The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Ahmed Seirafi, Principal of Andalusia Development Company on Building Better Real Estate Investments & Developments

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

Ahmed Seirafi, Principal of Andalusia Development Company on Building Better Real Estate Investments & Developments Ahmedseirafi.com Show Notes About The Guest(s): ​ Ahmed Seirafi is the principal of Alucia Development Company, a real estate investment and development firm. With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Ahmed has successfully led numerous projects, including the acquisition, disposition, and development of commercial assets worth over $100 million. He is known for his expertise in multifamily and retail properties and is a second-generation real estate investor and developer. ​ Summary: ​ Ahmed Seirafi, principal of Alucia Development Company, shares his journey in the real estate industry and how he built a successful business. Growing up in a middle-class family with an immigrant father, Ahmed learned the value of hard work and adaptability. He started his career as a commercial real estate broker and later transitioned into investing and developing properties. Ahmed emphasizes the importance of having a mindset focused on continuous improvement and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. He now helps others through his development coaching, podcast, and speaking engagements. ​ Key Takeaways: ​ - Building a successful business requires a mindset focused on continuous improvement and doing things better. - Being physically and mentally fit is crucial in the real estate industry, as it involves being active, making decisions, and managing various aspects of projects. - Ahmed's superpower is his ability to see beyond what is in front of him and identify multiple opportunities and possibilities for a property. - The real estate market is currently experiencing a shortage of housing, leading to increased demand for rental properties and multifamily developments. - Ahmed offers development coaching to individuals interested in real estate investment and development, helping them assemble a team and navigate the process successfully. ​ Quotes: ​ - "It's about doing what I do or doing what you do. It's about what everyone does and doing it better." - Ahmed Seirafi - "You need to be in good shape, have a clear mind, and a healthy body because this is not for the weak." - Ahmed Seirafi - "If you're not physically in good shape, then your mind isn't going to be clear to make those kinds of decisions that you need to make for the benefit of the project." - Ahmed Seirafi - "I'm able to see the different angles of properties and opportunities because I look beyond what's just in front of me." - Ahmed Seirafi - "If you start building better projects and doing cool stuff, that's going to motivate me to want to build even more cool stuff." - Ahmed Seirafi

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Ahmed Sarafi is on the show with us today. He's going to be joining us to talk about his company, what he's built, how he did it, becoming an entrepreneur and all that great stuff. He's the principal of Andalusia Development Company, which oversees aspects, and he oversees aspects of the acquisition, disposition, and development processes for his company. He has led all facets of the business, spending more than $100 million in commercial assets, primarily in multifamily and retail. He's a second generation real estate investor, developer, and he successfully launched the repositioning that has spearheaded substantial growth with acquisitions of value-added multifamily properties and development since 2015. Welcome to the show, Ahmed. How are you? Thank you, Chris. Doing well, man. How are you?

I am excellent. And did I get the last name correctly and all that energy I threw into it? Yeah. There you go. Just want to sure there's the brain sometimes goes out with all the energy that i have and i've only got about two brain cells left operating at this point of my age so welcome to the show give us your dot coms how can people find you on the interwebs well that's pretty easy so i'm mostly active on Instagram, which is AhmedBuildsBetter. Very simple. Or my website is AhmedSarafi.com. And you can find me on both, being active on both sites. There you go. So give us an overview of what you did from a 30,000 overview in your words.

Yeah, I do it better is what I do. Oh, your wife called me, and I don't know if you're married, but I figured I'd pull that joke. No, it's not. And told me that. Yeah, good. I'm glad. They paid you for that one, too, for her to say that. No, it's about doing what I do or doing what you do. It's about what everyone does and doing it better.

You know, I'm in real estate. I'm an investment. I'm a development guy. And it's really not that hard to do it better, right? Can I invest better? Can I develop better? Can I develop better? Can I manage better? Can I bring in better sources of income and increase my return on investment?

