Our Team
Melissa Timberlake
Principal
While maintaining a full-time job as an airline pilot, Melissa has been an active real estate investor for twenty years, acquiring and managing a multi-million dollar investment portfolio of single family, duplex, and mixed-use properties in Virginia, Colorado, and Paris, France. This experience has taught Melissa how to analyze and target investment opportunities with significant upside while mitigating risks. Melissa shifted her focus to multifamily investing in 2022 and has been building a team of acquisitions, asset management, and financial analysis experts. Her goal for Sutter & Wright is to create a channel through which other dedicated and busy professionals can build their wealth and create better financial futures for their families with responsible, strategic, and ethical investing. When she’s not flying around the world or looking for the next property to invest in, Melissa loves training for Richmond’s Monument 10k, swimming, learning French, and being the best mom she can be.
David Hahn
Lead Analyst
David has enjoyed an eighteen year career in restaurant concept development, which included developing and implementing unit economic models to improve the profitability of concepts as large as 1,500 units and as small as single-unit startups. During this time, David has also successfully led multi-year, multi-million dollar strategic and operational projects, overseeing all aspects from ideation to execution and from cost estimation to on-budget and on-time completion. David’s analytical background and experience also includes a degree in business administration with a concentration in finance. David’s expertise helps Sutter & Wright validate the efficacy and viability of all investment opportunities while maintaining oversight of ongoing projects to ensure their objectives are met. When he isn’t crunching numbers, David rides his bike to train for participation in the amateur Paris-Roubaix, avidly reads legal and political analysis, occasionally cooks gourmet meals, and is his infant daughter’s favorite human pillow.
Ambitions Capital
Acquisitions & Operations Partner
Founded in 2020 by Scotty Emsley, Frank Cupersmith, Jon Brandon, and Jake Salazar, Ambitions Capital has grown quickly but sustainably to over $27 million - 240 doors - in assets under management in eastern North Carolina. Ambitions Capital has developed and refined their method of finding and acquiring under-valued, off-market properties that can be purchased at a substantial discount, followed by a value-add capital investment program, and improved operations that enhance the property’s financial performance while building a better community for its residents. Their track record has shown them increase tenant retention rates, increase property NOI by over 55% in less than 18 months, and deliver greater than projected investor operating returns up to six months ahead of schedule. Our partnership with Ambitions has combined our analytical and systems expertise with their acqusitions and operational talents to position our combined efforts for our largest projects to date in mid to late 2023.