Lima One Capital Reviews 2026: HMDA 2025 Rates and Complaints

Updated November 5, 2026: MFA reported third-quarter 2026 results on November 4, 2026. Lima One funded $166.1 million of new business purpose loans (maximum loan amount $287.8 million) plus $88.4 million of draws on earlier transitional loans, earned $7.4 million of mortgage banking income, and MFA's business purpose loans were 8.4% 60 or more days past due at September 30, 2026 (June 30: 9.5%). Details in section 6.

Updated November 2, 2026: we recounted Lima One's 2025 HMDA file record by record. The earlier counts (2,379 loans, $912,665,000) were too high; the recount gives 2,305 loans and $875,855,000, and every HMDA figure on this page now uses it.

Updated October 21, 2026: what Lima One closed in 2025 (HMDA), 19 CFPB complaints since 2023, and MFA's June 30 10-Q. In its 2025 HMDA filing Lima One Capital, LLC (LEI 254900FBWEZ3YUPOBN33) reports 2,305 business-purpose loans for $875,855,000, with a median note rate of 8.9%, a median loan-to-value of 70% and a median loan of $215,000. That blended 8.9% is not a rate anyone is quoted: the 1,260 short-term loans (13-, 19- and 24-month terms) have a median note rate of 10.2% and the 1,045 30-year loans 7.233%. No short-term loan was at or below the advertised 7.25% (lowest 8.0%) and no 30-year loan at or below the advertised 6.0% (lowest 6.1%). Lima One denied 863 files, 27.2% of the files that ended in a loan or a denial (Kiavi: 11.4%). HMDA records applications taken to a decision, so these are closed loans and decided files, not everyone who asked for a quote. The CFPB complaint database lists 19 complaints against Lima One Capital, LLC received since January 1, 2023 (40 since 2017), most about the payment process. MFA's Form 10-Q for June 30, 2026 shows 9.5% of its business purpose loans 60 or more days past due (December 31, 2025: 8.1%) and a Lima One segment net loss available to common of $2.5 million for the quarter. Correction: earlier versions called Lima One a "top-five" lender; in HMDA 2025 (investment-property and 2-4 unit records) it ranks 38th of 1,756 lenders by business-purpose loans originated, so the wording below now says "national". Figures dated in the sections below keep their dates.

Why this review exists

Lima One is a large national business-purpose lender (2,305 loans in its 2025 HMDA filing) 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, or never explained. California's regulator summarily revoked Lima One's finance-lender license (#60DBO-45834) on April 3, 2020 for not filing its annual report, and a Consent Order on July 3, 2020 rescinded the revocation with a $10,000 penalty. It is on the public DFPI enforcement page. Almost no competing review mentions it, and the ones that do rarely say it was about a late report.
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).
5. The rate is quoted as one number. Lenders advertise "as low as" floors and review sites repeat a blended median. In the 2025 HMDA file Lima One's 1,260 short-term loans have a median note rate of 10.2% and its 1,045 30-year loans 7.233%, and a blended 8.9% describes neither product. See the HMDA section below.

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 $57.3 million in cash (plus $4.7 million of restricted stock unit awards to Lima One management) 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 among 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 became a wholly owned subsidiary of Figure Technology Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq: FIGR) on September 1, 2026 (Figure's Form 8-K), and Figure also files 10-Qs and 8-Ks; Roc360 (private LLC) and LendingOne (undisclosed asset manager) 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. At June 30, 2026 the Form 10-Q (filed August 5, 2026) shows 7.0% for all residential whole loans, but 9.5% for business purpose loans, the book that is "primarily originated by Lima One", up from 8.1% at December 31, 2025 (details in section 6). The Lima One segment, which in MFA's reporting is the origination and servicing business plus the loans it originated and their financing, posted a net loss of $2.9M in Q4 2025, $3.4M in Q1 2026 and $2.5M in Q2 2026 (MFA's earnings releases and Form 10-Q); for full-year 2025 it earned $14.0M. Do not confuse that with Lima One mortgage banking income, a revenue line, which was $5.7M in Q4 2025, $7.7M in Q1 2026 (up 34%) and $8.4M in Q2 2026. These are the segment's results, not MFA's as a whole. For comparison, Kiavi became a wholly owned subsidiary of Figure Technology Solutions, Inc. on September 1, 2026, and at that closing Figure repaid Kiavi's credit agreement in full and Kiavi Funding terminated its Deutsche Bank repurchase agreement (Figure's Form 8-K); 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

