Real Estate Explained

The Truth About Multigenerational Living and What Buyers Overlook with Hasib Iqbal

• Nick Bush

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What does it really take to build a 7,000 sq ft home for your entire family—and start a brand new career in real estate at the same time?

In this episode of Real Estate Explained, host Nick Bush, sits down with Hasib Iqbal ,a Northern Virginia-based realtor who’s redefining what it means to serve your community, support your family, and show up fully in your first year as an agent.

We unpacked the sacrifices, strategy, and cultural values behind his decision to build a multigenerational home from the ground up. From selling his car to fund his wife’s business to closing his first real estate deals with $2M buyers just weeks into the game—Haseeb’s story is a blueprint in hustle, heart, and family-first decision making.

We talk about:

🎙️ Why more families are building instead of buying

🎙️ How cultural connection creates trust in real estate

🎙️What multigenerational living really looks like behind closed doors

🎙️ The biggest lessons Haseeb learned from building his dream home

🎙️ How new agents can win even without experience

Whether you’re a buyer thinking about building, a seller wondering what today’s buyers care about, or an agent looking to break through—this episode will challenge what you think you know about real estate, family, and what makes a house a home.

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Speaker 1:

Are we?

Speaker 2:

in here. I'm here with my man, iqbal. I'm here. I'm excited to be here, nick. I love it. We grew up together. I just love that I'm here, and I wanted to give you your flowers before we start. You've always been a big brother, you've been a protector, and I'm so happy to have you in my life, so I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1:

Appreciate you, bro. Appreciate you, bro. I'm happy that you are now a real estate agent. We've been pump faking, pump faking, I've been slacking, I've been slacking. So, before we get started, introduce yourself to the people, tell them who you are, what you do. My name is.

Speaker 2:

Haseeb Iqbal. I'm with Fineness Realty under Legacy and I'm about maybe a month in, so I'm grateful enough for Nick to be inviting me on here, but I am an Annandale just like Nick a native born and raised and yeah, that's a little bit about me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so Hasib is. I've known Hasib since we were probably like 11, 12. Same same, different elementary school in the same neighborhood, though Long time. Same middle school, same high school, high school basketball teammates, yes, and you've been crushing your whole life.

Speaker 2:

Bar City Athletics baby I got these stitches because of Nick. You guys, that's the crazy thing we do. I forgot that that happened.

Speaker 1:

I forgot that I collided into you. I was bleeding crazy that day Same same, but you were in banking for like what Basically?

Speaker 2:

you've been in banking before real estate, right? I went to college, it wasn't for me. I was like there's nothing that these guys can teach me that I can't learn out there. I'm a little bit more on the adventurous side. So I went out, got into banking, went to H&M, grabbed my best suit didn't even have experience begged the branch manager at Capital One to hire me, got hired as a peak time teller.

Speaker 1:

It's only 24 hours.

Speaker 2:

Anybody else would have said, no, I can't do it. I've always been humble hustler. I didn't care, I did it. The rest is history. Got all the way up to work in every position back office, front office, management, all that good stuff and I'm glad I did because it really sharpens your tool set for that whole customer-centric 101 and knowing people and mirroring people and just that whole atmosphere. So it worked out.

Speaker 1:

And then you were, so you got into real estate and you you're on shouts to kelly martinez. Yeah, she's one of the best she's one of the whales in the market. So you're learning from definitely one of the top, the top agents and top teams in the area fine nest realty. But when you got into the business, so what was your mindset? When you're like, okay, I'm gonna get into real estate and like this is like what I'm gonna do when I get here, like what was your mindset around?

Speaker 2:

so my goal was to make free time for it um you know, being a young parent, getting married young at 25, I have three kids, yeah, um, two daughters, one son they're they're very young uh, four, six and uh, one. Um, I was like you know what? What am I gonna do? Because we live in northern virginia, yeah, so it's not easy to maintain and I have expensive taste, as a lot of people know. So I just got, I was in banking. It wasn't doing it for me.

Speaker 2:

The stress, the blood pressure is always high. You got to be above you know 9, 10 kpis, key performance indicators, what they call it. You got to just be doing your thing all around in banking. Yeah, and it's not like, uh, you can do it one month and then not do it the next. Literally, it recesses the next month. So the level of pressure, the stress, I swear it's not worth the money for me. So I was like, what am I going to do to get into something where I can pursue my dream of real estate? And I'm seeing people like you now getting into it, doing it, and I'm like, damn, nick's doing it too. I got to get into this right. A lot of my loved ones are doing it. They're becoming super successful. My wife I look at my wife one day and I'm like what are we going to do? Because I don't want to work forever for someone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Which, like I said, if you're in IT, things of that nature you enjoy what you do. Nothing against you. I've just always had an entrepreneur mindset, yeah. So I told my wife. I said what are we going to do to get into something? She said, you know what I want to get into? Decor. I've always thought about decor like flowers, florals, arches, weddings, all this stuff. I kid you not, I sold my car. When they say, bet on yourself, no one knows this, it was kind of a tearjerker Leading up to that.

