.
2. The parent company is misstated. Lima One is owned by MFA Financial, Inc. (NYSE: MFA), a public mortgage REIT — not Pretium Partners (which owns Anchor Loans) and not Magnetar Capital (which was the prior controlling owner from August 2019 through July 1, 2021).
3. The California DFPI consent order is omitted. A state regulator issued a Summary Revocation Order against Lima One's California finance lender license on April 3, 2020 and the parties entered a Consent Order on July 3, 2020. License #60DBO-45834. This is on the public DFPI enforcement page. Almost no competing review mentions it.
4. The headline statistic is stale. Most reviews still cite the 2021 acquisition-era figure of "$3B funded since 2010." Lima One's own homepage now reports 30,000+ closed loans and over $10B funded across 46 states (verified May 2026).

This review corrects all of those. We have no affiliate relationship with Lima One — there is no public retail affiliate program for our audience. We earn nothing if you apply. The analysis below is borrower-side only; there is no retail-investor product on Lima One (capital flows through MFA Financial's public REIT balance sheet, MFA-affiliated securitization vehicles, and warehouse facilities).

1. The corporate stack and ownership timeline

You cannot evaluate Lima One without understanding the four-stage ownership history. Each transition changed the funding base, the underwriting tolerance, and the servicing model.

2010 - Founded by John S. Warren. Warren served four years as a US Marine Corps infantry officer, including a 2006 deployment with 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines to Ramadi, Iraq, before founding Lima One Capital in Greenville, South Carolina. The name "Lima One" comes from his combat radio call sign. The company started with a single product (fix-and-flip bridge loans for South Carolina investors) and expanded multistate from 2012 onward.

2018 - MFA Financial buys a 43% minority interest plus $22M in preferred stock. MFA, a public mortgage REIT trading on the NYSE under "MFA," had been buying whole loans from Lima One since 2017. The 2018 minority stake gave MFA a board seat and a strategic option on full acquisition. Magnetar Capital remained the controlling owner alongside Lima One management.

August 2019 - John Warren sells his majority stake. Per Upstate Business Journal and BusinessWire reporting, Warren sold his founder ownership to a group including Magnetar Capital and Lima One management. He stepped away from operations to launch GEM Mining (a Bitcoin mining company headquartered in Greenville). Warren has no current operational role at Lima One; some competing reviews still incorrectly list him as CEO.

July 1, 2021 - MFA Financial buys out the remaining 57%. MFA paid approximately $62M cash to Magnetar Capital and Lima One management, taking 100% ownership of Lima One Holdings, LLC. The transaction included a $1.1B servicing portfolio and approximately $200M of related financial assets. From that date forward, Lima One is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MFA Financial — meaning Lima One's mortgage banking segment performance is now consolidated into MFA's quarterly 10-Q and annual 10-K filings (SEC EDGAR CIK 0001055160).

July 25, 2024 - Josh Woodward replaces Jeff Tennyson as President and CEO. Tennyson had served as CEO since approximately 2018 and led Lima One through the MFA acquisition. He retired in July 2024 and joined CEO Coaching International as a Partner in February 2025. Woodward joined Lima One in 2013 as employee #6, previously served as CFO, and built out the accounting, capital-markets, servicing, and special-servicing functions. He was named a HousingWire Rising Star in 2024 and an IMN SFR Industry Rising Star in 2022.

What the ownership history means for borrowers

Lima One is structurally the most transparent of the top US BPL lenders because its parent files SEC 10-Ks. You can read MFA Financial's quarterly reports and trace exactly what Lima One originated, where its delinquencies sit, and how its mortgage banking segment is performing inside the broader REIT. Kiavi (private VC), Roc360 (private LLC), and LendingOne (undisclosed asset manager) all lack this transparency.

The trade-off: Lima One's pricing flexibility and underwriting tolerance move with MFA Financial's portfolio-wide stress signals. MFA's residential 60+ day delinquency rate was 7.1% at year-end 2025, rose to 7.8% as of March 31, 2026, then declined to 7.3% subsequent to quarter-end per MFA's Q1 2026 earnings release. The mortgage banking segment that contains Lima One had a Q4 2025 net loss of $2.9M, recovered to $7.7M of income in Q1 2026 (up 34% QoQ from $5.7M in Q4). Compare that to Kiavi's independent $350M February 2026 LHOME-shelf securitization — Kiavi is funding independently; Lima One is funding through a parent that's navigating elevated delinquencies.

