One Bad Loan Eats Ten Good Ones: The Math Behind Private Lending Credit Decisions
Lenders don’t underwrite the upside. They underwrite what happens when the plan breaks—and the best originators know how to pitch accordingly.
By Shaun Ashkenazy, Founder & CEO at LendyxSeptember 16, 20264 min read
The best outcome a lender ever gets is their own money back, plus interest. The worst is losing all of it.
Every lender decision that has ever frustrated you comes from that math. The ARV haircut. The slow no. The draw that took a week too long, the questions about your last three projects. Most originators spend their careers fighting it. The best ones learned to pitch to it.
The Math Nobody Runs
Take a lender writing a 12-month fix and flip loan at 10%. Best case, they earn 10 cents on the dollar. Worst case, they lose the whole dollar. One loan that goes to zero erases the profit from 10 that performed. Even a partial loss burns years of margin on a single file: a half-finished rehab, a foreclosure, a contractor who walked, then legal fees and carrying costs piling on top.
Now look at the borrower’s side of the same deal. Per ATTOM’s Q1 2026 U.S.
About the author
Founder & CEO at Lendyx
Shaun Ashkenazy is the Founder and CEO of Lendyx, a direct private lender financing construction, fix and flip, bridge, and DSCR loans for investors and developers nationwide. Lendyx works on complex transactions and luxury residential developments where speed and certainty decide the outcome. Shaun also leads Onyx Funding and Novyx Capital.
