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Ahmed Seirafi - Building Better Through Finding Great Opportunities · REL Freedom Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: you need to find someone who's doing it.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: A lot of people will jump online or connect with a group or pay for a course with someone who's very big, very famous, got a lot of followers, got a lot of likes, a lot of social media out there.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: They're not necessarily the best people to follow, right?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: You need to connect and follow and learn from people who are actually doing it on a daily basis, right?
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Real Freedom Show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, mike Swenson.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Let's get some real freedom together.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of Real Freedom, talking about building real estate leverage freedom through different opportunities in real estate.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of things you can do in real estate if you're new, just getting started.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: A lot of things that you can do and we'll talk about today.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Kind of knowing who to follow, knowing what's the right information, is going to be really important as we talk about building better.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Today we've got Ahmed Serafi.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: He's the principal of Andalusia Development Company and oversees acquisition, disposition and development.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Located in California.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Have over, at the time at least of this, a hundred million in commercial assets that you're working on at any given time.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Ahmed, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with people who are excited to hear what you have to share, so welcome.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Mike.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Why don't you just talk a little bit about your background?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I know for people that haven't been in real estate, looking to get into real estate, they always kind of wonder how do people get into this?
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I know a little bit of the answer for you, but share how you got into it.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: You know it's not one of those very exciting rags to riches.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I was living on a bus bench type story and I came up.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I grew up middle class.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: My father actually owned a gas station, so I grew up pumping gas.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: But I grew up the son of an immigrant, so grew up middle class, but with a very scarcity type mindset, right, meaning there is no extras, there's no pizza on Friday nights, there's no going out to the amusement park or anything like that.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: It's a very scarcity mindset and because of growing up as a son of an immigrant, I adapted that mindset my whole life.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: It means like if something needs to be done, you do it yourself.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: So I grew up with that.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: If something needs to be done, you do it yourself.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: So growing up you know pumping gas, working at my dad's gas station.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I went to years and years of balancing education and working Like I was working 60, 70 hours a week pumping gas, opening up at you know, 5, 36 in the morning and then going all the way to 4 or 5 in the afternoon and then going to school at night.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Took me seven years to go to college, right.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Seven years, seven and a half years to even get a diploma to graduate and when I graduated I was, you know, expecting to continue on working with my father pumping gas working in the gas station.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: That didn't work out and I got a job as a commercial real estate broker.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I was taking real estate courses.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: My professor at the time introduced me to his friend.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I got a job at a company called, you know, cbre, or as it's known now as CB or CB Richelis back in the day very large global commercial real estate firm and I was a broker.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I spent a few years doing that, figuring out.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I was really good at finding opportunities, right.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I kind of learned that my superpower was finding inefficiencies or gaps in the market or opportunities with clients and tenants and builders and developers and buyers and sellers right, and kind of roll that in.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Did that for a while, did that on my own for a while after I left CB.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Then after a while, like I recruited to run and operate a commercial contracting firm, right, a friend of mine had a company, did a lot of commercial contracting, building schools, colleges, universities, public buildings, things like that.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I was brought in to kind of run the company but I was also the fixer right.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I was the guy that they called in when projects were going wrong, when things were having problems.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: So I was the guy that came in and put things back on track.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I guess I was just real good at taking those bits and pieces and putting them back in order and moving things forward.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: So it kind of came full circle.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I was good at finding opportunities in the market, I was good at finding inefficiencies, but I was also good at putting things together and putting things back on track.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: So then, developing and investing, over the years, I took those skill sets that I had, which was opportunities, assembling things, putting things together, putting things back together and move that into full-time real estate investment and development.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Where I am today developing mostly multi-family, single-family, multi-family built for rent, apartment complexes, townhomes and small and medium industrial projects out here in Southern California.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And my projects ran from Southern California, newport Beach all the way out to Dallas, texas and anywhere in between.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: And I've been doing that now For technically my career is pushing 20, 25 years now.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Just even hearing you talk about your story for those that aren't watching and listening, your shirt says hashtag I build better, and so even in your story, you're talking about how you've taken things, improved them, made them better, which I tend to like.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: That too, as an operations guy by nature in my past being able to take something, make it a little bit better.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about some of the challenges that people might face getting into real estate or kind of knowing which path to start or which path to choose.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: What can you share about that?
