Welcome to the Purpose Driven Investor, where we build more than portfolios, we build communities. I'm your host, Robert Howell, a real estate investor and founder of Define Communities. Each week, we'll explore how purpose and profit connect through affordable housing, land home packages, and impact-driven investing. If you're a lender, land seller, or a partner who believes money should move with meaning, you're in the right place. Welcome back to the Purpose Driven Investor Podcast, where we focus on the people behind the deals and the purpose behind the wealth. Today, I'm joined by Umaer Haq, founder of Hands-On Homes. He's a real estate investor and operator focused on building cashflow-first, mission-driven businesses with a heavy emphasis on affordable housing, mobile home parks, seller financing, rent-to-own strategies, and land home packages. He's also a former competitive fighter, as you can see from his background. And, uh, he has the mindset where he shows up and how he approaches business and investing and life at his core. He's driven by a simple mission to be a great husband, a great father, and build wealth that actually matters and help others do the same without burning out and losing themselves along the way. I'm really looking forward to the conversation. Welcome to the show. Awesome. Thanks for having me, Robert. All right. Good deal. Well, um, I like to get started first with these conversations around how'd you get started? What's the origin? Um, so let's, let's start there. Uh, tell us about how you got first started in real estate and what, what Yeah, I had no idea that I would be in the real estate space growing up. Growing up, I wrestled. I did some boxing, got into a bunch of trouble early on in life. I got kicked out of high school just for fighting and doing crazy stuff. And I went to an alternative school, and then I finally graduated. And I started doing professional boxing and MMA. You guys can see back here. As an amateur, I had a really good amateur run, I guess you would say. I was 27 and 0. And I never wanted to fight for money. I just did it to get out of the drugs, get out of the gangs, all that stuff. And I was so broke that I was like, man, I gotta make money. At the time, I was living with my mom and dad in their basement, trying to help give them some money for rent. And it's just struggling, man. It sucked. My mom and dad wanted me to go to college. So I was paying so much money for community college. At that time, it was a lot of money to me. It was like $350 a credit. I think I needed like 60 credits just to get my associate's degree. And And then I started from like, I did some pro boxing, but you're training all the time, you're putting your body to work, you're taking punishment. And it My last fight was probably 2015, 14, right? You guys can look up some of my fights on YouTube. I won some. Yeah, you got to check some out. Those are good times in my life, though. Never felt more free. But then I started learning real estate investing from the University of YouTube, man. I was on like things like BiggerPockets and YouTube and you know, everyone's selling something. I get the game, you know, so I bought a bunch of stuff. And at the end of the day, it was just information with no implementation. And then, man, I almost gave up. I was driving home from the gym one night, and I saw this sign. It said, Real Estate Investing Group Expanding in Virginia. So I'm like, holy smokes, local investors that I can freaking work with? Long story short, I called the number. It wasn't actually local, but they were looking to build a local group here. And I was like, well, I'm hungry. You tell me to jump, I'll say how high. So these guys kind of, they made me pay. I didn't have the money, but I put it on 0% credit cards. And instead of going to regular college, I went to this alternative school again that taught me real estate investing. My first deal, it was like 26 grand. Wow. That I put on credit cards. But, you know, when I did that, I got addicted to doing deals with no money out of pocket. Right. I put I put twenty six thousand dollars on zero percent credit cards. And then it took me, cause I was like, there's no way I'm gonna lose this money I spent. It took me seven and a half months to do my first fix and flip. And I was able to do that deal with $0 out of pocket and I could talk about structure, but made 43 grand on that deal, took my profits, paid back the cards and absolutely blew the rest. I mean, I'm in my 20s, right? So I go to these clubs with my friends. I wasn't married at the time, bought all my friends shots. I don't even drink anymore. Right. But I was like, I blew every single dollar. But in my head, I was like, well, shit. I did it once. I mean, I know I can do it again. Right. So I got I got addicted to the game. And I also got really, really motivated that deals can actually be done without my own money. And in that instant, like a light bulb went out where I was like, well, shoot, I don't gotta finish college. Like I can actually do this. So then after that, did a couple of wholesale deals, did some flips, did some little development, got into short-term rentals, that sucked. Like did all