Nan immigrated to the US at the age of 10 with his mother. He came to the US during China’s intake of Hong Kong. When he was 14 years old, he wanted to work, but he did not have a work visa. At this time, his mother enrolled him in military school. He worked at his school as a server for $12 per week. During the summer, he worked “under the table”, working 13 hours a day, 6 days per week at a restaurant. This is where Nan understood the value of the dollar, and he knew that he would not exchange his time for money for the rest of his life.
Even though he was top of his class in high school, Nan declined to go to any university to save money. Instead, he opted for city college, with the plan to transfer to a university after two years.
During this period, Nan got a job working in the mortgage/loan industry. He started at the lowest position and did cold-calling. Within a couple of months, he became a loan officer. This is where Nan’s passion for the industry started to grow. But unfortunately, the market crashed.
At this point, Nan had to return to school. He was at his wit’s end and even had to borrow money to pay rent.
Years later, Nan started working as a full-time financial advisor at Keyrose and worked part-time as an independent contractor. He saved all the money he earned and bought his first property in cash for $87k in 2011. He was able to sell that property in 2016 for $225k.
In 2012, Nan founded his own real estate investment firm Kaizen Capital. The idea was to pool funds together from friends to buy property in cash.
Fast forward to 2020, Kaizen Capital now has stakes in a brokerage that has agent services to help buy and sell homes, a property management division to help investors manage their investment and a division to broker residential and commercial loans.
Kaizen Capital have both residential and commercial holdings, all of which are in California. Currently, they are working on their first development, projected completion before 2021.
Nan’s company buys and holds positive cash flow properties, flip multifamily residential and commercial properties by acquiring distressed properties, renovates and remodels them, then places new tenants at market rents which increases NOI and valuation of the property, stabilizes the units, and finally sells to new investors; Kaizen Capital specializes in procuring high return properties for investors.