The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
Building Wealth Through Strategic Real Estate Partnerships!
Unlock the secrets of successful real estate investing with Babar Moghal and Faizan Yousaf on the 5 Questions Podcast! Learn how these dynamic investors transitioned from corporate careers in engineering and sales to thrive in multifamily BRRRR conversions, land development, flips, and wholesaling. Discover how their professional backgrounds equipped them with essential skills like communication, relationship-building, and negotiation, which have been pivotal in their real estate journey. They share valuable insights on the importance of education and understanding market cycles, along with their diversified investment strategies. This episode is packed with actionable advice for anyone looking to break into the real estate market.
Join us as Babar and Faizan reveal how forming strategic partnerships can be a game-changer in real estate. They emphasize the importance of getting to know potential partners on a personal level and aligning goals for successful collaboration. Learn how complementary skills and shared values foster trust and effective communication. The duo also shares practical tips on finding off-market deals through building strong relationships. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiring stories from two of the industry's successful players.
I cannot stress enough about the word alignment and you know, so far we have not even talked about the deal.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we unlock real estate and business insights one question at a time. Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast. I am your host, mario Lamar, our guests on today's. We got two guests today on our podcast and, with eight years combined of experience, they have successfully transacted deals in multifamily burr conversions, land development flips and wholesaling flips and all sailing, and they have skills that, from working in the Fortune 500 companies, they have built a solid network and team to not only be successful but also attract joint venture partners for each of their deals.
Speaker 2:Welcome, babar Mogul and Faizan Yousaf. Welcome, guys to the podcast. Thanks for having me. All right, it's going to be different from having two guests, so we'll try to not talk on top of each other, but I'm so excited to have you guys. The concept of the podcast is very simple we ask you five questions about real estate and business and we get straight to the point. So maybe for this one I'll ask specifically to one of you the questions, but let's start with our first one. We talked about your different backgrounds. You have extensive backgrounds in engineering and sales. How have your professional experience shaped your approach to real estate investing? So maybe, babar, you can start, and then Faizan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and thanks again, mario, for having us on this podcast. I love the theme, so let's get right into it. You know, in real estate, our backgrounds really were in different industries, like sales, marketing and engineering. When we embarked in our real estate journey, you know, we realized that a lot of the skills that we had developed in our corporate life and in our experience developing sales markets, a lot of those skills were transferable to real estate. And you know, it's no secret that real estate is a people's sport, right? So you need to be able to communicate, you need to be able to build relationships, you need to be able to solve problems, you need to be able to negotiate win-win scenarios. So a lot of these skills were developed prior to us getting into real estate. But now these skills are so complementary that they come really handy when it comes to acquisitions, when it comes to marketing, when it comes to raising capital and establishing partnerships as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely those skills are. I can see where you know you try to raise money and having a sales background, for example, helps you, because you need to present the deal to your potential partners. So I 100% see where you're coming from. What about you, Faizan?
Speaker 3:no-transcript of the people that we're working with, you know, from something as small as our contractors and suppliers to, essentially, our joint venture partners or the sellers that we're working with. So I think, from that perspective, just getting a better understanding of, for example, the type of people that we're dealing with or how we need to navigate certain outcomes with certain types of individuals, that's definitely a skill that we've been able to utilize because of our extensive background in sales.
Speaker 2:Amazing. And in the introduction, which brings us to our second question. In the introduction we talked about you guys doing real estate, investing and focusing on multifamily. You did BRRRR, conversions, land development. What motivated you to diversify in all these different areas? Maybe, babar, you can answer this question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, happy to Mario.
Speaker 1:And you know it's a great question.
Speaker 1:It really takes us to the start of our journey, where the type of strategies that we were implementing in real estate were a direct function of the level of education we had as well.
Speaker 1:The more we invested in ourselves, the more we paid to get in the right rooms and develop relationships through proximity, understand strategies, understand mechanics, understand financing the more sophisticated our strategies became. So, you know, it was exponential in terms of moving from single family to multifamily conversions, understanding renovations, construction. You know, understanding the mechanics around building code built our muscle to go after land development. So it was more of a step-by-step approach, a function of our development and growth, because, you know, with intellectual currency, you can reduce the level of risk that you take. So very important that it really starts with our understanding of not just how to implement strategy but how to also manage the risk. Another piece that I would say enabled us to diversify was also a function of the market cycle, right? A lot of these strategies are dependent on certain types of market cycles that we're in, and so, whether that's an active strategy or a long-term strategy, it typically is something that you know we take advantage of based on the opportunity that presents itself.