Speaker 2:

Life started to get a little tough because I had a second kid and I wasn't in the career, like I said, I wasn't in the income I wanted to be in. And it got to the point where I'm going to dealerships, I'm not having to give up cars that I'm driving and I'm doing X, y, z and still having to maintain this image. You know how it is, how we are as men. We can't be upset, we can't show fatigue or being tired or being upset. So I'll never forget the day I had to turn in one of you know the expensive cars for her. Uh, my wife. It just ignited something in me. I was like, no, never again. We're gonna take it to the top, we're gonna skyrocket. I'm never, she's never gonna be able to feel this ever again, this pain, right now. So that's when we I talked and I said what should we do? I sold my car and I bought her her first shipment for decor. The rest is history. And then I ubered for another year and a half.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Everywhere there's no Uber To work to jobs, and here we are now.

Speaker 1:

And so then you got into real estate. So real estate was like an extension of like I need to build something where I can control my income and my time.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, okay.

Speaker 1:

And so you got in, you joined one of the best teams in the area and you're rolling already, rolling already. You got some. I'm trying to, I'm trying to, yeah, and so so what's your like?

Speaker 2:

so just let's tell the people like a month in.

Speaker 1:

What's your, what's your pipeline looking like right now?

Speaker 2:

my pipeline. It's kind of scary because my teammates are kind of like I see this is if this is the way it's going to be and you can close like this is looking. We probably haven't seen anything like this in someone's first week or two yeah because I kind of didn't know. I don't know anything about the industry at first. Now I'm going to learn it. It's been like a few weeks. I have a few pre-approvals. I already have like four to five, two weeks in buyer. What are they called Buyer?

Speaker 2:

broker contract where people are like no, you're my realtor. I'm getting a lot of inquiries on Instagram, so I am lot of inquiries um on instagram.

Speaker 1:

So I am stoked. Yeah, I can't believe this is happening. It's like a dream come true. So I knew, um, you know, I was telling my wife. I was like, if a seat, when hasib decides to do this, he's gonna, he's gonna crush because he's just he's a popular guy in his network. He's like kind of the guy in his network, thank you. And so it's great for me to, you know, be looking from the sidelines and see like yo, yo, he's actually like doing that.

Speaker 1:

Right, I appreciate you and you don't know the stat yet, but it's like 20% of the agents are doing 80% of the business. I think sometimes they use the stat 10%. It's really like 10% of the agents are doing 90% of the business. Right, the average there's a million and a half, a little over a million and a half agents in the U licensed agents in the US, and the average agent last year did two transactions, and so for you to already have three, four, moving along, you already are doing more than the average. But I think that it's tough because in this area the average sales price is like six to 700,000, depending on where you are. So most people when they're making a purchase like that or selling something like that. They want somebody that's experienced, that has the knowledge of the game and that they know is going to broker this correctly. That's right. So why do you think you've been able to get your people to trust you to do business with you right at the beginning?

Speaker 2:

So shout out to Kelly from Finest she's our team lead. Kelly has been there with me every step of the way. She joins the buyer broker consultations I mean the consultations. She joins everything. She's there literally if it's 10 o'clock, if it's 11 o'clock, if it's 12 o'clock, if it's 6 am, she's picking up the phone, she's getting on the phone and she's there for me. Patricia, all of them, everybody at exp. Actually, over there in the tyson's corner, mossy, another guy that's literally been there for me, kind of recruited me over to get on the team. But I also think it stems from, like you said, when people trust you and people know that you're genuine. And I stress this with everyone, with everything in life, because there's everyone selling weddings or selling shoes or set but or there's everyone in banking, but people come, you know people come to nick because the experience that nick gives them right like we're on nick's podcast yeah, because I want to be on your podcast, because the experience that you give who you are, your aura.

Speaker 2:

So I think, when it comes to people trusting you and knowing that you're going to go to the end of the earth to make it happen for them, and your character and your ethics and who you are play a big role in that. That's why I think a lot of people and that's what a lot of people are telling me scary thing is, last year I referred about 11 homes. Last year that's what really started making me feel like hold on man I think you need to go do this I referred 11 homes for family members and they all purchased homes yeah I'm looking at my wife like dude.

Speaker 2:

I could have made a fortune last year 11 houses so now I'm at the point where you know that's what I'm shifting towards.

Speaker 1:

Like that's the goal right now so on the team, are you um like kind of in the buyer agent role right now? I am basically doing everything, you know you throw somebody in the water everything.

Speaker 2:

I have people looking at condos I have people with pre-approvals for over 2 million looking at houses in Chantilly with seven bedrooms, eight baths.

Speaker 1:

Like.

Speaker 2:

I'm still learning all this stuff. So, Kelly and them. You know I finally got set up yesterday because they're like you're just bringing such a high influx of clients right away that we're rolling with the punches with you. But you got to get set up on X, Y, Z and get this rolling and start getting, because I've just been bringing people right. So that's where I'm at right now. But now I'm starting to slowly, with my team, learn the business. So I'm basically doing everything.

