Dirt Rich Wisdom: Jose Berlanga Explains Purposeful Development and Smart Land Investing

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Persistance is more powerful than passion.

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Because passion fades away once you start facing these setbacks and

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these, high levels of adversity.

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and the other ones like resilience and whatnot.

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those tend to carry you a little further.

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What does it take to build a billion dollar real estate portfolio while

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rebuilding entire neighborhoods staying rooted in purpose?

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Today on seat, go create the leadership journey.

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We're joined by Jose Langa, a visionary entrepreneur who moved from Mexico

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City to Houston in the eighties and went on to co-found Tricon Homes,

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one of the driving forces behind Houston's inner city revitalization.

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With over 35 years of experience and more than $1 billion in real estate

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transactions under his belt, brings a unique blend of business strategy,

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economic insight, and philosophical perspective to everything he does.

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In this conversation, we unpack his journey from immigrant student to

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industry leader, explore what it really takes to lead with discipline

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and integrity, and learn why passion and mentorship might be the greatest.

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Assets of all.

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Jose, welcome to Seat.

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Go Create.

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Great to be here.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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Yeah, I'm glad you're here too.

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You said, you said it's been an interesting day, man.

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Can you share anything or is it just something we need

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to just kind of keep going?

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You know, in this, industry, most days are interesting, some, overwhelming.

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It, it, uh, it proves that business never, ceases to amaze you in every way

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possible The surprises, the fluctuations, the changes, the uncertainty that

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this, life represents just never stops.

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right now it's a very difficult environment.

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after all these years, things change in a moment's notice, and

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you just have to be ready to react.

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Hmm.

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So.

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there are a lot of people, especially we talk about some of

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the ups and downs of your career, which are phenomenal by the way.

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You've got such a great story.

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We're gonna have fun with it.

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But there are a lot of people when they listen in on things

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like this, Jose, and they have this thought that things are easy.

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And, and many times, you know, in a few minute, you know, in 30, 60

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minutes, we kind of say things and even the hard things, we sort of just

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keep going and get to the good stuff.

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business isn't easy, is it?

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To say the least, I am yet to try to figure out how to make it easier.

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even with the amount of experience that, you acquire over the years,

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things, never get easy because the business world is a moving target.

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there are new, technologies, new systems, new competitors,

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new ways of looking at things.

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every business appears to be saturated.

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there are more people, than good deals out there.

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There, there's too many.

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entrepreneurs out there and investors and developers that

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are chasing the same deals.

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it makes things hard no matter how experienced you are.

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You just have to keep fighting and keep, reinventing yourself and not

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giving up because, that's the truth.

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it never gets easier.

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You just, try to figure out how to tolerate the process better.

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Just keep moving along and there are good days and then there are bad days.

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I've got a company that I'm running right now, and in the morning

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we've got a meeting with a lawyer.

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We're attempting to be proactive new products that we're releasing,

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but we're seeing some things that could be kind of interesting with it.

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So we're kind of just, you know, lawyers make business fun too.

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don't they.

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Yes, they absolutely do.

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they tend to, really sometimes, complicate a little bit because that is their job

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to make sure that things are done right, not necessarily the most practical.

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And as entrepreneurs, you want quick solutions.

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You wanna move forward.

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You don't wanna, find problems that are not there.

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But yeah, when you bring in attorneys, they're to find

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problems before they show up.

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and it tends to sometimes slow things down a little bit.

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Yeah.

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well, Jose, there's so many things that are fascinating to me and I

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believe the person listening about your background and your story and

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so many things, and also, I did read.

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I appreciate the copy of the book that you've got out now.

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Dirt, dirt Rich, love the name of that.

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Explore the World of Land Investing and Development.

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We'll talk more about that in just a little while, but as I was just doing

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research on you listening to some podcasts you've been on and things I love studying

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success and I actually love the fact that we started out you saying, you know what?

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It's been a tough day.

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I actually enjoy that because, we actually embrace the journey here on Go Create.

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We don't back away.

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I mean, part of my story is 2008 and all the things that happened after

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that, and we were in real estate business during that time too.

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Yeah.

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the thing that I kept wondering about when I was just kind of reading up on

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you, reading through the book and all that, is the question I wanted to ask you

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is what do you think your superpower is?

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if you were to boil down the thing separates you out for most people,

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and a lot of us have similar things, but what, what do you think that is?

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it may sound, somewhat, of a cliche, but I find it to be true

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and I find it to be one of my very few talents, which is persistence.

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I don't know how to give up.

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I refuse to walk away from problems.

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They give me anxiety, setbacks.

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Some people run away from them.

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they get discouraged by them.

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I just want to.

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Get rid of them.

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problems.

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Wake me up in the middle of the night solutions, wake me

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up in the middle of the night.

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I have a very busy brain, always wanting to move forward, always

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wanting to do something new.

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Never settling.

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I don't care.

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I've been up, I've been down.

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I've had a lot, I've had little and, my brain never stops, never slows down.

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It's always looking for, solutions, but also somehow always getting

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in trouble because that is just the nature of business.

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I feel like I, I, while I was catching my breath, I, I may not have giving you

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a little bit of taste of just one day in the world of business, believe it or not.

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So interesting that after writing a whole book about land development,

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land speculating, land investing.

