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Show Summary
In this conversation, Gashar Dixon emphasizes the importance of specific knowledge in real estate markets, highlighting how understanding local metrics and value propositions can lead to successful investment strategies. He discusses the necessity of aligning personal goals with market conditions to maximize profitability.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Gashar Dixon (00:00)
I don’t tell you to buy in New York City and California if your goal is to buy properties at high cap rates so you can cash flow and have easy landlord tenant laws. Those markets are not going to do you well at all. I don’t expect you to buy in Detroit if you’re looking for strong ⁓ appreciation with negative population trends.A lot of housing inventory and properties probably not gonna grow as fast as maybe Austin, Texas. So just understanding what it is you’re looking to do. New York is, in California, are great markets for appreciation. ⁓ Detroit is a great market for cash flow. That’s what you’re looking to do. You want your thicker margins.
Again, they can be good or bad depending on what your strategy is. You just don’t want to wear the suit to the basketball game. You don’t want to wear the shorts to the funeral.
Michelle Kesil (02:39)
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil And today I’m joined by someone that I’m looking forward to chatting with, Gashar Dixon, who’s been making serious moves in the investment and land development space. So excited to have you here on the show today, Gashar.Gashar Dixon (02:57)
Thank you for having me.Michelle Kesil (02:58)
I think our listeners are going to take something away from how you’re focusing on land development. So let’s dive in. First off, those not familiar with you and your world, can you give the short version of what your main focus is?Gashar Dixon (03:15)
So we look to acquire land or joint venture with landowners and we look to develop their lots. And what I mean by land development is just making them buildable lots. So that includes subdivisions, entitlements, ⁓ basically lots that are ready to be built up vertically. taking the lot from land to actual being developable, lack of a better word.and then typically sell it to developers to actually build the vertical and supply housing.
Michelle Kesil (03:48)
Awesome. What markets are you operating in?Gashar Dixon (03:51)
Right now I’m in Florida and Texas.Michelle Kesil (03:54)
Okay, awesome. So what are some of the main keys that allow your business to continue to run smoothly?Gashar Dixon (04:02)
⁓ I think obviously the demand for housing is obviously the biggest one. ⁓ We focus on helping the institutional builders find product and just kind of navigating what they’re looking for and understanding their position in the market ⁓ helps us to better structure deals that make sense for us.people that sell us properties or join venture with us and obviously ⁓ the builders as well.
Michelle Kesil (04:38)
Yeah, absolutely.And are you working with investors as well with these projects?
Gashar Dixon (05:33)
Done.Yeah, sometimes. ⁓ We do a lot of friends and family, family offers. ⁓
You know, debt, pre-equality, ⁓ whatever the deal requires. ⁓ So it’s some deals we structure, we don’t necessarily need a lot of debt just because of it. Particularly we do a JV, but some deals obviously are very cash intensive.
Michelle Kesil (06:02)
Yeah. So what are you most focused on solving next in your business?Gashar Dixon (06:09)
Well, I mean, we have a housing shortage and our goal is to try to help ⁓ get as much housing as needed in the marketplace. think the, and I’m afraid from that, the, I think America has a housing shortage per se. just think we have a kind of housing dislocated. What I mean by that is, ⁓Excuse me, have a sore throat. There’s a lot ⁓ of abandoned properties in Detroit and Baltimore. We just can’t move them to Dallas. So because of that, we have to build in Dallas for that demand. So we just try to find land and then help facilitate those type of developments. And we help builders find land, entitle it.
and develop it, least the vertical, I mean the horizontal side, so that they can come in and build them and provide housing, much needed housing.
Michelle Kesil (07:10)
Yeah, absolutely, that’s such an important role to play in. ⁓ What are you focusing on, like as far as goals or scaling anywhere that you see your business heading in the next, you know, timeframe of yours?Gashar Dixon (07:13)
Uh-uh.Yeah, I mean, we definitely want to eventually get more on vertical side. I mean, we have some smaller projects that we found out of pocket.
to do some things globally. ⁓ Just see some opportunities abroad that could really, you know, we see it, know, obviously we’re just not in a position to take advantage of it, but we’d love to do that and just obviously expand our business here in the states and in different areas within the southeast.