these different things. And back in 2020, I bought my first mobile home park. And it has absolutely changed my life. I've looked at every single type of real estate investing you can think of. Man, I've done tax liens, tax deeds, mortgage notes, land development, Airbnb, like I've done it all. But from a spiritual, intellectual and a cashflow basis, mobile home parks are the end all be all for me. And so mobile home parks and doing my rent to own stuff has created enough cashflow to live off of. And now I'm exploring really being able to provide affordable housing, right? Because a lot of times I think, especially us men, we make money with our head, right? It's all head, it's head driven, it's intellect driven. And then you make a ton of money and you're like, all right, well, what in the hell is next? Like, I'm still not, I thought I'd be happy, but I'm not happy. The missing ingredient is the heart. And if you start leading with your heart, you'll never be dissatisfied. And now I've gotten into this space where I'm able to provide affordable housing to a nation that needs it. Dude, I wake up every day jacked, not even about the money. Like, man, I'm going to make an impact. And that's changed my life. I am so excited about what I do now. Dude, I love that, that mindset. I'm the same way. I'm a hundred percent focused on mobile home parts, a hundred percent focused on land home deals and providing affordable housing. And as you think about like the impact that you can make, and I have this conversation a lot around like, Man, imagine most of the people that we serve, if we talk about mobile home parts, have never had a landlord that has taken care of them, right? And hey, can we change that trajectory, take care of them, give them a better life, and then what does that do the rest of their life, right? Gives them a step up to then go and make an impact on somebody else themselves, right? Or you think about land home packages. 95% of the people we sell to are first-time homeowners. That's a huge moment in their life, right? And it's like, man, think about that feeling of the first time that you owned a house. And it was a different, I imagine it was a different time than it is today, but there was a special feeling, right? And we're selling a home to somebody that maybe thought they could never have a house. And now they've got Yeah, and I've even taught a lot of my tenants, like they just don't get basic stuff, right? Like, instead of having your money in a savings account, why not just position it in property? Properties go up in value, money goes down in value. you lose purchasing power every single day you let it sit. And so some of my tenants, it's stuff like they've never heard. So repetition is the mother of all learning, right? So when I'm talking to some of these guys, I'm like, guys, remember what I told you? And they're like, oh, yeah, OK. And then it's like ingraining that new psychology has helped a lot of my tenant buyers where now they're like, man, I'm so excited. And now that my house is the way I want it, my wife is happy, my kids have a better home. It's a really good feeling when done right. Now, that's not to say there's people who say they'll do something and don't do it. That's not to say that there's bad things that happen. People lie, people steal, cheat. That comes with the territory sometimes. It is what it is. But I have learned not to ever get emotionally involved in what another human being has done, right? So that's helped me a lot in business. I've learned to lead with the carrot and not the stick. So I'm always incentivizing good behavior and allowing the buyer to understand the negative consequence if they don't follow through on their own word. And if you ingrain that in them and they trust you, because relationships are all about trust, And you trust them, I'm telling you, you can have a fantastic landlord relationship or Man, that's great. That's great. I think we've got a lot of, a lot of synergies here in what we're doing. Talk about, uh, you talked a bit about being a competitive fighter. How has that shaped how you think about business? It has shaped how I think about business. If I wasn't in combat sports, I would not be, I don't think I would be kind of where I'm at right now, like untouchable with my mindset, untouchable with what happens. It's just, it's just a process of life. I wouldn't be able to embrace the sucking. You know, I, I learned through working out combat sports that through frustration comes growth. And now when I'm frustrated, a light bulb goes off. I'm like, okay, this is good. I'm frustrated, but my brain isn't angry. What does that mean? That means there's an opportunity for growth. And so the combat sportsman has absolutely changed my life. Like when I get into the cage or get into the ring, I'm nervous. My mouth is dry. My heart rate is up. My adrenaline is high. It's uncomfortable. But I don't back down. And that whole doing those reps over and over, not backing down, continuing to go for it, It's just, it's molded me in a way that I recommend to all men, every man out there, go do some combat sports, man. It'll change you in ways I need to have my son, my son call you. Uh, he