2. Verified product set and 2026 rate sheet

Lima One runs five active product lines: Fix-and-Flip, Bridge Plus, New Construction, DSCR Rental (including portfolio Rental30 Premier and short-term-rental variants), and Multifamily. Below are the published terms from Lima One's product pages, verified May 2026.

Fix-and-Flip

Source: Lima One Fix-and-Flip product page.

The 7.25% headline is for top-tier repeat borrowers with 740+ FICO, multiple completed flips, and a 1-4 unit deal in a Lima One core market. First-time borrowers typically see 9-10% starting rates, similar to Kiavi's pattern.

Bridge Plus

Bridge Plus is Lima One's positioned-between-products line for investors who don't fit the standard fix-flip box: short-hold acquisitions without major rehab, mid-cycle refinances, or stabilized properties being repositioned.

New Construction

Source: Lima One New Construction page.

The 90% LTC ceiling on ground-up is materially more aggressive than Kiavi's typical 85% on the same product profile and is the strongest reason mid-market builders use Lima One.

DSCR Rental

Source: Lima One Rental product page.

The 6.0% starting rate is the most aggressive on the page among top-five US BPL lenders as of May 2026 — Kiavi's promo floor is 5.75% on DSCR but very narrowly applied; LendingOne does not publish a rate-card floor; Roc360/CIVIC starts around 5.39% but its reputation gap is severe. For a typical 740 FICO / 75% LTV / 1.25 DSCR borrower, expect approx. 7.0-7.25% real-world pricing per third-party tracking sites.

Rental30 Premier (portfolio)

Lima One's portfolio product rolls up 5+ rental properties into a single 30-year non-recourse term loan, up to approximately $500K+ at 80% LTV, with flexible prepayment-penalty options. This is Lima One's most differentiated product: Kiavi has no equivalent portfolio aggregation; LendingOne's institutional channel handles this but at higher loan sizes ($25M+ aggregation lines); for mid-cap operators with 5-50 rentals, Lima One's Rental30 Premier is one of the only mainstream options without going institutional.

Multifamily

Lima One eclipsed $1B in multifamily bridge originations in July 2023 — the company offers value-add bridge and stabilized bridge loans for 5+ unit multifamily, structured for investors preparing for agency takeout financing. This is a smaller segment of Lima One's book and a smaller share of MFA's mortgage banking segment than the 1-4 unit residential business-purpose product set.

3. The California DFPI consent order: forensic detail

This is the single most important forensic finding in any Lima One review, and almost every aggregator omits it.

The facts:

• April 3, 2020 — The California Department of Business Oversight (now DFPI) issued an Order Summarily Revoking Lima One's California Finance Lender license, License #60DBO-45834. A "summary revocation" is a regulator's most immediate enforcement tool — it suspends the licensee's authority to operate while administrative proceedings continue.
• July 3, 2020 — The parties entered a Consent Order resolving the matter. The consent order resolves alleged violations of the California Financial Code (CFL) without admitting fault. License #60DBO-45834 was maintained on the conditions specified in the consent order.
• 2020-2026 — The license has remained active continuously since the consent order. Lima One has not been subject to a subsequent California enforcement action.

Source: California DFPI enforcement action page for Lima One Capital LLC, verified May 2026.

What this means for borrowers in 2026:

A consent order does not equal current malfeasance. The matter is closed. Lima One operates today in California with a clean and active license. But a state regulator finding a basis for summary revocation is the highest-severity enforcement tool short of criminal referral or permanent ban. The fact that no other top-five US BPL lender has an equivalent consent order on file is a meaningful comparative data point.

For comparison: Kiavi has no state consent order. LendingOne has no state consent order. Roc360 (parent) has no state consent order. Anchor Loans (parent Pretium) has no state consent order. Lima One has one. This is the asymmetry that decides long-duration servicing decisions for borrowers in the know.