Speaker 1:

So what do you feel like is like so, as a new agent, right what? How are you conveying your value proposition to folks?

Speaker 2:

Well, at the end of the day, the good part is, the people that are contacting me are loved ones, they're friends, they're family, they already know me, they trust me. There's not much that needs to be done. I'm waking up. I can show you a text where I woke up yesterday to a text pre-approval letter for $2 million. And they're like Kassib, make it happen. I want X, y, z.

Speaker 1:

You know, that's interesting because when I first got into the business, I reached out. I reached back to everyone, just like from the area Gotcha gotcha. And at that time I was younger, right, I was 26. So everybody was like, can we buy a house? Like that's not even possible, and so I did it with education right Like social media, leveraging social media and doing the education and kind of teaching people like the home buying process and, like the selling process, I love it.

Speaker 2:

Your videos motivated me, I'm telling you right now I watch them every day.

Speaker 1:

I think, what's different, though, like what I see, because you're Afghan, right, yes, afghan, do you say Afghani?

Speaker 2:

Afghani, Afghan, whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 1:

You're Afghani, right and I think that what's really cool about certain communities, especially our area, what people don't realize in Annandale is black and white, is the minority and it's mostly international. It's a melting pot, you know, and I tell people all the time people are like, oh, you're from Annandale, the Korean restaurants are there. I'm like no, there's the Korean restaurants are there. I'm like no, there's a lot of Korean businesses, but this is really like a Central American city there's a bunch of Afghans.

Speaker 1:

I always tell my guys I'm like I grew up with a bunch of Afghans and so I know. A lot of times in those communities it's like the community is tight. You only work with your people in your community. So is that like a reality for you also?

Speaker 2:

That's what's happening.

Speaker 1:

You nailed it nick I mean your synopsis is accurate.

Speaker 2:

It's 100. That's what it is. Afghans are reaching out to me. Some of them are brand new. They've been here four years. You know, with everything that happened evacuation and afghan in afghanistan a lot of people came here like siv, things that nature. A lot of them brought money over I don't know how but they brought money over these people.

Speaker 2:

People were in government, they were politicians, all sorts of stuff. So I got a guy that's only been here for like six years so far and he's already pre-approved for like $1.1 million. And I'm like these people that have lived here for 30 years you know what I mean can't get approved for $1.1 million, but these are guys that have been working on their beacons. Just in the last six years they got high beacons and, like it comes down to me. A little background about me is I'm born and raised in Annandale, Virginia, but thank God for my father. He took me back to Afghanistan during a war zone at least seven times.

Speaker 2:

Because he's G'd up, bro, because he's like he's G'd up. I don't know, I already know he's G'd up. Seven or eight times he took me back. My mom was like, don't take him back, this is a war zone. He's like no, no, no, no, no. The culture, the ethics and his native language. He needs to be fluent in it. I want him to know that this is who you are, this is your background, and that helped a lot with what's going on right now with real estate, because those are the people that are reaching out to me, because I can speak the language I can connect to them. I know, from mannerism and respect and not to be too much, not to be too little exactly what they want, so it works out.

Speaker 1:

So that cultural competency is important. Do you feel like people are just like, let me connect to my guy, or is it more so cultural competency? Let me explain. So I have a lender I work with His name's, javier right, and he's good.

Speaker 2:

I like javier, javier's great javier's a beast.

Speaker 1:

I'm shouting him out. He's gonna go straight to his head he's amazing.

Speaker 2:

No, I love him. Before you even begin on javier, here is someone that's saja, who's another realtor. I love her. She connected me to javier. Javier, literally from that day, has been locked in with me we can't tell javier he's the goatAT too much. I love him Great character.

Speaker 1:

But you know, sometimes and I don't know if I'm violating the fair, but, like I understand, I think because I grew up in such a place where it was really diverse that, like someone that is Spanish, that's Hispanic and speaks Spanish and, you know, knows English fluently, they might want to talk about their money and their language. Though that's right, you know, correct, and is that part of it? People are like, look, I can do the day-to-day, it's cool, but when I'm talking about this money and this asset, I need to do this in my language.

Speaker 2:

I have an example of that too, not with sharing any names or stuff like that, right, because I don't know what I'm allowed to share or not share, but I know that I have a guy right now. That's exactly it. This guy comes to all the, he's a relative, he comes from my in-laws. He comes to all the family gatherings Low key doesn't say a word, hangs out chills, that's it. All he shared with everybody is that, oh, I drive Uber here and there and this and that contacts me because he sees the first gen stuff that I posted with glendon shout out to glendon by the way glendon helped me buy my house.

Speaker 1:

So shouts to glendon glendon is amazing.

Speaker 2:

He's there at the every ring, every call. I go ahead and get the process started. Glendon gets involved. Same thing the guy is very secretive, but he trusts me, he wants to talk to me and he wants me to literally be a part of the entire process. So you're absolutely correct, didn't want to share nothing about nothing.

