Muslim Money Talk
Introducing the Muslim Money Talk Podcast, a place for all things Muslim and Money related.
Every week we'll be sitting down with Founders, leaders and industry experts from across multiple disciplines to discuss lessons learned, mistakes made and most importantly 'How they did it?'.
Brought to you by Kestrl: The Muslim Money App, software to help Muslims grow their wealth without compromise. Find out more here: https://kestrl.io/
Muslim Money Talk
Buying In London, Rent-To-Rent and Why Muslims Love Property! | Zaid Patel - Muslim Money Talk Ep 24
Meet Zaid Patel, owner of Highcastle Estates and host of The Muslim Pound Podcast.
In today’s Muslim Money Talk we discuss how and why property became such an attractive investment opportunity for Muslims, shariah compliant ways of growing a portfolio and whether property is still worth it as an investment?
This podcast is powered by Kestrl.
Kestrl is an app that helps Muslim to grow their wealth without compromising their beliefs
Kestrl - The Muslim Money App
https://kestrl.io/
Show Notes:
00:00 - Coming up
01:55 - Creating The Muslim Pound Podcast
06:06 - Having a victim mentality
10:28 - Why Muslims love property
13:17 - The Rent-to-rent business model
20:55 - Family businesses and working with fathers
25:47 - Why don’t Pakistanis help each other?
29:40 - Making Masjids the hubs of communities
31:35 - How real estate agents work
37:00 - Is buying in London still worth it?
45:04 - Buying vs renting and community building
51:30 - Starting a Podcast and personal branding
01:02:54 - Favourite guests so far
01:05:42 - Saudi Arabia’s booming property market
01:10:06 - Leaving a legacy
This is. I don't know if this is a conspiracy or agenda or whatever it is, but I think in this country they kind of it's not controversial.
Speaker 2:No, don't worry, you can say something controversial if they get it.
Speaker 1:I think they kind of isolate people.
Speaker 2:Who does?
Speaker 1:The government and I think people just get isolated from each other. If you look at the last 10 years, they've shut down youth centres, they've shut down community centres, so there's nowhere for people to kind of gather except pubs, and people don't even go to pubs anymore, whereas we have masjids so we can gather inside the masjids. And I think if people are buying a house or rent, if they're renting and they're staying in the same area for a long period I'm talking 20-25 years that way you can build a community. And when you're building a community, that's where you get stronger, that's where you can affect potential politics and councils, because you're in that area for a long time. And then obviously, area to area, you talk to each other. It's just like a wide and that's influence.
Speaker 2:In today's episode, we're joined by Zaid Patel, owner and CEO of High Castle Estate Agents, as well as the owner of his own podcast, the Muslim Pound, where you might recognize a few of the guests. Today, we talk about everything from property is it a good investment? Should you even be buying your own property, sharia compliant ways of doing it, and how and why a podcast could actually elevate yourself, as well as your community, to the next level. As always, I'm your host, arif Siddiqui, and this is Muslim Money Talk. Before we begin, we actually noticed only about 10% of you are subscribed to the podcast, so if you like what you're listening to and you want to hear more from us and see more things Muslim and money related, then please consider subscribing and, of course, leaving this episode a like and share it with your friends. Leave us a comment or a review, because it really really does help us out and help more people to find us. Thank you. Now back to the show.
Speaker 2:Zaid, as-salamu alaykum and welcome to Muslim Money Talk. How are you? Alaykum as-salam, alhamdulillah, I'm very good.
Speaker 1:I'm very good you feeling okay.
Speaker 2:Feels different. On the other side, of course, because, aside from your property business, you are, of course, podcaster extraordinaire, the creator and host of the muslim pound podcast.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's correct yes, formerly known as I love monday, formerly known as I love mondays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for the longest time. Why did you change the name?
Speaker 1:you are probably one of the factors really yeah I love.
Speaker 1:Monday initially just started as me trying to do a personal brand because I hate speaking in front of the camera. You know, when people do that, I hate it and even though I started doing it, it's just not me. So I thought let me try and do a bit of a personal brand and try and just encourage entrepreneurs or budding entrepreneurs to try and and try and get different entrepreneurs on. So we started off with Sean Lan, whose podcast I've come on, and a few other property people. Then it expanded to people like yourself, ibrahim Khan, ifg, omar Khalil so a few people that you know as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah of course, and then a lot of the topics that came up was the Muslim pound and keeping Muslim wealth, and I think Ibrahim Khan first touched on it when he said I think 16% of Muslims or 80% of muslims, sorry earned below 16 000, or something like that it was. Yeah, but it was a large, large proportion of muslims. Okay, this is a a really startling statistic. Exactly for sure, then, umar khalil came and he explained the whole muslim circular economy right east from amazing yeah he explained that I'm like you know, this is actually a very important concept.
Speaker 1:That's when I thought, okay, let me do the rebrand, and obviously you have. You have yourself from kestrel um, who again focus on the muslim economy, um, that's where your part came into it, because you were more about when to spend yeah, and when to spend and how to spend meaningfully as well, as well as but there was no card, islamic, islamic bank card.
Speaker 2:I remember when you're in cambridge you mentioned that story, yeah exactly because the whole thing we found was that islamic banks were not doing what they were meant to be doing. The vast majority of people, despite muslims, desiring an islamic bank 95 of people we surveyed said they wanted one. Fewer than three percent of them were engaging in islam products or banks, whatever it was, and they said it was because of poor user experience, higher fees, poor customer service, all of this. So us launching Kestrel was not meant to be another digital bank. It was just an add-on to whatever you're using today.
Speaker 2:Most people are using Barclays or Monzo or whatever it is just adding on and people would plug in their bank accounts into Kestrel and we'll tell you a budget, you know, based on your last three months of your spending, how much can you and should you be saving of your salary and then helping you to save towards your goals and, inshallah, invest towards Sharia compliant initiatives as well. So that was the idea about it. But anyway, why are you turning this into? You flipped this round, but yeah, no, I'm glad that we could play a small part in, I guess, the rebrand from I love monday's podcast to the muslim pound and marshall congratulations as well.
Speaker 1:You've just hit, I think, 5k 5 000 subscribers somehow, I don't know, my wife sent me a target for end of the year okay, 5k, and I did it, and actually she's the one who checks pretty much every day, probably more than wow so she came to me. She goes look, you reached 5k.
Speaker 2:I'm like okay what would have happened if you hadn't you hadn't hit it? What would she have done to you? Well, I'm glad we could play a small part in the rebrand, but I also wanted to thank you as well, because you're a lot of the reason why we started a podcast in general, because we came on. I came on to your podcast. I think was it beginning of this year or was it even last year. I think it was beginning of this year, beginning of this year. I think January time Gosh long time. It feels like a long, long time ago.
Speaker 2:Wintertime I came down to Stratford into your estate agents and you filmed it right there, which, inshallah, we can get to, where we have our own space instead of renting a studio, and I just really liked what you were doing bringing. I just really liked what you were doing bringing in all of these different people from different backgrounds entrepreneurs, some in property, some in finance. You also had, like, athletes on someone talking about fitness and, yeah, I just like the idea of this large Muslim community doing so much and shining a light on what is out there.
Speaker 1:For people who maybe think, oh, there's no one like me out there doing this I'm explaining this in a really poor way, but anyway thank you right, because we as a community of immigrants, which we essentially are kind of, sometimes do have like a victim mentality and say, you know, it's harder to push forward. And just today I was listening to kazi kazi's yeah, he mentioned it. Yeah, what did you?
Speaker 2:think about that. What did you think so? So, for people who don't know, kazi was on a podcast with what's his name rob moore.
Speaker 2:Rob moore, who's a very big podcaster and I think kazi was mentioning the points around. So kazi shafiq rahman, who was actually a guest on our podcast maybe two weeks ago so he's one of the founders of sunnah musk as well as um for an ass airways so he was on rob moore's podcast and he mentioned the idea of white privilege and how things might be easier for rob to do because he's a white man of a certain age compared to him being, you know, british, mongolian, brown-skinned. How did you feel listening to that?
