Why Women Make Better Financial Decisions? | The Mal Show (Podcast) with Rami Tabbara

- Real estate has long been considered one of the most powerful ways to build wealth. But for most people, investing in property feels out of reach — requiring large amounts of capital, long-term commitments, and access to opportunities that are often reserved for a small group of investors.

In this episode of The MAL Show, we sit down with Rami Tabara, Co-Founder and CEO of Stake, to explore how technology is changing the way people invest in real estate and why the future of wealth creation may look very different from the past.

We discuss fractional real estate investing, tokenization, passive income, property ownership, investing psychology, the future of real estate in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and whether access to investments is becoming more important than ownership itself. We also explore how younger generations think about money, why real estate remains one of the world's largest asset classes, and how platforms like Stake are opening the market to millions of new investors.

In this episode:

- Can you really invest in real estate starting from AED 500?
- How does fractional property ownership actually work?
- Is real estate still the best way to build long-term wealth?
- Why are younger investors changing the investment landscape?
- What is tokenization and how could it transform ownership?
- Should you invest in real estate, stocks, crypto, or all three?
- How do you create a second source of income?
- Why are global investors increasingly attracted to Dubai and Saudi Arabia?
- What does the future of investing look like?

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for more conversations about money, investing, business, and human behavior.

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:04 Why Everyone Should Invest in Real Estate?
6:37 Real Estate Culture in the Middle East
10:02 Investing from 500 AED
13:58 SPV vs. Tokenization
21:35 Weekly Dividends Explained
26:02 Your Second Income
27:08 How Much Real Estate in Your Portfolio?
29:10 Launching During COVID
35:09 Real Estate Made Easy
38:25 Buying a Full Home Through Stake
40:54 Mubadala, Aramco & ENBD as Investors
42:24 Managing 1.2 Billion AED
51:31 Women Invest Better Than Men
53:19 Gen Z vs. Older Investors
1:00:14 Golden Visa Through Stake
1:05:42 Why Rami Started Stake
1:08:12 Own Dubai Property in 3 Minutes
1:17:31 Skills to Work at Stake
1:21:27 Message to Regulators

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To get in touch with Rami Tabbara
https://ae.linkedin.com/in/rami-tabbara

#RealEstate #Investing #Stake #Dubai #WealthBuilding #PassiveIncome #Finance #TheMALShow

Transcript

0:01

Why would you put two million denims into a home that you're not gonna live in and lock up all that capital into one property? Unless you're buying a home to use, this is why fraction real estate makes a lot of sense because okay, I'm looking to invest. I don't want to lock up all my capital into one property. Let me diversify and take that money and put it across many properties. Our guest in this episode is Rami Tabara, co-founder and CEO of Stake, one of the leading real estate investment platforms in the region, focused on making property investing more accessible through fraction ownership and technology. There's risk in everything. We always tell people don't put the money that you need to pay for a school, a tuition, enter stake, or any other asset class for that matter. You know, only invest in money that you don't need immediately, if you need to liquidate. Is that despite the common convention that men have been more involved in financial decisions given that investing and trading among households? Actually, because women in most places they run the households from financial perspective and spending and budgeting, that they actually have more financial awareness and they make decisions more frequently, which can actually make them superior investors. Now we actually tried once to go as low as one bit. We allowed people to invest on our platform with a promotion for a property in Burj Khalifa, starting from one bitham. And we had investors, thousands and thousands of investors owning a piece of Burj Khalifa. But then we realized that economics didn't make sense because the cost, you know, for us from KYC and regulatory and everything didn't make sense. So we went to 500. You said before, like the reason you started this is an idea of why can't everyone invest? Why can't investment opportunities be available for everyone? Obviously, you focus on real estate, but the thesis is bigger than that. Why is that important to you, the ability for everyone to invest? You need to have real estate in your portfolio. There's no two ways about it. Whether it's 10% as we're saying or 90%, that's up to you. You need to have real estate in your portfolio. I think the best way to do it is start small, see how it works, and if you like it, continue to increase uh your investments as you go along. Assalaamu alaiku and welcome to the Mal Show. Real estate is seen as one of the most powerful ways to build wealth. But for most people, it also feels completely out of reach. You need a huge capital, long-term commitments, and access that most ordinary investors simply don't have. But that model is starting to change. A new generation of platforms is rethinking what real estate investing actually looks like, making it faster, more accessible, and more aligned with how younger generations think about money, ownership, and investing. Our guest in this episode is Rami Tabarra, co-founder and CEO of Stake, one of the leading real estate investment platforms in the region, focused on making property investing more accessible through fraction ownership and technology. Before founding Stake, Rami spent years deeply involved in the real estate industry, working across major developments and high-value transactions, before deciding to build a platform aimed at opening up the market to a completely new generation of investors. In this episode of The MALT Show, we discussed how real estate is still one of the best ways to build long-term wealth, how technology is changing the psychology of investing itself, and why access may become more important than ownership in the future. Don't forget to subscribe to our channel to get the latest episodes of The MALT Show. Let's begin. Rami, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Really great to have you. We want to obviously talk a lot about real estate, about fractional real estate, about everything you're doing at stake, but I want to take start first with you said before, like the reason you started this is an idea of why can't everyone invest? Why can't investment opportunities be available for everyone? Obviously, you focus on real estate, but the thesis is bigger than that. Why is that important to you, the ability for everyone to invest? You know, I think today it's um, you know, the the way the world's going is wealth is heavily uh focused and undistributed equally to the certain layer of income uh people who generate a certain income. You need to enable people to participate in wealth creation, wealth generation. And, you know, throughout my career, I always used to see people wanting to invest, but first of all, either they didn't have the means or they didn't know the knowledge of where to invest, where to start. And you know, in our part of the world, uh real estate is the lowest hanging fruit. Um, you know, it's like a sport. Everywhere you go, everyone talks about real estate, everyone wants to invest in real estate. Uh, you know, you go to the barber, you go to the dentist, everyone's asking, is your rent going up? Are prices going up? Should I buy now? You know, everyone talks about it. So, you know, I've done real estate for 20 years, so that's where I tend to really focus my knowledge. But just the ability to enable people to generate wealth uh is something that's very important for us. It was very important of our mission. You know, people should be able to participate in wealth creation, they should be able to allow their children to participate in in wealth creation. And I think real estate was the most straightforward thing to let them to you know, to allow them to do that. So um, you know, for us, people should not be barred from participating in an asset class purely because of their income uh or their knowledge uh level or you know, their background, whatever it is. People should be able uh to create wealth for themselves. And you know, to be able to do that through real estate is something that's very important for us. And that's why it was a natural thing for us to say, hey, how do you enable everyone to participate in the largest asset class in the world, which is usually the most restrictive uh asset class in the world, um, and to do that in an easy and transparent way from an app. And that's why, you know, we we we decided to launch stake. So real estate is the largest asset class in the world, even larger than stocks? Yes. Wow. Yes. Yeah, I mean, you know, today you look at real estate, everyone, you know, other than having an affinity to it, but you know, if you look at real estate in general, everyone uh uh is exposed to it. Um, you know, and if you look at just real estate, you either rent a home, your parents own the home, you know, it's it you interact with it every single day and it's not going anywhere. And you know, that's why it's it's the largest and easiest asset class to understand. And you said in our region we have this amplified linkage to real estate from a culture perspective. What drives this culture of real estate in the Middle East? I think it's security, it's safety. I think um, you know, it's a very cultural thing. When you're young, you know, your parents teach you as soon as you make some money, you get your first paycheck, you know, buy a home. Um, you know, and I think it's it's something that's very important because, you know, when when you you grew up around a family or your parents who have you know strived, it was a dream to own a home. Uh, you know, you you're at least my dad I know would always say, you know, put your money into a home, put your money into an asset class, into this asset class. And I think education around other asset classes wasn't in our part of the world isn't readily available, right? You know, people in our part of the world just recently started investing in stocks. It wasn't something that people, you know, would would I I I it took me time to understand how to invest stocks because you know, my father didn't invest in stocks. You know, he was a real estate guy. He used to invest in real estate. And I think that because of that cultural affinity to it, you're you grew up in a way, and I think it's specifically in our part of the world where people say, okay, you need to your safe investment or your first bonus or your first salary, put it into a real estate. And I think that's or a property. And I think whether you own a home or you rent a home, it's just such a daily part of your life that you know owning a piece of it is is is a necessity. Would you still give your kids the same advice? Would that give you first paycheck into real estate? Very interesting. So I would tell my kids to diversify. Um, you know, I the first thing I did when I when I started making money in Dubai is I bought a home. Um, and you know, obviously you take a mortgage and you know the markets go up and down. And I think the first thing I would do is to look to diversify. So I wouldn't say put all the money that you have into a property. I would say be able to have some money to invest in a home or buy a home, but also keep some money to diversify into other asset classes. Don't make the mistake of taking all the money that you make where you're going into a mortgage that you probably, if you lose your job, you can't afford. I wouldn't, I would never do that. Uh and that's a risk I did. Uh now you said people have historically three problems investing in real estate, which you're trying to solve uh through stakes. So maybe let's take them one by one. The first one is income. And I think you try to solve that by saying I will start from 500 uh dirhams. Uh so tell us more about kind of that that piece of the income equation and how you're solving that. So, you know, I think um, you know, you shouldn't have a barrier to investing in in