Speaker 2:

He rather have shared it in our language with you and then me kind of mediate through him having a conversation with kelly glennon, all those people, but his comfort literally started with me. So if I wasn't a part of the equation, they they would have never. You know what I mean. They would have never met the guy. So you're absolutely right on your synopsis and your inference about that as well too.

Speaker 1:

So when you got into the business, right, what do you feel like? Now you're a month in, right. So it's not like you know a whole bunch, right? So I never really heard any myths, but I have heard that.

Speaker 2:

I'm kind of a spookster, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

Because you own your home. I own my house and you own. This is not your first house, right? This is a second house, second house, so you're a homeowner also.

Speaker 2:

We paid off the Annandale house, stayed in it for a long time. I started popping out a bunch of kids. So and we come from a cultural background where I wasn't going to leave my parents luckily I married a fantastic businesswoman, entrepreneur. That is cool with that whole thing of you know the culture of keeping my parents with us and all that good stuff. So we actually sold the annandale home and went and built and clifted yeah well, it's jurisdiction manassas. But if I tell you manassas, you're gonna think it's manassas, manassas but it's like literally in the woods, in those jungles that's a nice little area, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, trees home shout out to them really good, yeah, builder. But never really heard any myths because I've never really been around the industry so I don't know what I'm learning as we go.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you could tell me a few myths that you had well, the usual myths, especially when you're talking to buyers, is like you know how much down payment you need, or what your credit score needs to be, or like how, how hard it is to actually buy a home you know, and so are you dealing with any of that, or are you just getting?

Speaker 2:

people okay, now that you worded it like that, definitely okay. I'm that excited, like basically I'm saying like what did you?

Speaker 1:

what have you learned now that you're in the industry that you didn't know before?

Speaker 2:

everything okay everything, just whole process, how you need to get something signed, how they need to sit down, the consultation. You need to walk them through the whole process from A to Z, what it's going to be. They have all sorts of questions First time home buyers, interest rates, people are scared about paying 7%, 6%, so they're trying to get with you. You're supposed to be the expert, so you need to be knowledgeable. You need to be reading up every single day. I learned so much, you know. Uh, the other day they were telling me about a septic inspection, yeah, and how that works because my house actually in clifton is.

Speaker 2:

We have a drain field, these are all things yeah, you know crawl spaces like I literally didn't even know what they meant by. Is it built on a crawl space or looking at the top of the house? Is it new? Uh, did what is it? The shingles?

Speaker 1:

and all that stuff.

Speaker 2:

All these things literally in two open. I did my first two open houses yesterday, so I'm fresh on the pod off of my first two open houses. I'm not going to lie. My first open house looked like a scene out of Insidious.

Speaker 1:

It was scary.

Speaker 2:

It was scary. You had the dock, there was chains I learned right then and there, don't let your client just look at any house and say that, okay, we're gonna go look at that house elaborate on that a little bit.

Speaker 1:

What do you mean?

Speaker 2:

my clients, um were referred to me, obviously from a parent, and they just got married, um, and they contacted me and they said we were kind of looking for houses that we can build up okay right, like you know, like a fixer-upper.

Speaker 2:

Fixer-upper is the word right, the verb, the verbiage, um. So I said, okay, cool, let's do it. So I'm excited, so I'm like my first ever showing. Let's go do it. So kelly's like let's go. Kelly was kind of skeptical, she knows this, but she wanted me to get the experience right. So we get to the house.

Speaker 2:

Horrible I would have never allowed my client, yeah, to go look at that house, okay, so when we're leaving that house, long story short I looked at my client and I said, hey, look, from now on I'm going to search up the homes, don't worry, I got you. I'm going to send you a list of five to six all the time. Take a look at them, because what we just viewed I'm sure you're in there like, yeah, hasib, we're so sorry, we would not have ever Look. So that's another thing I learned You're the expert, You're the driver. You got to kind of tell them hey, not this one, I don't think this is the one.

Speaker 1:

You know. I think that's important and it's great to hear that you can understand that right away and are going to take that position, because I think a lot of times our real estate agents get a bad rap because we have so many agents that are not doing business. That's right that they don't even know the game. Right. If you're doing two deals a year, or five, or with a handful whatever, shout out to the agents that are not like you know, like shouts to y'all too. But you have to be in the game and like shoot to, like know how to play right.

Speaker 1:

And my opinion is that real estate agents should not be looked like in this commodity space. We should really be looked at as like lawyers and like CFP certified financial planners in that lane, because we're helping somebody do something that's so important and I think it's like valuable. It's valuable to a client to not have to just like have your realtor open all the doors for you. That's right, because you're seeing something that you think might be cool. That's right. Really, what you're doing in that situation is you're like. You're like listening to what they want and understanding what they want and being like you know what let me drive. And so that every time we're out on showings, you have a real option to buy one of these houses.

