Brick City Capital / Case Study

Building investors' trust at every step, from the first Google search to closing the deal.

Brick City Capital is a DSCR lender, which means the loan qualifies on what a property earns in rent rather than on the borrower's own income. The customers are real estate investors who need funding for rental properties, and the brokers who place their deals. Both want the same two things: a straight answer quickly, and loan terms that stay the same from the initial quote to final closing. The investor working directly with us is usually working against a deadline that costs money to miss. The broker has their own client reputation to keep, so a slow lender or one with last-minute changes to their terms can negatively affect their relationships. Most come to us after another lender has already declined their loan request, and we specialize in creative problem solving to get lots of unique scenarios funded.

When I joined, the goal was to have the company's digital presence reflect that it's a lender those brokers could trust with their clients. It also needed to be easily findable by investors doing research, and needed operational infrastructure to manage a large deal flow. So my job was to build that trust at every step of the funnel.

01 Website & UX

First, we needed somewhere credible for people to learn about us.

Brokers and borrowers judge a lender fast, so the site had to show that Brick City is a serious, experienced lender that would be a good fit for a variety of loans. We designed the brand to feel institutional and precise, and I built the site around that. It has sharp edges, bold typography, and is minimal, without extra fluff.

Brick City Capital homepage: Rental Investment Loans, Built for Speed

The visual language is institutional and bold, conveying the experienced, hands-on lender that we are

The layout is sharp and without any fluff, since the users are professionals who make quick decisions

Brick City Capital About page: Designed by brokers, built for closers

Brick City Capital on a phone: a deal review page and the FAQ accordion

The brand and some mobile pages.

The system every page is built from

A mostly monotone design language with gold accents that make CTAs stand out. This is also what makes the next section possible: large groups of pages for SEO are built with this design system.

02 SEO

Then, we needed people to easily find it.

Brokers and investors search by loan product and by their market, comparing lenders as they go. So I built 46 state-specific market pages, each one answering the DSCR lending questions specific to that state. Each page is structured using the same framework for consistency, with the behind-the-scenes groundwork to rank on Google and stay indexed.

Brick City Capital markets page: interactive lending map and the states we lend in

Our coverage is shown first, because a broker or borrower checks whether we lend in their state before anything else

The map is the entry point to every market page, so coverage and search intent share the same section

The content is researched per state, because DSCR rules, limits and timelines can be pretty different

The same framework applied to two more states

Brick City Capital Texas market page: hero and the section on structuring complex investor transactions across Texas — Texas
“structural complexity, particularly in newer construction condo projects with elevated investor ownership”

Brick City Capital Florida market page: hero and the section on structuring complex investor transactions across Florida — Florida
“concentrated in three places: condos, insurance, and short-term rental income”

Every market page goes in depth about the unique characteristics of real estate in each state. They also all answer the same baseline questions that investors would have, structured similarly so each point is easy to find. For example, Texas, which has become a booming new market for investors, is full of brand new construction projects. Florida, a popular vacation destination, is full of short-term rentals and Airbnbs, with unique insurance requirements because of tropical weather.

A single state page broken down section by section

A full Brick City Capital state page, New Jersey, top to bottom

01 That state's DSCR environment

What the market actually looks like for an investor, opened on that state specifically.

02 The structural characteristics, one by one

Tax load, foreclosure process, condo classification, appraisal conditions. Whatever details affect underwriting there.

03 How we underwrite each one

Every characteristic above gets its own paired answer, so investors know we can handle each one.

04 Why brokers send complex files here

A final summary to win customers' trust, in the state's own terms.

05 Deals we closed in that state

Links out to relevant case studies, so the page ends on evidence that builds trust.

Brick City Capital single-family residential DSCR loan product page

Brick City Capital resources library: the state of DSCR lending

Product pages catch brokers searching by loan type, and the resource library catches the ones still figuring out which product fits their scenario.

03 Email & Marketing

Next, we needed a way to stay top of mind for people who weren't ready yet.

I built a growth email system that keeps Brick City in front of brokers between deals. This way, we're more likely to be thought of first when they're looking for lenders. Some examples are newsletters and deal-review campaigns written in a clean, institutional voice. I also rebuilt the cold-email infrastructure end to end, isolating the sending domain and verifying the audience lists, to ensure that campaigns actually reach customer inboxes.

The deal review campaigns are built on real closings. We publish deal reviews on the website, each one a funded deal and the constraint that made it difficult, and those become the material the emails point to.

A broker deciding where to send a file wants to know whether we have handled one like it before. That's what the deal reviews reinforce. Each one names the property and the constraint that made it complicated, walks through the closing process, with our problem solving logic, and ends with our VP explaining the decisions in his own words. We publish these on a schedule that acts as a deal history, showing readers not only that we can handle a wide variety of scenarios, but we also close deals frequently.

Deal review email, subject line: the answer to the zoning objection was in the appraisal report

Lending fundamentals email, subject line: How Borrowers Qualify When DSCR Doesn't Work

Market update email, subject line: 9,447 institutional homes listed. Half with price cuts.

Three different email examples: a closed deal, a product description, and a market update. They add value for the reader, and each has a differently framed CTA to bring in business

Media and content are interconnected: the deal review email links to the deal review blog on the site, our product page is linked in the product explainer email, and our social media content covering the same story is linked to the market update video

Building email sending from the ground up

Isolated sending domain

Created a subdomain to send email campaigns from, to ensure any hits in reputation don't affect internal emails and personal transactional emails.

Authenticated

SPF, DKIM and DMARC set up on the sending domain. This way, a mailbox provider can verify that a send is really from us so we stay out of spam.

IP warmed on a schedule

Ramped up sending volume on an 8-week schedule so mailbox providers had time to recognize the new IP and domain as a normal sender.

Lists verified through NeverBounce

Verified every email address before sends, since bounces are one of the biggest red flags for a mailbox provider.

A deal review from start to finish

Deal review: $1.05M four-family refinance, the goal and the legal nonconforming challenge

Deal review: how it closed in 16 days, why it matters, and the closing quote from the VP of Originations

The process is walked through in detail, from file intake and appraisal transfer through underwriting to the day it closed

Each deal review names the specific file's constraint, like a legal nonconforming four-family another lender had already failed to fund

The VP of Originations signs off each one in his own words, so the claim has a person and face behind it

It ends by naming who should bring us a deal like this, targeting the broker reading it

Brick City Capital deal reviews index: the deals behind our lending portfolio

The deal reviews page and a conference schedule page.

04 Systems

Finally, we needed infrastructure to make all of it repeatable.

A lending company depends on speed and accuracy, so the infrastructure mattered. I built and maintained Salesforce architecture across the org and wired up lead attribution, so we know which marketing efforts sourced deals.

The lead flow from deal review email to Slack alert

The tag is captured at the form and written onto the Salesforce record, so the source is stored on the deal

The Slack alert names the campaign and the link, so a rep knows what brought a broker back before opening the record

Reengagement is tracked on the already existing Salesforce record, so activity shows in one place

Marketing spend becomes measurable, because a funded deal traces back to the email that started it

I created 4 connected layers that turn an unfamiliar lender into a broker's default choice.

This is live and still evolving. From finding us to pricing a deal, I wanted a broker's or investor's whole experience to match the speed and transparency the brand promises.

Next: Leverage Homes Back to work

Brand and creative developed in collaboration with our Creative Marketing Manager. Website, UX, SEO, email systems, and lead-related Salesforce architecture owned and executed by me.