Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Explain to the listeners what the difference is between workforce and affordable housing. I know, you know, we were talking about that. That one has a not as good a connotation as the other.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Key difference between affordable and workforce housing is that, you know, what is affordable these days, affordable to one family is different to affordable to next. But what is your workforce? The american workforce is the backbone of the country, right, dating back from a long time ago. Teachers, police officers, factory workers, those are the people that built the country.
I'm from the Caribbean originally.
The american dream is something we heard about. And I moved here when I was 20. And the american dream of home ownership is on the tread now. It's increasingly out of reach for people. And these are everyday Americans, hardworking Americans that have worked, you know, 1520 years for school districts, for local government, whatever have you, and they can't afford to purchase a home. And honestly, that that call to contribute is really why we started our company.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Hey, everybody, and welcome back to trust this. I'm Joe Siegel, lawyer, land trustee here in Orlando, Florida, with Aspire Legal. And my land trustee. Today we have a great guest, Vas Prasad with ecovision homes. We're going to talk to him today both about what they do and how he got where he is. So with that vas, why don't you first tell me a little bit about ecovision, what you guys do?
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Yeah. First of all, thank you. Thank you so much for having me here. Appreciate to be here. Love to. This is my favorite topic. You know, some people play sports, they make it to the NFL. This, like, building homes development is my version of the best thing that I could ever do. So it's both my passion and, you know, my vocation. All that type of stuff wrapped together. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Now, you guys focus on, and we were talking about this beforehand. You focus on workforce housing and explain, explain it to the listeners what the difference is between workforce and affordable housing. I know we were talking about that. That one has not as good a connotation as the other.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Right, right. So ecovision homes, the concept of the whole home building company started about because we looked at what was happening in industry and forecast it to happen with increasing home prices and so forth. And we started a little bit before COVID So, you know, we saw, we didn't even plan for Covid, you know, and all what happened there in terms of home prices and everything, interest rates and all that. But key difference between affordable and workforce housing is that, you know, what is affordable these days, affordable to one family is different to affordable to next but what is your workforce? The american workforce is the backbone of the country, right? Dating back from a long time ago. Teachers, police officers, factory workers, those are the people that built the country.
I'm from the Caribbean originally.
The american dream is something we heard about. And I moved here when I was 20. And the american dream of home ownership is on the threat now. It's increasingly out of reach for people. And these are everyday Americans, hardworking Americans that have worked, you know, 1520 years for school districts, for local government, whatever have you, and they can't afford to purchase a home. So, you know, I was one of those people working in for local government.
I thought I had some skill sets that I could bring to the market and make a difference. And honestly, that that call to contribute is really why we started our company.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: So the workforce, whenever you're talking workforce, you're talking about teachers, janitors, construction workers.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Middle. Middle income America.
You know, the working force folks, that is what our product is geared for.
Affordable housing. Of course, we want to build that affordably, too. But I. Affordable housing has this sort of a negative connotation that it's low income housing. Well, I'll argue that today there, you know, there's a need for more affordability in all price ranges of homes. Right? So.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, and I think I've seen that. I was listening to an economist at an event. One of our banks threw a luncheon for us, and she pointed out, she said, you know, after World War Two, you had the baby boomer generation coming out. And so a starter home was around 1300 square feet, right? And during the baby booms, when they came out, they just built, built, built, built, built like crazy those 1300 square foot homes. And then as time went on, the baby boomers moved up. So they just literally tore down those neighborhoods and built mcmansions everywhere. And then the Xers came along. My generation, we're not that big. So there was still plenty of housing available for us. I think my first home I bought was 200 and 5250 thousand. Then they went.
Then the millennials came, the next biggest generation, and there simply wasn't enough housing. So there isn't that supply of that housing, that 1300 square foot home for people to buy who are in their first job, or they're early in their job or they are taking jobs. They're policemen, they're a firemen, they're teachers who. Yeah, they take typically a lower paying job because they have this dedication to a service, this higher calling, but it's lower pay. And so they can't afford those McMansions that were then built over time in.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: All these projects, Joe, you know, absolutely.
