Why Hussain Abdullah Is Liquidating His Real Estate Portfolio Before the Next Opportunity

Hussain Abdullah (00:00)

I had the right person in my phone. She knows who she is.

I said, hey, She goes, I know about that place. Come to my office. I drove. It’s a small town. I went to her office five or six blocks over. She took me into all of the offices and answered questions and told me to ask questions, knowing that if I if they couldn’t answer it, she’s basically telling me, Don’t buy the building without saying it. Or at least that’s what I inferred because she’s not allowed to say that. If I don’t have her number, I might be in contract today, losing my shirt.

Meghan Escobar (02:01)

Hello everyone, welcome back to Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Meghan Escobar. And today I am sitting down with honestly, it’s such an honor to have you on the show. I’ve had the privilege of having a bit of a conversation with this gentleman prior to getting on here. And I’m so excited for the information that he’s about to share with you guys today. just from what I learned, I can tell you that you’ll walk away with some great insights and some great wisdom today.

from Hussain Abdullah, who is founder of HA Homes, out in the Texas area. But I will let him talk about his story because no better person to tell their own talk and walk their own path than themselves. So Hussain, thank you for taking the time out of your day to be here with us today.

Hussain Abdullah (02:43)

Thank you very much, Meghan. I appreciate you.

Meghan Escobar (02:45)

Absolutely. And for those who might not know your name can you give us like a thirty thousand foot view of what the focus is for HA Homes today and like the markets that you’re operating in?

Hussain Abdullah (02:58)

Absolutely. We actually are more national, even though primarily we’re in Texas. one of the goals of the business, was to be in 20 states and 40 cities. We’re in over 20 cities nationwide, states including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, primarily again Texas, and we’re in the Bible Belt. So 30,000 foot view, what we do is we teach people how to make money.

Keep that money and grow that money. Basically take active income and turn it into passive income. We do all the heavy lifting and you guys get to relax unless you want education along with that.

Meghan Escobar (03:34)

That’s such a beautiful thing to do. And like I said earlier, you know, one thing that a lot of people can do, especially today with all the ways and different ways to make money online, flipping, wholesaling, doing all the things, keeping the money, growing the money. This is where people struggle with. And so I love that you’re educating beyond, Beyond like that big commission or that big flip that you just got. What do you do with that,

so that’s awesome. Another thing that I really, really liked that you brought up was well, we talked about a lot, but you said you need to be willing to lose. Yeah. And following that, you said, if you haven’t been sued, you really haven’t made it. Talk a little bit more about that. Because some people might look at that be like, what are you crazy, man? Like you you know?

That’s not the world we live in. Those aren’t the highlights you see.

Hussain Abdullah (04:22)

Sure. I was lucky enough to be sued on my first real estate deal when I was 23. I bought my first property when I was 23 with credit cards. Long story short, it’s in my book. But I ended up getting sued by a co-op board in New York City in Brooklyn. Fast forward, I’ve been in court. Well, I’m batting a thousand. there’s one time I signed the NDA, but I’ve

My HA Homes has been in court, especially if you count evictions, probably a couple hundred times over my 20-year career. Let’s take doctors, for example. We’ll take it off me because I don’t want to sound like I’m the guy that’s always getting sued two minutes into the interview. The average doctor, if they work 20 years, gets sued at least 10 times in America. That’s why the insurance is so high. Everyone gets sued. This is America. This is a country where a woman

back in the nineties burnt herself with coffee and that’s why you have, hey, it’s hot, coffee’s hot. There’s a label on there because she sued McDonald’s, I believe, for millions of dollars because she put hot coffee between her legs, drove the lid open, she burned herself. Everybody gets sued, especially if you have money. Now they don’t always win, but you end up in court. So how long could you have been in business or dealt with so many people and you never got threatened of being sued?

Well because nobody’s ever wrong. I’ll give you one quick analogy, you know, just to give you an example. I have tenants, especially in Philadelphia, I’d never want to be a landlord in a blue state again. And I’m not gonna make it political, but just very liberal states are very good to tenants. This tenant didn’t pay for months, months, months, and then called us slumlords because her toilet broke.

And then she wouldn’t let us in to fix it. So all over social media, she called the slumlords. Which is another free tip you didn’t ask. Never let anybody know what you own. Never say you’re the owner of a property. Never tell anybody anything. None of my tenants know what I own. I don’t claim anything publicly. So to answer your question, how many people could you have interacted with if you hadn’t been sued? It’s just part of the game. Because if you’re doing everything right, who cares about getting sued?

Meghan Escobar (06:24)

That’s right. It could be a false accusation.