Can I renovate better? Can I build better, right? And it just takes a little bit more effort and a little bit of a different mindset to make that happen. There you go. And so, I mean, this is kind of the journey of the entrepreneur, being able to take something, make it better, a widget, a product, a service, and then, you know, continue to make it better, continue to innovate. You know, Steve Jobs with the iPhone, you know, took a BlackBerry and went, this is stupid. Why do we have a physical keyboard? Let's put it on the screen. And then, and then, I don't know, I'm not going to do my iPhone jokes, but he,

you know, he revolutionized the industry, always improving and everything else. So it looks like you guys do a lot of different things there. I see on your website, there's development coaching, there's your podcast, there's speaking in your YouTube. Can you flesh those out a little bit for you and for us on how you do those? Well, some of that is, a lot of that really goes hand in hand with my day to day business, which is real estate investment development, right? So as I'm investing in developing property here in Southern California and throughout the Southwest, I see and I have seen since I've been doing this close to 25 years, I

see and have seen people do it right and I've seen people do it wrong and I see more people do it wrong than do it right and I see people who do it wrong lose everything because they're being led down the wrong path they're being taught the wrong things and they don't have the right mindset to go into development and do it the right way so I really try and and share that knowledge and share that success and also show my failures at the same time on how I've done it better, how I've been successful and how I take a different approach to this that, you know, everyone can take in their lives as well. Because I really hate seeing people screw up on something so big. You know, developing real estate is not a small endeavor. It's a big endeavor. And you don't

necessarily have to screw up as long as you do it right you know as long as you check off the boxes and you follow the process you can do it right but a lot of people don't understand the process they don't understand which boxes to check off and they don't understand the mindset needed to do things the right way and i just really hate seeing people lose out and lose their money lose their fortunes lose their nest egg trying to do this when all it takes is a small shift to do it the right way. And I try and teach that. I try and help that. I try to educate that, and I try to speak about that.

Yeah, we talked about it on the show recently, and it's one of those things where in business you can be trying everything and nothing works, and it's just turning the right knobs to a certain combination and and and finding that that hit point and all the lights go on everything runs and you're just like holy crap it was that that one knob the whole time just had to turn it one of the things you talk about in your development coaching is what appears to me to be a balanced life you talk about building the better mindset health and fitness is essential, limiting belief or limiting belief, elimination, high level execution. And it sounds like you're,

that's kind of a paradigm of, of trying to be balanced and not, you know, work, work your butt off and not go to the gym and be healthy, you know, and, and then kill yourself. Yeah. Well, in this business, you need to be in good shape you need to have a clear mind you need to have a healthy body because you know this is not for the weak right this isn't something where you can pull out your laptop and just sit on your couch and create a business out of it you have to be mobile you have to be active you got meetings you got appointments you got job sites you got contractors you engineers, you have all sorts of things that go on throughout the day on this type of business. And if you're not physically in good shape, you're not going to be able to perform very

well, right? And if you're not physically in good shape, then your mind isn't going to be clear to make those kinds of decisions that you need to make for the benefit of the project. Yeah. Plus, you got to arm wrestle those contractors. Yeah, exactly. You know, if you're tired and slow,'re gonna steamroller all over you you know they're gonna roll right over you and you're just going to be you know you're going to be the victim right so it's really important

not just in this business but every business that you're in that you got to be in a a mental and physical condition that you're able to perform you know as optimally as possible and especially in this type of business where you are on job sites where you are driving you're traveling where are you are flying you're in meetings you got to have that clear mind and healthy body to do this right because this is not a armchair from my couch sitting on a beach type business where you can just be a digital nomad you have to be present and yeah and it goes back to that the mindset about limiting beliefs because if you don't think you can do this or you don't know how good you are you're not going to be able to be successful at this right the biggest change for me in this was when

I stepped outside of myself. I looked at myself from a third person and I realized, wow, Ahmed has a lot of success. Ahmed has made a lot of people money. Ahmed has done a lot of great projects. Ahmed has brought a lot of value. Ahmed has found a lot of great opportunities and executed on that but all this has been for other people then without that limiting belief mindset being eliminated i wouldn't think i could do this on my own when i realized i've been doing it on my own for so long but everyone else has been benefiting from it except myself ah that's an interesting epiphany there you go There you go. There you go.

