How to Raise Capital for Real Estate Deals | Private Money Lending at Scale

Samir Patel (00:00)

And that sort of trope has served me well. Yeah. Because being a leader, obviously, you know, CEO, if you want to call it that, like I get the problems that no one else can solve. Yeah. Like many times in our business we had to raise three, four, five million dollars inside of a week. Because we would say yes to borrowers that want to deals to do deals. We would say yes. And I told the team, just say yes.

it’s a good deal, say yes and we’ll figure it out. What that means is call me and I will

raise the money inside of a couple days or inside of a couple weeks.

Quentin Edmonds (02:04)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. I am indeed excited to be here today. It’s a phenomenal day, great day to be alive. And I have a phenomenal guest. I cannot wait for us to glean from his experience. He is a private lender, some may say a hard money lender, but he likes

F private lender, Trophy Point Capital. this gentleman knows exactly what he’s doing. He has built something phenomenal here. And I cannot wait for us to glean from his experience, learn from what he does, and then apply it to us, right? And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mrs. Samir Patel. Mr. Samir, how you doing today, sir?

Samir Patel (02:48)

Doing great, great to be here.

Quentin Edmonds (02:49)

Absolutely, absolutely. well listen, I’m glad you’re here. You know, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Time is our most precious commodity, and thank you for giving us some of your time. And listen, sir, I’m the type I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got to the space that you’re in, and then tell us what market you’re operating in. And so, sir, you have the floor, my friend.

Samir Patel (03:17)

Thanks. Thanks for having me. So I’ll I guess I’ll start with my origin story. I’ve always believed in buying assets at a very a early age, and I was exposed to a few books that imparted that knowledge to me. So in college I was pretty obsessed with finding and acquiring assets. And I ended up buying my first hotel actually when I was a junior in college. And I learned a lot about debt and real estate and how debt fuels real estate and you almost need real almost need debt for everything. especially in real estate.

So anyway, like you I bought my first hotel, then I started dabbling in other properties and stuff like that. And it became really apparent that I may be a much better lender than borrower of real estate. I’d rather I appreciate that game more so than than the pain of trying to find properties and you know, you put bids on 30 deals and you may find one. that’s that’s a challenge that was a challenge for me because I was in the army actually at the time as well. And so my time was limited.

to go search for properties constantly. Yeah. It’s a challenge, especially a management challenge, once you own properties. Anyway, you know, when you once you do one deal, it’s like magic. More deals just start coming your way. It’s I I can’t describe it, but it’s one of those things that that remain unexplained in my life. But once you start something, more and more things will come your way. Yeah. And that’s exactly what happened to me. And so my dad and I, we started a a lending business in 2008. partially because

During that time and in Georgia especially, banks were failing and liquidity in the market was evaporating. And so private lenders were the only game in town in many cases to get capital. Yeah. So I cut my teeth very early lending money on real estate. And it was good that I own real estate as well, because I think to be a good lender, you have to be a great owner of real estate to understand the full cycle of what what happens to something. Yeah.

I don’t believe lending is just a purely spreadsheet math type of game. I think there’s other elements involved in those types of decisions. So anyway, I I’ve been lending hundreds of millions of dollars ever since in on that. And then I’ve also acquired minor real estate assets along the way. and so yeah, that’s that’s how I got started. And I’ve largely been focused on that. I’ve meandered a little bit to other asset classes, like owning owning operating businesses, and I realized early that.

I like real estate. I like the lending game and so I’ve brought myself back from those meandering paths back to back to the core focus, which is real estate lending. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (05:52)

Love it, love it. So I know you’re in Atlanta. Is that mainly where you operate in, or is is it global? Is it national? Talk to me a little bit about that.