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Building, thousands of homes, delivering them, dealing with every

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aspect of this industry from vendors and the accounting and the numbers

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and the sales and the warranty and, the land aspects, the legalities

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dealing with every, area imaginable.

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the designs, the floss, the routines, the stress.

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I'm still learning.

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It never stops.

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The lessons will never stop.

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Thankfully, you have more resources, you have more experience, you have a

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bigger organization to deal with some of these setbacks, but You have to go in.

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Ready to know that this is not going to be easy.

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That it is going to require a lot of effort, a lot of patience, a

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lot of, tenacity, uh, in, in, in willingness to put up with, everything.

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not just, rejection in the simple terms, but resistance from the universe.

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Everybody's chasing the same dollars, and it's a matter of who wants it more and

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who's willing to put up with more pain.

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like you said there, there's legalities today just alone.

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I'm not gonna get into details, but we're dealing with interest rates,

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we're dealing with uncertainty.

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We are dealing with surprises on properties.

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The, the regulation changes very quickly where you have to be on your toes ready

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to pivot, ready to change the plans of whatever it is you assume you were

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going to do in any given development.

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and be ready to change your numbers, adapt your plans, pivot and make

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very quick decisions sometimes.

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So, again, without getting into the details of a day like today,

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you just have to understand that if you are not willing to put up

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with a little bit of pressure, the entrepreneurship is perhaps not for you.

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So one thing when I hear the word persistence that I've, I've had to

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try to learn, but I don't know that I've gotten it yet either I'm in my

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sixties and just like you, I'm still learning, still figuring out the

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things that I, I need to keep doing, and sometimes I need to back off.

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recognize looking back now on some situations that I possibly have

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backed away from some transactions and deals I, I possibly to say,

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there's a word that I hate.

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It's called Quit I bet you do also.

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Yeah.

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But I do think that some of us might need to another day.

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You know?

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I don't know.

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I don't even know if that's the right term.

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Um, how, how do you balance?

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I mean, 'cause listen, you have a lot of transactions.

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You have a lot of deals, you have a lot of things come in front of you.

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You probably start a lot.

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There's probably a lot of them that you get to a place where you, you know

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what, this doesn't make sense anymore.

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How does someone who's driven by persistence quit and move on to

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something else and live another day?

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Experience perhaps.

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when you get punched in the face and all over and have enough bad deals, you

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begin to take a little time to make big decisions about what deal to select.

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this is a paradox and, it's a funny thing, but not getting into any deal.

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It's just as bad as selecting the wrong one.

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And, and we've been in both of those, scenarios.

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The nature of an entrepreneur is that we want to do more, we wanna move forward.

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And there's always that famous fear of missing out the famous fomo that

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most people in business will have when there are new opportunities.

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So you have, over time, you start just being able to stomach the bad ones and

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try to improve your batting average.

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Identify good, good deals, whether you're buying something to flip

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it, to remodel it, to build it from the ground up or to develop it.

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We, we do all the gamut.

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We go through all those different phases and stages from

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entitling properties all the way.

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You know, the, the finished product.

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And once you make a decision, you have to do your due diligence.

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You have to get not only smarter and better at doing this research, but but

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also more, more selective over time.

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That is something that I've struggled with because sometimes we get into more things

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than we should out of when times are good.

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You don't wanna miss out when times are bad.

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Well then you need perhaps to, get more aggressive in the way that you present,

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your, your offers, your proposals.

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And so, to answer your question, I have to remind myself to be cautious.

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I don't necessarily walk away or quit altogether.

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it is smarter to, walk away from certain deals.

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That is the smartest thing.

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when you're ahead, you start regulating how many transactions you get into when

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you start, you have nothing to lose.

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We are able to be a little more aggressive and a little more speculative

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because we just gotta figure out how to make something out of, our career.

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But once you start doing better, you need to start, measuring

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how much risk you're taking on.

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and I do tend to take more at times than what I'm able to do.

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right now.

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part of they say that diversifying is a good thing, but, for example, having been

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in some office space, I wish I hadn't.

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Gotten, so much into, some of these, retail investments

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that are not doing so well.

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I would be doing better.

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they've been reappraised because once you lose some tenants, once you have

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to go in and have some vacancies in certain areas, all of this interest

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increases, caught everybody off guard and we're trying to work through those.

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So even after all these years, we are still finding some new weak areas

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that now we have to go back and fix.

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so, yeah.

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part of the selection process, and it's a numbers game.

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you're gonna have a bad deal here and there.

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Right.

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You know, we are in, it's not a static environment that we're in.

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There's ebbs and flows, there's ups and downs, there's changes, there's political

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changes, there's all those type things.

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I think I'd love to back up for a second because I heard you recently talking

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about your get started in business and I was thinking about something, and

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especially in light of the day you've had and the conversation we're having, and

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I'm gonna ask you to share more about, your business and you're getting started

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in business and to the Houston area in the United States and things like that.

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To me, there was an excitement about the early days when I

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heard you talking about it.

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I don't know if that's still the case.

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Yeah.

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Sometimes you just don't know what you don't know when

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you're just getting started.

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so with that preface, if I'm wrong, you could say No, Tim,

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it was, it was brutal too.

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Whatever.

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But, tell us a little bit about how Jose kind of got started in business.

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I love immigrant stories.

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I love when people kind of start with little and then build up.

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So tell us what you can about that.

