The Capital Strategist: Turning Complex Projects into Lasting Impact with Edd Hamzanlui- Episode 541

If you are a good architect, I'm not saying I wasn't, I was a good architect, but, or you are in construction, just your mindset, your personality, and how you operate is fundamentally different from a person in finance, uh, completely. And even the schools, how you lead, what you do.

Every deal tells a story, but the best ones outlast the market cycle. The Capital Strategist unpacks how transformative housing investments, not only maximize investor returns but also strengthen communities for generations. Welcome to Streams to Impact, brought to you by Steed Tucker Capital. I'm your host, Dr. Allen Lomax. Most professionals we meet are thriving in their careers, but still they're trading time for money, and too often their portfolios are exposed to risks they can't So that's why we built A Different Path. After meeting with more than 750 operators, only 1% make it into our deal vault. The system is designed to protect your capital and open doors to opportunities usually reserved for the ultra-wealthy. Because the real damage isn't just bad deals. It's the lost years of compounding growth you'll never get back without the right infrastructure. Before we begin, we have 2 gifts to guide your journey, the Clarity Timeline and the Investor Shield. You could grab both at the URL go.statetalker.com/gift. Before we dive into today's episode, just a brief disclaimer: All information shared on Streams to Impact is for educational purposes only. It is not to be construed as investment, financial, legal, or tax advice. All investments incur risk. You should not invest if you are not prepared to lose 100% of your investment, and you are always encouraged to consult your legal, accounting, and tax advisors before making any. What do you get when you combine the precision of an architect, the discipline of a capital strategist, and a $7 billion track record in real estate? Well, you get today's guest. That's Ed Hamad Zamloo. Ed has spent more than 2 decades landing high-impact housing projects across the US and internationally, shaping communities with thousands of new units and jobs. Thank you, Allen. Billions in real estate value. His rare ability to bridge architecture, construction, and capital markets has made him a trusted force in creating projects that deliver strong investor returns while strengthening communities for generations. From his leadership at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he structured $6.7 billion in complex financing, to founding MassCan Capital, where he brings vision and vigor to transformative developments. Ed lives by a powerful belief that real estate should serve people first, fueling both economic mobility and lasting prosperity. Today, he joins us on Streams to Impact to share how disciplined strategy, technical expertise, and a people-first vision can turn even the most complex projects into lasting impact. So welcome, Ed. We're glad you're with us today. And so if you'll just take us into the show, you have managed to bridge architecture, construction, and capital markets in a way that few others can. So what is your inner philosophy or your life experience that most shaped this integrated approach to real estate?

