Second Glance – Episode 5: Veso Kossev

Veso Kossev is a real estate professional who transitioned from post-communist Bulgaria to the Texas market, where he achieved over $500,000,000 in career sales. After establishing a significant track record in the South, he is now focused on the urban redevelopment of Detroit. This episode discusses his move to the United States, his high-volume sales experience in Texas, and his current efforts to contribute to the revitalization of the Motor City.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

It took me seven and a half years to graduate with an undergrad. I was making my parents take me to open houses in middle school on the weekends. Uh my dad actually opened a car repair shop as soon as like communism was over and he couldn't own a business.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

People often say that you have to create your own luck. But most of the time, no one really knows what that means beyond a motivational poster. Today's guest, I would argue, has actually lived it. An immigrant from post-communist Bulgaria, a competitive bodybuilder, and a real estate operator who has personally closed over half a billion dollars in transactions. Early in his career, he was barely into his twenties during the 2008 financial crisis. The housing market had nearly stopped, and most people were stepping away. Instead of waiting for conditions to improve, he was already finding creative ways to sell homes, learning how to create opportunity at an age when most people are still trying to figure out their direction. He's one of the nicest guys I know, that's why I jokingly call him the Bulgarian bully. But behind that nickname is a story about creating opportunity when there isn't any. This is Vesokosov at a second glance.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

So the goal was just to, you know, get out of Bulgaria. Um if I remember correctly, they tried South Africa, England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and just nothing would ever work out. Uh so think the US was kind of like our um holy grail, that's probably not gonna happen. So we're not even gonna bother attempting that. And lo and behold, that's the one that worked out. Um but really uh if you if I can paint a picture of how life was in Bulgaria back then, uh this whole process happens through the mail. And in the US, you take the mail for granted, like it shows up every day at 11 o'clock, they drop off a bunch of junk, and nobody cares about it. But in Bulgaria, that's not how it works. Uh very unreliable mail service. Uh we live in uh uh in the downtown of Sofia across the street from the Supreme Court in like a six-story beautiful 18th century building, and the mail was just left at the front stoop of the whole apartment building. So there's not like nothing makes it in your individual mailbox. Uh so my dad goes to walk the dog at five in the morning before work, and there's a big envelope uh on the sidewalk basically of one of the busiest streets in the city. Uh, you know, US Embassy official correspondence. And it's like obviously it's for them, right? Uh so not only one, but that happens twice because you get a formal notification that you're like selected initially, and then you receive another notification of when your actual appointment is at the US uh consulate in Bulgaria. So you gotta get both in order to know when to show up and what requirements you gotta meet. So just complete uh complete chance that we got both of those things in the mail, uh, the way mail is in Bulgaria. Uh so that was kind of kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

But how old were you during this?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

I think I was uh almost nine when the process started. It took about a year for everything to go through. So, you know, the they want people to have college degrees, you gotta submit medical records, you gotta go get these like special immunizations and physicals and all these things you gotta do. Uh so they really, you know, the the green card program, they're really trying to pick the best of the best that they can get, right? They're not trying to get people that are gonna, you know, move to America and get on welfare and not do anything. Um so yeah, it was about a year process. We had two interviews as a family that we had to go to the U.S. uh consulate in Bulgaria. Uh so this would have been in '97. It's the first time I saw Chevy Blazer, and I was like, oh my God. It's the most amazing car ever, because we don't have those in Bulgaria generally. Um so yeah, uh the lady that interviewed us uh was an old lady, uh, obviously American, spoke English. We have no idea what's going on, we have to have a translator. So it was a very interesting experience, but you know, it it worked out. Um my father came in March of '98. Uh that's when my sister was a senior in high school. So we stayed behind, me, my mom, and my sister, so she could finish high school and graduate in the end of May. Uh, you know, so my dad wasn't there for her graduation, for her prom, like all those big moments that are monumental. But uh, you know, it's kind of what you have to do to get the family where you wanted to be. And then I remember us coming here, uh, I think in the end of July, July 5th or something like that, July 7th of '98. And I remember I remember walking out of the airport and I was like, I couldn't breathe. It was so hot. Climate in Bulgaria is very different, very similar to like New York, Chicago weather. So like my first impression is oh my god, uh, how do people live here? I still feel that way every day.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Where did where did y'all move to?

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Right into Houston. Right to the U.S. Uh ironically, like three miles away from where I live now. So kind of uh we've kind of been in the same place in Houston since '98.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Um what were your parents doing in Bulgaria?