Hussain Abdullah (06:27)

Yeah, I mean it doesn’t mean you’re gonna lose. I mean you get court paperwork all the time and threatening letters and ninety nine percent of the time it’s just error. it’s not like the worst. I mean court sucks. I’m not, you know. But it’s part of the game. If you’re not willing to be sued or comfortable with that, don’t go into business.

Meghan Escobar (06:42)

Amen to that. I truly believe that is what separates folks who are in the game here to stay long term versus those who are just here to just for a quick transaction, And it’s most certainly the kind of stuff that people don’t talk about enough. Like one thing I really liked about you, Hussain, was you’re like, I post this stuff on my social media. I I post my losses. I’m not like

gonna just post the highlights like most people do and they live in the pretend world that failure doesn’t happen.

Hussain Abdullah (07:12)

Yeah. You got day traders, they post once every two weeks or once every month. I made eighty nine percent of this deal. Yeah. Cool. What’d you do the last thirty days? Why aren’t you showing what you’re posting every day? Trading is seven days a week if you’re doing crypto, if it’s a stock market, that’s open five days a week. Why you post it once in the blue? And how come you’ve been day trading for six months, but you still got the same thousand dollars in the account? Like if you’re making eighty percent, shouldn’t you be a millionaire by now?

I mean, so yeah, people only post the good stuff and you can’t do that, you know. and also like I said, I post my losses. I’ve done over three hundred flips, I have a ninety eight percent win percentile. So it’s not like I always lose. But you know, once in a while you’re gonna catch a L. And it’s part of it. You have to.

Meghan Escobar (07:54)

Yeah. It’s that’s the taxes, right?

Hussain Abdullah (08:44)

Yeah, you know, it comes with it. even when things were going so good in COVID, I would buy houses just to keep my guys working. And knowing going in, I was probably gonna break even. And I lost on, I think, eight or nine deals. I’ll post the numbers. If if this is one of the clips, I’ll post my real losses. Anyway, buying houses to keep my guys working, knowing I would only make three or five grand and being like, it’s worth it. Even if I lose a couple thousand, who cares?

I got so much money from the winds over here. Yeah, I’ll just leave it as a tax write-off, but my guys are still working. Because what happens is when you have a good crew, if you can’t keep them busy, the top guys lose their day guys, and then now you don’t have a good crew anymore. And now you got guys learning how to paint, do drywall on your project. So you gotta keep guys busy. And I’ve been able to keep the people that’s been with me seven years straight. So I’ve been doing something okay.

Meghan Escobar (09:35)

what’s something that you’re focused on like solving or scaling next? What’s the next real big goal for HA Homes?

Hussain Abdullah (09:42)

Well, it’s actually I want to say counterintuitive, but I’ve been liquidating all of my properties, all of the single families, multifamilies. I got property on sale in Philly, multifamilies, the whole deal. Because right now the market is tough and it’s very volatile. So I rather cash out all my equity and not be the guy holding the bag while America’s going through a rough patch. I had so many people who are leaving.

Or who can’t afford to pay their rent. And so I’m making deals and making deals. I don’t want to be the guy with a hundred doors just to use a round number who has 50 vacancies. And I also don’t want to be the guy with a hundred mortgages, and now I’m upside down fifty, sixty grand. I’ve lived that life. And it is not for me. So I’d rather cash out, wait for the number to drop, and then buy low and then rinse and repeat.

A lot of people are gonna make money over the next three or four years and a lot and way more people are gonna be hurt. So my next big deal, I’m not sure. I did say with during our conversation about purchasing a hotel, which would be my second hotel. I sold my first one. I seen the writing on the wall, I cashed out early. This one we were gonna get for a song. And I put the numbers out. It’s not even it’s not even a big secret, ’cause by the time this airs, I would have already said no to the deal.

Twenty-three rooms for three hundred grand, no renovations needed. Wow Sounds too good to be true, right? The numbers made sense, everything made sense,

There’s grant being grandfathered in, right? It’s called non non-conforming but active. So like if a building’s 50 years old, it doesn’t have to meet today’s code because it’s 50 years old. Unless you make a significant change, then you gotta bring it up to code. So what I found out by doing research was that the last time that they have something called the certificate of occupancy.

was from nineteen ninety-three. So what that means is if they did anything without a permit or touched anything they wasn’t supposed to, when I purchased it, I’d be liable and then have to bring everything up to code. That’s hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I’ll stop there because I don’t want to make any accusations on film.

But I can say I’ll say this one thing and I’ll let everybody else fill in the blanks. A new owner bought it in February

And still doesn’t have a certificate of occupancy and it’s been on sale and the price dropped three hundred thousand in the last two months.

so yes. I didn’t want it at six hundred thousand. I said I’ll take it at three hundred thousand and now I don’t want it anymore. Y’all fill in the blanks. Cause the day I take ownership, I gotta apply for a certificate of occupancy.