Hi, Allen. First of all, thank you for having me on your show. It's my honor to be here. To start off with your question about bridging a more technical background, more operational from design, engineering, construction, and then financing side, I will be very honest and open book here. That was not the intention when 25 years ago I Went to architecture school and became an architect and started practicing. A combination of life events and a little bit flexibility, let yourself to be open and vulnerable when you learn and see what you're good at and also adjusting over the time. Let me walk you through that. I was a trained architect. And then I worked in construction for 8 to 10 years, worked on a general contractor side, also on the owner's rep side on estimating consulting. And as I moved forward through the construction period, I wanted to make a pivot towards more financing investment side of the industry. And I don't know who are the, you know, the most of your listeners, but I'm not trying to pretend someone that I am not or something I didn't know 15 years ago, 13, 14 years ago. I really did not know what, how does the other side of the industry look like. And, but I can tell you bridging that is not easy at all. The main reason is if you're a good architect, I'm not saying I wasn't, I was a good architect, but, or you are in construction, just your mindset, your personality and how you operate is fundamentally different from a person in finance completely. And even the schools, how you leave, what you do. And going to bridge that, it is not— Yeah. Going from investment banking to you know money management, it is it is not like that. It's really two different completely completely work, and I decided I decided the only way I can do that for me to learn about that how to bridge that also learn what I need to learn go to business school back in 2016 I. 2013, '14, '15, in that period, I decided to go to business school. And in 2016, I did. I went to University of Chicago very intentionally. I wanted to go to finance school. That was my goal. I said, you know what? I already been in construction design. I know what I need to know. I just need to finance accounting side of the game. And that took me to Chicago. And It took me a couple of years at business school. I worked for owner's rep at the same time and closer to the end, that move, crossing that bridge is never easy. So people, if anybody younger interested to do that, give it a second thought, really review what it takes. And because both fields are very, very competitive. And we know getting into finance by itself, how competitive it is. If you're coming from non-finance, you need really to do extra. And but the outcome, when you cross the other side, I worked, you know, especially right before and after COVID, during COVID again, not intentionally, but it happened. To work for a variety of firms, from brokerage firms, from private equities to development. The last couple of years before I moved to Massachusetts, I worked for Merrill Lynch Bank of America. I was a VP at community development banking. We were buying tax credit affordable housing. I happened to see a lot of different parties in that group. At the end of the day, when you spend enough time in an industry, especially on finance, you're trying to find your edge. Where am I more competitive? And I started thinking, you know, not only I spent 15 years of my life in construction architecture, now I understand the financing side as well. I would be a very, very dangerous person to get in the operation and I can talk architecture, I can talk design, engineering, construction, and I can put a deal together. I can bring money on equity, on debt, and most importantly, I felt very comfortable with different subsidies after working a couple of years at Merrill Lynch. We're doing a lot of tax credit deals. And, 3, 4, 5 years ago, I moved here to Massachusetts. I joined the family office. They had 2 large projects in the pipeline that my assignment was to push them forward through approval, construction, and disposition. That venture didn't last long for me for some internal events at the family office. I decided that Massachusetts At the time in 2023, with a new administration, very, very pro-development administration, which is not common here. That was one of the main drivers when I left the family office. I said, you know what, I want to give this a shot on my own. I obviously, I felt comfortable, very confident I can do this better than many other players. And I would be way more efficient because I can do a lot of stuff, at least on the earlier stages of a deal on my own in the house. So it took a lot of sweat and it takes a lot of sacrifice. It is that the bridging from a very, very core non-finance to finance, especially on the operation. Especially, it is not an easy transition. You really need to pay the price. If it takes you to go to University of Chicago Booth, if it takes you— and it is life, you know? Are you comfortable to put 5, 10 years of your life to make that happen and spend half a million? These are all the questions someone has to answer. But I'm very happy where I am in life right now. What I do, I feel very confident and very, I believe, competitive. Our firm, our practice is very competitive and we push it forward.

Thank you, Ed, for giving us that background information. I think a lot of successful people go through major transitions in their life. We start out in one direction and we realize that that it's really not necessarily taking us to where we necessarily want to go. And through serendipitous connections and what have you, our life transforms. And when we go with that flow, it can be quite rewarding in a number of ways. And it certainly has been that for you. Not only has it brought opportunities to you, but you've been able to bring— opportunities really to the real estate industry in ways that perhaps others would not be able to do. And so you created opportunities in housing, not only for developers, but really the projects you've been involved in, from what I understand, have been really very beneficial to the communities in which these projects have been undertaken. So if, Ed, if you could just fill us in a little bit on some of the projects that you have been involved in in the last couple years and, and how that has benefited the investors you've been working with and how that really has helped reshape the communities as well.

Absolutely, absolutely. I tell you about our pipeline. We have a small pipeline, 3 projects in our pipeline as we speak at Massican Capital. One of them we've been working on since early 2024, and we are getting ready to break the ground construction in early 2026, which is 2 years, which is not bad at all in Massachusetts. I tell you, especially for the deals that are have different, you know, type of subsidies, tax credit, and capital stack. Securing them takes time. These are the main projects that we are working at Maskey, and 80, 90% of my time, I do a little bit of consulting on the side. Not much really these days, especially. I'm trying to tell people if they should spend their time on a project or not. Spending a couple of hours reading what they've done on both affordable and market rate. Oh, I need to make a comment here. At this stage, at Mascan, we only do residential housing, maybe mixed income affordable, maybe mixed use, but our core practice is on housing residential, at least for the next 4, 5 to 7 years that I can foresee. After that, I don't know. I feel comfortable to move around and learn about other property types, but this is a market and this is a time to produce housing. So, an opportunity for us. The type of deals, Alan, that we are going after at Masking Capital are usually A more hairier, a little bit complicated capital structure, and even the construction site. I tell you, for example, the very first project, they're gearing up to start the construction early next year. And the reason for that is you have to pick your battle. If you want to build a single-family in a conventional way, I'm not saying that is easy, but your competition is very different comparing when you build 100-unit apartment. under one entity to be rental, then your competition is different. And then you decide you build the same 100 units, but with a very, very colorful capital structure of 6 different types of tax credit subsidies, federal, state, local. Your competition and the complexity of the deal and the stomach it takes to bring those deals to shovel, you don't have the amount of competition that you feel. But getting those deals really done are very difficult and expensive. That's the field we are playing. For example, I give you a live example. This project that we are finalizing to start the construction these days is a 166-year-old mill, historic mill in the city of Fall River, Massachusetts. It was part of a larger complex, and back in the days, it was built in mid-1800s. Been a texture mill for, I believe, 67 years. Since early 1900s, 1920s, '30s, turned to commercial, and still commercial. We are turning this to about 90 apartments.

