Protecting Capital & Growing Wealth Through Mortgage Funds

Christopher Quintal (00:00)
Yeah, we’ve had, you know, occasionally we deal with lot of distressed asset papers, so sometimes these deals go bad. And what happens when it goes to foreclosure? The person’s not paying. Now, we’re not servicing loans ourselves necessarily on a lot of these deals, so the person who lent the money is now faced with the task of foreclosing.

But what we usually do is we try and help mitigate this by getting involved like we’ll go back to the borrower and try and have them You know negotiate out of settlement or what have you but in one instance to your point like what when it went sideways

the person kept kind of snowballing the investor, I’m going to pay up, I’m going to pay up, hold off on the foreclosure. And finally they filed a bankruptcy on them.

Michelle Kesil (02:14)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Christopher Quintal, who’s been making serious moves in the private money mortgage space. So really glad to have you on the show, Christopher. I think the listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching helping investors secure their deals and yeah, just

their financing resources. So let’s dive into all of that.

Christopher Quintal (02:48)
Great, thanks for having me.

Michelle Kesil (02:49)
Absolutely. So first off for people who may not be familiar with you and your world, can you give us the short version of what is your main focus these days?

Christopher Quintal (03:00)
Our main focus is private money investing. We provide private money loans. We provide investment opportunities for private investors that want to invest in mortgage loans, either directly as the primary beneficiary in which they own the whole loan or in a mortgage fund. also have Lenssafe Capital Partners in which accredited investors are able to invest. And again, this is all secured by private money mortgages, mortgages backed by actual hard assets.

Michelle Kesil (03:28)
Amazing. And what markets are you operating in?

Christopher Quintal (03:31)
We market ⁓ predominantly in Southern California as our main market. We’re licensed in California, but we’ve been providing loans and financing in other states. We’ve been doing quite a few deals in Hawaii recently. It’s kind of odd we take it where comes, but we’ve done deals in the Midwest, we’ve deals in Florida. So we have a number of kind of referral partners that have been bringing us opportunities and we evaluate everything and then decide what’s best for our investors to invest in.

Michelle Kesil (03:58)
Amazing. Love that. Yeah. I would love for you to expand on how you support these investors and really finding what the best option is for them. A lot of the listeners are maybe newer to investing and I think they can benefit from learning more.

Christopher Quintal (05:04)
Yeah, our main focus is protecting the investors capital. Whether it’s small investors, you we take in small mom and pop investors and we take in large syndicates and, you know, people that are large investors that are representing trusts, representing big money, because we’ve done loans anywhere from, you know, $50,000 to $5 million in private capital.

and it’s all private so it’s not bank financing it’s more intelligently common sense underwriting they’re looking mostly for the investor the excuse me the underlying asset to make sure that the investor is protected

And that’s the most important thing that we look at. we’re sourcing the deals. We’re the ones providing the deals to the investor. We send them out the executive summary, say here’s what it is that we have, and then they can take a look at it. And many of them are sophisticated and do their own due diligence. But we do that based on the investor, meaning like if it’s a small investor and they’re kind of new to this, we really handhold them along, kind of show them the ropes.

In many cases when it’s local, something like Southern California, it’s something that they can physically go out and touch it. know, say here’s the address, go drive by this and see what it is that we’re telling you. See here’s all the comparable sales so they get a comfort level of what it is they’re investing in. And then the most sophisticated, you know, higher end firms, they go out and they do their own due diligence anyway. But we like to stay involved with the investor. We don’t just…

kind of try and hand it off and say here you go because this is how we’ve developed long-term relationships with the investors as they trust us they know that anytime you know there’s a problem they pick up the phone they call and we get working on it and we work as best as can as we can to protect their investment because at the end of the day this is it’s about preservation of their capital

They get their capital back and they get all the money that they contracted for. But these investors are our lifeblood. So we take care of them. We make sure they’re as protected as possible and make sure they’re in good secure investments.

Michelle Kesil (06:58)
Yeah, that’s so important. So what has been the key to keeping that business running smoothly?