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When you start in business, you tend to be more optimistic.

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You tend to be positive.

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you're a dreamer.

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your brain is fresh, your mind is clear, and we, what we lack in experience.

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we compensate with enthusiasm.

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As you get older, you become more of a cynic.

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You become, definitely more pessimistic of every environment, of every cycle.

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Once you've gone through enough, heartbreak, let's call it in the

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business world, because I've had my share of businesses that went bad.

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you start realizing that if you get in it just for the money, you're

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gonna have a very long career.

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You have to get in it because there is some level of passion

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or interest in what you're doing.

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You know, recently I was, so somebody brought up the phrase, what, Doesn't

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kill you, makes you stronger.

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And I just had to disagree with that.

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You know, I, I had to stop somebody and say that if there's someone who's

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a specialist in surviving physical, mental, emotional distress, I have a lot.

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That's probably you, you asked me what was, one of my superpowers, experiencing

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tough, periods in life, with crazy levels of adversity that you had

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to figure out how to overcome them.

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And what I feel that these experiences bring is a new outlook

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on life, more experience, perhaps.

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A more positive attitude in some respects.

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But what doesn't kill you doesn't necessarily makes you stronger.

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It makes you a little more fearful, a little more careful, a little

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more skeptical You're a little more paranoid of going through

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things that you know are dangerous.

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So when you get into a bad situation, I was giving the example of our veterans,

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that you begin as you go to battle and as you suffer and deal with these

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difficult circumstances that life brings and that business brings these ups

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and downs that we were talking about.

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the wear and tear, it begins to put a little bit of,

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PTS in your system and you just, don't get rid of those experiences.

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You just try to use them to your advantage.

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That's the silver lining that you come back from.

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Every one of these difficult cycles or difficult experiences,

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not stronger, just smarter.

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You just bring new wisdom to new equations and to your career.

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You start applying them.

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But I'm yet to meet someone who has gone through real pain, through real

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adversity and come back stronger.

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No, we all come back a little bit freaked out of those experiences,

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and perhaps a little weaker.

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they suck something out of you.

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And again, you have to replenish those with experience, positive attitude and

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and with awareness and a new approach.

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But definitely, just getting back to the point when I was younger, I

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certainly thought and assumed that success would come, easier and faster.

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And that is very rare that is something that I recommend and repeat to the younger

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and the newer generation of entrepreneurs.

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Stop thinking that it is gonna happen overnight.

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That's very rare.

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Stop thinking that things are harder for you than everybody else.

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No, they're hard for all of us.

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stop thinking that most.

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exciting lives that you see on social media are really what they are, because

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they're not, there's always something behind, the reality of everybody's image.

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We're all, if you're building something that matters, something that is

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meaningful, it's going to take time and it's gonna take a long road.

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So, there's a lot to it.

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Certainly.

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I don't lose my hope, my faith, my willingness to reinvent myself

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and to continue the famous, persistence and perseverance.

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but I always do it.

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kind of like the old fighter that gets back in the ring and goes,

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alright, let's deal with this.

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let's go.

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And I'm not gonna quit.

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I'm not gonna stop just because.

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That's not the way that I perceive life.

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I see it as The moment you completely retire and do nothing, that's the

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moment that your brain starts falling apart and you start losing your mind.

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But, you still have to put yourself in those difficult, situations

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in order to make progress.

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I do think back, I remember when I was starting businesses when I was

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in college and things like that, I don't think I was totally arrogant,

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but there was a high degree of arrogance and maybe even naivety.

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And you know, the journey that you're talking about, which is what we talk

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about quite a bit here at Seat, go create the journey, I think brings humility.

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And I don't think as long as we keep that perspective, Jose, I

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think humility, you mentioned faith.

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I think it's biblical.

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I think humility is a powerful tool for

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Yeah.

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as we're maturing to use to be successful in different and unique ways.

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Correct.

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Correct.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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you have to maintain that.

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it is particularly not my style.

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I'm not an arrogant, I tend to discuss and share more of my vulnerable side,

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some of my weaknesses, the areas that I'm working on, the areas that I'm trying

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to improve, because I wanna share with people that lack that level of business

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confidence or personal confidence to do things and help others understand that.

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Even if you have some fears, and even if you lack that arrogance, you can

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still achieve great things in life.

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it is not my style.

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you see a lot of the, younger business, men and women who, a lot of them, I

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started them and I see their attitude.

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I see their, level of, confidence in getting things done.

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They just haven't gone through enough to really realize that it's,

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once you hit a real speed bump and it catches you unprepared, and once

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you, stop assuming that good times are gonna live forever, you're gonna

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learn the lesson, the hard way.

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I've met a few now that I met in their younger years and they had that arrogant.

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personality of, high level of confidence and thinking that, Hey,

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I'm gonna come into the business world and show everybody how it's done.

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they think they're gonna build things faster and negotiate better and do things

Speaker: 00:22:10

quicker and think of better solutions.

Speaker: 00:22:12

yes, you need to bring that positivity, but with a side of reality.

Speaker: 00:22:18

and I think, that humility part is part of the equation that needs to

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be a blend of your faith in yourself.

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Combine combined with a reality of how business works.

Speaker: 00:22:34

Hmm.

