How AI Is Helping Real Estate Developers Build Affordable Housing Faster

Dr. Musson (00:00)
At any rate, so we have we do have a an agentic AI that’s operating here and and a sort of an army of ⁓ of agents sub agents that are able to pick up other tasks and so You know words they’re still sort of in training now and we’re using them in tandem with our with our human team But the idea here is that what we want to lean into pretty heavy

is the use of agentic AI surrounding every individual person so that everybody ⁓ has a team of AI appendages that helps them to do their job better. And that way, things don’t fall through the cracks.

Michelle Tack (02:17)
Welcome to Real Estate Pros podcast. I am Michelle Tack, the podcast leader. Got a great operator today, Dr. Musson. ⁓ Would you just shout out? Give a shout out to the team.

Dr. Musson (02:29)
Hello,

hello, hello. Good to be here.

Michelle Tack (02:32)
There you go.

That’s a perfect podcast voice, by the way. ⁓ I’m totally psyched to have Dr. Musson on today for a couple of reasons. One is that Dr. Musson is very specific about as an operator of what he is doing and focused on. And that is going into opportune areas, cities, and looking for specific ⁓

areas to develop and with the thought of how do we make this potentially a bit more affordable ⁓ for folks that are in that area and looking at different types of ways to do that through AI, et cetera. ⁓ Dr. Musson, for those that may not come from your world, could you talk a little bit more about your business and what markets you serve, please?

Dr. Musson (03:28)
Sure, so first off, thanks for having me. It’s good to be here. And so our business is Musson Factory. There’s a deep sort of well of history around that name. My grandfather started the company in 1902 in Bermuda. His uncle was ⁓ a major developer on the island and some of his iconic.

Michelle Tack (03:32)
You’re welcome.

Dr. Musson (03:52)
Properties are still what you the first thing you see when you pull up on a cruise ship in Bermuda along Front Street are built by my great uncle So the family has a leg the family name has a legacy. My last name is Musson and it’s MUSSON Factory ⁓ And we keep that name whether we’re manufacturing or not ⁓

Our recent project, we manufactured sub-assemblies for modular construction to build ⁓ multifamily in Los Angeles. It was actually ⁓ low-income housing, voucher housing, ⁓ built using ⁓ investor dollars, not using tax credits and so forth. And so that was a big part of the business. But most of our business is actually consulting.

And then we also do development projects here and across the country right now. We’re also pretty active in Baltimore, Maryland.

Michelle Tack (04:50)
When we got

ready for the podcast, what was really interesting is a combination of your background that you have a number of different degrees and advanced degrees, but you really have an understanding of structural engineering from that perspective, as well as project management, et cetera.

how that has helped you in your business operating it more smoothly based on, you know, obviously the roots of your family, but also, you know, the education you have and the practicality of it. Perhaps you can talk to that as well.

Dr. Musson (06:24)
Sure, so do you want me to kind of give you a, give like the bullet point of.

Michelle Tack (06:28)
Yeah,

it’d be great to talk about like as an example of how you use both the combination of your practical knowledge, your institutional knowledge in terms of a case study of something that you’ve done and you brought to the table.

Dr. Musson (06:43)
Sure. one of my graduate degree was a degree in supply chain management. It’s sort of a marriage between business and engineering. At USC, it’s the master of global supply chain management. So that actually prepared me for how to manage operations in a factory, in a literal factory.

But it also touched on sort of the business side. Imagine an MBA mixed with an industrial engineering degree. ⁓ My undergraduate education was in real estate development, so it’s a real estate finance degree essentially, and then urban planning. And so those three I put together in a way where I’m now ⁓ understanding both sides of the table what the planning department is doing to try to manipulate development. And I say that not in a pejorative, but just trying to get

developers to build what the planning department wants to see built and also understanding the finance side of what motivates ⁓ development because you know in essence a Housing is a an asset class It’s really you know, like kind of like more like a bond as everyone on this channel knows But it also provides a service and that service is shelter and so trying to find The way to optimize all three of those at the same time, you know requires enough understanding

But one of the things we talked about before we got on air was this idea of touching so many things simultaneously. And I think that the way that I hedge against the downside of that is by surrounding myself with people who are expert level or beyond in each of those areas. But I have enough understanding of those areas to be able to speak to all of them. So the teams that I build and they do shuffle.

