Ground Truth - by RealEstateAPI

Vincent Harris (00:01)
all right, here we go. ⁓ So hey, guys, we are live and thank you for joining us again for another episode of Ground Truth. I am beyond excited for this one. We've been very blessed to have great guests throughout, you know, the short life of the show. And they're all accomplished and credentialed and.

and all that jazz. ⁓ The same is true this week. Plus, this is my friend.

And so I'm just excited for this ⁓ this episode and for him to tell you what he's up to and some of the new ventures that he's taking on in the new year 2026. So truth for those who are new for the uninitiated is exactly what it sounds like. This is our attempt to give you the ground truth. What is happening in real life?

One of the services that we wanna provide is to let you hear from folks who are out there performing at a very high level. What do they need? What did they say they need, right? And what wishes do they have if they could create things to help them do their jobs even better? What are those tools, right? That's the idea here. So with us today is Brandon Riddick Seals, ⁓ who is a real estate developer, commercial estate developer, long, long track record, I'll let him give the full background, you know, stepping in to run the Atlanta Housing Authority. He now is the principal and CEO at Riddick and co. ⁓ Riddick Seals and co. They are S &CO. OK, ⁓ that I think he operates with his brother alongside, right? ⁓ Doing amazing things down in Atlanta, Georgia.

Brandon Ridick-Seals (01:29)
RS and Co.

Yes.

Vincent Harris (01:39)
And he's now getting in the software game where you guys reside. So we got a lot to talk about, Welcome to the show, Brandon. Again, really excited to have you.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (01:44)
Yes.

Thank you, thank you. Well, I'm definitely glad to be here and just kind of tell me where you want to kick off and I can give a little bit on my background and how we got here. And just my love for the industry and some of the work that we're doing right now.

Vincent Harris (01:58)
Yeah.

Yeah. For sure.

So do this, if you would just give people a little bit of your, not your full CV, but how you came up in the game.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (02:15)
Yep. So really to take it all the way back where, I always say, starting with passion instead of just chasing a profession. My aunt growing up, She was a drafts ⁓ woman at an architecture firm and she was designed all these different floor plans that you see, you know, kind of back in the eighties, it used to be these stock books of ⁓ house plans.

and she worked for a firm out of Florida. She really introduced me to the world of architecture, drafting and design. And I really took it from just drawing pictures and also being really stringent with me, like never trace, if God gave you a talent.

I use that and don't copy and trace it. So I always would ⁓ draw these pictures for my family and everything. And then my aunt, she would let me have different tools from her office that she would bring from all these drafting pencils and motorized erasers and really started showing me how not just art that surrounds us is. ⁓

Completed but really design itself with houses and in communities that they would be working on and they bought me my first drafting table

I couple that with ⁓

My grandparents ⁓ were business owners. They actually owned a vault company. And so they were essentially like the subcontractor to all the funeral homes where I was from. And so they would pour the concrete for the vaults that the caskets would go in and ordering concrete and cement and ⁓ mixing that. And then they had the equipment to dig the hole and they would basically, my grandmother kind of ran the books and my granddad ran the operations out in the field with his partner. ⁓

And so when I got to see the form work that they had and putting things together, I was like, wow, And then kind of fast forward from just really being outside and seeing how things come together. I was introduced to

my mentor, ⁓ probably when I was in the eighth grade, Walter McKee. McKee and Associates, architecture firm out of Montgomery, Alabama.

And every summer from ninth grade,

till literally I started at Auburn. I would go and work there at McKeen Associates and running plans, taking specifications documents out to job sites that the firm was designing to the state building authority. And it just really helped me see the business up close and personal at an early enough age, how the business makes money actually.

And it just really took off. I will say though, after I started architecture my first semester, I changed my major, which I can attribute to his oldest son. He worked for Brassville and Goring, ⁓ really large general contractor in United States. And

my sophomore year, Auburn, Tate came to me and was like, you you ought to think about ⁓ what the end game is that you want to do.

Vincent Harris (05:30)
Yeah.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (05:31)
And I started actually working with Brassville after I got out of school.

Vincent Harris (05:32)
souls.