played a 17 U rec basketball game last night. He loves basketball, but they just got whooped. They got beat by like 50 and he was so mad when he got home. He hates losing, which is great. And I told him, Hey, that's a, that's a great mentality to have, um, is to hate losing, but he was just so mad and he didn't want to play anymore. I'm like, Hey, there's lessons to be learned here, right? You got to get back, got to support your team. You committed to the team. And I was proud of him. He gave it. Not all his team members did, but he he played like he was going to try to win the whole game. Right. All the way to the end. But he was still disappointed because I think more he was embarrassed because they lost by so much. But, you know, there's Right. So all of his frustration was here. And that's what men do with it, with our wives. We're all head. But when he can relate his love for the game and his love for his team, and he can bring that heart into what his head is saying, man, your son's gonna be absolutely unstoppable. And I think I learned it too late in life. If I could have put the head and the heart together, I would have been a more fierce of a competitor. But that wasn't meant for me. God's plan was like, hey, your impact's gonna So here I am. Awesome. All right. Well, let's talk about hands-on homes and your philosophy with the business. Tell us a bit of why you created hands-on homes and why did affordable housing really become Okay. I think there's a few different ways we could play this. Let's look at it from the analytical realm first, right? Back in 2020, COVID was taking place. All these people from the busy metropolitan areas, they wanted to move into more rural areas. because they wanted to be away from the virus. Because of technology and the congestion in metropolitan areas, people wanted, they realized that they can work from home on their laptops and get a better quality of living in more rural areas. Okay, I call this the great migration. And I started because I live in the Washington, D.C. area, right? Now, based off of what's happening globally and economically, there's a lot of trauma and history doesn't rhyme, but it repeats itself. Right. So, OK, all this craziness is happening in the cities, in the busy areas, there's protests, there's riots. And so I was like, smart people and people want to keep their families safe. They're going to migrate into areas where there's a lower cost of living. where they can work from home, and where they can have a peaceful life. And so I started feeling that way myself. And so I was like, if I'm feeling that way, there's probably other people feeling this way. And so I started looking at rural areas. and taking advantage of the great migration. Now, I notice that economically, you know, we've been at an all-time high. The stock market's freaking through the roof. The prices are through the roof. We've had so much appreciation, and things just can't appreciate forever. So I wanted to position myself in areas where A, I can replace my paycheck and you do that in cashflow markets, not equity markets like San Francisco, DC, New York, not in equity markets. You can preserve your wealth in equity markets, but you create cashflow and cashflow markets like South Carolina, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, you see those markets. So I started looking at these markets and I started looking at the numbers and I'm like, man, this is crazy. I can literally buy this old beat up park. I bought my first park for $67,000. That's huge. How many It's ugly. It was tore up old homes. But when I looked at the, and there was people, some people living in there and God, man, I just couldn't believe Robert that some people were living this way. You know, and I hate to say this, but it was like a third world country to me. Born and raised in Northern Virginia. Everything is like, I live a little bit in a bubble, right? And so I was like, man, this is crazy. But then I looked at the numbers from a cashflow perspective, and I understood from my fix and flipping time when I was flipping houses that ugly houses are good. because you buy ugly houses, you fix them up, you do forced appreciation, you got more value, and then you take that value, and if you want, you can pull some cash out and do more deals. So all this stuff is going through my head, but I'm like, man, this is eight hours away. Can I do this? That fear came in. Can I do this? Am I capable? Am I going to be safe here? I mean, it's a rough neighborhood. And my wife was worried. And so that's what led me. I got my first park. And that first park, man, made me three grand a month right Out the gate. I'm like, this is not a house where I live, Robert. A crappy 1980s house. is$900,000. Right? Dude, seriously, like houses around my neighborhood,$900,000 to $3.4 million and up. So I'm like, what am I going to do? No degree, trying to raise a family. Dude, I got to figure this thing out. And so when I did a little bit of a SWOT analysis, I was like, well, it doesn't look sexy. My family's going to think I'm crazy. But I need to go where the math works. So I bought my first park, built a good relationship with the seller. And that seller helped