Build Teams, Win Bigger: How Top Investors Scale with People, Not Hustle

David Hansel (00:00)

love to say no, but that would be a complete lie. you know, many days feel like a battle or trying to climb Mount Everest. Um, had, you know, chat so many different challenges. could, I could do a whole day podcast or seminar on that stuff. But, um, you know, the one thing is that you start to learn that these challenges are part of the daily course and

You just figure out how to solve these problems and deal with them in real time.

Quentin (02:04)

Hello everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds, excited to be here, have another amazing guest and I can’t wait for you to peek through his lens for him to take us into his world. You get to know what he do and actually what he does very well. And so listen, I’m not gonna even try to waste time. I just want to introduce everyone to Mr. David Hansel. Mr. David, how you doing today, sir?

David Hansel (02:31)

I’m doing great. Thank you for having me on. Appreciate it.

Quentin (02:34)

Absolutely, sir. Thank you so much for being here. Like I said to you, heard me just say to the audience, I’m excited to do this podcast episode with you. It’s always great when I get a chance to listen to people and how they do things, how they process. And so that’s what I want to do. I want you to take us into your world. I want you to tell us what your main focus is these days. Mr. David, if you want to give us a little…

origin story of how you got into real estate, how you got started. love origin stories. And then also tell us what markets you’re operating in. And so Mr. David, sir, you got the floor, man.

David Hansel (03:09)

All right. Great. So, uh, I got involved in real estate back in 2001. was a casualty of the.com era going bust and, uh, trying to figure out what to do. Got into real estate on the brokerage side and then started flipping houses in the early two thousands. Um, and, uh, eventually started up a company called alpha funding with a partner of mine, which is a private lending company that does financing for builders, developers, rehabbers.

doing fix and flip, ground up construction. then about almost 10 years ago, launched Lucerne Capital Partners, a real estate private equity firm where we own, operate and manage for ourselves. And on behalf of investors, ⁓ assets up and down the East coast with a focus on ⁓ multi-tenant industrial. have historically done a lot of multifamily, but we’re continuing to grow that.

portfolio and business ⁓ and that’s kind of a high level summary of my background there for you.

Quentin (04:13)

Absolutely, I love it. So two businesses that’s doing successful. I’ve been in for multiple years, I was going to say the number, but you didn’t say the number, you said 2001. I’m not going say the big number, but you’ve been in it since 2001, so you’ve definitely, you had success. You’ve built some strategies, I would imagine. And so that’s what I want to ask you. Are there core strategies that you really can point to that has helped you out?

David Hansel (04:27)

Yeah. Yeah.

Quentin (04:42)

on the business side and actually help you out on the personal side. know, some people have personal strategies, the way they start their day, meditation, different things like that. So what strategies has helped you on your business side and in your personal life?

David Hansel (05:42)

Sure. Well, as you say, meditation, ⁓ definitely ⁓ meditate on a daily basis. ⁓ And I do ⁓ steam, sauna, cold plunge, all that good stuff and helps invigorate me. But on the business side, it’s waking up, looking at the calendar, planning out the day, getting everything organized, ⁓ checking in with my team, which is critical. And that’s the biggest success.

that I’ve had in business is building some really great teams and you know folks that are are vested in in what we are doing.

Quentin (06:23)

you yet, cold plunge, like anything to get that mind, get us open up, get that mind started, get that mind bracing, because you know, we can’t do nothing, you know, without our perspective, without our mind. That’s kind of where everything starts. And so, and I thank you for talking about building a team. And I think later on, we’ll talk a little bit about relationships, because I think they’re important. So I’m glad you mentioned that. I want to ask you this, you know, you’ve built two successful businesses. And so…

I want you to take us on a journey a little bit, because I always tell people there’s a success and then there’s the journey to success. And sometimes leading up to success, things get real. Deals go sideways. Sometimes we have to pivot fast. And so have you experienced any adversity while you was building your successful businesses?

David Hansel (07:13)

love to say no, but that would be a complete lie. you know, many days feel like a battle or trying to climb Mount Everest. Um, had, you know, chat so many different challenges. could, I could do a whole day podcast or seminar on that stuff. But, um, you know, the one thing is that you start to learn that these challenges are part of the daily course and

You just figure out how to solve these problems and deal with them in real time.

Not, not let anything drag you down too far. Make sure you lean into your team and help resolve the issues, learn from the mistakes, learn from the challenges, ⁓ and realize that nothing just goes away on its own. takes effort. ⁓ and you know, I see a lot of folks sometimes kind of when, when they’re faced with challenges, kind of.

put their head in the sand, you got to stand up to it, make decisions and move the ball forward.