Christopher Quintal (07:06)
Running smoothly, I have an excellent staff. I like to take the credit and say, that’s all my doing. no, it’s not all my doing. Like, I have really good people. I get compliments on that all the time. Any of the investors that have called in, even the borrowers that call in and say, you know what, your staff is fantastic. We love dealing with them. They’re on top of it. You know, they’re responsive. They answer their phone calls and emails and they handle a lot of the things that I do. I’m not trying to get the deals and working with the investors, but the actual

Michelle Kesil (07:11)
Yeah.

Christopher Quintal (07:33)
So back end paperwork is by our Century City mortgage staff here that we have and they also handle the deal flow and processing of whatever needs to be done. But that’s my backbone. Thank God.

Michelle Kesil (07:47)
Yeah, the team is so important. Amazing. So every operator I know had a moment in business where things got real, maybe a went sideways or you just had to make a pivot fast. Would you mind sharing one of those moments that you’ve experienced?

Christopher Quintal (08:05)
Yeah, we’ve had, you know, occasionally we deal with lot of distressed asset papers, so sometimes these deals go bad. And what happens when it goes to foreclosure? The person’s not paying. Now, we’re not servicing loans ourselves necessarily on a lot of these deals, so the person who lent the money is now faced with the task of foreclosing.

But what we usually do is we try and help mitigate this by getting involved like we’ll go back to the borrower and try and have them You know negotiate out of settlement or what have you but in one instance to your point like what when it went sideways

the person kept kind of snowballing the investor, I’m going to pay up, I’m going to pay up, hold off on the foreclosure. And finally they filed a bankruptcy on them.

And you know, our investor was like, hey what do do with this? Just sit tight, you’ve got, the beauty is you’ve got more than enough equity covering your play.

So it’s kind of reassuring the investors sometimes that the whole point of this conservative loan to value is when you’re investing is you’re protected. Now it went through the bankruptcy and we analyzed it and we said, know what, just plow forward with the foreclosure. This is, you know, this is going to sort itself out. Like he’s not going be able to keep you away anymore.

And finally they tried some last minute stunt but our attorneys advised them correctly and they ended up foreclosing taking back the property and then they were able to turn around and resell those properties and make far more money than they ever would have just on the loans themselves. So it was something that they were very worried about but at the end of the day they came out better than they would have just on the loans.

So that’s a scenario that we don’t like to go through. Like we’ve very rarely do any of our investors foreclose or have to foreclose. They usually get paid off or refinanced out or sell the property. But in this case, we navigated through it. We got the investor through it and they made more money than they would have on just the loan. So they were very happy with us, naturally.

Michelle Kesil (10:27)
Amazing. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next?

Christopher Quintal (10:35)
Scaling is the most important thing that we’re focused on. have a lot of investors, but we’ve gotten deal flow that is…

has been pretty active recently, especially we’ve really been getting a lot. That’s why I say I think a lot of this has come to the marketplace and we’re going to see a lot more of it. And we’re trying to get more investors involved in this. It’s really good opportunities to make really solid returns on your money, either through individual investing, like we take individuals and invest in just the mortgages in which they are the beneficiary and they own the whole loan and we just provided them with the opportunity. We broker it to them. Or if they want to stay fully invested for

longer period of time, then we have a mortgage fund which allows them to buy limited partner shares and then not have to be involved in the back and forth of the servicing of the mortgage. We then handle all that. Again, that’s for accredited investors. But that’s the sort of thing that we’re looking to scale, both on that side and the private investor side. So people looking for opportunities out there, we’re open for business.

Michelle Kesil (11:32)
amazing. That’s exciting. yeah, like when it comes to growing your business and scaling, what kind of action steps are you guys taking in order to achieve those goals?

Christopher Quintal (11:46)
We’re reaching out to the investment community. We’re soliciting a lot more of the private offices and places that invest in this sort of thing But we’re also reaching out to our existing investor base In order to have them participate in the fund and also to bring in other investors A lot of this is word-of-mouth a lot of this is referral like sometimes our investors that have done really well on this stuff You know they get they keep coming back for more and then they bring in friends and family they say hey We’ve we’ve done really

well

on these loans like you know my sister, brother, cousin you know they want to get in on this. So we’re trying to be a bit more aggressive about expanding that so that more people are able to take the opportunities that we provide and get involved in this. It’s a really strong asset class and it’s a good opportunity for investors of all stripes to get involved in and that’s what we’re trying to push forward.