me build a relationship with the next guy who I bought from. Mr. Knowles, God bless his heart. We built a relationship over, I don't know, a year and a half. I just checked in on him. His wife was a little sick. He's a little- Love those seller relationships. They're one of my favorites. We just became friends. We spoke last week and I just checked in on him and come to find out he's got eight more properties that he wants to sell me. Let's go. Like Mr. Knowles, I love you, man. Like we've just become friends. And and that's where all all these deals came from from him. And then through my handyman there, Edgar, which I love, he's my boy. Like I just he's got my back. I got his back. And it's hard to find good handyman. Right. But through Edgar, I met I think I met a Miss Levy and Miss Levy has sold me 12 properties. that she's just had and she's just giving them to me in pieces. It's all just I can tell you though, I mean, you say, oh, well, it just grew and such. I think knowing you and having this conversation though, It's all about treating people right, right? And treat people right, then things just start to roll, right? And he introduced you to the next guy, to the next guy, to the next guy. And, you know, it just continues to produce fruit, right? Because you And there's no shortcuts, man. For a while in my life, I was like, man, what's a shortcut? What can I do? Man, there ain't no shortcut. And if money comes fast, it'll go fast as well. It's just one of the rules of life. You know, you ever heard of the lottery curse? Anyone who hits the lottery loses it or dies or something happens. Yeah. Yeah. Well, um, all right. So you talked a little bit about secondary markets, um, which I think is spot on and rural markets, uh, being cashflow markets. What do you think those markets offer Well, number one is they offer cash flow. Number two is they offer the ability to actually help someone, right? Like right now in these equity markets where things are overly inflated, people are getting rich without having to do anything, right? They're buying property, they'll put their money in properties and because of inflation, they'll go up. Like I've had properties that, you know, I bought, even around here in 2021, 22. And they just an appreciation, they've gone up 150, 200 grand. And that's a good thing, right? But it just it can't keep going on forever. So the best businesses are the ones who provide the most value. And when companies start getting super wealthy just using financial leverage, eventually the dominoes are gonna fall. So I think the best place to position yourself right now, if you're a real estate investor, is in the markets that really need us, that need our help, and the people that we can actually provide value to. So Yeah, that's good. Um, talk about your current strategies in these markets. Um, you've got mobile home parks, rent to own seller financing. Uh, what, what Yeah. So I look at mobile home parks is, um, you basically own a whole neighborhood. Not cool. You own a freaking neighborhood and within your neighborhood, you can do all of the real estate investing strategies that exist. For example, in your own park, you can wholesale deals to other people. In your own park, you could flip mobile homes. In your own park, you can do subject to deals or seller financing deals. So I love mobile home parks, and they are hard work when you're doing the infilling, and there's lots of headaches. But ultimately, man, I'm looking to acquire more mobile home parks and just hold them. Some people buy them, and then they want to increase the net operating income and sell the larger parks to a private equity firm. Cool, do that. But for me, I love the game. So I want to buy them and keep them and take care of neighborhoods. So I love mobile home parks. The other strategy that I'm trying to do for Um, operational income, you know, and I think a lot of people aren't familiar with this. There's really three types of income that you want to be aware of. There's your active or operational income. That's the big money that comes in and pays the bills, right? Like the fix and flips, the wholesales, the land home packages. So that's operational income. There's investment income, like your 401ks, your IRAs, your life insurance policies, if you believe in those, right? So that's your investment income, your buckets of money that you wanna grow. And then there's your passive income. Those are your rentals, your tax liens, and your mortgage notes. And so when I'm talking to people, I'm like, look, based off of you and your life circumstances, like if you have a W-2 job that pays well, cool. You don't really need to focus on a bunch of fix and flip stuff. It's going So I'd say everyone's plan is a little bit different, but you got to build it to match your what you want to have happen, right? So that's, yeah, That's great. So what do you, in terms of looking at mobile home parks or flips or rent to own, how do you evaluate those deals today versus when you Well, I wasn't, I was too gullible in the beginning. I didn't do things like if someone said they had a job and they seemed cool, I'm like, all right, cool, man. I'll help you own a home. Now I'm a