How Ashkan Bashiri Uses DSCR Loans, ADUs, and Private Money to Build Real Estate Wealth

AShkan Bashiri (00:00)
Well, as I kind of brought it up to you, we talked about it before, there’s a tsunami of loans. mean, with the 2 % tickets, what we call tickets when it was 2%, 3%, we never seen interest rates at that low in the market. The average interest rate in the US history has been around 4 to 5%. That’s the average. And we’ve never seen tickets around 2 or 3%.

Scott Bursey (01:55)
Hi everyone and welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host Scott Bursey and today I’m joined by someone I’ve really been looking forward to chatting with Ashkan Bashiri who’s been making serious moves in the presidential mortgage and real estate investment space. Ashkan is a 25 year real estate veteran who bought his first multi unit at age 23 and never looked back. Today he is the co-founder.

and the founder of Go Home Funding and a master of finance who helps investors navigate the complex world of mortgages to build real lasting wealth. Whether you’re a first time buyer or a seasoned pro, Ashkan is the guy who knows how to make the numbers work. Ashkan, welcome to the show.

AShkan Bashiri (02:39)
Thank you for having me, Scott.

Scott Bursey (02:40)
Our pleasure. think our audience is really going to take something away from the way you’ve managed to take the sophisticated financial engineering of Wall Street and apply it to the single family rental market. Ashkan, let’s dive in, shall we? Awesome. So first off, for people who may not be familiar with your world, give us the short version. What’s been your main focus these days?

AShkan Bashiri (02:54)
Sure, yeah, let’s go.

Well, our main focus been definitely the DSCR and bank statement loans as a lot of

in what I call full doc loans are harder to qualify based on the interest rates and overall incomes that they need people to have in order to qualify for some of these average homes in California. We’re looking at an average of half a million dollars, $400,000 to $500,000 home, which require at least nine or $10,000 a month, almost $100,000 a year in income. And that’s why we are

switched and more focused on the bank statement and the DSCR loans in order to get the investors qualified and also you know business owners. lot of the business owners they have great cash flow and so we can use their bank statements in order to qualify them to buy their first home.

Scott Bursey (03:58)
Ashkan, what markets are you concentrating on right now?

AShkan Bashiri (04:01)
Well, the markets that I’m mainly we’re in Sacramento, Northern California, but we lend all over throughout California as far as and also do private equity, private money. We do about two million dollars of that every month and mainly in California at rates that I feel comfortable lending. don’t want to I hate to deal with some of the private or hard money lending that that I see out there. The cost is just crazy. But we do have a

lot of investors and contractors who they come to us on regular basis as we help them scale their real estate purchase game. my first, you know, I always tell people, know, call Ashkan for cash. So we just basically ask for cash is what, you know, calls me, hey, Ash, I’m calling for cash. And so I’m like, that’s been my, that’s been, that’s all the contractor guys, because they know I find.

Scott Bursey (04:53)
Hahaha

AShkan Bashiri (04:57)
the money and once they’re looking especially for their investment and development. So we have several development deals that we also been focusing on and we segmented more of the commercial stuff that’s been our focus for past two years and the reason that came about was really as a necessity for a lot of our clients who we had been lending.

their businesses or on their residential homes and now they’re reaching out to us because they’re looking for solutions on the commercial side, especially somebody to hold their hand to show them really how to do it. As somebody who’s owned business for over 25 years, I understood all the nuances of what they have to deal with in order to borrow from institutional lenders and private equity lenders and what they need to do to set themselves up and get

ready for those type of lending possibilities. So that’s where we’ve been focusing on for the past two years. But prior to that and ongoing is definitely residential. And the pivot that we’ve done, like I said, it’s been more on the bank statement and DSCR. I probably have done over just in the last month of just, you know, DSCR. Now you can get a bank statement loan with 10 % down at seven and seven and eight.

interest rate which is not that far off from a full Dockland. So and for somebody who’s only worked in the business for one year

the fact that we can get that done for them, that’s huge. And I do that with the understanding of they have to get, when I first started, of them takes about four or five months to get them to the position to do the purchases. And what I tell them is, look, you have to, as a prerequisite, you have to get in with one of my CPAs and you have to get in with my account so they can help you manage your new income that you have.