That's it's actually, it's a really good place to maybe pause and if you can for people and most of our audience will know this but some will not. ⁓

What is it to be a developer? Because even yourself at some point, thought they were, know, the guys out there were rebar, getting their hands dirty. ⁓ Give people kind of the distillation of what it is to be a developer Well, wares

Brandon Riddick-Seals (05:59)
Yeah.

I like to

is similar to an orchestra conductor. ⁓ In an orchestra, to really achieve harmony and to hear the symphony of a number of different instruments that have to come together, And the orchestra conductor may not know how to play the

the bass and the percussion and the woodwinds and the brass, but if they're all playing on the same sheet of music and each, you know, ⁓ I guess player of their instruments really understands their part and their role. The orchestra conductor's job is to bring all of those instruments and those ⁓ players together on one sheet of music to create a beautiful sound and harmony that individuals can enjoy. And

I think that when you really look at the components of a developer, you got to be ⁓ a bit of an economist. You got to be a low-par politician. You really have to understand finance. And you really have to be a people person. ⁓

and bringing all those together and wrapping it with leadership and really a good foundation in the community and how do you listen and lead by listening the way I look at deals and look at

how great developers are placemakers, right? Where the vision can actually become reality because they know how to convene all of the players and the instruments, bring them together on one accord, one sheet of music

And if you did it well, you look back, individuals are following you, but everyone says they built it together.

Vincent Harris (07:47)
interesting. It's interesting that you use that frame to define it. ⁓ My wife actually reminded me of a quote recently that there is a subtle but important distinction between place and space ⁓ and place. Is space the physical imbued with meaning, right? And as I hear you talk about the role, I kind of get a sense of that, right? It's like.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (08:01)
Mm.

Mm.

Vincent Harris (08:15)
how do things come together to be meaningful for the people who will use those buildings and that land, right? And all those things that you and this orchestra put together. yeah.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (08:17)
Yeah.

True, ⁓ no

knock on ⁓ the movie field of dreams, but I truly don't believe that if you build it, they will come. ⁓ A great developers really make sure that you build the deal and you analyze and look at the feasibility of it and you measure three times so that you truly can cut once so that you don't waste dollars, you don't waste the goodwill of ⁓

Vincent Harris (08:35)
Right, yeah.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (08:57)
the regulatory environment in the community, but you really understand just, you know, in economics, supply and demand, you know, is there a need by whoever the end user is for the supply of whatever that asset use class and product type is that you're going to bring

Vincent Harris (09:13)
Yeah, that's great. Super helpful. Thank you for distilling that for us.

All right, so let's, so we're 30,000 foot. Let's start to get down to ground level here. Let's talk about Atlanta.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (09:21)
I ended up in Atlanta technically because, you know, my last two years at Auburn, my junior year, my senior year,

Instead of going to our corporate headquarters were in Birmingham, Alabama I actually came to Atlanta and I started interning in our healthcare group and I loved working in the estimating and Project management department on the healthcare side because hospitals are so complex You know from how the HVAC and the mechanical systems and just understanding infection control because we have to Really look at the safety dynamics not only during building but how the building operates

and the real science of the building with air, water, and infrastructure, and also protecting who those end users, which are patients during critical needs, going to ⁓ be.

The interesting part about it is what you're building, you may never master it, but you have to be literate enough to understand almost the process of what it is and learning what you're building from the equipment, the design and the specifications so that you can put it together properly and make sure it operates properly.

When I moved over to business development, we kind of worked in geographies and regions. And so I got a chance to really work with a lot of our different divisions as a cross-section, chasing sports and entertainment projects, ⁓ additional healthcare projects.

I structured that equal business opportunity program where the Braves play now, the Hawks training and practice facility. ⁓ and then a lot of, you know, pretty neat, ⁓ places like, you know, worked on our team with, country music hall of fame, the Omni in Nashville, some projects down in Florida and out in Texas.

Vincent Harris (10:59)
Mm-hmm.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (11:01)
And I got to ask by now three mayors ago, the mayor at the time and their finance committee to serve on the finance committee and during the election.

And so after I served for three years as commissioner and chair of the real estate committee, I stepped in to really mend some fences relationship wise with our partner developers.

get some deals unstuck, start moving some dirt. And we did some really great work in a very short period of time under my leadership. And we left it better than we found.

Vincent Harris (11:34)
So.