little bit more process-driven, or I actually do the background check. I check the credit. I call the references when it comes to rent to own. I meet with them a couple of times. I check their social media. If I'm dealing with someone who's, and I'm just putting this out there, if I'm dealing with someone who on their social media, is actively doing crazy things, like maybe showing that they're consuming lots of alcohol or stuff. I mean, I have to take that into consideration when I'm deciding to partner with them in a rent-to-own scenario, right? So I'm doing a lot more due diligence on the individual, and I'm taking the time To get to know the family who's going to own who I'm going to help own own this home, hopefully, because my you know that that's my goal is to help them get into homeownership. So, I'm doing that very different than what I did when I first started. My underwriting the deal has gotten a lot better. Like, when you're looking at a mobile home park, and you're underwriting a deal shirt, sometimes it does make sense on cash flow, but there's things that you miss. Like, if there's a well, and that well is contaminated or. My due diligence has gotten way better than before, right? If there's an expansion opportunity, I'm gonna call. I didn't know this, but man, I gotta call the zoning. I gotta get the zoning verification letter. Them telling me that, yes, Umaer Haq, you in fact can expand this It's important. It's so important, because if you can't expand the park, then you're underwriting was no good. And now you're not going to you're not going to be able to execute your plan. And that Yeah, right. All right. So lots of hard knocks, lots of hard work. Obviously, you got a big why. And from what I know and from what I understand, that comes down to family time and legacy. So let's talk a little bit about that. Um, starting out with becoming a, becoming a husband and becoming a father. And how did that I have learned more from being married than anything. I think, um, your spouse will love you. They'll push you. They'll drive you crazy. Um, you know, I have had to learn so much about the difference between men and women. Men are, we're all here, right? And women are usually all here. So my marriage has made me a better real estate investor. Love it. And then having kids, that's a whole, because like you forget when you're a kid, you're like a blank slate, right? You're absorbing stuff. You're picking things up. Like my daughter copies my wife verbatim sometimes. I'm like, oh, so it's like it made me realize that who I'm being in the world. is creating a ripple of fret effect on everyone around me. So that I recommend men do guys. I know I waited later, but fine. Find a good wife, get married, get Love it. Love it. What, um, what does wealth that matters actually mean to you? I think that's one of your missions or Yeah, well, what is wealth that matter actually mean to me? It's like, I've seen or I like hearing, reading biographies of like different people who quote unquote made it. But then they took their own lives. Or they did something crazy, like I hooked the drugs or whatever. So what money and make you do different things. So wealth to me is not money. Wealth to me is what I'm feeling in the moment, like when I'm holding my wife and my daughter, like that's real wealth to me. Now, money allows me to do that because I don't have to wake up and answer to someone. You see what I'm saying? That's what I've always wanted. And then to help like other business people, like I'm a guy on the daily grind trying to figure this out, but what would make me whole and complete as a man is to see other men duplicate that. Because at my heart, I'm a coach. I did kickboxing for years, and now I have other fighters that I get to train and coach and be in their corner. And I don't get paid for that. I don't want to get paid for that. I do it because I love seeing the result. And that's just a little bit of who I am. I practice what I preach. If I'm not doing it, I'm not going to talk about it. And that fulfills me. It strokes my own ego in some way. Everyone does things for how they feel or their status or whatever it is. For me, and I recognize that, but that's what wealth means to me, is just being able to live my truest self and make an impact while I'm here. Because if we live 100 years, man, that's not that long in Yeah, that's important, man. What can you do to impact the world in those short 100 years, right? Yeah. What We're just meeting, so I'd love to just, you know, it's Yeah, so for me, you know, as I think about operating day in, day out, and I've had this conversation several times recently, I've been doing this for a while and doing mobile home park investing, doing real estate investing, doing land home packages. And for me, I'm, I'm a Christian guy and I'm like, you know, I live my values as, as I would want you to see me and we operate together. You say, Hey, there's something different about Robert. Right. But, um, you know, as I think about how can I be more intentional, um, and I started thinking about this last year, it's like, how can I, my mission statement around showing God's love through affordable housing and. I don't