Real Estate Investor Financing Explained: Fix-and-Flip, DSCR & Construction Loans | Christopher Carter

Christopher Carter (00:00)

The next chapter of my life, my business life, my personal life is to become renowned in the real estate space. And so that is me having more contacts within the Florida area, but also in the thirty-nine other states that we operate in. So going out there, having more meetings, having more one-on-ones, meeting people for a cup of coffee, going to more conferences—it’s just really getting myself out there in the public so that persons who need the services that we perform, provide rather, they’re able to know that we exist and they’re able to channel business towards us.

Quentin Edmonds (01:12)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest, and I cannot wait for us to learn from him, peek through his experience. I love this—this is a quote that I wrote down that he said: there is no loan that they are not able to close. Their reach is enormous when it comes to the lender base. Any project you’re looking for—fix and flip, ground up—I believe this gentleman can help you get the job done. So I am super excited to introduce you all to Mr. Christopher Carter. Mr. Christopher, how you doing today, sir?

Christopher Carter (01:53)

All right, I’m good. Thanks for having me.

Quentin Edmonds (01:55)

Absolutely. Thank you for being here. And so I’mma say this now and I’ll probably say it again.

Christopher Carter (02:01)

Thank you.

Quentin Edmonds (02:02)

Thank you for your time. I appreciate you being here. I think time is our most precious commodity.

Christopher Carter (02:07)

I can also say thank you for giving us this opportunity to be on your platform and to be able to communicate to your viewers throughout the country. So thanks a lot for that.

Quentin Edmonds (02:17)

Absolutely, absolutely. Listen, we doing this—we’re better when we do it together. That’s our community approach, so I love it, man. Absolutely. So listen, I’m the type, Mr. Christopher: 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 origin story, kind of how you got into this space that you’re in. And then tell what markets you operating in, like where you are in the world. And so, Mr. Christopher, you got the floor, my friend.

Christopher Carter (02:43)

So my name is Christopher Carter. The name of my company is Stratmire Capital Partners. All right. So since 2014, I’ve been in the real estate space as a mortgage broker. I was also previously a real estate agent. I transitioned over as a full mortgage broker in 2020, right out of the pandemic. And because I just thought that with my experience and my knowledge base, I would be better served being more on the mortgage side than on the real estate side. So I transitioned fully over into the mortgage side.

Now with Stratmire Capital Partners, we’re a full broker that deals with all loans on the non-owner occupied side. And for that, I mean transactions where the person who’s doing the loan is not going to be living in the property. So those are mainly investment properties. We do commercial loans, business loans, and construction loans, right? Now our main bread and butter is our fix-and-flip loans, our ground-up construction loans, and our DSCR loans. Those three loans, I’d say, are our flagship loans; those are the loans that we do mostly.

And so we have clients throughout the country. There’s about 10 states that we’re not able to do business in: California, Arizona, North and South Dakota, and a couple of others. But for the large part, we do business in about 40 states. Our home office is currently in Florida, but that’s just where home office is. We connect with real estate investors, real estate agents, just anyone within the real estate space that is looking to do a loan. Business clients also—they’re looking to do a loan either to enhance their business or to enhance their real estate portfolio, we’re the person here that can.

Quentin Edmonds (04:38)

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you for walking me a little bit through the journey, letting me know what it is that you do, how you got there just a little bit. And so I’m always interested in the journey, because I often say, Mr. Christopher, destiny has no wasted moments, right? We learn from every leg of the journey.

Christopher Carter (04:53)

Learn from every experience.

Quentin Edmonds (04:58)

You’re with me. So I would love to know: throughout your journey, what has the journey revealed to you about yourself? Has it made you more disciplined, more humble? Talk to me a little bit about your journey and the things that have been revealed to Christopher about Christopher.