Michelle Kesil (12:37)
Yeah, absolutely. So if an investor maybe has never worked with mortgage loans or gotten a loan before and they’re considering this journey with you guys, what are some of those common educational tools that you teach someone that’s doing this for their first time?

Christopher Quintal (12:59)
Yeah, that’s a good question. What we usually try and do is, first off, I have a nice conversation with the people. Just kind of see where their head’s at, what sort of things they’re looking for, what level of sophistication they have in regard to this. And then for somebody who’s, especially the newer people, we try and give them a taste of what it is that we do.

Instead of just coming in and say, here we want you to invest in this, I say, here’s what’s going on right now. Here’s an executive summary of a deal that another investor has already committed to. Here’s what the deal looks like. Here’s what the terms look like.

so that they can kind of shadow what the other investor is doing and check it out for themselves and see what it looks like. Here’s the process. Here’s what it looks like. Here’s what the paperwork looks like. So they can kind of get a sense of the process of this. They get a sense of what types of loans they’re looking at, what types of properties. They can go kick the tires and check it out. Just like the investor that’s investing in it is going to do. They can go do that themselves and kind of get a comfort level.

before they actually have to put any money in. So they see the transaction all the way through that some other investor just did. And it gives them a little bit of ⁓ kind of education, but you know, it’s their own due diligence. They have to, you know, be comfortable with the investment. And by doing that a couple of times, and once the investor gets a real comfort level with it, we find that they’re more open and receptive to taking a look and taking a plunge and trying out putting their money into a loan.

Michelle Kesil (15:06)
Yeah, absolutely. That’s so important for people to feel comfortable before making such a big decision. So what is the next real goal for you?

Christopher Quintal (15:11)
Mm-hmm, for sure.

The next real goal is to get the mortgage fund, you know, we’ve got some investors that are ⁓ pledged commitments for the mortgage fund, Lenssafe Capital Partners, in order to be able to scale so that we’re keeping investors’ funds constantly deployed as opposed to having to go back and forth to them. That’s very cumbersome. And they can stay fully invested instead of having to ping pong in and out of the loans, which some investors like to do, but…

for the ones who want to stay fully invested, the fund model works better. So we’re circling the wagons and getting everybody involved that we need to. going to family office conventions and conferences and meeting up with a lot of those type of people in order to scale. And we’d like to get the fund up to north of 25 million by the next 12 months.

Michelle Kesil (16:00)
Amazing yeah, that’s a big goal, but I’m sure that you guys are yeah ready to handle it

Christopher Quintal (16:07)
Yeah,

well we’ve been, like I said, we broker these out and we’ve been putting out over $20 million a year worth of private money investment and that’s just based on individual investors. So if we have access to more significant capital, it’ll enable us to handle more deal flow and put out more money and take advantage of more of these opportunities.

Michelle Kesil (16:27)
Yeah, absolutely. And what other opportunities are you seeing right now that people maybe not are not aware of but can take advantage of?

Christopher Quintal (16:37)
The acquisitions, you know, it depends on the market. to try and figure out, the market, especially here in Southern California, it’s a little wacky. You know, but you’re starting to see some opportunities to purchase.

you’re starting to see some, you know, multifamily is a lot of distress and multifamily and there’s opportunities to actually acquire properties. We do that as well. a full service like real estate brokerage firm, both residential and commercial. So, and that helps with a lot of the investments that we deal with on the mortgage side as well. That’s another thing that we, another benefit that we bring is able to facilitate transacting real estate when somebody has a loan and they can’t pay anymore or they want to get out of the asset.

we can take listings and get the property sold and liquidate their positions. So we’re seeing a lot of, I think there’s going be a lot more investment opportunities and we do lend also to the fix and flip crowd. So when they take advantage of some of these opportunities, like we’re there with the money and giving them bridge loans to finance the acquisition and then construction of the property. And I feel like there’s going to be a lot more of that activity coming up in the future.