SPEAKER_01 5:37

So they're both mechanical engineers by by degree. Um you know, that's that's what they went to school for. Uh my mom worked for the um regional transportation authority. Uh she was like up in management. Uh my dad actually opened a car repair shop as soon as like communism was over and he couldn't own a business. So that's what my dad did uh throughout the 90s. Uh so he was a mechanic. Uh I grew up around cars with him. Like every summer, you know, I'd be covered in grease from head to toe. I remember he would have to like hose me down on the hood of a car before he would drive me home to my mom. Um so yeah, they're both mechanical engineers, but um, when he came here, that's what he started doing. He was a mechanic immediately. Um, they both had to take English lessons at night at churches or you know, community colleges or whatever, because the only person in my family that spoke English was my sister, and she wholeheartedly said, I'm not coming.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Really?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

Um made her not want to come.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Her long-term boyfriend in Bulgaria at the time. Um, so she ended up staying behind. Uh, she started college. She actually graduated from university in Bulgaria. Uh, and she would have to come for like three months out of the year to maintain her um status. So she'd come for the summers, but uh she didn't actually move to the States with us until you know her mid-20s. Um but yeah, everything 98 was just a fascinating year. Everything was so new, so different from I I remember the first time we went to a grocery store was a fiesta. And I'm not kidding you. We literally spent all day at Fiesta, just like walking down every single aisle and like, why are there 700 types of detergent and 15 different brands of salt? Like it was just a complete 180 from anything we're used to. Um But the the big thing that happened is you know, my parents still struggled with the language for for the first few years. Uh and I started fifth grade, so we moved in July, end of August, I start fifth grade without speaking any English, uh, which was a really scary time, but super exciting. Uh by the end of fifth grade, I was essentially fluent in English. Uh I got very lucky that we moved here right at that age where you just kind of absorb a language as your natural language. I have buddies of mine that moved when they were 13 and they still have like the harsh Eastern European accent, and they're still like, what's the word for this? What's the word for that? Uh so I got very lucky that we moved here at that opportune time. But what happened as a result is I was the one that was put in charge of like helping my parents with any kind of translation, right? So, oh, we got to go to the bank to open a bank account. Vesso gets to translate. Uh we have to call a credit card company to apply for a credit card to you know do whatever Vesso's got to translate. Um so that that was kind of like the majority of my childhood from fifth grade through, you know, um even now, like I I handle a lot of the family stuff. It's just kind of what we came came to be.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Does that make you grow up a little bit faster?

SPEAKER_01 8:33

I think so. So like I never really had the traditional like childhood experience of like like I never played any sports in school. Um I was like in my head, I always had like grown-up priorities that I had to handle, right? And I never I never saw it even now. I didn't I never experienced that as a drawback. Like I enjoyed it. I thought I um I thought it was fun. I like having that responsibility. And later on when I got into real estate when I was still in high school, I I really remember having the feeling of when people were impressed that I'm 16 or 17 years old and I'm selling real estate. Like that was a that was a cool feeling. I actually missed that because selling real estate in your 30s is normal and nobody like that's not impressive, right? Yeah, you're just you're working, good for you. You're supposed to, but when you're kind of doing those things as a teenager when you know everyone else is fooling you out and doing kids stuff, um, it was it was a pretty cool feeling.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

So this might be a tough question. Do you feel like you missed a part of your childhood because you grew up so fast?

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Definitely grow very different, um with very non-standard upbringing, but I don't I don't regret it. I wouldn't change it for for the world, like if I had to go back and do it again. Um and it's funny because my my wife have and I have these discussions all the time with how our daughter has grown up now. And it's like my wife also had a very different, challenging childhood as well, where she was put in a role of responsibilities early on for her family. Um and yeah, our daughter now is like typical American like movie movie life, right? Like she got a brand new Bronco at 16, she went to the college of her choice, she's gonna rush into all that stuff. Uh but no, I think I think we both enjoy that we've provided that for her, but I don't think we would change uh the way we grew up, either one of us.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So you just brought up your you were selling real estate at 16. Yeah, I started walking through how does that how does a 16-year-old even realize he wants to sell real estate.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

So I actually started when I was 12. So when I was 12 years old is when my parents uh bought our first home in Houston. Uh and again, that was that was my job to step in and translate and handle all that stuff. And again, I wasn't making the decisions, but I was involved very early on because all the communication went through me. Like I'll put it this way my parents have never signed a permission slip, a report card, a product, like nothing. No form that's ever come out of any school of mine has been signed by my parents. Uh and I wasn't avoiding showing it to them or anything, but um like I I always felt like I was in charge of that stuff anyway, right? Um but yeah, fast forward, I'm 12 years old. I think I was in middle school at the time, obviously. And we start looking for a home, and we end up meeting a broker at an open house, and his name was Bruce Richardson. He was a younger guy, uh, really cool guy. He worked specifically in foreclosures, so that's kind of the only stuff we looked at was foreclosures. He happened to be a bodybuilder, which that would kind of come back to later in my life uh as an influence. But really cool guy, and I remember uh every Thursday when I got home from school, I was excited to check the fax machine. I'm sure you've seen a fax machine maybe on a picture somewhere. But yeah, back then uh the foreclosure list, the new foreclosure list would come out every Thursday, and Bruce would fax it, usually in the morning. So by the time I got home from school, there was a list of new listings available that I need to go through before my parents get home. So I can be like, oh, we should see this house and this house and this house.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