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So my path definitely started as a commercial estate broker, working with buyers and sellers and owners and things like that, and then moving into commercial development, where we're building these facilities.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: So along the way, you start realizing that there is inefficiencies in the market, there's opportunities in the market, right, and how to look for those, and you can get a lot of information online.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: You can get a lot of information from people, but you can also get a lot of bad information out there and they can steer you in the wrong direction, right?
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking to come and get into real estate investing and even roll that into real estate development, is you need to find someone who's doing it.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: A lot of people will jump online or connect with a group or pay for a course with someone who is very big, very famous, got a lot of followers, got a lot of likes and a lot of social media out there.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: They're not necessarily the best people to follow, right?
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: You need to connect and follow and learn from people who are actually doing it on a daily basis.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Right, the people are on social media that have a lot of social media.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Well, either they got a large team following them around or they just got a lot of time behind the camera, right, but are they actually in the field?
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Are they actually walking a property?
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Are they actually talking to a contractor?
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Are they actually, you know, working on problems and inefficiencies?
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: So it's really important that you connect with someone who's actually doing it full time.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: This is their day job, this is their main job, right?
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: They are actually doing this, versus just putting out content online.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: So it's really important, if you're coming into this business, get with somebody, follow with somebody, connect with somebody, mentor with somebody that is doing this full time.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't mean they're doing this at scale.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: They can just be doing a couple of projects at once, or a couple of investments at once, or just a couple of flips at once right, but they are doing it day in and day out, versus just putting information out there online, and they're not actually a petitioner.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: They're just regurgitating someone else's information.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: One of the things that we talk about on our teams in the past is, you know, this idea of under promise and over deliver, and you know there's certainly there's a challenge there.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Like you said, in social media you're trying to be out there, you're trying to get people's attention, but if your goal is to under promise and over deliver, it's hard to capture attention.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: It's hard to capture eyeballs and ears, and so people that are big, they're probably really good at saying what they need to say to attract people.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: But that's where you need to look behind the curtain and find out what's actually happening.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: And as somebody that's, you know, seen the backside of at least real estate teams, I can tell you there's a lot of real estate teams that put up a lot of production, put up a lot of numbers, but they're a mess behind the scenes and there's a fine line in there, because you wanna be able to continue to grow, keep your foot on the pedal without the wheels coming off, versus you know, driving like a granny, you know not going fast enough.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: So there is that balance there between speed and efficiency.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, there's a lot of people out there that don't necessarily have the track record to back up what they're sharing.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: There is a lot and they talk a big game, right, and I'm not saying they are like this, but there is a lot.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: But they, like you said, they don't put up their numbers, they don't put up their projects, they don't put up their developments, they don't put up their investments right, they just talk about it, but they don't actually show the actual property, they don't actually show an actual problem, they don't actually show them meeting with the team and working through something, right?
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: So if they're not showing what they're talking about.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: It may be they're all fluff, it's all hot air, right.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: But if you are showing, hey, today I'm here at my project or my investment or my property at 123 Main Street and we are walking the property with the plumbing contractor because you know cast iron plumbing, it's been here a long time.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: We got to start making some repairs.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: These are some of the things we're talking about.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: These are some of the things we're looking at.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Come with me as we walk the property.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: That's the kind of person you want to connect with, right?
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: But if someone is just sitting in a nice pretty studio, you know, with their name behind them and some pretty paneling, are they actually doing what they're doing, right?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Are they actually walking the walk or are they just talking the talk?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: So take your time and find the people and connect with the people that actually show you what they're doing.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: A lot of people, when they talk about investing in real estate, they're like oh, you make your money on the buy side, you got to find a good deal, and you know you mentioned that you have a knack for finding good deals, finding good opportunities.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Obviously, what you're doing now might be at a different scale than some of the listeners or might be a different type of opportunity, but as you're looking for value, you're looking for opportunities out there.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: What are some of the things that you're looking for?
