My name is Shelton Assoumou. I created Brownstone NYC over seven years ago, which is basically a family owned business that was started by my mother and initially funded by her. Over the past eight years, we’ve acquired over a hundred properties, totaling over $50 million of sales.
So Brownstone NYC started as just one house that we acquired in 2014 just to figure out how things worked. We knew that things were happening in Brooklyn and we were trying to figure out a way to participate in this opportunity.
My mother actually cashed out her 401k because she was really bullish on the Brooklyn values at that time.
Looking back on the analysis of that property’s values which has already doubled over the years since her first call. Over the years, we have acquired over a hundred properties. Now, the interesting thing about Brownstone is that over the last 24 months, we really have morphed into a social impact investing firm whereby we care about the community.
Our faces is to make sure that on the deals that we are acquire, the homeowner is always gonna benefit as a partner. Um, we have a situation for example, on 26 Pulaski where the homeowner has owned the prop, he’s living the property for over 40 years. Um, he’s own the property for 40 years. Um, his property fell into foreclosure and, uh, the bank is about to steal his prop or to take his property to foreclosure.
How Joint Ventures Help Home Owners
I’m Rodney Dees. I’m here resident for 40 years. My family from, the great place in Charleston, South Carolina right here in Brooklyn right now, but we’ve been in the city here for about 50, 55 years. I was in foreclosure and, I had enough equity in my house to make moves with it. With the equity we came together most recently to do something incredible, which is save our homes, basically.
Properties that are currently a stick frame house with only 1500 square feet, we’re gonna add 2,400 square feet to the house. And this gentleman is gonna end up with a million dollars of equity in his house.
This is really truth to the matter. There’s so many of us losing homes because of misinformation and disinformation right now.
So that’s how that magic happens.
The magic happens by knowing that foreclosure is not the end. If you have some type of equity in your property you have options available to you.
Creating Win Win Options for Investors & Homeowners
That is the example of an investment that we do that is a win-win situation with both the homeowner and Brownstone that has yielded a lot of reference and value. Because again, we care about our relationships and our reputation, the reputation leads to new transactions, and we are here to stay. We live in the community. We speak the native languages of these homeowners. You are in Costa Rica or Cuba. That’s fine because we can help you find a house in Brooklyn and the Bronx and tailor it to your desire.
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That’s because a lot of these homes have unused air rights where we can add one floor, two floors to the property. For example, in, Bedford Stuyvesant or in Crown Heights, values have gone up so much that there’s no more land and being able to efficiently capitalize on these air rights is very valuable for the homeowners, but also for the community. We have a few innovative projects that are coming out of, Joint ventures, where we are confident that we’ll be able to, to change people’s lives and create general shuttle wealth for these homeowners that have lived in the committee for over 40 years and don’t want to move. And we believe in being a social impact investor will make a difference.