What are maybe some of the most notable challenges or stories or where politics got in the way of you doing the good doing the work of development of, you know, actually building projects? Anything you care to share? It would be interesting.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (11:50)
Yeah.

when you drive around Atlanta and, know, previously, you know, during, you know, the late nineties and kind of early two thousands properties that were previously a hundred percent affordable. And as individuals would say, the projects really had some innovative leadership from some of the developers and the then

president, CEO to say, we got to solve for not just having projects, but we got to create communities. And we got to take the portfolio of the properties that we have that might have food deserts or retail deserts. And they don't have great proximity to transportation and come up with a new model that honestly, the Atlanta model, ⁓ you know, which was was framed, you know, by ⁓ Egbert Perry and, know, Renee Glover.

which really showed the nation a way to get the public sector in a way out of the business of being developers and fee simple owning not just the dirt, but the property and property managing it using the dollars from, you know, the federal, you know, trickle down from HUD down to the state and then down the public housing authorities to saying, you know, how about we come up with a new innovative model that's more of a joint venture structure where, hey, public,

agency own the land let's you know figure that as a you know acquisition and then B building whether you're building and then or you have buildings and then C cash flow always kind of say ABC ⁓ how about we own the land a do a structure where the agency owns the dirt be let the private sector come in and help you redevelop these communities where we co-develop the actual building and then the cash flows that are needed

Vincent Harris (13:36)
Yeah.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (13:41)
⁓ to build and operate these, let's come up with some new creative ways with HUD, with the rental assistance demonstration or RAD programs to convert how we can bring mixed income, mixed finance and mixed use communities as a model ⁓ to Atlanta and then really show the country how to do it.

it was challenging at the time, because if you take a community and you move some of the residents to try to come up with a master development capital improvement program.

to build back new housing where you got market rate housing with individuals in an income strata that's at or above 80 % AMI, 120 % AMI or above to those who are at very low incomes, 30 % of area median income, 60 and right at 80 % and have that profile of those mixed income individuals, but also how can we put mixed uses out?

schools, got to think about infrastructure and transportation, we got to think about retail and food, that doesn't happen overnight.

And so sometimes it might sit there, the land that you cleared just so happened in Atlanta, we had a number of them sit for a very long period of time and we weren't moving dirt and building and hammers weren't swinging and saws weren't buzzing.

But the growing need of demand for affordable housing was growing and it stalemated for a while due to, you know, different views and opinions.

Vincent Harris (15:09)
So this is a complaint that I hear a lot from my buddies who are developers and also just more broadly ⁓ in the industry that it is just hard to make affordable pencil. ⁓ And so that is why this kind of creativity and this kind of partnership, public private partnership is so powerful and so important. And I think that's what I hear as a theme and what you're describing here in your time in Atlanta. ⁓

Brandon Riddick-Seals (15:27)
Yeah.

Vincent Harris (15:35)
This may also be a good way for us to segue again and go because we're to go from kind of high level again down to ground level getting more and more tactical as we go through this conversation. This may be another good on ramp for us.

What is your workflow?

⁓ So let's say, for example, somebody brings you a pad, right?

And what is the first thing you do? You got a bunch of tools in your arsenal. I know you are nice with Excel. That's your sidearm. You know what saying? That's probably your trusty sidearm. But what else are you gonna have to bring?

Brandon Riddick-Seals (16:08)
Ha! There it is.

Ha!

Yep, when I think about programming, it's many components, but I always start with the dimensional parameters of that pad. And it isn't two dimensional, it's really four dimensional, right? You know, cause I got length and width, which is going to give me my area. But then I started looking at it volumetrically from ⁓ the height of what can I fit inside the envelope if I put an invisible cube over that subject pad.

And then fourth dimension to me is time. How can I move from looking at first the constraints? Can I go from a gross pad of land or if it's a covered land play, if it's property and I'm gonna reposition that property from an adaptive reuse standpoint where it's one use class and I'm gonna refer it to another use class, what are my constraints on that property? Do I have wetlands? Do I have...