So what were you looking for, what would he teach you to look for in his foreclosures?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Nothing really. Uh so I'd always been interested in architecture, like ever since I was a kid. Before we even moved to the US, I was in like art lessons as a as a little kid and like kindergarten all through school. And the only thing I would ever draw was just like houses and structures and like landscapes, things like that. Can I can barely draw a stick figure to save my life? Uh so architecture was always kind of uh an interest of mine since a little kid. But you know, obviously price, location. Uh back then all you got was I think was the address, the year built, school district, and the key map coordinates. So I would have to dig up the key map and find like, okay, on page 493, it's in square G1. Um and just from like memories of driving around, I'd be like, oh yeah, that was an area that we we that we really liked. Um so I would say that's when I really kind of delve into real estate and saw what it's about, and I was like, oh, this is a really kind of cool and interesting experience. Um so Bruce helped us borrow first house. It was a great experience. It was a foreclosure that we ended up buying. Um and then ever since then, I had just always been interested. Like I kept making, I was making my parents take me to open houses in middle school on the weekends after we had already bought a house, because it was just fun for me to uh you know walk around, look at the houses, talk to the agent, ask questions, and the agent's like, why is a 14-year-old asking me about tax rates in HOA? Um, my poor wife and daughter, I still dragged them to see houses for no reason today. So I guess that never went away. Um but then when I turned 16, um, a week after I turned 16, there was a REMAX office down the street from our house. Uh obviously I had gotten my license by then, so first thing I did is drive right down to the REMAX office and I said, hi, I'm I'm looking for a job. Are you guys hiring? Um I didn't really know anything at the time about every real estate agent, it's basically its own company. They're all independent contractors. So um it's not that REMAX hires people for these agents, they all kind of do it on their own. And the Misty, the receptionist at the time, was like, uh, well, we're not hiring as an office, but there's uh 112 agents here. I'm sure some of them may be looking for help, bring a resume tomorrow, and I'll make a copy of it and I'll put it in all the agents' boxes. And I was like, cool. I get in the car and I'm like, what the heck am I gonna put in a resume at 16 years old? Like, never had a job. Um and I wish I wish I had saved a copy of this resume to this day, because I will hang it up next to my you know diploma and other important stuff.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

But um, did you get a full page out of it?

SPEAKER_01 14:29

I did. I remember it being a full page. It was probably triple spaced. Um it wasn't an overly big font. I remember that. But yeah, I don't know. I went back the next day, I gave her the resume, she made copies like on the spot, and like we put it in all the agents' uh little boxes where to get their mail. So then a week later I get a call from a guy. He's like, hey, you know, saw your resume come by, we're looking for some help. Uh want to talk to you. Great experience. Um, his name was David Wiley. Him and his wife uh had started kind of forming a team a couple years earlier, and they had one girl working for them already, so I was like their second uh person that they hired. And they were great. Uh they really became like a really close family to me. Um, just really enjoyed working with both of them. I stayed with them all through freshman year of college. So basically, you know, my whole high school experience I spent working for them. Um but I just learned so much from him. So David was in commercial banking prior, and he was very, very rigid, very direct, um, great mentor. I think to a lot of people he came across as kind of a jerk and not a friendly person. Uh, but him and I got along famously. Uh it was great. He I started off, you know, putting up real estate science, taking pictures of the listing, taking the room measurements, just kind of gathering all the data for new deals. I remember I had to, you know, at the time she probably was holding about 30 listings at a at a time, which is a lot. So my job was to weekly go by and check all the houses and make sure uh it's kind of like checking on their clients, like, hey, are the beds made? Are the sinks clean? Is the garbage sitting out? Does the house smell bad? You know, we want to make sure that when we get a showing and a buyer is walking through that house, it's in 10 out of 10 condition, right? So it was really great. I I learned so much. I started doing a lot of marketing for them. Uh direct mail was huge at the time. So I worked on all that stuff for them. Uh just learned so much about the business. And then David at the time decided that uh would be more valuable working in the office uh than just running around doing stuff outside. So David hires another person to take over my role, whose name was Charlie. Charlie was a World War II veteran. Uh he was an amazing guy. I think he was in his late 70s at the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

What year would this have been, you're running around doing all this?

SPEAKER_01 16:48

I think at this point I was a junior in high school, maybe a senior. I would say junior. So I'm like 17 years old.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

