Meet Chandler Hoopes, CEO of Commonwealth Capital, a family-founded private lender providing small-balance commercial real estate loans along the East Coast. Founded in 2010 by Chandler’s father, Jack, who now serves as co-chairman, the firm has funded more than $250 million across 500+ transactions. Chandler joined in 2013 after starting his career in real estate finance at Firstrust Bank, and has since led the company through mergers with Oak Leaf Financial, Frankel Financial, and Excel Financial.
oakpool works with Chandler and the team at Commonwealth Capital on digital marketing, including paid advertising, to reach the business owners and investors who need capital but may not know where to start.
We sat down with Chandler to talk about leaving banking to build something of his own, what it means to lead a business alongside his father, and why good marketing in lending comes down to telling the truth about how you operate.
You started your career in real estate finance at Firstrust before joining Commonwealth Capital in 2013. What drew you to private lending?
Commercial banking was a great place to start my career. I received phenomenal credit training and was surrounded by excellent bankers…but banks, by design, aren’t built for entrepreneurial risk-taking, and I wanted to build something. I also knew that if I took the leap and failed, I was early enough in my career to recover. Jack, our founder and my father, saw after the financial crisis that new regulations on banks would drive major growth in private lending and private credit. By 2012, it was clear that was happening. Carpe diem, as they say. I was fortunate to have the chance to build something of my own in private lending while putting my training to work.
Your father, Jack, founded Commonwealth in 2010. What has it been like working with him, and what does it mean to you to lead a family business?
I’m grateful to have a father who is also a best friend and mentor. Those are three separate relationships, and they didn’t come together overnight. By now we’ve spent what feels like eons together at family gatherings, in boardrooms, and on work trips. The more time I spend with him, the more I see that his kindness, calmness, and humor are unrivaled, and those are three of the most important qualities to bring to any business or relationship. They’re often lost in larger institutions. At a family business like Commonwealth, we can embody those values and connect with our people on a personal level, and that lets us support both their happiness and their professional growth. Leading here means carrying that forward.
When you merged with firms like Oak Leaf, Frankel, and Excel, how did you make sure borrowers and referral partners understood what the new Commonwealth was?
As Jalen Hurts said, “You gotta keep the main thing the main thing.” Since our founding, Commonwealth has done exactly one thing: small-balance commercial real estate loans on the East Coast. Our deals are bigger now than they were in the early days, but nothing else has changed. We emphasized that in every M&A announcement and marketing effort: bigger company, same DNA.
You underwrite, fund, and service every loan in-house, and borrowers get direct access to decision makers. How does that shape the way you think about marketing, compared to how a typical lender approaches it?
Lending, especially in the small-balance space where we operate, has become largely commoditized through the securitization markets. That has far-reaching second-order effects on the customer experience that rarely get much thought. Risk gets passed to the next party, responsibility gets diffused, and “not my problem” becomes a common refrain. For better or worse, everything about our loans is our problem, and we have a real stake in working through those problems with you. Our product is fundamentally better because our success is tied to our customers’ success. So for us, good marketing is just telling people the truth about how we operate.
Private lending has long run on referrals and relationships. Where does digital marketing fit into a business like yours?
Deep, long-term broker relationships are the bread and butter of our business, but most of our end borrowers aren’t sophisticated real estate investors or financing experts. Our digital marketing with oakpool has helped us reach them with plain, common-sense messaging. We estimate roughly 30% of small business owners in America own their commercial real estate. Most are great bakers, plumbers, or mechanics, but they don’t know what to do about a looming mortgage maturity or tax lien on their property. They’re vastly underserved. oakpool has helped them find us, and we’re here to help.
As borrowers and referral partners increasingly turn to search and AI tools to research lenders, how does that change what a firm like yours needs to show up with?
Over the past year we’ve kept evaluating and adapting our messaging as our lead sources have shifted. We don’t have hard data on this, but it appears about half of the people who find us online are coming through AI search. I think we show up there because what we say is genuine, straightforward, and backed up by execution. That’s what any firm needs now, because these tools are good at telling the difference.
Where have you seen oakpool make the biggest difference in how Commonwealth Capital shows up digitally?
The biggest change has been on the paid ad side. Our lead generation was a mess before. We were flooded with unactionable leads. Now we get far fewer, much higher-quality leads, thanks to fanatical keyword review from our team at oakpool. Our sales team is incredibly grateful. Instead of spending their days screening dead ends, they’re talking to real borrowers with real deals. And even when a deal isn’t a fit for us, that conversation is often the start of a relationship, which can end up being the most valuable lead of all.
If another lender in the private lending space asked what it’s like working with oakpool, what would you tell them?
They’re responsive, and they’re willing to think creatively to get you the outcome you need. They took the time to understand our business, which isn’t simple, and that shows in the results.
oakpool is proud to partner with Commonwealth Capital, managing the firm’s digital marketing and paid advertising as it connects with business owners and investors across the East Coast. Learn more at commonwealthcap.com, or meet the team behind the family business.