A height restriction, do I have any other type of encumbrances or easements that aren't visual above the ground, but then also need to understand what the heck is going on below the ground, right? Are there ⁓ utilities that I don't see? Or from a proximity and an accessibility standpoint, can I actually ⁓ access that pad from a transportation standpoint and

It actually has the ability to touch a right of way from a transportation standpoint. ⁓ And then can I get infrastructure and utilities, water, power, sewer, ⁓ infrastructure from a fiber and the technology now that we need underground, in-wall overhead that individuals never see, but they're the heartbeat of what make buildings ⁓ livable and places from a connected standpoint. ⁓

communities, right, from an infrastructure standpoint. And then I started looking at, you know, the spatial constraints gross of where I'm left with net to build on. And I'm looking at, you know, what are my zoning and use constraints that, you know, further kind of constrict me into, okay, what can I fit inside of that invisible cube? And, you know, that program I looked at comparatively across use classes to truly start.

seeing the feasibility of what's highest and best. And for me, highest and best really turns into the metric of what's my yield spread between, you know, individuals think about cap rate and that's a way to neutralize and bring different use classes and product types common. what I, you know, take a step further, especially when you're building is what's my yield spread? When I look at

yield on cost so that's that you know I put this in place and I got a net operating income and that yield on cost versus that cap rate and what's that spread between you know that cap rate that's how I truly look at what is highest and best use and should I build it there or not

Vincent Harris (19:21)
Let's pull the thread even more. Does all that information reside in a survey? Do you have to send somebody down to the county? Do you have to fly a drone? Do you have to go and get, you know, phase one? Maybe you can explain what phase ones are. Talk about the specific tools, because what I get to is.

where are the bottlenecks, where are the things that make your job hard because maybe somebody watching this is building a tool that could help you and you can guide them to build the tool you actually need.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (19:56)
there are some disparate parts and solutions that are great individually, but they don't have interoperability and they don't hand off and touch. The big challenge is

No two jurisdictions when it comes to where it is that you want to build from an authority having jurisdiction of your land use and zoning regulator ⁓ are all advanced and have digital information available. Right. And so when you really start thinking about boots on the ground, everybody doesn't have their zoning ordinances online or their, you know, GIS mapping available.

And I call this ⁓ where the Tower of Babel starts, right? ⁓ Everyone's nomenclature and the taxonomy of how they have their naming conventions of their land use classes, because that is where a taxing authority draws their lines to be able to say who owns what parcels, how do we evaluate that property, know, land and improvements.

And then the millages and those tax rates help us come up with how do we create revenues to run the municipality. Some are sophisticated, others are not. And so that disconnect of everything is not uniformly possessing the same taxonomy. that ⁓ Oregon and Alabama and Florida and Texas all use the same uniform classification taxonomy to say,

land and retail and office are these. And then when you look at a parcel ID number is always the exact same digits. And when you have that ⁓ lack of uniformity, it can make it truly difficult to translate between the languages of each of these geographical locations.

So you got to have boots on the ground. got to have ways to individuals can go and look and they can pull these surveys and see property data to even start your feasibility analysis and your site, due diligence of work.

Vincent Harris (22:08)
So if you could wave a magic wand, and I hear a bunch of data types that are unwieldy, listen, our whole stock and trade is normalizing messy data, so we get it. ⁓ From our perspective, what you're describing, I appreciate that, I appreciate that, you know what I mean? That's why I said this is my friend. So I appreciate that, alley-oop. ⁓ Yeah, listen, this is our stock and trade. But I hear...

Brandon Riddick-Seals (22:22)
thought I'd throw that softball up there. think it'd be fun.

Vincent Harris (22:36)
There are some things that are beyond the scope of what we do that I hear you talking about. And so, ⁓ or at least they are today, but maybe we will have a think about how to extract some of these things and normalize them. But if you could wave a magic wand at this normalization issue or any of the things that are so unwieldy and messy in your process, what would you wave it at? What's the thing that you go, man, if I had this tomorrow,

It would shorten my planning by X or I could get to highest and best use this much faster.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (23:12)
one.