So like 2007. Five.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

I graduated in 06, so this would have been 04-05. Okay. Um so hires Charlie. Charlie shows up, and it's and the first hand says, Good afternoon, sir. Uh, what can I do for you today? And I'm like, it was just such a different experience because there's a guy that's had so many more life experiences that obviously is way smarter than me, way more experienced, and he's asking me for direction. Uh, so that was a like a really fundamental experience, is how to learn to work with other people. And Charlie was great. Um at the time, it was prohibited for me to have a company car because of my age, right? But um, so David bought a van for Charlie to drive with all the all the supplies. I gotta tell you, I don't think there's a pharmacy in the world that's as organized and clean as that van ever was. And that van was full of signs and lockboxes and screws and nuts and tape measures and just like a million different, you know, dirty things, right? It was like a workshop on wheels. But Charlie was just such an incredible guy. Um, and he he ran that, and I had a really fun time working with him. But again, you know, at the same time, my friends are going to parties, getting drunk on the weekends, and I show up to the office on Monday afternoon after school, and Charlie's there, hi, what do you want me to do today? So it's just a complete 180 experience. Um and then ended up getting my license actually with the help of Chris and David, the people I worked for. And in my head, the point was for me to get my license so I can go sell real estate, right? Well, David didn't really want me to go out and start selling real estate because he knew he would lose me uh as being part of the team. So we uh we got in a in a bit of a difference of opinion of what my future looks like, and I ended up leaving uh freshman year of high school, is when I left uh working for Chris and David. I stayed in touch with them afterwards throughout the year, so um they've they've been great mentors throughout. But that's when I got into working for a new home builder at the time. So this would have been two years before the big crash in 08, right? So home building was doing great at the moment. Um obviously all of North Houston, kind of the whole suburbs of Houston, were blowing up big time. The builder I worked for was local in Houston, but they probably had about 40 communities or so. Um I met this builder because two years before I sold my parents a house in that community, right? So we bought a house from the builder and I really hit it off with the salesperson that we work with at the time. So I end up going to work for the guy that sold us the house two years earlier at Imperial Homes and start doing a lot of new home sales. That's when I get to do a little bit of design work on any kind of spec houses that are going up. Steve uh was a great salesman. Like if you ever I forget what the book is, but there's a book about this traveling salesman guy. Uh it's an old book, very famous. Um but Steve is like your typical old school sales guy. Like you come in, he's gonna compliment you on your watch, he's gonna try to find out your needs, he's gonna overcome objections. But great guy, I still keep in touch with him to this day. Uh but Steve had no sense of design of any sort. Like every inventory house he would build, people would end up buying it and rip out half of the stuff he would put in. Uh so I ended up kind of taking over that of like designing all the all the spec houses and what was going in, which was really fun. Um, started working a lot with buyers that were coming in. So it was a it was a big shift because when I worked for Chris and David, you know, as a real estate agent, you can sell anybody any house, right? As a builder's representative, you can only sell them what you were building, right? So it kind of shifted the focus on competition because obviously there's another builder right next door to us that's also pitching the same clients. Um, so that was a cool experience. But, you know, uh as we all know, the crash came in 08, uh, which was uh a disaster for this specific builder, also because the year before we had the big um whatever hurricane came through, Rita, uh, which caused a lot of damage to a lot of the inventory homes that the builder had. So it was kind of the perfect storm. Builder ends up going out of business in 2008. Uh I had just been working for them for like a year and a half, uh, and that ended up being a huge catalyst to my career. So with the help of Steve, he was able to put me in touch with the banks that finance all the individual homes that this builder builds. So, you know, the really big guys like Lenard and Dier Horton have their own money. Uh, they're doing everything in-house, but most of the smaller builders are actually getting commercial loans on every single project they build, every single house, right? Um so at the time this builder was working with about six different banks. I was able to get in touch with three of the banks, and I convinced two of the banks to let me list their inventory that they had left after this builder went up. One bank only had three houses, so that was that was no big deal. But the uh the other bank, Trustmark, I think had about 45 or 50 properties throughout Houston at the time. Uh so I'm 19 years old at this point, and I get called into Trustmark Bank to pitch, you know, listing these 45 houses. So I remember walking into a boardroom with like seven banker executive guys, just like Exactly what you would imagine. Full movie scene, like long table, they're all sitting on the sides. I'm at the front. 100% like snow hair on the on the horizon. Like super intimidating environment. And again, another thing I wish I saved, like, where's that presentation that I gave to them? I wish I still had a copy of it. And yeah, after an hour and a half of the whatever presentation I come up to put together, I walked away and they were like, sure, take take over all of them. The big challenge was that most of those houses weren't finished. Okay. So again, at 19, I'm now responsible for getting 45 homes finished out because you couldn't sell unfinished houses back then. So that was a great experience of, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

How did you finish these houses? Did the bank provide some funding since you're going to be able to do that?

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Oh yeah, the bank was bank was paying everything, but I had to manage all the guys that are working there, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

So I kind of took a shortcut. I went to the GC that worked at Imperial that I liked, right? So I got with him and he was able to kind of continue doing his job that he did for the builder, but just do it for the bank. But it was fun. It was it was very involved. I had started college at the time, but college was such a low priority for me at the time. It took me seven and a half years to graduate with an undergrad. I probably have paid for twice the amount of credits I ended up taking, right? Because I would sign up for a full load and then you know, third week of the semester, I'm like, oh yeah, I don't have time to do this. Uh and apparently I never checked the drop schedule either. So anyway, the priority was always work, work, work, uh, which I was having a lot of fun with. Um and interestingly enough, those initial 45 deals I can still trace back clients that I work with today to those initial 45 deals. Like it was it was such an impactful time, and I made so many connections from those deals that the you know the referrals are still coming in from people I met back then.

SPEAKER_00 23:58

So oh wait, the houses aren't selling, obviously. Who you worked or went under.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

What why couldn't they sell? What was what were you doing so different that they couldn't do on selling these houses?