Speaker 2:

I tell my clients all the time it's like kind of look at me like a doctor. Yeah, you go to the doctor and he doesn't just look at you and say, oh, you need antibiotics, right, you have to explain to the doctor what's going on for him to prescribe you medication, exactly. So I kind of tell my clients that all the time and I did it in my first few consultations I'm like look, I'm gonna ask a bunch of questions, a lot of questions. It was kind of beginners, you know, scared to try to like hey, I don't want you to go look at these houses. But now that I've seen it I'm like hold on my inference. My natural instinct was actually correct. They should have never looked at that house. I should have never let them. And we don't want to be order takers. We're the professionals, we're the experts and luckily, like you know, we grew up playing varsity athletics and basketball. My the ball.

Speaker 2:

My confidence kind of comes from that, so it's oh, it's been with me since 15 and I just sometimes you gotta not second guess yourself. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1:

You gotta just take the lead I think that your client wants you to take the lead, yes, and, and they not. They don't even know what, like how to convey that yeah, um, and that that that's what needs to happen. But I think if you don't, if your clients don't trust you, it's going to be a tough, absolutely correct, but also for you, because you're going to be doing a lot of running around, a lot. Yeah, that's dope, bro. I'm glad you're in the game, bro. Thank you, man. So what was I going to? I had a question, but I forgot it, you know.

Speaker 2:

It's okay, I'm going blank too. I'm just excited to see you and be here with you today. That's everything for me nah, this is dope.

Speaker 1:

So are you? Um, how are you? Because you guys have the wedding business, yes, right, so are you guys leveraging that at all in real estate? Like, do you have a plan to leverage?

Speaker 2:

that? No, it's crazy, nick. This is why you got to be around people that know more than you and do more than you. Right, kind of learn something from them. Once I got with fineness, they were like hasib, are you talking to your newlyweds?

Speaker 1:

about buying homes, yeah I'm like.

Speaker 2:

No, as a matter of fact, I'm not. I was like because we're so busy with getting the flowers prepped and the centerpieces and I'm doing three, four weddings a weekend. I'm kind of having to make you know there's a lot of friction now in my business because I'm having to hire more people to go do the jobs and that I'm able to be here for this podcast right at 10 am. So I went for it. They say you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Speaker 1:

Exactly.

Speaker 2:

I have a client who contacted us for decor two weeks ago Unreal. I'm like, hey, after the wedding, what are you going to do? She's like, what are you talking about? I'm like you're going to buy a house, aren't you? And she's like, yeah, we just don't have an agent or anything. Like I'm a realtor, hello. She's like, let's do it, let's do it. Send her the um, uh uh, kelly's uh um to get on the thing for a consultation. Zoom, yeah, boom. She signed up, yeah. And I'm looking at her like, oh, my god, this goes hand in hand at this point. So so now I'm going to make it a part of my wedding business. We've been in the industry for five years. We're doing lots of weddings, lots of weddings, but I think I do. There is a piece where I do need to get licensed in Maryland, in DC, because a lot of my clients are Baltimore.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you're doing weddings out there, so I do need to see.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, look into that. But, yeah, you're absolutely right. It goes hand in hand, and I was able to book literally a consultation from that conversation.

Speaker 1:

And so you guys built your house in Clifton, right? Yes, can you give us the specs on the house?

Speaker 2:

How much it costs.

Speaker 1:

Well, you're not saying how much it costs, but like what's the bedroom count, bathroom count?

Speaker 2:

It's about 7,000 square feet. Okay, and it's about 7,000 square feet, okay, and it is six bedrooms. I love the area, like four or five baths. You know we're not rich.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

We have big hearts.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I have a big heart. I have a big heart. I've always been this way, even in school. Remember, I'm wearing the. You know my dad's busting his ass. I don't know how right, but I right. But I had the brand new jordans on all the time.

Speaker 1:

We have big hearts. We have big hearts.

Speaker 2:

Um, I thought this was the leap that I needed to take to kind of become the leader of my family yeah and kind of get that respect and tell my dad, don't worry about it, mortgage whatever it is, because I'm not gonna lie, my dad came through with that deposit right because he sold the anadelle house, kept it real with me, you we're best friends and he did that. But he said look, from this point on I'm getting on an airplane one-way ticket to Afghanistan. I don't know when I'm going to come back, because he has two properties back home so he wants to go chill, he's done so. Dad retired and everything's on me now and I love it.

Speaker 1:

That's dope, that's like very cultural, like what you just explained.

Speaker 2:

I understand it. And so why did you decide to build instead of buy? So, when we were looking at it? That's a great question. I love you, you're amazing. So really, that's a great question. So the reason why is because I told my parents I said, look, if we sell our Annandale home, we're in this together, right, we've all helped pay off this house. At this point, if we sell our annandale home and we go, we've been looking for a year, we've been looking for a year chantilly loudon, county, xyz. I said we're kind of not finding the house. You guys are picky, my wife is picky, my mom is picky. I'm like you guys are not getting the house that you guys are looking for and you're gonna end up spending 1.2, 1.1, whatever it is a million dollars easy for a house.

