How Omar Khan Bought $200M in Distressed Multifamily Real Estate with Only $10M

Omar (00:00)
And in the last two years, we’ve done over two, apart from these things, we’ve done over $200 million in distressed real estate, all apartments. We had a lot of syndicators, real estate sponsors and the like in trouble.

And based on my background in investment banking and law and all of that stuff, we come in, we bring in more equity, but we step in between the borrower and the lender, we restructure the loan agreements. And this way we were able to get in on deals for cents on the dollars

Quentin (02:00)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And you know me. If you’ve been following me, you know this is particularly the part that I really, really like is getting to talk to new people. We can be at the same parts of our journey. We can be at different parts of our journey. We can be doing the exact same thing, but we’re always going to do it different because we are different. We are amalgamation of different aspects of our life, moments of our life, and so the different ingredients.

is always going to come out a little bit different. And so I’m so glad that I have someone here that’s doing it the way that they’re doing it. And I want us to get to learn from him. And so I am so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Omar Khan. Mr. Omar, how you doing today,

Omar (02:44)
Good. Thank you, Quinton. Really appreciate being on the show, brother. Thank you so much for having me.

Quentin (02:48)
Absolutely. Absolutely, man. Thank you for being here. And listen, Omar, I want to dive right in, man. I would love for you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. You can give us a little bit of an origin story of kind of how you got into the space where you are now. We love the hero’s journey. And then, tell them where you are in the world, because geographically, people love to know that. They love to know, hey, this guy may be right around the corner. I can go and get in contact with him, build a business partnership. So if you don’t mind, tell them.

What’s your main focus, your origin story, and where you are in the world? So Mr. Omar, you have the floor, sir.

Omar (03:19)
All right, well, look, I live in Dallas. I’d love to tell you I have this great Superman origin story, right? But that’s not really the case. My background’s in finance and investment banking. I did that for a whole bunch of years, but my family’s an entrepreneurial family. So after about eight or 10 years, maybe 11 years, I thought, okay, well, I love making money. I hate paying taxes, which…

Obviously puts me in the vast majority of humankind. So no brilliant insight there. Right. And I just had great people along the way, great career. And then I met my wife. We were getting married. And what I realized was that now was the right time to start my business. And again, look, a lot of this is, you know, you need great luck because without luck, nothing works. You could be the most intelligent or hardworking person on the planet. fortune favors the brave, but if God is not

Quentin (03:56)
Mmm.

Omar (04:07)
you know, your timing isn’t right, God doesn’t favor you at that moment in time, then things may or may not work out. You know, there’s very many intelligent people. So while I had this epiphany that, yeah, I love making money and hate paying taxes. My background in investment banking, finance, that really helped me out. So all the networks you build along the way, those really help. And then, you know, you open one door and hopefully other many avenues and doors open up. Many people have been kind along the years. And in the last seven, eight,

nine years, however long it’s been. We’ve transacted on over 800 million in transactions, all apartments. So we do acquisitions, which are traditional value add, you you put lipstick on a pig, do renovations, all of that stuff. We do developments, which are from the ground up.

And in the last two years, we’ve done over two, apart from these things, we’ve done over $200 million in distressed real estate, all apartments. We had a lot of syndicators, real estate sponsors and the like in trouble.

And based on my background in investment banking and law and all of that stuff, we come in, we bring in more equity, but we step in between the borrower and the lender, we restructure the loan agreements. And this way we were able to get in on deals for cents on the dollars

to give you some context for this distressed pocket that we have predominantly now. This is close to 2000 units, about $200 million. And to do all of this, we only had to come out of pocket about $10 million or so maybe.

But again, you’re not necessarily a portion of this is real estate, but a lot of this is understanding how contracts work, how legal documents work, how loan agreements work. So it’s that sort of stuff. But again, everything’s within multifamily. Pretty much everything’s in the, there’s a pocket of our developments in the Midwest, but the bulk of the stuff is in the Sunbelt. So Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas and surrounding markets.