Scott Bursey (07:34)
Love it. Ashkan, what caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to identify the structural undersupply in housing and use it to drive a staggering 101 % growth rate in your portfolio. know, most people see real estate as a slow and steady game, but you’ve turned it into a

AShkan Bashiri (07:50)
Yeah.

Scott Bursey (07:57)
data-driven institutional grade machine. I’m excited to have our audience hear how you bridge that gap between complex finance and boots on the ground investing.

AShkan Bashiri (08:05)
What?

Well, a lot of it has to do with the whole idea of the ADU process, right? As far as the number of housing that’s available for people. in the Californians, different counties are different. Like in LA, you can actually add up to three ADU units per single parcel. In Sacramento, it’s two ADU units per parcel. I personally was able to put a two unit ADU in back of a four unit complex that I own, a four unit property.

And now I’m financing guys in LA right now. They bought a property for a red million and they’re actually, and these are contractors, they’re putting three ABUs on a…

what I call a small lot because it’s literally they’re putting housing and now under the new regulations in LA, you can individually sell these units, which is where before it would come as a separate address on a property. Now you can actually sell them and that’s gonna be the game changer. A lot of counties or lot of cities are kind of playing around with that idea, but I think that’s the part that we are sort

getting ourselves in a position for to help homeowners not only to take advantage of this pent up equity that they’ve been sitting on. I mean, a lot of people that we’re noticing right now, they’re listing their homes, either they’re dying in them because most of their families are not dealing with.

properties that basically they were not able to sell or downsize on because of the great rate that they were locked in in in 2019. So now that they’re basically they’re either they’re stuck in this low rates so they have this huge equity that they want to do something with so we’re showing them how to you know by connecting them with some of ADU companies that I work with I can show them hey we can pull out the equity you can go ahead and add another unit for whether you want to rent it whether you want to

move

a family member into it, whatever the case may be. But in the future, you can technically also sell this as a separate unit as an investment if you wanted to. So that’s the game changer that we’re seeing now in the, and how we’re scaling. my own personal level, I mean, I’m building ADU back on my property. I have a lot next door that I bought that I’m adding to as a single family with the attached ADU. And also we, as far as development is concerned, we have 18 unit development that I’m doing condos.

in McKinleyville, which is right by the coast in California, Northern California, which we’ve been working on for past two years. So because of the lack of housing and because of certain markets, especially in California, this smaller and…

more cost effective housing is where we’ve seen it. And I’ve seen it also in a lot of people reaching out to us for borrowing money on.

mobile home parks where they’re taking these mobile home parks and actually adding a different level of comfort to them. So we’re seeing a lot of that happening, especially up in areas, in the rural areas and like towards the Humboldt area, which I basically have a lot of connections of that way. They’re buying these old mobile home parks and they’re either making them into short-term rentals or they’re making them into, they’re making them into what I call a luxury mobile home parks with beautiful bathrooms, beautiful amenities.

So that’s kind of been what we’re focusing on as well. Before it used to be you go buy multiple unit, but now we’re buying properties that have a potential of becoming multiple units and adding on those multiple units.

Scott Bursey (11:48)
Awesome. And I guess the next question is, what’s been the key to keeping your machine running smoothly?

AShkan Bashiri (12:29)
It’s never smooth, Scott, but I don’t know what you mean. I make it look smooth. But really, it’s research and connection. I think in the age of AI, as much as everybody says, AI this, AI that, I think our biggest advantage has been the human connection. And also admitting to the fact that there are some things you don’t know.

and you have to just ask for assistance. And I am not an accountant, but I do have good accountants that I talk to and I consult with on regular basis. I’m not a good attorney, but I’m a very good, I know my laws, I know who everything needs to be. And as somebody who does private equity lending, I have to be very careful about security of my investors’ assets and how we collateralize the properties that we’ve taken on, make sure that we

the investors fully collateralized and secure with their money. So that’s the main thing is to putting the time and also connecting with people that can improve your game and not be afraid of asking and saying, I don’t know. I don’t know how to do this. Can you show me how to do this? And I think that’s the part is that there’s a lot of egos and I try to constantly check my ego at the door when I talk to people.

Scott Bursey (13:45)
Human touch, that really says it all. That’s huge. Now, Ashkan, every operator I know has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal went sideways or a time that you had to pivot fast. You mind sharing one of those moments with us?

AShkan Bashiri (13:48)
Yeah.