Speaker: 00:22:34

So one of the things I, I actually highlighted in, in your book,

Speaker: 00:22:39

dirt Rich that I was gonna talk about a little bit later, but I

Speaker: 00:22:42

go ahead and bring this up now.

Speaker: 00:22:44

There's a section, I'm on page 94 in the printed book.

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I don't know what it would be on digital or anything.

Speaker: 00:22:49

It's the power of simple luck and it, and it's something that I've thought

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about often and it relates to the topic that you're bringing up now.

Speaker: 00:22:58

Many times I would've said that luck, good or bad, has nothing to do with

Speaker: 00:23:06

the business world, with finance, with, you know, it's like I had this

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mindset of if it is to be, it's up to me and I have control over my situation

Speaker: 00:23:15

Yeah.

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Now, I don't believe we we're totally bouncing around without any degree

Speaker: 00:23:21

of control, but ta talk a little bit about someone with the experience

Speaker: 00:23:27

you've got, the day you've had, does luck and control into the equation?

Speaker: 00:23:36

Wow, this is such an interesting subject that I can spend a lot of time talking

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because in the book, I do touch a little bit on that in a contradictive

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way, in one aspect, one area of the book, I tell you to really do your

Speaker: 00:23:50

research, really learn the industry, really understand what you're doing,

Speaker: 00:23:54

and that's part of the equation.

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I am not a full believer in luck.

Speaker: 00:24:00

but I do think that it has to be.

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A percentage of every positive equation because you can prepare yourself all

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day long and do what you need to do, bring the best, from every aspect of

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your know-how and your capabilities.

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But if the timing is wrong, if the timing is not working in your

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favor, the deal's not gonna work.

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The business is not gonna work.

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so there is, you know, I like the word, manifesting, which is now very popular.

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A lot of people use it, A lot of, this new generation is very much into creating

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your own destiny, which I believe in.

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we'll talk about, more about what I think is within your control and what's not.

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but the manifesting part, there's so much more to it.

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Things don't just appear because you thought of them and because you

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convince your brain that something was going to magically appear.

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The manifesting part works by you applying and acting a certain way and doing a

Speaker: 00:25:13

number of things to create that result.

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So it's, it's a combination of movement, actions, and mental power.

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When you put those all together, you can begin to manifest.

Speaker: 00:25:29

But just thinking without action or without decisions, without,

Speaker: 00:25:34

constant small steps that will get you closer to your goal.

Speaker: 00:25:39

you can wish and dream all you want, but, very likely you're

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never gonna get anywhere.

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So I do believe that in every transaction I've seen people with no experience.

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what I try to convey in that message of luck being a part of every

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transaction, I've seen people that were very, very inexperienced, that

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had no idea what they were doing.

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They bought things with their eyes closed, but they just happened to

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land at the right time in the right market, and they ended up looking

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like kings and queens, like experts.

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and it surprised me.

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I guess it happens, you know, luck does exist for some people.

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now when you combine that with your expertise, it amplifies.

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And on the other side, I've seen people with a lot of

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experience, it got caught by.

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a bad economy, a bad cycle, now with everything so globalized that

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if something happens in another corner of the world, all of a

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sudden it affects us in more ways.

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look at the tariffs, look at these wars.

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All the uncertainty.

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It's making investors and buyers and sellers make decisions based

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on what they hear on, the media.

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So, you have to take all this into account, but I do believe that, like you

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said, you said something very important.

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Most of us now, let's talk about the people who don't put

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things in plans, into action.

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When things go wrong.

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They blame it on things being out of their control.

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I think we need to break activities into categories and,

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destiny is not in our control.

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There are more actions getting up early, being on time, researching,

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being proactive, thinking of imaginary problems before they even show up.

Speaker: 00:27:36

Those are proactive steps that give you more control of the outcome of things.

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So a percentage of the results are brought on by, by things that are,

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within our control that, that we perhaps, perceive as not within our control.

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So asking the right questions when you're doing something and you know

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how many people, you, you in in your organization ask a simple question.

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You get a simple answer.

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How is this project?

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It's doing great.

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they're gonna give you that answer all the time.

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The more you break the question into subcategories and

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understand someone else's job.

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So that you can dig deeper and understand how you can help 'em, give you the

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results, puts things in your control.

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I think there are some things that are more within your power

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than what we're able to imagine.

Speaker: 00:28:33

Hmm.

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Were, were you always, you've mentioned the word entrepreneur many times, and I

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think I saw somewhere where you, you were even described as a serial entrepreneur.

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I, because somewhat some people have mentioned that about me, and

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at times I wonder, maybe I just haven't stuck with things long.

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I don't know.

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You know, we, we keep

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Yeah.

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Did you grow up, were you in a business household?

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Was business kind of in your DNA or did it develop over time?

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I think it was a little bit of both.

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in some respects.

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I always, found myself, intrigued by the business world, by creating

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value, by, buying, selling, starting things, building things.

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it always seemed very intriguing to me.

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I developed it over time.

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I don't think it was, you know, most people ask if there was

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one magic moment when all of a sudden I decided to go on my own.

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And, I don't think there was one same goal event that occurred.

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it, you know, in my case, the serial entrepreneurship part may

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not be necessarily a good thing.

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and this is what I'm trying to say.

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The, lack of clarity in my younger years in defining and identifying

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a passion and something that truly attracted me, made me be attracted to

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just about every business I wanted.