real estate. And for us, you know, how low can you go for it to make sense? Now we actually tried once to go as low as one dirham. We allowed people to invest on our platform. It was a promotion for a property in Burj Khalifa, starting from one dirham, and we had investors, thousands and thousands of investors owning a piece of Bush Khalifa. But then we realized that economics didn't make sense because the cost, you know, for us uh from KYC and regulatory and everything didn't make sense. So we went to 500 dirhams. And the reason why is because effectively a lot of people can afford 500 dirhams. But naturally, that's not where you know we want investors to stick at. We want people to grow their portfolio. But we felt that it's a low enough barrier to allow people to come in at 500 drams, a low-enough entry point to allow people to come in with 500 dirhams, test the platform, see what it means, see how it works, and then naturally grow that portfolio and their investment over time. I think it's very important because this is such a new concept, right? People um you know are used to buying a full home. When you talk real estate, immediately people think affordability. Oh, I can't afford a home or I need a mortgage. How can I afford real estate from 500 dirhams? And I think the education that we've been really pushing for for the last you know five and a half years is to make people realize this is a new way of exposing uh uh you know your portfolio or being able to invest into this asset class. So we had to make it uh available to everyone regardless of their income bracket to be able to start off with 500 dirhams. So what does it physically mean to own 500 dirhams? Because I know I buy an apartment, I own a title deed, I have my name on the title deed, and that's how I own real estate. Now, when I own 500 dirhams in a Burj Khalif apartment, what does this actually mean in reality? So there's two things that we're working on right now. So our current platform, which enables people to invest starting for 500 dirhams, goes through a special purpose vehicle. So the way it works is because you can't go directly on the title deed until now, which is what we're I'll talk about in a second, which is tokenization. You will have to own a property through a special purpose vehicle based in the IFC that owns the property. So as an investor, you get two types of documents. You get a share certificate from the special purpose vehicle that owns it's a company basically that owns the property and it's registered in the IFC. You see your name on the website, you're able to see that. And then you get a title deed from the Dubai land department and the name of the SPV. So you get two sets of legal documents that show how much you own in that property. Now, there's a new thing that the land department in Dubai has really innovated in and has really pushed the envelope on, which is title deed tokenization. So instead of going through the SPV, you go on a blockchain and then the title deed is you you don't need the SPV anymore. Your ownership is directly onto the title deed, and you get a uh you get a token, ownership token, that's equivalent to how much you own on that title deed. Um, it's a new way of doing it, it's still being tested, you know. And it's funny because when we asked our users, what do you prefer? Do you want your name to be directly on the title deed? Or would you like to have that company in between that owns title deed? We actually had half of our users saying, No, I actually prefer the SPV. You know, there's businesses out there that make money to set up SPVs for you to own property because people tend to do that for tax reasons, for you know, uh uh inheritance. People don't want to be on mainland law, they want international law, that's why they like go to the IFC. So there's very specific uh you know benefits in each. So we will have both and people will be able to own uh you know through both. And that's what it means to own real estate, 500 dirhams, either through the title lead or through an SPV. Okay. And then if I own this apartment directly, I either go live in it, which is not an option here if I have 500 dirhams, or I will rent it out to someone, enter into a rental contract, and I will make a rental yield. Now, here I don't I don't control the apartment, so I can't go and live in it or rent it. So how do I make money from it? How do I benefit? So, you know, at the end of the day, if you're looking to invest in real estate, the way we see it is why would you put 2 million dirhams into a home that you're not gonna live in and lock up all that capital into one property? Unless you're buying a home to use, this is why fractional real estate makes a lot of sense, because okay, I'm looking to invest, I don't want to look up, lock up all my capital into one property. Let me diversify and take that money and put it across many properties. So what happens with us is you take that, you know, 100,000 that's 50,000, whatever you want to invest, and you can put it across five or six different properties, and then we take care of all the management for you. So other than the income that we're solving, we're solving something which is you know the knowledge and time. You know, people want to invest in real estate, but it's a time-consuming asset. You have to take care of the rental, the documents, if there's vacancy, maintenance. I mean, it's not an asset class that you just invest and go to bed and you know you get income from. You need to find tenants. I mean, especially now given the current geopolitical situation, it's harder to find tenants. Uh so you know, all of that hard work that needs to be put in, we take care of all of that. And then the beauty of it is we'll take care of all the rent for you, and then we distribute that rent weekly. So at the end of every week, on a Friday payday, you get paid straight into your wallet that rental income. So let's say a property is worth a million dadhams, you invest 100,000 dharhams, that means you own 10% of it. And if the rent is 100,000 dadhams, you own 10% of that rent. So you get 10,000 dharhams of that income straight into your wallet uh weekly. So we take care of all of that. It's an income-generating investment. You don't have to worry about anything. And if the tenant is paying in yearly check or quarterly checks, etc., how are you paying me weekly? So if we get quarterly, we pay them on a weekly basis. And because we always like to keep a balance in the SPV account in case there's maintenance issues, if any service charges. So we'll get the income either uh quarterly or yearly upfront, and then we divide it on a weekly basis and always keep a balance in case there's you know vacancy or or or uh service charges or whatever it is. We need to always keep that balance. So you're effectively acting as my broker, as my maintenance, everything, and then you're handling all of everything about it. And it's fully transparent. You know, I say this with full confidence. We've built the most advanced and best real estate investment platform in the world. Uh, you know, we've been to the US, we've been to Europe, we've seen exactly what other platforms have done. We have built the most user-friendly app out there, and it's fully transparent. You're able to actually go and see how much it's being rented for, what's the vacancy, what are the returns, what's your capital appreciation over time. Um, you know, now we've created something called the an AI dividend agent. So if you're looking at your rental income and you're seeing a drop or an increase, you can ask the agent what's happening. It'll immediately give you a breakdown of which property is paying, which one is not. So we've really empowered the full transparency into the phone for investors. Okay. So let's say now you've solved for the problem that I'm making money for the apartment as if I own it. The other thing is when I own the full apartment, if I want liquidity, I want money, I now go and sell this apartment and make my money. Now, in this case, I I don't have a full apartment to go and sell. So if I want my money back or I want to create some liquidity, how do I do that? So, you know, I'll just say something. People tend to say, oh, but if I own the full property, I can sell whenever I want 100%. But selling a full property is actually not as easy as people think. I mean, it takes time, you know, you have many viewings for the brokers, you have to find out who you're talking with, put it on property finder, literally go through all of that hassle to find out how to how to, you know, to sell your property. With us, what we've created is something called exit windows. Um, we created two of them a year. And we what we do is we we have a one-year lockup. So when you invest in stake, you cannot sell your stake for your or your shares, basically, for one year. And the reason why is because real estate is not an asset class that you can come in and go out very easily from, right? We need to, this is something very important. It's not uh as liquid as stocks or crypto that you can sell overnight. Real estate is a long-term hold. And when you look at buying real estate, there are certain costs involved. On day one, there's certain government costs, which is 4% that goes to the Dubai Land Department, and there's a 2% brokerage fee that needs to be paid. Whether you're buying with stake or on your own, those are the set uh fees. So if you're looking to sell immediately, you're already 6% down. If the market hasn't gone up 6%, you've already uh in the negative. So you have to wait for the property to appreciate for you to earn some rental income before you actually can sell. So we have this one-year lockup so that people can uh you know and not immediately realize a loss if they're looking to exit. After that one year, we allow people to sell their shares every six months. Uh something called exit windows where they can list their stakes based on the latest valuation or up to 20% discount. So 5, 10, 15, 20% discount. And then it's up to them, and other buyers come in and out on the app where they actually are buying from each other and selling to each other. What we're looking to do now is increase these exit windows. We just announced something right now with ASIN Company that will enable people to sell their shares more frequently and give them more flexibility. Uh, but again, I want to highlight that real estate is a long-term asset class. We want people to hold, to make the income, and then only you know exit if they really have to. Yes, like what happens if I, for example, I just have a liquidity crunch. So then you list them on exit windows. But I'll say something that's very important. So you can do it through the exit windows, but also we always sell people real real estate on a on stake is a five-year hold period. But we've sold our properties on average of three years, 2.7, you know, two years and seven months basically. And the reason why um is because properties, you know, prices have gone up and we were able to exit some even before the five-year mark. So actually, we started exiting at a minimum of we were looking to exit at least a minimum of 10% of the portfolio. And you know, our investors have made uh uh you know over 12, 10, 10 to 15% returns. Um, and you know, those are great returns for our investors on the early exit. So you can either sell through exit windows or wait until the price appreciates, and then we'll sell the full property. And the way it works, going back to giving people the power, is we fully democratize the process where if there's an offer on a property, you get a vote on your app. And it's literally you get notified a notification that says, Hey, this is the price, this is what my share is now. Would you like to vote? And you vote yes, would you like to sell? And the vote is yes or no, and then the majority, you see what the majority voted, and then we sell the property. It's fully empowered. It's the first time people can actually vote on the sale of a property on an app. You know, we've really uh pushed an envelope on this. But they assume you have certain guardrails to make sure if the majority panics, you don't end up with a minority losing money just because the majority panicked and decided to sell it. So it's basically it's what we do is we should we're very transparent on what the valuation is. We show them what the offer is. Okay. And then, you know, the majority have to decide if