Meghan Escobar (12:08)

Yeah. There you go. like he said, fill in the blanks. And so what I wanna kinda talk about next is we talked about like getting in the right rooms, shaking the right hands, Like when it comes to building your network and all the success that you’ve had in your journey and you know what, I didn’t even ask this, but you said you bought your purchased your first home when you were twenty three. What year was that?

Hussain Abdullah (12:32)

That was 2005. I’m 44. I’m proud of it. I’m happy to be here at 44. That was 2003. That was before the real estate boom and crash. And that was before credit karma, before really social media, Facebook was still college-based. And I was able to apply for six credit cards at the same time. Because I mean the people still had almost dial-up at that point. Like I had a road runner, if you guys remember that.

So I applied for all these cards at the same time. So I was if I did that today, I would get denied. But I got all six at one time, forty grand, took the forty grand, bought halfway into this co-op in Brooklyn and the rest is history. I actually where I’m at now, I bought this mobile home park with six hundred thousand dollars on credit cards, took a million dollars in credit cards, knew a way to do the thing where I get the money off the cards, all zero interest.

introductory fees, they were brand new cards. But I had that level of credit ’cause I had that history. So I still am willing to take risks with credit card. You guys don’t do this. don’t do it. I got twenty years over twenty years in this. don’t you dare give me trying to

Meghan Escobar (13:35)

And

the reason why I brought that up was just to simply state like you have the experience, right? You have gone through losses and wins, and so you kind of know the game, but like I’m sure it took you some relationship building, some learning experiences. So, like when it comes to you building your network since the inception of everything.

What’s made the biggest difference for you?

Hussain Abdullah (14:01)

integrity and I’m thankful that I had really good friends. Cause at that time it wasn’t a mentor. It was your friend. And I had people that were 10, 20 years my senior that I always say this ’cause being a grandpa now, being in my forties.

I don’t know if I was so receptive or if they were willing to pour into me because they seen the potential. So it’s a symbiotic relationship. And in terms of the math and knowing the numbers, we shared this in our conversation. I have three degrees. I used to be a public city teacher. I taught math. I worked for the city for 14 years. So I also am pretty good with numbers. But like I said,

I give thanks to my team. I give thanks to having good people around me. Because if I were to learn to do business the wrong way, I might be a slum lord right now. But we always take care of people. Everything we do is community-based. I’m always in the community giving away money or gifts. Last week we gave away 15 bikes. Anybody that sees this, you’ll you’ll see in the links. Go back, look at my social media. I’m always giving away not that I’m giving away money. I don’t have I’m broke. Please. Don’t just call me, ask me for money. These are people I have relationships with that I’m willing to help today.

Has vetted and trusted them. I think the most important thing is when building these relations too, you also gotta vet who it is. There are a lot of people that go to events and they always want to take a picture. I’ll say this there are often times where people want to get in pictures, and I’m conveniently not available to take the picture with them. I don’t just take pictures with anybody.

Because I’ve seen people go to jail, do all of these different things, and now you’re next to that person. And I’m talking in real estate, not even just in the street. I’m talking about in real estate. And now, well, you guys are partners and but he’s there were friends on Facebook. You can’t even be my

Meghan Escobar (15:39)

Yeah.

Hussain Abdullah (15:40)

because you know, people latch on, they use you I’m friends with him, look, we got the picture and we follow each other on Facebook. I know this guy, I’ve had contractors lying on me, we’ve done tons of work. You did one job and I never called you back.

So you gotta be careful who you stand next to. But the network, like you said earlier, network is your net worth. It’s important. Yeah. Who you know can I say who you know is important, but who knows you is more important.

Meghan Escobar (16:01)

good. I like that. I might write that down

Hussain Abdullah (16:04)

you can have it. I got that from my brother. I give him credit. I got that from my brother,

Meghan Escobar (16:07)

that’s a really dope perspective to have, honestly, because I don’t think people really look at it like that ’cause they because we hear that common saying it’s like, about who you know, like get in the rooms and it’s not always about that, right?

Hussain Abdullah (16:19)

No. One of the most annoy hopefully younger people watching this, one of the most annoying things you could do. I’ll give this gem out, is when people call me or they hey, I seen you online. Can I pick your brain? Yeah, my fee is two fifty an hour. Let me know when you wanna sign up. But

Meghan Escobar (16:33)

Preserve your energy.

Hussain Abdullah (16:34)

Yeah, I’m not doing that. But if we meet, we approach the right way, I’ll sit and talk to you for three hours. So would you coming in and asking, I’ll volunteer for you. I don’t need volunteers, bro. Go get some money, get some experience. Come. If you want to do something and you want to trade off, you gotta bring value. You can’t come to me because some guy on TikTok said, Call millionaires and just tell you do stuff for free. I pay my people for work. Nobody works for me for free. Nobody volunteers.