I’m in middle one right now. You want to know something really crazy. I’ve never. So we landed on a gas station deal where I actually, I put my own private money into it, you know, about a hundred thousand dollars worth.

And this property, you know, and I brought in my private equity lender as well for another million. So we have 1.1 million into this property. And there’s something crazy going on with the borrower and there’s a lot of nuances. But what happens is that the title forgot to or they misrecorded three notes in his wrong county.

and we were never able to, actually nobody reached out to us to tell us about it. So I had learned something new and then the borrower had gone, since they knew there’s no liens on the property they just purchased, they went ahead and pulled out another $250,000 on that property. So now we’re in middle of some type of, so that’s one of those things where you, as somebody who’s a facilitator like me, we had

And my biggest, it wasn’t even my own money, I was more worried about my private equity lender that relies on me to make sure I did everything by the book which I did and I found out we were all good. This was a mistake on the title side. you know, so that’s where things, know, that’s one of areas. And these are new areas where the private equity market…

is a huge part of the new market that people don’t even know how much money is in private equity, how much funding there is in that area. That’s a big unknown. And they say the biggest volatility in our market right now is in that area. And also some of these loans that we are doing with DSCRs, some of the loans that we are doing, these loans are literally been coming on in last five or six years. And especially, I would say in last two years, very heavily marketed.

⁓

And are these loans truly going to perform the way we’ve

doing the full doc loans and the way we collateralize and put those loans together. And those are the big question marks. And I think we need to be more careful as professionals to make sure not only we protect our clients and the fiduciary duty of helping our clients understand these loans, but also ⁓ to make sure, you know, I want to make sure when I do any kind of financing for my clients, then I can go to bed and feel good about it. And I think that’s the

part of that I think is very important for me and that’s the compass that I use to run my business.

Scott Bursey (16:41)
you did say that things don’t always run smoothly and that was a fine example. And Ashkan, it’s incredible how the moments that feel like a disaster, you know, in real time often become the foundation for the…

10 years of growth next. Sometimes a negative can transform into a positive. And honestly, that right there is the filter. It’s what weeds out the dabblers and defines the investors who actually have the staying power to weather the cycles. Let me ask you this. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next?

AShkan Bashiri (17:58)
Well, as I kind of brought it up to you, we talked about it before, there’s a tsunami of loans. mean, with the 2 % tickets, what we call tickets when it was 2%, 3%, we never seen interest rates at that low in the market. The average interest rate in the US history has been around 4 to 5%. That’s the average. And we’ve never seen tickets around 2 or 3%.

And with that, nobody really understood when that was happening back in the pandemic years, nobody understood the replication of those loans and what it does to the market. We see a lot of, like I said, a lot of people that are basically, cannot downsize. My parents are one of them. They live in a million dollar home, but they cannot downsize to a smaller home because by the time they’re paying their taxes on a normal home, $600,000, there’s not going to be huge advantage for them to give up

their nice luxury home to go to a smaller home because they’re still paying, even if they buy cash, the taxes are gonna still be the same. They were assessed at a much lower tax bracket when they were buying the house that they own. And now if they buy a new house at 600 grand, just the tax assessment is gonna be higher, so they’ll have a higher monthly output. And for people who are on a fixed income or a limited income,

The inflation has really outpaced what people’s limited incomes are and I think that is the biggest Threat that we see so as far as where I’m focused on right now. I’m doing more of the business I’m focused on more on the commercial side of helping my clients that have cash flow To really help them scale and also help them maneuver out of these what I call fixed Swamps and their fixed rate 3 % swamp

that they’re stuck in that they can’t get out and how they’re gonna maneuver by using their equity, the investment that’s sitting there and actually help them utilize that equity into buying other assets that are performing.

Scott Bursey (20:03)
What’s the next real big goal for you?

AShkan Bashiri (20:06)
Well, I have several developments that I’m working on personally. that’s I have an 18 year development, like I said, that I’ve been working on for two, three years and I have several amount property here. I have a couple of deals that are, you know, we’re basically finishing up the, you all the plans and drawings and stuff in order to submit. I mean, the biggest problem with that is the constant fluctuation in costs, right? So the supply line situations and now with the Iran and the US war and Israel.