they sell or not. And that's part of being in the property with other investors. You know, you you'll be guided by what the majority wants. Very interesting. Now, the other thing is if I own this property, I can go and put a mortgage on it, and hence I can reduce the amount I need to invest, and I can increase my returns because I'm benefiting from the cost of the mortgage being lower than the yield. What's the how does this happen here? So we don't have debt yet. Um, you know, we're regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority. Um, in Dubai, we're regulated by the CMA and Saudi, and we just got in principal approval from Avaro, the virtual assets regulatory authority. As of our current regulator, the FSA, where we're currently operating, debt is not allowed. Um, but that's something that we're working on. Um, and we'll have some really uh you know cool announcements over the next six months that we're basically you know growing as a platform that will enable that to be a part of the the whole transaction. So you currently operate in the UE and Saudi. You you mentioned why these two markets and what are the future plans? So uh why these two markets, you know, we we we were, you know, my co-founder Manar and and I, we've known each other for 30 years. You know, we went to the same high school in Lebanon, we've both been living in Dubai now for over 20 years. Uh Dubai is the natural place for us to launch this business. Um, you know, what our mission was to be the leading real estate investment platform in MENA. Um and naturally that meant you need to be in Saudi and the UAE. Um so we started there. But the beauty of our our our platform is we've actually started to do real estate outside of the region as well. So we've we've been in Dubai now, we launched in Saudi where we've actually doing real estate in Saudi Arabia. We've done uh a mall, for example, we allowed people to invest in a commercial mall there, uh almost 200 uh commercial and retail plaza basically. It's uh 200 million reals, uh, where we allow people from all over the world to invest in Saudi Arabia. We actually have brought in direct FDI into Saudi from investors from all over the world. That's something we're very proud of. And, you know, we're we're we're starting to only scratch the surface there. We'll continue to grow that. But through our license in Saudi, we were able to list international real estates. We actually did our first deal in the United States through a partnership with InvestCorp. Um so instead of having boots on the ground, you know, it's very easy for a platform to say, yeah, I want to go international, and then they have to go to every country and set up and take an office and core all that OPEX. What we didn't want to do is we don't want to get into that. We wanted to partner up with you know credible asset managers where we'll look at their portfolio and deals and then underwrite them on our platform if they make sense. So we took a deal, for example, through Invest Corp in the US, um where it was a logistics fund, uh basically logistics assets paying uh close to 8%. Uh and then we allowed people from one app to invest into the US through you know through stake. Um so UAE Saudi, no-brainer, it's where uh you know the where our home markets are. But now we'll start looking at international real estate because I think you know our users want to have one app where you know we call ourselves the Robin Hood of real estate. We want people to invest from one app into different markets, and people have been able to do that in equities, they've been able to do that in crypto. No one's ever done that in real estate. And this is where we really feel that we have a huge upside. So basically, you have your home markets UN Saudi, people investing domestically, then you have people from all over the world investing into the UN Saudi, then you have people from here investing in different places, including in the US, uh outside. So it's a completely cross-border. And you have that ability from uh know your customer from a compliance to onboard the customer from anywhere in the world. Yeah, so I'll tell you a little bit about our users. Uh, we have over 2 million users now, uh, 206 nationalities, over 170 countries. We, this is the beauty of being based in Dubai. Um, you know, through our regulation, we're able to onboard anyone from anywhere in the world. And the beauty of being in Dubai is everyone wants a piece of Dubai. So we're able to generate such an international user base to invest in Dubai, and that was a huge benefit for us because now our user base is like, okay, we've invested with you in Dubai. We love the app, we love how you're regulated, you know, and and you they trust us. You know, we've built this credibility. We have amazing shareholders, which we can talk about, um, that enabled us now to say, hey, you know, now these users want to invest all over the world. Um, and then yeah, so imagine for one app you create this cross-border opportunity where I can invest in Europe now, I can invest in the US, I can do it, and it's all through uh one app that's regulated in this part of the world. 206 nationalities. I didn't even realize that RD's 206 nationalities. I didn't realize until it's crazy. And you know, we look at we look at uh the these users and it's just everyone it shows you the power of being in in the UAE and you know, testament to what the you know the rulers have built here. Everyone wants a piece of it. So we were able to generate such an international user base, and that's to our advantage now because as we look at expanding internationally now, uh we look at our users and everyone wants a piece of Europe now. And you know, we're heavily looking at Europe. People want to invest in the US, which we've already offered. So there's so many things we can do because of the fact that we were able to attract such an international user base. And you're saying it's not only residential, it's not only apartments, it's also commercial. The way I see it is, and you know, if you look at what Larry Fink says, you know, on BlackRock, his whole shareholder uh uh letter that he had last year was about how he feels that the future of investment, retail investors should participate in infrastructure projects, should invest in their home countries. You know, governments should be able to enable these, you know, their citizens to invest in infrastructure projects, data centers. And you know, we want to that's the future of investing. We feel that, you know, with the whole tokenization uh uh you know uh theme, you can enable people to invest into these big uh projects and these you know huge undertakings of you know, why shouldn't uh uh if you're living in in the UAE, why shouldn't you be able to invest in the next you know DWA uh project? I think those are the things that we want to enable in the future. And I think that's the future of investing, empowering your citizens to own a piece of what the government and the vision of the government. So now if I'm a user and I open stake, I will now have all of these different countries to invest in, all of these different asset classes. How should I choose where to invest, what type of asset to invest in? So when you go into the it's basically, you know, some investors want cap appreciation, some people want yield. The way we've done it is we've divide we have investment strategies. So based on your investment strategy, you decide what you want to invest in. If you're someone who prefers capital growth, then we've labeled opportunities as capital growth and you invest in that. If you prefer high yield, we've labeled certain properties that are high yield, and we and you know, you you'll invest in those. If you want international, you'll be able to see where the international opportunities are. Each, every single listing that we have is there's a full IM on it. It gives you the ins and outs of the investment, how much return you can make, what the occupancies are, what the valuation is, and then you as an investor can then make those decisions. We don't give the advice, we you know give place all the information for you, we empower you with information, and it's up to you to make those decisions. IM is the information memorandum. So we'll see. Yeah, the IM is on the investment. What about if I want to say you you take the money, you manage it. I don't want to get into this. I don't I don't know which one is better than than which. It is sum of money, and I want you to manage it for me. So we don't we we can't do that for you, but what we can do is we you have something called an auto-invest. So you can set how much money. So we've created like a subscription service for real estate investing. This is something, another another thing that we did that you know no one's done ever. Where you set it's like your Netflix subscription. At the end of every month, you say, I want my card to be charged, you know, $500, and I want $500 of that to be diversified across these different strategies. And you diversify it. You know, we have many people who say, What you just said, you know, I don't know what to invest in. So, you know, what we say is, okay, how about you just divide it across all the investment strategies so that at least you're we're very well covered? So you have high yield, you have capital growth, you have international, you have residential, you have commercial, and they can do that automatically. Now, having a retail investor, an individual, now go on in a data center, do you see a risk that it's pushing it too far into historically retail was put money in the bank, own gold, things which are very liquid, very easy, some stocks. Now we're starting to push into things which are illiquid, things which are longer term, things which, as you said, potentially go up and down. How do you see the risk and there? Also, the ethic responsibility of taking an individual's money who maybe needs to pay for a school fee, et cetera, and then putting into something where maybe he doesn't, you're not able to get out in time, maybe she ends up losing a bit of money on it. How do you carry that moral responsibility? I think there's a risk in anything you invest in, right? So, I mean, whether you invest in the stock market or crypto, there's there's a risk there, right? You can wake up overnight. And we saw in crypto, you know, you can wake up overnight and you're 30, 30, 20%, 10% down. We've seen we've seen that cyclicality, even in the stock market. There is, you know, drops in anything. On the contrary, real estate is a much, you know, it doesn't go up and down, it's not as volatile. There's risks in everything. We always tell people don't put the money that you need to pay for a school, a tuition into stake or any other asset class for that matter, you know. Only invest in money that you don't need immediately, you know, if you need to liquidate. So, you know, we say that always, we always, you know, are very uh uh uh open about that because at the end of the day, yes, real estate is not as liquid as other asset classes. But, you know, do I feel that there's um there's a risk in that? I think at the end of the day, what we want to tell investors is you need to have real estate in your portfolio. And whether it's data centers or residential apartment, real estate needs to be an anchor in your portfolio. Now we can debate should it be 50% of your portfolio, should it be 10%? That's up to the investor and how much liquidity they want and what returns they want. But you need to have real estate in your portfolio. And that money that you're putting into real estate, you need to be very well aware that it's not as liquid as you know, you can sell something overnight. We're very clear with that. And how do I determine this percentage? Because we've we've had multiple guests, we've asked them before, okay, like what percentage gold, what percentage crypto, what percentage stocks. How do I know it's it's not the same for everyone, but when is it 10% real estate and when is it 50% real estate? What determines that? So it really differs from investor to investor. And I think if you're someone who uh is looking to create uh an income, a dividend play, then I would say maybe put a lot more into real estate if you're buying into income generating assets. If you're someone who doesn't need the recurring income and you prefer, you know, um growth, then maybe you put more into you know uh stocks and you prefer