Samir Patel (06:47)

So, you know, I consider myself a visionary and big ideas are easy for me to wrap my head around and take action on. you’ll never have to worry about me not taking action. But with that being said, if you’re gonna build something big, process is really important. So we grew rapidly from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four. and basically my two partners, Nick and Dave, you know, on their backs, so to speak. I mean, they they run the business,

Quite efficiently. But at some point, you know, two guys, three guys, we were we’re only a team of four or five up until 2024. Oakland only can only do so much. And I was the one that raising all the money for the fun. and also sort of bringing in deals, but not actually processing the deals. Yeah. And the biggest move that I credit us making to get to this size now, we’re 150 million in size now, 40 employees now. and we can all take vacations actually.

is implementing EOS, you know, also known as the entrepreneurial operating system. And so, you know, there are a dozen types of systems out there. I’m not sure like one is better than the other, but EOS has worked out really well for us. And more than that though, implementing process and getting people on the same page and being very clear about desired outcomes and accountability and, you know, are people subscribing to core values? Those elements that come with EOS have done really well for us. Like all of our hiring and firing decisions come go back to the EOS framework.

How we pick talent. Because besides process, the second cousin of it is finding good people to work with. You know, are they the right people in the right seats? So understanding that and aligning people to the seat or aligning the seat to the people or making sure that there’s at least a match or alignment, is a major, major reason for why we’re scaling today. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (08:36)

Yeah, love it. What’s next for you guys? Like what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve or scale next?

Samir Patel (08:43)

Well, we’re at a bit of a you know, n I hate using business terms, but we’re at a bit of an inflection point because we can scale further doing what we do now, and there’s good reasons to do that. And but there’s also other opportunities that emerge. Once you have a certain amount of capital under your leadership, more and more different types of opportunities arise. maybe you could call it diversifying away from our core business. You know, I’m not sure I like that. But

Opportun you know, I get calls every day now, of unique different types of opportunities and the balance is weighing. Can we actually do it? Does it meet does it match our core focus, or do we need to build another entity around that opportunity? Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (09:24)

Yeah.

Samir Patel (09:26)

And that’s literally what I’m going through right now. Because now we’re attracting the attention of banks and and institutional players. We’re still very small by comparison, but we’re still we’re now on their radar. Yeah. And

I feel like there’s opportunities somewhere in that mix.

Quentin Edmonds (09:40)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now you’ve mentioned Nick, you mentioned Dave, and I asked every guest that comes on because I I think all of us have a a unique lens when it comes to relationship within business. I think we all know what’s important, but how we go about building it.

is is kind of unique sometimes. So I would love to hear your perspective on relationship building within business. And then what are some of the relationships that have really helped you be successful? I mean, I know you got your dad, we got Nick, we got Dave, but is there any other you know people who have really helped you be successful when it came to business?

Samir Patel (10:56)

Yeah, I mean tremendously. Like I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for other people. I I consider myself so one sort of like little model I have in my head is to be a one phone call kind of guy. Meaning that I orient my network and I orient who I am friends with, maybe, maybe not so much friends, but who I want to acquaint myself with business wise and service providers and my network and all that stuff. Like I’m intentional about it. And I like to be a one phone call kind of guy, meaning that if you give me any problem, Quentin

I can solve it or I can at least find the person to solve it with one phone call.

Quentin Edmonds (11:29)

Yeah, yeah.

Samir Patel (11:30)

And that sort of trope has served me well. Yeah. Because being a leader, obviously, you know, CEO, if you want to call it that, like I get the problems that no one else can solve. Yeah. Like many times in our business we had to raise three, four, five million dollars inside of a week. Because we would say yes to borrowers that want to deals to do deals. We would say yes. And I told the team, just say yes.

it’s a good deal, say yes and we’ll figure it out. What that means is call me and I will

go raise the money inside of a couple days or inside of a couple weeks.

And you know, did I do it perfectly all the time? No, but you know, I do the things that no one else can do. Right? Take it upon myself to do the things that very, very few people can do. Yeah. Underwriting loans, I can do. Finding borrowers, selling borrowers, I I can do that. I can talk to borrowers all day. Yeah. and I’m speaking about me personally.