Field	Value
Loan amount	$100,000 - $5,000,000
Starting rate	"As low as 7.25%"
Max LTC	Up to 95% (quick flips with rehab less than 50% of purchase)
Max LTV	75%
Rehab financing	100% of rehab budget, 24-hour draws
Term	13, 19, or 24 months (interest-only)
Time to close	Within 3 weeks for repeat borrowers
Prepayment penalty	None
FICO floor	660
Experience	At least one investment-property exit (flip, sale, or refi) in past 36 months
Property types	1-4 unit residential, warrantable condos
Foreign nationals	Eligible

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.

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.

Field	Value
Term	13 or 19 months
Max LTV	Up to 80%
FICO floor	700 (higher than Fix-and-Flip's 660)
Interest structure	Interest-only
Prepayment penalty	None

New Construction

Field	Value
Loan amount	$100,000 - $5,000,000
Starting rate	"As low as 9.2%"
Max LTC	Up to 90%
Max LTARV	Up to 75%
Term	Lima One's product page (October 8, 2026) lists 19- and 24-month options in its highlights, while the FAQ on the same page says a standard length of 13 months with 19 also available
Draws	As fast as 24 hours; 4-day target
Interest structure	Interest-only on drawn funds
Property types	1-4 unit; spec builds, scrape-and-build, subdivisions, custom homes, infill
Experience	Ground-up project on title, or GC, or fix-and-flip portfolio
Special programs	Build2Rent (two-close program per Lima One's page, October 8, 2026: one loan for the build, one for the rental, with no seasoning required to refinance into the rental loan); foreign nationals eligible

Source: Lima One New Construction page.

The 90% LTC ceiling on ground-up, per Lima One's product page, is the strongest reason mid-market builders use Lima One.

DSCR Rental

Field	Value
Loan amount (single-family)	$85,000 - $2,500,000
Starting rate (single-family)	"As low as 6.0%"
DSCR floor	1.0 (1.2+ for best pricing/leverage)
Max LTV (purchase)	Up to 80%
Max LTV (rate-term refi)	75%
Max LTV (cash-out)	75% (single-family); 70% (short-term rental cash-out)
Term options	30-year fixed amortizing; ARMs; interest-only options
FICO floor	660
Income documentation	None ("No personal income requirements")
Property types	Single-family to 9-unit multifamily, warrantable condos, short-term rentals (Airbnb/VRBO eligible)
Prepayment penalty	Options from 0 years to 5-4-3-2-1 step-down
Cash-out seasoning	Three months for DSCR; waived for refinances from Lima One fix-and-flip, new construction, or bridge

Source: Lima One Rental product page.

The 6.0% starting rate is the most aggressive on the page among the business-purpose lenders compared here as of May 2026 (it is an advertised floor: the lowest 30-year note rate in Lima One's 2025 HMDA filing was 6.1%) — Kiavi gives rates to applicants only and is not compared here; LendingOne does not publish a rate-card floor; Roc Capital, Roc360's broker channel, shows a DSCR rate from 5.39%, while CIVIC and FACo show 6.56% (October 11, 2026), and CIVIC's 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 current Portfolio Rental page (checked October 7, 2026) describes "Two or more rental properties, one loan", a $125,000 minimum value for each property and 5-, 10- and 30-year options. An older, undated Rental30 Premier release describes portfolios of 5 or more properties worth $500,000 or more, up to 80% LTV, on a 30-year non-recourse loan; treat those as the earlier generation of the product and confirm current terms with the lender. This is Lima One's most differentiated product: 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.

Lima One Capital in 2025 HMDA data: loans, rates and denials

Lima One Capital, LLC (LEI 254900FBWEZ3YUPOBN33) files under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, so the federal 2025 loan-level file shows what it actually closed and denied. We read that file (FFIEC and CFPB Data Browser, activity year 2025, read October 21, 2026), kept business-purpose records, and compared Lima One with Kiavi Funding, Inc. and RCN Capital, LLC (the RCN filer with 7,055 loans; a second RCN LEI with 4,868 records is left out). HMDA records applications taken to a decision. Our extract holds the originated and the denied files only, so every denial rate below is denied divided by originated plus denied, and files withdrawn before a decision are not counted. Every figure is our arithmetic on the public file.