that liquidity, then you put more into stocks and less into real estate. It really goes down to what every investor. I'm for I'm, for example, I love having dividends. I love having that extra income. You know, that's what we our our our slogan at stake, your second income. I'm a firm believer that you should not have one source of income. Uh, you know, your your employment shouldn't be your only source of income. So I'm a firm believer that you know, if if you if you're the investor who prefers having an income play, then it makes sense to have you know real estate and and putting a majority of your trunk into real estate. Um now the other thing is also if I own this property directly, I will go and buy an insurance uh on it to make sure it's uh fully protected, etc. How does this happen on the process? We do that every single by regulation, every single property is fully insured. Um, you have to have insurance on it. And if God forbid anything happens, the full property is insured and it applies to all the investors in that property. Okay. And then also if I buy directly, some people want to go on a hunting where they try to find attractive deals, uh hidden gems, below market uh prices. Now you're doing the hunting. So how do I make sure you're getting that best deal? So I'll tell you something about SIG. So since we launched the business now, we're actually one of the largest buyers of secondary market ready properties in Dubai. Uh, we work with the top brokerage in town, we're some of the top buyers, and we're actually one of the fastest buyers. On average, last year, end-to-end, we would buy properties in less than 10 days. This year we were already on eight days. Um, so we've already improved that. So we can buy properties really fast. Um, but because we do that, is we have the data now to know what we should buy and from which developer at which price. We're very specific on that. So, you know, and and how does that, how does an investor know that? Is every property goes through a third-party, independent third-party valuation. So that's listed on the on the uh platform. So you're able to see, okay, hey, I'm buying a property or I'm investing into a property at you know, 2 million Delham's worth, but the valuation was two and a half or 2.2. So you're able to see how far we are from from the market. I'll tell you, over the last five years, the market's been on a tear, right? The market's been going up. So, you know, it's very hard to get below market pricing or great deals. You know, we were always either buying at market or just below market. Today, the geopolitical situation has been, you know, I think this is a a once-in-a-lifetime buying opportunity. You know, people who missed buying real estate in Dubai back when COVID started were always like, oh, I wish I bought, I wish I bought. Well, now's your turn. You know, we this is where we're telling people if you missed out the boat then, if we are able to find deals today, which by the way, I'll say it's still very hard to find distressed deals, as they say, or opportunistic deals. The fact is that if you're ever going to find, now's a good time to find some. Um, and then we'll we'll highlight those on the platform to say, hey, this is a deal that's below market value. And we'll show you what the below market value is and enable you to make that decision to say, hey, at least I'm buying it at a good price. I think we all live with this regret and remorse of not buying during uh during during during COVID. I'm definitely one of them. It was a very unique moment. And this is the moment actually where you launched stake, right? You launched in the middle of the pandemic. And it was very interesting because it was like a very like steep, like kind of the you had the first moment or you had very attractive opportunities, and then just it kind of just went completely up, like very, very steeply from there. And it went up in a way where you were constantly thinking you missed the boat and then like miss it again and then miss it again, and you keep you keep watching it. How was the moment of like building stake in the middle of uh of of that? So I think um we never knew that that's what was gonna happen with the market. Actually, you know, we had taken a decision to launch stake way before COVID started. So we had already spoken to the regulators, started getting our licenses, preparing to leave our jobs, all that. You know, we we had and then COVID happened. We had to make a decision are we still gonna continue with this? Um, or are we gonna pause because there's so much uncertainty? You know, you couldn't even travel to Dubai and all the airports were halted, everything, airplanes, everything. And at the time, you know, our conviction in the market was you know uh still so strong. And we said, you know, there's nothing, the infrastructure, everything that Dubai is a build, is that you're gonna take a bet on Dubai, you're gonna take a bet on your business. And we did that. And I think that obviously paid off. You know, we had amazing uh uh tailwinds in our favor to say, hey, you know, this market was just going from strength to strength. And this is what we see today, you know, yes, the markets go through ups and down. I'll tell you, like, we were starting to see not a softening, but a cooling of the market way before the you know geopolitical situation. Um, and then you know, that back when we, you know, I'm linking it to the to COVID and now because I really see the same thing. People are like, oh, you know, Dubai's going through a hard time now, you know, the uh the people are leaving, or are is is it ever gonna come back? And people are saying the same thing in COVID. And again, our conviction is the same. Your markets will go through ups and downs, but this is where you know everyone says, you know, you buy when everyone's uh running to the fences, right? And this is where we feel that the opportunity is. Now is the time to invest in Dubai and have strong conviction because let's be honest, if you look at all the cities around the world, nothing compares to what you know the UAE has done. Um, and I think this conviction and and and the infrastructure and you know the ability to set up businesses and be in a place with safety and and forward thing, you have, you know, there's a huge upside uh with very limited downside. So, you know, back to how when we launched in COVID and really believed in Dubai, we feel the opportunity is exactly the same now. And you know, people should really study the numbers and look at exactly what they're doing, but you just look at what's being built. I mean, I'm we're sitting here, I'm looking outside. I mean, the infrastructure here is insane. And you know, I'll say this um, you know, I'm going on a bit of a tangent, but during the war, uh in the middle of the war when there was missile alerts and everyone was talking about oh, what's happening, you would drive down Dubai uh on the roads. And I remember I went to the office in DIFC and they were building they're they're actually working on the on the bridges and the on the infrastructure in the middle of missile alerts. Where in the world does that happen? And I think because of this, you know, it's a no-brainer that you double down on the markets here. And I saw you actually closed like one deal in one day in March in the middle of the of the events. Yeah, yeah. We did, and we literally we we we closed in one day, literally the other we're closing stuff in two, we're funding's happening in two days. Because I think people realize, I mean, you know, it's our job, um, it's up to us as well to educate people how you know Dubai's fundamentals or the UE's fundamentals haven't changed. Uh, but people I think see that now. And I think people have learned, like, you know, the markets, as I said, will drop and go up. But you know, if you find a good deal, you should jump on it. And we're still seeing the transactions. Albeit, yes, you know, we got affected like everyone else by by the war. You know, people are a bit uncertain, they want certainty, they want the peace deal to happen, they want that certainty before they make decisions. Uh, but people who believe in the longevity and the long-term vision of the UAE are jumping in on deals. And that's where we we expect people to do that because now is the time to invest if you find good deals. And we talked about how this moment resembles in certain ways COVID in in 2020. We also had the oil price crash in in 2015. Before that, we had the crisis of 2008. So I guess this is the fourth time in at least recent history. Maybe there's even more times before, where we go through the same thing. And then again, it kind of comes out with prices even higher and with returns even stronger. 100%. And I think, you know, people talk about price of oil. Obviously, you know, the region is still directly correlated to the price of oil, and you know, it affects a lot financing and liquidity and all that. But I think the market is a lot well more diversified than you know, people think, you know, and I think at the end of the day, you have these drops and crashes, and you know, you the markets go up and down. But this is why I really strongly believe in real estate. Because at the end of the day, similar to what happened in COVID, people need a home. And you know, regardless of what happens at the end of the day, people need to pay rent. So, yes, you know, rents will drop, uh, vacancies will increase, um, and it's just a cycle. But it's at this time where you identify where the good opportunities are and you're able to maybe you know push sellers to get better pricing. Um, and I think, you know, right now, with the way the UAE handled everything, specifically in the geopolitical uh situation. I mean, give me another country in the world that would defend its people like it has here. And I don't want to go into politics, but I mean, it just gives you the belief and conviction is actually we've doubled down now, even more, because there's nothing like the UAE right now. So we talked a lot about the kind of the income barrier that you've kind of now removed with lowering the size. Now, the second barrier you talked about at the beginning of the episode, and you touched now a bit, is the education and the knowledge level. So you've lowered the barrier for people from an income perspective, but how are you making them more knowledgeable and aware and able to make these decisions in a kind of again in a responsible way to make sure that people are properly informed and making the right decisions? So, you know, I love that question. I'll tell you why, because we've had people, and this is the beauty, and this is what really gets me up in the morning, and I go to bed thinking about you know more ways of enhancing our platform. People who have used stake, some of them, it's the first time they actually interact with real estate. And we've had investors who started with us with 500 dirhams and just to see what it means to own a property. Because some people don't, they've never owned a property. So they actually invest with us, see what it means to have vacancies, see what it means to have rental income, see what it means to have a tenant, see what it means to have capital appreciation. And that education, we do so much content on that, so much marketing on that, to educate people on how real estate works. And when they start with us with such a small amount, they're not putting their life savings into it. They get that experience and then they start increasing over time. So our investors, after their first investment, the next investment is over three times bigger than the first one because they start seeing how real estate works. But I'll tell you the most exciting thing about our business is when people start with us small, we've seen people graduate into bigger investments and then they've bought a full home through us. And that for me is like, okay, you know, we we've we're people are like graduating into full home real estate ownership through us. And that for me is where you've really built a product that really stands out. Because at the end of the day, people who are scared, because real estate is an asset is an asset class that's pretty you know intimidating. What do you mean to bank going to bed at night owing that you owe knowing that you owe a bank money? Or what do you mean putting in a million Derahams or two million dieth? It's a lot of money. So people