Rental apartments.

And I give you some perspective on this project. First of all, you are— we aren't— we are not working on a, on a, uh, blank canvas, like ground up, that you design to the most efficient code possible. No, you are given a half-drawn picture. Your ceiling, your walls, your grid, columns, structure, everything, and sometimes infrastructure in place. So you, you don't have a lot of opportunity to, you know, do whatever you want. If that is not difficult enough, most of these projects you are working, partnering with National Park Service for tax credit, and some state— Massachusetts Housing Commission, Historic Commission, and some other entities that helping us with tax credit, and they have their own requirement as well. So you are ending up with not a lot of flexibility. So the design engineering side is challenging, and you are working with an existing condition, is not very well known, and now you are trying to build that construction-wise. So the technicality of the Operation alone is not even many established shops want to do that. I know that because I'm talking to so many big shops for a variety of projects they're working on, and many of them don't even touch that because first of all, you need to find the right product. Not every— just because a building is old, it's not a good candidate. In fact, it's 95% of the buildings are not a good candidate. And everything else that makes a good residential development a good residential, they are in place. So, and on top of that, a body is existing. And then you get into a building that doesn't necessarily cost you less than a ground-up because you have walls and some structure in place, uh, that doesn't necessarily is a cheaper construction. Now you need to bring in a capital structure that helps you to do that project. And there are 4 or 5 different entities, federal and state, that provide that. Each of them coming with series of applications, very expensive, very time-consuming, a series of consultants that helping you and different timing. And you bring all of that together to create this capital structure. And again, if it is not already difficult enough, at MaxGen we are going to communities that even with that, not every deal technically pencils. For example, Fall River is a community, it's a kind of middle-income core workforce community, and rents do not support the ground-up development, period. And for that reason, you have to find, you know, very, very creative financial solutions And some properties can guarantee those, have that potential. That is our strategy. Do we have a lot of competition? No, but the job itself is enough hard enough, difficult enough that really many people said, you know what, you're not gonna do that. And entitlement and everything else on top of that, that you are dealing with in a regular residential ground-up. So, you have all of that as well. That's why it took us almost 2 years— will take us almost 2 years until we start the construction. We secured all of the federal and state tax credit subsidies, property tax abatement, everything we needed in our capital structure. And yeah, that's where we are right now. The other 2 projects we have in our pipeline are going to start about a year after this one. Yeah, the same exact project, kind of the same strategy for now until we feel that— it is not easy to find good buildings for this program. So if we come across a property that we feel we can apply this strategy, we take a deeper look because it is rare to find that type of property might be a good candidate. And helps you to capitalize the project. I pause here. I don't know if I answered your question, but I pause here. And kind of bridging the gap between what we do and you guys do, Allen, is we are always looking for investors. Like, we are, you know, the name of our shop is Masscan Capital, but the capital part of it is really unnecessary because you are not— We are always asking, you know, for investment.

Right.

And our profile, risk profile, as I quickly touched on, is usually very low-risk development because it takes a lot of time to get the deal to the shovel. And after that, it's just the construction. Figuring, finding the deal, figuring that out, putting the capital structure together, sometimes 30%, 40% of the capital coming through different subsidies. So when actually hits the investor's equity, you're already in like a 55 to 65 percent of the capital structure. You are not 90, 85 to 100 percent comparing to common equity. That's one of the advantages of our practice that, and as I said, we always are open to people want to come and join us. We are a small shop, we are very efficient on that front. So I pause here.

Thank you so much for sharing in detail how it is that your company works and how it is that all of the extensive due diligence that you do and the extensive experience you bring from the architectural construction side of it combined with the financial side provides opportunities that are really pretty rare for investors. And so we really truly do look forward to working with you and bringing our investors to you for projects. But Ed, in terms of being a licensed architect and a capital strategist, how do you help investors align financial discipline with a deeper purpose of impact and legacy?