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Well, you know, when you work for a bank, the bank does not care about making a profit. The bank cares about you know satisfying its um its um cost, right? So if it costs $250,000 to build a house and the builder wants to sell it for $325,000 to make a $75,000 profit, the bank just has to sell it at $260, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:30

So this artificially created just like a cheat code for you. It did.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah, 100%. Because I'm selling brand new homes, right, at a discounted price. So I mean like nothing was ever on the market a long time. Everything was flying off the shelves as soon as we could get it completed. So I probably I cleared out that 45 uh 45 listing inventory in less than a year, depending on you know, some of the houses were further along than others. Uh but about a year, year and a half, those were all gone because they they sold quickly. The bank was just interested in satisfying the debt that they were carrying. They weren't looking to make a profit, right? Um and I still work with Trustmark Bank to this day. Uh so it's been incredible because obviously the people I work with back then are no longer there, but it's just been like, hey, I'm retiring, this guy's taking over. So it's been amazing to kind of see um how relationships can grow over time. So that's been a huge lesson for me. Um you never know the person you meet today or the person you talk to today, what is that going to lead to in five or ten years down the road, right? Um so I've just learned to not ever discount anybody, not to say no to anybody. You know, if somebody once calls for a meeting about something, you know, unless you're trying to sell me cut co knives, which in real estate you get that a lot, uh unless it's some like really obvious sales tactic. Uh you know, everything is worth talking to somebody. You know, you just never know what's going to come out of it. A lot of it is not immediate, but um, you know, a lot of the business I have now I'm grateful to have because of connections I've made 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

And how long were you selling these foreclosed houses? Did this kind of end when the economy towards the end of 08, or was this a continued?

SPEAKER_01 26:05

It did. Um then it it it just kind of became a slower trickle. So that was kind of a big portfolio of new homes they had. There was a few other smaller builders that they were financing in Houston that were building townhouses. And those are usually like three townhouses at a time here and there. Uh so that business with Trustmark just continued over the years, not not in as big of an impact as that initial 45 listing did. Um but like I said, even to this day, I still I still list properties for them in Houston. So it's been it's been pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Aaron Powell So when you say you list properties firm, still to this day, if they get a foreclosure or something, they'll send it over to Vesso.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

If it's in Houston, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Your job is to sell that thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, and unfortunately, well, I I shouldn't say that. Trustmark is not uh they're not big on the consumer mortgage side of it. Uh like this year I've only done four for them. And that's they've only foreclosed five houses in Houston this whole year, right? Two ended up being wholes uh uh wholesale to another uh another bank. Uh but it's not like Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo probably forecloses you know hundreds and hundreds of houses a a year. So this is definitely a smaller bank, that's why they work with builders a lot. So whenever the builder inventory slows down a bit, that's that's when they typically get busier. Uh but again, just all the connections, all the referrals, all those, you know, foreclosures used to draw a big, big crowd back in the day. If you're like, oh, I'm listing foreclosures, people really want to come see them because that was a way to make money. Like if they could buy it under market value, you know, either flip it or hold it, whatever. So when I was you know younger in the business, I was doing open houses twice a week in Saturday, Sunday. That was that was all open houses. Um and just the amount of referrals and business I got from people, not that may never bought any of those listings, but I just met them through those open houses, are you know, I do zero advertising now. So my business has really over 21 years grown from hustling, hustling, hustling to, you know, obviously now I'm doing kind of a career change a bit, but I've been really lucky for the last three to four years, my business expenses are just like so minimal, right? Uh because I don't do any advertising because I've done so much business over the years, it's enough to just kind of keep coming back, coming back, coming back.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

You're just known. People just know who you are now.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Yeah, the people I work with, obviously, like not everybody knows me, but uh I know enough people where um the business is still consistent. So that's been great.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

So after the foreclosures, what goes next in your real estate brand? Because you started your own company.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

I did. Uh so you know, in real estate, saying you started your own company is more of a uh like cheerleader thing happening in the background. It's not really every real estate agent is their own company, no matter if you're a broker or not. Okay. Um, you know, regardless of what brand you work for, uh where you have your license, you're in charge of your own money, you're in charge of your own business, your own clients, all that. Just because you're at Remax, you could be a total bozo and not know what you're doing, or you could be at some Joe Schmo realty and you could be the best, right? The brand behind a real estate agent is really there to support the agent. It has really no bearing on the consumer side of things, right? So yeah. If you've been in real estate, you're always kind of your own boss. Uh but yeah, I got my broker's license at 21. Um went into a partnership with another agent shortly after where we had our own company together. I think we got to about 30 something agents, 40 agents at the time. Um and I quickly learned that running a brokerage and selling real estate are two completely different jobs, right? So I was doing the brokerage thing, I was selling my real estate business still, and I was half-assed going to school at some point. So it was a lot going on.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Uh but I quickly still going to school with all this.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

You know, I I completely owe that to my parents. I would have been the first in my family to not finish college. My sister had just graduated with the MBA from Rice a year before. So if it was my own choice, I probably would not have gone to college uh because real estate took off from me so well and I didn't I didn't really need it at the time. But looking back now, I'm I'm so happy that they did, and I kind of had that unspoken social pressure of you better finish college.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Uh even with all the success they say.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