are very intimidated by this asset class. If you break it down and make it easy, and you know, our app, we've made it so easy and user-friendly. It's like really buying something on Amazon or ordering food on delivery. It's just so easy to use that people now have learned a lot more about real estate through us. And that for me is is you know our mission. We really want to educate people on why real estate is important and why investing in real estate is important. So, you know, effectively they graduate into buying a full home, that means we've won. And that's why we added a new kind of product range for us called Stake One to enable people to not just invest fractionally, but then effectively go into buying a full home through us. So I fully understand the value proposition of buying fractional through you, because I can't afford the full home. But if I can afford the full home, why go through stake as opposed to just find the home and do it through a broker? So I'll tell you for many reasons. One is um, you know, we we're we're a trustworthy name. You know, we've built the credibility. I'm not saying brokers aren't, but you know, we've been in the market long enough. I've been in the market for 20 years. We've built the tech stack, so you can buy that full home through us digitally. You know, we're uh you know a regulated business. Our shareholders are some of the you know most credible names, Mubadala, uh, Property Finder, Aramco, MEVP, uh Emerts NBD. You know, we have some of the largest names behind us. And I think when you want to buy a home, yeah, there's you know hundreds and thousands of brokers in in the market. Uh, but I think we we stand out because you know, we we we really have a great selection process. We've built that selection process for fractional. So we're able to identify which prices are, you know, we have all that data. We we now have, you know, I was saying to this to you before we started, you know, we now have over 1.2 billion dirhams of assets on our platform. Um, so the amount of data that we have is very powerful and can we can feed that back to investors when they're looking to buy a full home. So that's why they should you know choose us. On this shareholder base, so this is very interesting, right? So typically with a lot of the startups, the shareholder base is predominantly uh VCs, it's maybe some family offices, maybe one strategic. But here you have a bank, a sovereign wealth fund, another real estate investment platform, an oil and gas company, plus effectively your classic VCs. How did this kind of shareholder base come together? And again, what kind of the how do you carry the responsibility of having money from people who are not your classic VCs who are potentially kind of kind of used to losing money? Here you're taking high, you're doing high-risk activities from people who are not necessarily used to losing money or that level of risk. That's the best thing that we have because we never started this business because we we were in it to lose money or just grow valuation without having fundamentals. And I think, you know, both Ricardo, uh my my third co-founder who read who runs all our tech and product and Manar and that, you know, we're not your typical uh college uh dropouts. I started a business out of you know our garage. We, you know, we're we're we're mature. We went from we we came from corporate backgrounds and we wanted to launch a business that actually makes sense uh economically. And having investors and shareholders like that really make sure that uh you know we have that uh credibility, but also that that um uh I'm missing the word, but really having that discipline uh to really run a business that's not there to lose money and really empower people to own real estate. And I think, you know, when when we all these shareholders came to us and you know, we we they accepted to invest into the platform because they realized we are no, we're not just an investment platform, we're really creating uh a new way of investing into real estate and not just you know enabling into the government and and you know the the coming into the UAE and enabling people to invest into the market here, but also creating a user base globally that wants to participate in an asset class like real estate. And I think for you know institutional investors like that, um it really uh uh meets and and coincides with their mission, you know. And for us, you know, at the end of the day, having shareholders like this, uh other than the discipline, it gives us the credibility. When you're in a an investment platform, you really need to have credibility. Why should people trust you to put their money with you? And I think having investors like that is just a no-brainer, uh, you know, because people then get comfortable to say, hey, if I'm an investment, if I'm putting my money into this, I want to have people who's backing this platform. You know, with all due respect, VCs are are great. You know, we have one of the best VCs in town, MEVP, on our on a cap table. But your average retail customer doesn't know what what who what a VC is or who the VC is or who MVP is. You know, we have to inform them on that. But they do know who Mobadal is, they know they do know who Property Finder is or ENBD is or whatever ventures by a ramp. They know those. So at the end of the day, for us, this is where we get the credibility. And that's very important for an investment platform. Very interesting. You also mentioned you've now crossed one billion dirhams of effective assets under management or kind of transaction transaction value. It's a big responsibility also to carry this amount of money. So, how do you make sure, like again, from a, as you said, from a setup, from a trust, from a compliance, from a capability, you're really able to kind of hold and uphold the trust of people putting such large amounts of money into you? So, you know, I think people underestimate how uh difficult it is to be a regulated business. You know, being regulated and you we're regulated by some of the top regulators in the world, you know, uh D FSA, uh VARA here, and CMA in Saudi, you know, they're the top regulators in the world. Um, and early on, when you we launched this business, we knew that it's gonna be hard. When you you have a regulated business, it's very hard because your compliance team, you know, where other probably uh you know startups don't have to worry about that. You need to have a full-on compliance team and you need to make sure that you have the right technology to ensure that, you know, your your cyber attacks and your clients' data and money, you know, we're effectively a real estate bank. There's money coming in and out, we pay income, you know, we handle millions of Byrhams coming in and out. We we transfer money outside of the region to people, you know, when people want to withdraw their rental income to their banks back in the UK, we handle all of that. That comes with a level of responsibility that we've really invested in from a compliance team, from the right KYC tech. Um, and you know, we have audits uh by the regulators to ensure that we, you know, we we we uh uh have the you know are we have we're in shape. Um and uh you know, alhamdulillah, uh we've never had a uh a compliance issue. Um and I think that's where you know that's why you attract uh institutional capital because people want to invest in a well-regulated business and retail investors get that comfort. So we it comes with a lot of responsibility. We don't take it lightly, and that's why if you look at our company, compliance team is actually one of the biggest. Um and you know, our shareholders is testament to the fact that we're we're doing something right. Um, you know, people trust us with their money. And you're mentioning before we start that institutions were not only attracted into investing in stake itself as a company, but you even have some institutions investing in the in the real estate assets themselves alongside the retail investors. So, how does this work? And as a retail investor, am I getting uh the same terms? Is it does it give me comfort that I'm sitting along aside institutions? How does it work? So, I mean, I'll I'll give you the best one to do that is you know, we we did a deal, as I mentioned earlier with Invest Corp. Invest Corp is one of the largest asset managers in the world. You know, they have over $70 billion, if I'm not mistaken, of assets under management. The same terms that you would get on stake were other people investing into that fund, um, you know, our investors were getting the same terms. And I think, you know, when you're a regulated business and you're working along the biggest names, you're you're you know, that's where the comfort you get. And this is where it's exciting. You know, before, if you wanted to invest into A logistics fund or a data center fund, you need to have a net worth, you need to have a private account, you need to, you know, Blackstone or BlackRock will even look at you. There's certain deals that you'd never have access to. Now, I think the world's changed. And I think all these, you know, Ps and asset managers are realizing, hey, the whole days of family office calling and you know, uh private bankers are changing. People want everything on an app, transparent, quick, um, and they need to have that accessibility. So, you know, we've been able now to create a platform where these big Ps and asset managers are actually coming to us saying, hey, I have a deal for $100 million. Would you like access for $10 million to your clients? And that for me is a huge confidence boost for us because it's like, hey, we're doing the right thing. And you're enabling people to get in on a deal that they would have never even had the opportunity to. Um and they're getting them at the same terms as an institution would or a family office would. And that's where it's exciting. Very interesting on data centers because I would think about okay, there's like one real estate investment where it's safe. I'm making a bit of yield, maybe a bit of capital appreciation. And then there's like an AI story where I go and buy AI stocks and kind of they jump. And here you are saying, hey, by the way, there's a data center, which is a little bit of a bit of both, I guess, right? It's real estate, it has some safety, but also it's getting some exposure to this. So talk to more about this kind of asset class and how can I invest in it and what type of exposure I get. We're now heavily looking at diversifying our types of asset classes, right? We've done residential in Dubai, uh, not because of choice, but the regulator only allowed us to do residential. Hopefully that's changing very soon. Um, and you know, in Saudi we did commercial, as I said, you know, we did uh uh a retail commercial office plaza. Um and now, yeah, and then in the US we did logistics. So for us right now, you know, people want access to different types of asset classes. Why do we like logistics right now? Logistics, because of what's going on, there's a huge focus on it. And there's a huge opportunity to enable retail investors to participate in some logistics funds that are generating sizable returns. That's one. Then we look at data centers. Everyone today, there's a huge hype, as you said, you know, uh everyone's going into data centers, they're taking data centers to space. You know, there's a huge opportunity where you can actually participate in that growth. You can do it directly through stocks or buying secondaries and anthropic or open AI. I see a lot of people pitching those these days. But how do you participate in the actual asset class? And I feel if we can enable people and empower people to really participate in owning a piece of the future, it's a no-brainer. And, you know, yes, there's risk. Of course there's risk. Is it overvalued? Is it, you know, will it have enough power? Because this technology is changing every day. Will it be outdated? Uh, how much will the cost be if I have to upgrade this data center? All these are on our mind. But at the end of the day, if you're working with a really reputable asset manager and you're participating in that opportunity, then you have that confidence that, hey, at least I'm participating in something where I know I'm buying into something that I would have never had the opportunity to and provide sizable returns. We're seeing data center uh construction and development paying