Michelle Kesil (07:56)
Yeah, awesome. So what are some, like how did you get started in this world? What are some of the things that you ⁓ have like progressed over in your years in this business?Gashar Dixon (08:09)
I’ve been in the business 20 years. I started out in 2004 as a commercial real estate agent. I started my company in 2005. We started investing in the capital region of New York. We had a small fund. I mean, know, small multifamily.value add type of projects. We did pretty good with that for about a year and a half, two years, and then the tsunami happened with the financial crisis and essentially wiped us out. But we learned a lot and we just kind dug out of the hole and just kind of continued to pursue and grow the business.
I think living through that kind of taught me a lot about the business and just understanding that there were peers of mine that made a lot of money during that time. I made a little bit. understanding the opportunity when everybody else sees bloods in the streets is very eye opening and it really forced me to pay attention to the economics of real estate. Not just the…
how things are doing, underlying factors that makes everything tick. So once I was able to understand that, it made me a, I’m sorry, I’m gonna throw this away, it made me a more intelligent investor. it was, you just, you get.
boundaries in which a box in which you playing and whether the market is good or bad you play in that box and it protects you and you can understand the best case and worst case because that’s probably the the worst case that I’ve been in and you know I think we’re due sometime somewhere it’s just we don’t know when that time is gonna happen
Michelle Kesil (10:36)
Yeah, absolutely. think those hardships are what really shape you and propel you for that long-term vision of understanding how things can ebb and flow in this industry.Gashar Dixon (10:50)
The one thing I will say is that when I got into real estate, probably, as far as timing, was, I think I had like a 500 credit score at the time. had maybe $2,000 saved up. it’s, timing is, it probably couldn’t have been worse. The thing is that,I think I was…
naive, not naive but near naive but sometimes ambition needs to be naive because I don’t think if I thought about the hindsight I probably never would have got started. So I’m fortunate to have been able to start where I was at and grow from there and to go ups and downs is obvious.
Michelle Kesil (11:21)
Mm-hmm.Yeah, think that’s amazing.
How did you get started from that place of maybe not having all of the funds and like financial resources? Like how did you get from that position to being able to start?
Gashar Dixon (11:47)
Well, I think the biggest thing is to find out how you add value to a transaction. I think, like so, ⁓ if you’re a good agent, that means you’re good at locating deals. So then you can locate deals for investors. When you locate those deals, then you can figure out why they like the deal. You know, what makes that one tick versus that one.You also learn where they get their money from, who they use for construction.
who their team is, and you get introductions. Then you maybe do two, three of those. And the last one, and the fourth one, you say, let me do it with you. You stay in the deal. So instead of getting paid for the broker fee, maybe you just put that money in the deal, and you just kind of work it with them.
Now you have a track record. So when you take that and the track record, you just go to the next level. I think that money and credit doesn’t necessarily add value. I think those things are readily available. There’s way more significant things that adds value. So mentally, a lot of people get stuck with that. But if you learn how to add value to a transaction, ⁓
there’s always an escalator up because most things don’t necessarily require your credit or your money. It’s the idea and the deal itself that actually makes everything else come together. The vision.
Michelle Kesil (13:16)
Yeah, absolutely. That’s important how you can add value and service into other people’s lives and then, you know, they’re open to letting you create that relationship and see what happens. That’s great advice.So do you now run your own investments? How has that transition been?
Gashar Dixon (13:39)
⁓ Yeah, we’ve ran our own investments for a while and they’ve different. We’ve ⁓ probably more types of deals than I should have been doing, I’ve single family, multi-family, hospitality, mixed use, ⁓So we’ve kind of spread ourselves a little bit in that regard. obviously, think just understanding ⁓ where the market is headed and trying to position ourselves in those particular areas. So one thing I really say, you understand population trends. And you gotta understand economic trends, because those affect.
our bottom lines and obviously where the man’s gonna be in the future.
I hope I’m doing too bad, I’m hanging on here. My throat is, you know, it’s been tough today. Just put it like that.
Michelle Kesil (14:47)
It’s okay.Yeah, I understand. Don’t worry. Awesome. Yeah, thank you for hanging in there.
Gashar Dixon (14:52)
Uh-uh.day.
Michelle Kesil (15:39)
Yeah, so for the people that are maybe looking to get started with investments, ⁓ what are some advice that you have for people maybe earlier in their career?Gashar Dixon (15:51)
⁓ Advice I have… ⁓Focus on the market, focus on the product type. And the more narrowed in niche, the better you’ll be. It may seem like counterintuitive upfront, but ⁓ real estate is not necessarily broad knowledge, it’s specific knowledge about an area and understanding what makes that market tick and understanding how to recognize value within that particular marketplace. So every market…
offers a different value proposition and you need to understand the metrics and what makes that market tick. Obviously there’s laws and everything else surrounding that but the more you know about, you become an expert in this particular area, the better you’ll do.