When you think about it is if you look at the increase in household incomes versus the increase in home prices, one's kind of flat. Incomes are flatlined, almost especially when you adjust for inflation, whereas home prices have gone up. That gap is what we are trying to do our best and push back, right. And say, okay, you know, other builders will keep raising their prices. We're going to try to trend the opposite way. Now. Doesn't mean we're going to build a house for $50,000. You know, we can't produce in today's market a good quality product to meet hurricane codes and everything like that for that price. But certainly we can try to give some type of benefit, cost benefit to our, you know, our customers. One way we do that is if we can save you on your power bill, your light bill, your utilities, that is an inherent savings that you have for life. Right? So our homes, depending on the size, we can, you know, reduce your utility bill almost cumulatively over the year. One mortgage payment or one rent payment. Now for some that, you know, may not be a big deal, but for a lot of people, if you can pay, have one free month a year. That's effectively what we're trying to do. And so the building, building more energy efficient homes and so forth is not only a good thing from the environmental perspective and efficiency perspective, if you will, but it makes good sense from an affordability perspective as well.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: And you're usually doing townhome style construction is.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Yeah, curiously enough, most of our projects are townhomes. We kind of like the town home product because it allows for a family to own it, the simple ownership.
But you know, if there's a need to, for them to rent until they can, you know, build sufficient down payment or whatever, have you credit to purchase that home, it also allows for that, you know, versus say, an apartment where your only option is to rent.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Right. Right. Now going back to workforce versus affordable housing versus transition housing, whatever you call that, do you find that you have any issues with NIMBY? Not in my backyard neighbors saying, I don't want that around me.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: So we're, you know, we're, we're in a development stage of a few subdivision projects. You know, I gotta tell you, Joe, we, we have gotten such a great positive feedback across the board.
Letters of support, emails of support, I should say from mayors.
Staff has been very city staff and review staff. The community also has been very interested in, you know, oh, that's interesting. I would like to own one.
That is a reaction. I never thought. I didn't anticipate that.
[00:09:30] Speaker A: So how do you guys keep the per square foot construction costs low enough to make it work?
[00:09:36] Speaker B: There's. There's no. There's no complex answer. It's really, you know, I. The. So moving here from the Caribbean, one of the things that really fascinated me about America is Americans are very hardworking people. And we, you know, historically, or we have a high moral compass, right. The way we do things. I mean, globally, Americans are seen as a pretty trustworthy place. Right. You know, people have different opinions, but that's my opinion anyway. So good old elbow grease, you know, really going back to fundamentals, being, you know, trying to be functional in our design, not just fancy, if you will, being selective on finishes designing well. So we took a very holistic approach to development and home building, and we couldn't shave 50% off any one component. So we took a vertically integrated approach to reducing cost incrementally. But me, my background is engineer. I can't. I can't sacrifice quality. So I have to give people a good home. Right. But, you know, maybe I don't have, you know, a $10,000 or $15,000 slab of granite in my. In my kitchen. You know what I mean? Do I want to have a nice kitchen that the family can be part of that works so hard? Yes, I want to give them that kitchen. They deserve it. Right. But that, you know, maybe we'll skip on some of those more expensive items, for example. Also, our homes are nothing you alluded to earlier. They're not 3500 sqft. Right, right. You know.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah. What is the average size that you're looking at building currently?
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Our townhomes are, you know, average, about 1600 square feet.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: You know, that storehouse.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's, you know, we hope our intent is for it to be a very functional, you know, family oriented, you know, size of home and functional and creatively done well.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: And I take it you're probably not building, you know, lots of amenities with clubhouses and pools and all those kinds of places.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: So far, no, but our communities are intended to have a wellness component to them. So that, you know, a big. We looked at some fundamental underlying issues that contribute to the affordable housing issue, and one of them is it's not just the cost of the home, but some of the socioeconomic issues, and one of them is health. You know, if you're not a healthy person, sometimes you get past it for that promotion. You know, you know, you don't make as much money. So we're instituting a wellness program as part of our community. Optional for participation. But, you know, things like walking trails and so forth, amenitized things that can help people. So.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that's important. A lot of people overlook just the health of the buyers, that if they stay healthy, they can keep working. People missing work. Yeah. You miss, you come down, you get diabetes.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Not to mention healthcare costs are very high.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: If we can help control our healthcare need for expenditure, that helps indirectly make the house more affordable. Yeah.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Well, and then also another thing you pointed out, you build them to for the higher codes now that Florida has for hurricane preparedness. Everything else that probably helps with their insurance cost as well.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: Exactly. So we're negotiating with insurance companies right now for upcoming homes to, you know, hopefully shave a considerable amount off of what would typically be the cost of insurance. Cost. Yeah.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Now you'd mentioned something about your I. Your patented building system. What have you got?