double-digit returns. Yes, it's not income generating because it's off plan, it's gonna, you know, under development, but eventually you know that the prices are, you know, are gonna go up. So that's where we see there's a huge opportunity. So we talked about the first two barriers you started the episode with saying you're removing. The first one was that was the income by lowering to 500 turnhams. And the second was the knowledge and awareness and trust by educating people and building that credibility. The third one and the last one you mentioned in the beginning was demographics. That now you have people from very, very different backgrounds, people maybe who didn't have the access, maybe they were underserved, not just only from an education perspective, just from an inclusiveness uh perspective. Talk to us a bit about the demographics on stake. Where are these users from? What do they look like? Who is your user? So, as I said, you know, from all over the world. Um, 50% of our users are within the region, 50% are international. Um, average age is just mid-30s. Um, you know, our biggest investors are anywhere between 35 to 50, but we have you know younger investors, uh, middle income, um, you know, salaried jobs, making $100,000 plus a year. Um and then, you know, so that's a majority of our of our investors. But we have investors who've invested 10 million uh dithoms on the platform. We have investors who've only invested 500 DID-hams and every month they put in another 500 dinhoms. You know, I think today real estate, because it's applies to everyone, as we were saying earlier, uh, our user base is so diverse. We have uh seven last I checked 76% male, uh, 24% female. Um and again, they come from all over the world. Um, and you know, they they're people who just want to create a second income. We have um investors who, as I said, you know, are are are putting in large amounts and they see us as a way for them to invest in real estate because you know, at the end of the day, if you want to invest in real estate outside of buying a full home, what's your option? REITs, right? But we know that REITs haven't been very successful in our part of the world. And you know, the problem I have with REITs is they're not, you know, if the market drops, you know, the stock market is dropping, the asset value, your shares will drop, but it doesn't really reflect the actual value of that property. And then you don't have the power of selection. You're investing into a fund that owns multiple kinds of assets. I think today people want the power of selection. They don't want to be exposed to you know the market dynamics of, oh, look, the market's up, okay, so my shares up, but if the market drops, even though the asset class is actually still strong, so people want that protection. And I think you know, uh uh our users today want that access to real estate, um, but they don't know where else to go other than buying a full home. So, really, when I go back to our user base, it really is, you know, uh people who just want that exposure. Um, and it applies to people from all over the world. 24% female is is very interesting because that's quite high relative to international benchmarks and Asian benchmarks on investing in real estate. If you take, I think, real estate in general and try to see the percentages owned by females, it would be significantly less. I know my wife would say anything less than 50% is low, but I think 24% is is objectively uh high. How did you reach this level? And because in my mind, this also creates a whole other side to the platform, which is probably females were even less likely to buy a full a full property compared to mates for so many different reasons. And what you're doing here is also kind of an element of financial independence and financial empowerment for females, which is very interesting. I think um in our culture, um, you know, there's there's a lot of, uh specifically now, there's a lot of females who actually are wanting to invest, but they never knew where to start, right? And people used to feel, oh, you know, um, it's always the male making the decisions. But actually, what we've seen is females today want to have their own self, you know, financial independence. They love real estate because, as you said before, they felt like they were locked out from this asset class. And I think naturally our product appeals to them because we've made it very easy. We we we speak to to females, we we explain it to them. We we have many female investors, we've done testimonials with female investors because at the end of the day, in our part of the world, actually it's actually cultural. You know, in Saudi Arabia, we see females now taking these big decisions, buying outright homes, investing in REITs, investing in the stock market. And I think over the last five, six years, you're seeing a lot of, you know, there's a huge drive to enabling and empowering females to invest into the property market. And there's no better way, in my opinion, to do it than than stake. And I think there's a huge upside to it. Like we're just scratching the surface right now. And there's a lot more that we can do to bring in more females onto our platform. But, you know, for me today, um, you know, there's so much capital that's being put into bank accounts with zero returns. Um, and you know, what do what can you do with it? And money needs to find a home, as we always say. And, you know, real estate is a home for female investors looking to place and make an income. Um, real estate makes the most sense. There's a thesis that despite the common convention that men have been more involved in financial decisions given that investing and trading and buying houses, it's actually because women in most places they run the households from a financial perspective and spending and budgeting, that they actually have more financial awareness in terms of and they make decisions more frequently, which can actually make them superior investors. Do you see any data on the platform that indicates anything that I'm No, but I'll tell you, I mean, from before I launched Take, um, you know, every time you actually need to make a decision when I was selling real estate full homes, because that's what I was doing before I launched take, whenever you'd sit with uh a husband, a man alone, he'd be like, I can't make a decision without speaking to my wife, right? Um, I can't, you know, that was like the number one objection. When, and you know, you're told in sales, if you're gonna go and present to someone, make sure he brings his wife because the wife always makes the big financial decisions. And it's very, you know, people tend to say, no, but in our culture, it's not, it's actually true. In our culture, the the female, the the mom, the wife makes the decisions at home on big financial decisions. Um, and that's why you know what we see is in in real estate, specifically when we're selling full homes on stake one, those decisions are still made by the female. And then what we see on the platform is when we launch properties, you know, we launch over 30, 40 properties every month, we look at our female activity on investment, and they're actually one of the fastest decision makers. Um, so you know, they immediately fund their account, they're actually quick to close, immediately fund their account and invest. So what we see is yeah, I mean, this growth of independence and decision making is fantastic. And really, there's a huge upside to it. As I said, we're just scratching the surface. There's a lot more we could be doing there. It's very interesting because we sit there saying like women are emotional, etc. And then actually, when it comes to all the major decisions, we go back to them and they actually went to financially. So it's very interesting how some of the stereotypes are I think, yeah, because they say, oh, they're not fine. I think women are much more financially disciplined than men. Uh, we're a lot more emotional buyers than than than than women are. And I've seen it in in you know, with my wife. Uh, you know, they're they're they're a lot more uh uh you know disciplined and when it comes to big financial decisions for sure. You mentioned the average age is is mid-30s. How are you seeing the difference across generations and especially as it comes to starting to have Gen Z uh investors on the platform? How is the behavior different? So we're actually um you know, you you're your your Gen Zs love crypto, right? They they want fast in, fast money as soon as possible. So we're having to change our marketing to adjust to explaining and educating the Gen Z of, you know, hey, you know, it's not overnight getting rich. And I think over the last five, six years, there's a lot of ways where people have made quick money and they think that's easy. And I think they they they learned the hard way with you know crypto dropping or the equities dropping, that you don't just make money overnight. It's a it's a long-term plan. So our education for Gen Z is very different. Our marketing there is very different to someone who is in his mid-30s or you know, late 30s, 40s, 50s. Uh, there they're a lot more disciplined, they understand real estate. So it's more about returns. With Gen Z, it's about, hey, you know, own real estate. It's that pride of ownership. And I think um financial investors are or the older investors are a lot more financial uh driven, while the younger investors are a lot more emotionally driven. That's how, hey, I own a piece of a property in downtown or I own a piece of property in in business base. The financial decision comes uh secondary. Um and that's how we see the difference. Other kind of relevant, I think, demographic culture play here is sharia compliance. I guess real estate has the advantage of generally being a sharia compliant uh asset in in general. You currently also have no debts, which kind of makes it more straightforward. I guess that's something you'll have to think about as you get into uh the debt piece. But does sharia come into play as you start thinking about like, okay, I'm sitting in a company or I'm sitting in a token, I'm not in the real estate directly. Is there a sharia angle here or is it still as long as I'm ultimately owning real estate as well? As long as you're owning real estate, I mean, you have to obviously get the the the sharia stamp, uh, which we we have and we will when we move on to the whole tokenization space. But yeah, at the end of the day, as long as you're owning real estate and uh if there's a debt, then it's you know it's it's sharia approved, then yeah, it applies onto the same. And that's very important for us. It's actually, you know, if you look at if we look back at our business when we first launched it, um, what we saw an increase in GMV onto the platform is as soon as we got Sharia certified. Uh and I think there's a massive upside there in what we're doing and enabling people, giving people the comfort to know that hey, Sharia certified has really helped us grow the business. And on on the debt side, maybe we talked a bit about how the debt would be used to improve the returns uh for the equity uh investors. But also, is there a future where there can be some real estate so cool where I can actually own a debt exposure to these uh to these assets and of equity? So it's very interesting. Right now, um we're there we're seeing opportunities where that could be possible, but educating investors on that is you know, there's a lot more risk involved in that structure. So we're looking at doing that specifically under you know a new kind of uh license or regulation because our current license doesn't allow that. But there's definitely opportunities. I mean, if you look at today, uh there's certain developers uh that potentially are going through a tough time. And you know, they have projects that are 50% complete or 60% complete. You can come in as the debt provider uh through your investors and get sizable returns. Um so that's something we could look at or we're looking at, but uh I think the risk there is is higher than buying uh you know an income-generating home um in Dubai Marina, for example. So today you cannot come off plan and the equity on uh on stake. It's all uh already properties, exactly. Um, which you know I think limits the risk. But I think there's a massive upside in potentially coming in on an off-plan project with a reputable developer and being that what