know exactly what that means tactically yet or strategically really today, because I haven't finished the plan and that plan may not be done ever, right? You know, God's always working, right? Or it might just take you on another route, right? Yeah, but I've been a lot more intentional around it. It's like, how can I, the people that I touch day in, day out, the subcontractors that I work with, the tenants that I work with, the people that are buying their first home, how can I make that moment even more special and, um, you know, make an impact through that. And again, I don't have that. I've been consulting with some older guys that are a lot more, Developed and knowledgeable and insightful than me, um, and we're trying to come up with a plan together, but. That's that's where And I kind of, I see that you're doing that for me. So thank you for, for being who you are in the space, man. Like that's. It's like, I really appreciate it because I feel like you're ahead of me with a lot of these things and I'm getting started and it's you're doing see how that duplication happens though. Cause you, you said you've had some older guys that are helping you. And I think the world needs more and more people like that, because imagine what the country can get back to and become if there was just, don't matter, we're Yeah. I love that. That'd be huge. A lot better country, that's for sure. It's a great country, but it'd be even that much better. Um, let's talk rapid fire questions and then we'll close out here. Um, so I've got four questions, maybe five. Um, what's Um, my biggest lesson is never lend money to someone I started, I lent money on a, I didn't know any better. I was brand new to the game. I just lent money on a simple promissory note thinking, oh yeah, I'm good. Nope. Make I like that one. That's good. All right. Best advice for someone feeling Whether that means go do a self-help thing, like a Tony Robbins thing, three-day thing. Go do, get around people who have that freaking contagious energy. Because you're gonna be like, holy, any time I'm down, feeling burnt out, I need to change where I'm at. So I'll go do like a, and if I can't afford it, I'll get on YouTube and listen to the, like sit in a thing. where it starts changing the way I'm thinking. You know, over time, I've learned that thinking is a skill, and we're not taught how to think. So change Man, that's, I think I'd love that advice. Um, the environment can make such a huge impact, right? It gets you, like you said, it going to give you that right energy. It's going to give you the right mindset and it's going to give you friends that you can talk to and learn from. That's I'll, uh, I'll never forget this. It is Tony Robbins again. He's been, he's had a big force in my life. He goes, what do you say? He says, our lives are a direct reflection of the expectations of our peer group. Hmm. Our lives are a direct reflection of the expectations of our peer group. So when I started hanging out with people expecting me to do wholesale deals, expecting me to flip, I was like, man, I gotta keep up with this environment. So that's why getting around those, like, I created our own little meetup group here in Virginia. We've got a little over 300 people here. We meet, we do dinners. And I needed to, I didn't have the environment, so I decided to create it. You see what Awesome. All right, what's next for hands-on homes? Scaling. You know, I'm a one-man shop right now. I've got a couple 1099 folks who help me, but I've been studying scaling. I've been studying how other businesses grow through mergers and acquisitions. I've been thinking about acquiring some sort of business that does a certain amount of revenue and really scaling my operations from a one-man shop to a space where I can make a bigger impact. And like you said earlier, I don't know how I'm gonna get through yet, Robert, but it's like, I'm just been kind of mulling it over in my head, like, all right, how So yeah, I think with your with your why of making a big impact, you can get there. Right. And it's like you might not have the perfect answer today, but that that why will drive you enough to to go figure out what that answer is. 100 percent. All right. Well, I appreciate you joining I'm on Facebook. I'm on Instagram. I'm on YouTube. If you look at hands-on real estate, the YouTube channel, I got to get more active on there. I know I have so much I want to share, but I'm busy in the operations to where I can't really create content. So when you asked me to do this, I was like, man, I'd love to freaking share. I was so excited about just meeting with you. So I hope that people got some value out of our time together today. And if All right, good deal. Well, I appreciate you joining. If you guys want to follow along, go and find Umaer Haq online. And I appreciate you joining. It was a great conversation. 100%, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to The Purpose Driven Investor. If today's episode sparked an idea or inspired you to make an impact, connect with me at howellandsons.com. Join our community of purpose-driven investors who are helping families find stable homes while building real returns. Because when