Speaker 1:I think that specific comment is right to an extent, but rob moore is also right in the sense that everyone still has an advantage of their own and it's about how we utilize that. So we can have a victim mentality and say, oh, we can't get as far as that next person or the white person, but we still have a mind, we still have a network, we still have a community. We can leverage all of that to be successful, a community. We can leverage all of that to be success, to be successful and that's what I think there's. Obviously before there was a lot of like. I remember when I was trying to apply to local authorities to give them our properties, I used to apply under the name zed patel, send them email after email, cold emails, no response. Then I used used the name Oliver Harrison. Response within five minutes.
Speaker 2:Really yeah.
Speaker 1:So this happens, but again I still use my mind and say, okay, let me just.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are ways around this. Yeah, there's ways around it, but that's not to say I don't know. There's a different person, a real Oliver Harrison out there who has his own disadvantages. Maybe he didn't go the same opportunities as you, or whatever it is. I I had like a strange reaction when I watched that, where I just thought I feel like in this country especially, it's less about race and color of your skin, it's much more about class. I think that's really more what dominates the conversation and where advantages come from that goes back to it's who you know, not what you know exactly who you know.
Speaker 2:So you know, I think the the opportunities that I've been afforded in life, alhamdulillah, have been a lot better than other people that I've met who've had, you know, who are of a different skin color, who are white, who just think, oh, this person's a massively privileged just because they happen to be white.
Speaker 2:And this goes back to a really interesting thing where I was at this FinTech conference once and we were with an investor who was introducing all of us to this group of individuals there and they said oh, you know, we're the startups, we're startups, we're basically the working class of the financial services world. And I saw one of the guys he was introducing us to. He was quite senior in an organization, made a bit of a face and then afterwards I was chatting with him and he said you know, I took a bit of offense to that comment because I actually am working class and I know you wouldn't think it to look at me. But you know, all of you are immensely privileged to be doing what you're doing, like most of you are oxbridge educated and you're running your own startups. Most people can't do that, most people don't even imagine they're doing that.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it was a, it was an interesting time, an interesting comment yeah, it was an interesting comment, but again, I think you can only control what you can control. You can't control your skin color unless you want to bleach yourself, but even then.
Speaker 1:But you control your controllables, you take action and you ask. You always ask. For example, if I want someone that you've, if I want kazi on my podcast, I have to have the courage to ask you, of course, or the courage to cold email him, or however it is, and but that applies to everything. So you, just because you don't have, you're not from a privileged background, or you don't have the correct skin color, or you're not from the right class, doesn't mean that you stop taking action. The problem will come when you stop taking action. That's what I feel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that, Because you can only control.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure, and at the end of the day, we're Muslims, so we have to have that kind of mentality. Okay, fine, I'll take action.
Speaker 2:I'll make dua, and if it's good for me, it will happen. If it's not good for me, something better. Yeah, that's an amazing outlook. Amazing outlook. Um, having said that, talking about the muslim issue, I wanted to move us on to the property side of this, because in our community, I feel like property and investment are two words mentioned in the same breath whenever a muslim is thinking about how to grow their wealth. What is our community's obsession with property as a go-to investment option?
Speaker 1:I think stability, because it's something in bricks and mortar and if you think about it, when we had our grandparents or great-grandparents come from India, pakistan, bangladesh, they came here to lay foundations. They came here to be stable and to provide for their family back home. So one way to be stable is to buy property and I think then they feel secure. They think, okay, even if they kick us out or try to kick us out, we still have our land, we still have our bricks and mortar.
Speaker 1:And then I think, over time people started learning off one another, because my grandfather, who passed away three months ago, he used to tell me because he learned off other people about property and then he would get into property, and then his friends would get into property and at that time, I think in the 80s, the prices were really expensive it was about 20 grand, but at that time really expensive. And then they expect it to boom. But just to buy and sell. They will do it within themselves. Four partners will get together, buy and sell and I know families where all the siblings have chipped in and they've just grown a portfolio. But it all starts from one property and then they have a tenant and all of a sudden it's like, oh, it's an extra bit of cash flow.
Speaker 2:So it's this immigrant mentality of having to put roots down, but also it's a stable, known type of investment and also doing very well. Recently, especially for people who bought up property in the 80s and 90s, there's been a huge rise in prices now. Is that why you got into it and you founded Highcastle Estates? What's the story of Highcastle?
Speaker 1:The story of Highcastle is, I didn't actually found it. It was founded by my dad and my brother. Okay, so my dad would manage investments for friends and family, so he would put money in property and then they would give the properties to other agents and what would happen is they'll just get enforcements and council fines and all sorts. So then they decided, okay, let's open our own little management company. So my brother was younger. It was 20, 2021.
Speaker 2:I already had established a rent-to-rent company way back in 2013 okay 2013 to 2014 oh so, like before, the days of airbnb and all of them, days I had a small rent-to-rent company, which me and a group of friends did.
Speaker 1:How did you get into that? So I so, if I go back to uni, yeah, um, I started accounting at uni. So I came out of uni 2011 okay. Um, I didn't get a job for about a year and a half. In that year and a half, I worked for an accountancy practice, unpaid, for about 10 months. Then I just thought, okay, he's not gonna pay me, I'll just go, but I learned quite a lot of skills there. Then, when I did get a job, it was for a small estate agency, which was it was referred. I was referred through someone else. Um, then I got that job and then I learned pretty much. I ran the whole back office there. I learned quite a lot. Then I thought let me just start my own. I didn't really see progression for myself in that role, so I thought some own, got a few bit of investment from a few friends and then we ran with it. So we ran that for it's still running today. We ran that for about two years and that's where, after that, high castle started.
Speaker 2:So my brother started it with my dad and they managed a portfolio of about 30, but they were doing that in parallel to you doing this rent to rent type business. Yeah, yeah, okay, gosh. So just was this, this idea that you guys always wanted to work in property? I?
Speaker 1:don't think there was an idea. My dad was always interested in property um.
Speaker 2:What did he do before?
Speaker 1:so he would. He's. Currently he manages care homes um before that he would work in it so he's been working in it for about 20 odd years. Okay, he came to this country when he he was about 18, 19, when he got married, basically, um, so he worked in it, he worked in it, but he's also worked in factories and he's done them whole shows so then he put money in properties for other people and, yeah, that's how Highcastle eventually started.
Speaker 1:So then automatically we had about 20-25 properties and then an opportunity came to lease an office which is the one we did our podcast in in Stratford, and that's when my dad said okay, do you want to start joining the?
Speaker 2:come into the firm so he headhunted me. I would say how long did that take from setting up to opening that office? I think it set up in 2014, 15, about three years three years and, and until that point you were just doing the rent to rent, rent yeah, I was in the rent to rent, so tell me how rent to rent sort of works like what were you and your friends doing?
Speaker 2:basically, you collected enough money between you to start renting out a property yourself and then, in turn, you would rent out the rooms of that property to other third parties and make profit on that. So I'll give you an example of our first property.
Speaker 1:So our first property was in bermondsey and it had four rooms, three bedrooms and reception, but we used them all as four rooms and we rented that property at 1800 pound a month okay, and we were collecting about 2800 2900 per month and then we paid the bills. At that time the bills were about 400 350. So the surplus of that 600 was our profit.
Speaker 1:Wow, so that was our cash flow split in between four of you yeah, but then we just kept the money in the business, okay, and then we got the second property. Now, the second property was seven rooms and he had a hmo license what's an hmo license? House of multiple occupancy. So now you need that license from the local authority to rent out a property which has more than two households. So if me you were renting a property, yeah that property would legally need to have a hmo license.
Speaker 2:It's on the landlord's responsibility oh, so if you want two different people who are not from the same family living under the same roof, correct?