But the teams that I build for each interaction, I become sort of the glue between them that can literally speak like an architect, and I can speak like a finance person, and I can speak like a factory operator, and I can speak like ⁓ a contractor, because I am a contractor, and a real estate broker, because I am a real estate broker, and so forth. So the idea is to surround myself with the expertise that I’m communicating with and coordinating.

Michelle Tack (09:09)
Yeah, and I

thank you for that. see that theme a lot. Maybe not to quote, to use degree in vain here, but maybe not to the degree in terms of, you know, all of that education you have. But as importantly, we talked to a lot of operators that have a pronged approach where just out of need, they may be doing redevelopment, but they also have a construction business. So it’s really fascinating. I think there’s a ⁓ theme here that

Dr. Musson (09:15)
Mm.

Michelle Tack (09:38)
people can glom onto as you continue to utilize what you’ve been trained in, but also have experiential, you know, et cetera, of where you need to morph, et cetera. Can you talk about the project you’re doing in Baltimore?

Dr. Musson (10:31)
so in Baltimore right now, we’ve partnered up with the largest black owned bank in the state of Maryland, the Harbor Bank of Maryland. And the project is to build on the vacant lots in the city of Baltimore. So there are something like 15,000 vacant row houses in Baltimore and then another 30,000 vacant lots in Baltimore.

And mostly when people hear those numbers, they want to rush in and buy. But it’s also a bit of a minefield. So you and I talked offline, you both know the area.

So there are ⁓ more of those properties that are sort of like a sinking ship right now, but there are some that are not so much. And so part of what we’re doing in partnering with the bank is to identify the strong possibilities there, and then we’re building ⁓ new housing using modern methods of construction on ⁓ those vacant lots.

Michelle Tack (11:41)
That’s awesome. One of the things that we see all the time is as

organizations, individuals become more successful in terms of more projects, et cetera. If I use that as one of the definitions that things get more complicated and there’s only so much that one operator can do. Can you talk a little bit about how you are, you we talked about, you know, this massive knowledge that you have and you’re a strategic thinker.

But how do you get to the detail and what are you doing now to ensure that detail is getting done and is going to be planned for the future as you take on more projects? The execution side.

Dr. Musson (12:35)
Yeah, sure. So we definitely have ⁓ a team of folks that we rely on, but we’re also dealing with sort of this AI revolution, and we’re sort of betting heavy on that. So we have ⁓ local AI that’s running on our own server.

And we also of course are utilizing the LLMs, but we’re doing that with agentic AI so that we’re able to.

Wow. I mentioned that and I just got a voice in the background from, But ⁓ that was actually ⁓ my Chief of Staff ⁓ that must have heard me talking about her and I should have turned off her pipeline, but.

Michelle Tack (13:17)
Gosh, that happens all the time with Siri. I’m talking and all of it pops off.

Hahaha

Dr. Musson (13:31)
⁓

At any rate, so we have we do have a an agentic AI that’s operating here and and a sort of an army of ⁓ of agents sub agents that are able to pick up other tasks and so You know words they’re still sort of in training now and we’re using them in tandem with our with our human team But the idea here is that what we want to lean into pretty heavy

is the use of agentic AI surrounding every individual person so that everybody ⁓ has a team of AI appendages that helps them to do their job better. And that way, things don’t fall through the cracks.