Quentin (06:37)
I love it, man. I love it. Thank you, Omar. Thank you for walking us through your journey to where you are now and what you do now. I was listening to you. You know, been a finance guy, was in finance for about nine years, had a great career, met your wife. Hello. I got one of those too. I was, man. Oh, they are just, love, absolutely love my wife. So I feel you on that. Met your wife, started your business. And I love how you talked about God’s timing.

I often say a phrase that we make our plan, but God determines the outcome. So we plan it, sometimes God got a different way for us to go. And sometimes we just got to be alone for the journey. So I love it, man. I love how you talked about your journey. I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning no matter what we go through in life, destiny, these moments have a way to make us who we are today. So I would love to know through your journey, what has these moments taught you about yourself?

Has they taught you discipline, resilience, to be humble? Like, what has these moments taught you about you?

Omar (07:35)
Quinton, I’m in real estate. It’s not known as an industry of very humble people. But that being said, if I had the work ethic I had today, if I had that, you know, when I was 23, my background would be a private jet, buddy. So in that regard, you know, you go along for the ride, as you say, you learn and you meet people and you learn cool things and you learn more about yourself.

Quentin (07:41)
Hmm

Mmm, yeah.

Omar (07:58)
But that’s it, I would like to say that while I have learned some stuff, I think the real learnings are yet to come, I feel. I feel a lot of this is now, some hard work, God’s grace, good luck, good fortune, right? All of these things. We have a good foundation, but I think the coming years will now tell us, hey, have we done justice to the foundation that was we?

either got or were given to us or somewhere. So I think the real learnings maybe we should talk about in the next two, three years. Right now, the learning is to put your head down to work hard and nobody is, what is that saying? You’re not entitled to anything. You get it or maybe you don’t, but hard work is not the only determinant of success because if that was the case, then people digging ditches will be the richest people on the planet. So right now, just focus.

build on this foundation and hopefully in a few years when you and I talk again then I will be able to share my wisdom with you.

Quentin (08:53)
Gotcha. Well, I got a follow-up question. I’m not sure how this was going to go, I know you said the learning is going to come in a few years. But one thing I know myself talking to other business owners, whether in real estate or in business, one thing I’ve learned is that adversity come, trials come. And so I would love to know how have adversity looked in your world and how have you overcame it?

Omar (09:05)
What I meant to say is real.

Look, Quinton, I have young kids now, so I’ve thought about this on and off, especially in the context of everything that goes on in the world. I mean, people have real problems, mean, people got food on the table. They are in bad family situations, you know, or the community around them is not the most nice community or supportive community for the kids and the people. It’s not very healthy. People are in war. People are in famine, pestilence, all of that stuff. So in that regard,

I feel I have been very lucky. My parents have all been very supportive. I’ve totally lucked out with my wife, right? Then the career paths that I chose, or was chosen, some version of this stuff, right? That is financially remunerated in a good way. It provides a good quality of life. And then the business that I started, so far it seems to be working out. So this is a question that I thought a lot of time.

Quentin (09:48)
Hmm.

Omar (10:44)
I feel like I am very lucky right now and I feel any hardship of sorts has been a, ephemeral and b, not as much of a hardship when you look back because you think at that time it’s very hard, right? We’re like, my God, why does it happen to me? But then with the wisdom of experience, you look back and realize that, wow, it wasn’t actually that hard, right? I mean, people have real problems.

So I don’t necessarily think I am the right person to be opining on this because I feel I have been very lucky. Many people have been kind to me when they didn’t have to be kind. They didn’t get anything in return. So in that regard, my life has been a very charmed life versus people that have actual problems. And any hardships that I’ve had are more temporary in nature versus, you know, like a structural hardship, right? Like you’re…

family stuff doesn’t work or you’re in the wrong community or it’s not a healthy environment for a child to be in. Those things I have not experienced. Thank God.

Quentin (11:36)
you. Amen. I hear you brother. Well, let’s talk about this business you started. What is the next? Say it again.