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: A lot of it comes down to inefficiencies.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Like I said before, a lot of time, if there's a property on the market or someone's presenting it to you, they're giving you the basics here's the rents, here's the comps, here's this, here's that.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, that's great, but let's go deeper, let's go really deep.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Let's go and talk about what it takes to raise the rents.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about what it takes to create value in the property.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Let's go talk about if there's any inefficiencies on the remainder of the property that we can take advantage of.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Is there excess land?
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Is there other opportunities to create more income?
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Is there?
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Is it an area that is growing and there is plans for a freeway offer to be opened up in the next two years?
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Is the city coming through and ripping up the roads in the next six months Because they got to put in larger water lines and larger sewer lines to meet the capacity for that neighborhood because it's growing so fast?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Is there a new school being built down the street because the population is exploding?
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Right, so I look beyond just the flyer or the deck or the investment sheet.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Right, I would say, okay, this is great information, but this is what everyone else is getting.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I want to look deeper.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I want to look into that neighborhood, I want to look into that community, I want to look into those demographics and see what's happening there, because maybe I don't buy that investment, but I buy a piece of dirt down the street because it's going to go up and value rapidly because of all the growth in the neighborhood, right?
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: So these are just a few of the things I look at when I look at an investment, right, not just the property but what's going on around it, right?
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: One of the things I talk with investors about, especially newer investors, is the ones that make sense on paper, right off the bat.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: They're probably gone right, Like whoever was the first person to see that, or maybe whether it was off market, it was presented to them first.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Like those are probably gone.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: So for you and especially in this day and age too, where interest rates are higher than they were a little while ago like you have to find there's a problem that needs to be solved or an opportunity that hasn't yet been discovered, and so you've got to put on your creative hat.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: And it's hard to explain creativity unless you've kind of looked at some deals.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: You've been around a little bit to say, like well, you got to think creativity, but, like you said, it's finding those little nuances, finding those little opportunities where the average person that's looked at it has maybe passed it by.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: But for you, if you dig a little bit deeper, you see something that maybe somebody else doesn't see A thousand percent.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: And let's go back to the old adage of driving for dollars.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: No one does that anymore.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Maybe you do it and I do it, because maybe we're old school or we have different kinds of work ethics, right.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: But everyone has gotten lazy because all they do is drive a keyboard all day long Click, click, click, scroll, scroll, scroll.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Right, okay, that's just the opportunity that is being presented to everyone.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: But do you actually get in the car and drive the market?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Drive the neighborhood, look for something?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many deals I've found by just driving myself.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Right, because when you drive, you see all the opportunities that no one else sees, because you're actually out in the market, you're actually out doing the work.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: You actually drive down the street and say, oh, that's a beater, oh, that's an opportunity, oh, that's something I should call on, right, but no one else is.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: But if you're in the car and you're driving for dollars, you're the one that's finding these opportunities.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Do the work, don't just drive a keyboard all day long.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Do the work.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: I was trying to come up with a scrolling for dollars or something like that, instead of what's the new age driving for dollars.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's scrolling for dollars, you know that's true, and you can do a little bit of work like that.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I do a lot of work in Google Arial and Google Maps and stuff like that, but it does not, you know, take the place of actually driving and getting in the market and looking for things.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: These are where I find my opportunities.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: These are where I find the inefficiencies, because if you're finding an opportunity on LoopNet or the MLS or whatever, a thousand other people are looking at it too.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: But if you drive down the street and you see something you're like, you may be the only person that sees it.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: You're the only person that's calling on it.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: You're the only person that's trying to transact on it, right?