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I knew I wanted to be successful.

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I wanted to make money, and I wanted to make a difference that was clear, but

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what was not clear was how to go about it.

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Some people have that very well defined at a younger stage in their career.

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They like, manufacturing, they like distribution.

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They like automobiles.

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They like clothing.

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They like technology.

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They want to get in the software business.

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They have a little more ion, they want to be engineers or

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architects or whatever it may be.

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Some entrepreneurs.

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Start with more clarity and more definition as to how they

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intend to become successful.

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I had a problem, which was no definition.

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I knew I was a go-getter.

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I knew I was ambitious, I knew I was hungry.

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So I took on every exp, every opportunity, every idea or every individual that would

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come up to me and say, Hey, this sounds like a good way for us to make money.

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Let's start a business.

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I would go with it.

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I would investigate it.

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I would perhaps do not, not enough research and be

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interested in the opportunity, but I was never fully in love.

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Or obsessed over one single industry or one single product.

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I don't know if it's good or bad, but perhaps it took me longer to really

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define that and, and, and I wish I would've, perhaps focused a little

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more in my, in my younger years and not just chase success and chase money, but

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just perhaps found a simpler purpose.

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This is something that I also talk a lot about it.

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The new generation has gone the other extreme where all they want is passion.

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I'm not gonna do anything that I'm not fully passionate about.

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I'm not gonna do something that doesn't make me happy.

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That doesn't wake me up every morning with butterflies.

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That, that's unrealistic.

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You and I come from a completely different spectrum, which was, we were taught to

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survive, to get up and go to work, to earn a living, to solve problems, and to deal

Speaker: 00:32:28

with whatever came your way, to, solve it.

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It, it wasn't about what you like and what you want and what makes you happy.

Speaker: 00:32:36

That was never a question, that was never an ingredient or a consideration

Speaker: 00:32:40

in finding a career, at least in my case.

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it was, how are you gonna support yourself?

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How are you going to take care of yourself and the people around?

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That was the only question, and now it's gone.

Speaker: 00:32:52

The other extreme, what is gonna make you happy?

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And the reality is that no activity is all pleasure.

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Every activity has a number of responsibilities.

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And areas that are tedious, that are tiring, that are annoying,

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and hopefully there are more of the good things than the bad ones.

Speaker: 00:33:16

But I think blending those two is perhaps the best way to go about it.

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Mix a passion, something that you fully have interest in that draws your

Speaker: 00:33:28

attention, but also know and be aware and be realistic about the fact that

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there's gonna be days and moments and areas and, perhaps periods and time

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when you're just gonna wanna walk away from this whole thing because

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it's not gonna be pleasurable at all.

Speaker: 00:33:45

So Persistance is more powerful than passion.

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Because passion fades away once you start facing these setbacks and

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these, high levels of adversity.

Speaker: 00:33:56

and the other ones like resilience and whatnot.

Speaker: 00:34:00

those tend to carry you a little further.

Speaker: 00:34:03

You mentioned success a couple times when you were talking about

Speaker: 00:34:05

getting started and you tied it with money that's how I defined success.

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I started my business career back in the eighties also, and think

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the eighties were kind of a go-go level of greed decade anyway.

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And it

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yeah.

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that,

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Yeah.

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But you know, it's the old Gordon Gecko Greed is good, you know, type mindset.

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Yeah.

Speaker: 00:34:30

how do you define success now?

Speaker: 00:34:33

Where you're at in business and even with days like you've had today?

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How is success defined?

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I'm gonna start, answering that question by saying that it, it is very difficult.

Speaker: 00:34:45

I think even at an later age to fully achieve success in

Speaker: 00:34:52

every aspect of your life.

Speaker: 00:34:54

I think we're all going to die searching for something, learning something that we

Speaker: 00:35:00

should have, could have done differently.

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And it is very important for us as humans to know that, it's

Speaker: 00:35:08

hard to find that perfection.

Speaker: 00:35:10

It's hard to find that balance.

Speaker: 00:35:12

You may make money, but maybe you have other issues.

Speaker: 00:35:15

And now you have less time.

Speaker: 00:35:17

you can travel a lot, but now, you don't have the same willingness to, so life

Speaker: 00:35:21

throws, you curve balls in unpredictable circumstances after every stage of

Speaker: 00:35:27

your life, you start understanding that our youth is going away, and

Speaker: 00:35:32

whatever you have left, you need to start enjoying it a little bit more.

Speaker: 00:35:36

So how do I find or define success nowadays?

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Now that I've clarified and disclosed that I haven't achieved every sector

Speaker: 00:35:48

of success that I would like to, I'm still running around a lot.

Speaker: 00:35:53

But now I have children and now I have a family.

Speaker: 00:35:55

And now my, parents start getting very old and now they start pulling

Speaker: 00:35:59

you in other directions that they didn't pull me when I was younger.

Speaker: 00:36:02

So you start replacing.

Speaker: 00:36:05

Your time.

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You start removing yourself from some areas, but life has a way of

Speaker: 00:36:09

absorbing your attention and your brain and your patience in other areas.

Speaker: 00:36:16

So awareness is one, just coming to terms with reality.

Speaker: 00:36:21

This is life is one way to deal with it.

Speaker: 00:36:24

and another one is to really surround yourself with people that can

Speaker: 00:36:27

compensate, that can help you cover the areas where you feel weak, where

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you're not very good at, whether it's in business or in personal.