Omar (11:40)
I’m grateful for that.

I am very grateful for that. That’s what I mean to say. I’m grateful for it and I hope that gratefulness continues. Yeah.

Quentin (11:47)
Amen.

Yeah, absolutely, man. We live in a space of gratefulness. Sometimes it’s hard to kind of think about what you don’t have. I think if you’re always grateful, it gives the perspective of what you do have and being grateful about the positions that you’re in. So I definitely, I believe you in that gratefulness space for sure. So let’s talk about the business you started. What is the next real goal for you guys? What are you looking to solve a scale next?

Omar (12:12)
Well, I mean, for me, what I’d like to solve, I don’t know about solve, it’s not just to continue growing our firm, continue to get better, provide more creative outcomes for our investors. But more than that, scale our firm. So in the next five years, we’ve done about 800 million in transactions. We expect to get to about two and a half, three billion dollars, give or take. If we’re able to achieve that outcome, again, that’s not spectacular scale by the, I don’t know if you.

look at in the context of what people are doing in the world, right? People are doing big deals. But for us, would feel that would be, again, that would now set a foundation for the next stage of success. So right now it’s about 800 million. If you get to about 2.5, 3 billion, that sets us for the next stage. So that’s what our focus is, right?

Quentin (13:39)
Got it. Love it. Love it. I know you talked about, you know, I mean, you know, we allow you talk about your investors. So I want to talk about relationships for a little bit. What is your perspective on business relationships? Are they important? How do you go about building them? Like, give me your perspective on relationships Omar.

Omar (13:56)
Well, my business is all about relationships because I’m not the first guy on the planet that’s doing real estate. Or I didn’t rather invent the concept of what I’m doing. So my business is all on relationships. This is why, as much as, as much as a lot of family, friends, and other people like, like make a fun of me or joke with me, my business is all on the phone, man. Like, I don’t know if you can see my phone, right? I can be anywhere in the world. And pretty much as long as I have access to my phone and email, I’m good to go.

Quentin (14:19)
Mmm.

Omar (14:24)
So, and as I am going up the chain, hopefully I am going up the chain, it’s all relationships. Without my relationships, which, I have to, look, it’s a two-way street. I have to constantly nurture them and they have to nurture me, right? My business won’t exist because again, nothing that I am doing is so unique that I am like one of two people in the world doing this. The reason why people interact with me and I interact with them is because of our relationship, because they can trust me.

I can trust them. We’ve nurtured and developed that over a period of time. And all those years of doing it now means at this stage, more inbound traffic comes to me than ever before. But again, this couldn’t have happened if I hadn’t nurtured and developed those relationships.

Quentin (15:03)
Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love nurturing relationships, connecting with people. often talk about relationships put me in a mindset of a community. And I believe if you can build a healthy community, people of common unity, it will create an ecosystem where everybody wins, where everybody is made whole financially, sometimes even physically, sometimes even emotionally and mentally. So I love the aspect of relationship within business. Omar, listen, man, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you,

collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing. How can I get in contact with you,

Omar (15:35)
Yeah, so look, it’s pretty easy. You can go to my website, boardwalkwealth.com, right on the homepage, there’s gonna be a form, you fill it out, it’ll add you to our mailing list, and then you’ll start getting our communication and we’ll be happy to work with you in whatever capacity.

Quentin (15:50)
Absolutely. Well, listen, love it, man. I want to thank you, sir, for being here. Three things I’d like to say, thank you for your time. Could have been anywhere in the world, but you’re here. Thank you for that. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for sharing, this seed that somebody can get some growth from. And lastly, man, thank you for your perspective, your mindset, and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you being here,

Omar (16:11)
Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Quentin (16:12)
Absolutely. Listen, y’all heard Mr. Omar. Check the show notes, get in contact with him, but definitely make sure you are subscribed here because we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people. So thank you, Mr. Omar again and everyone else. Listen, y’all have a fantastic day.