100%. It's funny cultural thing in Bolton. 100%, yeah, yeah. So the way you hear, you know, like people from India, from Asia, like you gotta be a doctor, like we have people from Africa, or it's like you gotta be a lawyer. Like, that is a hundred percent true in Eastern Europe. Like uh you could be a total idiot, but if you have a college education, like your family will like you. So it's a very it it really is kind of a cultural thing. But during communist times, everybody went to college. It was free. Like there wasn't I would say probably 95% of the population in Eastern Europe had a college degree. Oh wow. A lot of them even had masters, right? Um because you didn't like you didn't really have a choice. I mean, uh and it's free, so why why would you not do it? Um so yeah, it was it was highly important to my parents that I graduate. It wasn't important to me at the time, but again, now I would have I would not be able to do what I'm doing now had I not done that years ago, right? Um But yeah, so at the same time, the the brokerage thing I quickly found out was not my cup of tea. I did not enjoy it, I did not like managing people, there really wasn't enough money in it, right? Because you're if you're an agent and you're trying to work somebody somewhere, you're gonna say, well, what what percentage of the commission are you gonna take for me, right? So agents always want to pay the least amount of split, uh, but they want support. They want you to help them, they want you to give them lease. It's just a very contradictory uh business, right? So I quickly found out that's not anything I enjoy doing. The majority of the time in brokerage, your your job is to clean up your agents' messes.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Like, can you give me an example of a mess?

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Oh, that's so this is what my wife does. My wife is the broker for a big company, right? It her job normally consists of well, the seller said they weren't gonna take the wash and dryer, but they took them and they damaged the wall on the on the move, and they don't want to fix it, and the buyer's threatening to sue. So it's like it's it's always a gray area, like it's never right or wrong. Um but then you have everybody wants to sue, it's so easy to sue in America, so everyone throws that around very easily. And it's the broker's job to kind of mitigate, you know, what went wrong, what went right, what can we do, how can we make you happy, how can we get away with not paying you know fines and that kind of stuff. So you're you're basically the cleaner, you know, when when shit goes wrong, right? Uh and legally that's that's what the broker is. The broker is the one that's responsible for all of the actions of the agents. So when a real estate agent screws up, let's say they fail to disclose that there's termites, right? And the buyer buys a house and then they later find out that there's termites and the agent knew, but they didn't say anything. The agent doesn't really get in trouble. I mean, they do a little bit, but it's really the broker that's on the line, right? So the broker is the one, you're the parent of all the kids that work in your office.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

So the responsibility of the broker is to make sure your agents are trained, they're aware, they know what they're doing, they're uh getting all the paperwork done right. But at the end of the day, there's no, you know, if an agent doesn't like the way the broker is doing things, the agent will just leave. There's nothing that holds them that says, hey, you have to work here, you have to abide by these rules because they're independent contractors, right? So quickly found out that's not that's not a side of the business I enjoy. So I kind of got back out of it into selling full-time. That's when I moved to Houston from living in Spring in the suburbs. Uh and that's really when I started kind of growing my uh my inner loop business. So at the time, this would have been around 2010, 2011, uh, the east downtown area of the loop was not really that popular yet. It was just starting to kind of get redeveloped. It was a very industrial, didn't really have a very positive um reputation among home buyers. But I saw a lot of potential there. Uh saw a lot of cool things that could happen. I started attending all of the like public works meetings. There's an East Downtown Management District that's created to promote the area and to improve infrastructure there. So that's kind of when I started getting involved on a uh like city level uh of things that are happening improvement-wise. And that's when I started marketing that area very heavily. At the time, Washington Avenue, Midtown, the Heights, those are the popular areas. But a lot of first-time buyers uh were starting to get priced out of those neighborhoods. So East Downtown was the logical option. Uh so fast forward, I 100% focused my business on that side of town, grew super successful, uh, really dominated the market there for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

