Doug Smith

I run a private lending consulting practice built for individual investors, fund operators, and note buyers who want experienced institutional-grade credit decision-making help on their deals, without hiring a full-time credit officer. We also act as a private label fund management for those capital partners that need a experienced credit officer that actually has done deals. Personally as an an investor, I've either flipped or spec-built dozens of properties in the past 20 years. The practice draws on 35 years of formal credit experience across residential mortgage, investor lending, commercial finance, private credit, and distressed assets. I've underwritten and managed loans across the full credit cycle, origination through default, workout, and liquidation from both sides of the desk. That institutional background is what I put to work for private lending clients who are deploying their own capital and can't afford to learn credit on the job. My work with consulting clients covers deal-level credit review and underwriting analysis, loan structure critique, collateral assessment, buy-box development, and portfolio-level risk questions. For note buyers, I work through tape evaluation, NPL workout strategy, and re-performance analysis. For fund operators, I help build credit policy and underwriting frameworks that hold up when deals go sideways. I'm also the principal at Castle Rock Capital Funding, an active NMLS-licensed mortgage origination company, which keeps me in the current market every day, not just the theory of it. I speak regularly to private lending groups and national industry conference audiences on credit underwriting, default risk, and portfolio management. Personal NMLS 1984040/Business 2318381. If you're deploying capital into private lending and want a second set of eyes from someone who has seen how these loans actually perform over time, feel free to reach out.