So give us a bit of a hero's journey for you. How did you grow up? How did you get the entrepreneur spirit? How did you get into this business and start building it? You know, I grew up middle class, Southern California. You know, I didn't have all the luxuries, but I didn't have any struggles either. I'm just being honest with you. But I did grow up with an immigrant father who was, you know, first person here in the United

States from his family and grew up with that hustler mentality. Hey, we do everything ourselves. We don't overindulge on anything. We don't, you know, go on a limb for anything. We almost, it's almost like courting. Hey, you know, we're going to keep a hold of this. So I grew up in my dad's gas station. I pumped gas for years and years. Oh, wow. Yeah, every day after school, all through college. It took me seven and a half years to get my diploma

because I was working 60-plus hours a week in a gas station. This is the old days when they had full service that you could order, right? Oh, not quite. It was self-service. Oh, really? I would wake up at 5 a.m. seven days a week to get there by 6 a.m., open the door, put out the newspapers, turn on the lights, you know what I mean, and start, you know, make that coffee and just be there. Okay. I thought by pumping gas you meant full service.

Well, to this day, I can rip a gas pump apart and put it back together and repair it myself. There you go. Well, you're the guy I'm going to call next time it won't take my credit card right or something. There you go. Because it was just like we didn't spend money on repairs. We did it ourselves. When the gas station needed a paint job, who do you think spent two weeks with a roller brush painting? I did.

Right? So you grow up with that mentality that you do everything yourself. You don't go outside. Meaning you need to be responsible and you need to be adaptive to your environment. And that's what I think has created a lot of that I can do this ability or I'll figure out how to do it ability because I was forced to figure it out. There you go. So it's one of those things father teaches you with life lessons on how to, how to succeed in life isn't fair, but it sounds like you learned, you know,

being adaptive, as you said, being accountable, being self-actualized, being responsible, you know, you had to, you had to do the things and also being, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? Budgeting is what is coming to mind, but, you know, you had to, you had to do the things and also being, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? Budgeting is what is coming to mind, but, you know, having an economy of things where, you know, you don't, you don't splurge. You're not running up huge credit card debts. You know, the probably a buck meant something to you. It actually did because it created a mindset meaning, hey, examine what you're spending the money on, right? Make sure you're not overspending or you're being taken advantage of.

And make sure what you're spending money on, you're getting quality for it. And I think that has adapted very well into real estate development. and I look at a contractor, an engineer, and the people who are putting this project together, I really take my time to really understand, am I getting what I pay for? Am I getting good value for my money? Are these guys building a project and leaving a bunch of excess scrap around that could be used for something? Are these guys ordering too much because they're too lazy to spend the time and to do it right the first time, right? Are they, do they got six guys on payroll when four would be enough, right? So it's really about examining beyond what's in front of you, right? What's the best path forward? And is everybody on the team going along with that same mindset saying, hey, I need to be efficient. I need to be

progressive. I need to be, you know, on time, on budget. And am I doing everything possible to do that? Because I don't have the luxury of hiring or paying for or bringing other things on the job site because all I have is myself. So if I can get that mentality to my team, that means they're going to execute a whole lot better as well. There you go. So how did you start into this business or how did you start your very first company? Was it in this business? It was similar to this business, yeah. You know, after I graduated from college, I got a job as a commercial real estate broker, right? So I was selling and leasing warehouses throughout Southern California.

What made you get into that business, if you don't mind me asking? You know, the plan was to continue in the family business with the gas stations, but that didn't pan out. And I had a professor that said, you'd be great for this type of business. I have a friend who runs this business, and it turned out that I was pretty good at it. I wasn't the best execution guy, but I was the guy that can find the deals. Like, I have an eye for finding the opportunities. I'm not the best execution guy, but when it comes to making the rain, I definitely know how to find those opportunities.