Quentin (08:16)

how you said stand up to it because as you was talking, started picturing like a baby that was walking for the first time. Majority of the times when a baby is walking for the first time, they’re standing up, but there’s like some unbalance, right? They’re trying to get the balance, they’re trying to get the strength in their legs. Like is this unorthodox new thing that they’re doing, but you watch them, fall a little bit, then they stand up and they walk a little bit, then they fall a little bit. And then eventually you watch them.

and they start finding a balance, they start finding the strength. And so when I think about adversity, when I think about you building your team, you know, that’s those, the baby steps to build, to building your balance and finding your foundation. And so like you said, you know, adversity is going to come, but it’s all about not putting your face in the sand, standing up, finding your balance, finding your strategies, the things that steady you and then walking forward. Does that make sense?

David Hansel (09:09)

Yeah, think you nailed it.

Quentin (09:11)

Yeah, yeah. So I appreciate that. Listen, I would love to know what’s the next real goal for you? Like, are there things that you’re trying to solve, things that you’re trying to scale? What’s the next real goal for both of your businesses or either one of your businesses?

David Hansel (10:00)

Yeah. So in the lending company, actually, myself and my partners are going away for a retreat this weekend to do planning for 2026. you know, ⁓ that’s a critical point to try to understand what we can reflect on the past year, what we can do better. We’ll be doing the same thing for the other, for Lucerne Capital ⁓ as we near the end of the year. So, ⁓

I think in both businesses, we’re always looking to continue to grow on the lending side, obviously increasing loan volume, ⁓ doubling down on the relationships we have and working harder to build new ones. ⁓ And then really excited on the Lucerne front, we’ve been growing the industrial portfolio. And as I said, I think there’s a window of opportunity to really

make some really substantive returns for ourselves and our investors as that markets tend to open up. So it’s really making sure that we’re ⁓ looking at deals on a daily basis, underwriting them, getting offers out, trying to work on our sourcing and ⁓ pushing that forward. So always thinking about where the next opportunities are and how we grow on the capital side, because

We at Lucerne have investors that participate with us from retail investors, the institutional investors, everything in between. It’s a continuing build on those relationships that we have and expanding that footprint. So a lot, you know, a lot of different things that we’re looking to do.

Quentin (11:40)

Absolutely. And there we go. You’ve missed that word, relationships. And I just want to talk about that for a little bit, because I keep hearing you refer to yourself as we. You’re not dropping an album a lot. You’re like we. So it seems like to me, you know you are a man at value relationships. And so I want to get your viewpoint on that. When it comes to growing your network and building your relationships, what has made the biggest difference for you?

David Hansel (12:09)

You know, one of the first jobs I ever had, boss had said to me, this was before I became my own boss, right? ⁓ Nothing good happens sitting behind a desk. And although that’s not necessarily true, it’s about getting out and meeting with people and attending conferences, attending networking events, attending industry educational events. So that’s always been a big part of what I want, what I do. And I instill that upon my team members.

to make sure that they’re always bettering themselves and improving and ⁓ making sure that you’re out and building relationships with other folks. ⁓ That’s how business is done. It’s not sitting behind a desk and crunching numbers all day. Obviously, you have to do that at certain parts and we’ve scaled the businesses to a place where we have folks that do that, but being a leader of the companies.

It’s important to get out and always doing business development. And that’s where I put a lot of my efforts these days.

Quentin (13:13)

So I know you mention your team a lot. Are there key things that you look for personally when building your team? Are there like a checklist of things that you feel like my team members need to have this for us to be in succinct?

David Hansel (13:27)

⁓ yeah, I think, well, one, I’ll talk about bringing people on the team and selecting your teammates are super critical. I don’t think a lot of people put time into it. They just, ⁓ they interview someone. This sounds good. I’ll take them on. Like to me, I really want someone that’s got grit and determination and cares about what they do. Like the way they do anything is the way they do everything is a famous quote. And so.

you try to see if they have that personality type because if you do, they’re generally team players, they’re generally work hard and look to find solutions, even if they’re not the most intelligent. And I don’t mean to say that we bring on people that have no intelligence, but I’m just saying that that outweighs the intelligence factor because you can train and ⁓ improve upon these folks. once they’re on and we’re working together,

Quentin (14:11)

Yeah.

David Hansel (14:21)

It’s about empowering them and making them feel that they have a voice. ⁓ and that’s something that we always do through team meetings and weekly meetings that we are part of that everyone has a voice and can feel like they have ownership of what they’re doing and making sure that you share holistically what’s going on in the company, because you don’t want to feel like you’re an entity onto itself. You know, as you talk about the, ⁓ group,

and the efforts that the company’s doing, know, maybe, maybe the guy that’s doing, you know, a deal analysis, you know, doesn’t necessarily need to know about what’s happening on the investor relation side, but it, helps a lot. And, know, whether we’re rolling out new software or we’re, you know, setting up a networking events, we include everybody in everything. And I think that makes them feel like they’re part of something.