Coming up with a uniform classification system for property data is the one thing that I think would bring so much speed and efficiency, right? And in ways individuals are democratizing.

how individuals can move from A to Z by taking the spirit and different classifications. But to me that is what's so important because I have my kind of step by step process of I look at spatial dimensional parameters ⁓ from a two dimension standpoint area, three dimensions volumetric. But then from there I'm looking at program ⁓ as is and proposed comparatively.

cost, your capital expense, and that's gonna be acquiring it, doing infrastructure and site development, building it, looking at parking, make sure that's gonna work, and then operating it post construction. So program cost, I gotta understand my revenues, I gotta understand my expenses, not capital expense, but operating expense. And then looking at the returns and the valuation.

of what is that asset class, not just comparatively, but performatively over the analysis period. And I wave my hand, I'm kind of magic wand all the way at the beginning and saying, if I can understand each one of those components from a unit economic standpoint, right? Per square foot for me, I can get all of it to talk. Program per square foot as is proposed, cost per square foot, capex, revenue per square foot, by use class and type.

Operating expenses per square foot and then I start looking at my Returns and I convert some of those, you know operating returns I'm in the box and internal rate of return exit, you know looking at terminal cap rates and returns on cost But I could very thing per square foot and then I look at my valuations and you can really make informed decisions, but it all starts with What is my use class and what is it as is and proposed so I can really understand? I?

optimizing my site am I following a roadmap and I built it on paper before I tried to go do it in the field and I wasted a whole bunch of money and time and I didn't know that I'm chasing the optimal return.

I've set a unique position where I've built things govern, you know a public Agency and also led one where we you know had a lot of capital to execute our mission But that didn't mean it would fit, you know, and you also got a you got to watch the trends of the market You know, what what is money? trading it

Right. Or can I get the actual materials to build what it is that I want to build and, is it stopping in the port because the tariffs are in place? Do I have a workforce right now that can actually go out and, or is it aging out? There's so many ifs and dynamics that are the constellation of all of this coming together to get it right. And that's why the roadmap and having that enterprise, ⁓ you know, roadmap to follow is where I focused on process.

Vincent Harris (26:01)
Yeah.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (26:30)
so that you can scale, but you gotta be able to set a baseline and then track it, or else if you don't put success on a schedule, you'll never get there. And I think the magic wand would be uniformity in the language, and that is parcel data.

Vincent Harris (26:41)
Or less.

So number one, there's a bar in there. If you don't put success on the schedule, you never get there. Quotable, stealing that. Consider that taken. That's number one. But number two, yeah, I do want to go all the way ground level now because yes, you have workflows. I imagine that most sophisticated developers have developed these, ⁓ reductive doesn't begin to capture it, but these macros. ⁓

Brandon Riddick-Seals (26:53)
Amen.

Great.

Vincent Harris (27:18)
of a sort, you know, for their workflow to try to make some of this more digestible and go a little bit faster. But you have gone a step further now, not just these workflows, these macros. You are actually embarking on building a product, a software product some of your challenges. And I imagine you think that they are widespread enough that there's a commercial audience for them. Can you talk about the product that you're building? Because I'd love to hear how a real estate developer is approaching software development. You dig?

Brandon Riddick-Seals (27:45)
one of the things that I'm always looking for is efficiencies.

and how can we do things better and faster but not diminish quality. ⁓

I looked at construction, I looked at finance and how the sources and uses and those cash flows parallel with workflows, right? And then where are some of the challenges that they run into?

All of that comes together and I start really looking at how can I create a tool where each of these decisions and workflows is almost that roadmap and then

offer it to others who don't have the big back office.

And so over this 20 plus, almost goodness, 25 years now of being in the industry.

Looking at these workflows and what are the steps and activities, who are the roles or responsibilities, and where do you get the bottlenecks and just running the blockers is what we try to put institutionally into some of the solutions that we've been using inside our firm and our business

We're even just financial modeling, but we're workflow modeling from the activities to say, now how can we efficiency engineer this? You know, what's taking the longest to do certain things and now starting to layer on agentic ⁓ steps with each of the activities that have unique identifiers so that interoperability can start adding some back office lift to some of the tasks if the information is available out there with data sets.

to be able to get to a solution or at least put it in front of you so you can review and approve it and move things through those workflow stages and phases faster, which is going to get you to go no go decisions, optimal scenarios on what you should program, understanding capital expense cost, where's financing at, and you really can just look at the iterations comparatively and say, I really know I'm making the best decision and the best deal.

Can we move forward faster is really the thesis on which we kind of built some of the tools and solutions that we're working on to bring to the market now.