Speaker 2:

That's not even what you want so lo and behold my realtor, emron. He's with remax. I'm gonna shout him out too. I went to him and I said look man, what do we do these? They're not finding the house that they want like they want all these different things.

Speaker 2:

He said look, man, there's drees homes, there's this place. They're only gonna fit 13 or 12 or 13 houses. Go look into it. Don't get me wrong, I didn. I kind of bit off more than I can chew. There was times where I wanted to sit down and cry and pull my hair out from how stressful it was to build this house. You're building it bedroom by bedroom, faucet by faucet, closet by closet, door by door. That's how we came about it. I said look, if we're going to put $400,000, $500,000 down, we might as well we're going to finance $870,000, $890,000, $900,000. But get our dream home that we built, that we want on a hill, two-acre lot, why not do it? So everyone was like let's go do it.

Speaker 1:

So what was the process of that? Did you, was it just the builder? Was it architect? Everything Designer, like, how did you go from A to Z?

Speaker 2:

there. Oh my God, there was so much, it took a year.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so it took a year to build the rain, the snow.

Speaker 2:

You come and it's just a slab of land. And then come and it's just a slab of land. And then when you see what these guys do at the end of this you're like, wow, like I want to get into that in the future. Yeah, like I would want to flip, or you know, flip homes or you know, do these things, because it's amazing to see you're literally telling them what you want and we didn't know any better. There's things now that I look at. I'm like damn, I could have done that like this I could have done that like that's experience.

Speaker 2:

But it's literally meeting after meeting, person after person, professional after professional, diagram after diagram, and you're literally clueless. But thank God I had realtors, I had some connections. I had some guys that have their own construction company. They're kind of bummed out. I didn't go with them, but it happened right. And we got it done. My wife went to every meeting.

Speaker 1:

I'm not gonna I was gonna say like how did you, how did you come up with the, the, the layout, like the design of the house?

Speaker 2:

so my wife and my father came out with that. I'm one of the guys that from the beginning was like, look, I'm gonna hustle, I'm gonna make it happen for you guys yeah and I'm gonna bust my behind to pay for it yeah but you guys have to design. You were like, do it, do what you guys want to do. So I barely went to meetings. I'm saying what my wife and my father's experience was. I would go here and there. I went to the ribbon cutting and I just loved it.

Speaker 1:

Y'all had a ribbon cutting.

Speaker 2:

All that, you would have a ribbon cutting bro yeah, I mean we don't drink. I'm Muslim. But, they wanted to do like wine and stuff like that. We're not really into that type of thing, but we ribbon cutting Our realtor had decorated the house with like this really nice sign.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It was an amazing experience. I'm not going to lie, I don't not the type of guy. I'm not too soft, I don't cry too much of this and that, but I kind of shed a tear that day Cause.

Speaker 1:

I'm like.

Speaker 2:

This is the American dream.

Speaker 2:

My parents not to segue into anything crazy, but Nick, my dad fought wars. He shouldn't be here. Yeah, he was a guerrilla fighter, not even what you know. He was a guerrilla commander. Yeah, he should have died a million times For him to come over become refugees in Pakistan. Come over here. My mom and them to come over here. Work at fish and chips, work at a cleaner's, my dad to do God knows what two, three jobs. For me to walk into this house, everything in our timeline was flashing before my eyes. That's why I'm telling everybody if you're sitting on that couch and you're watching this, don't wait, go become a realtor. It took me five years to get past the test.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, five years. Well, I think it took you five years to really decide to lock in. So what made you decide like this house? Because you had the Anandor house right, you got sold. That that's like the house you grew up in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, right. So I cried at that house.

Speaker 1:

So really you kind of building, you're kind of buying your first house, like for the family. What made you decide I'm going to build my dream house the first time instead of just and I know this kind of goes into what we'll talk about a little bit later but what made you decide to just do it the first time and not kind of ease into that space?

Speaker 2:

So you ever get around the big ballers? Yeah, you know the high rollers. Yeah, I have a shout out to all the big ballers and high rollers. I know who they are. Every time I'm getting around the guys, I want to be like they're like man. I've just built in so-and-so, I've just built in loud Like man. You know what I got to be.

Speaker 1:

I got to kind of get a part of that conversation.

Speaker 2:

Like you know, that was a goal for me. It's like a landmark, you know. So I'm like hold on. Why are these guys all building? And not only that, I had made some good money off of decor.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like in real estate, I get it. You can make 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 grand Sky's the limit. Right In decor, you can make, you know, 5, 6, 7,000 a wedding. You got three weddings back to back every week. Yeah, you're doing well. Peak season June, july you can make a lot of money. So I had some money saved over from that as well too, which was why I was like hold on, I'm in a comfortable spot to have a few mortgages ready, even if because my mortgage is a lot dude, I'm not gonna lie yeah, I know, I know, yeah, I'm kind of scared because they give you a buffer month yeah, right, when you move in, you don't pay it exactly but july, it's coming up, it's coming, oh this is to be your first mortgage payment.