Yeah. and many people have that skill to find deals and to underwrite deals, get bank debt, that’s easy, relatively easy. But finding the equity dollars, finding the the capital that that actually allows the other puzzle pieces to fall into place, that’s very, very few people can do at scale. And so I’ve tried to be the guy that solves the problems that no one else can. Because that’s where my value comes from.

Quentin Edmonds (12:49)

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Listen, is is there I I’ve been asking you questions. Is there any topic that I have not touched on that you would like to talk about? Like maybe you came in with a message in your head that you wanted to make sure our viewers knew. I kind of want to open up space that if you had a message that’s kind of been, you know, kind of rolling around in your head, if you wanted to land that message, I kind of want to create space for that.

Samir Patel (13:14)

Well, appreciate you asking. I mean, Trophy Point like I said before, is like a private bank. I mean, we have investors, we give them an eight percent coupon fixed. They’re paid quarterly. So it’s a high yield sort of debt like instrument, bond like instrument. We put that into the fund and I have eight million dollars of my own money in the fund and I take the first loss on any bad deal or bad decision that I make. Right. So I have to me my me and Nick and Dave have get completely wiped out before an investor’s principle is touched. Yeah. So there’s a lot of alignment there.

Anyway, we take investor dollars and we lend it out at higher rates to to people that want to borrow money. And so we we serve two different kinds of people. Those that wanna borrow to take down real estate. in many cases we can offer up to ninety percent financing, some cases up even a hundred percent financing. and those that are looking for passive income, we offer that as well. Yeah. and we do it in a way that’s it’s ex extremely aligned with with backing up our promises.

Quentin Edmonds (14:11)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sometimes I ask this question ’cause I do believe there’s power in names. Trophy Point, is there a story behind a name? Yeah.

Samir Patel (14:21)

Yeah, okay. Nick Dave and I, yeah, absolutely. Nick Dave and I, we graduated from West Point, the military academy. Yeah. And so on the academy grounds, there’s a nice scenic overlook called Trophy Point. And it’s also where we have like the captured cannons of our enemies from previous wars. Yeah. so trophies, if you want to call them that. they’re all kind of lined up along that scenic viewpoint there. And so it’s one of the most beautiful spots on West Point. And when we were forming the company.

Ten years ago, eleven years ago, it just made sense to call it Trophy Point because it’s scenic, it it characterizes the wins that we have or want to have. and it made perfect sense.

Quentin Edmonds (15:01)

Yeah, absolutely. Listen to me, man. I really appreciate you coming on. I appreciate this conversation. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can he get in contact with you, sir?

Samir Patel (15:14)

Yeah, well if you’re watching the show, my email is on the screen right behind me. Yep. and then I also have a second email, Samir S A I R at Trophy Point Capital, Trophy Point Capital, all one one word dot com. And just hit me up via email.

Quentin Edmonds (15:30)

Absolutely. Well, normally I I have three things that I say to people before I sign off. For you, I got four. So first thing, thank you, man. Thank you for serving our country. Thank you for you know, just what you did, what you do for us as just as a people. And so I gotta say that. I appreciate that. And I know people say it, but you know, trying to say it was with so much sincerity as possible. Thank you, sir.

Thank you for your time again. Time is our most precious commodity, so I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for what I call a gift of your authenticity and integrity. I believe when we talk about what we do, our passions, it plants seeds for other people. And we never know when those seeds are going to take root, but the seed is there. So I thank you for coming on, planting some real seeds. And lastly, sir, I thank you for your mindset. I thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today, sir.

Samir Patel (16:24)

Thanks for having me. Appreciate your questions.

Quentin Edmonds (16:26)

Absolutely.

Well listen, y’all heard Mr. Samir. His information is in the show notes. And I mean you like he said you see it behind him. But once this is gone, look in the show notes. His information is there. Please get in contact with him. Definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Patel. So sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a phenomenal day.