4. Borrower reputation: BBB, Trustpilot, Yelp, BiggerPockets

Lima One's reputation profile is genuinely mixed — better than CIVIC/Roc360's reputation gap, worse than LendingOne's clean record, and comparable to Kiavi on most dimensions with one important divergence on the regulatory-record axis covered above.

BBB

• BBB-accredited; A+ rating at the Greenville SC profile page.
• 5 logged complaints in recent rolling-window data.
• 7 customer reviews on profile, averaging approximately 4/5 stars.

Documented complaint themes (from publicly viewable BBB complaints, 2024-2026):

• Escrow misallocation — payment posted to wrong account, late fees and default interest then stacked. Specific complaint: a borrower documented that representative Jeff Fleming assured fees would be reversed; payoff statement showed late fees and default interest still added, plus property-inspection fees, despite errors not being the customer's fault.
• Unauthorized auto-payments — a borrower documented in writing multiple times that they would make monthly payments on the due date and did not consent to ACH; Lima One pulled the payment from an account that had been used during the property sale.
• Communication delays on resolution of payment-application disputes.

Source: BBB Lima One Capital LLC complaint profile.

Trustpilot

Approximately 21+ reviews. Mixed sentiment. Positive reviews praise dedicated loan-rep relationships and competitive pricing for repeat borrowers. Negative reviews from April 2026 specifically reference: "Five weeks of lead time was not enough for this lender to get their act together" and "Zero communication from beginning to end." The Trustpilot rating is materially lower than Kiavi's 4.6/5 across 739+ reviews and below LendingOne's 4.0/5 across 426+ reviews.

Yelp

The Atlanta Lima One office Yelp page shows 1.6/5 stars across 18 reviews, a pattern most competing reviews do not surface. The Yelp page is for a specific office (Five Concourse Pkwy, Atlanta, GA) so the n is small and the distribution is skewed, but it's a reputation signal worth knowing for southeastern-market borrowers who do business at that office.

BiggerPockets

Two persistent threads on BiggerPockets capture borrower sentiment over time:

• "Lima One Capital Hard Money Lender...stay away!" (thread 611093) — multi-year thread accumulating borrower complaints, primarily about post-closing servicing issues.
• "Lima One Lending Complaints" (thread 927515) — more recent thread with similar pattern.

The recurring themes across both: post-closing escrow movements not reflecting borrower instructions, late-fee assessments on payments the borrower can document as on-time, and difficulty reaching the same point of contact across the loan lifecycle.

Counter-signal: Lima One's own customer-reviews page and verified Trustpilot positive reviews are real — repeat investors with established relationships and proper documentation procedures typically have smooth experiences. The pattern is concentrated in (a) first-time borrowers without close relationships, and (b) post-closing servicing rather than the origination flow itself.

5. Active and recent litigation

Below is the public-record litigation landscape for Lima One Capital as a party. None of these are class actions; all are individual disputes. The volume is roughly consistent with what you'd expect from a lender with 30,000+ closed loans — but the pattern of borrower-initiated cases is worth tracking.

• Hearst Pettway et al v. Lima One Capital, LLC et al — U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Case No. 5:24-cv-01282, filed March 25, 2024. Borrower-initiated federal case; docket as last retrieved indicates active proceedings.
• Tony Saad v. Lima One Capital — Texas 5th Court of Appeals, May 2025 decision. Borrower-initiated dispute on appeal.
• Lima One Capital v. Aixian Properties — Pennsylvania Superior Court, 1265 EDA 2024, March 2025 decision. Lender-initiated foreclosure / promissory-note dispute.
• Lima One Capital, LLC v. Herkimer BK — D.N.J. Case No. 2:21-cv-11035. Bankruptcy-related dispute; resolved on procedural grounds.
• Lima One Capital LLC v. DAC Acquisitions LLC — D.S.C. Case No. 6:19-cv-03547-DCC, 2020. Lender-initiated commercial dispute; lender prevailed.
• Lima One Capital LLC v. 201911WY 49 LLC et al — Florida state court, UniCourt records. Lender-initiated foreclosure.

No CFPB enforcement action against Lima One has been identified in our 2023-2026 search. Lima One's loans are business-purpose (Reg Z exempt), so CFPB jurisdiction is structurally limited.