2025, business-purpose loans	Lima One	Kiavi	RCN Capital
Loans originated	2,305	25,528	7,055
Dollars originated	$875,855,000	$7,786,260,000	$1,538,135,000
Median note rate, all loans	8.9%	9.95%	7.84%
Median loan	$215,000	$215,000	$165,000
Median loan-to-value	70.0%	71.8%	not shown
Denied files, share of originated plus denied	27.2% (863 denied)	11.4% (3,300)	46.2% (6,067)
Short-term loans (terms of 60 months or less), share of loans	54.7%	77.0%	29.9%

The blended median misleads because the three lenders mix two different products in different proportions. Split by loan term:

2025, by term	Loans	Median note rate	Middle half of rates	Median loan	Denied share
Lima One, short-term (13, 19 and 24 months)	1,260	10.2%	9.5% to 10.7%	$285,000	28.2%
Kiavi, short-term (60 months or less)	19,652	10.45%	9.5% to 11.24%	$235,000	9.1%
RCN Capital, short-term (60 months or less)	2,109	10.59%	9.99% to 11.09%	$195,000	55.3%
Lima One, 30-year (360 months)	1,045	7.233%	6.8% to 7.75%	$155,000	25.6%
Kiavi, 30-year (360 months)	5,794	7.25%	7.0% to 7.5%	$155,000	18.7%
RCN Capital, 30-year (360 months)	4,944	7.565%	7.175% to 7.886%	$155,000	41.1%

What the file shows:

• Short-term loans are 54.7% of Lima One's loans and 74.1% of its dollars ($649.3 million of $875.9 million). Its 8.9% blended median sits between a 10.2% short-term median and a 7.233% 30-year median; Kiavi's 9.95% is higher mainly because 77.0% of its loans are short-term, and RCN's 7.84% is lower mainly because 70.1% of its loans are 30-year. Compared term for term, Lima One's medians are within a quarter of a point of Kiavi's (10.2% against 10.45% short-term, 7.233% against 7.25% on 30-year) and below RCN's.
• Advertised floors are the best case, not the typical loan. Lima One advertises fix-and-flip rates "as low as 7.25%" and DSCR rates "as low as 6.0%". In the 2025 file none of the 1,260 short-term loans was at or below 7.25% (the lowest was 8.0%), and none of the 1,045 30-year loans was at or below 6.0% (the lowest was 6.1%; 117 were at or below 6.5%). Rates have moved since 2025, so ask for a current quote, but plan on the medians.
• Leverage is the same on both products: the median combined loan-to-value is 70.0% for short-term and for 30-year loans (Kiavi: 71.5% short-term, 75.0% on 30-year).
• Denials: 863 files were denied. The first reason listed was collateral on 376 (43.6%), credit history on 253 (29.3%) and employment history on 91 (10.5%). Lima One's 27.2% is above Kiavi's 11.4% and below RCN's 46.2%, but a HMDA denial rate depends on how much a lender screens before an application is taken (81.4% of RCN's first reasons are "other"), so it is not a quality score.
• Purpose and place: 1,078 purchase loans, 702 cash-out refinances and 525 other refinances. The most loans were in Florida (269), North Carolina (262), Virginia (149), South Carolina (137), Georgia (131) and Tennessee (130). The file shows originations in 45 states and the District of Columbia; none in Alaska, Connecticut, North Dakota, South Dakota or Vermont, and no Connecticut denials either. Lima One's own list of excluded states (above) does not name Connecticut, so confirm with Lima One if your property is there.
• Sold: 1,300 of the 2,305 loans (56.4%) were reported as sold to a private securitizer in 2025 and 1,005 were not sold that year, which fits the MFA structure described in section 6.
• Rank: 38th of 1,756 lenders by business-purpose loans originated in the HMDA 2025 file (investment-property and 2-4 unit records, the extract we used), behind Kiavi (second) and RCN Capital (eighth) among the investor lenders we compare. The 1,011 of its loans that fit our DSCR-type definition (1-4 units, investment property, 30-year or longer, no debt-to-income ratio reported) have a median rate of 7.233% and a median loan of $145,000; see our DSCR lenders ranked by loans.
• Do not add HMDA to MFA's volume. HMDA reports the loan amount; MFA's 10-Q reports Lima One's quarterly "maximum unpaid principal balance" ($316 million in the second quarter of 2026) and, separately, originations plus draws on existing transitional loans ($269.6 million). They measure different things.