Speaker 2:You know, I love the answer, because your answer to this question, because it's in a lot of instances, you know, people want to start at the top, but meaning they want to invest in big assets right away, which is everybody's dream. But it's OK to start smaller. It's okay to you know, like you said, climb the staircase one step at a time. So you, you, you start with maybe a flip or maybe an wholesale deal, and then you move, you move to the next step and and you learn, like you said, you learn along the way and you get your confidence as you grow. So I agree with you 100% there. That brings us to our third question. You guys built a strong network and finding off-market deals is crucial when it comes to real estate investing. Can you share maybe, some strategies or techniques that you use to uncover these opportunities? Maybe, faizan, you can answer this one.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, mario. So that's a great question. You know, one of the strategies that we've utilized over the years to propel us into the place we are right now in our business has been building relationships with the right types of individuals or the right parties that are typically dealing with these off-market deals or off-market sellers, right. So one thing we've been able to do very well again goes back to the sales background is build our network of, for example, bird, dogs or people on the ground, boots on the ground, that go out to look for such types of deals.
Speaker 3:We also have a good relationship with a lot of wholesalers. So we maintain good relations with our wholesaler, with the wholesalers that we typically work with, and they know us right, they know the face behind the name. So that gives us a strong starting point. On top of that, we nurture these relationships a lot of the time. So we, whatever ways we can to to give back to them and to work with them on a regular basis, help them out wherever we can, and it's just been through developing those relationships, even with Realtors, for example. So while there's been off-market deals, there's also been on-market deals, right. So, um it, it really has been, uh, a matter of just building and maintaining our relationships with the right type of people who are doing things in the market. That's kind of helped us get a good network of these deals coming into our pocket.
Speaker 2:I'm a big networker myself. I mean we see each other at a few events quite a bit. Networker myself, we I mean we see each other at a few events quite a bit. So I a hundred percent see and believe the power of networking with other people. And then it brings you to grow a team and it brings you then to access to deals or access to you know things that somebody who tries to do it alone is not going to have access to, because real estate it is a team sport. This brings us to our fourth question. You know your business focus on value add opportunities in strategic partnerships First, maybe, how do you identify and form these partnerships? We talked a little bit about that. But what qualities do you look for in a potential partner? Maybe, babar, you can touch on this one.
Speaker 1:I think that question is really near and dear to not just how we operate as a business, but also who we are, because that's where the partnership stems from it. It really is getting to know the individual, even in the absence of a deal. Right, we spoke about how we network and build relationships. So it's all all this about getting to know the person first, and it's about understanding, you know, alignment with your goals. It's about understanding how their background and experience and credibility is complementary to your skill sets, because partnership is usually coming together of two different entities and it's about joining forces. So I cannot stress enough about the word alignment.
Speaker 1:And you know, so far we have not even talked about the deal, we have just talked about the person, because we put a lot of weightage on the individual, their ability to pivot, their ability to work with us, because real estate is about solving a bunch of problems. You know we need to be able to collaboratively come up with solutions. So how we do that with the individual is something that's really a quality that we look for in a partner. And then, obviously, when it comes to the deal, you know their level of understanding, their level of, you know, expertise that they will bring and how that complements to us is really important, because roles and responsibilities and being able to swim in the same lane and being able to communicate because you know, now we have investors and partners along with us, so everybody's banking on this relationship right, so it's really important to have those right alignment in terms of personal qualities.
Speaker 2:That's. That's very good. I was. I was talking to another guest on another episode and and we gave the example of being in a raft or a canoe, talking about different responsibilities. If two people have the same responsibility, if you row on the right side, you're going to turn into circles, you're not going to go anywhere. But that's exactly how it is in a partnership, right, you have different responsibilities, then you can move forward. Then one row's on the right, one row's on the left and you go forward. So I, you know 100% there with you on. You need to know the person, their strength, before you go into a partnership with someone, to understand where they're going to fit in the picture.