Vincent Harris (30:03)
Okay, the elevator pitch though. So are you building, because I think that this is okay for public consumption, right? You don't mind us talking about the actual thing that you're building, okay. The elevator pitch, is this a scenario building tool? Some really tricked out super powerful version of Excel? Or is this a base camp type tool where all the stakeholders can collaborate and weigh in on feasibility per their vantage point?

Or is it something altogether different? Like how would you elevator pitch this to somebody? I'm not, you know, if you were raising VC, how would you pitch the tool and what's the name of it? Tell people the name of what you're building.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (30:43)
Yeah, area, OPS, so area, But that's an acronym for agentic real estate accelerator, and OPS is just short for operating system. So you got an agentic real estate accelerator operating system.

⁓ It is a...

real estate solution platform that connects the disparate parts of what really no one platform is doing right now from how do I start from a geospatial and mapping ⁓ interface as a user to look at property and two dimensionally and even three dimensionally understand the property data and ⁓ parameters.

to understanding that market and some of the other metrics so that you can move from analysis but keep things in a nice, organized fashion. And I think what differentiates us and others will see is, as they get to experience the product, is learning while doing so that you're moving from analysis into how am I seeing what is truly feasible to make the best decision based on use type.

⁓ Of what should I program on the subject property and site so I can have all of my property data and geospatial in a pipeline Before I get in a portfolio, you know what all these different deals by type that I'm looking at and then moving from analysis to seeing what's feasible to truly be able to have The decision-making features and modules in there to underwrite properly to size your financing

According to or your I'll just say your your your funding right your your sources of funds properly if it's market rate or if it's ⁓ Public finance or a mix thereover we're have public private to say hey query in this subject location the overlay of what sources of funds are they or Where does this sit with what is available? ⁓ You know am I in a tax allocation district?

Do I properly understand how to forecast and evaluate the net present value of my tax revenues over a period of time? Because an individual may not know where to go and look to know, am I in a tax allocation district? Or how do I actually leverage what I see traditionally as expense flows, outflows, and turn them into leverageable

Streams of cash flow that I can go if the benefit is there because it's usually what you're trading off, know, tax revenues operating expenses from utility expenses, maybe even insurance and turn those cash flows over a period of time and the net present value, leverageable sources of funds to help finance and you're borrowing from the future essentially. But what if you have a system that helps you walk through that and that to me is great developers. They're financial engineers.

And if I've made anything, I've taken my construction knowledge, the way to my finance knowledge and engineering solutions over a 10, 15 or 30 year period, right? To bring that process in so that an individual, you know, may not have that advisor to tell them now, yes, RS and code does provide those advisory services. But I said, what if I could democratize my brain and the way that we found solutions of the Rubik's cube of a deal?

Vincent Harris (33:50)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (34:18)
and put it in a system where it's prompting you and taking you through. Did you think about this? Did you think about that? Comparatively, A versus B, B wins and here's why. So that you can make decisions and then move from a preliminary just site market analysis into the feasibility analysis of your program, underwrite it, and then here's what's cool. Put it in an institutional grade offering

I'm bringing all of that knowledge in and trying to put it as a solution to help you.

Vincent Harris (34:43)
So.

Yeah, That was the connection I needed. I totally get that. Not being a developer, but ⁓ having looked at a bunch of projects and talk with you about this, I totally get the value of that. So for example, in our API, we can identify, for example, opportunity zones, but that's just one of many. But it'd be nice to know if this thing you're considering was in a new market.

tax credit area or if empowerment zone funds were available or if LITECH made sense, right? And I think, right, and I think that what I hear you describing, they'd be able to put in the coordinates and say, hey man, ⁓ on the sources side, maybe you didn't think that this deal would pencil, but if you consider new market, it would. If you...

Brandon Riddick-Seals (35:21)
Cheers.

