Why Real Estate Investors Who Lead With Purpose Often Build Stronger Projects and Better Returns

Jonathan Paz (00:00)
We are really working hard to give them not just places to live, but places that they’re proud of, places that they can when they’re asked where they live, they say it with a sense of pride and that they’re comfortable and their families are comfortable because we know housing stems to a lot of, you know, aspects of your life as well. So if we can help them with that, we’re happy to do it.

Quentin Edmonds (01:53)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And your eyes do not deceive you. You got two for the price of one today. And so I am truly excited about this podcast today. I’m excited because you know how I am—we get to learn from different people. And that’s what it’s all about. We can all literally be doing the same things, but we’re still gonna do it differently because we are different. We have different processes, different brains. And so we want to learn from each other. And so I’m so glad today that we get to learn from these gentlemen. And listen, I’ma let them tell you everything that it is they want to tell you on today, but trust me, we’re gonna talk some real estate for sure. So I wanna introduce you all to Mr. Alexei Semenov and Jonathan Paz. So, gentlemen, how y’all doing today? Good, good. I’m so glad y’all are here. And listen, gentlemen, I am a type—I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you can give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how y’all got into this space that you’re in.

Alex Semenov (02:41)
Really good. Thank you for us, and thank you.

Quentin Edmonds (02:59)
And then tell us where you are in the world. People love to know where people are geographically. So what you’re up to, a little bit of an origin story and where you are. Gentlemen, y’all have the floor.

Jonathan Paz (03:09)
Please go ahead, Alexei. Everyone’s—

Alex Semenov (03:10)
All right. Sounds good. I’m I’m originally from Russia. I was born in the last city before the Arctic. It was really, really cold up there. And I started playing hockey. So I played more than 20 years professionally. And now I’m in the real estate business. Love everything about real estate. And me and John have been doing a great job and we’ve been helping people and been investing in real estate. So that’s what it is.

Quentin Edmonds (03:37)
Yeah, yeah. How about you, Jonathan? Tell me a little bit about your origin story, sir.

Jonathan Paz (03:42)
Definitely not as not as awesome as as Alex’s, but I was born in California, raised in the Philippines, and I’ve lived in a lot of different places, you know, Hawaii, Miami, Jamaica, New York. I actually cut cut my teeth in real estate—goodness, 23 years ago up in New York, in the hedge fund world, doing, you know, A-paper, Alt-A paper, mortgage-backed securities up there. Alex and I have been working together now for multiple years, absolutely fantastic time. We’ve grown tremendously since we started our efforts up in Cleveland. We’re operators up in Cleveland. So we’ve been purchasing, you know, those beautiful turn-of-the-century brick buildings and are renovating them to 2026-2027 standard, really, really making beautiful products. And we’ve been really servicing the veteran community up in Cuyahoga County. They laid down their lives for us and they’ve risked it all. And the fact that there is such a high demand and there are people there, veterans there that, you know, are in between housing options or they don’t have housing options is something that bothers us and it really should bother all Americans. So we are really working hard to give them not just places to live, but places that they’re proud of, places that they can when they’re asked where they live, they say it with a sense of pride and that they’re comfortable and their families are comfortable because we know housing stems to a lot of, you know, aspects of your life as well. So if we can help them with that, we’re happy to do it.

Quentin Edmonds (06:12)
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for telling us a little bit about your journey, a little bit about where you are now. And now I want to peek into you guys’ backgrounds just a little bit, right? And so I love you both took time to kind of explain what you do, where you are, right? But we know life doesn’t unfold in just two minutes, right? Like life has been unfolding for years. I know you said 23 years in the real estate space. Alex, Alex, man, you getting on a journey, NHL and playing hockey. And so I often say destiny has no wasted moments, right? Destiny has no wasted moments, meaning we are building to the people that we are today. Our passions is being refined. While we do what we do is becoming more clearer. So I would love to hear from you both throughout this journey, this real estate journey, throughout this business journey, throughout this life journey, what has the moments taught you about yourself? Had they revealed discipline, humility? Talk to them about the journey and what it’s revealed to you about yourself.

Alex Semenov (07:14)
Wait, John.

Jonathan Paz (07:15)
So a lot, you know, being successful in real estate, it requires an introspective journey where your your biggest project will always be yourself and the way you communicate and the way that you process thoughts. It’s an everyday struggle. And my personal life and myself will always be, you know, my most important project, you know, just being as the Miami Heat say, you know, 1% better every day. Just the way and the fact that, you know, Alex and I are never competing against each other. We don’t compete with anybody. The people we compete against are who we are yesterday. Yeah. And there’s a lot of shortcuts that people try to take. And typically the fastest way for resolution and to success is to be, you know, willing to put in the hard work, willing to say the honest truth, even if it seems a little hard to hear. Those are the best, you know, the best tactics in order to have healthy relationships with investors and colleagues throughout the relation, throughout, you know, your career and and and and and your and your lives really. So I mean there’s tremendous bottlenecks that we’ve experienced and we’re gonna experience some tremendous bottlenecks moving forward, but with a good team and a good level of communication, and that’s literally nothing that we can accomplish together.

