I am a real estate specialist, REALTOR® with eXp Realty, tech entrepreneur, programmer, and martial artist. Avid traveller, snowboarder, runner and climber. I come from a Lebanese & Singaporean background, born in Edmonton and raised in the Pacific Northwest.
Real Estate
I studied Urban Land Economics and the Bachelor of Business in Real Estate at the University of British Columbia, prior to working in residential real estate appraisal covering $1.6 billion in volume throughout Greater Vancouver. Before that, I forayed into fix ‘n flips, land acquisition, and construction finishing. I’m currently a licensed REALTOR® with eXp Realty—the fastest-growing residential real estate brokerage in history.
Continuing Education:
- Accredited Real Estate Negotiator
- RENI Certified Negotiation Expert
- REBGV Contract Wrap-up
- REBGV Mortgage Market Update
- REBGV Understanding the June 1 FINTRAC Changes
- REBGV Strata Issues with Tony Gioventu: Restrictive Bylaws
- REBGV Winning at Multiple Offers
- REBGV Representing Buyers in the Sale of New Homes and Condominiums
- REBGV Navigating the Pre-Sale & New Home Sale Purchase
- REBGV Foreclosures and Court-Ordered Sales
Tech Startups
I am happiest when pursuing Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) with smart, driven people that share a common vision. The genesis of my life’s work was a concept I prototyped and built at the Vancouver accelerator Launch Academy, where I formed the team and company.
Resider Inc. was federally incorporated in February 2013—the name originated from the desire to put the power of information into the homebuyer’s hands. It was a modern real estate search engine designed to remedy information asymmetry and provide transparency to the Canadian market.
Programming
After reading the Millionaire Fastlane, my curiosity led me to learn everything about web business. If you are in real estate long enough, you typically find your way into tech, as there is a slew of pain points across all facets. It was the right entry point to begin a journey of using technology to solve real-world problems. Building consumer-facing websites is one of the greatest joys—to make an impact by providing value at scale.
Self-taught in programming starting with humble roots in PHP, to finding programmer happiness with Rails, modern front-end with React, spatially-enabled databases like Postgres, and Python for machine learning. There is a lot of uncertainty in business, but the knowledge and relationships that persist, and what you become in the process, are what I consider most important.
I keep a repository of my notes in a handbook on GitHub.
Writing
Writing has been a constant throughout all of my endeavours. I have worked with writers through outsourcing, wrote copy for digital marketing, and guest posted on urbanism and proptech publications. I write on this blog to document breakthroughs, learnings, experiments and travels, that would benefit others through evergreen content—as a way to pay it forward. An outlet to showcase and promote urbanism, real estate, proptech, photography, and open-source software.
Martial Arts
I began my martial arts journey in the traditional forms of Tae Kwon Do and Karate during my childhood. While not considered the most effective form of combat, it instilled discipline, respect, confidence, and integrity. I went on to earn a black belt in Jeet Kune Do street self-defence in Bermuda, when my love for the arts really took hold—combining the different styles of wing-chun kung fu, western boxing, and grappling. After I moved back to BC, I trained in pankration, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, and kickboxing—competing in grappling and no-holds-barred tournaments in the bantamweight division.