There’s areas, doesn’t, mean, some areas are better than others for other reasons, but like, you can make money anywhere, ⁓ just depending on your strategy. ⁓ if, as long as that area, you have a personal strategy and goal of what you’re trying to execute and that area aligns, and the economics and metrics of that area align with what they’re looking to do, then that’s great. an example, ⁓
I don’t tell you to buy in New York City and California if your goal is to buy properties at high cap rates so you can cash flow and have easy landlord tenant laws. Those markets are not going to do you well at all. I don’t expect you to buy in Detroit if you’re looking for strong ⁓ appreciation with negative population trends.
A lot of housing inventory and properties probably not gonna grow as fast as maybe Austin, Texas. So just understanding what it is you’re looking to do. New York is, in California, are great markets for appreciation. ⁓ Detroit is a great market for cash flow. That’s what you’re looking to do. You want your thicker margins.
Again, they can be good or bad depending on what your strategy is. You just don’t want to wear the suit to the basketball game. You don’t want to wear the shorts to the funeral.
Michelle Kesil (18:17)
Yeah, absolutely. That makes a lot of sense to have that knowledge of what it is that you’re looking for and what markets can serve you. So as far as land development goes, can you expand on what that aspect of your business looks like?Gashar Dixon (18:31)
Sure. So we looked to identify attractive land in areas that ⁓ we see economic growth potential or things that ⁓ we, areas that we’re expecting to expand. You we try to get there first. we’re studying demographics. ⁓ We then looked to identify sites that could potentially work for ⁓ residential development. ⁓We’re looking at a ton of things and things that people wouldn’t necessarily even pay attention to. But obviously, I mean, the first simple thing is zoning, know, or can it be rezoned? we need a variance for that? Temperament of the municipality, it’s a pro-development or not pro-development area. ⁓ Looking at utilities, how close are things like water, sewer?
Ahem.
you know, looking at schools, things like that. Obviously, the land itself, know, grading, ⁓ is it cleared, is it not cleared?
certain ordinances that prevent us from clearing lots and everything like that. So all these come into play. But after that, we find that we identify a parcel that makes sense. ⁓ Our goal is either to buy it outright or to lock it in contract until it’s entitled. And once it’s entitled, ⁓ we look to find the developer.
that would want to build vertical. And we typically partner with or look to the institutional builders, your Hortons, your Linares, groups like that that are going to come in and build housing at scale. ⁓
So we try to hedge our risk, obviously dealing with the builders. a lot of times with these, the bigger the site, a lot of times they can be carve outs for us. So for example, we’ll find a site that’s, let’s call it 25 acres. And we’ll give up 20 acres to one of these builders.
⁓ We wouldn’t necessarily keep five of those acres for us and our development to build out. So that’s really been our motto going forward. Our latest project’s actually been doing something in Fort Laudahill, Broward County, Florida. Smaller project we’re working with one of the builders on. ⁓ But it’s a… ⁓
It’s a small lot, about two and a half acres, but it’s very well located. And there’s about 39 townhouses that are going on to the site. we’re handling the JV with the existing owners. And we’re
Hopefully we have a contract in play already and we should be breaking ground a little later this year or early next year.
Michelle Kesil (21:47)
Amazing. That is such an awesome niche and project that you are working on. That’s super cool.Gashar Dixon (21:55)
ThankI think it’s a growing niche that a lot of people have seen a lot more people come into.
think that housing is needed so how we can get it we need to focus on getting it and bring some of these prices down.
Michelle Kesil (22:16)
Definitely, that’s so important. So, before we wrap up here, someone wants to reach out, connect, collaborate with you, where can people find you and connect with you?Gashar Dixon (22:26)
Sure, you can visit my website. It’s www.anglestone.com. You can also email me, gdixon at anglestone.com. That’s angle is right angle, A-N-G-L-E-S-T-O-N-E dot com.Michelle Kesil (22:41)
Perfect. Well, I appreciate your time, your story, your perspective. Thank you for being here.Gashar Dixon (22:46)
thank you for having me.Michelle Kesil (22:47)
And for the listeners tuning in, you got value from this, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators just like Gashar, who are building real businesses. We’ll see you all in our next episode.