And I mean that’s gonna definitely we’re gonna be feeling a lot of pinches down the line probably five or six months from now so really getting myself as well as my Clients ready for what’s about to come and I know I sent you a podcast on one the somewhat of expert in that area you would say but I keep my fingers on a lot of geopolitics and also because those things matter and that’s one of the things that happened when 2008-2009 when

the whole economic downturn came. I personally had to shut down my businesses and I had to learn how to evolve and how to, that’s where I pivoted actually out of I owned high-end salons and I basically switched over into a full-time real estate, even though I always had my businesses as a way to create cashflow for my real estate game. That was my whole reason I did the businesses. So I’m basically, I’m a proven track record.

one of those guys who has actually done it, and what I’m preaching is what I’ve done. It’s not something that I just learned something from somebody on YouTube and decided to make money off of it. And it’s not as easy as everybody says. You have to be diligent. You have to constantly evolve and you have to definitely learn how to perfect your skills. And things change. So one of the things I learned in the 2011 crisis

is that I need to more attention to the government policies and what’s going on around the world.

And as part of that, went back and got two masters. have an MBA and I have Master in Public Health, which I got when I was 38, which after 20 years would not be in college. But I did it as a way because I was butthurt about what happened. I had to shut down my businesses that I’ve worked for 25 years and change the whole career path. But I wanted to learn about why this happened. And I think that was the moment for me to learn about government

policy because those little policies that you hear about a lot of business owners and a lot of Individuals don’t pay attention to that especially a lot of business real estate investors They don’t pay enough attention to some of these changes and I think if they don’t put their If they don’t really take the time to understand them, it will come back and bite them in the butt

Scott Bursey (22:50)
That’s that’s huge and I love the vision but we both know that new levels bring new devils so to speak so Who do you need to become? As a leader in the next 12 months to be ready for the version of your life

AShkan Bashiri (23:07)
That was a tough one. I wish you told me that. But as far as I am, I personally, I’m trying to just understand. I think the biggest problem that we’re having right now is understanding the facts. Because the age of AI, with the age of all the social media, with all the things that are going on. you know, just understanding.

Scott Bursey (23:28)
Right.

AShkan Bashiri (23:33)
What are the facts? What are the things that we know is true? Right? Not nothing. And how are we going to be able to maneuver based on just deciphering first of all what the facts are so we can say, okay, based on these, I’m going to do these things in my life. And I think that’s been the biggest challenge for me as an individual and as somebody who I’m constantly researching, I’m constantly on the, I know, and

tells me that I’m addicted to social media or to YouTube and all that but as somebody who’s you know constantly because I’m worried and I need to understand because I don’t want to be I don’t want my ass to be handed to me again

like it did in 2011, right? And I think there are things right now that are happening that are beyond our maybe scope of understanding or digital currency, which I have been involved in for about five or 10 years with the way these wars are happening, the supply chains, especially somebody who’s in a real estate, we’re looking to develop, we’re looking to buy and build ADU.

you $50,000 more next month if you don’t watch out if you’re planning and you know you’ve been working for two years or a year to get all your stuff in a dozen a row to do it and then you go to do it and also in your supply chain has been blown and you’re basically paying $50,000 more and that’s the things that I’m looking at right now right down my supply in front of me right now where I have you know multiple projects that are if I feel like if I don’t jump on it now and lock the supply chain on it

and get all the materials that I’m going to be paying a lot more for them because the fuel cost is going to go up and that’s going to drive all the inflation and everything else.

Scott Bursey (25:17)
Absolutely well set and great perspective. Thank you for sharing that. That next move is where the leverage lifts. It can either perfect your operations or detonate your workflow depending on the strategy that you deploy. Interested to know, you can’t build an empire alone, Ashkan.

AShkan Bashiri (25:21)
Thank you.

Scott Bursey (25:35)
When you’re looking to bring someone in your inner circle or your relationship team, what is the one non-negotiable trait you look for that isn’t on a resume?

AShkan Bashiri (25:46)
being genuine. I don’t want to hear all the good. I want to hear all the bad first. And people who have too much ego, and I say this as somebody who has to check his own ego all the time, And I also work with friends and partners that have very big egos as well.

Scott Bursey (25:47)
Absolutely.