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Right. So, you know, like I said, elbow grease. We had to really think and almost value engineer how we build a house today. And so we looked at several building systems available in the market and we kind of created our own code approved and whatnot building system that takes advantage of some of the more newer technology out there.
There's lots of new great technology. America is a very innovative place. We took a lot of advantage of that. And, you know, by being more efficient as builders, we will pass those savings along to homebuyers.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Now, you said vertically integrated. I know you're, in addition to being an engineer, you have just a few other qualifications for this, what you're doing. Why don't you tell us about what you got going on there?
[00:14:26] Speaker B: So, you know, so I have this, you know, thing that if really commit to your craft. Right. So if my craft is building homes, then I need to be a student of that and really learn my area of expertise. Right. So, you know, I am a licensed planner, which allows me to rezone land and so forth, efficiently, make decisions quicker. I'm a licensed engineer. I'm a licensed contractor. Those three things are all part of what, just some of the part of what is many trades, if you will, needed to build homes. But those are some of the main ones. Yeah.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So by being more, by improving our skill sets, being multidisciplinary in nature, that is also a way of saving consumers cost. Yeah.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: So how many years did you go to school?
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Well, you know, I'm 42 years old now, so I've been in school a long time. I would say, though, this is my, this is my life's work. Right. You know, I mean, I've been putting in effort for a long time and, you know, it's really a, you know, building, building my area expertise to be able to do something like this.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Now, were you, have you always been on your own or did you work for another company?
[00:15:52] Speaker B: No.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: No.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: So I initially, you know, educated in caribbean undergrad, came up here, did my masters and so forth, grad school, and then got into consultancy, engineering consultancy, worked with helping other land developers, I should say clients, developer clients get approvals. I worked, work for Florida hospital.
That's what we used to be called, different home builders, et cetera, et cetera. So kind of learned a lot about land development, and I'm really using some of that experience today.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: Now, what was it that made you decide to, okay, this is it. I'm going to launch ecovision. And here we go. What was that spark?
[00:16:37] Speaker B: There was no one, you know, light bulb moment, but it was just a, you know, just a call in over time.
But one really key incident occurred where as a licensed planner, we have to attend continuing education courses and seminars and so forth. And there were, you know, back in 2008 and nine, eight, just actually, I should say, post recession 2012 and so forth, there was a lot of talk by American Plan association about a housing affordability crisis, and we had just come true, a recession. And I was surprised. I'm like, you know, homes are, you know, really undervalued right now. What are you, what are you guys talking about? But they were looking at data and looking ahead and they saw a lot of things that were going to happen. And I also had the opportunity to work with some developers who used, I should say the affordable housing term to help permit their projects, but never intended to do affordable housing. So it kind of, it kind of remade me realize that really and truly in, as an industry, we're not approaching this problem correctly, in my opinion. I felt I can do something about it. And that's what I said about doing.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, wow.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Well, and I've seen that, too. People, they go, oh, it's affordable housing. They'll get these tax breaks. They get the incentives from the local governments and maybe even state government, maybe even federal government from lenders to build affordable housing. And then, yeah, they build it and it's McMansions at half a million and up. And they go, well, that's affordable for this area.
And I've always felt that's an abuse of that system like that.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Again, we take nothing away from many of the great home builders in the country and so on. We just feel that there is a need and we can make an impact here and that's what we're trying to do.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: Well, let's turn a little bit more to just your business, the day to day running your business and how you do it. And we were talking a little bit before. You've got a lot of contractors, a lot of project people. You have a core group of maybe ten who are with you all the time.
How has that journey been going from employee to now, the CEO division?
[00:19:01] Speaker B: It's certainly been a learning exercise because, you know, in building a business, you know, any business really, you really have to learn to be the best version of yourself. And business really is a good teacher. Right. Because if you don't run your business well, your business will remind you when you're looking at that bank statement and, you know, bills to pay and so forth. So, you know, back against the wall. You know, I left my very, I would say, very comfortable job at the county where I had a pension, you know, four weeks vacation and all that. And I said, I'm gonna go build homes to help people. Right. So, you know, didn't have, you know, didn't have any vacation or whatever. But, you know, I think sometimes, you know, we have to take that leap of faith and we have to believe in ourselves and go after it. So initially it was just me, and then slowly some really good people have joined. And that's another, you know, really thankful thing and surprising thing for us is the level of, you know, excellence of some people that have joined our cause. I would not have expected that so early in our, in our history area.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: So what's something that you were thinking when you first went out on your own that you've had to unlearn and start over with?