The litigation pattern is normal-volume for a top-five BPL lender at scale. The forensic concern is the combination of (a) the California DFPI consent order plus (b) the BBB/Yelp/BiggerPockets servicing-pattern complaints plus (c) a non-zero count of borrower-initiated federal litigation. Taken together, they describe a lender whose origination side is well-run but whose servicing side has a documented multi-year pattern of disputes that borrowers should plan around.

6. Securitization and capital base

This is where Lima One's structural transparency is best, and where its independence is most limited.

Lima One does not run a standalone public rated securitization shelf under the "Lima One" name. The securitization activity flows through MFA Financial-affiliated entities. MFA Trust transactions and MFA non-QM securitizations include Lima One-originated BPL collateral. DBRS Morningstar has assigned provisional ratings to MFA-branded trusts (e.g., MFA 2023-INV1 Trust, backed by 788 DSCR mortgage loans totaling approximately $203.85M as of December 31, 2022 cut-off; Class A-1 rated AAA(sf) with 46.60% credit enhancement). MFA completed one $305M non-QM securitization in Q1 2025 and two non-QM securitizations totaling $757.2M unpaid principal balance in Q1 2026; total MFA securitized debt as of March 31, 2026 was approximately $6.3B.

S&P Global Ratings publishes a public servicer evaluation of Lima One Capital LLC. The evaluation exists on S&P's regulatory disclosure portal as a formal "Servicer Evaluation: Lima One Capital LLC" document. That's a meaningful credibility signal — Lima One acts as its own primary servicer and special servicer on the loans it originates, and S&P's rating-agency evaluation of that servicing function is a public document available to institutional investors and counterparties.

Borrower implication: You can read MFA Financial's 10-K and trace Lima One's mortgage banking segment performance every quarter. You can read S&P's servicer evaluation. You can read DBRS-rated MFA trust statements. That's the most parent-transparent capital model of the top-five US BPL lenders. The trade-off: Lima One's pricing and underwriting move with MFA's broader portfolio stress, not with Lima One's standalone economics — and MFA carried 60+ day residential delinquencies of 7.1% at year-end 2025 rising to 7.8% at Q1 2026.

7. Lima One vs Kiavi vs Roc360 vs LendingOne

The four-way 2026 comparison for major US BPL lenders.

The single most consequential comparative finding: Lima One is the only top-five US BPL lender with a state-regulator consent order on file, but it's also the only one whose parent files SEC 10-Ks every quarter. That's a real trade-off — maximum public transparency on the parent's balance sheet vs. a documented historical regulatory action on the operating subsidiary.

For more depth on the head-to-head, see our Kiavi vs Lima One comparison and the LendingOne review.

8. When Lima One is the right choice

Based on the product set, the parent-transparency profile, and the borrower-review pattern, Lima One is the strongest choice for:

1. Ground-up new construction builders at 90% LTC. Lima One's NewConstruct at 90% LTC and 75% LTARV is more aggressive than Kiavi or LendingOne on the same risk profile. For builders running 4-12 spec homes per year, this is real working-capital leverage.
2. 5+ unit DSCR rental portfolios. Rental30 Premier rolls up 5-50 rentals into one non-recourse 30-year term loan. Kiavi has no equivalent. LendingOne goes higher (institutional channel) but at higher minimum sizes.
3. DSCR borrowers with strong FICO at the top of the rate sheet. The 6.0% starting rate on single-family DSCR is the most aggressive publicly-advertised floor among top-five BPL lenders as of May 2026. Real-world pricing for a 740 FICO / 75% LTV / 1.25 DSCR borrower lands around 7.0-7.25%, which is at parity or better than Kiavi for the same profile.
4. Multifamily bridge for 5-50 unit value-add. Lima One's $1B+ multifamily bridge book is one of the deepest among non-bank BPL lenders for this product profile.
5. Foreign nationals. Lima One explicitly offers programs to non-US-citizen borrowers without established US credit — a differentiator vs Kiavi and LendingOne, which both have stricter foreign-national requirements.
6. Borrowers who want to read the parent's public financial filings. If you want to know what's happening at your lender's parent every quarter, Lima One is the only top-five BPL lender whose owner (MFA Financial, NYSE: MFA) files SEC 10-Ks.