Speaker 1:then that property needs to have its own license every property needs a license in or in newham anyway. Okay, every property needs a license. So there's three types of licensing selective, which is for every privately rented property, additional hmo and mandatory hmo, so different boroughs have different numbers for both the hmos and that's something that the property and the landlord has to maintain acquire that license and maintain it but sometimes the landlord has an agreement with the agent. But fine it's.
Speaker 2:Ultimately it's the landlord's responsibility so basically the idea was you were renting out properties and then renting them to third parties, and that's perfectly fine, that's okay, valid to do, and I guess my question is why would renters come to you instead of going to a landlord directly?
Speaker 1:some landlords don't want to give their properties on a room by room letter or they just want one agent to manage it. But ultimately it just comes to the platform we're advertising on. We advertise on spare room at the time and if you're looking for a room in London, so generally it will be a single male, single female or a couple. You would just look on spare room and whoever you find, then it becomes either an agent you find or you find a landlord that's kind of.
Speaker 2:So talk me through the process. Because you were basically finding houses or landlords which were putting up houses for rent. You would say, okay, I'm going to rent out the whole thing. You'd sign a lease for how long? Like two years, two years, three years, two years, three years. And then you would say to, basically the landlord's going with you because you're guaranteeing that they're getting rent across all the rooms in the house four rooms, five rooms, whatever and then you would go into spare room and rent out each of those rooms individually, correct where you could. Okay, gosh, so this sounds like a great form of passive income.
Speaker 1:It is and it's good. And then you realize, so this is the first time I'm running a business, okay. And then you realize, oh, I need to hire someone because I can't do all the maintenance by myself as well.
Speaker 2:Then you hire someone in maintenance. Maintenance meaning Just little odd jobs.
Speaker 1:But when you like, door handle's broken, someone needs to fix it. Ah, okay, You've got a leak, someone needs to fix it. So you need to recruit people. After you get five, six properties, the management obviously takes time, and then the first time it really really hit us was Brexit.
Speaker 1:Because, you look at the metrics, you look at the numbers and you've got people viewing, you've got people messaging. And then the day of the vote, the day after the brexit vote, I remember there was like 10 people viewed an ad that was like unheard of. Normally we get minimum 10 inquiries per property or per room and then that stayed like that for a bit of time because people are just unsure of what's happening. Then people are renting rooms. So that's when the cash flow kind of dropped a bit and there was at one point we were making like probably 10, 15 grand a month because I guess the 10, 15 grand a month, yeah, individually or as a whole, as a whole, as a whole gosh, which you were splitting, wow.
Speaker 2:So I guess the downside is you've rented all these properties and then you just can't find renters. So now you just have these empty properties, these empty properties. Then you have to think of solutions did that ever happen to you?
Speaker 1:yeah, so sometimes we just put the rooms on airbnb, okay, and that worked. But it's very time consuming because then every time you'll have to go if you change your bed sheets, clean up or you have to pay a cleaner to clean up. So that worked for a very short term period, but it was a good stop gap, I would say okay would you recommend it to people?
Speaker 1:the rent to rent model yeah if you have time to manage property, yes. Um, if you're in it just for passive income, no, because it's, although it feels passive.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of management and inquiries what else would you be in it for, if not for the path to passive income?
Speaker 1:no, but the passive income as in.
Speaker 2:People think, okay, oh, it's so, I'll just buy it, and then I'll step back and it's just. I'm basically printing money.
Speaker 1:Okay, but there's a lot of work. It is a real job.
Speaker 2:It's like running a business, isn't it? Yeah, of course Is it quite hands-on. Are you just like calling up cleaners or caretakers, electricians, that kind of thing, making sure jobs get done?
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of the time you're just outsourcing a lot of work. I guess the hands-on part would negotiations with the landlord speaking to the landlords, because example boiler breaks you then have to get permission from the landlord to fix it and then after time london's like well, I don't really want to fix it, or can you do it as cheapest possible way? Can you just do something that will last for six months? There's a lot of back and forth.
Speaker 2:So I'm sensing you were feeling a little bit fed up about the back and forth and all of that. So when your dad came and said, just come into the real estate side of things, you were like, yes, please let me do it no, I was, I actually would.
Speaker 1:I was happy to continue because I think at that time we had about 120 tenants wow so I was happy to continue, but he kept chipping away at me. He said no, you know you need to come, you need to build the family business, xyz. Um, obviously it's an honor because he yeah, he thinks I'm capable of running a family business. I, I think after about a year I was like, okay, fine, I'll come on board. And one of the partners they ran the rent-to-rent business.
Speaker 1:But that's still running today, but we've basically taken it under Highcastle now.
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's all sitting under Highcastle itself, so tell me about Highcastle. What was your dad's vision for this?
Speaker 1:The vision was just to become the best agency possible in London, in the UK. Just be the best. And he's always given us that kind of advice in terms of you always try your best and you always try to be the best at everything.
Speaker 2:But it sounds like it was really important to your father to create a family business and have you all together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's how wealth grows as well, because it's easier if you and you would know as well. But if you have already wealth sitting there, it's easier to grow a pot of wealth rather than each person doing it individually, because then again you're starting from the bottom. But that's one aspect, and I think the second aspect is we're doing things together. So if there's a problem, I know I can go to my dad and say okay, there's this problem. Sometimes we're like, okay, don don't worry, a storm will pass. Sometimes he'll give me an active solution. But having that kind of level of experience above makes like a massive difference for me. But yeah, I think for him it's really important and I think within his siblings, like they probably do some investments together as well okay um, so they've always been like close-knit, and my grandfather he's always been like no, you do things together.
Speaker 1:And also people say family businesses can make or break families.
Speaker 2:But I always think it always makes a family because you're doing things together I think that's like a very important part I think about this a lot because, as you know, my dad is a co-founder of the business. Chief financial officer Kestrel wouldn't be around today if it wasn't for him coming on board. I also work with my brother. He's our head of legal, so he's a lawyer. He brings in his legal skills to things and I get what you mean about.
Speaker 2:It can make or break, because I do feel like I have never been closer to my father than I have been now, because you're basically forced to talk to each other every day about different aspects. It is about business, but it is very interesting. But I do remember one thing when we went through the Techstars Accelerator, which is this startup accelerator which they invest in you and they also give you advice, they were very worried that we were working together because they said there's a high instance, especially of fathers and sons working together, of the business fracturing, because there's always like a power dynamic there where one of you is trying to make a decision but the other one's like okay, but I'm your dad, so listen to me, um, do you ever find that? Is it difficult working with your dad?
Speaker 1:no, because we've like, from the beginning, my dad's always been hands off with high castle. Okay, so he's running his care homes and he's been hands-off. He goes this is your baby, you run it how you want.
Speaker 2:Is that scary, is that stressful?
Speaker 1:No, because I can still. It's stressful, yeah, but it's not scary because I know I can still fall back on him for advice. So sometimes I'll get really frustrated with a customer and I'll be like, oh, this customer man and I always blame, it's always us Asians who mess things up and he goes no, it's fine, Something that happens a lot within our community. Someone will come for advice and they'll come back for advice, and they'll come back for advice and then they'll give their business to someone else Really, and then they'll come back and say oh, that other person you're saying.
Speaker 2:This happens in our community to me like asian muslims asian muslims.
Speaker 1:It happens a lot. Why do you think that is? I think people don't like their own people knowing about their own business, but they also like free advice. And I'll tell you. I'll just vent to my dad. I said you know this person this is what he did came to me for advice, ended up going to fox and willing to pay two and a half percent. He didn't want to pay me one percent and I goes, you know what? It's fine and you just it's still help because you can still fulfill the need of another person. So the money will come in different ways and islamically we believe that as well. Yeah, it's not. It's not linear, is?
Speaker 2:it's good advice, because I suppose what your father's asking you to do is not to change the way you are with people, because obviously there's benefits to that. I'm sure there are lots of customers who came to you because you were giving that advice. Yeah probably you know so, but if you had let one customer change all of that, it could have changed your entire attitude.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And then you end up becoming unapproachable and it's like people say, oh, let's not go to him.