[00:20:29] Speaker B: You know, I don't know if it was so much an unlearning, but definitely I've had to get better at a few things, you know, so there is, there's such a, there's so many things involved in running a business and just becoming the best version yourself, being a good student. I mean, I have watched a lot of content, you know, educational related content, entrepreneur content. I've done a lot of masterminds.
I think I had a goal last year to read 52 books. I read 52 books.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, you know, some of them were listening to them right now. I guess I count those as reading.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: But taking in that information I said, hey, I got to be the best version of myself. I heard read about all these other CEO's that read $52 a year. I said, you know, if you want to be this big, bad, you know, land developer, builder, you better read 52 books. So that's what we did.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: So what's one. What's one of the books that you've read that you think had the biggest effect on you?
[00:21:31] Speaker B: I read about.
About five or six books, I would say, about scaling a team. Right.
I read books about Ray Dalio, who's one of famous hedge fund manager.
Changing world order was a very interesting book.
I also, you know, I have a bit of a spiritual side. I read different books related to that. I think it's good to be grounded because it really helps fortify your. Why when you're really going through some of these things. You know, you asked me a question earlier about what I had to unlearn. I think I had to learn a different level of humility, you know, because sometimes, you know, we're all young and brash at some point, and we think we're hot shots, and really, you know, really, we really learn a lot of things. So one thing I've learned is, you know, I think I've improved a lot in my people skills. Yeah. Because I've had to.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: So if you're 42 now. Yeah. You started in your thirties, right? You went out on your own in your thirties.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Oh, no, no. I've only been doing this just before. COVID Okay.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Okay. So not too far, too far back.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: I'm only a few years into this.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Now I remember in my thirties, I thought I knew everything and I was doing great. And by the end of my thirties, everything was.
Oh, my gosh, everything was falling apart. I mean, part of it was the great recession was hitting around that time, but. But then forties, the humility does come on pretty strong. In your forties, you. You realize what you didn't know.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: And, you know, to see the traction we're getting, I'm very appreciative of it. And it. One thing I'm acutely aware of is this. It's not. It's not just me, right? It's taken a lot of different people, and I'm very appreciative of them, right.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: And I think so many business owners who started their own business have that attitude. Almost everybody I've ever talked to on this. This program, they're that way that, hey, I didn't do this on my own. It's not just me. And anyone who does come at it with that attitude, I, look, am I.
[00:23:33] Speaker B: Gonna put a lot of determination and maybe a little, little set of, you know, argons in there that you can do this? And then you, reality sets in and you realize, hey, you're good, but you need some other people. You're not that good. Yeah.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: So what does a day in life look like for you normally?
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Well, right now, my, if you had to write down my job description. Description is be accountable to my team and my customers. One liner. Okay. So, you know, I try to meet with everyone that will need my help so I can help them do their job.
And we have different divisions of the company, so I have to be available for the different divisions and building systems. Empowering people.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. So many people too. They don't, when they're starting a business, they're like, well, I need to get the right technology. I need, it's, no, you need to get the people and know what people you need to really succeed and really give them that.
What is something you didn't pay enough attention to early on that you pay a lot more attention to now?
[00:24:41] Speaker B: I think just understanding our overall finances in money, in and out, just having a good handle on that is very important with different divisions moving on. The other thing, we have these KPI's key performance indices. Right. Or indicators. Some people say, we look at how fast we're doing things, so we look at, okay, how quickly do we respond to emails? That's a key thing that we need to track. How from, you know, how fast do we respond to think that the next actions that we have to do, how quickly are we getting to those? We do things now like daily, daily standard meetings for 15 minutes just to check in. We didn't do those before.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: Yeah, all that comes together, I think sounds almost like you. You're taking a lot from EOS traction and you may not be doing it intentionally, but a lot of the things you're doing are coming from there. Yeah, yeah, I'm a big advocate of that. I just, we run on eos and I, I've found that most companies, once you adopt eos, you are depending on how far along you are already. You're about two to five years out from just being a juggernaut in whatever you do.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: It takes about that long to really implement it and really get it going and get the habits built internally. But once you do, it's what I.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: Tell my team now, is that our currency, if you will.
Let's set money aside. We need to make money. Our currency has to be how happy we made people feel that associate with us, our customers and so forth. It's something I'm trying to keep in mind that, you know, help others get their value, lead with value, and then everything else will flow.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: That's a big thing we're focused on internally. This quarter is customer feedback and the customer journey, the customer experience.