There you go. Is there a skill set that you think you have that you maybe, something that makes you kind of unique at finding those deals, or was it something in development? It's one of your superpowers, right? Do a superpower we all have a superpower one of my superpowers is being able to see beyond what's just in front of me like you may see a building okay there's an opportunity to lease it or to sell it right on behalf of an owner or client or a customer right to me it'd be like okay I see a building can I lease it yes can I sell it yes can I tear it down yes can

I reposition it yes can I build a different type of building on this property yes can I adapt it and add to it and do something different with it yes so I I'm able to see the different angles of properties and and you know opportunities differently because I look beyond what's just in front of me. Because most people are just focused on the sale, the transaction, the commission. To me, it's okay. I want to make sure I know two, three, four, and five different opportunities I have with this property that I'm able to do something with it and make money with all of them. It sounds like you see out of the box, basically.

I try my best to look beyond the box, for sure. Yeah, I make it a habit, for sure. There's like a vision thing there of being able to see outside the box and see the different aspects. I can talk to people and they're just like, I don't see what you see, Chris. And they just don't have that vision. And I think vision is a real big important part of being an entrepreneur.

I think that it applies to every entrepreneurial journey. Like if you go into the office or go into your job or go into your career every day with the blinders on, you're only going to see what's in front of you. You're not going to see all the stuff on the left and all the stuff on the right. That's going to be an opportunity for you to take advantage of if you only go with the blinders. And unfortunately, society today just tells us, keep your head down, do your job, be quiet, and you'll be fine. Well, yeah, but not for me.

It doesn't work for me. Yeah. And it doesn't work for me yeah it it's and it doesn't work for me either i got broken a long time ago and once you get that that entrepreneur bug and it's it's a kind of a disease once you get it you can't get it basically plus you know i don't work well with other people so that's part of the issue too that's true but it's the but the thing is the more and more i go through life the more and more opportunities I see when I see so many inefficiencies everywhere. And that, you know, you bring a good point.

That's really something that a lot of entrepreneurs do. You know, 50 million people can look at a paperclip. I love using this just from the simple aspect of it because i remember when i was like 18 and i was like looking at things trying to understand the opportunity a vision of being an entrepreneur and i remember seeing someone come out with jagged clips and painted paper clips and all sorts of different stuff that just kind of flooded the market and i was like wait what paper clips weren't enough like i thought that i thought we'd pretty much done everything we could with paper clips but no you guys just went next level and i think you know so many

people can look at the same thing and not see anything but the beauty of an entrepreneur is having the vision that you have and what you talked about and being able to see how can this be better you know there's a you know we had somebody on recently who you know she's a killer novelist and she's fairly new at it in fact she is new at it and people are loving her books and everything but she read novels for years and she's every time i read a novel i go you know this sucks this could have been done better this could have been changed this character could have been better and so finally she just said you know what i'm tired of reading books that suck. I'm going to go make my own. And evidently she's got the formula because the audience has responded.

So how did you get into this business specifically from doing the real estate stuff to going into development? Yeah. So it was kind of like the natural progression, right? As a commercial broker, I was working with investors. I was working with developers. I was working with investors I was working with developers I was working with tenants and buyers and sellers of property right and so I don't not only see the transactional side of the business but they also development side of business right hey there's a piece of dirt we brought it to a developer they built it they leased it they sold

it they invested with it etc right so you know I was looking you know outside of the box like you said hey what's down what's next what's bigger's bigger? What's better? What's next? Right. And at the same time, you know, we took my dad's gas station, which he had, you know, he's been in that business 40 years. And we got to a point where like, hey, this is really, you know, tiring. You know, this is a 24-7 business almost. So we sold the gas station. I took that. I started investing in commercial real estate. buying and investing multi-family properties and then picking up small development sites along the way and developing those until we you know until i grew that to a bigger and bigger type business where now we're developing much larger projects and it's just kind of a natural