Speaker 2:I was having a conversation with someone in Dubai. He was Pakistani, he grew up in Pakistan, he studied here in the UK and now he's working for a venture capital, a VC player, in Dubai. And I asked him this question because I said I work with a lot of Malaysians my co-founder is Malaysian dying and what I noticed about them is they're so close-knit. The Malaysians out there, like everyone, knows each other. They help each other out in an instant, whether they know each other or not. Their bond is really strong. And I said where is that in the pakistani community? And he said arif, it's like this a pakistani sees you and finds out that you're pakistani and finds out that you're doing something with your business like kestrel, they immediately thinks to themselves I could do that better, so why would I help this person? Right, I'm gonna take as much information as I can about this and then think about how I'm going to try and do it myself and do it much better. It kind of do you agree with that? Do you think that happens in our communities, or?
Speaker 1:I think it does happen and I think what happens is a lot of people just want to do things by themselves, because it's also kind of an ego thing, like I have my own business. So, rather than building upon, like if someone came to you and said, look, I have this skill set or I have this investment and I can help you grow and this is where I think we can grow to, orchestra can grow to you'd probably be more likely to take the advice.
Speaker 1:But also and this goes back to the podcast you grow the Muslim pound a lot quicker, rather than someone starting from zero and trying to build, because you know how long it takes to build a business, especially a startup. And we're not talking 40-hour weeks here, we're talking 120-hour weeks. You're talking blood, sweat, tears. You're talking arguments, you're talking all sorts but no one sees that.
Speaker 2:Everyone says, okay, reeb's a chill guy man well, I hope they think that I don't know um but behind all of that you see a lot of support from your family.
Speaker 1:You see um a lot of hard work, a lot of sleepless nights yeah, of course, yeah, so people don't see that aspect, so again I think it goes back to a lot of hard work, a lot of sleepless nights. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So people don't see that aspect. So again, I think it goes back to there has to be a want to help one another and it goes back to the Muslim pound, Grow the Muslim pound, absolutely, absolutely, and I think that's it.
Speaker 2:It's all additive, right. The idea is inshallah and Arfa Farouk from Islamic Makers and Muslim Tech First. She was a guest on our podcast a few weeks ago. She summed this up really well that the idea is that Muslims in the UK we're still first, second kind of gen, maybe third generation Muslims. We're still figuring things out and laying our roots and figuring out how to make money. But future generations could really build on top of that and do like what we're seeing out there in America in places like Silicon Valley, where Muslims over there, startups are the norm, right, and fundraising is the norm and everyone seems to have a side hustle. We're starting to see that more and more with fantastic initiatives like Dean Developers and Muslim Tech Fest and Muslim Makers. But I think for our children's generation that's going to be I don't know. I just feel like it's going to be supercharged and moving really, really fast. Do you think that's going to be the case?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. If we go back, so the first generation, pretty much we're in survival mode, and then we kind of built the walls of the house. I'm just going to use a property analogy. Um, and now people like yourself, wahid, ifg, now you're furnishing the house and the next gen is about 10x and now it's building that portfolio yeah and that's the way I would, that's the way I would put it, and they have to do it.
Speaker 1:and I think it goes not just to businesses, it goes to the whole community. How much is need to change the way they run? Our communities need to change the way we think and our businesses need to supercharge, like you said.
Speaker 2:How do masjids need to change?
Speaker 1:I think we need to become a more 24-7 community hub. You can't just have a masjid which is just open 15 minutes before Salah and 15 minutes after Salah. East London Masjid is open full-time and it full salah and 15 minutes after salah. East land masjid is open full time and it needs to become the center point. So if you want a meeting with someone, why not have it in the masjid? Why, is this podcast not recorded in the masjid? It's not worldly affairs. People confuse with worldly affairs, with businesses. It's not.
Speaker 2:Yeah there's this idea that making money is taking away from the deen right there's. There's dean, which is focusing on your akhira salah reading quran, and then there's dunya, which are things taking away from all of that making money, and money is somehow bad um, but I talked a lot about this in in I think our podcast as well that there's a lot of lessons to be taken from the first muslims, the first muslims who left makkah and had to flee to Medina and Prophet Muhammad.
Speaker 2:Like the first Muslims, when they arrived in Medina, the first thing they established was a masjid, of course, but do you know what the second thing was?
Speaker 2:it was a market because even then, the Prophet Muhammad understood the need to stand on your own two feet, that Muslims had to establish themselves financially if they were ever to regain power. So I think that's like a beautiful reminder. And then there's, of course, the story of Uthman, radhi Allaha and the well, but I'm not going to bore our listeners by going into that again. I think it's like the third time I've spoken about it on this podcast, but the first Muslims were entrepreneurs and I feel like we've moved away from that, forgotten that to an extent. So, inshallah, we can reclaim that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's important and there's there's two parts of it. I think rob moore mentions on his podcast there's entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs. So I think intrapreneurs are those who are really good at their job and the exit of the job, but they just don't have the capacity to be entrepreneurs. But the world needs both. The world needs entrepreneurs, but it also needs really good workers and I think we should aim to be one of the two, of course no, absolutely.
Speaker 2:This is going to sound very stupid, but how does a real estate agent work? Is it? Because in my mind, I have an idea for what it is. Um, it's basically a platform where you've got people who are coming in with homes and they want to sell them, and the idea is that you can match them up with buyers of said homes and then you take a cut in between. Is that the case?
Speaker 1:yeah, pretty much so. To give an example, if if you have a house and it's worth 500, 000 pound and you want to sell it, you would go to estate agents. So, like ourselves, we would then come value the property mark and basically say this is our plan to market, then we'll market the property, we'll find buyers, we'll do the negotiations so someone might say, okay, I want it for 460, like maybe 490, and we'll reach somewhere in the middle if you're happy with it. And then once that sale goes through the legal and the solicitors and it finally completes, we'll normally take between one to one and a half percent fee, which would be agreed beforehand thank you for listening to muslim money.
Speaker 2:If you like what you've heard so far, you might be interested in checking out what we do at Kestrel, the Muslim money app. Kestrel is a service that helps Muslims who want to grow their wealth without having to compromise, whether it's on their belief or user experience or price. I founded Kestrel because of how fed up I was at how poor Islamic financial services were in this country. Often people didn't userel because of how fed up I was at how poor Islamic financial services were in this country. Often people didn't use them because of how bad the user experience or customer service and indeed, how high in price they were. So Kestrel was the answer to that.
Speaker 2:If you download the Kestrel app today, it can help you by creating a budgeting plan. Plug in whatever bank account you have and it will create an auto budget just for you. You can then tell us what goals you're saving for and we'll save towards them automatically into pots and then, crucially, link you towards Sharia compliant investment and savings products as well. So download Kestrel today and try it out for yourself. Now back to the podcast. When you say your plan to market the house, I'm just imagining you know the pictures in the windows of estate agents on the high street. How do you do? You just do that, or do you do more than that?
Speaker 1:no, we do more than that. So we have our portals online right move zoopla on the market so we always put it on them. Um, now with social media, we'll have a video and put the video on social media.
Speaker 2:Yes, we'll put it on linkedin I was about to say my wife and I are big fans of on youtube. They show like transformations, not transformations, but it's like oh, look at this footballer's house. So they won't say like the name of the house, but they're always like house is worth three to ten million and I didn't realize at first. But the hosts of the video are selling the house. They're estate agents. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1:I can't remember the names.
Speaker 2:There's a couple that do it. There's a couple, yeah, a man and a woman who go around doing it. It's very interesting. Do you think that's something on the agenda for you guys? Do you think it's an effective way to sell a house?
Speaker 1:Yes and no. So I think it depends on the market you're in. So if the house is really nice, then you definitely do that, but then again it depends on how you put the property on the market. So if the house has really run down, you can still make a video of it and you can still put it online. You just have to package it differently. Basically, this house is could be worth 500. It's only at 400 at the moment. Spend 20 grand and it'd be worth 500 just give an.
