Andy got his first taste of commercial real estate after his first year of law school (St. John’s) when he did a summer internship for a Long Island (NY) law firm that specialized in real estate. He then began to pick the brain of his future father-in-law, a client of that firm and a builder, lender and entrepreneur.

After law school, Andy worked as an associate in the corporate and securities department of a mid-sized law firm in New York City, where he represented clients and closed more than One Billion Dollars of initial public offerings, private placement and private equity deals.

After toiling three and half years in New York, and immediately after the birth of his first of four children (not a misprint!), Andy, his wife Pearl and growing family moved to Boca Raton, Florida where he landed a job at a Ft. Lauderdale law firm in their corporate department. Andy focused on smaller corporate finance and real estate transactions while at this firm.

In 2000, Andy seized an opportunity to stop practicing law (his goal before attending law school, ironically) and landed a job as in-house counsel to a financial services firm that had just gone public. Andy founded and served as CEO of a mortgage lender subsidiary that year.

Next, after barely surviving two changes of ownership, typical of the industry at that time, Andy decided to go out on his own and opened a mortgage brokerage business in 2002. This business focused primarily on residential transactions; but Andy would occasionally dabble in small commercial financing.

Although he successfully closed a handful of small commercial deals, Andy was left with a sour taste in his mouth because of several reasons:

• High up-front fees before a true commitment was offered
• The length of time it took to navigate annoying underwriters
• Changes to the deal terms mid-way through, or, even worse, at the last
  minute (uggghhh!!)
• Unethical, or “predatory” lending practices even in small commercial
  lending.

So he decided to focus on residential mortgages exclusively because it wasn’t worth the hassle to specialize in commercial. Until now.

Today, thanks to his networking and rolodex-building (yes, he actually owns a rolodex), Andy in a position to connect holders of distressed real estate. These secretive funds will offer with low rate, private equity funding using funding from investors who have their money sitting on the sidelines, waiting to cherry pick the best transactions.

Although he turns down far more deals than he funds, Andy is able to consummate deals that the big banks, regional banks and other traditional sources won’t touch with a ten foot pole.

Andy and Pearl live and work in Weston. Andy is a member of the Advisory Board of the West Broward Family YMCA and coaches numerous youth sports on behalf of his overscheduled and moderately grateful children. Pearl, a graduate of Cornell University and St. John’s University Law School, is involved with the Indian Trace PTA and Temple D’or Dorim.

A "serial" entrepreneur, Andy is a founding partner in a college planning consulting business (www.CollegePlanningAdvice.com) and is founded and served on the board of the National Association of Responsible Loan Officers (www.NARLO.com). Andy co-hosted the “Best Damn Real Estate and Mortgage Show” on 1400 WFTL Sports Radio, ESPN and wrote a monthly mortgage column for a local magazine. He served on the board of directors of a publicly-traded distance-learning technology company. And his newest venture is a social media marketing consulting firm, Leshaw Lockwood (www.LeshawLockwood.com). He has personally consulted more than 137 small business owner clients across the country, including California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, Washington, Massachusetts, Georgia, North Carolina, Idaho and Arizona, among others.