progression like you said are you are you going to sit inside that box? Are you going to look outside the box and see what's next? What's the next bigger box? The bigger box after that and after that, or are you just going to be complacent? It's almost like the goldfish in the jar, right, in the bowl. You put a goldfish in a very small bowl, it won't grow. But if you put it in a very big bowl, you get one of those really big goldfishes so i'm always looking for the next best thing for the next you know i want to keep growing so that's why i keep looking outside of my bowl and what's the next one and

what's the next one there you go you know yeah and you like you said earlier in the show you know people are trained kind of in these you know i always have this image of of i always have this image of the pink floyd song we don't need no education i think i think that's the title but there's a marching thing where the the kids are being put through a a machine conveyor belt you know they're just being pumped out that's the image that always comes to my head and and yeah i mean it teaches people hey go get a job. Go do this. Go do that.

And people don't really sometimes think outside the box. I think most people are kind of rudimentary in that way. And so that's the beauty of being an entrepreneur is either developing that skill. I don't think I always had it when I was young. Somewhere I developed it over years as a way of, actually, I did that when I was young. Come to think of it, part of that was I was young, come to think of it. Part of that, part of that was adapted to survival mechanism

growing up in a cult, but being able to look at things from outside of the box. Yeah, actually early on it was there, but it seems like I developed more, I think as I went, years went by.

So now you've kind of reached a pinnacle of success and you're helping other people. How did you transition that? What made you motivated to try and help other people now and reach that point? Maybe it's a little bit of ego, to be honest with you. Hey.

Narcissism is good. Yeah, as long as you put it in the right direction, right? And that ego is, hey, I'm spending the time and the effort to do some really great projects that put the design, the thought, the muscle behind doing the best I can do. And then I see other people doing stuff. I'm like, what is that? That is the most simple, basic, unimaginative, lazy thing I've ever seen.

Right? And I'm like, why do you have that mindset that that's enough for you? Why can't you push the envelope and go back to your architect, your engineer and say, you can do better. You can do better. Look at this. This is really awesome. Why can't you do something really awesome? Right?

But no one pushes that envelope. No one asks that question. They just kind of accept things the way they're given things. Well, I'm going to go build a house hey mr architect design the house okay great thank you i'll go build it now well no you can do better yeah you can you can do better on your design you can do better in your engineering you can do better on your financing you can do better on you know your landscape or your paint or just any aspect of this. But no one pushes the question. No one pushes that forward and saying, hey, I want it better.

You can do better. We can do better. Let's do better. But no one says that because, like you said, you know, society puts us in a little box. That little box says don't ask questions. Don't rock the boat. Don't push an agenda. Don't do anything above and beyond what's in your box.

And I said, to me, it's a brick out of that box. There you go. What's the next big box? You know, do better. And so if I see people doing really great projects or operating property really well, that motivates me to want to do better than them. Not because of ego, but because, hey, if they can do it, I can do it. They're showing you a bigger box sorry to interrupt you but they're

showing you a better bigger box and you're like hey there's a bigger box over there let's go get on or let's see how we can make it even bigger than theirs yeah you know i have a very you know well-respected you know you can call him a mentor i've been following him for years is andy frisella from First Form, right? And he's out there, and he's like, if you don't show people how to win, how to have success, how are they ever going to figure that out on their own? If you don't show them, hey, I just bought this really expensive car because I was really good at my job, or I just built this really awesome building because I was really good at pushing my architects, engineers, and construction crew to do a really good job. Check this out.

If you're not showing that off, how are you even showing people that they can do more, that they can achieve more if you don't show your successes? Definitely. Definitely. And so now you help people through the development coaching, through your podcasting. You've got your Instagram channel I was just looking at here and speaking that you're doing. How can people onboard with you?

