Sal Suleymanov's parents came to the United States from the former Soviet Union with $100 in their pocket. He was born here. He still considers himself an immigrant. That framing shows up in everything about how he runs WeLend, the New York City private lending firm he started in 2018 with his brother and two cousins. Today WeLend has originated more than $600 million across more than 1,300 business-purpose loans nationwide, with zero principal loss to date. That last number is the one Sal goes back to, and it didn't happen by accident.

Sal's real estate career started in 2012 with cold calls to distressed sellers and door-knocking in the five boroughs. Wholesaling first, then fixing and flipping in New York City, then enough deal flow by 2018 to open the lending arm with their own capital. That snowballed into a fund. WeLend now operates in nearly every state except the few (Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota) that still require a brick-and-mortar branch or local licensing. WeLend's edge is that the founders were operators before they were lenders, and they underwrite like operators.

What landed in this conversation:

1. Why the average loan size doubled. When WeLend opened, the average loan was around $400K on standard 1-to-4 unit fix-and-flips. Today the average is roughly $800K because the strategies have shifted. The old cookie-cut flip numbers don't pencil the way they did five to ten years ago. The smartest sponsors are running conversion plays: take a two-family home, add two vertical floors, end up with four condos. The original two-family might have sold for $2M. Each new condo now sells for at least $2M. Construction cost on a vertical expansion runs $800K to $900K instead of the cost of a standard rehab. The math works, but only if the sponsor knows what they're doing.
2. Why most lenders can't underwrite the conversion play. It's hard to project the ARV on a vertical expansion if you've never done one. Most lenders weren't developers in a past life. WeLend's founders were. They've done conversions themselves, so they understand how to project finished value, how to phase construction, and what to push back on in a sponsor's pro forma. The flip side: WeLend won't lend on a conversion play to a sponsor doing their first or second flip. They'll tell that sponsor to bring in an experienced partner, and watch sponsors who ignore the advice get stuck on the deal a year later.
3. NYC is an equity play, not a cash flow play. Sal hears it from borrowers all the time. "I'm really not cash flowing on this property I'm buying in New York City." Correct. New York is dating the rate, riding the appreciation, and refinancing later. The buyers in markets like Park Slope (where WeLend recently funded a beautiful ground-up project) aren't rate-sensitive. Compared to a $200K Ohio single family where one major repair eats the year's cash flow, a New York equity play with $400K to $500K in forced appreciation over two years is a different category of return. Both have their place. Sal lends on both. He just wants borrowers clear-eyed about which game they're playing.
4. How $1,300 loans turned into zero principal losses. Sal's brother Moses runs credit. He looks at every loan before it funds. The two things they screen for are sponsor track record (especially that the sponsor's experience matches the scope of work) and clean exit math (is the sponsor actually making money on this deal, not just on a frothy ARV?). Their value-add culture: a lot of lenders are loan-to-own, hoping the borrower defaults so they can take the asset. WeLend's posture is the opposite. When a GC walks off a job, the WeLend team connects the sponsor with another GC in their database. Architect, expediter, wholesaler, same approach. Help the project move, get the loan paid back, get the next deal.

The biggest mistake Sal will talk about was a Bronx two-family flip where the team tried to save $60K to $70K by not digging out the basement to expand its footprint. The deal sat for nearly two years. They lost roughly the amount they had saved. The private lender on that one made every dollar of his interest on time. Lesson, in three words: "Don't be cheap."

The advice his life coach gave him recently that he keeps coming back to: "Slow it down. Just relax. Enjoy what you have." First-generation immigrant kids are not natural at that one, and Sal knows it.

Books he's working through: Measure What Matters by John Doerr (OKRs, the book that genuinely shifted how WeLend runs internally). Find it on Amazon. Anything by Robert Greene; Sal was listening to one of his audiobooks the morning we recorded. Find his catalog on Amazon.

Get in touch: Instagram (@welendllc or @sal_solomons), or call Sal directly at 212-257-3888. When he's not working he's on the racetrack at Palmer Motorsports Park in his 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT-R.

Real Estate Underground with Ed Mathews. Find us wherever you get your podcasts, at clarkst.com/podcast or elevista.com/podcast

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