Yeah, and you can

de-risk the deal a bit, and it may not be at the initial ⁓ point of inception, but what if there are planning and feasibility pre-development dollars, what if you got a Brownsville project and there are sources of funds, but nobody really understands how to walk through the process and unlock it, and you put all of the available ⁓ sources or programs, at least in front of you, and then the magic is,

Can I get the timing alignment in context to the thesis of my business deal and get it to work? So that you know upfront, I need to alot conservatively, more duration and time in my schedule where I might have this coming online with my construction being completed and leasing up in Q3 of 2027 or 2028, but oops, I didn't realize, oh, I wanted to mix in some

Vincent Harris (36:12)
I get it.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (36:32)
you know, in this particular footprint, I might not get past that community ⁓ approval or ⁓ zoning approval because I don't have X percentage of affordable units and that takes this much longer and your whole thesis and your business plan is blown. So.

Vincent Harris (36:44)
Yeah.

And out of curiosity, not to turn this into a whiteboard session, but I think about Litech specifically, when those deals get done, is there a central repository for that?

Brandon Riddick-Seals (36:59)
Another, so it's a bit of you have to understand what you're looking for and you can go on the HUD user ⁓ site and see every project that actually has any low income housing tax credit equity funds because you always have to remember the program is one where

you want it to incentivize individuals who actually want a tax credit. Private sector, individuals, organizations, are who the investors are, but they still have to ⁓ know that there are ways to offset their tax burden. And so this is a way where projects and locations that aren't very attractive, that can't produce the types of returns,

to say where can we get that other sources of funds? So you incentivize investors to say hey I can offset and give you a credit for your taxes. But you can look in the HUD user data and it'll show those deals that were placed in service ⁓ because they track it and they have an actual registry of these properties because you have a placed in service period where your eligible use period when it comes to understanding how long you have to maintain.

The affordability period typically is going to be 15. You can do an extended use and it'll be 30 years. You can see all of these properties in a registry through some HUD user data and they have their own identification number.

Vincent Harris (38:34)
Yeah, yeah, super helpful and I get the value proposition immediately now. ⁓ Okay, cool, I can't let you go without getting you to weigh in, maybe even make predictions on some of what we see going on more broadly. This is not a politics question, but obviously ⁓ affordability is on everyone's mind right now ⁓ throughout their daily lives, but certainly in housing.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (38:50)
I

Vincent Harris (39:00)
What do you see happening, man? ⁓ I know that we have an inventory issue. Rates are sure, rates are an issue, but we've got a real inventory issue. ⁓ We've got a zoning and all that. Just talk to me about what you see happening on the housing front over the next two, three, five, maybe even 10 years.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (39:05)
Yeah.

Inventory is 100 % the issue, but what type of inventory that can be at a local level approved when you're looking at densities and you're looking at product types? ⁓ I think that innovation there is gonna be one of the keystones that really needs to be unlocked and figure out.

What is acceptable at a local level that can accelerate an efficiency engineered delivery?

We look at modular, we look at how individuals think of home and they think of space. know, the head count of a family has changed over time, but then when you start looking at it, head count of the family or tenancy on a per square foot basis, we like...

our space and we like our room, right, and more, but that maybe doesn't compute. So I think almost the psychography of the demographic of who the tenant and the end user is, is very important of how much space do you need versus do you want, right, to bring some efficiencies there?

I think that ways to finance deals where we can use some creativity with maybe some off balance sheet financing of certain components where we might use ⁓ grid technologies or looking at net metering things. For me, I've looked at districts with a central energy plant.

And you think about this from a housing standpoint I think that we could use some commercial and even what we kind of see with data centers or central energy plant think about it on a residential standpoint where You may not have all of your utilities in your unit or your home, but that doesn't mean that it's not Central to your district and then you net meter it out to bring some economies of scale And you know your kind of ratio bill it to look at some efficiencies there to lower the total cost of

capital expense and operating to make it more affordable for the full life cycle of affordability

I think that that's an opportunity, right? ⁓ And so, you we're trying to provide some solutions for those problems.

Vincent Harris (41:29)
Yeah.

Nice. Along those lines, final question. What is the most exciting tech that you've seen of late? The thing that just, because you get access to some things, you know, that even other developers do not pretty early. And I know you've worked with some ⁓ really well regarded big, big groups. What have you seen that just kind of knocked your socks off?

Brandon Riddick-Seals (41:56)
Yeah.

