Eric Scharaga
Founder, Damen Capital
Private lender and direct land note buyer serving land investors nationwide. Featured on REtipster, Legends of Land, and Land Investing Online. LinkedIn →
We originate more strong first-lien land loans than we choose to fund alone. We work with a small group of active co-lenders who fund deals with us, participate in the decisions, and collect monthly interest through our in-house servicing. This page explains who it fits and how it works.
We keep this group small and the fit specific. All three are required:
We fund our own capital alongside yours in every loan we bring you. If we would not put our money in it, you never see it. Same first lien, same collateral, same outcome.
Each opportunity comes with the property, the valuation work, the borrower's plan, and the terms. You decide deal by deal. Pass on any loan for any reason.
Co-lenders earn 10% annualized interest on their funded portion, with a 5 month minimum matching our loan terms. Structures are flexible, we shape each arrangement with the co-lender.
We retain servicing for the life of the loan. Our in-house servicing collects borrower payments by ACH and deposits your interest directly to your account every month, automatically. No chasing, no spreadsheets, no invoicing us.
We have co-lent with individual investors for years across these structures. First-lien vacant land, 65% maximum LTV, the same underwriting you can read across this site: the loan program, our buying criteria, and our case studies show exactly how we lend.
Every loan is built with three layers of cushion before a co-lender's dollar is exposed. The loan never exceeds 65% of the property's value, meaning a 35% equity buffer stands between the loan balance and a loss even before considering that most borrowers buy under market. The borrower has real cash in the deal, 20% or more down on standard loans, so walking away costs them their own money first. And our capital sits in the same first lien position as yours, in every single loan, so there is no deal where we win and a co-lender loses.
The underwriting behind those numbers is the same discipline published across this site: our own valuation on every property, access and saleability requirements, and the property standards we apply to everything we touch.
We foreclose on the first lien. From there, two outcomes, and both have paid co-lenders in full through the equity cushion. Most often, the property sells at the foreclosure sale for more than the loan balance, because the loan was 65% of value on day one, and the debt is paid off with interest. When no bidder shows, we take title to land we underwrote at 65 cents on the dollar, and this is where lending with a land company matters: foreclosed acreage is not a problem asset to us, it is inventory. We sell it outright, wholesale it to our network of land investors, or sell it with seller financing and create a note, which is our core business. Most private lenders fear taking property back. We have three exits for it before the deed transfers.
Defaults are rare in this program precisely because of the down payment requirement, a borrower with 20% or more of their own cash in the ground fights to protect it. But the honest answer to "what if" is the one above, and it is the reason land, bought right at low leverage, is forgiving collateral.
Investors researching private lending encounter three structures: loan participations, where you buy a share of a loan the lead lender holds and controls; fractional note interests, where a note is sold in pieces to multiple passive investors, an arrangement that is treated as a securities offering in most states; and co-lending, where you are a named lender on the mortgage itself, funding alongside us with your own decision on every deal. We work through active co-lending because it gives our partners the strongest position: your name on the recorded lien, deal-by-deal control, and a direct first-lien interest in the land rather than a certificate.
New to these structures? Read our plain-language guides: what co-lending is and how to vet a partner, what a loan participation is and how it works, and fractional note investing, what to know before buying a piece of a note.
The next step is a conversation, not a wire. We will walk through recent deals, the documents, and how a first arrangement works. We do not post performance numbers on a public page, but loan count, dollar volume, and default history are yours for the asking before a first deal. Questions first? Read the investor FAQ.
Private lender and direct land note buyer serving land investors nationwide. Featured on REtipster, Legends of Land, and Land Investing Online. LinkedIn →