Aaron Powell And you were going solo at this time.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Uh no, I worked for a company called Intero. Uh that's where I ended up meeting my wife. Um she was the broker at Intero. Um she was your boss. She was undercover, yes. No, she was not my boss undercover, she was my girlfriend undercover. Um but again, you know, it's not a traditional employee-employer relationship. I'm an independent contractor. Uh so it was it was okay legally. There was no issues there. Um but that was a great time. I I graduated uh from the University of St. Thomas in 2013. I was excited to focus full-time on just selling and growing that business, which was great. Um and that's really when like real estate really started taking off for me. Okay. Um I was known in the area, got to do a lot of fun marketing, direct mail was huge back then. Uh I remember one of the the uh well, the dynamo stadium, the soccer stadium had just opened in that neighborhood the year before. So started doing a lot of events with the Houston Dynamos. Uh we were we did pub crawls every year for six years that I was like the main sponsor and organizer of with like Eighth Wonder Brewery, St. Arnold's. It was it was really fun. I I learned how to connect with people, I learned how to network uh during those times. But one of the first direct mail postcards I sent was uh me looking like I was taking a jail mugshot and I was holding a salt sign, obviously, instead of a jail thing. Uh so that was a postcard I sent out to the neighborhood, and I said it said something like wanted Edo's most successful broker, something cheesy and stupid, right? But I send that card, and then I remember uh we went to a dynamo game two weeks after the card came out, and everybody was just like, oh, you're the wanted guy, you're the guy from the mailbox, or whatever. So it was uh it was really cool to kind of see the marketing work, right? And um, you know, of course the money followed, it was great. Um but my whole interest in that area was just how quickly it started redeveloping and how quickly it started changing. And I became very interested in, well, what are the factors that led to this change? Because I was taking an inventory of how Washington Avenue and Midtown and the Heights were turning out and how Eda was turning out, right? So I started getting really involved with like the management district. Uh we were doing, I was sponsoring tree plantings, like the mayor of Houston at the time would come out and she would speak at these events. I was going to all the metro meetings about where they're going to run the new light rail lines and things like that. So it was great, but that was also the information buyers needed to see in order to feel good about their purchase in this neighborhood that was not historically that popular. And fast forward now, I think Ida is one of the best areas to live in Houston. Uh I think it's it's way nicer than anything on the west side of town in terms of the inner loop neighborhoods. So it's been really fun watching that growth. But eventually that's kind of what fueled my desire to not just sell real estate, but to create it in a way. And that's probably about 2015-16 is when I really started to think about development and how I could pivot from sales and uh go into that. Um but it's great because I think you know, having 21 years of dealing with people and their housing needs and wants and desires, and again, with kind of I've always had this focus of architecture and design in my in my background, um it's like market study, right? So sometimes I I hear people in development talk about real estate and I'm like, but have you actually ever walked through a apartment or a house or a townhouse with a customer to hear the things that they like and don't like? And a lot of the times, uh like I would pick up on things that a consumer may not like about a house and they may not even know why they don't like it, right? But if you think about the design, you can say, oh, it's because all the windows on these houses are facing the windows of that house behind it directly. So the buyer never came out and said, Well, there's no privacy here, and I feel boxed in, but townhouse after townhouse after townhouse, the ones that are boxed in like that design-wise, people don't want, right? So you start thinking, well, how could you develop this community to break that up, right? So, you know, I I think that 21 years of experience has been really beneficial because you really see how people live with the real estate decisions that are made, uh, how design impacts their lives and the things they like and don't like. Uh so it'll be it'll be interesting to kind of put that into perspective more so.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

What's really interesting to me is that you create a lot of your own doors through this story. You know, the showing up at 12 years old, and showing up to Remax at 16, and then going on a gut feeling or you know, whatever you saw in East Houston in the industrials, you've been really good at creating your own opportunities. Do you get that from your parents?

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Probably. I think uh you know, my parents are my best friends, they're my top supporters. I I talk to both of them multiple times a day. I think that's a probably very cultural thing as well. My wife still kind of laughs about it. She's like, oh, your mom's calling you for the fourth time today. But uh yeah, they've they've just always been my biggest cheerleaders. Uh but it's funny because my my mom is super adventurous. My mom is about to go to Japan uh for a month. Um, she's been going to all these trips in Alaska. My dad, on the other hand, is like, let me stay at home and do my little hobbies in the garage and leave me alone, right? So they're very different in that regard. But the the thing that's funny is my dad is the one that's very entrepreneurial, that always wants his own business. And my mom is the one that's like, give me a job at a corporation, I feel safe here, right? So I would say for the majority of my career, maybe until about five or six years ago, my mom has always been in the back of her head, no matter how much money I made, it's like, were you ever gonna get a real job? Like to her, it was always like, like, are you gonna go get a real job somewhere despite the financial success that I was experiencing? And I think she's finally realized that being a business owner and and riding your own path is uh the right thing for some people. My sister is very much like my mother. Like she wants a nice stable job, she does not want to be an entrepreneur. So I definitely get a lot of that from my dad. Um but yeah, there's they've always kind of been my high people and supported me in any way that I can. Uh but again, I I wouldn't be here had they not chosen to move our whole family here, you know, 20-something years ago. Uh if we had stayed in Bulgaria. You know, this is a conversation I have with them all the time because I I wonder what life would have been like if we stayed. Um it was a very turbulent time. You know, if you if you think about the government owned everything. They owned every business, they owned every factory, they own every farm field, every single thing was owned by the government. So in the 90s, uh there was this thing called privatization where the government worked through like selling all of these assets and businesses to people. So there would be a you know a bidding process for uh we have the steel plant that we need to sell. So there would be a bidding process for that. Obviously tons of corruption, things ended up getting sold for a hundred bucks to their buddies, right? Um but lots of opportunity. So you know I think if you if you have that juice in you, you're gonna figure out how to use it anyway. But um yeah, if they hadn't done this, I I would not have gone through those experiences where I had to grow up uh 10, 11, 12 years old dealing with financial institutions in a new country. So it's definitely shaped who I am. So I'm super grateful for that.

SPEAKER_00 42:02

Aaron Ross Powell What's been the low point for you in your career and your journey so far?