Speaker: 00:36:36

Quality of life is not necessarily back to the money part.

Speaker: 00:36:41

what I've noticed in myself.

Speaker: 00:36:44

And in most people in the world is that the more money you make, the

Speaker: 00:36:49

more you spend, and the more you have commitments and obligations.

Speaker: 00:36:54

And the more you raise a bar and the more you want and the more you need.

Speaker: 00:36:58

And it's a vicious cycle that never ends.

Speaker: 00:37:00

And if you make, $10, you want 20.

Speaker: 00:37:03

And when you make 1 million, you need two.

Speaker: 00:37:04

And when you make five 20 is not enough.

Speaker: 00:37:07

So, and you can go on and on where there's always gonna be people with more money.

Speaker: 00:37:13

There's always gonna be people with more of everything.

Speaker: 00:37:18

And you just need to understand that what is my level, what

Speaker: 00:37:23

is my, where is the limit?

Speaker: 00:37:26

Quality of life is the answer.

Speaker: 00:37:29

What do you define by quality of life?

Speaker: 00:37:32

Not having more possessions is having more time, having more moments.

Speaker: 00:37:38

To do what you want, when you want.

Speaker: 00:37:41

I am at a stage in my career where, again, I don't have everything I want,

Speaker: 00:37:48

but my dream, day, is when I was able to manipulate the hours in my direction,

Speaker: 00:37:56

when I was able to dictate to myself and to the clock how I was going to spend

Speaker: 00:38:04

those hours, to me, that's a very, very successful day if I was able to decide

Speaker: 00:38:10

and to choose how to spend my time.

Speaker: 00:38:14

Wow, that's incredible.

Speaker: 00:38:15

and that's why it changes for everybody because if somebody enjoys

Speaker: 00:38:19

their work and they're happy, behind a desk 10 hours, that's success.

Speaker: 00:38:24

If you enjoy spending more time with your family or, exercising or whatever.

Speaker: 00:38:28

I think that is perhaps, the fundamentals of success is being able to spend more

Speaker: 00:38:34

time doing what you enjoy with whether you have a lot or whether you have little,

Speaker: 00:38:39

because that becomes very secondary.

Speaker: 00:38:41

it becomes very elusive.

Speaker: 00:38:42

if it's just having more, more of what, and how much more

Speaker: 00:38:47

is it going to satisfy me?

Speaker: 00:38:49

That's very abstract and it doesn't work.

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Yeah.

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I think that's so powerful.

Speaker: 00:38:54

one of the things that I've observed in my life and with others that

Speaker: 00:38:58

I've worked with that money is.

Speaker: 00:39:03

Definitely a blessing.

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It's definitely not, I'm not anti-money.

Speaker: 00:39:07

we need it.

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We use

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Yeah.

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It can do some great things, but it does complicate things, you know,

Speaker: 00:39:13

it can create some complications.

Speaker: 00:39:15

I'm guessing, and I interact with a decent organization, whether there's

Speaker: 00:39:20

money that's moving around and like we said earlier, lawyers get involved

Speaker: 00:39:25

and other things happen and it's more complicated at some point along the way.

Speaker: 00:39:31

I might ask you to tell just a little bit of this story.

Speaker: 00:39:34

in the nineties, you were part of a big, uh, guess a rejuvenation of the

Speaker: 00:39:39

inner city in the Houston area, homes single family homes and real estate.

Speaker: 00:39:45

now you're talking more about land investment.

Speaker: 00:39:49

we've got about 10 minutes or so here.

Speaker: 00:39:51

Talk about the journey you've been on specifically in the real

Speaker: 00:39:56

estate space because it seems as if you've touched a lot of different

Speaker: 00:40:00

things just within real estate.

Speaker: 00:40:03

And now, and I'm not saying you've given up on other things, but now

Speaker: 00:40:06

you're talking about dirt and I love the picture of you here in

Speaker: 00:40:10

front of the shovels with the dirt.

Speaker: 00:40:12

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:40:13

anyway,

Speaker: 00:40:13

That was a fun picture.

Speaker: 00:40:15

yeah, I like your boots and all there with your suit on here, man.

Speaker: 00:40:18

That's pretty good.

Speaker: 00:40:19

So, what, what's up with that?

Speaker: 00:40:22

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:40:22

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:40:22

Well, I mean, I've covered many areas within real estate.

Speaker: 00:40:27

I've been in commercial, multifamily, flipping properties, remodeling the

Speaker: 00:40:31

bulk of my career, although I've used the word entrepreneur, I am known.

Speaker: 00:40:37

As Jose, the builder, the developer.

Speaker: 00:40:41

But what most people don't know is I don't consider myself that.

Speaker: 00:40:44

I consider myself a businessman, just a guy who likes to do deals and

Speaker: 00:40:49

build things and start businesses.

Speaker: 00:40:51

it's invested so many years of my life doing this that I just needed to unload

Speaker: 00:40:56

some of this information for cathartic purposes and just to clear my thoughts and

Speaker: 00:41:01

perhaps validate all these years of work and effort and hopefully help others to,

Speaker: 00:41:07

understand a little bit of the business.