Lima One is the wrong choice for:

1. Borrowers in AK, ND, SD, VT, or Puerto Rico. Lima One does not lend in these jurisdictions. Kiavi covers AK, VT; LendingOne covers some of the others.
2. Speed-obsessed first-time flippers. Lima One's "within 3 weeks for repeat borrowers" is materially slower than Kiavi's 7-day standard close. If you must close in a week, Kiavi or RCN is the right call.
3. Borrowers who cannot document every payment in writing. Given the BBB/BiggerPockets servicing-pattern record, Lima One borrowers should treat payment documentation as a primary obligation. If you can't or won't maintain that discipline, the post-closing experience may be frustrating.
4. Borrowers who attach high value to a clean state regulatory record. The CA DFPI consent order is a real public mark. If that matters to your procurement process or your peace of mind, LendingOne or Kiavi (no consent orders) is structurally cleaner.
5. Sub-$85K small-balance DSCR. Lima One's DSCR floor is $85K. RCN goes to $50K. Kiavi effective floor is $100K.
6. Borrowers without 660+ FICO. Lima One's hard FICO floor is 660 across all products. Some specialty BPL lenders go down to 640 with rate adjustments.

9. Pros and Cons

FAQ

Related coverage

• Kiavi vs Lima One Capital 2026: Speed vs Depth — full head-to-head with rate sheet, regulatory record, and the servicing-pattern divergence
• Kiavi Review 2026: Closed Investor Notes, $30B Lender — the rebrand from LendingHome, the LHOME securitization shelf, and the borrower-side product
• LendingOne Review 2026: $11B Florida BPL Lender — the closest comparable on parent-ownership opacity but with a cleaner state-regulator record
• Roc360 Review 2026 — the CIVIC reputation gap and the Temasek-anchored REIT structure
• RCN Capital Review 2026 — wholesale-first peer with $8.2B+ originated; another lender with no publicly-rated standalone securitization shelf
• Anchor Loans Review 2026 — the oldest BPL lender now Pretium-backed; $5.4B 2025 originations
• Best Fix-and-Flip Lender 2026: Forensic Comparison — verdict matrix across all top BPL lenders with decision framework
• Real estate crowdfunding failures 2020-2025 — the pattern of platform and lender stress that contextualizes any BPL borrower decision
• Visio Lending Review 2026 — eldest DSCR specialist (Rental360 launched 2015); #1 DSCR Scotsman Guide 2024; 11 S&P-rated deals via Visio-Beach Point Mortgage Trust
• Center Street Lending Review 2026 — Irvine CA mid-tier BPL; $7.3B lifetime; new Dec 2025 retail-pivot Reg D offering at $500 minimum
• Best DSCR Loan Lender 2026: Forensic Comparison — Rental30 vs Visio Rental360 vs Kiavi DSCR vs LendingOne vs Easy Street EasyRent — full forensic matrix
• Velocity Financial Review 2026 (NYSE:VEL) — the only publicly traded pure-play investor BPL lender competing with MFA-parent Lima One on public reporting transparency
• Constructive Loans Review 2026 — captive originator for Adamas Trust (NASDAQ:ADAM, formerly NYMT), wholesale-only with 95% total LTC and 5-8 unit DSCR reach
• Quontic Bank DSCR Review 2026 — the only FDIC-insured DSCR lender, with portfolio retention and CDFI underwriting tailwind

Bottom line

Lima One Capital is a top-five US business-purpose lender with the most transparent capital structure of any private BPL lender (because MFA Financial is publicly traded on the NYSE), the most aggressive ground-up new-construction leverage (90% LTC), one of the more aggressive DSCR rate floors (6.0% headline on single-family), and the deepest portfolio aggregation product (Rental30 Premier) for mid-cap rental operators. The lifetime track record — 30,000+ closed loans and over $10B funded across 46 states — is real and validated through the parent's public SEC filings.