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Um I would say I've, you know, kind of in the last few years since I decided to get into development, um, you know, as much as I've enjoyed doing real estate, it got to a point where I wasn't enjoying it anymore, right? It got very repetitive, uh, it got very transactional. So it was weird because I went through this period of about three years where I really had to decide for myself, hey, if I keep doing this, I'm gonna make more and more money, which is great, but I'm not happy. So regardless of how much money I'm making, if I'm not happy, is this really the path I want to stay on? So I wouldn't really say, you know, obviously business can fluctuate up and down depending on the economy, but I think for me it was probably about four years ago when I was like, I just really don't enjoy this transactional business anymore. Like I want to create something. When I'm old one day and I'm driving down the street, I want to look at something and say, hey, I was an instrumental part in this thing being here, right? Um, I I wanna I want to contribute to people's way of life, people's, you know, uh their housing, how they enjoy where they live, how they interact with their community. And you really can't do that through just sales. Like you gotta go out there and and make stuff to do that. So I would say and that was a big surprise to me, because if you would have asked me at 16 when I had just gotten in, like this is what I was gonna do the rest of my life. Like I was a hundred percent fulfilled. But at one point, uh, you know, you get older, uh your experiences shape you and change you, and I was just I wasn't satisfied doing just that anymore. So I think that was I really think I kind of um didn't want to admit it for a while because the money was so good. Um but yeah, at some point you gotta you gotta do what makes you happy, you know. And you'll be I think financially you will be successful immensely at anything that you do that makes you happy, right? Uh because at that point real estate. For me, it has never been a chore. It's never been a drag. Like I don't watch sports. I don't really like to go out. Like what I like to do is read newspaper articles about developments or things that are happening or study real estate markets or look at random vacation markets in Vermont and go back 20 years and see what they were selling for and see what they're selling for now. So for me, that is interesting, right? So if you could figure out a way to take what you're passionate and translate it into work, it won't be work at that point, right? I think there's a saying you won't work a day in your life if you're doing something you enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Silvestro. What's next?

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Great question. My lovely wife is amazing because she supports all of my crazy ideas, no matter how ludicrous they are. But the big thing that's on the radar for me now is this idea of moving to Detroit and getting involved in real estate there. Not sales necessarily, but development. So completely organically came across Detroit. I mean, I've known about Detroit, but really started looking into it about 11 years ago. First time I visited the city was in January of 2014, and it was I was in shock. I could not believe that I'm in the seventh largest city in America and there's no functioning streetlights and stoplights. I mean, it was just crazy. Like you're in the shadow of the worldwide corporate headquarters of General Motors, one of the largest companies in the world, and the streetlights are not working outside. It was it was just mind-boggling. Um but really kind of got super interested in Detroit over the years. Uh I don't know, we probably have gone 15, 20 times there now. My parents and I have invested. We bought real estate there, uh, which has been kind of a really interesting story, but very beneficial experience. Um but tons of growth. I mean, the city is doing amazing things, the transformation has been incredible. Um some of the friendliest people I've met, complete random strangers, have been in Detroit. Every time I've been in Detroit, any coffee shop I walk into, people randomly will will offer to buy you coffee. You know? Um they're super welcoming, they're very proud of their city, uh, very resilient. I think one of the first things I noticed about Detroit that really struck me is, you know, when you look at the history and the demographics of the city, no chain business would open within the city limits, right? So there was no uh national grocery store, no fat, nothing. Everything was locally owned businesses in the city, right? So it was very cool because you you really meet a very uh resilient population, right? Everyone's just making things happen, they're they're making the best of it. And they have they have great progress to show forward. It's really it's really come a long way. Um but yeah, that's kind of my my next thing on my radar is moving up there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

You want to go and contribute to this project.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

I do. I want to contribute. I feel um you know, Detroit is a very grand, elegant city from its time, right? Uh it's a very different feel than the way newer cities are built, right? If you compare any historic property in the south of the U.S., excluding a few places, or in the Western U.S., um it just it just looks so elementary and cheap and basic compared to the grand way things were done in Detroit back in the day. And the cool thing is that all those things that are getting restored now are being restored with such respect to their original details and contributions. So the you know, anybody can look up the Michigan Central Train Station, which had been abandoned for, I don't know, since 84, 85. Ford just bought it, not just a few years ago. Ford spent a billion dollars buying and renovating this train station. It's now their hub for their autonomous and electronic vehicle development. Um I mean, the it was actually a grand version of the New York Central Grand Station, right? So like imagine that level of detail, but everything was tripped, everything had fallen apart. They went out and found craftsmen people that could replicate all the stained glass, all the plaster, all the crumb molding. I mean, every single detail. When you walk into Michigan Central today, you would think you're there in 1927 or whenever it opened and it was brand new. So it's really I think the historic preservation is very cool to see because they're they're renovating things with the respect to how they were. They're not just coming in and slapping, you know, gray LVP floors and shaker style white cabinets and everything because that's not how it was, right? And kind of in the southern and western US, um, I just don't feel like there's that much of an identity historically. Um so yeah, I think there's a lot of exciting things happened there, and I I hope that I could uh make a contribution in some way over time.

SPEAKER_00 48:55

I think what stands out to me about Veso's story is that it's about more than success, it's really about opportunity. Coming from post-communist Bulgaria, he arrived in the United States with what he calls crazy luck. But it's clear that luck alone didn't carry him. It was matched with creativity, persistence, and a willingness to create opportunities instead of waiting for them. He's built a life and a career that now spans over half a billion dollars in real estate transactions. And rather than focusing on what was unfair or difficult about having to grow up fast, he stayed focused on one question. What can I do now to create the next opportunity? Today he's channeling that same drive into a bigger goal: helping revitalize one of America's largest cities. I think there's a lesson in that for all of us. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss a future episode of Second Glance. As always, I'm your host, Colin Adams. Thank you for listening.