Hello and welcome. This is Gino Barbera of Jake and Gina. I've got a great guest today. Let me read you off his bio. His name is August Biddez. He's the co-founder and chief investment officer of CPI Capital leading acquisitions, investment strategy, and asset management. With 15 plus years in real

estate, he has helped close $225 million in multifamily and built-to-rent assets. He also hosts

the real estate investing demystified podcast. Welcome to the show, August, brother. How you doing?

Thanks for having me, Gina. Looking forward to this. I feel like we've known each other for such a long time. This was just, you know, it was just a matter of time to get on here and chat with you. It's interesting because out of ignorance, I didn't even know you're Iranian. I know you for such a long time and that popped up. I want to get into the war. But before we get into the war and get into the geopolitics and how it affects multifamily and real estate,

I love the title of the podcast, Demystified. To you, what is demystifying about multifamily to the

average person or real estate to the average investor? Yeah, I mean, you know, talking about

myself being in real estate not close to 20 years Yeah, I mean, you know, talking about myself being in

real estate not close to 20 years, I felt six or seven years of approximately when I got involved

in real estate private equity, I felt that I knew everything about real estate. But when I got involved

in this world, which is a immersion of finance and real estate, real estate, private equity, the name is really in it. It kind

of teaches you that no, you know, there's so much about real estate that you don't understand. And

then when you realize about different asset classes and business models that exist and how sophisticated

things can get, it really blows my mind and really keeps it exciting as well. And, you know,

I tend to be someone that gets bored really quick.

But when real estate, especially when you have real estate private equity, you're dealing with investors, raising capital, you know, bringing on debt, utilizing different business models such as multifamily value at and build to rent.

It makes it exciting every day to show up to work.

But yeah, simplifying multifamily for real estate investors.

I mean, people who believe in real estate, they enjoy the tangibility of it.

They enjoy the fact like my mom who was somebody who I learned real estate from

and who taught me the foundations of real estate.

My maternal grandfather was a real estate broker in Iran

had his own brokerage for him. So I understood real estate as if it was a language. I really

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