Oliver Austria

Co-CEO, Triumph Capital Partners

How quickly the finance market changes: Ten years ago, the private lending industry was emerging from its infancy after the 2008 housing market crash. Wall Street and private equity money was non-existent. Wealthy fix-and-flip experts dominated the market with a “cash is king” mentality and paid little mind to customer service. Without competition, there was no need.

Today, with the rehab market on a steady course, investors are invited to enter the market, and competition has increased. How, then, does a company differentiate itself from the others?

By catering to the needs of the customer, of course. “Customer service is back in the industry,” says Oliver Austria, Co-CEO of Triumph Capital Partners in Solana

Beach, Calif. “I take pride in my team’s ability to take this experience of the borrower and make it a great one. It’s a client-focused, advisory-based business. It’s the approach a financial advisor would take when dealing with investor clientele.”

Triumph Capital Partners provides commercial-purpose loans secured by residential real estate to the fix and flip and homebuilder communities. The firm focuses on five states — California, Massachusetts, Florida, Illinois and Texas — but serves 42 states total with additional partners.

“We’ve taken an industry where customer service is basically non-existent, and we have made a focus to provide best-in-class service throughout every touch point, whether it’s origination, time to funding, or delays in construction,” says Austria. “We understand there is a lot of repeat business in this space and we’re approaching it with the best attitude.”

Triumph Capital Partners offers competitive rates: For rehab projects, Triumph will fund up to 85% of the purchase and up to 100% of the rehab at an interest rate of 6.99%. Loans range from $150,000 to $3.5 million. Construction and bridge loans are also available.

While other companies provide low rates and high leverage for borrowers, Triumph takes a measured approach. The advisory role relationship applies to deals that don’t work as well as deals that do work: Triumph will analyze the market, comps and the borrower’s bud get to provide a consultative service. “If we feel a project might not work with our clients, we’ll analyze the deal for them. And a lot of times we’ll say, ‘We don’t think you’ll be making the kind of money you think you will; I would reconsider it. If you want to do the loan, go do it somewhere else, because it’s not going to be with us.’ That’s the type of approach we like to have, and we found that all of our clients have been receptive to that approach. We’re not going to give away the money if we don’t feel you can handle it.”

Austria finds there are more avenues to customer service than loan offerings, particularly as they apply to the San Diego market, which has remained strong the last few years. Across the country, however, home sales have slowed, and as a result, investors’ interest in commercial projects has increased. Investors are seeking fix and-flip commercial projects to ground-up construction. But another hot opportunity lies in scrapping homes: for example, purchasing a 1,500-square-foot home and razing it to build a 3,000-square-foot home.  

Triumph’s response to this interest was to create a white-label capital program that handles all aspects for investors: raising the money, assembling the fund, then paying attorneys and accountants to manage it. This was created with its joint venture with Brixton Capital, a San Diego-based private equity firm with a portfolio of 10 million-plus square feet and a value in excess of $1.4 billion. “They focus on real estate and believed in our business model and vision,” Austria says. “They provide us capital and the balance sheet to be a force to be reckoned with in this business.”

Triumph Capital Partners also offers its clients the benefit of a Home Depot relationship, which provides a 23% discount on building materials. In the next few months, the company plans to launch a debit card for clients to purchase construction supplies and other project needs. “We have a lot of things in the works that have not been done by anyone else in our space,” says Austria. “We’re always focused on providing value to our investors, our borrowers and our partners. We can’t be everything to everybody. We don’t have the mindset to compete with so-and so. Our mission is to be the best private lender for borrowers while being the best steward of investment dollars for investors. If you have those two things in mind at all times, they tend to balance each other out. We’ll never get over our skis just so we can get a loan, and we’re never going to be so myopic we can’t provide any value to borrower.”

A third product launching soon is Triumph Academy, an educational resource for partners — correspondents, lenders or brokers — to receive training on products, sales and the industry. Austria expects it to go live in 2019.

For all its innovation and capital backing, Triumph Capital Partners is young but packed with 40 years of cumulative experience between the principals. Launched in 2016 with Co-CEO George Flint, Triumph has grown rapidly and now employs 20 people. Rapid success doesn’t come without challenges, however, which the company faces daily, Austria says. “We’ve been able to come together as a team and address challenges in real-time basis. Our first challenge was raising capital.

Initially, we were raising capital through private placement memorandum, but we eventually partnered with the private equity fund (Brixton). That solved our capital problem.”

As the company grew the second challenge asserted itself: hiring more team members. As a small company, Triumph hired people close to them, but eventually had to hire recruiters to bring in employees that would fit the need and the culture. “It’s growing pains,” says Austria. “Raising capital is fundamental. If you don’t have capital, you don’t have a business in the world of lending. As we’re taking hats off our heads and divvying up tasks, we’re running out of people in our immediate circle to bring on and we have to bring in complete strangers and indoctrinate them to our work ethic and culture. It’s the culture that drives a lot of things. Now George and I manage people. We have to maintain productivity and the culture that got us here in the first place. That becomes exponentially more difficult as we bring in more bodies, roles and objectives.”

More people leads to more and better technology, more defined systems and processes, training and buy-in. Aside from these challenges, Austria says the goal is to embody the company he and Flint envision, in which they are outstanding stewards of investors’ money. “To have excellent asset management and loan servicing, we work on those things every single day,” Austria says.

Austria sees more growth ahead for the company and the need to take the right risks. The fact that one bad loan can wipe out profits or potentially end the business has inspired an incentive for sales people to make good loans and be responsible for their performance. If a loan goes delinquent, the sales person’s compensation is tied to the performance of the loan.

This, says Austria, is just one example of how the company plays defense. Another is how the company prepares for market cycles. “We are 10 years into the market cycle,” he says. “What happens next month or year or five years from now? There’s a likely chance we won’t be in the same cycle. So playing defense means taking into account all things happening in the market and using it to calibrate our business.”

All of which circles back to customer service for borrowers and investors and building an unparalleled platform for the private lending industry, presented in a young, hip, fresh environment. Recently, the company invited new and existing clients to an event called Cuts ‘n’ Cards, a fun and unique open house that offered poker games, catered Mexican food and hair cuts. “Instead of a standard recruiting event,” Austria says, “we took the opportunity to bring in a few barbers and a taco truck. It gave us the opportunity to interview people while they’re getting their hair cut. We try to display our culture and our DNA as much as possible, because I’m pretty sure it’s pretty unique. You don’t get to do that in a conference room or sitting outside on our patio.”

Service is King. And is just another way Triumph Capital Partners creates value.