Everybody has a rock. Something about that this quarter. So we can start really building those foundations now.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: We definitely have to have. We did have to get better at different things, implementing systems around those.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep, yep. It's a whole. It's a whole thing. So you've got these contractors, you. You probably have lenders, other people. You have. How do you build these relations? How do you find these people?
[00:27:10] Speaker B: You know, trying to.
It's been a lot, like I said, really good people have come to the table, surprisingly, you know, with not that much hard work. And I really, I really put it down to the fact that we're really trying to lead or offer value in what we do, and we're fundamentally trying to make an impact.
I personally believe that if we were started as a regular building company, just building the same homes that everyone would build, people would come around. Yes. But because we're trying to make a difference, I think people that feel that vibe with that, they join us. And I think that's what's helped us.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Network well, and I think that goes back also to that eos that if you as the visionary have articulated that vision, well, then people who also believe that vision also have the same dream will come with you.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: Right. And you've just got to keep individuals. You know, we've gotten a lot in historically small groups of people working together consistently in a very coordinated fashion have accomplished a lot. And I think that's what we are trying to be.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Well, and when you. When you talk about your vision, I hear there's a passion and there's a deep, a deeper feeling, a deeper meaning, which I think that's what a vision truly has to be. I look at companies and I'll.
We had a company that, well, we had a company that actually, you know, we worked with closely. And I asked them, their CEO, I said, so what's your business? And it was something to the effect of, oh, to be the biggest and baddest blah, blah, blah in our industry.
And I said, okay, that doesn't really speak to anybody's heart. That doesn't grab emotion. And so when we were coming up with our vision, I mean, it was a full day. It was a full vision day to come up with this vision, and it was, you know, we finally got down to the core of it. It's like to help everybody else, to help other people. Everybody we touch aspire to a better life. That's a much higher, you know, calling then. Well, you just want to be the biggest and baddest, whatever we are in our industry.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I don't really say this a lot, but my parents worked really hard for me to be where I am, you know? So I feel it's incumbent on me to try to do the same.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: For others. Yeah.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Yeah. We're very much alike in that regard. It's. It's. It's very much a.
Yes, I climbed the ladder, but I'm not going to slam the trap door behind me.
[00:29:54] Speaker B: Right. Right.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: I'm going to reach back and. Okay, now I've got to help other people up this ladder as much as I can. That's. That's. That's the gift I've been given, and I have to share that, and I think that's important. So I guess that brings me to really, my last question. I always ask all of our guests, you know, with us, you know, being there to help people aspire to a better life. Who has helped you aspire to a better life?
[00:30:16] Speaker B: Oh, man. I am a function of so many mentors. So many mentors.
I've utilized information that you've provided. Right. To me, indirectly, to title companies and so forth. I mean, this is an example, right. We've never met, but I know about you. Right.
You know, there's so many, you know, mentors here in Orlando from CFRI groups and so forth. I would really have to say it. I'm a really.
I give myself credit to try to learn from these people. Right. All over.
I mean, one person, you know, local here in Orlando is Augie Bailo, who, you may know, he was a good person. He probably connected me and some people we know. So, yeah, I give him credit and many others. Many, many others.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Augie is another one of those who has very high ideals. It's not. Okay. I want to be the biggest, whatever I am. It's. It's. Last time I talked to him, he wanted to have a billion dollar impact on the lives of others. And the. The work he does in his charitable work now and the people that he has mentored and coached over the years he's created, helped create so many people is with. With better lives than they had when they came to him. Yeah.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: So, yeah, one other person could cancer. There's a gentleman in Utah, Richard Pennington. He helped teach me about private equity funding and so forth and learned a lot from him. And, you know, they have a really great community, and that's another example. So there's so many people that I follow and I learn from and I interact with, not, not daily specifically, but, you know, they're the Tony Robbins and all those folks, so. Oh, man. You know, just to sum it all up, it takes a very special place to have those type of people help you. So just like how they helped me, and I was lucky and fortunate to get access to them. I feel that there's so many others that if they had similar access, they would also, you know, be in my shoes. So again, similarly, it's incumbent upon me to share my knowledge, just like all these folks shared their knowledge with me. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Well, I want to thank you for coming in today. It's inspiring. What you're doing is great. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us today. And until we meet again, trust this, everybody. Thanks for listening to this edition of trust this. If you got something out of it, please press like and subscribe and give us a five star review to help us reach others who can benefit from this series. Until next time, keep aspiring to a better life.
