The Ralph Bivins Project: Podcast Guest Alex Kamkar

HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – Alex Kamkar, managing shareholder at Bold Fox Development, is on a mission to create communities where people can grow their families, form friendships with neighbors, connect with nature, and build wealth in the process of achieving the American Dream.

Founded in 2019 prior to the pandemic, Bold Fox Development uses “innovative land planning, green practices, and other strategies that resonate with today’s homebuyer” to fulfill its vision. The company made its debut in Conroe and has other projects in the Waller and Brookshire/Pattison areas. Unique elements that could be incorporated into the new communities include a beer garden at Attwater and a plaza with an old-world Spanish design at La Segarra.

“At Bold Fox, we’re very passionate about creating great communities that folks can live that dream,” said Bold Fox Development Founder Alex Kamkar. “And I think it’s so needed all over the state, all over the country.”

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Below are excerpts from Kamkar’s recent appearance on The Ralph Bivins Project podcast.

RALPH BIVINS: How do you feel about the market right now? What’s going on with the housing market?

ALEX KAMKAR: I think we’re really rebalancing. I think there’s a lot of consternation in the market. Incentives are going up. Velocity is slowing down in some submarkets, especially in the Southeast. I really think that we’re really normalizing from what happened over in Covid in the pandemic. KB Homes, their leadership team said their incentives are going up and that their margins are back to pre-pandemic levels, which were I believe were in the high teens. I just think that the sugar high is over and we as a market that sells resale homes, new homes, I think we’re going to have to work harder. I think mom and dad want a deal. I think that’s harder to get right now, too. The thing I always point to is our borrowers who are buying new homes or resale homes, they’re getting homes now, you know, with a better balance sheet, better credit scores. If they’re in the market right now, they’re serious buyers, and so that makes me feel a little bit better. The easy home sales are not going to be in our future right now.

RALPH BIVINS: The median price for a single-family home in the Houston area right now is $337,000…which of course means that you’ve got to have a household income of $95,000 annually to qualify.

ALEX KAMKAR: I’ve been in our industry almost 15 years. When I came into the industry, the median was below $200,000, it was like $191,000. It’s moved up dramatically and so we have to work harder to get those folks in the door. And they have to work harder, too.

RALPH BIVINS: Your firm Bold Fox Development has developed several master planned communities, and you’ve got a big one, Attwater, up on Highway 290 in Waller County right now, which is going to be a major thing for you… Tell me about the American Dream and why that means so much to you.

ALEX KAMKAR: It’s a really special thing when you find out why you’re here on this earth and I found that out a few years ago and I’ve embraced it, which is to help families. I think homeownership is the best way to do that. We don’t ever really think about housing in this very special or reverent way, but this is where people see the birth of their children, their children grow up, they have their anniversaries, Thanksgivings, Christmases. These big life events … a lot of that happens in and around the neighborhood, your home. You get to develop relationships with your neighbors. I mean, we have great neighbors in our neighborhood that have become family friends that we go on vacations with. That all starts around the home and homeownership. The American Dream is really under duress right now. It is becoming harder to get a new home. Older homes that usually have a lesser price are actually up now, too. And so mom and dad, when they were a young couple, used to be able to get into a starter home that was a fix-up, and now that fix-up is very expensive. And so, for us, we really try to price our communities that somebody at an entry level just starting out can also afford or try to all the way up to the folks who are millionaires.

To listen to the entire podcast Click Here for Spotify – or – Click Here for YouTube

RALPH BIVINS: I know you’ve spoken out about the built-to-rent market which is single-family houses built for rentals from the beginning. Homeownership is not attainable for everyone so this (BTR) is one of the options the builders are taking.

ALEX KAMKAR: I have been more staunch about where I am, and what I realize is there’s an ecosystem around housing and you’re absolutely right. There’s a lot of people that can’t qualify or don’t have a $100,000 down payment. That being said, this ecosystem has very limited people who know the trade of home building. It’s the same person building 300 for-rent (BTR) rentals is the same person building new homes to sell to mom and dad. We don’t have enough trade base. We don’t have enough experienced builders and developers. And so they’re all competing. And unfortunately, I am skeptical that BlackRock or Big Wall Street is going to keep pricing affordable enough for folks. I would much rather have a straight deal that a homebuilder sells to mom and dad. They have the price. They know what their mortgage is. They know that their payment isn’t moving and that they’re not going to have a mortgage increase every year which, unfortunately, when you’re in a big Wall Street scenario where they’re owning as a corporate landlord, they have to meet their metrics. They have to show profitability increasing. What ends up happening is, Ralph’s house, you know, his rent goes up, Alex’s rent goes up versus you and I do homeownership and we focus on that and I buy the mortgage one time and I keep my pricing for the next 30 years. And I just think it’s a big discussion that we have to have. And I think we as an industry, Ralph, have to police ourselves because if not, you’re going to have what happened in New York where a guy who’s showing up is going to be possibly elected to be the mayor of New York and he wants to talk about rent control. Well, you and I know rent control is terrible for a housing market.

RALPH BIVINS: I have heard Gov. Abbott mention build-to-rent (BTR) at times so I guess your lobbying efforts have made a difference.

ALEX KAMKAR: We were really blessed we work with some great partners in the space, a great municipal utility district … attorneys … who really keep an eye on what’s going on in Austin. They see these bills coming across. I’ve been heartened to see that the governor and lieutenant governor are taking housing seriously. We have got do something. Doing nothing is not an option. Builders and developers do need to go to Austin. For developers and builders like me, we just want a clear playing field and to know that the playing field is not going to shift on us.

RALPH BIVINS: I think you have a point with buying a house. How do people accumulate wealth? If you can come out of poverty even and get that first house. Maybe the first-generation homeowner can build up the equity.

ALEX KAMKAR: Homeownership is the one of the very few natural wealth generators for the middle class. You can go read the Wall Street Journal, you can go watch all the stupid commercials with the celebrities and they want to tell you, get on this phone and do crypto and Robin Hood and all this other stuff. Just own a home and pay your damn mortgage and at the end of the 30 years, you’re going to be very happy with what you own. For me, I realized that when we were very young, my mom had moved us from an apartment to a very, very humble house, a 1978 ranch-built house, and we were in a very nice school district. My mom was a single-mom teacher and I remember starting to go to school and I noticed I didn’t have the same clothes that others had. We were in a very fancy school at the time. I asked one time, and I was probably 13 or 14, and I said, “Mom, are we poor?” And she said, “No, mijo. We’re not poor. We own a home.”