Meet the Team: Co-Founder Jorge Silberstein on A&S's Rapid Rise
In this month’s A&S newsletter, company co-founder Jorge Silberstein answers a few burning questions about the business. Before starting A&S, Jorge spent 30 years working as an accountant and financial advisor, cultivating a broad portfolio of clients in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Now, he’s applying his talents and experience in the United States with a thriving A&S Capital.
What inspired you to start A&S?
I really love every aspect of the real estate business.
My partner Alexis Agopian and I started in 2015 in the fix-and-flip business. We were buying many properties on foreclosure, from wholesalers, estate lawyers, etc and we realized then that the right way to increase volume was by getting leverage from private lenders. We discovered that there was a whole world we didn't know.
We were also really lucky to have found the right investors who have been with us from the beginning; they always trusted us completely even when we were taking our first steps into the lending business.
How did A&S grow so rapidly over the last few years?
Back in 2020, it took us an entire year to reach $100 million in closings. Today, we are closing that same amount in only one month! But that kind of growth doesn’t happen randomly – once we started to learn more about the business, we were quickly able to identify the formula for success: trustworthiness and human connections.
Trustworthiness means clients trust you at your word. When you say “Approved” it's a sacred word, and we don’t change our minds after the fact. Clients need certainty of execution. The fact that we have significant equity in the company allows us to choose the deals we like under our parameters and then fund them.
Human connections means that we invest ourselves in relationships with all the links in the chain of a deal: clients, financial institutions, appraisers, lawyers, all the different general stakeholders. We let all of these different people know there are actual human beings behind the screen willing to listen and understand in order to always find, together, the best solution in the shortest time possible.
How is A&S able to close deals so fast?
As I mentioned before, certainty of execution is key. Since our clients can communicate directly with the decision makers, we’re able to submit a term sheet right away and our underwriting times are also very short. The next step is to submit the loan information immediately to legal so they can start working on the closing. We always stay on top of everything in order to clear any obstacle that could appear.
Are there any types of properties that A&S prefers to finance?
We’re concentrated on the residential segment (1-4 units, multifamily, mixed-use). Most of our balance sheet is concentrated on multifamilies from different sizes up to 200 units with light, medium, or heavy rehabs.
Tell us about the role new technology plays in your draw process.
Our draw process is just part of the same concept of customer service.
Most of our loans are with recurrent real estate operators that find opportunities where they can get an upside on the value of the properties renovating them. We specialize in assisting our clients with financing their rehab budget and releasing draws faster than anybody on the market (maximum 24 hours after the request) thanks to a dedicated software with geolocalization technology.
You've done deals in real estate markets throughout the country. Is there anywhere in particular where you'd like to see A&S do more deals?
Our goal is to work with experienced real estate operators exclusively and be by their side no matter where their properties are. If we like the deal, we will fund it.