What sort of people are a fit for your coaching program, et cetera, et cetera? The coaching is really good because I bring in people from different aspects. Some people are residential professionals who want to go out and start building some houses and selling them. Some people are already in construction and they're contractors and they already know how to build, but they don't know how to put the team together. They don't know how to find the property or finance it, right? And we have some people who have been, who want to get into multifamily or they're already in multifamily, but they want to learn how to start building and stepping over

the competition when it comes to buying a project and go straight to building a project, right? So it's a good fit for different people who are trying to get to the same direction or the same end point. They're coming in from different areas. I got contractors, I got engineers, I got architects, you know, but they all have certain skill sets or they want to learn certain skill sets, but they don't have all of them. And that's where I bring them together and show them where to find it, how to do it, how to understand it, and how to implement it.

There you go. Is there a certain net worth or real estate activity they need to have to onboard with you? Not necessarily, no, because, you know, it's not necessarily about how much money you have. It's not. There's plenty of money in the economy right now. It's about you being able to find an opportunity and put that team together. And that's where I'm trying to help you out.

Let me help you find the opportunity. Let me show you what to look for. And then once you do find something like that, let me show you what team members you need to have and how to run that team to have a successful development project. There you go. It's all about knowing how to build it and all that good stuff. So people can

learn business and I guess you cover real or commercial and residential real estate. My brain's gone. Yeah. It's mostly commercial, but whether you're building a house or a 10-unit apartment building, the steps are the same. Right? It's just the end result is going to be a little bit different. What do you see the future of what's going on with real estate right now, both from a commercial and residential aspect? There's rumors. I think someone from Morgan Stanley or one of those big VC firms said that the rates might start coming down again. I don't know about that.

It's kind of weird. We have a weird freaking thing going on right now with the job market and stuff. It's a really different economic style than the Fed or anyone's really used to. I think it's normal now. Sure. Some people are saying the interest rates might go down. We still live in this crazy inventory. My mom just called me to tell me what her house next door is selling for.

And it's an extraordinary figure. And I'm just like, I remember refinancing her house for, I think, a fifth or a sixth of that. I helped her get the house with my mortgage company. I did the loan and then refinanced it later but it was it was a pittance at that time now it's it's it's quite extraordinary and i'm just like yeah really that that old house and but that's welcome to our market yeah but it goes back to simple supply and demand you know i mean we are technically millions and millions of housing units short of where we need to be meaning there is more people out there that need housing than there

is housing to be provided for them right yeah and so what does that mean that means we are in short supply of anything residential right and also commercial as well and i'm not talking about commercial retail i'm talking about industrial it's the amazon effect yeah right right everyone's at home having everything delivered to them there's nothing you really need to go to the mall for anymore not even the grocery store i i don't even go hard at the grocery store early at all so you need a place to live yeah you need a place to live and you need a facility to deliver everything that you need. Yeah.

Right. So I can run around naked in the house that I live in. So I'm naked now. There you go. I'm not. Yeah. And they deliver your clothes to the front door. You know,

when you need it, wait, I can order clothes. That's probably a good idea. Yeah. They'll make the judge happier. Yeah. Running around naked in public is bad.

People don't do it. So, you know, this is really interesting, the insights that you have. You know, real estate always goes up. I don't see our inventory problem getting fixed anytime soon. And a lot of the stuff I see being built is multifamily. It's not a single family residence. Yeah, we're running out of room. Yeah. It's not a single family residence. Yeah, we're running out of room.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I've been talking for the last little while that maybe what the housing authority needs to do is whatever the hell's in charge these days. I lost track after 2008 when everything got wiped out. But whoever's in charge of that, they almost need to offer a stipend to or some sort of credit or bonus to builders to build single family residence, I think. Yeah, but that goes back to our interest rate problem right now, right? Affordability is, you know, I'm in California and I just read recently the single family home affordability was only at 16% of the population could afford a single family home. So what does that mean? It means 84% of the population could afford a single family home. So what does that mean?

It means 84% of the population has to rent. And what do you do? You provide rental housing. So until that economy or that balance or that cost of living adjusts where more people can afford to buy a single family, you're going to see more and more multifamily because it's the only thing people can afford right now. And sadly, I think if you were to, I mean, ideally you'd fix the whole situation if you could flood the market with inventory.