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: That's why it's important to get out of your comfort zone, get in the car, get in comfortable and put the work in.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Well, and I will say, you know, I had a couple of multifamily listings within the last couple of months and I knew right away whether, you know, sometimes I'd have.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I obviously have agents here locally reaching out to me, but I would get numbers from area codes that I didn't recognize calling and they're finding this stuff online.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: They're two, three, four, five states away.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Hey, I was on Zillow or hey, I was online and I saw this property.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: You know, do you have questions?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: And, to your point, yeah, if it's on the internet, everybody in the world is looking at it.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: If you're driving and it's not currently on the MLS or currently being marketed, you are one of a much smaller pool of people that are seeing that.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: So, so let's break this down for somebody that's newer, you know, just getting started.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: You see, you drive around, you see down the street this opportunity.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: How do you go about pursuing that type of deal?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So if you're new in the business and let's just say there's an opportunity that comes up on the market, right, it's on the MLS, your agent presents it to you, your broker gives it to you, you find it on Crixie Loopnet, you know, whatever online system you're connected with right and you're like okay.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: I see this, I want to take a look at it.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Right, say you're starting off in your own market.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Right, I'm here in Southern California, you're in Minnesota.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Let's just say, hey, we find an opportunity 20 minutes away.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Let's go drive it.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Let's go take a look at it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: You know it looks good on paper.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: You got some good numbers.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Let's go drive the property.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: When you go drive the property, don't be just looking at that property.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Look at the one next door, look at the one across the street, look at the one down the street, look at the one around the corner, right, because there's a lot of properties that are.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: There's more properties not on the market than there are properties on the market, right?
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So you may be looking at that property, but on your journey there or your time in the neighborhood, you write down six or seven other addresses of properties that look like they're in need of an upkeep, they're in need of a renovation, they're in need of some landscaping, they are in need of some help.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: They're like, hey, these properties are being operated probably very inefficiently.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: They need some help.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: There's deferred maintenance.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe the owner is not, you know, on top of it anymore.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Maybe the owner doesn't want to really deal with it anymore.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe the owner is struggling to keep up with it.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: These are opportunities that you need to start calling on.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Right, and it's because the one across the street is on the MLS doesn't mean there's six or seven other properties in that neighborhood.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: That are great opportunities, too, that no one is calling on and that you need to call on.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: I've talked with people in the past.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Or, yeah, maybe you're looking for property that's rougher, maybe has a vacant lot next to it, maybe there's opportunity to do multifamily development, you know, depending on the zoning and all that.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: But maybe there's different things there.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Where the one person sees an empty lot next to a house that needs repair, another person sees, oh, here's an opportunity to put a foreplex in there or something like that, where you might be able to get some more economical efficiency out of it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly 100%, because you know there are lots that are pretty wide, they're pretty deep.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: They got a lot of extra land and, with the changes in the laws that are happening for a higher density and more units that are being needed, it's becoming a lot more easier to build on existing properties.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Hey, there's a house here, but the law now allows me to put a duplex or foreplex next door behind it, right.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: So maybe you do find a house that is for sale, but you're like oh, but it's on a 15,000 square foot lot.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: It's on a 10,000 square foot lot.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: There's a lot I can do with that, right, there's an opportunity there for you.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you get into the house, you renovate the house, you rent it out, you do the BRR method, right.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: But then what do you do with the rest of that dirt?
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: You can develop it, you can divide the lot and you can sell it off.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: You can do something with it.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: So there's more than just the house, right, there is an opportunity with the rest of the land.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: There's an opportunity to JV development with somebody.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: There's an opportunity to get your entitlements and to sell it to someone else and make somebody that way, right.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: So, just because it's a piece of dirt, there's five or six different ways of making money off of that.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Or if it's an old house, there's five or six different ways of making money off of that old house.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: You just got to dig into those opportunities a little bit deeper.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Now you had mentioned you kind of cover territory between California over to Texas and everywhere in between For people that are maybe looking for on a higher up, flying up to 10 or 20,000 feet here.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: How do I choose a market I want to be a part of versus a neighborhood I want to be a part of?