Speaker 2:

My first mortgage payment. Yeah, okay, Pretty hefty mortgage payment. That's two and a half million dollars. I need real estate to work you guys? Yeah, it's going to work out.

Speaker 1:

It's going to work out. That's dope, bro. I'm proud of you, man.

Speaker 2:

Thank you To build that house.

Speaker 1:

I'm proud of you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so when you sit down with them, they give you three. I think there's like the Champ. There's these really fancy names. I only remember the outlet. So they give you structures on each and you can only go off the structures. I think mine was the Champ and a cool fact is I think you went to school with my sister too Arzo Arzo built right next to me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's, great.

Speaker 2:

So now we're on like four acres together. There's no median. Yeah, they built right next to me, my brother-in-law and my sister, and we built right next to them. And so why did you choose Clifton? I chose it because throughout the years we always grew up and a lot of the doctors we knew and all that high profile people.

Speaker 2:

They'd be like oh, I live in Clifton, so it kind of rang out Great Falls, clifton, you know these things right, so I would always and it was like the scariest road to drive through I don't know if you guys, if you're driving through there at night it's terrifying. So anytime we'd come to Manassas or go to Woodbridge or go this way, if we went to Braddock and we went- past Went to Burke Way through Burke yeah.

Speaker 2:

I'm terrified during the day. This drive is a. It's a vibe. There's farms, all the. Maybe I could live here one day. Yeah, fairy tales would have never thought it could happen.

Speaker 2:

Small kid from small town, annandale, I never thought I could do something like that right so when I would drive through here I was like man, I'm looking at my wife like maybe one day it'd be crazy if we could live here. Like great falls, the lot opened itself up. It's right on the borderline of there. It just it's hit. We don't know. I still, to this day, don't know clifford is dope bro.

Speaker 1:

I have a, I have a. I have a buddy that lives in little rocky run. It was right across the street from centerville high school that neighborhood, but like you're right, bro, when you drive back there's horses. Yeah, you're like there's signs that say people are crossing with horses and you don't even know, like you, you don't even realize like that's back there kind of in that pocket. You know what I mean and the yeah, literally, literally.

Speaker 2:

You don't see? I mean, some nights I'm driving I see family of like 12, 15 deers yeah just hanging out family of foxes. You don't see that where you're coming, so it's kind of cool. I'm not gonna lie it's kind of scary though huntsman spiders and stuff. I haven't Huntsman spiders and stuff.

Speaker 1:

I haven't even seen Huntsman spiders. No, you get like Big spiders, big spiders, huge. I get that joint pest-proof bro I relate to the. You know, I was saying I was in LA last week and I mean I drive a nice car, right, I like my car.

Speaker 2:

Range Rover. I'm sorry, I do. No, I'm your fan, bro, I'm your fan. I'm here as a fan and a brother.

Speaker 1:

I don't like to be like Yoga at the Range, right, no, no, no, I'm going to do that for you, but I appreciate you doing that for me. Man, give me your flowers, dude, I don't care, but I was driving around LA and it's interesting to me the mindset people have right, because I was driving around LA and there was like a G.

Speaker 2:

Six seconds yeah.

Speaker 1:

Porsche every six seconds, rolls Royce, rolls Royce trucks, everything, there's everything, right Lambos, ferraris, and we did some shopping on Rodeo, so we were down there experiencing that. That was cool. And we drove up into the Hollywood Hills also right, fun, fun place. And we went to Beverly Hills and we drove into Hollywood Hills and it's just like malibu.

Speaker 1:

We did go to malibu, but you know it's a little, because we went to santa monica and then we drove to malibu a little bit and I was just like man, like people getting it out here for real like this is like real money, you know and but it takes a level of success right of like hustling and working hard to uh to reach that. And so it's dope that you've already like kind of put yourself in position like to be successful but to also have to maintain that success, and I think that's important for your clients to know that it's like one, it's like you've done all of the real estate things right you like.

Speaker 1:

Your family came over first generation and bought a house right, and so you have that experience. Then they paid their house off. You have that experience and they sold it. Generational wealth passed it to you and now you've been able to build your family home. So there are a lot of foundational things that you are already aware of when you're even helping a first-time home buyer, let alone someone who's doing what your parents just did. So there's a lot of value that you're going to add to your clients and experiences that you can pull from to just like crush it.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I totally can concur with what you're saying. I'm helping people do that right now and it's much more heartfelt for me, like in the beginning. I thought like, oh, I'm going to get into real estate and you're going to try to make money. I'm at the point now where it's like it's not about making the money. Honestly, if you just do the right thing and do right by people, you're going to make money.

Speaker 1:

They can feel that. Yeah, and what I was going to say about LA is like I'm driving through the Hollywood Hills and I have, you know, some people think the billionaires should pay taxes and the wealthy need to pay more taxes.