Quentin (15:58)

Yeah. Yeah. You you started off when you was answering this question, you said, you started off saying a lot of enough people don’t give thought to how they’re building a team. And as you just broke down how you build your team and let them know you gave thought to it. Because one of the things you said that it’s so important is empowering people, empowering people to take ownership of what it is that they’re doing within the company. Like, and this makes them feel like that it’s just not your company. This is our company. And you’re empowering them to say, no, you play a big role here.

And I’m gonna make sure I put your strengths right where your strengths need to be. And I love that. I love that idea of building a team, sir. I really do.

David Hansel (16:38)

I’ll add one other thing to that. think that you asked before about challenges or mistakes that happen and those are going to happen all the time, not for every employee within the company. I get, I don’t want say excited about it, but those are the opportunities to help the business grow, right? ⁓ You really can spend time looking at why something happened and…

look, it’s not the end of the world, but here’s what we can take away from it. Here’s what we can do differently next time. Let’s build off of it and go from there. So, ⁓ you know, that’s, that’s also critical in building the team when they don’t feel like they’re afraid to make mistakes, because you’re going to make mistakes and being supportive of it and helping them grow from it is, is, is really important.

Quentin (17:30)

See, that’s to me, that’s a mindful person. So I’m gonna take us all the way back to the beginning of how we started. That strategy of mindfulness meditation in the morning, that’s a person that can think through things and be like, hey, you’re going to make mistakes. It’s not the end of the world. How can we learn from them? And how can I empower you and show you how we can move on from our mistakes? And so that’s a mindful person, right? Because it’s so easy to point at people that make a mistake instead of extending your hand and say, no, let’s fix this problem together.

Yeah. Yeah. Listen, Mr. David, I appreciate you. Listen, before we wrap it for one, is there any other words that you want to give out any other encouragement that you want to give maybe inspiration to business owners, to people that’s building teams, the people that’s, that’s trying to get towards success? Is there any kind of words of wisdom maybe that you want to give them that you haven’t said already?

David Hansel (18:26)

⁓ sure. I would just say that, you know, as the challenges of daily grind of running a business come along, realize it’s part of the equation and, and, and obviously try to grow from that. You got to, you got to be persistent and, and push through, ⁓ celebrate your wins and, ⁓ embrace your challenges, ⁓ and make sure that you take care of the people around you and always.

be focused on building the relationships that you have both internally and externally for your business.

Quentin (19:04)

there he is. Listen, sir, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you, Mr. David?

David Hansel (19:14)

I’ll give you two ways. One, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. ⁓ My name’s David Hansel, H-A-N-S-E-L, based out of New Jersey. So if you see other David Hansels, you can see my face. That’s me. ⁓ You could also ⁓ visit ⁓ my website, lucern, L-U-C-E-R-N, capital C-A-P-I-T-A-L dot com.

We have a chat bot on there that you can connect through and and visit the website or lastly I guess you third way you could email me at David dot Hansel at Lucerne L u c e r n ca p i t a l dot com

Quentin (20:04)

There you go. Listen, I gotta ask because I’ve been trying to connect the dots. Lucerne, where does the name come from? What was the idea? Here.

David Hansel (20:11)

So it’s kind of

a mashup of ⁓ like the little lanterns that you carry ⁓ in Europe and Lucerne. We chopped off the E, but like lighting, it was the idea of lighting the way to better investments, right? So we took the idea of the Lucerne, the lamp, and then turned it into our name.

Quentin (20:21)

Yeah, I’m with you. Yeah, when when you, for light through the dark. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha.

David Hansel (20:40)

So.

Quentin (20:41)

I love it, man. Thank you so much. I’m like, I’m hurling, sir. And I’m trying to like fix it together. And I love it, man. I appreciate you saying that. It makes all the sense in the world. And yeah. And I’m sure you’re lighting the way for so many different people. mean, just internally, but the people that you connect with, the, you build the team. So I’m sure you’re lighting the way for your, you know, your employees or the partners, however language you put on it, but also the people that come to you and partner up with you externally.

for their real estate needs. so Mr. David, thank you, sir. I thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for your time, for your story, for your perspective. I really appreciate you, sir. Thank you for being here today.

David Hansel (21:13)

Yeah.

Appreciate

you as well. Thank you.

Quentin (21:22)

Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. David. You got the value out of the conversation. Please check him out. We’ll also make sure you are subscribed here. We’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. David, and we don’t want you to miss it. So Mr. David, thank you again. And everyone else, we will see you on the next time. And Mr. David, we are out.