Christopher Carter (05:52)

So one of the main points about me is that I’m an introvert, yeah. And so previously in my jobs prior to being in the real estate space, I was an internal auditor for a bank. So I was just sitting in the back office, just talking to my boss and my immediate coworkers. So there was no need to get out of my shell. Now, being in this space, this real estate space, you have to be touching people, you have to be talking to people, you have to be going out there, you have to be presenting yourself. Because if no one knows what you do or if no one knows who you are, you could easily be the best at what you do, but without that base where you can present your services to, then you won’t be making any money.

So, and just going back to your question, so for me, my challenge initially was: how do I come out of my shell? How do I get to the point where I could see a total stranger, someone who I’ve never seen or met before, and strike up a conversation with them and in five minutes let them know what I do and how I’m able to help them? So I learned, though, that you can’t be silent, because there’s a saying that closed mouths don’t get fed. And so it has pushed me to the point now where I’m okay talking to a complete stranger. I’m okay just going to a meeting and picking five persons and trying to get to know them before I leave the meeting. I’m okay just standing at the supermarket and seeing somebody walking by and just striking up a conversation with them. It’s just a matter of figuring out: how do I want to make my next meal? And I won’t be able to get my next meal if my mouth is closed. So it’s just opening up myself to be able to bring people on board, yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (07:36)

Love it. Love it, man. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for even your willingness to kind of step outside your comfort zone, in a sense being…

Christopher Carter (07:43)

Of course.

Quentin Edmonds (07:44)

…comfortable with being uncomfortable a little bit, right? And so yeah, no, thank you for that. So listen, so obviously having systems and operations in place is a big part of success. And so I would love to know, Mr. Christopher, what is maybe one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say within the last year, that maybe has changed the way you do business or has helped you be successful in the way you do business?

Christopher Carter (08:08)

No, that’s an extremely good question. So prior to now, I used to do most of the stuff myself. And I was afraid to delegate stuff ’cause I don’t think it was going to be done the way I want it to be done. Now, for you to grow, though, you can’t do everything, especially as a small business person. You’re not like an octopus with ten different arms. So you won’t be able to be reaching too many stuff or touching too many stuff at the same time.

So one thing that has kinda helped me is I got a personal assistant that worked directly with me. And she handles my day-to-day calendar. And so she’s able to take off from me stuff that—I wouldn’t say wasting my time, but the value that I am to get from doing other stuff is going to be more important to the growth of the business. And so if I should give one recommendation to especially a small business person, it’s: you need to get a team. I know sometimes the cost of it is going to kind of prevent us from going in that direction. But the benefit of being able to concentrate on what it is that you can do to grow your business is going to be game-changing.

Quentin Edmonds (09:19)

Yeah. Good, great advice. I love the way you put that. Really, really good nugget, man. Thank you for sharing that. Mr. Christopher, what’s next? What is your next real goal? What are you looking to solve or scale next, sir?

Christopher Carter (09:36)

So the next chapter of my life, my business life, my personal life is to become renowned in the real estate space. And so that is me having more contacts within the Florida area, but also in the thirty-nine other states that we operate in. So going out there, having more meetings, having more one-on-ones, meeting people for a cup of coffee, going to more conferences—it’s just really getting myself out there in the public so that persons who need the services that we perform, provide rather, they’re able to know that we exist and they’re able to channel business towards us, yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (10:15)

Love it. You walked me to my next question, because you’re talking about getting the word out, being renowned, connecting with people. So everyone that comes on, Mr. Christopher, I love hearing their unique perspective on the word relationship. So I want to hear your unique perspective on relationship building within business, whether it’s from the client perspective or partnerships or maybe mentorship. What is your unique perspective on this word relationship within business?

Christopher Carter (11:21)

It’s something I’m kinda even getting to know, to learn the word and to learn what it is to build relationships. Because a lot of times we believe by just calling someone once or twice is building relationship. It goes far beyond that. And especially in the real estate space, where people are gonna trust you with possibly one of their biggest transactions that they do, they want to feel that they’re having a relationship with this person. And so knowing their birthdays, knowing their family, knowing where they go to church, knowing stuff that is going to be important to them is going to help you to form that relation or maintain that relationship at a higher level.

