

My Story
Passionate About Protecting Our Children's Future

In the beginning I thought I knew it all - turns out, I didn't
I grew up in New York and raised by parents that emigrated from Italy to the US in the 1960s. They didn't have a formal education to mentor or teach me about business and real estate but they did teach me about hard work, values and sacrifice. I started to learn about real estate at a young age watching them work hard, save money and invest in multi-family real estate. I took some guru courses on how to invest in real estate. After a couple of successful years, I thought I knew all there was to know - turned out I was wrong and that I actually sucked at it.
I struggled - didn't think I would every succeed and fell into a depression
I started to struggle and in 2007-08 I found myself over-levered and insolvent. My income was totally severed and I fell into a depression. It was very hard for me to swallow my pride - I didn't want to be a disappointment to anyone but I felt like a loser who couldn’t make money or get to the next plateau in life
I was labeled a "Deadbeat"
It was a bad time for me and I was going down hard and fast. I was using credit cards to pay mortgages and it was a real challenge paying my bills. Eventually I went into foreclosure on my last two properties.
I made her cry
The only thing I had going for me was that I was engaged to be married to my now wife. I didn't want to disappoint her and lose her but I remember the exact moment that it all changed for me. It was the moment I made her cry. She was trying to be helpful and wanted to try to lift me out of my sinkhole but I had too much pride to accept the fact that I needed help. I lashed out at her causing her to back down with a trembling lip and started to cry.
I realized in that moment that not only did I suck as an investor but I sucked as a man. She didn’t deserve it. She deserved better than me. I was a fool. No amount of money or darkness was worth what I had done to her. I was humiliated and broken.
It was at that moment that I vowed to turn all of this around and make it work. So, I decided to pick myself up and rebuild a life for the two of us. Only this time I was going to play offense and defense at the same time. I filed for a chapter 13 Bankruptcy two days before we got married and shortly thereafter, I went to law school to become a para-legal so that I had a better understand of how the game is played. I was determined to win at this game.
I had a new spark
I had a new marriage to a wonderful woman and things started to turn around for me. 3 months into our marriage my wife was pregnant with our first child (while I was still in bankruptcy). A year later when my daughter was born and I suddenly realized something - I realized that I was given the responsibility to be the steward of someone's life. And that, maybe, I wasn’t a “deadbeat” after all. God believed in me so much that he had entrusted this life in my hands and so I felt like I was given a second chance to prove my worth.
​
I needed to risk it all to become worthy of this responsibility. It was at that moment I rededicated my life to my new calling of protecting my family and our legacy - it wasn’t about me anymore. I needed to hold myself accountable and at the same time fight the “rigged” system. Well, that started to pay off for me too as I had my foreclosure overturned in my bankruptcy and got my property back.
After all was said and done and 3+ years of bankruptcy proceedings, the two large banking institutions acquiesced and paid me a large sum of money to go away. The terms of the settlement agreement has me bound to confidentiality so I can’t speak of the specifics. What I can say is this, the payment was large enough to pay off my entire bankruptcy estate, pay my attorneys fees in full and still have a surplus of cash.
I won. I was at a certain net worth going into that bankruptcy and I walked out with a higher net worth – who else do you know that has accomplished that? - maybe I didn't suck at this investing game after all!
The result
I took stock in that experience. I was hooked. I beat the rigged system and I wanted to do it again and again. Over the following 10 years I learned how to play offense and defense simultaneously. I became the guardian of my family’s wealth and champion for my children’s future. After learning how the mortgage banking game was played from the inside out, I started buying mortgage loans. I could do better job at managing a foreclosure and giving defaulting homeowners a fighting chance to stay in their homes. I learned that I could be the bank and make a trifecta of positive impact on people’s lives;
• My family’s life,
• My investment partners life and
• the homeowners’ life
That has led me to my mission today: to extend our expansive intimate banking knowledge and experience to our friends and partners.
Ok, here comes the polished lines from our branding and marketing people…
By using a vehicle based upon the greatest minds in investing history and designed to bridge the gap between Wall Street and Main Street to deliver the trifecta of benefits:
-
Helping banking institutions relieve the balance sheets of non-performing assets
-
Providing access to opportunities that are usually held for institutions investors have access to opportunities they would otherwise find difficult to find
-
Help homeowners sustain affordable homeownership
Certifications
-
2003 - Licensed Mortgage Banker NY/NJ
-
2008 - Certified by the American Bar Association (ABA) as a para-legal
-
2009 - Accredited by 11 states bar associations for Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Credit Curriculum
Qualifications
-
2001- 2022 - Originated, Restructured, Modified over $1BB in credit secured by real estate.
-
2010 - Expert for Supreme court of Massachusetts
​- (Eaton v. Fannie Mae) -
2014 - started the first Distressed Credit and Real Estate Fund for accredited investors