Speaker 2:That brings us to our last and final question, guys. Question number five is how do you ensure that your real estate projects have a positive impact on the communities where you invest? Because we talked about value add, right, you guys look for that when you start a project. Can you provide us an example of, maybe, a project or something that made significant impact in the community where you invested? Maybe Faison can touch on this one.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So again, this is a great question. I think you know one of, when you look at entrepreneurship, one of the biggest problems, or sorry, one of the biggest rules for entrepreneurship is you get paid according to the size of the problems that you solve. Right, when it comes to housing in Canada, there's a few issues that we're looking to take care of or resolve right now, issues that we're looking to take care of or resolve right now. So you know, when it comes to how we give back to the community or how we impact the community, there's a few different ways in which we do that. The first one is typically by increasing density rates.
Speaker 3:So typically, a lot of our projects involve increasing the density of the current, of the current housing. So, for example, one project that comes to mind is there was a house that we picked up. It was a massive 3 000 square foot house, uh, with, I want to say, five or six bedrooms in it. If you look in that community, there was no other house within the area that was that large, and even the family that was currently living in it did not really have a need or use for a house that large, right? So we took that, we converted into four separate units of different sizes and so that provided housing for more average sized families to come in and be able to afford each part of that house right. So just increasing density there, as well as the affordability.
Speaker 3:Along with that, the safety and building codes. So if you look at a lot of these older houses, especially in tertiary markets or secondary markets, these are that there's more older homes than new development. Yeah, and typically what that means is they come from a time where we didn't necessarily have the type of building codes and structures we do around building that we have now. That ensures safety. So we find a lot of the times that we come across houses where there's this type of structural problem, that type of structural problem, and when we're redoing these houses we're, of course, doing it up to building code a lot of the times, with the municipality involved, with permits and all that. So that ensures that whoever comes in and lives there next is getting a good, safe place to live in, rather than, you know, using the building structure or standards of the 1900s, where it was whatever keeps the house together at the time.
Speaker 3:Along with that, there's obviously, you know, to make the housing attractive to anybody in the community that's going to be coming in. We provide modern upgrades to a lot of the amenities, right? So you're going to typically see modern styling of the houses, which, of course, you always want to come in and live in. A nicer looking place. You want to have a pride of ownership, a sense of ownership and where you live and that's where you know the houses that are the projects that we typically take on we make sure they have a certain standard to them, that we take pride in the quality of the work we do. And, lastly, there's environmental impact as well, which we do try our best to focus on. So, again, going back to this large house, this one project that we did, we changed all the windows, we worked on insulation, we installed heat pumps throughout the house and because it was such a large house with four different families, there would be a large consumption of energy in that house. So, just keeping that in mind, we made sure that we did our best to minimize the environmental impact of the different families living in that house using up all that energy and minimizing the energy leaks and all right.
Speaker 3:Now to go to the second part of that question, a certain project that we did that really did have a large impact on the community around.
Speaker 3:It's one that we're currently in the progress of carrying out right now in St John, new Brunswick. So there's the St Joe's Hospital, where they have a list of over 150 seniors that have been discharged. This creates an issue for the seniors because they're not receiving the care that they require. The hospital simply doesn't have the capacity to take care of them. We ended up purchasing a building from the Catholic Church right next to the hospital and we're converting into 25 units, into a senior care facility. That resolves a huge problem for the families of these senior care members, as well as the senior, the seniors themselves sorry. They have a more permanent place to move into and you know, that's the start of that project. After we finish that project, we have a plan to take on a development of about 100 to 120 units additionally right next to it. So that's another project where we're hoping to, you know, make a big impact in the community.
Speaker 2:Well, it definitely is a big impact when you're talking with those numbers, especially with, you know, senior citizens, they need help. As you get older, you know you need more help, and being close to a hospital it will definitely make a difference. And I love the fact that you guys and maybe on the smaller projects, you know you make it a point to help more families and make it safer, not to just, you know, some people are just there for the money, but there's actually thoughts behind it. With you guys' projects, you're trying to not only, yeah, you put more families in the building, but you still make it safe for them to live in that property. So good on you for you guys to put all those thoughts and efforts into your projects. Guys, it was a pleasure having you on the podcast today. It was a pleasure having you on the podcast today. Lots of knowledge, lots of expertise that I hope that everybody that listens takes on their journey and we'll probably speak very soon at an event somewhere together. Thank you, babar and Faisal.
Speaker 1:Thanks again, Mario. Look forward to seeing you very soon.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you guys, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Bye.
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