Speaker 1:So there's different ways to package it. But we do do video marketing, we do put our property tours on social media, which generates a few leads and also kind of just builds a perception for sellers saying, okay, these guys are active, so they don't have to sell houses. So there's different strategies. Sometimes, if it's a really, really nice house, we won't even put it on portals, we'll just put it on social media for two weeks and then we'll put it on right move zoopla on the market. So we kind of have a different plan per property depending on the type of property and then it depends on the situation of the seller. Seller might need to sell very quickly, or so they need to take less offers yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:So there's different kind of strategies per seller, per property. Okay, okay, it's not as straightforward, I know you're super passionate about it.
Speaker 2:It seems you've been basically working in property your entire career yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I am passionate about it, but I think I'm more passionate about, like, building the business and yes the marketing side and trying to like grow, because now we've got two branches. Oh, where else? Uh, ilford stratford where in ilford. Uh, good, may station, okay, um two streets away from good station, so it's on that main road, so it's two blocks away.
Speaker 2:Sorry okay, okay, but that's a very small office. Well, how many people work we?
Speaker 1:have about a team of 15 15 marshall.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, okay, 15 yeah okay.
Speaker 1:And then we also have a social housing office, which is a whole different ballgame, where we give properties directly to the council and they house it. They put families, couples, mum and babies or whatever they see fit inside. So basically people in social housing.
Speaker 2:Because I heard the councils. I think in the 80s they sold a bunch of social housing to individuals. Was that the case? Am I remembering this wrong? I have no idea. This came up in the research for this, but yeah, I heard that there used to be. The reason council houses are worth so much today is that a lot of them were sold to individuals in like the 80s and 90s, and now council homes now need to work with estate agents such as yourself to house people in that case, yeah, potentially, because they they still have the right to buy and then obviously they're sold.
Speaker 1:But the the reason they need to work with estate agents is there's just too many people who are on the homeless register. So about two, three years ago I spoke to someone from newham council and he said newham have as many home people as Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds combined what yeah, sorry say that again. So Newham, the borough of Newham, has as many homeless people as Manchester, liverpool and Leeds combined, so three cities. How what is happening? Affordability that's probably one of the main reasons.
Speaker 1:Just house prices in the south, in london especially house prices, rental prices, so people just get um priced out and then obviously you have a lot of people coming from out of london or from abroad and they'll rent places and they can have 100 pound a month higher and there's a lot of, there's a lot of people who just are below the waistline. Really it's sad, yeah that is the situation.
Speaker 2:This brings me to my next question. Is investing in property in this country, in london or in the south, or in this country in general? Is investing in property still worth it?
Speaker 1:Long term? Yes, Because I think the prices will always go up. If you look at the recession in 1990, I think the prices dropped about 15-20% and then it shot back up.
Speaker 2:Are we not in the middle of a bubble?
Speaker 1:I think the bubble is always expanding Because everyone said the same in 1990, 2008.
Speaker 2:People are asking the same question now. So you think, rather than the bubble bursting, it's going to shrink and then start expanding again. Yeah, so as long as you have a long-term view, you'll be okay long term?
Speaker 1:yeah, definitely, I think it's always worth a long term because london is that city where everyone comes to now whether if that changes, then the landscape can change, because a lot of people are kind of moving out of London into Dubai and other places and just out of London in general because of the remote working. But the issue is UK is a mature market and it's a very safe investment. So even if your property price will not increase in 10 years, you're going to get a good rental return.
Speaker 2:Personally. I don't know what you do personally, if you have any aside from the rent-to-rent stuff that you do, but if you have any properties that you've invested in, would you buy in this country or somewhere like Dubai?
Speaker 1:I would always buy in this country, especially if I was living here.
Speaker 2:Why is that?
Speaker 1:Because it's still home, okay, and it gives you something to fall back on, because you can and that might be a risk averse approach, but you can go to dubai with a business and everything, and next day the whole business falls and then you come here and you've got nowhere to live essentially. So I'd always buy in this country. I would also and this kind of goes to the sharia, sharia compliant method I would also link up with a few people and say, look, okay, look, we've all got 100 grand each. Why don't we just pool it together and buy an investment property?
Speaker 2:without taking a mortgage.
Speaker 1:No debt, just buy it straight cash because what that does is, if that house price is 500, it gives you leverage to negotiate that 425, 430. As soon as you purchase that property, your investment's gone up. The value of your investment's gone up.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you would buy in this country as opposed to anywhere else. You would do that with friends and family as opposed to taking out any sort of debt, sharia or non-sharia. Would you buy inon as opposed to somewhere else?
Speaker 1:the reason I would say to buy in london if you can, if you have the investment to do so, as opposed to anywhere else, is the. The rental is higher in london compared to, let's say, breadfoot or leeds. However, the fixed costs are still the same. So you still have to pay for your compliance certificates, you still have to pay for, probably, licensing in both areas, your gas, electric, epc. You have to pay for all of that, and then costs are the same it's just the upfront fee which is different.
Speaker 2:upfront is different, but all of the operational costs, the ongoing costs, they're all the same, whether it's here, here, or Bradford or Manchester, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And then, if your boiler breaks down, you'll pay two months' rent potentially to fix the boiler, whereas here it will be 60% of the rent.
Speaker 1:So your return on investment is arguably faster here in London because you can charge higher rent and then for breakdowns you can charge a percentage of the rent yeah for example, so you could actually recoup the loss of or the cost of buying that property much faster, yes, but saying that the capital appreciation in london is higher generally, because the prices still go up higher and quicker. But if you go somewhere like Leeds and Bradford, your rental yield could reach 10%, 11%, 12%, whereas in London you're still at 5%, 6%, 7% if you're lucky.
Speaker 2:That's the key difference. Wait, say that again. You mean the capital appreciation for when you sell the property, no, the rental yield, the rental yield.
Speaker 1:So your return on investment might be higher in Leeds or Bradadford if you're just, if you're purely renting the because, oh because the actual purchase price of the property was lower.
Speaker 2:So proportionately the rent is higher compared to here in london where you know you could buy a two-bedroom house for three hundred thousand pounds.
Speaker 1:Three hundred thousand pounds in leeds could get you, you know a four-bed house with a massive garden and detached, and all of that or you can get two flats, then maybe charge eight, nine hundred pound each, okay okay, that's a that's a trade, but you would still buy in london despite that yeah, I'll still buy in london, plus I know the london market inside out yeah, so that's very key for you, that's important.
Speaker 1:What's the east london market like? It's a very interesting market. It's a market where investors are always buying, so the prices are stable. So it's not like let's go to Mayfair where the prices might drop 20%, 30%. East London might drop 5%. As soon as it drops, you'll have an investor come to buy, so that stabilizes the market. And because it's the cheaper end of London, there's always a demand for renters.
Speaker 2:So there's high demand for renters. If there's a slight drop in price, someone's going to come in and buy. Buy that property up, yeah, very quickly, so it's more stable okay.
Speaker 1:It's cheaper than the rest of London pretty much. Maybe parts of South London is slightly cheaper okay again it's very interesting because you can be living five minutes away and one house will be worth 1 minutes away. And one house will be worth 1.2 million, another house will be worth 450,000. And just two roads apart, it could be one house worth 400, one house worth 500. So it's a very interesting market like that as well.
Speaker 2:And none of this is financial advice. But if there are people listening who want to get into this, would High Castle Estates be able to help them out, or do you think people should just do their research themselves and look into it? How should they go about it?
Speaker 1:also, if someone is looking to invest in property, to feel free get in touch with me on linkedin, okay, um, and I would always be happy to have a call. Someone got in touch with me today actually and uh, had a quick minute call and there's a lot. They want to expand the portfolio. As I look, figure out your locations first and then work. That way, you can work out budget and then you can speak to. I was gonna introduce them to Nizam halal options. You should actually get money. What costs? Quite good halal options options knees and he's a Islamic finance broker and he has access to pretty much all the market Gatehouse, al-riyan and all the other Islamic banks.