AShkan Bashiri (26:10)
but also just trying to get them to the level to where to finally let go and actually can communicate with you on honest level. That to me is the biggest challenge as humans and also as business professionals in the future. So that’s something that I constantly…

You know, that’s skill that I’m constantly trying to perfect and try to be better at and and really and also look for those type of people that are they’re honest that they can own their mistakes. They can actually be truthful and when they they know something so they can ask for it rather than trying to you know, fake something that you know, it’s going to cost a lot more money down the road for everybody. So these are things that I look for. I’m not looking for

bunch of fluff. We’re all in sales business, right? I’m a salesman, you’re a salesman, we’re all salesmen, so we know how to sell. But to really ⁓ know who you are and be genuine about what you do know and don’t know is really important.

Scott Bursey (27:11)
That’s the biggest skill that a person can have, the ability to connect with individuals. That is huge. Now I know a lot of our audiences either earlier in their journey, Ashkan are looking to level up to some degree. And I think they benefit from hearing this from you. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

AShkan Bashiri (27:16)
Yeah.

So I’m one of those guys that people, you know, they always tell me like, I’ll pick up the phone calls and talk to them. I don’t like to text. If the text is more than two sentences for me, I have to pick up the phone. I cannot be, you know.

expecting to relay all the things that I want to relay on two sentences with you if I don’t feel that I need to talk to you. So one of things I would tell you is constant contact is with and you I my spheres change and I’m sure everybody’s does like when I’m dealing when I especially when you have when you do with you know eight or nine clients a month that you have to that you’re in contract there some of them are bigger some are smaller I told you you know I got deals that are like 20 million dollars worth

which I’ve been working for six months and I have deals that are like $400,000. But I try to make it, prioritize each person in my life and try to make sure that I, when I wake up in the morning, I have a list of things that I write down and I make sure. So one of the things that I would tell any of your audience, especially new audience, people, write things down. I think that’s the biggest thing that I see is miss.

It’s not giving enough credit to. Write it down, write down your, you know, I write down my yearly goal and I do it in my notes on my phone. It’s not like I, it’s not like I, you know, it doesn’t have to be fancy. And I do it on a daily basis. And I’ve seen billionaires that I know in my town, they’re commercial real estate billionaires. And I know their work ethics. And these guys will come to my work with me.

They show up with three note pads. One for today, one for yesterday, one for tomorrow. And they would transfer, hand write transfer these into, from day to day.

So keeping track of your work and keeping track. And some people are really good at maybe keeping all, and I am one of those people that I’m really good at keeping my interests, ⁓ things that I’m focused on, I’m an executor. I like to execute and I just stick with it until I do. But in the overall, when you wanna scale your business and you go to different, you cannot keep track of all those things. And I think AI, as much as people wanna bring in AI and all that,

that

the AI can only do so much for you. You need to really take the time and create your own pattern and your own game. And nothing takes away from, again, brightening it down and just saying, hey, this is what I want and this is I have to do next today and tomorrow. Even with AI, you have to give it a pump, right? It won’t do it by itself. my thing is, that’s the biggest thing that I see that’s missed.

People, whenever they have an idea of whatever they want to do, they never write it down. And they wonder why they never get it done. I think by writing it down, you’re taking the first step into execution. And anytime I’m really serious about a business, as someone who’s gone, I told you about an MBA, I just literally write down a two-pager on it. And I just take two minutes to write it down. And by the end of it, if I’m still not passionate about it, I’m not gonna do it.

Scott Bursey (30:39)
words and that hits home. In an industry that is so transactional, being the person who actually shows up when there isn’t a deal on the table and is willing to go the extra mile, wake up in the morning and do the right thing, hey that’s what gives you the competitive edge. It’s that unsexy consistency I think.

that I’m taking away from the most that most people aren’t willing to do Ashkan. Thank you for sharing that with us. All right, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

AShkan Bashiri (31:19)
My, I mean, like I said, I like phone calls. So (916)600-4919 is my phone number. It’s been my phone number for, think since 19, I want to age myself, 82. And then, Ashkan.bash is my email. That’s my personal email that I basically work with a lot of my investors and people that always reach out to me on that. And then we,

And then I will I can probably provide you with our email for my work as well as my other Contact information as well so you can put that up for your audience

Scott Bursey (31:53)
Well, listen, I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. Thanks again for being here.

AShkan Bashiri (31:58)
Thank you, Scott.

Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Scott Bursey (32:05)
And for

those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We have more conversations coming up with operators just like Ashkan who are out there building real businesses. We’ll see you in the next episode, everybody.