Thank you for a great question, Allen. If you go to our website, you probably see that as a statement. It is not just really a statement that we make. We live by that every day. We are a middle-income workforce housing development company. From the beginning, that was our purpose, and we really are. All of the projects in our pipeline right now are available Within that criteria, we are trying to build products in communities that 60-70 middle 60-70 percent of the population can afford. The people that are not low income enough to be qualified for low income housing, but also they are not making enough to can afford whatever and anywhere they want to live. They work. They make a living and, you know, that type of product, nice product, efficient, with amenities that you usually use on at least weekly basis. That is our goal. And going to communities that type of population live and they like it, they call it home. Fall River, south coast of Eastern Massachusetts, those communities that you're very active, we believe we can deliver. Solid workforce housing, really, with little to no rent restriction. Why I say rent restriction? Because if you apply rent restriction to projects in order just to make it work during construction, at the end of the day, giving back to our investors— most of our investors realize their return on the exit after 5, 7 years— and applying a rent restriction just to get the deal entitled It's a very, very dumb idea. And there is no shortage of projects on paper out there that you go to planning board and you try to get the deal approved and you accept anything they want. But in reality, when you go back to the market, it just doesn't work. But in general, we stick to that goal. And there is some business acumen to that as well. Allen, look at any industry that's providing, serving the middle 70, 80% of the population. Staple goods, you know, from food to shelter to anything that you— services, they are not going anywhere. Housing is not an exception. If you design for the majority, somehow manage to capitalize and build those projects for the Working class people, 60-70% middle class, your tenants are not going anywhere, right? It might be transitional for some people going from, you know, a first job right after college to buying a place. It might be a later stage life. Some people coming back from a single family now want to live in a little bit denser community, a smaller, more efficient, or Any other scenario you can imagine, but this type of product that you give people that they can afford, and you have enough amenity, good location. We always needed that. You always will need that. The difficult part of them is they are not easy to pencil. You have to we call everything Class A, not just because they're Class A, because you have to build to a studio standard. The construct, you cannot— people say, why don't we build Class B? Because you cannot build Class B. It's just not possible, really. You can, you know, massage your design construction a little bit, maybe cut some of the amenities or this and that, but in general, all the new construction are, give or take, are Class A. So really building a nice Class A new apartment that is still affordable It's not easy. It's not easy. And if you manage $5 billion, that makes it even more difficult because $5 billion of equity, assuming, translates, I don't know, to $15 billion real estate. And how many deals you need to find that fit that? Our size, being a boutique 3-people shop, allows us to, you know, find those niche opportunities. Maybe a few hundred units every other year, but we deliver to that and we are very happy with that strategy. Everybody happy, city is happy, neighborhood is happy. People don't believe for this first project when we went to the zoning board of appeal in Massachusetts, it only took us a few minutes to get the deal approved. And when we went back to planning board, We got a unanimous vote for the project because they wanted us, someone to go and bring money to that particular neighborhood to bring that 200-year-old neighborhood. You can't imagine how much potential it has, but market doesn't necessarily like it. So it takes really extra effort to figure that out and bring money and community supports you because otherwise that building God knows what's going to happen to 5, 10 years down the road, historic building. And our investors get an outperformed return, really, really high premium return because these are niche, you know, opportunities. They need to spend probably another 2 more hours to read our pitch to understand it. It's not as easy. So for that reason and being patient with us, we usually offer them a premium comparing to But relatively low risk from the investment and very popular with the community.

Well, Ed, it has been wonderful having you with us today. Thank you for sharing in detail how your operations work and the benefits to investors because of your deep dive into architecture, construction, and finance. So, uh, investors, thank you for being with us today. We heard from Ed Hamazonloo, a true capital strategist who reminded us that the most enduring investments are those that generate wealth while strengthening communities. His career proves that disciplined structure and people-first vision can turn even the most complex projects into lasting value. At Steedtaker Capital, our mission is to help professionals like you put your money to work in secure, high-yield appreciating assets, exactly like Ed was talking about today, so you can stop trading your time for money and build streams of income that stand the test of time. So before you go, don't forget to grab your two free gifts: the Clarity Timeline and the Investor Shield. Both are designed to help you accelerate your path to your. Financial Freedom Number, and you can download them now at the URL go.steedtalker.com/gift. Until next time, keep building streams of impact that create wealth, freedom, and legacy.

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