Experience

Successful Commercial Real Estate experience since 1984

Creativity.

Project list illustrates creativity as well as diversity and imagination

Execution

Long history of successful project completions

Steven R Petersen

Steve started his commercial real estate finance career directly out of The University of Iowa in 1984.  He earned a BA in Finance and an MBA from that prestigious institution.  Go Hawks!  After a summer of rest and recuperation from his intense higher education curriculum, later in 1984, Steve got his initial introduction into Commercial Real Estate Finance working in Chicago for a Saving Bank based in New Jersey.  If he only knew then what he knows now, he might have been able to do at least one deal.

In 1985, Paul Larson, head of Real Estate Investments, saw the potential of Steve and hired him as a Real Estate Analyst for a Minneapolis-based life insurance company, called Lutheran Brotherhood.  After several years of strict supervision and hard-knocks lessons learned, Mr. Larson turned Steve loose as a Commercial Real Estate Mortgage Loan Originator to the Central and Southeastern part of the United States.   Steve left a trail of broken mortgage bankers and a lot of good friends in his wake as he learned the ropes of how to analyze and underwrite commercial real estate investment opportunities.  He originated more than one billion dollars of commercial real estate mortgage loans, joint ventures and equity asset purchases.  Lutheran Brotherhood merged with Aid Association for Lutherans and is now one of the premier commercial real estate lenders in the country, called Thrivent Financial.

After 10 years of blue suits, white shirts and red ties, Steve moved into the entrepreneurial world of mortgage banking.  Steve spent the next 23 years originating various types of commercial real estate investments for Venture Mortgage. Venture Mortgage is a Minneapolis based independent mortgage banking company that originates deals for numerous life insurance companies, Government Agencies and many banks from all around the Midwest.  

In September of 2018, Steve decided to hang out his own shingle and created Ensign Commercial Real Estate Consultants.  The plan is for Steve to use his 30+ years of contacts throughout the industry and all of his accumulated knowledge and experience to find the right capital solutions for his clients.  At Ensign CREC, our experience and creativity equal execution.  

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