The forensic counter-weights are also real: a California DFPI Summary Revocation followed by a Consent Order in 2020 (License #60DBO-45834) — the only state-regulator consent order on the top-five BPL lender list. A documented multi-year servicing-pattern complaint history across BBB, Yelp, and BiggerPockets, concentrated on post-closing escrow misallocation, unauthorized ACH, and late-fee stacking. Active borrower-initiated federal litigation (Hearst Pettway, E.D. Pa. 5:24-cv-01282). Parent MFA Financial carrying elevated 60+ day delinquencies (7.1%-7.8% across 2025-2026) that constrain Lima One's pricing flexibility.

The honest 2026 recommendation: Lima One is a credible primary lender to comparison-shop on every deal in the 46 states it serves, especially for ground-up new construction at the 90% LTC ceiling and for 5+ unit DSCR portfolios via Rental30 Premier. For a first-time flipper who values 7-day close-times and a cleaner state-regulator record, Kiavi is structurally a better fit. For a borrower whose first priority is regulatory cleanliness without giving up product depth, LendingOne is the closer match.

For long-duration 30-year DSCR borrowers specifically, document every payment in writing, set up servicing communications in writing rather than by phone, and keep the BBB profile and DFPI enforcement page bookmarked. The servicing-pattern record is real and the documentation discipline costs nothing.

We will keep this review updated as MFA Financial publishes Q2 2026 and beyond results, as the Hearst Pettway docket evolves, and as the BBB and Trustpilot data shifts through 2026.

Sources (primary and verified):

• Lima One Capital homepage and statistics (30,000+ loans, $10B+, 46 states) — verified May 2026
• Lima One Fix-and-Flip product page
• Lima One DSCR Rental product page
• Lima One New Construction product page
• Lima One Multifamily Bridge $1B Originations announcement (July 2023)
• Lima One Leadership Team page (Josh Woodward and current executives)
• Lima One Capital appoints Josh Woodward as President and CEO (July 25, 2024)
• Greenville's Lima One Capital appoints Clemson alum to CEO (Post and Courier)
• John Warren Sells Stake in Lima One Capital (BusinessWire, September 2019)
• Lima One founder sells majority stake (Upstate Business Journal)
• Former CEO Jeff Tennyson Joins CEO Coaching International (February 2025)
• MFA Financial Announces Agreement to Acquire Lima One Capital (May 2021)
• MFA Financial Announces Completion of Acquisition of Lima One Capital (July 2021)
• MFA Financial Q1 2026 Financial Results ($130.2M Lima One originations, $7.7M mortgage banking income)
• MFA Financial Q4 and Full Year 2025 Financial Results ($226M Q4 originations; $22.8M full-year MB income)
• MFA Financial Q3 2025 Financial Results ($148.5M Lima One originations)
• MFA Financial Q1 2025 Financial Results ($122.3M Lima One originations)
• California DFPI Enforcement Action: Lima One Capital LLC
• CA DFPI Order Summarily Revoking License #60DBO-45834 (April 3, 2020) PDF
• CA DFPI Consent Order with Lima One Capital LLC (July 3, 2020) PDF
• S&P Global Ratings Servicer Evaluation: Lima One Capital LLC
• DBRS Morningstar Provisional Ratings to MFA 2023-INV1 Trust
• BBB Profile: Lima One Capital LLC (Greenville SC, A+ accredited)
• BBB Complaints: Lima One Capital LLC
• Trustpilot: Lima One Capital
• Yelp: Lima One Capital Atlanta (1.6/5 across 18 reviews)
• BiggerPockets: Lima One Capital Hard Money Lender stay away (thread 611093)
• Hearst Pettway et al v. Lima One Capital LLC (E.D. Pa. 5:24-cv-01282, filed March 25, 2024)
• Lima One Capital v. Aixian Properties (Pa. Super. Ct. 1265 EDA 2024, March 2025)
• Lima One Capital LLC v. Herkimer BK (D.N.J. 2:21-cv-11035)
• Lima One Capital LLC v. DAC Acquisitions LLC (D.S.C. 6:19-cv-03547)
• John Warren biography (GEM Mining)
• MFA Financial SEC EDGAR filings (CIK 0001055160)

Last verified: May 11, 2026. Loan terms, securitization data, regulatory records, and review-platform metrics change frequently — always confirm against the lender's current website and primary databases before applying.