3. The California DFPI consent order: what the two orders say

Correction, September 28, 2026. Earlier versions of this section described the 2020 order as a serious enforcement finding and said no other top-five business-purpose lender had one. Having now read both orders, they concern a late annual report, and Easy Street Capital received the identical order the same day. The text below replaces that description.

The facts, from the orders themselves:

• March 15, 2020 — Every California Finance Lenders Law licensee had to file an annual report with the Commissioner by this date (Financial Code section 22159). The regulator had sent reminders on December 16, 2019, January 29 and March 2, 2020. Lima One had not filed, and a notice on March 18 gave it until March 30.
• April 3, 2020 — The California Department of Business Oversight (now DFPI) issued an Order Summarily Revoking License #60DBO-45834 under Financial Code section 22715, which allows summary revocation when a licensee fails to file that report within 10 days of notice. The order's only finding is that Lima One "did not file its Annual Report". Lima One requested a hearing.
• July 2, 2020 — Lima One filed the report, 77 business days late. It told the regulator it had taken one new California application after April 3 and, once it learned the license was revoked, forwarded that applicant to a different entity instead of making the loan.
• July 3, 2020 — A Consent Order, signed for Lima One by its then CFO Joshua Woodward, rescinded the revocation and required a $10,000 administrative penalty. The consent order notes that California Financial Code section 22715 allowed a penalty of up to $25,000 for a report 77 business days late.

Source: California DFPI enforcement action page for Lima One Capital LLC and the two orders linked above, read September 28, 2026.

What this means for borrowers in 2026:

It is a compliance-paperwork lapse with a fine, closed six years ago, and it says nothing about how Lima One treats borrowers. It was not unusual that spring: Easy Street Capital CA, LLC received the same summary revocation on the same day, April 3, 2020, for the same missed report, and settled it with a $1,000 penalty (our Easy Street review). What does bear on a long-dated DSCR loan is the servicing record in the next sections, not this order.

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.

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 787 reviews (October 8, 2026) 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.

CFPB complaints (read October 21, 2026). The CFPB Consumer Complaint Database lists 19 complaints against "Lima One Capital, LLC" received from January 1, 2023 to September 30, 2026 (40 since the first, April 11, 2017): 6 in 2023, 6 in 2024, 3 in 2025 and 4 in 2026. Sixteen are tagged mortgage, two debt collection and one personal loan. The issues named were trouble during the payment process (6), applying for a mortgage or refinancing (4), closing on a mortgage (3), struggling to pay a mortgage (3), taking or threatening negative or legal action (1), false statements or representation (1) and fees or interest the borrower did not expect (1). The company response was "closed with explanation" for 17, "closed with monetary relief" for 1, and 1 is in progress; the database marks 6 of the 19 as not answered on time. That is the same payment-processing theme as the BBB complaints above. The database is consumer-submitted and unverified, and we have not checked which of these loans were business-purpose.

The litigation pattern is normal-volume for a business-purpose lender at this scale. The forensic concern is the combination of (a) the BBB/Yelp/BiggerPockets servicing-pattern complaints and (b) a non-zero count of borrower-initiated federal litigation. (The 2020 California order was about a late annual report and does not belong in this list.) 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. In Lima One's own 2025 HMDA filing, 1,300 of its 2,305 loans (56.4%) were reported as sold to a private securitizer in the same year; the other 1,005 were not sold in 2025.

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 national BPL lenders we compare. 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, then 7.0% at June 30, 2026.