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: What are some of the things that you're looking for?
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Let's just say, a Dallas versus another city in Texas.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: What are the things that are drawing you towards the areas you're working in?
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: So when we first got into investing in real estate, the first project that we bought was in Phoenix.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Right, so we're in here in Southern California.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: The first project we've always in Phoenix, and the reason for that was Southern California was a little bit expensive, right, a lot of competition, a lot of money here, right?
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: What are those surrounding markets that we can get into a Bit more easily than Southern California?
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: The barriers, the entry, are a little bit lower, right, it's a secondary market compared to Southern California.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: So, one of the things that I advise people to do If you're new in the real estate business and you're new in investing, you need to find a market that you can get to easily.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Right, if you're gonna be hands-on, if you're gonna be an active versus a passive investor, you need to be able to get there within a few hours, right, hey, maybe it's Saturday afternoon and there's a problem.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: The AC goes out, there's a water leak, there's something that happens.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Either you have a team on the ground that you can call that can get there quickly, or you can get there quickly.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Right, you're within a few hours drive time.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: You're within a few hours of Leaving your house, picking up your tools and getting there if you have to or there's a problem with the tenant or there's a problem Somewhere else on the property.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: It's with an easy access.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: So if you're looking for your first investment, make sure your first investment has Someone of an easy access for you to get to so you can take care of whatever rises hands-on Versus.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Hey, I'm in Southern California but my investments in in Charlotte.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: That's a five-hour plane ride plus a couple hours in the hotel, in the airport, plus some you know travel time plus some wait time.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: It may take me 12 to 24 hours to get there, right, that's if I go right away.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: But if it's a, you know it's a if it's an area that is somewhat close to you, you can jump in the car.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: You drive there right away.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's an hour away, maybe it's three hours away.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: It's still a lot easier to get to than being across the country, right?
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: So this is your first one in your hands-on and you really want to get the experience on how to run, operate and Invest in real estate.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Make sure it's somewhat Easily accessible to get to.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I talked to somebody previously that you know has kids and they're like I want a place where I can Leave in the morning now it can be early in the morning and still get back home at night.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: You know, if I had to, depending on or have a meeting there, do a site visit, something like that, but yeah, that that makes a lot of sense.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And then to you know you you're somebody that's grown a bunch larger business, talk a little bit about you know maybe some lessons of scaling, how to go from from one to many, what, what had to change in how you did operations or how you approach things as you started to scale Right you know, in order to to scale effectively and to be profitable, you need to operate with Partially a scarcity mindset but partially with an opportunistic mindset.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Right, you need to run and operate your business like it's a mom-and-pop.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Right, it's just you and yourself doing this.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Right, but as you grow and scale, you need to keep that mindset.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: But you also got to know that, hey, you know, I gotta put money out there to make money.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Right, I need to hire a management company because I am starting to get Overwhelmed with trying to do it myself.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, maybe it's time to hire a maintenance person because I'm tired of trying to take care of this myself.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Right, so you need to operate with a bit of a scarcity mentality in terms of being, you know, an old-school way of operating.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: But you also got to understand that if I'm going to grow, I need to start spending money on maintenance, on management, on Materials and stuff like that.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Right, so you got to kind of balance that scarcity and opportunistic mindset, because in order to really really grow, you got to spend the money.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Right, but in order to to grow efficiently and profitably, you got to also operate a little bit up with the scarcity mindset.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: Right, you got to be careful about how much you you spend.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: You got to be careful how much money you put out there, because it's very easy for a third-party person to come and say, oh yeah, um, someone moved out.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: We're gonna come paint your apartment for you and get it ready for the next tenant, but they want, you know, a thousand dollars to paint it.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: You're like, holy cow, that's a lot of money, right?
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: but if you operate with a little bit of that old-school mindset, you're like yeah you know it's a lot of money, but I know I can do it for 500 bucks.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe they're showing us how to that can do it right.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: So you got to be able to Spend the money when you need to, but you also got to be able to spend it, you know, responsibly when you need to as well looking at, yeah, the opportunity cost of okay if I and the time that it takes.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: So it's a thousand dollars and I don't spend any time on it because somebody else does it versus $500 and I do it and what else could I have done with that time?