Michelle Tack (14:17)
Yeah, I love when you were talking about that previously when we’re getting prepared for today is that you described it as we can’t lose the human piece to the business clearly, but we can like a butterfly have these, you know, have these agenda AI capabilities to do the things that ⁓ will help us to continue to do what we do in an SME way, subject matter expertise.

but that obviously you have people that work with you, et cetera, and you have relationships, but that was a very interesting sort of model of thinking about it as I’m the center and I’m branching out. ⁓ Speaking of that, can you talk to your network about, everybody has a different network. No two are the same, we often think they are. I talked to an ex-professional water polo player.

And his network is different. You know their athletes versus you know someone else’s. Can you talk to your network? ⁓ As well, that’s helping you.

Dr. Musson (16:03)
so I’m fortunate to be a ⁓ Trojan from USC, so fight on for all Trojans. network is…

incredibly strong in Southern California, but actually all over the world. I remember being in Singapore and somebody saw me wearing my gear and gave me the, you know, fight on and invited me to a USC event there and, you know, it was crowded. was really amazed at how many Trojans there were in Singapore and all over the world, the network is really strong. And so that’s certainly as part of the support network. And we’re fortunate that

Michelle Tack (16:30)
Yeah.

Dr. Musson (16:41)
Trojans are strong in Southern California, particularly in the planning departments in every city, also in private development, so forth. So if you want partners, whether they’re investment partners or finance partners or people within government, they’re gonna ⁓ be Trojans. They’ll be Trojans all over. ⁓ for me, my strongest support is actually for people that I’ve…

Michelle Tack (16:45)
Yep.

Dr. Musson (17:09)
literally known since I was a kid. So my group of friends, childhood friends, is probably sort of particularly unusual and very well accomplished. One of them was sort of the third from the CEO at Countrywide, starting from when they had 30 employees and stayed there until everybody got arrested but him.

Michelle Tack (17:22)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Musson (17:38)
⁓ You know, another one is, you know, pretty accomplished in the investment finance side. Another one in the utility side. ⁓ So we have some pretty strong folks that we’ve known since we were five years old. We rely on those. But the most important sort of support that I have is actually my wife, who’s, she’s a county administrator.

in Los Angeles. And there’s no support that really comes from her professional role, but her experience working in county government and her sort of level of wisdom and emotional intelligence and her leadership style, all of those things are incredibly valuable. And so she has probably, not probably, she has absolutely been the most important.

Michelle Tack (18:04)
Cool.

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Musson (18:30)
person to help me to navigate things as they come.

Michelle Tack (18:35)
Well, you’re very lucky. And I just want to emphasize this point for the group listening, our podcast folks that are on the podcast listening to this content is there’s often a segment of a network that we have that we overlook because we’re always thinking about business, business, business. We forget about the personal piece where business can come from that. I’m not talking about your neighbor necessarily. I’m talking about other things.

Maybe you’re part of a softball team. I’m an ex-professional tennis player. I love tennis, right? Been getting up to watch the French Open. You we do all these different things, but I know through just talking to people that they have interest. And it doesn’t have to be mercenary at all. The best networks as we know are ones where you provide service to them and then eventually, hopefully they provide service to you. So ⁓ I really appreciate your time today, Dr. Musson. Before you leave us,

Dr. Musson (19:27)
Yeah.

Michelle Tack (19:33)
Could you provide for those that would like to speak with you, ⁓ partner with you, maybe invest with you, or just have some questions for you, how they can get in touch with you?

Dr. Musson (19:44)
The best way to actually reach me is through the website. It’s mussonfactory.com. It’s M-U-S-S-O-N factory, F-A-C-T-O-R-Y dot com and go through the contact page there. And the reason that’s the best way to reach me is because if I don’t pick it up, somebody else will and they’ll get it to me.

Michelle Tack (20:04)
Okay, great. You’ve been a pleasure. It’s great hearing all what you’re doing and continued success. Dr. Musson wishing you the best. Thanks for the talk. Take care.

Dr. Musson (20:15)
Thank you, Michelle. All

right, you too.