But then, you know, you make everybody angry because their price values will go down. But also it would fix, you know, affordability and getting prices to at least come back down to a sane level but i don't know i mean you know i see people that are going to starbucks every morning for coffee and spending 20 bucks and then all sorts of stupid shit and then complaining why they can't pay their bills and you're just like have you seen what you're doing because i see it online like maybe just make your own coffee today well that's but that's also society telling you what to do, not how to do your thing. Go to Starbucks and get your coffee. Order your stuff off at Amazon.

Go live in an apartment complex and have a co-working space for your business, etc., etc., etc., which is fine for many people, but is it fine for everyone? You know what I mean? And I see these. I think one of the other complaints I have is I see people that they're ordering off a door dash three to four times a day. And one guy posted, he's my girlfriend ordered two burritos from, from, from whatever the place is that gives you poison burritos. They killed a few people or something or gave them food poisoning. And it was like 75 bucks.

Yeah. And I'm like 75 bucks. Yeah. And I'm like, 75 bucks for two Doritos. Get in your car, the mile to get your, I'm like, holy crap. I still can't get over it. I don't even use DoorDash. I'm that cheap and I have money. But that's the Amazon effect. It's making people complacent to sit back on their couch and order everything versus get off your ass, go to the

gym, go to the kitchen, go to the barbecue and do it yourself, right? Yeah. Well, if Amazon charged delivery fees that were door-to-door, it's pretty crazy. So give us your final thoughts and pitch out as we go out on the show on how people can onboard with you, utilize you and your services. Yeah. I mean, the best way is to connect with me on Instagram show on how people can onboard with you, utilize you and your services. Yeah. I mean, the best way is to connect with me on Instagram. I'm on there all the time. That's my number one social media medium right now because it's just what I use and you can connect with me there. Ahmed goes better. And if you're really interested in, in, you know, taking yourself and your business to another level by looking at things from a third party perspective and not, you know, looking at it the way you have been, then connect with me.

Let me show you how to assemble a real estate team. Let me show you how to think differently about your real estate investments and your developments. Let me show you how to see things that you don't see because you're in the box. Let me get you out of that box and start looking at things differently. Because if you start building better projects and you start building cool stuff, then that's going to motivate me to want to build even more cool stuff, right? So now we are playing against each other and we're technically motivating each other to do better and better. We're not competing against each other, but we're motivating each other to do better and better. There you go. Do you have any real estate portfolios that you you're asking investors to invest in and all you know i've

mostly been self-funded up until this point but now i got a couple of very large projects that are moving to the planning phase right now i'm pre-development i got a couple hundred town homes in north dallas that i'm building right now which I'll probably be looking for some investors on. I know some people do that. They pool with their... If people find deals, they pool with their stuff. We just had Durant Cardone's partner on to talk about his

new book, and that's some of what they do, so I wasn't sure. And that allows you to scale and do more, right? Because I can go out and do a couple projects on my own, but if I'm going to do more and more and involve more people, and they can learn along the way and then make a great return at the same time, okay, let's do this.

Do I need partners? No. But I like to have some great partners who want to do some cool things and build some great projects. Oh, yeah, that'd be fun. There you go. Well, Ahmed, it's been inspiring and motivating and man, you've just told us the journey of an entrepreneur

and how to become one. So, there you go. Hopefully people can utilize that blueprint. Give us your.com as we go out. Once again, if you want to find me on Instagram, it's Ahmed, A-H-M-E-D builds better. And my.com is AhmedSarafi.com. I'm pretty sure

they'll be down in the show notes. There you go. Thank you very much for coming on the show. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress Chris Voss. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter, the 133,000 group over there. I didn't even know there was that many active people on LinkedIn, but there is.

It just keeps growing every day, and I'm just like, what's going on over there, man? Is somebody feeding people or something? People like us for some reason. I never know why after 15 years. So check that out. Go to chrisfossfacebook.com to talk to the show on Facebook and chrisfoss1 on TikTok.

Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.