Michelle Kesil (17:39)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. So when it comes to growing your business and building new relationships, what do you feel has made the biggest difference for you?

Christopher Quintal (17:53)
There’s a trust factor to it and you have to establish credibility. It’s easier when it’s kind of a warm lead, when we have investors that have referred us people and it’s a solid referral and they trust the people that referred them. So that’s kind of an easier one. But for people that are new to us and just recently met,

I believe that our approach that I referred to before of really hand-holding them and kind of showing them what it is that we do so that they can get a real sense of who we are and what type of investments that we bring to the plate is helpful because it all comes down to trust.

they’re investing and they’re trusting us with managing the investments or bringing them intelligent investments for them to make money but have their capital secured.

And on the brokerage side, when we do it, that’s another trust factor. We don’t actually take in their money when we’re brokering the deal. Like they’re funding it directly into the title insurance company. So the transaction’s insured by the title insurance company that their loan is being made and all the proper documents are filed. So that’s another element of trust that I think is really important. And that’s my most important.

The that I’m trying to convey to the people is trustworthiness of how we operate and how we protect our investors.

Michelle Kesil (19:09)
Absolutely, trust and relationships are everything in this space. So… Yeah.

Christopher Quintal (19:13)
Yeah, there’s a lot of money swirling around and like,

people putting, know, anywhere, whether it’s 50,000 or 5 million, when, you know, when that money is a significant portion of your investment dollars, in some cases, then trust is critical. They really need to know and feel comfortable with what they’re doing.

Michelle Kesil (19:30)
Yeah, absolutely. What is like a common gap that you see in this industry that maybe your specific business fills?

Christopher Quintal (19:41)
The gap is the availability of capital. I mean, I’ve been doing this for 30 years, so I’ve seen all of the different waves, all of the different players come to the market and come and go and been through the financial crisis in 2008. And when you see those ups and downs,

especially in an environment right now where the banks are very difficult. Like it’s difficult to get bank loans through. You have to be letter perfect. You have to have perfect credit. You have to have perfect tax returns. And what we provide is kind of a bridge between that. Because we do those types of loans and what our ultimate goal is is to get the property owners to that position where they can get institutional financing. But a lot of times they don’t really understand how to do that. And what our bridge does is

and for many instances, is it gives them kind of a lifeline, gives them to be able to kick the can down the road in order to be able to get that institutional financing in the future. They have to get their house in order now. They have to, you know, pay off bad debts, get properties in good condition, get their taxes in order, get their taxes filed. I can’t tell you how many times people are, like, three, four, five years with no tax returns filed. Like, that is not going to get you a good bank loan.

So a lot of the bridge that we fill the gap of engineering their portfolio so that they can ultimately have an end game of institutional financing with the best available rates possible for the long term. Because what we do is short term in nature. Our bridge loans are between one to five years. So I said this is just a band aid. We’re trying to fix the larger problem. But the larger problem involves analyzing all those different components to getting institutional financing.

financing, tax returns, credit, liquidity, condition of property. We look at all of that and that’s kind of the gap where a lot of things are missed, where people don’t really understand how to navigate those waters and get themselves to the backside where they can really take a look at the best available financing for the future.

Michelle Kesil (21:39)
Yeah, absolutely, that’s very important to share. So thank you for that. And before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, collaborate, learn more from you, where is the best place for them to find you?

Christopher Quintal (21:52)
They can reach us here at the office at 310-557-1212. That’s the office line here. also at CenturyCityMortgage.com or LendSafeCapital.com . And all the YouTubes and the Instagrams and all that sort of stuff.

I try and do my best to get the message out, but it’s a work in progress.

Michelle Kesil (22:18)
Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate your time, story and perspective. So yeah, thanks for being here. Absolutely. And yes, for those that are tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations coming with operators just like Christopher, who are out here building real businesses. And we’ll see you all on the next episode.

Christopher Quintal (22:25)
Thank you so much for having me. Take care.