Speaker 1:Stride Up Fida he's actually quite good but I don't know if he's been on a podcast, but I can put you in touch with him. Yeah, for sure. So I'll put you in touch with N say, okay, look, this is a situation, and then he'll kind of advise them accordingly. Um, but yeah, so someone is looking to invest into property? Yeah, feel free to get in touch and I can just help with the strategy. So even if I can't help directly, I can at least just build us yeah, of course you can connect people.
Speaker 2:So far we've been talking about property for the purpose of investment, you know, getting a certain return through the rental after purchasing that property. But what about people who want to buy, to own, buy their house to live in, start a family in, whatever it might be? I was listening to Diary of a CEO and the guest was Morgan Housel.
Speaker 1:Psychology of Money.
Speaker 2:Yes, the author of Psychology of Money, which is a fantastic book. He's a very well-renowned and respected researcher and author on all things personal finance and I'm paraphrasing. But basically he said no one should be buying a property. If that's the reason you're doing it, you should run away from that. And his reasoning for that, if I'm remembering right, was there's no point tying yourself down into that mortgage. Most people are going to have to buy a house with a mortgage. You'll be paying that off for the rest of your life. And his own tactic is that when he was young and he got married and he had young children, he could just rent and move around the world in some case very, very easily, without having to worry about this mortgage and paying off that mortgage for the next 20, 30 years. What do you think? What's your take on that?
Speaker 1:I think it depends on the person. If you're a person who wants and lacks stability, then buying a house is a good way forward and I think naturally we see it as a stepping stone as well. We think, okay, if we're renting, then the next step naturally is to buy a house and that's a stepping stone to kind of secure your future.
Speaker 2:But is that the right mentality, do you think that's just been in our minds? Is it an immigrant thing that we just need to put roots down? We need to find a place and build it on our own. And we always think, okay, we're going to go to school, go to university, get a job, buy a house or get married and then buy a house, car, whatever it is. There's like these stepping stones that have just sort of been laid out within the collective consciousness. But is that right?
Speaker 1:I don't, I don't, I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I think, personally, for me, I would say yes, to have a house is very important, because then it gives yourself stability in terms of got a wife, you have kids, you know where they're growing up, schools and everything. It's there, it's around, whereas if you're moving around there's no real stability in terms of for yourself, for your kids. But again, it depends on the individual.
Speaker 2:Imagine someone's not married and they don't have children. They don't have plans on having children. Maybe it makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then it could potentially make sense. I think for someone who's working remotely or someone who's like you know what I just want to find my feet before settling down then it makes sense. But I think eventually everyone does want to settle down. And again is that our immigrant mentality thing? I don't know.
Speaker 2:I don't know. It's an interesting one. It's a very interesting one, yeah.
Speaker 1:And obviously we always look at our parents or grandparents and they've always wanted to settle down so they have a place. But I think also going forward, to build a stable community, you need people who live there long term.
Speaker 2:And this goes back to your idea of community building and how that's almost like a lost art in this country.
Speaker 1:And I think that's needed and I think this is I don't know if it's a conspiracy or agenda or whatever it is, but I think in this country they kind of it's not controversial.
Speaker 2:No, don't worry, you can say something controversial.
Speaker 1:I think they kind of isolate people.
Speaker 1:Who does the government, and I think people just get isolated from each other. If you look at the last 10 years, they've shut down youth centres, they've shut down community centres, so there's nowhere for people to kind of gather except pubs, and people don't even go to pubs anymore, whereas we have masjids so we can gather inside the masjids. And I think if people are buying a house or if they're renting and they're staying in the same area for a long period I'm talking 20, 25 years that way you can build a community. And when you're building a community, that's where you get stronger, that's where you can affect potential politics and councils, because you're in that area for a long time. And then, obviously, area to area, you talk to each other.
Speaker 2:It's just like a wide and that's influence, and that's influence and that's important.
Speaker 1:But I think the government here they kind of isolate people, because how many times do you see the older people just by themselves? Their spouse has passed away, they're just walking out by themselves. They have nowhere to go.
Speaker 2:Or their sick children are put in a care home.
Speaker 1:So during COVID there's a charity called Supporting Humanity which my mum now volunteers for.
Speaker 1:But during COVID they would give out meals to the elderly people and so many times it was just older people living on their own. It was muslim and non-muslim. They was just. They would just give the the food out, and I think that kind of got me thinking as well. So they can't. There has to be a community for these people. Now during covid, people are more isolated more than ever. 20, 30 year olds are isolated. Forget about the older people. But you have to look after the older people in life. If they're isolated they don't have anywhere to go. Then it kind of gets passed down through generations and that is what we're seeing happening in this country.
Speaker 2:Going back to the conspiracy a bit. Why would the government want to do that?
Speaker 1:I guess so that communities and groups wouldn't have as much influence yeah, divide and conquer okay that's what I think interesting.
Speaker 2:No, I'd not heard that before. No, I think there is a lot of validity to it. I think, as well, there's a push for things online. I think we see that a lot in the marriage community or people looking to get married in our communities, rather and that everything's being pushed to the apps and online and it's so hard even for parents just to find people for their children to get married, and I think there is a bit of a marriage crisis and that we're all getting married later. Divorce rates are on the rise.
Speaker 1:Perhaps that's why the community doesn't exist anymore potentially, and there's that's probably also a lack of trust in within our communities as well but. I think. I think naturally the divorce rates would go higher anyway because the communities are expanding so more people are getting married. Percentage wise it might be less, but more people are getting married. Maybe more people just not compatible in absolute terms. Yeah, for sure okay doesn't mean it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:It's just, yeah, maybe the natural way of it. Okay, so we talked about your career in property. You started out in rent to rent. You went on to become one of the founding partners not founding, but one of the partners at High Castle Estate.
Speaker 2:And then you went inside a podcast. What was the? Was there like a moment where you thought I need to do this? Was there some inspiration? Were you a big fan of Rob Moore or Stephen Bartlett and thought, let me do this? What was the reason for starting the Muslim Pan podcast? Probably more Stephen Bartlett, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I liked the way he would kind of get inside of a mind of a person and I found that quite interesting. To be honest, I only used to watch him with the football players. First, I think he did one with Gary Neville, he did one with Jesse Lingard, so I would watch them. And then I would start watching the ones he did with some of the celebrities and stuff and I thought, okay, it's quite interesting. But then I think, post-covid and 2021, 2022, I was like was like okay, I need to do something for personal branding, because there's company branding and there's personal branding why were you so interested in your own personal brand?
Speaker 1:because people relate to people and if, for example, if I post something on linkedin, compared to if high castle post something on linkedin, more people are messaging me, and that's just the way the world is. And even though the digital age puts everything online, people still want to connect with people and people still want to like resonate with each other.
Speaker 2:Like, for example, we've only met once, maybe twice, I can't remember a couple of times, yeah, but I feel like I know you a lot more but if you didn't like me, I didn't like you, this wouldn't be happening today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true, because it's it's people with people and I think that personal brand you have to build a connection, you have to build trust. Yeah, people have to know, okay, but it's also it doesn't.
Speaker 2:It's weird to me when you said that we've only met, I think, once or twice before, because I see your face like every day, you know. So it doesn't feel that way and I guess that's the power of the personal brand, and Madas Achaudhary put this really well when we did our episode with him. So he, headed up, was the co-lead of EY's Muslim Network for the longest time and he's a huge advocate for personal branding and he said exactly what you said. People follow people rather than brands. When people thought about Apple, they thought Steve Jobs. When people thought about Tesla, they thought steve jobs. When people thought about tesla, they think elon musk. And you can see the impact these individuals have sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better on their institutions, on their brands. Following the brand is boring on its own, but a person, that can be a really valid way of doing business and your language is different as well.