Speaker 1:

I don't feel that way. Right, I'll tell you why and I'll tell the people why I don't feel that way. Because the tax code is written so that if you become extraordinary, you get to take a bet, you get benefits, right. And so if you got straight a's like I remember sitting in school I got straight a's and I was like like like I didn't get straight a's, excuse me, you and I were the same someone in my class got straight a's all four quarters, and so she didn't have to take the final.

Speaker 1:

Right Killed it, so it was just like a benefit of doing well. Yeah, and I was riding around. I was like yo like people getting it out here, like who's out here, and I was like it's crazy that someone would ride out here and be jealous. Like why do they all this? And I was out there. I was so grateful that I could even experience that.

Speaker 2:

I love that.

Speaker 1:

Because then I know like, oh, there's another level I need to get to. Yes, Like I got a nice little cute Range Rover, but this guy just drove past me.

Speaker 2:

That's who you are, who you are.

Speaker 1:

Right and I think that like it's important for you for to be like a hustler in this business.

Speaker 2:

You know what I mean and you got the keys and the way I'm going to get there is investing in real estate, so the people need to make that happen. Nick, people don't you mentioned hustle and hard work. People don't understand what I do. Every weekend, friends and family are like we don't see you at the gatherings anymore. We don't see you hanging out anymore. We don't see you at the hookah bar anymore. We don't see you at all.

Speaker 2:

I started to stop barely posting to the point where everyone was like dude, keep up who you are. This whole little thing. You got going on. You got to talk to the people, get on Instagram. We'd like to hear you. I started to get a few DMs and I'm like no, you don't understand when I have to prep for a wedding and then I have to come unload the wedding, pack the wedding back up at night, far, come back at night, unload that wedding, pack a whole other wedding, go, do a whole wedding, come back Now, mind you, I'm not talking about what I do for my teammates. Like, whoever comes with me, you're not an employee, you're a family. Like we're eating food, I'm doing the work with you. I'm buying you whatever you want, whatever you need snacks, jacks, whatever you want, I'm doing it for you at this point.

Speaker 2:

It just went down, so I'm doing it right. Vapes, anything. Cakes that rhyme too. Yeah, literally like the eating cakes.

Speaker 1:

I know.

Speaker 2:

I'm bothering you, let me stop.

Speaker 1:

No, no, you're good so literally.

Speaker 2:

At that point people don't understand that I'm exhausted, Like you can tell right now with my eyes, yeah you look like that, I'm exhausted. I look beat 24-7. I don't even have time to like sometimes take a shower, because I got home at 4 in the morning. I unloaded and I got to get back up at 7 or 8 in the morning and do it again.

Speaker 2:

I literally didn't take a shower. I sprayed cologne and now I'm going to the next hall. Literally didn't take a shower, I sprayed cologne and I'm going to the next hall. Yeah, so when you're absolutely right, when people see the car or see the house or see the lifestyle, and they judge you not from an optimistic standpoint or from a damn, I'm proud of that person, I could.

Speaker 2:

I couldn't understand it till I started hustling yeah and now I'm like man, I'm proud, like that person is penny pension and they got money because they busted their behind for it. You don't get it. I think Drake had a line and I never understood it. Drake used to say I'm not going to say the first part of it, but he said people with no money act like, money isn't everything. That is a bar, because now I know spending $100,000 on decor that hold on. I made this investment, you did it, but now you're trying to come around and get money with me.

Speaker 1:

I was listening to that song yesterday and I was like you know, you got these songs. My wife is like that really connects to you. Huh, I'm telling you All right, we're going to get you out of here, bro. Any last words you want to tell the people you know, my real estate, take right, we're going to do the real estate takeover, my bad, let me jump, let me watch me jump the gun, so any last words?

Speaker 2:

for the people. Any last words, All right. Please, you guys get in tune with Nick. He has something amazing happening coming out of Northern Virginia. Support the pod. Get on the pod Anything that you can do. Share the pod. Subscribe to the pod.

Speaker 1:

Appreciate you bro.

Speaker 2:

This guy's an amazing guy. He has amazing character and I'm grateful to even know him, to be in his presence and one day he's going to be a mogul in this industry. So, while you can right now show that support and genuine love to him, because he needs all the support he can- Thanks bro. I appreciate that a lot. Definitely, that's what I believe about you.

Speaker 1:

If somebody wants to buy a house, sell a house, invest, build a monster house in the woods in Clifton, how can they find you? Where can they connect?

Speaker 2:

Just Haseeb underscore VA, h-a-s-i-b underscore VA. And I'm a very down to earth person. Dm me, I DM back, call me. I call back. Sit down and get a cup of coffee. Let's sit down and grab a cup of coffee. I believe in being a real person.

Speaker 1:

And look, this was going to happen. You saw Haseeb's face. We don't usually see Haseeb's face.

Speaker 2:

So if you go to his Instagram, if you go to his IG, it's going to be sideways pictures all the time, but that is him he just posted like this All right, bro, thanks for joining. Bro we out. Thank you so much, thanks for.

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Nick Bush

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