What MFA's June 30, 2026 Form 10-Q says about Lima One

MFA filed its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 on August 5, 2026. The Lima One items:

• Volume: Lima One "originated Business purpose loans with a maximum unpaid principal balance of $316 million, an increase from the $219 million originated in the first quarter of 2026". MFA added $269.6 million of business purpose loan originations and draws on existing transitional loans in the quarter, and Lima One sold single-family rental loans with an unpaid principal balance of $92.1 million to third parties for gains of $2.3 million. Unfunded commitments on transitional loans were $314.4 million (single-family) and $15.6 million (multifamily) at June 30, 2026.
• Income: Lima One mortgage banking income was $8.367 million in the second quarter (second quarter of 2025: $6.087 million) and $16.027 million for the six months ($11.524 million). The Lima One segment's net income available to common was a loss of $2.544 million for the quarter, against income of $8.756 million a year earlier, and a loss of $5.902 million for the six months, against income of $14.137 million. No impairment has been recorded on the $61.1 million of Lima One goodwill.
• Credit: the business purpose loans MFA holds, "primarily originated by Lima One", were 9.5% 60 or more days past due at June 30, 2026, up from 8.1% at December 31, 2025:

Business purpose loans held by MFA	Unpaid principal balance, June 30, 2026	Weighted average coupon	60+ days past due, June 30, 2026	60+ days past due, December 31, 2025
Single-family rental	$1,166.7 million	6.35%	2.5%	2.5%
Single-family transitional	$671.7 million	10.09%	13.7%	11.5%
Multifamily transitional	$360.4 million	10.09%	24.4%	16.5%
Total business purpose	$2,198.7 million	8.11%	9.5%	8.1%

The 30-year rental loans, the product a borrower holds for years, are the clean part of the book at 2.5%; the stress is in short-term transitional loans, and above all multifamily transitional. The 10.09% coupon on transitional loans lines up with the 10.2% median short-term note rate in the HMDA file above.

• Parent leadership: in a Form 8-K of October 8, 2026 MFA announced that Craig Knutson will retire as its CEO effective June 30, 2027 and that Bryan Wulfsohn becomes CEO on July 1, 2027. The filing does not mention Lima One.

What MFA's September 30, 2026 results say about Lima One

MFA announced its third-quarter 2026 results in a Form 8-K and press release dated November 4, 2026 (accession 0001055160-26-000021) and filed its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 the same day (accession 0001055160-26-000023). The Lima One items:

• Volume: Lima One "funded $166.1 million of new business purpose loans with a maximum loan amount of $287.8 million. In addition, $88.4 million of draws were funded on previously originated Transitional loans." The two add up to the $254.5 million of "Business purpose loan originations and draws" in the 10-Q (second quarter of 2026: $269.6 million; the 10-Q rounds the maximum unpaid principal balance to $288 million, against $316 million in the second quarter). The $88.4 million is money lent on loans already on the books, not new loans, and it is not a disposition.
• Sales: Lima One sold recently originated single-family rental loans with an unpaid principal balance of $92.4 million to third parties (press release: $94.8 million of proceeds), for a gain of $2.4 million. Separately, MFA as a whole sold 62 REO properties in the quarter for $20.5 million (206 in the nine months for $69.3 million). That REO count covers all of MFA's foreclosed properties, not only those from Lima One loans; at September 30, 2026 MFA held 331 REO properties with a carrying value of $130.1 million, $78.7 million of it from business purpose loans.
• Income: Lima One mortgage banking income was $7.418 million in the third quarter (third quarter of 2025: $5.383 million) and $22.422 million for the nine months ($15.796 million). The Lima One segment's net loss available to common was $2.467 million for the quarter, against $2.544 million in the second quarter.
• Credit: the business purpose loans MFA holds were 8.4% 60 or more days past due at September 30, 2026, down from 9.5% at June 30, 2026 (the 8.1% at December 31, 2025 is in the table above):

Business purpose loans held by MFA	Unpaid principal balance, September 30, 2026	Weighted average coupon	60+ days past due, September 30, 2026	60+ days past due, June 30, 2026
Single-family rental	$1,105.5 million	6.34%	2.8%	2.5%
Single-family transitional	$692.8 million	9.93%	10.8%	13.7%
Multifamily transitional	$298.9 million	10.04%	23.7%	24.4%
Total business purpose	$2,097.2 million	8.07%	8.4%	9.5%

The improvement is in single-family transitional loans (13.7% to 10.8%) and in a smaller book: total business purpose balances fell from $2,198.7 million to $2,097.2 million. Multifamily transitional loans are still nearly one in four 60 or more days past due. For all residential whole loans, MFA's press release gives 60+ day delinquencies of 6.7% at September 30, 2026, from 7.0% at June 30, 2026.