Quentin Edmonds (08:35)
Yeah, I love it. I love it.

Alex Semenov (08:36)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I agree with John 100%. I mean, you know, my background, you know, been playing so many years professionally and I know I’ve been, you know, dedicated to the, you know, to the sport. Now I’m completely dedicated to, you know, to the real estate business and to the to our, you know, to our company. And and what I bring to the board, I always like trying to push. Like, I, you know, I’ve been captain of the five teams and I know what it takes. You know, I wasn’t lucky to win the Stanley Cup. And basically what I’m trying to do is to win the Stanley Cup in the real estate business. So basically that’s our goal. We have our goals and, you know, there’s nothing can stop us. Basically, we—like I’ve been telling John many times, we are on the train. The train goes already full speed. So we just have to like, you know, get some people on board, you know, quality people, professional, reliable people too. So, and like John said before, you know, it’s all about the team that you, you know, you’re working with. It’s not about the property that you buy. You can buy a beautiful property and you can you you can probably, you know, underwrite a deal is gonna be a gem, but at the end of the day, that gem can go to, you know, a big hole because there are people that not reliable, not professional enough to get this thing up and running. So that’s what we’re trying to create here and we’re trying to create a great team that, you know, that can lead us to, you know, our goals. So and that’s why me and John, we don’t cross each other. You know, John does his own stuff. He likes numbers, he likes underwriting, and I’m more on the acquisition side and investors relationship. So that’s—we do our our own parts.

Quentin Edmonds (10:47)
Yeah. Listen, gentlemen, I I I love it, man. I love it. I love what you guys, the journey, the passions that you have, kind of the clarity of why you’re here doing what you do. And I love, you know, one of the parts is helping veterans. I’m I’m I’m so glad that that’s one of the fundamental things that’s built within the business. And so let me ask you flat out, like what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve or scale next? What’s next for you, gentlemen?

Alex Semenov (11:13)
Mean if we can help out, you know, we’re not talking about like percentage wise or or number wise. We’re just trying to help people, you know, that’s it. Our first goal is to help those people that been, you know, serving this country and, you know, being on the front line. And, you know, so that’s basically our goal. And if we can, you know, make money with that too on the real estate side, awesome. You know, that’s what we’re trying to do.

Quentin Edmonds (11:39)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Semenov (11:40)
Basically basically investing with some, you know, basically targets and and accomplishment, basically in helping people here.

Quentin Edmonds (11:50)
Absolutely. No, I love it. I absolutely love it. Man, so I know you two, you know, y’all work well together. Y’all want to help people. So I need to hear your philosophy on this word relationship. When y’all hear the word relationship, what resonates with you? Of course, specifically within business, but sometimes it’s all encompassing, right? So when you guys hear the word relationship, what comes to mind?

Jonathan Paz (12:16)
Respect. Respect, communication, follow through, and dedication. Yeah, and dedication. If you say you’re gonna do something, you’re expected to do it. That’s the way Alex lives his life. He’s made that obvious throughout the years that we’ve known each other. If he says he’s gonna do something, he moves mountains to do it. I feel like I’m I’m I’m the same way, I’m very similar. So that leads into the respect, and that respect stems from the respect that you have for yourself and the the word that you have resonating with inside of you. And it’s communication. The relationships are all different shapes and sizes, right? But those are the only two unwavering things is respect and communication.

Quentin Edmonds (12:59)
Yeah, absolutely.

Alex Semenov (12:59)
And the most important, we not afraid to push each other. We literally—we feel like we literally every day we want to get better. Like John said, one percent better every day. We’re pushing each other. John push me. I push him every day. You know, this needs to get done. That needs to get done. You know, like like every day trying to push ourselves like to the limit, you know. And it’s great. That’s why the business is growing. That’s why we we’re growing as, you know, investors, as human beings, you know. So we just trying to push each other every single day.

Quentin Edmonds (13:31)
Yeah, yeah. No, I love that. And I and I that one percent better, man, that thing keeps ringing. So one of my favorite books is the book Atomic Habits. And in that book, that’s what it talks about—being one percent better. And so that’s what I try to do every single day. While I did push ups today, I’m just trying to be one percent better, right? While I was actually doing planks today, I’m just trying to be one percent better, right? And so, no, I I absolutely love it, gentlemen. I absolutely love it. So I I don’t think we brought this up. What’s the name of the business?