Speaker: 00:41:09

But the, although I've been in, in, in all the different areas from commercial

Speaker: 00:41:14

and this and that, and, even industrial and building homes was the bulk of my work

Speaker: 00:41:23

building homes in the inner city, which.

Speaker: 00:41:28

And here's, here, here's, the point of, of, of the land speculating.

Speaker: 00:41:34

Our business model began when the inner city was completely forgotten.

Speaker: 00:41:40

Most big cities in, in the seventies, eighties, and up until

Speaker: 00:41:45

the nineties, they were abandoned.

Speaker: 00:41:47

Everybody moved to the, to the, to the suburbs.

Speaker: 00:41:50

That that's what happened.

Speaker: 00:41:52

after the existence, the creation of highways.

Speaker: 00:41:55

it, it, it became for bigger developers, for public companies, it became easier

Speaker: 00:42:00

to buy a few thousand acres than to go and, and build in tight spaces.

Speaker: 00:42:05

So we came in without knowing when we started this company to, start building

Speaker: 00:42:13

in areas that now were transitional, now we're, dilapidated, you know,

Speaker: 00:42:19

warehouses, crack houses, tear downs.

Speaker: 00:42:22

in these transitional neighborhoods we were part of that change.

Speaker: 00:42:28

We began to make them popular because of the proximity.

Speaker: 00:42:32

Traffic was starting to get horrible.

Speaker: 00:42:34

it was becoming hip to be back in the inner city.

Speaker: 00:42:38

So we started investing in speculating.

Speaker: 00:42:40

This is where this book, most of the deals that I did were in speculative areas.

Speaker: 00:42:47

We had to find, constantly find the new neighborhood, the new area.

Speaker: 00:42:52

So we dealt with so many new, subdivisions, regulation, dozens

Speaker: 00:42:58

of, homeowners associations.

Speaker: 00:43:01

Many different ways, and restrictions for us to develop land and entitle it.

Speaker: 00:43:08

That I began to focus a big portion of my time to finding sites, entitling sites,

Speaker: 00:43:16

understanding the process of approving from A to Z just to get, most people

Speaker: 00:43:21

don't understand that when you build something, the building is the easy part.

Speaker: 00:43:25

That's the fun part.

Speaker: 00:43:27

Getting to the point where you can actually go vertical, as they say.

Speaker: 00:43:33

Once you can start building something, it's a nightmare in many cases.

Speaker: 00:43:38

Just getting to that, understanding the purpose of land, how to maximize

Speaker: 00:43:44

its use, how to understand from the shape, the location, the surrounding

Speaker: 00:43:49

areas, the value, identifying the value.

Speaker: 00:43:52

I spend so many years doing that.

Speaker: 00:43:55

That this is how this book came about.

Speaker: 00:43:58

although I was building homes, I was really in the speculating game of

Speaker: 00:44:02

finding properties that were suitable for this purpose or for any other purpose.

Speaker: 00:44:07

So, and, and, and then I gave it a twist.

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Since I'm, don't consider myself a highly technical, I'm by no means a writer.

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I'm simply a storyteller that enjoys talking about the subject.

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I got a little bit, more, spiritual, a little deeper in trying to tell

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the story by expressing how some of these cities came to be, what they

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are, the logic behind the, the, the why are strip centers here, the

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zoning, why is this a neighborhood more residential, the balance parks.

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Recreation and why are things where they are and how does our society

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operate the way that it does?

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Some areas are better planned than others.

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Some grow faster than others.

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My brain is very busy.

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I'm thinking about 72, different things simultaneously.

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I do that in the book.

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I talk about the many different aspects that this industry represents and

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try to do it in a fun way, but I'm essentially thinking out loud as to

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how all of this became, what it is.

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Hmm.

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Yeah, and I enjoyed it.

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It was actually a good read.

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I, because I have a background in real estate also, I've

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got some scars through 2008.

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I joke with people, I bought a group of condos down on the water in Florida, and

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I'm absolutely convinced that I bought them at the absolute peak of the market

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And we, I mean, we knew what we were doing and we still bought all of

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this land at the peak of the market because, and, and sorry to interrupt

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you, but you, you trigger something.

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I don't care who you are, nobody knows when the market is gonna stop

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and nobody knows for how long or how bad it's going to get, period.

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so then this is sort of a trick question that I'm gonna ask you with all of your

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wisdom, all of your experience, all the things you've done over the years, the

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great day that you've had today last couple of minutes that we have here.

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we're recording this.

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I'll put a timestamp on it in late, 2025.

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do you see things going in the near future?

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And I, I'm one that hates to do crystal balling and things like that,

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Yeah,

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that as a business person, you have to think a few steps ahead.

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You said you've got 72 things going on in your head.

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I can almost guarantee you that about 70 of them are things that are in the

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future, Tell me what you can share.

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give us a little bit of a vision of where you see things going

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in the not too distant future.

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yeah.

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No, no, no.

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That I agree with you.

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I sometimes you torture yourself thinking too much instead, so I have

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to stop myself and just tell myself, just do what you need to do today.

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One day at a time.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Stop planning, stop thinking because, the more planning you do, the less it works.

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the market is very uncertain.

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I have to admit that even in the worst of times in 2008 in the financial

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crisis, in the housing bubble, we kind of knew what was going on here.

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We really don't.

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One, because some economic ingredients are doing very

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well, some others are doing bad.

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there's uncertainty.