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: So you're balancing that the time it takes you and the cost of what it actually takes you, looking at both of those things together.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you got it.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Like you said, find that balance, but don't overdo it, right, because when you overdo it things spiral out of control, right.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So just have a little bit of that scarcity mindset, but know you have to be opportunistic and you gotta start putting the money out there.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Future plans, kind of from where you're at today, where you wanna go.
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: What are some things maybe that you're thinking of on the horizon or future opportunities?
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Definitely looking at acquiring this year because I feel there's gonna be some opportunities hitting the market.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: So I need to add to my passive income portfolio.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: You know the department complexes and the stuff that are kicking off passive income.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: It's not 100% passive, but they're already built, they're already operating, they're already creating a cash flow, right.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So looking forward to getting into some of that.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: But also, you know, developing the projects that I do have.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: The reason why I really got into development more and more was not only was I, am I good at it, right.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So you know I'm really good at putting things together and creating the teams like you and creating a system to bring it.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: But development also allows you to you know, I hate to say this, you know skip competition.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: It allows you to go straight from looking for an opportunity to having an opportunity and operating that opportunity right.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Because if you're looking at strictly investing, you may be dealing with another buyers, you may be in a bidding war for a property, right, but if you go straight to development, you avoid all that.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Now it's a longer process and it's a lot more work and a lot of people don't wanna be a part of that, which is fine, but I like to right I wanna build stuff for the future, I wanna build stuff for the long term.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I don't wanna fight and try and compete with 10 other buyers to buy a property.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: That's why I go straight to development, because I can go and control that process.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Well, and even for me, going from residential real estate to working with investors on, you know, smaller multifamily type stuff.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: You know, a couple of years ago when it was residential was you know, 50 offers on a property I was competing with maybe five or six, you know still competition, but it's still a lot less than some of my residential real estate friends that like are like I can't even get somebody to look at my offer because there's so many more.
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: So yeah, kind of balancing how many other people are in that space and looking at you know how can you lessen the competition?
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Like you said, it's longer, there's a learning curve there, but you're in a space where there's less people than you know some of the other areas of investing.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: It depends on you know how much time and effort you wanna put into it, right?
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: You know, yeah, if there's a great opportunity that comes on the market, I will definitely try very hard and a bit further and try and acquire that right.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: But at the same time I'm also gonna look at the other opportunities, like, hey, I can go build something.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: It may take me two or three years, but I am avoiding all the competition and going straight to ownership, right.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: So you gotta find that balance and what works for you.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I mean the way I do.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: It may not work for everyone, but at the same time, keep it in mind.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: There isn't inefficiency in the market.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Take advantage of it.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And maybe that is getting into something that has less competition, less other people going after it.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Those are the inefficiencies you need to look for right.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: If everyone's trying to buy multifamily, maybe you need to go buy industrial or flex space, right.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Or maybe you need to go and flip, you know, retail buildings or something like.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Look for the inefficiencies in the market and take advantage of it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Well, thank you, ahmed, for coming on and sharing For people that wanna learn more about you and what you're doing.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: How can they do that?
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: You know, that is a good question and the best way to do that is just to follow me on Instagram.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I'm very active on Instagram.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: I have a coaching and mentorship program.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I have my speaking engagements and my workshops on Instagram.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: So if anybody wants to learn more or be involved or just to follow me on Instagram, it's Ahmed Builds Better.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on and sharing.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: It was cool to hear your perspective and invest a lot to you in the future and for those of you listening as well.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: If you wanna learn about building freedom through Real Estate, you can go to freedomthroughrealestatecom.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: So thank you so much, ahmed, for coming on and best of luck to you.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: Thank you, you're welcome.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you, you're welcome.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you, you're welcome.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, bmc.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Hopefully SUR Book Post.