Capital Fund 1 Review: Scottsdale Lender, Its Investor Fund Reports $1.01 Billion Sold (May 2026)

Why this review exists

Search for “capital fund 1” and the first results are the company's own city pages, a Yelp listing and lender directories that repeat its marketing. The name is also close to dozens of unrelated entities: EDGAR full-text search returns 133 Form D filings for “Capital Fund 1,” almost all from unrelated fund managers (GAPP, Moonshots, Lazuli and Cazador among them), and other Scottsdale issuers such as Onyx Capital Fund I LLC, Devise Capital Fund I LLC and Carleton Capital Fund I, LLC have different addresses and no link to this lender. This page identifies the lender by its address and its own statements, then reads what the public record adds. For the wider market, see our hard money loans in Arizona page, our hard money loan rates data and the checklist in is this DSCR lender legit.

1. Who Capital Fund 1 is: a lender and the funds behind it

The About page says Capital Fund I, LLC “is a private money lender (or hard money lender, since the terms are interchangeable)” in Scottsdale and that it is a direct lender, not a broker. The footer prints “BK-0917799 | NMLS #396288” and “Business purpose loans only,” and lists offices in Scottsdale, Irving, Denver, Brentwood and Atlanta. The 2011 consent order listed below classes Capital Fund I, LLC as a Mortgage Banker, but we could not run the Arizona license lookup, so the license number is the company's claim.

The investor site, capitalfund2.com, explains how the money is organized: “Capital Fund I (CF1) is the operating company that originates and services loans.” Capital Fund II (CF2) is “the variable return equity investment vehicle that provides the capital for the loan portfolio originated by CF1,” and the CF Investors Debt Fund is a separate debt vehicle that pays a fixed return. Court records show the same flow: a 2023 U.S. Bankruptcy Court order says a lien was granted to Capital Fund I, LLC and that Capital Fund I “assigned that deed of trust to Capital Fund II LLC,” recorded in Maricopa County on February 27, 2015.

2. What the investor fund's SEC filings show

Capital Fund II, LLC is not a lender you borrow from, but its Form D is the only audited-by-nobody, regulator-filed number about the size of this business. The form reports a cumulative “total amount sold,” the number of investors and the minimum investment. It does not report repayments, reinvested distributions or the loan book.

Three things stand out. First, the last twelve months added $408.0 million, almost twice the two years before combined ($102.6 million plus $108.4 million, our arithmetic). Second, the average sale per investor on May 12, 2026 was $881,748 (our arithmetic), well above the $50,000 minimum, so this is a base of large accounts. Third, the investor site says the opposite of rapid raising: “We temporarily paused new capital to protect investor returns,” and gives the reason as “In 2025, capital inflows outpaced loan demand.” The page is undated, so we cannot tell when the pause began, and a Form D total can include money from existing investors. We could not reconcile the two statements from public documents. The investor site also shows about 900 investor accounts, against 1,149 investors on the Form D.

The original Form D, filed December 16, 2016, reported $0 sold and a first sale that had yet to occur; the later amendments give August 30, 2010 as the date of first sale. The 2016 filing is the first public SEC record of the fund. The debt fund's May 2023 amendment reports $11,163,697 sold to 33 investors against a $100,000,000 offering, with a $1,000,000 minimum, and the REIT's 2021 filing reports $125,000.

3. Volume claims: $2 billion, $5 billion, $6 billion

The company repeats funded-loan totals that grow from page to page. They are cumulative loan volume, not assets, so they are not comparable with the Form D figure; they are listed here because a borrower who reads “thousands of projects” is reading the lender's own count.

Because none of the volume pages is dated except the December 2024 post, the three totals cannot be placed on one timeline. A $2 billion total at a $350,000 average implies roughly 5,700 loans, while the investor site says about 1,550 loans are in the portfolio today; the second is a current portfolio and the first is lifetime volume, so both can be true (our arithmetic).

4. The terms it publishes, and where its own pages disagree

The home page now leads with three programs. The footnotes say the maximums are program limits “subject to underwriting approval,” that the rate is “the lowest available rate tier,” and that “All terms subject to change without notice.”

The contradictions matter because a borrower tends to arrive from the page that says what they want to hear. The About page says “No tax returns or credit checks required,” and the fix-and-flip page says the loans “do not require a standard credit check or income verification”; the home page and Why CF1 page set minimum scores of 620 (CF Advantage), 680 (CF Pro) and 660 (DSCR) and describe a “soft pull.” The older pages show 75% and 70% of value while the newer program tiles show up to 92.5% of cost. The most likely reading is that the older pages predate the new program structure, but the company has not dated either, so ask for the term sheet that applies to your deal and compare it with the page you read. For posted rates across the market, see hard money lenders in 2026.

5. Extensions, default interest and the small fees

Short-term loans are where the lender's servicing rules decide the cost. The extension page states that “Loans can be reviewed for extension based on an additional 6-month term,” that “there is a one-time, flat fee” whose amount sits in the promissory note, and that “If your loan goes past maturity without extending or paying off the loan in full by your maturity date, default interest will accrue.” The FAQ adds that loans come to term on the 1st of the month with a grace period to the end of that month, and that “Our system will NOT accept payments when a loan goes past maturity (term).” An extension may begin up to one month in advance and must be processed before maturity.