Some of the things that have blown my mind is that we used to take a set of plans and I, you know, first had to digitize and turn to a PDF and then, you know, being able to do quantity takeoff. can take a set of plans right now and it'll do my quantity takeoff in minutes or seconds versus would take me days, if not weeks as an estimator so that then I could just know how to quantify things. But for me, I use the word optimization. I've seen some software's now that can take

the subject footprint of the property, iterate it, quantify what it is that you need to build there and cost it. And that's a little bit of the shoulders of some of what I've seen that, you know, our solutions that we're building are standing on. And then give you the optimal way to not just know what to build, but the quantity of it and then structure the financing for it. And then you got to

future cast things to really understand what is going to make an individual fall in love with this property so they don't want to leave. And if it's a renter, it's, it's convenience. You know, COVID taught us so much about, I do life in my space in the four walls of home? Even if I got kids yelling in the background or, Hey, me and mom and dad might need a little time. I got to go over here and do work. changed the way that we think about programming space and the ability to

have that knowledge, and that's a lot of that psychography, the demographic, who your tenant is now versus in the past. But what do they need moving forward? Zoom rooms, a space to go and work and then step out and grab a bite and spend time with family, but I'm still doing it if I'm not back in my office or maybe I don't have an office, I still work for that same company. Thinking through that to make people fall in love with where now they live, work and play might all be the same place. Visualizing that.

Optimizing it virtually is light years beyond things that I thought we'd see in our lifetime. And I think that as creators of places, developers, those who are professionals in the design and engineering space keep leveraging the tool, but never let the human dynamic of listening to what end users need, solving problems to create these spaces is really the magic. If we don't ever lose touch of that.

Vincent Harris (44:03)
Yeah.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (44:23)
where actual intelligence should always precede artificial intelligence. But let's leverage it and create great things faster so we can see it in our lifetime. That's, me, without naming, some of the tools are the functions of what they can do that are just amazing. So does that answer the question, I hope?

Vincent Harris (44:39)
Yeah.

That's perfect. Yeah,

it does. mean, listen, you know, we have talked about there's a Google project out there that you and I have talked about that's doing some really, really cool stuff. There's there's a few things I've seen, too, and we need not name them. But I'm always curious to hear what impresses the guys who are already doing things at a high level and have already figured out workarounds and workflows and what are they seeing that is kind of blowing their socks off. So that's why I just was curious what you're seeing out there in the market. It's also good for.

Brandon Ridick-Seals (44:51)
yeah.

Vincent Harris (45:11)
again, our viewers and our listeners to hear what's happening so they make sure that they understand where ⁓ the vanguard really is,

Shrinking the world, man. Shrinking the world.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (45:20)
You're really shrinking

the world and connecting people using these tools, I think is accelerating solutions and outcomes. And know, that's what we're here to do.

you can find me online and I've kind of got a mix of the business and the personal with our brand, it's Riddickseals.com, R-I-D-D-I-C-K-S-E-A-L-S.com. And then on my socials, you'll be able to see everything there. If you put brandon.riddickseals.com in, you could find our programs, you subscribe to our newsletter.

And then a lot of our advisory solutions from our products that we work with clients or even our services that we provide and then really launching one of our communities. got the cohort launching next month for our Dirt Doors and Dollars program with our course. Some of our mentorship groups are launching in February. So I'm really excited about that where I take a lot of the...

the pillars that important to this process from strategy all the way to execution and innovation. And we got all the modules and lessons there ⁓ that I'm really looking forward. But if people are trying to figure things out, how do I execute deals ⁓ better or do you need it executed for you? That's what we're in the business of doing.

Vincent Harris (46:41)
I love it, man. Well, you got all his coordinates. Definitely. This is somebody you want to check out somebody you want to follow. ⁓ You are safe to take the advice and guidance of this guy. He's actually doing it in real life at a very, very high level. And we will endeavor to continue bringing you people who operate in a similar strata. So again, Brandon Riddick Seals, affectionately known as BRS to us. ⁓ I appreciate you. By. By.

Brandon Riddick-Seals (47:03)
Hey, buy rent and sell.

I remember the squad

coined that one for us. Well, that's a great thing. I'm to go with that one. Vince, it's always a pleasure,

Vincent Harris (47:10)
Yeah, that's good. I like that. I like that. So you guys decide how you want to refer

to a man. Yeah. Thank you for coming on, brother. We'll definitely have you back and continue success, my man.