Meghan Escobar (16:57)

Good stuff don’t come for free, right? That’s the one thing that I learned from a mentor is and I carry this with me in everything that I do because it’s one, like for you, that I one thing I really respect is like you know your value. if you don’t know your value, how can you expect somebody else to?

Hussain Abdullah (17:13)

Sure. Right.

Meghan Escobar (17:15)

And like the truth is people who pay attention.

Like if you’re that person that’s looking for stuff for free, what are you gonna do with that free information?

Hussain Abdullah (17:23)

Yeah, you’re dropping heat too. I see what you’re doing there. I see what’s going on. All right.

Meghan Escobar (17:26)

Probably nothing, right?

You know, probably nothing. So I really respect your perspective in the time that you took to share that with our audience. I think it’s important because not enough people are doing the right things in this space. And we talked a little bit about that before too. We don’t need to drop names, but it’s like do your due diligence, do your homework. We

Live in such a digital world where it’s it’s like you can find stuff out like that, you know? So do your due diligence, do your homework, get in the right rooms. Yeah. And pay for it.

Hussain Abdullah (17:59)

yeah, you gotta pay. ‘Cause

Meghan Escobar (18:00)

You’re you’re the investment, right?

Hussain Abdullah (18:02)

Yeah, people pay to book the rooms, they pay their team members, there’s insurances, there’s overhead. a good quality product is gonna cost because there’s things that go into it. Plus the time and the information. One phone call, one text could save you how much? can I add one thing?

Meghan Escobar (18:18)

Please.

Hussain Abdullah (18:18)

Just because I wanna I’ll bookend this with the hotel conversation.

Meghan Escobar (18:21)

Yeah.

Hussain Abdullah (18:22)

I had the right person in my phone. She knows who she is.

I said, hey, She goes, I know about that place. Come to my office. I drove. It’s a small town. I went to her office five or six blocks over. She took me into all of the offices and answered questions and told me to ask questions, knowing that if I if they couldn’t answer it, she’s basically telling me, Don’t buy the building without saying it. Or at least that’s what I inferred because she’s not allowed to say that. If I don’t have her number, I might be in contract today, losing my shirt.

Meghan Escobar (18:52)

There you go.

Hussain Abdullah (18:52)

So yeah, it matters.

Meghan Escobar (18:54)

Who knows you and who has that level of respect for you?

Hussain Abdullah (19:37)

Yeah. You gotta be able to get in the rooms, be in those doors, pay for it, it matters.

Meghan Escobar (19:41)

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. before we wrap up, if somebody did want to connect with you and consult, get consultation from you or potentially collab or whatever it is, what’s the best way for them to reach you? Is that through social media? Are you heavily on there? Is it through website? Is it through email?

Hussain Abdullah (20:02)

I wanna say first off, thank you for having me. I appreciate you. A really good interview, really good pre-interview conversation. So shout out to you, Meghan.

Meghan Escobar (20:11)

Thank you.

Hussain Abdullah (20:11)

I wanna thank Investor Fuel for inviting me back on. This is my second time on the show. I saw the ads, I didn’t want to be that guy, but I got the email invitation, so I was happy to be on the show. Thank you. I’m gonna make it very simple for everybody. You put in HA Homes US.

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, website, whatever other social media is on, you put in HA Homes US, you’re gonna find us everywhere. Okay. Over a thousand videos on YouTube, the whole deal, years of history, years of experience. If you Google me, Hussain Abdullah, especially if you put in Texas, I’m an award winning person. I come up all over the place. You see me on the SBA website, 2020 award win, like I’m all over. Very easy to find. And we pick

Meghan Escobar (20:52)

Real. Yeah.

Hussain Abdullah (20:53)

you call me, I’m a pickup. So

Yes. I love that. So make sure that first call is a good one.

Meghan Escobar (20:57)

Yeah. Make sure you got your elevator pitch is what he’s saying, guys.

Hussain Abdullah (21:01)

well do this. Don’t pitch me. Be yourself. Because if you pitch me, I could tell. And then you’re gonna lose. I’m I’m gonna be busy real quick. Be yourself. If I don’t like you, you don’t like me. It it wasn’t meant to be. Be yourself.

Meghan Escobar (21:12)

Period. I love it. Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for being so upfront. I think it’s an energy that a lot of people don’t understand and I think it’s perfect. So thank you again for being here. And for those of you that are tuning in, if you got value from this, hit like and subscribe. We’ve got conversations coming in every single day with real people that are building real businesses In real time.

Okay, we’ll see you on the next episode.