Smaller items on the FAQ: a convenience fee of 3.25% on Visa, Mastercard and Discover and 3.5% on American Express (credit cards are accepted for fees such as extensions), a $75 payoff charge it labels a “Broker” fee, a late charge if a payoff is dated after the 10th without payment, lien releases “typically recorded with the county 30 business days after the loan has paid off,” no Form 1098, and interest paid in arrears. None of the extension fee, the default rate or the late charge is a published number, so each is a question for the term sheet.

The company's investor site is more specific about defaults than its borrower pages. It says “Since mid-2024, our default rate has averaged ~5.8%, compared to a historical average near 4%,” attributes the rise to “elevated mortgage rates, and longer resale timelines,” and says “As of the beginning of the month, we have 78 REOs.” It does not define default rate or give the month of the REO count. For a borrower, the point is practical: at a lender with that many defaults and foreclosed properties, the maturity date is enforced.

6. What the court records show

CourtListener was unavailable on November 13, 2026 and we did not read Maricopa County Superior Court dockets, so court records are not scored; the decisions below are the ones we could read in full. We do not name the private parties.

What this adds for a borrower: the 2018 and 2020 decisions describe the lender's playbook on a $4.26 million, 24-property default (cross-default and cross-collateral clauses, a receiver, non-judicial trustee sales within about three months of the stay being lifted), and that it did not pursue the remaining deficiency. Those are one borrower's facts, decided in the lender's favor, and a sample of one.

7. Regulators, HMDA and reviews

The Arizona Department of Financial Institutions lists a consent order for Capital Fund I, LLC, license type Mortgage Banker (ULA), docket 11F-BD097-SBD, issued March 29, 2011. We read the listing in an Internet Archive copy of July 21, 2019 (the live page returned 403 on November 13, 2026) and could not retrieve the order itself, so we do not know what it required. Nothing we read shows a later order, but we did not search the department's current listings or any other state regulator in Colorado, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia or North Carolina.

Capital Fund I, LLC is not in the FFIEC HMDA filer lists for 2024 (4,927 institutions) or 2025 (4,791), and has no GLEIF record. Capital Fund II's lapsed LEI returned no HMDA rows. That is consistent with a lender that makes only business-purpose loans; we do not argue that it should report. The BBB profile (secondary reading) shows an A rating, accreditation since July 16, 2025 and 3 complaints in the last three years, none in the last 12 months, and 3 customer reviews. The home page also embeds a Google reviews widget; we did not count or assess it.

8. What a $300,000 loan costs on its published terms

The company posts a rate floor but no points for flips, so this is a partial example. Our arithmetic, assuming a $300,000 loan, 12 months, interest only, fully drawn, at the CF Advantage floor of 9.75%:

• Interest: $29,250 ($2,437.50 a month). Rates above the floor cost $3,000 more a year for each full percentage point.
• Points: the only range the site publishes is 1 to 3 points on land loans, which is $3,000 to $9,000 here. Use it as a scenario, not as this lender's flip price.
• Interest plus points: $32,250 (10.75% of the loan) with 1 point, $38,250 (12.75%) with 3 points.
• Leverage: if $300,000 is 92.5% of cost, the total project cost is $324,324 and the cash you bring is $24,324 plus points, document and third-party closing costs. That is the best case; the fix-and-flip page's 70% to 75% would require far more cash.
• Extension: a 6-month extension adds a flat fee of an amount not posted; at 9.75% another six months of interest on $300,000 is $14,625.

9. What a reader can do with this

• Ask for the written term sheet before you pay anything and compare it, line by line, with the page that brought you. Make sure it states the rate, points, document fee, extension fee, default interest rate, prepayment terms and who services the loan.
• If a page told you no credit check applies, ask whether the 620, 660 or 680 FICO minimums on the home page apply to your program.
• Ask which entity is the lender of record on the note and where the loan goes after closing; court records show loans assigned to Capital Fund II.
• Look up the license number the company prints (BK-0917799, NMLS 396288) in the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions license search and NMLS Consumer Access yourself; we did not.
• Ask for the extension fee and default interest rate in dollars on your loan, and what happens on the 1st of the month after maturity.
• If you are the second reader, an investor considering Capital Fund II, read its Form D and offering documents; this page does not assess its returns, and we have not seen its financial statements.

Sources: capitalfund1.com pages (home, About, Why CF1, fix-and-flip, land and lot, buy and hold, multifamily, commercial bridge, construction, long-term rentals, FAQ, extensions, reviews, team and news feed) and capitalfund2.com, read November 13, 2026; SEC EDGAR Form D filings and submissions index for Capital Fund II, LLC (CIK 0001533539), CF Investor Debt Fund, LLC (CIK 0001836298) and Capital Fund REIT LLC (CIK 0001839758), and EDGAR full-text search for Form D; Arizona Department of Financial Institutions consent-order listing (Internet Archive copy of July 21, 2019); FFIEC HMDA filer lists for 2024 and 2025; GLEIF; Arizona Court of Appeals decisions 1 CA-CV 17-0228, 1 CA-CV 19-0114 and 1 CA-CV 23-0190; U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona, 2:21-bk-07697-DPC; BBB profile (secondary reading). Quoted text is verbatim from the saved pages. Figures labelled “our arithmetic” are calculated by us. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. Compiled by CrowdfundedWealth on November 13, 2026.