Jonathan Paz (14:01)
It’s our—it’s an acronym based upon our names. ASJP—Alexei Semenov, Jonathan Paz.

Quentin Edmonds (14:07)
Got it. I was gonna ask, what’s the name? What’s the what’s the what’s the story behind the name? So you said it’s an acronym.

Jonathan Paz (14:13)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s obvious that we are in the real estate business and not the naming business, because we’re not very good at it.

Alex Semenov (14:20)
As you can see, we’re not that creative.

Jonathan Paz (14:22)
No, no.

Quentin Edmonds (14:25)
No, I love it. Listen, the name is the name. You know what I’m saying? You know, I saw—I’m I’m from Baltimore, you know, and if you know anything from Baltimore, The Wire. I’m not sure if you guys watch the show The Wire, but there’s a famous line in that show where it says, “My name is my name,” meaning like I make the name that I choose, I choose the respect that their name is going to carry. And so forget about a clever name, whatever. Your name is gonna carry respect because that’s your name. And it backs up what y’all do. So I love it, man. I I absolutely love it. Listen, gentlemen, is there anything that I have not brought up that you guys would like to talk about? Is there any other words of inspiration, education, motivation? You know, maybe you came in with a thought on your mind that you wanted our viewers to know. I just want to kind of create space that if there is a message you want to land, that you can make sure you go ahead and land it.

Jonathan Paz (16:01)
My friend.

Alex Semenov (16:02)
The message, the only message that, you know, like we said before, we try to help people, especially veterans. You know, that’s basically what we try to do. And, you know, we’re doing, you know, some smaller stuff, some of the bigger stuff, but I’m just encouraging like people like to start like helping veterans all over the United States. You know, that’s you know, and I know a lot of investors are investing in different types of, you know, real estate, you know, Section Eight, you know, just regular tenants, you know, different kind of affordable living, all that. But for some reason, I don’t know why the veterans been on the side for many years, you know, in decades. So and if we can just together try to help them to achieve better living, you know, get off the street and just provide, you know, what they’ve been providing for us, basically.

Jonathan Paz (16:51)
Right, which is everything, you know. And and a lot of people—I mean, it’s not just our industry, in a lot of industries, almost every single industry, they’re very driven by the prospect of the income that they can generate from from something that they do. We’ve learned, you know, over our careers that it’s not necessarily the prospect of income that should entice you. It’s the prospect of of providing quality. If you provide quality, you can provide some love in what you do. And you come from a good place, the funds just follow. The funds just follow after that. So just making sure that, you know, you cross the T’s, dot the I’s, not for the benefit of the deal, but for the benefit of the people that the deal affects—that is something that’s very important. And that’s one of the major reasons why we work directly with and for and the advocacy of the veterans as well. And we don’t just stop there, we also work with, you know, underprivileged people that that need affordable housing as well. We work in areas that seem, you know, that don’t seem the best on paper because the the neighborhood needs it or the city needs it, or the town needs it as well. If you are, you know, yeah, we’re in real estate, but we’re we’re philosophically gardeners. You know, in the water we are, we want it to grow, we want it to be beautiful, we want flowers to bloom where there weren’t flowers before. And we found a lot of success in that.

Quentin Edmonds (18:18)
So well said, man. So well said. Listen, gentlemen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you?

Alex Semenov (18:30)
My email [email protected] or the Instagram alexeisemenov.co

Jonathan Paz (18:39)
Yeah. [email protected] and I’m Jonathan Paz Official on Instagram. And yeah, those are the or on on on LinkedIn. It’s Jonathan Paz Official on LinkedIn as well.

Quentin Edmonds (18:53)
Yeah. Well, gentlemen, let me say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time. I appreciate you guys coming on. I believe time is our most precious commodity, right? And so I know how podcasts works, but still, you gave us your time today, and that’s very valuable. So I appreciate you giving us your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. I believe stories are a premium. I believe stories have a way. And Jonathan, I promise you, I’m piggybacking on what you said, but I say this too—I think stories have a way of planting seeds. Planting seeds in people. We may not see the growth, but that seed is there. And eventually that seed takes root and it and it starts to grow. So thank you for coming and planting seeds. Lastly, gentlemen, thank you for your mindset and bringing your mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you, gentlemen, coming on.

Jonathan Paz (19:40)
Appreciate it.

Alex Semenov (19:40)
Thanks for having us. Really appreciate it.

Quentin Edmonds (19:42)
Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard the gentlemen. Their information is in the show notes. So please get in contact with them. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like these gentlemen here. So I say thank you again. And to everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.