7. Lima One vs Kiavi vs Roc360 vs LendingOne

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

The most useful comparative finding: Lima One's parent MFA Financial files SEC 10-Ks and 10-Qs, and since September 1, 2026 so does Kiavi's parent, Figure Technology Solutions; Roc360 and LendingOne have no public parent, so Lima One's origination volume and segment results are public every quarter. Its one state-regulator order, from 2020, was for a late annual report and was rescinded with a $10,000 penalty; Easy Street Capital received the same order the same day.

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 are Lima One's advertised limits (per its product page). For builders running 4-12 spec homes per year, this is real working-capital leverage.
2. DSCR rental portfolios. Its Portfolio Rental loan puts two or more rentals into one loan (the earlier Rental30 Premier generation started at 5 properties). 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 the lenders compared here as of May 2026. Real-world pricing for a 740 FICO / 75% LTV / 1.25 DSCR borrower lands around 7.0-7.25%; the 2025 HMDA median for all of Lima One's 30-year loans was 7.233% and its lowest was 6.1%.
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 LendingOne, which has 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's owner (MFA Financial, NYSE: MFA) files SEC 10-Ks; so does Kiavi's owner since September 1, 2026 (Figure Technology Solutions, Nasdaq: FIGR).

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's homepage says it lends in 49 states + DC (kiavi.com, October 15, 2026); LendingOne covers some of the others.
2. Speed-obsessed first-time flippers. Lima One's "within 3 weeks for repeat borrowers". If you must close in a week, ask each lender for its timeline.
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 whose procurement process requires a record with no regulator orders at all. The 2020 CA DFPI consent order (late annual report, $10,000 penalty) is minor, but it is on file; LendingOne and Kiavi have none that we found.
5. Sub-$85K small-balance DSCR. Lima One's DSCR floor is $85K. RCN goes to $50K.
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 on Scotsman Guide's 2025 list (2024 volume); 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), mostly wholesale (800+ broker partners, 88% of volume) with 95% total LTC and 5-8 unit DSCR reach
• Quontic Bank DSCR Review 2026 — an FDIC-insured bank DSCR lender with portfolio retention (not on the CDFI Fund’s certified list as of October 21, 2026)

Bottom line

Lima One Capital is a national business-purpose lender (2,305 loans and $875.9M in its 2025 HMDA filing) 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, and the regulatory one is the smallest: a 2020 California DFPI consent order over a late annual report ($10,000 penalty, License #60DBO-45834). 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 (7.0%-7.8% across 2025-2026, and 9.5% on its business purpose loans at June 30, 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 multi-property DSCR portfolios via its Portfolio Rental loan. We do not rank Kiavi here; its rates and terms are given to applicants and published at kiavi.com. 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 its fourth-quarter 2026 results (the third-quarter 10-Q was filed on November 4, 2026 and is in section 6), as the Hearst Pettway docket evolves, and as the BBB and Trustpilot data shifts through 2026.

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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 loans funded, $219.3M maximum loan amount; $7.7M mortgage banking income)
• MFA Financial Q4 and Full Year 2025 Financial Results ($145.3M Lima One loans funded in Q4, $226.4M maximum loan amount; $22.8M full-year MB income)
• MFA Financial Q3 2025 Financial Results ($148.5M Lima One loans funded, $260.2M maximum loan amount)
• MFA Financial Q1 2025 Financial Results ($122.3M Lima One loans funded, $212.8M maximum loan amount)
• 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)
• MFA Financial Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 (filed November 4, 2026)
• MFA Financial Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 (filed August 5, 2026)
• MFA Financial Form 8-K of October 8, 2026 (CEO succession)
• FFIEC and CFPB HMDA Data Browser, 2025 loan-level data, Lima One Capital, LLC (LEI 254900FBWEZ3YUPOBN33), Kiavi Funding, Inc. and RCN Capital, LLC — nationwide file read October 21, 2026; computations are ours
• CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, company "Lima One Capital, LLC" — API read October 21, 2026

Last verified: May 11, 2026; the two California DFPI orders were read and section 3 corrected on September 28, 2026; the 2025 HMDA data, the CFPB complaint count and MFA's June 30, 2026 Form 10-Q were added on October 21, 2026; MFA's September 30, 2026 results and Form 10-Q were added on November 5, 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.