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There's constant adjustments and changes.

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New players, social media has changed everything.

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we're inundated with new players.

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That's creating a whole new gamut of problems.

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there's no barrier of entry anymore into this business.

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Anybody with a little bit of cash and with a little bit of, convincing.

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they can start a development there are too many people building and

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developing and speculating that they have no business doing this.

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They should do it in a much more educated environment and take more time to

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really understand what they're doing.

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the biggest problem I am seeing, I'm just gonna put it out there, affordability.

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I've never seen affordability be such a problem.

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After COVID prices of everything went up, there was a shortage of

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homes, shortage of everything.

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So prices went up for every product imaginable, and it never went back down.

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And it never will.

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So it put a bracket of buyers in a certain price point.

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Unable to buy homes and, but for the first time in history, it also

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put builders in a position to not be able to deliver to that buyer because

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our cost structure won't allow it.

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So that entry level buyer who has good credit, who has a little bit of

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money to put down on a house, there is no product that we can build there.

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So they keep saying there's a contradiction, there's no inventory,

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but homes are not selling.

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That's what's happening, that there is no inventory because we're not

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willing to build, because if we build it, nobody can afford it at the cost

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structure that is currently in effect.

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So.

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Something will have to give, if I had to guess the economy, the,

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salaries, wages will have to improve or there'll have to be an adjustment.

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And it all starts with land.

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We'll have to speculate and go into areas that are less expensive to be able

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to build product that's less expensive.

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I think some of the beneficiaries of this are being some of the bigger guys.

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You know, we're doing now land development for, for, you know, public companies.

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We don't want to throw any names out there, but those guys can

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build homes very fast, very inexpensive and attack that market.

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But the smaller companies we're gonna suffer, particularly there's a sector

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that's being affected, not the custom home builders, because the big companies.

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Do that product.

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They can't get into the inner city to build multimillion dollar homes.

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But the entry level home for the smaller companies that's being affected because

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you don't have the economies of scale.

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I think it's all going to come together.

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but to wrap it up, it might take another year to two years before and interest

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rates are gonna be a big component.

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That's the added bonus that on top of the affordability problem,

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interest rates are not helping at all.

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So we can probably talk about this subject for hours.

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And I'm trying to just pick some of the important components there,

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but there's a lot more to it.

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So do those rates, are they gonna have to come down?

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Yes.

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Which is a scary thing too, because The economy's not bad.

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And we,

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there.

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and we don't want to create a bigger problem by dropping

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rates just to sell homes.

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So I think it's gonna be a slow recovery.

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Although the economy's doing well, the recovery for the

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housing market is gonna be slow.

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Yeah, I do agree.

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there's a bit of a disconnect.

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We just hired someone within our business and we were looking at competitive

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salaries, and I was looking at it going, man, this is still fairly low We're

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in Atlanta metro area and I also know family members, children and all that.

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And it's like, they're not getting enough money to really afford, you

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know, half a million for a home,

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Yeah.

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you know, when you're making 65, $70,000.

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There's just this gap and I believe historically has to change because

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that's not sustainable long term.

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Correct.

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Yeah.

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and then let's throw the fact that renting, is cheaper.

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Historically, you wanna buy a house because the payment and,

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I'm an advocate of home buying.

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I think it's a great investment.

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I think it helps society in, dozens of ways.

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home ownership is important, but right at this particular moment in time,

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you can almost rent one for less.

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And that's a scary thing.

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That's when things, tend to slow down.

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so yeah, we're in a bit of a period when this business is definitely,

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going through a difficult phase.

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Yeah.

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Jose, I've enjoyed speaking to you.

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Why don't you tell people how they could connect with you, find you

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where they could get the book, and, and we'll finish up here.

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Jose langa.com.

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this book will be, available on Amazon in the next few weeks, I have my other

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book, the Business of Home Building, the first book, which, talks all about

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the residential, construction business, not how to build a house, but how to

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build a business that builds homes.

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I had a lot of fun.

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I'm really enjoying the process of putting these thoughts together, but I

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need to get more active on social media.

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I must admit, I don't have a lot of information out there, but

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that is something that I enjoy and I'm going to start doing.

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Part of my, this reinvention is, I always fought it.

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I wanted to be a very, anonymous business personality and not really talk much about

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what I do, but, I'm realizing it's a new era and I have to adjust and start passing

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on perhaps some of this information to other new people in the industry.

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So that's the plan.

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I am glad that you decided to do that, and I appreciate you

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taking the time to to me today.

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But, and you know what I really appreciate is that you communicated

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even on a day that isn't all sunshine roses, because to me that's the kind

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of conversation, not that you had a rough day, that's not what I'm saying,

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It is a real conversation about real topics.

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it's a real conversation about a real journey, not a bunch of fluff.

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And I think that's what people need to hear in the world we're in today.

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So Jose Langa, I appreciate you get a copy of the book.

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By the time this releases, it probably will be out.

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We'll make sure we include links to, find him down below.

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It sounds like he's gonna start being more visible on social media.

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I know he is doing more podcast interviews and things, so I appreciate that.

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I appreciate everyone listening in.

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This has been a great conversation.

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make sure you share this with other people.

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We have new episodes at Seek, go Create every Monday.

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We're on YouTube, we're on all the podcast platforms.

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Until next time, we'll see you next time on Seek Go Create.