Speaker 1:Like when you're posting as yourself, you can speak a bit more freely when you're posting as kestrel yeah also, it's like I have to say.
Speaker 2:I have to keep it within my brand values and it has to be a bit more true, true, true, true, unless you follow the kestrel tiktok, because we do repost a bunch of different things, so you should follow us um okay, that's so you started this, because, yeah, I hate being in front of the camera and I hate doing this.
Speaker 1:Oh, hi guys, welcome to Zade's world how old are you?
Speaker 2:that might be asking. I think you're. We're the same age 34, okay. Okay, I'm 32, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:It doesn't come naturally to our generation yeah, whereas my cousins who are 10 years younger? They can speak in front of the camera on tiktok they call it the millennial pause.
Speaker 2:I've learned recently where, I don't know, they can see us pressing a button instead of it starting naturally, but anyway. So you started the podcast. You started the podcast and you committed to doing weekly. I committed to doing weekly.
Speaker 1:So I had I done quite a few weekly. Um, no, sorry, I actually started to do every two weeks. Okay, then there's so many guests I follow me, just do it weekly so that I probably did about 20 episodes weekly and then I kind of just slowed down a bit what was so?
Speaker 2:when did you start this? Was it two years ago? January 2023 was my first one. January 2023, so almost two years. Almost two years. And how many episodes have you done? Probably about 60 60 episodes, okay, wow. And you've had about 60 guests. You've been doing it for two years. What was the aim of this? I know it was about your personal brand, but did you have specific metrics, like a certain number of followings, a certain number of views? What was success to you?
Speaker 1:there was no metric and it's weird to say this as a business owner, but there was no metric put in front of me I thought, let me just try this, let me just, it is literally. Let me just take a step and see where it takes me. And it's interesting to say okay, is there a metric of its success? Is okay, 5k subs? I think there's a decent amount of subs, but then if I was to compare it to side by side kazi, who started a similar, I think he's got 15,000.
Speaker 2:I think closer to 40 now 40,000,.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he's got a lot of subs, so obviously he's done a lot better than me. But then the consistency matters as well. But I've also generated business from there. People have literally messaged me saying, oh, can we sell our house? By the way, I've seen your podcast. It's really good, really so.
Speaker 2:I have to measure that metric now yeah, of course, how many leads it generates for you.
Speaker 1:So it still it generates leads, okay, which is interesting, but there was no real end goal. But I think now, probably about a year in when I rebranded, or a year and a half in when I kind of rebranded, I think this is now look, I want to make Muslim pound a thing, and how I'm going to do it I'm not sure yet, but the vision is that there has to be a community, a Muslim community, which works together In the sense that example, your orchestral, you want your digital marketing done? Okay, there's this company here who do it within the community, and they don't have to be necessarily Muslim, but our values. They understand our values.
Speaker 1:Which is very important. And again, this just grows a Muslim pound. You want investment, you want to invest money into startups? Oh, there's Qura, there's Wahid. You want to recruit? There's this recruitment company. So I think that's the kind of goal, but not just business related. Then it goes down to charity related as well, and education and community.
Speaker 2:So all of this plays a massive part in our society today it sounds like you've got a wider plan for the Muslim Pound, beyond just the podcast I do and how I'm going to execute it.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure yet, and the only reason for that is time, because, as you know, podcasting takes a lot of time it doesn't be more than you expected it does for those who don't know.
Speaker 2:It does take a lot of time. We do actually research. It doesn't seem that a lot of the time, but we do research, I guess.
Speaker 1:And um, then you've got your normal business day to day, so, of course, and then you want to try and grow something else, but then I think this is just part of being a business owner that you want to try different things, even though you need to focus on one, but you want to try different things to benefit the wider community, because I think, as business owners, there's a lot of acts of service that we do yeah, customers for our staff, and I think, naturally, that relate to the community. In terms of podcasting, because this is health, you hosting this podcast as an act of service.
Speaker 2:In terms of educational, content for sure, but from a selfish perspective. You must be learning. I don't know about you, but I've spoken with 23 individuals over the last 23 weeks and, subhanallah, the amount that I've learned and actually implemented in my business over time sorry, actually implemented in my business over time, sorry, actually implemented in my business over time it's been astounding. I never imagined. It sounds weird, but I didn't think that was going to be one of the side effects of starting a podcast, for example, like Madasa's lessons on personal branding, or Arfa Farooq's ideas of community, or Faida, with just their storytelling and raza's inspiration and commitment to his cause. It's um, I don't know, it's really has been inspiring to me. It's almost like my own personal university and education. Do you find that as well?
Speaker 1:yes, like each guest is like reading a book, isn't it? Yes, plus, you can ask them anything you want. And it's true, I've learned, like arfa mentioned something which to me is like very, very important on on my podcast. She said before we were just trying to fit in, now we're showcasing our talent and it's like the muslim.
Speaker 1:If I go back to muslim pound, it's like, yeah, this is us now showcasing our talent. I'm speaking to guests showcasing their businesses and I think I've learned a lot of different things from a lot of um different guests and a simple thing such as, for example I can't remember who said I think it was dr asif from oh yeah, apprentice dr asif from the apprentice yeah he mentioned something about intermittent fasting and how he kind of engages the brain and stuff yeah, and I tried it for a bit and I thought, okay, no, this true.
Speaker 1:And then there's so many other guests who have just given valuable business advice and it's like, oh, this is actually very true, like just having a structured morning, or you know, I think, kevin Stewart, no matter what you do, you have to have your non-negotiables in the morning. So before, when I was younger, it's like I wake up straight into the office, in the office, from seven o'clock till eight, nine, ten o'clock, you're not taking care of yourself, you're eating rubbish foods, kevin kevin stewart actually mentioned to me. No, you need, the first thing you need to do is probably meditate or fast, pray and hit the gym, activate your, your brain, muscles, your body, and then do what you need to do. And that's kind of something I've implemented in my life like you have to have non-negotiables in the morning yeah and then you have non-negotiables in the evening as well.
Speaker 2:Wind down yeah, for sure, I haven't negotiated. As I've gotten older, especially since my kids were born, I've really come to appreciate that more. Like you, you do want to be there and you want to cover everything, but you do have to take time out for yourself, it's uh. So for me it's like okay, you wake up, you pray, I have to have breakfast. There's people who like to get breakfast. I can't do that. My whole day's ruined.
Speaker 1:Um, you, you do you just get breakfast yeah, since I was young I would skip breakfast.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I can't. I'm not one of those people I can skip breakfast and lunch and just have dinner really yeah, and it's gosh are you doing that for, like weight loss, I know you've been on a weight loss journey.
Speaker 1:I have been on a weight loss journey and then I put on a bit of weight since and it's like it's annoying, but I'm back on it now okay, nice, um yeah no, but that wasn't for weight loss, it's just me being oh just busy and lazy, do you work out in the mornings? Recently I haven't, but yeah, before yeah, probably about four months I think I didn't miss a workout every morning without failure.
Speaker 2:I'd work out what's what's your typical routine?
Speaker 1:so in the morning I would either um hit the gym or I've got like a few dumbbells on the back. If I'm feeling lazy, I'll spend 20 minutes in the garden, um, or I'll go to the gym and then and what are you doing there?
Speaker 1:just like uh uh I'll have push, pull, legs push pull legs, okay, um, and then in the evening I'll try and go for a walk, okay, after food yeah, yeah, yeah unless it's weather like today, always pouring down, yeah then it's like, but generally we're trying to go for a walk, me and my wife trying to go for a walk in the evening, nice, but they're the two kind of things I did. And then the main, main thing is always like looking out for your food. Sugar no. Chocolates no. Sweets no, really none, none. Like for a period of I think about, and it made a massive difference in energy and everything. Really.
Speaker 1:There's no afternoon dip, where in the afternoon you just slump. There's none of that. It's just like you switched on and even though sometimes I wouldn't have eaten or my calorie intake would be like 400, 500 calories, I'm switched on.