we call last mile financing, um, because you can get some sizable returns. And this is where when we talk about you know uh markets cooling off, there's some opportunities that we're already seeing in the market where, you know, and we've actually had people knock on our door, developers uh uh coming and saying, hey, we'd love to work with you on this on this product. Um, but yeah, you need to make sure that the regulation is there and you need to make sure that your investors are very well protected because you can easily lend uh be the lending uh line for a developer that doesn't build and your investors are on the line. So we're very, very careful about expanding into new products. Last mile financing, you really love logistics. You're you're borrowing out of terms from there. Uh now, one of the kind of criticisms sometimes against uh fraction, against retail investing in general, is it inflates markets and causes bubbles, right? Like for example, uh gold, okay, it started as central banks uh increasing their gold holdings because of geopolitical reasons, et cetera. Then effectively the retail frenzy uh came in. Silver as solar panels, then the retail frenzy uh came in. So is there a risk here that you do the same thing on real estate? Kind of you start retail starts to become, becomes very hot, creates a bit of a frenzy, and then kind of pushes uh and inflates prices and creates a bubble. Uh you know, I disagree with that because, you know, at the end of the day, if we weren't a regulated platform that has to do valuations, that has investors' interests in place, then yeah, I would tell you that. Um, you know, I would actually be more worried about the craze on off-plan, where, you know, if you tell me what's the biggest risk in real estate, is, you know, people standing in line, trying to buy an off-plan project without doing their homework. That for me is what creates frenzy. You know, all these off-plan launches where no homework's being done, people are putting their hard-earned money into something that might get built in four to five years. Obviously, certain developers, you know, it'll get built, but you know, there's a but there's been a lot of, I would say, frenzy by off-plan uh launches. That's where I worry. Fractional real estate where you're buying an income-generating home in a building, that you're doing a third-party valuation and empowering people to own that home, I think actually helps the market and creates liquidity to the market than you know, an off-plan launch where people are just going crazy. So I actually I disagree with that. I think, you know, uh in enabling more wealth creation helps the economy, helps the market versus uh, you know, creating a frenzy and hyping up the market unnecessarily. The other consideration sometimes is let's say I'm a tenant, I have nothing to do with stake, I'm just renting an apartment. And here is stake, like putting the home that I live in, making it a financial product on an app, where now some people will vote when they want to sell it, and maybe the new guy who comes in ends up like kicking me out, et cetera. But this is like my home and suddenly it's becoming a financial product for a bunch of people on an app. So actually, we're if I was a tenant, I would love to have stake as a landlord. And I'll tell you why. Because what we care about is paying our investors dividends. So that means we will take care of the apartment like no other uh property manager or owner. Second of all, it's fully transparent. So, you know, some tenants worry about, yeah, you know, being kicked out or uh, I don't know if you're gonna increase rent. We can because we're regulated, we would not increase the rent that doesn't follow the market. We are long-term buyers and holders, so we actually want to hold the product. Everything we've held is minimum three years, two to two and two years and seven months, as I said. So at least if a tenant knows kind of we're not looking to exit immediately. So actually, think for a tenant, we're actually one of the best landlords to have. Um, and you know, we're very transparent in our dealings as landlords. People can actually, you know, as you said, he can see the property online, he can, you know, we we're we're not out there to flip, you know, we're not out there to buy a product, immediately flip it, and and you know, uh uh make a quick buck. As we say, it's a five-year hold period. Um so actually, if I was a tenant, uh the dream landlord at stake, um, you know, we we if there's a leak, if there's we take care of everything. Um, and most of our properties actually are furnished. So, you know, we really take care of our properties um because we have to pay dividends, we have to pay rental income to our investors. Very interesting. And the other thing is also is if I own a property directly here in the UE above a certain threshold, I would get the golden visa. How does it work on stake? That's a great question. And actually, I'll tell you, you know, going back to the previous question, we now have over 650 properties in Dubai. We're actually one of becoming one of the largest residential uh landlords, and our investors are becoming the largest residential landlords. So when you do that, um you have scale. So actually, you know, we can really on the PM side, property management side, do a lot of interesting things, and we're looking into that to actually make our tenants' lives uh a lot more comfortable. In terms of the golden visa question, we it took us maybe a year and a half or two years to convince um the regulator uh to allow us to offer golden visas. So on stake today, um, and we've had we've issued now uh I think just over 50 or 60 golden visas now, where people um who invest two million dirhams on our platform. And the beauty of it is if you're looking to invest in a golden visa, you have to put two million dirhams into one property on stake, and then you have to find a property manager and take care of all the hassle. On stake, you put two million dirhams divided across 20 properties if you want, and you get the golden visa issued to you. Um, it's done on the app. You have to obviously come here and do the blood tests and do all this stuff, but all all the process is done for you on the app, and you can invest into 20 or 30 properties fully diversified, getting income, and we take care of everything and you get your golden visa. And until now that's available. It's still available. Wow. And I'm actually working on even lowering that amount to enable people to get a different kind of visa for a much lower amount. Wow, because effectively also that that creates a very different timeline. So if I need a visa, I mean I need a residence quickly in the UE, that's why the quickest path. 100% because I can just wire the money immediately. I don't have to wait to buy an apartment and come and see something and negotiate. I can just put two million, auto-invest, whatever, distribute, and then immediately I'm eligible. You're eligible for the golden visa. We've issued golden visas to doctors in the US, to bankers in Switzerland. I mean, we've it and it's all online. It's we say it's the fastest and most digital way to get a golden visa. Um, and again, that shows you you know how the the how amazing it is to be in this country because you can do this stuff that other countries are just catching up right now. Very interesting because when I think about all of these programs globally, like the golden visa in uh in Portugal, etc., these are all governmental programs, that's right, that have to carry the entire governmental uh bureaucracy. Uh and here effectively it's almost like a private sector, where effectively the regulator has agreed that a private sector player likes stake, they will trust you to effectively almost obviously they handle the process in terms of the issuance and the checks and the security, but the path to its provision is effectively now completely private sector. 100%. And I think it's you know, the the difference. I mean, today you can similar to buying a home from Hamar or or or you know uh Naheel or Maras, all these developers, you you'll get a golden visa there. And I think you go through the broker and you go through that process. The empowerment of enabling people to get a golden visa through owning real estate um has really, you know, uh uh enabled us to attract a different kind of investor. Um and yeah, you know, it really empowers the private sector to play a part in you know bringing in FDI into the country. And, you know, effectively, you know, when you look at stake, whether what we're doing here or in Saudi, because we've become such a global platform, we're really bringing in FDI into the into these countries because people want to invest in Saudi. People want to invest in the UAE. And you know, effectively they see us as a conduit to bringing in foreign capital into the markets here. And I think that really ticks a box for the governments uh of the region. Do you have uh something similar? Because some other countries have, let's say, a pathway to passport through uh real estate, etc. So do you have any other partners and governments around the world or will we launching something to allow people to get to a passport maybe somewhere through real estate? Working on on stage two of this right now, actually. I think uh, you know, we we we've we've had a lot of inbound um for what we've done, saying, hey, come come to Europe and do this, and you know, come to Asia and do this. And you know, for us it's like, okay, before we before we were we weren't thinking about you know geographical expansion and going into these markets. I think uh you know geopolitical situation kind of gave us a uh you know light bulb went on saying, hey, let's look at these markets now, where we historically we're saying, no, no, no, we you know, this 100% of our focus here. So yeah, uh we'd be looking at that. And I think it becomes very exciting to enable someone, as you said, you know, getting uh a passport in Portugal or Greece through us. Um and that's something that we're we're we see as part of our future roadmap. You know, our ecosystem the beauty of real estate is you can create an ecosystem that's really borderless. Um and I think no one's ever really done that before. And this is where we, you know, a digital borderless platform that enables you to really invest in this asset class, real estate, um, but ex you know, benefit from it in different ways, rental income, citizenship, uh golden visa, residency. I mean, yeah, no one's ever done that. And this is where we really feel you know, we're creating a real estate platform that is global. Super interesting. And it's it's crazy how fast you're growing. Like when I was preparing for this for this episode, it was six you just hit six hundred properties. And this was just like I think maybe one or two weeks ago on LinkedIn that you posted about it. So now the new number is six fifty. Yeah. And and I'll tell you, you know, for us it's um, you know, uh we'll be at a thousand properties in no time. Um and you know, everyone says, what's next? And you know, for us it's like I really see us becoming, and I was saying to you before, we're a real estate investment platform that's becoming a real estate bank. Um, and for me, this is where I, you know, we see our future becoming. We become this really powerful platform that is seen not just as an investment platform, but a real estate bank. I mean, today, you know, you see all the other platforms creating uh uh cards and and ways for investors to stay onto that platform. The beauty of what we have is there's an underlying asset which people own, but also that's there's income being transferred, there's dividends being transferred in and out, and people are getting that. So when you control that much of money flows, you can really create a platform that is super powerful, that's super enabling. Um so yeah, we're just scratching the surface, and I think you know, we have a very bright future ahead of us. And I mean you mentioned a couple of times this came off the back of a 20-year uh journey you had in in real estate in Dubai. What in kind of this journey has led you to kind of where you are today and the starting, starting stake? You know, I think many things, but you know, I think the the main thing that, you know, I I've I love real estate. Um, but you know, throughout my career, when you're selling homes, um, what led me to really kind