Be prepared to volunteer yourself to their cause. So, for instance, if they’re a part of a group and they want donations or they want a volunteer to come and give a speech, it’s almost like you’re becoming a part of their network. So you’re not just presenting yourself as a solution for a transaction, but you’re presenting yourself as a life solution. So whatever issue they may have, they can call on you and they can know that you’re not just trying to get the next transaction, but you’re building a relationship that is going to foster growth—but not just growth for yourself, but growth as partners together. Yes.

Quentin Edmonds (12:41)

Sir, so well said. I often say when I talk about relationship, I often use the word community. I think community is—it’s common unity. It’s people who have a goal in mind, have a focus in mind, and then we unite to move towards that common goal. And so I love it. I love not treating people as transactional when you call people. I love it; I love everything you said. Mr. Christopher, what else is it that we need to know about you or your business? Is there any other word of motivation, education? Maybe you came in and you had a thought in your mind that you wanted to make sure people knew, or maybe you had a thought in your notes. I just want to make sure that we don’t miss anything. So what else is it that people should know about you and your business?

Christopher Carter (13:23)

So, especially about the business. So the name of the company is Stratmire Capital Partners. And I want to stress the “Partners” side of the business name. Now, for that, we facilitate persons to be a partner with us. So wherever you are within the country, you can become a partner with us. And for that, what that entails is if you have someone that needs one of the loans that we offer, you can actually refer that person to us. And just based on referring that person to us, you earn fifty percent of the commission that we get from our lender. And those commissions are pretty strong in terms of dollar value; they run in the thousands, at least.

And so one of the plans for next year is I want to grow our partner base to about five thousand, and that’s gonna be throughout the country. So it’s going out meeting accountants, tax preparers, credit repair people, doctors, lawyers—whatever profession, whatever category you find yourself in, once you’re able to communicate with us and communicate with your prospective client, you can become a partner with us, yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (14:33)

Love it, love it. Well, with that being said, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, sir?

Christopher Carter (14:45)

So the easiest way is the phone, because I’m a more old-fashioned phone person where you can just call me directly and I answer my phone one hundred percent of the time. So if you don’t mind, I could give my phone number, or also if you want to reach us, you can also go onto our website and schedule a meeting with us at stratmirecapitalpartners.com. You can just schedule a meeting, and either myself or one of my other workmates will be able to answer whatever questions you have.

Quentin Edmonds (15:14)

Absolutely. Well, listen, loving it, Mr. Christopher. Let me say three things to you sincerely. Again, one: again, thank you for your time. I truly, truly appreciate that. Number two: thank you for what I call the gift of your integrity, the gift of your authenticity. Thank you for coming and sharing your story. I believe when we share our story about our business and personal, is that we cast seed out there. And we don’t necessarily plant it for people, but we throw the seed out there. And if they take that nugget and plant it into what they’re doing, they can reap a harvest. So I really believe you threw some seed out there for people to plant if they want to. So thank you for that. And last thing, Mr. Christopher: thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think, the way you process, and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you coming on today, sir.

Christopher Carter (16:03)

No, no, no. The pleasures are mine. Thanks for giving us the opportunity of bringing ourselves to your platform. Thanks a lot.

Quentin Edmonds (16:10)

Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Christopher. His information is in the show notes. So please get in contact with him. Be part of the 5,000 partnerships that he’s trying to build. Don’t miss out on an opportunity, so get in contact with him. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like thee Christopher Carter. So, sir, I say thank you.

Christopher Carter (16:32)

Thanks a lot again. Thanks a lot.

Quentin Edmonds (16:34)

My friend. And listen, and the rest of you listen: y’all have a phenomenal day.