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Beverly Hills Mint

Beverly Hills Mint

Daniel Negari, 22
www.beverlyhillsmint.com
Los Angeles, Calif.

Daniel Negari started his first business at age 12, selling custom-made computers through a Web site he built with friends. He got into real estate at 18, working as an apprentice to a Los Angeles mortgage broker. "I essentially set up his computer networks and everything, and in turn he taught me the loan business," Negari says. He was landing loan commissions while still an undergrad at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.

In 2004, during the housing bubble, Negari invested in an Arizona property that soon appreciated by $150,000. He refinanced to get a $100,000 line of credit, which he used in 2006 to start Beverly Hills Mint, a high-end real estate finance business brokering commercial and residential loans worth $5 million or more. The company now has 14 commission-only brokers and two employees, including Negari's mother, Berta, whom he brought on board late last year. Negari says Beverly Hills Mint took in $650,000 in 2007. Despite the credit crunch, he finds that business is booming at the top of the market. "I have a client whose net worth is $100 million. He wants a $5 million loan. Every bank wants to do that loan."