of it was like a wake-up moment is you'd sit down with investors all the time who wanted to invest in real estate, but affordability was always the issue. If you bring in any real estate salesperson from anywhere in the world and you tell them what's the number one objection you have from when you sit down with people, they'll tell you affordability. Everyone says, Oh, I love this. Then they sit down and crunch numbers and they can't afford it because it's real estate. So when I saw time and time again that people actually wanted to put their hard-earned money into this asset class, but they just couldn't afford to do it or didn't know, or were making the wrong decisions. The amount of times I've seen people put that money into a crappy real estate product. I mean, honestly, I'd I'd it have seen it happen so many times. They they buy the hype, as we were just saying, they go into a product and they put park that capital of a million, two million. You're not buying a pair of shoes here. You're actually putting in a lot of money. And I've seen it parked in such wrong places. So it was those two things, you know, people investing in the wrong asset class, in the wrong property, but also not being able to afford it. And that kept on playing my mind over, you know, 16, 17 years of doing this seven days a week. How do you enable people to how do you stop that? Um, and I think people will always want to invest in real estate. It's not a fad, you know, people want to invest in real estate. So if you can do it to you know, uh transparently and affordably, then I think there's nothing that can stop you from really growing a very successful business while empowering people to actually own this asset class. So, you know, those two things really uh I think uh uh stuck with me as I as I wanted to launch stake. And the term you used, real estate uh bank, is is very interesting, right? Because we have this kind of lack of bankability for people and lack of inclusion. Uh, we had uh Abdullah Bush from Mal on the show. He talked about how the whole drive was that people are underserved or unbankable. And here again, you're saying people are excluded from this decision from affordability. So whether coming at it from different angles, but I think the core thesis is you have a very large group of people that remains excluded on affordability, on knowledge, on demographics. And it's kind of about bringing them into the system and giving them this kind of financial inclusion. And for me, it's creating you not only are you bringing them, you're creating the infrastructure around this asset class that makes it easy. And I think this is something very important because, you know, in order to build a very successful business, you need to have the right infrastructure behind you. And I think this is something that, you know, as I was saying, we we've built the infrastructure now. We have the most advanced real estate investment platform out there because we've actually built infrastructure now. I mean, when you think about it, it's a bit crazy. Someone living in Tokyo can download the app and then own real estate in Dubai in three minutes and start earning income from it. That was never possible before until Stake was launched. And I think the infrastructure that we've built really excites me because, you know, this is where you empower your users. People are able to see their portfolio in real time, they're able to earn income, they're able to create an account and go through KYC in less than three minutes. I mean, that for me is the power that we've created, infrastructure that we've created that really enables us to scale. And I think not only are you empowering the users to own real estate, but you're you're building a product that didn't exist before. Um, you know, where you're enabling people to, you know, we're talking about now, uh, you know, owning a piece in the US, owning a piece in Europe, only that never existed before. So that for me is just accessibility, excites me, because you're building something that was never built before. Um, and to be able to do it from here forced us to think international because you have such an international user base wanting to invest in this part of the world that really from day one, when we launched this business, forced us to say, hey, think global infrastructure, think international infrastructure. I mean, someone who listened to our episode today wants to get started on the real estate journey completely from scratch. I've never owned an asset before, I've never touched real estate before. I assume the first answer is they download the stake app and then what? I think download the stake app. Uh, watch our uh, you know, we have something called the Steak Academy, we have tutorials there. You know, learn about what the product is. And the beauty of it is it's starting with 500 drams. So, you know, and I I know that everyone who's probably listening has probably spent 500 dharams on something that was a waste. So I think you know, bringing 500 dharhams and testing it, you know, people say, oh, yeah, but 500 dhrams won't make me any returns. And I'm like, yeah, but test it. You know, I wouldn't never go and say, hey, test it with 20,000 dharhams or 100,000 dhrams. If you're new to real estate and you're new to what we're doing, start off with 500 dhrams, see what the process is, see how the ownership documents are, see how you get income, see if you'll actually like the app. Maybe you turn around and say, no, okay, this isn't for me. So anyone who's listening, I say, you need to have real estate in your portfolio. You know, there's no two ways about it. Whether it's 10% as we're saying or 90%, that's up to you. You need to have real estate in your portfolio. And I think the best way to do it is start small, see how it works. And if you like it, continue to increase uh your investments as you go along. Uh, a founder who listened to us today, very impressed by many things you've done and said, but one of them is the cap table you've built and the investors you manage to attract. How does he or she make herself attractive to institutions of that caliber? You need to have a solid vision. Um, you need to be able to communicate it. I think founders, you know, where where founders tend to fail is if they have an amazing vision, but they're neighbour, they're not able to communicate it. I think that's something that's very important. But also, I think the most important thing is you need to be transparent. Um, you know, I think the most successful founders that I've spoken to have been able to really bring in their shareholders into the kitchen, as they say. You bring them under the hood, you show them everything. If you're having uh uh you know a bad month or a bad quarter, you don't hide behind it. You need to be honest and transparent with your shareholders. And I think, you know, today the most important thing for any founder is really surround yourself with people that believe in your mission. Um, you know, don't just go for the check. You know, and and for me, you know, raising money is celebrated. And I think, you know, people say, oh, it shouldn't, you know, it shouldn't be celebrated. I think, no, raising money should be celebrated because it's a it's an amazing achievement. But it shouldn't be celebrated just for the money. I think it should be celebrated for a milestone. It should be celebrated for the trust that people have put in you. Um, so for any founder listening today, I think you really surround yourselves with um, you know, great uh uh investors who believe in your vision, who believe in your mission, but also for you to be really super transparent, super honest and you know, be very, very specific in the way you communicate because you know, people have great ideas, but if you can communicate how you're gonna get from point A to point B to eventually growing the business, you'll get nowhere. Um I think that's very important. And someone who listened to us who is very interested in becoming part of this journey at stake or a company like stake, who is interested in these missions, interested in this level of growth, what sort of skill set you to say someone should work on today to be very relevant for opportunities that come up at stake and at come equally exciting companies in that part of the journey, how they should be ready for and be attractive candidates? That's that's a great question. I think um you need to be flexible, you need to be, you know, you need to have tenacity. Um, I think in today's world, um, you need to be very flexible. Uh you need to be able to adapt. And I think for someone who's looking to work in in today where you know things are being changed overnight. I mean, with AI, it's insane. Every day, you know, so at stake, you know, on a weekly basis, we have uh AI, uh we call it AI hour, where basically every head of department or anyone in the company can turn around and say, okay, we have this problem, how do we solve it with AI? And I think you know, in today's world, you need to be tenacious, you need to be flexible, and you need to be hardworking. Um, so anyone who wants to join stake or any other startup, I would say, you know, be open-minded to change uh because things are changing very quickly and you need to be able to adapt with that. And then obviously, you know, one thing that I'd say is hard work. Um, I think people tend to think startups are easy. Um, they're the hardest thing. I mean, I'm at it now for six years. Uh, it's the hardest thing that you'll ever, ever get yourself into. And it's very demanding. Um, you know, some startups uh will you know have a straight line where they just you know grow and they never stop growing. And you have some startups that grow and drop and grow, and you have to go through those, you know, you need to be very thick skinned. So hard work is super important. And it might require, you know, weekends, 12 hours, 16 hour days. If you're not up for that, don't sign up for a startup. Um, because it's just you're you're not gonna be fulfilled uh if if you're not that person. And finally, a regulator or a policymaker from a country listening to us, seeing how you're saying real estate fractionalization can bring in more FDI into the country, more investors, more capital from outside. Maybe they're a bit worried about again the retail sector, the regulations, the deeds, how how would it work? How do they think they can they can start approaching this in different countries around the world? Any regulators listening, I'd say just open up. I mean, you know, I'll tell you the the the biggest uh uh like what what when when I go to bed at night, what worries me is always regulation just moves too slow. Um, you know, if we're very fortunate to be in places where it's not as slow as other places, but it's still that I'd love it to be faster than it is. You know, I I'd be lying uh to myself right now, saying, oh yeah, you know, regulation is so fast where it's made. No. You know, we move a lot faster than what the regulation allows. Um, so if any regulator is listening, I would say, you know, real estate is an asset class that you should allow participation in. And really, you know, I would ask everyone to read Larry Finks' uh shareholder uh email that he sent last year where he basically talks about how real estate needs to be opened up and infrastructure needs to open up. So any regulator listening, I think there's a lot less risk in real estate than other asset classes. It's there. You know, people can see it, it empowers people, it's wealth creation. If you look at you know, some of the richest people around the world, the really they, other than obviously tech, but real estate has been a massive wealth create driver. So I would say to regulators, you know, sit down with these founders, sit down with these companies and understand why it's important for the actual economy to enable more participation in this asset class. The more people are locked out from real estate or and specifically real estate, the less of a feeling of belonging they have. And I think it's very important to create that feeling of belonging. And the best way you do that is by allowing people to participate in this asset class. Rami, thank you so much for allowing us the time to get into all of all of this. It was really, really super informative. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Yusuf. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.