Speaker 2:It's the types of food you're eating. I have to give that a go, try it, try it. Okay, so we're running a little short on time, but what, um, what are your biggest takeaways? I guess what's the absolute high points from podcasting and I guess what were some of the most difficult things, what lessons learned from it?
Speaker 1:I think, when I think the the highest points from the podcast is always, like we mentioned just speaking to a whole lot of different successful business people, but and you're taken valuable tips. But probably one of the most valuable lesson I'd say I've learned is probably from sajid hussein, because he, he was doing really well in his it business and he was like I think he must have been mid-30s and then he's now where he is today. He collapsed, yeah, his business collapsed, oh okay, okay, no, he didn't collapse. His business collapsed and he's like we didn't, really there was no income whatever and then he had to rebuild himself and I think that, to me, is is more inspirational than someone who's started from low and then they've just gone up being a success from day one basically, even though they might have been homeless or whatever but he's gone up, then down and then back up because resilience
Speaker 1:and james sahota, who I've also had in my podcast. He's had the same. He was running a uh, it was like a printing factory, a printing company, and then he had to make pretty much. He had to close the company, going to administration, and then he went, went into property and now he's gone, and I think that kind of shows that in life anything can happen, but you have to have the resilience to stand up again and try again. And I think that's probably the biggest, biggest takeaway.
Speaker 2:So they're your favourite guests that you've heard.
Speaker 1:Saj was probably one of my favourites. I've had quite a few favourites because I've learned a lot of different things, but sad definitely, james, definitely you don't have to say that don't worry umar khalil was really good. I was really good. Yes, there's been quite a few like really really good ones, because everyone's got like their own unique yeah perspective and their own unique story yeah, I just know your favorite guest, who's been mine.
Speaker 2:Um, the episode that came out today on the day of filming harris rafan harris's was really good. I've heard so many of his podcasts before, but I think we asked him some very different things in this one, that we asked him a lot about what he's doing now instead of just the problems of islamic finance, what are some of the solutions, and what he's doing with court of the capital. Um, so that was a really good one. Raza's was incredible. He's, you know, such a pro at this kind of thing and a really inspirational story for people in and also around the islamic finance sector. Uh, umar suliman was a fantastic one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, his was very, very good. Lots of gems in that. Viral moments like when he said Islamic finance was contextual, which brought a lot of early views to the podcast, which was good. Naheem Basa, who's the chief strategy officer over at Bank Al Jazeera in Saudi Really interesting. Take on what's going on in Saudi right now, what it's like for an expat living in that region. I've had the opportunity to go out to riyadh a few times, meet more of that community and see what's going on out there is. We've been debating opening an office um in that part of the world I know you've just come back from saudi as well, yeah so you were looking, was it for an investment in saudi?
Speaker 2:we were looking at the property aspect of things and how?
Speaker 1:how the prices have kind of doubled in past two years and like we've noticed, okay, there's a shortage of hotels and developers like yeah, we know, so we're going to build hotels, and it's like they're just building this whole new city yes, but the cities already exist, like there's already. There's vibrant areas, there's a lot of expats there who earn good money, um, but we were just looking at the property aspect and my opinion is that the property prices again are going to double in the next five years and then again in another 15 years.
Speaker 1:That's what I think, Because if you look at who has invested in Saudi, you've got BlackRock, have invested, china have invested. Uae have invested heavily into the real estate, softbank, they've invested about $200 million, and Saudi themselves have invested trillions at least. So you follow the money in that aspect and then what you see on the ground and the level they're building it to. It's like they've seen Dubai, they've seen Qatar, they've seen UK, they've seen America and they're like, okay, this is what we're going to do.
Speaker 2:Do you think a lot of it's hype or do you think there's a real business opportunity over there?
Speaker 1:I think there's really good business opportunities there. I don't think there's a hype simply because they've got Vision 2030, they've got the World Cup, which they're trying to get in 2034. 2034, that's right so at least 10 years, yeah, and the building offices and companies are sending their staff there.
Speaker 2:I mean, look, we're genuinely opening up our office over there, we're thinking of sending people over there. There's little niggling worries. Do you remember Neom, the line project, I think? Originally it was meant to be 18 kilometers or 18 miles long and now it's 1.8. Right, so it's come down. It's less of a line, it's more of a dot there and it's. I just worry about a lot more of these projects, like have they really overestimated what, what the likelihood is of them actually taking place, how realistic they are?
Speaker 1:I think their marketing is always basically we can do everything yeah, and reality comes down, it's like, okay, we can't do everything, we'll do a bit. But then you compare that to here. It's the same. Hs2 line was meant to be done in 2018, 19 and the lines change and all sorts.
Speaker 1:Elizabeth line took a long time, so we have similar things here, but here is obviously a lot more mature. There's a lot of infrastructure, there's a lot more regulations, whereas in Saudi there's a lot of hype and there's a lot of marketing saying we can do everything and then obviously they'll change bits. They've just they've just had the metro unveiled yes, I saw that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the metro is finally out after like 10 years yeah, that's meant to be 10 years, so so is your plan to enter the property market in saudi that's something we're looking into.
Speaker 1:We haven't finalized anything, but that's something we're looking it's very exciting.
Speaker 2:So if there's some way of uk investors entering saudi through high castle, yes, that could be huge, that could be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the plan anyway. But okay, we'll see it's a it's a very long process yes, of course, as simple as I know.
Speaker 1:It's hard setting up a business there, as we're finding, I think there's a lot of barriers to entry for expats, um, and even for investing, but that's where it helps helps to know the right people, which is what we're trying to do. And I know a few people there who say that they love Saudi as a whole, like they love living there and they just want to come back here. So I think that's another kind of key thing. It's like you've left your home to go somewhere completely foreign where you don't even speak the language. Yeah. Okay, you're happy there. There, you're settled there, gosh, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, as we near the end of this, I wanted to ask you is this a big one? I'm sure you've asked, you've answered this before. What sort of legacy do you want to leave behind? Is that why I asked you once? Yes, and you caught me off guard with it. So what legacy do you want to leave behind?
Speaker 1:Zaid? I think ultimately so, since my grandfather passed away three months ago, in August, and I think since then my whole perspective has changed in the sense that he had such a good death. When he passed away, he had his family members around him, he recited a coulomb and everything, and me and my cousin were talking about it after it's like, whatever he's done in his life, that's what you want. So the ultimate, ultimate legacy is To have a good death and enter Jannah. I think that's like Ultimate. But how to get there?
Speaker 1:I think I want to do something where we can empower Muslims to change their mindset from a victim mindset or a can't do mindset to yes, we can do it and let's work together to do it. And I think if you go back the last 20, 30 years, we can just look at the masjids, for example. They don't work together. If you had four masjids in the same postcode working together, how strong would that unity be in that area? So I think to unite and to get people working together as Muslims and growing exponentially. So we as Muslims are not how can I put it?
Speaker 2:We're not thinking like we're one mind. We're not, yeah, with one target, with one future right now, but that's kind of where you want to get to, yeah, and that's what muslim pound is about.
Speaker 1:And even if it's just the start of something, and someone else can take over who's a lot more equipped and a lot better at building communities, and so be it yeah but I think that's where, that's what I want to see my legacy, so to kind of build a community where we're all working together yeah, for sure, yeah. So we're all kind of hand in hand and we have the ultimate goal, which is to be successful in this world and in the hereafter inshallah.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's a beautiful one. All right, thank you so much. Anything else you wanna? You wanna mention, or we're all good. I think we're all good, okay, fantastic, well, thanks so much, bro, it's been amazing and assalamualaikum. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Assalamualaikum inshallah thank you for listening to the Muslim Money Talk podcast. If you like what you heard, then please subscribe to Muslim Money Talk. Wherever you might have been listening to this, give us a like and share it with someone who you think might be interested. It really, really helps us out. Thank you, as-salamu alaykum, and see you next time.