Access to capital, powerful networks and seasoned mentors often determine who gets to build and who gets sidelined.

In the Season 3 finale of Create the Village, Integral’s Daryl Jones sits down with Brandon Rule, founder of Rule Enterprises, for a candid look at what it really takes to transform an opportunity into a viable deal.

Brandon shares his journey from quitting his banking job at 23 to launching his own firm, a path marked by lean years, hard lessons and generous mentors. Together they dissect the difference between an aspiring, emerging and established developer, talk through the hidden costs of partnerships and guarantor requirements, and explore why technical assistance is just as important as financing. Along the way, Brandon reveals his audacious goal to own a professional sports team, not for the glamour, but to reinvest in the surrounding community and build generational wealth.

What you’ll hear

• Why representation is still so low in real‑estate development and how structural barriers like capital access and networks contribute to a talent drain.

• The importance of mentorship in discerning a viable deal from an enticing but risky “opportunity.”

• A framework for understanding the three stages of a developer’s journey and the kind of support each one needs.

• How guarantor requirements, fee splits and partnership structures can either empower or exploit emerging developers.

• A vision for building generational wealth by investing in communities, including Brandon’s dream of becoming a billionaire and owning a sports team.

About our guest

Brandon Rule is the founder and CEO of Rule Enterprises, a full‑service real‑estate asset and investment management firm that develops mixed‑income, mixed‑use communities. An entrepreneur, speaker and philanthropist, he left his banking job at 23 to pursue community development and uses commercial real estate as a tool to transform urban neighborhoods.

SUBSCRIBE: Create the Village is a podcast with bold conversations about innovation, leadership, and community development in real estate. Visit our official website to listen: https://integral-online.com/create-the-village-podcast/ and subscribe with your favorite podcast app.

America is aging, and fast. In just a few years, millions will enter their 80s, many without the resources or support systems to age with dignity. Yet affordable assisted living remains misunderstood, underfunded, and dangerously overlooked.

In this episode of Create the Village, Daryl Jones (President, Real Estate Acquisitions) sits down with Julie Simpkins, co-CEO of Gardant Management Solutions, one of the largest assisted living providers in the country. Together, they explore why assisted living has been treated as an afterthought in public policy, and why that must change.

• Why the lack of affordable assisted living is a national crisis
• The “missing middle” and the hidden costs of isolation
• How smarter Medicaid policy could save billions, and lives
• The workforce crisis reshaping senior care post-COVID
• What it means to design communities where seniors can truly age in place

About Our Guest:

Julie Simpkins is the co-CEO of Gardant Management Solutions, where she has spent more than three decades advancing senior housing across the country. She is a national leader in affordable assisted living, a frequent voice in policy conversations, and a passionate advocate for dignity, community, and purpose in aging.

Essential workers are the backbone of our communities, yet too many are being priced out of safe, attainable housing near where they work.

Rents have climbed faster than wages for years, creating an unsustainable gap that leaves millions of teachers, nurses, first responders, and other essential workers stuck in the “missing middle.” They earn too much to qualify for subsidies yet not enough to afford market-rate housing. In this episode of Create the Village, guest host Eric Pinckney sits down with Sameer Bhargava to explore how innovative financing can help bridge this divide, strengthen communities, and ensure the people who sustain our cities can continue to call them home.

What you’ll hear:

• Why rents are rising faster than wages and what that means for working families

• How the “missing middle” is reshaping conversations about housing policy

• The role of innovative finance in creating attainable housing solutions

• Why attainable housing is critical to attracting and retaining essential workers

About the Guest Sameer Bhargava is an accomplished executive with deep experience in real estate, capital markets, and corporate strategy. He has held senior leadership roles guiding innovation, risk management, and development enterprises, and previously worked in investment and advisory roles at The Carlyle Group, Bain Capital, Advent International, and McKinsey & Company. Sameer holds a bachelor’s degree in biology with honors from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He serves on the board of StubHub, is chair of the board of The Potomac School, and is a member of the Dean’s Leadership Council at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

SUBSCRIBE: Create the Village is a podcast with bold conversations about innovation, leadership, and community development in real estate. Visit our official website to listen: https://integral-online.com/create-the-village-podcast/ and subscribe with your favorite podcast app.

Community development isn’t just about bricks and mortar.

It’s about people, honoring legacy, addressing structural inequities, and building trust block by block, relationship by relationship. Few places reflect that truth more than Atlanta’s historic Westside.

In this episode of Create the Village, guest host Shannon Judd, President of Integral Property Management, sits down with Rachel Carey, Chief Real Estate Officer at Westside Future Fund. Together they explore how one mission-driven organization is reimagining community development as a vehicle for justice, inclusion, and long-term stewardship. From tackling heirs’ property challenges to pioneering anti-displacement strategies, Westside Future Fund is demonstrating what it means to build with the community, not just in it.

What you’ll hear:

• How Westside Future Fund’s Anti-Displacement Tax Fund is helping legacy homeowners remain rooted in their neighborhoods.

• Why heirs’ property and tangled titles are critical barriers to generational wealth — and how to resolve them.

• The role of partnerships in delivering 1,500 units of deeply affordable housing while fostering mixed-income communities.

• Why community trust, patience, and consistency are the foundations of durable revitalization.

• A blueprint for belonging: development that protects cultural identity and ensures residents have the choice to stay.

About Our Guest: Rachel Carey is the Chief Real Estate Officer at Westside Future Fund, where she leads efforts to revitalize Atlanta’s historic Westside through affordable housing, anti-displacement initiatives, and community stewardship. With more than a decade of experience in real estate and public-private partnerships, she is committed to ensuring that revitalization happens with, not at the expense of, longtime residents.

SUBSCRIBE: Create the Village is a podcast with bold conversations about innovation, leadership, and community development in real estate. Visit our official website to listen: https://integral-online.com/create-the-village-podcast/ and subscribe with your favorite podcast app.

In Atlanta, the racial wealth gap is staggering.

The average white household holds 46 times more wealth than the average Black household. One major reason is homeownership, and who gets to buy a home. If we want cities that are truly inclusive and resilient, bold new approaches are needed to help families build wealth and stay in place. This episode explores one such solution: permanently affordable homeownership that keeps longtime residents rooted in their community even as neighborhoods change.

Host Ade Sanusi sits down with Amanda Rhein, Executive Director of the Atlanta Land Trust, to discuss how the community land trust model is bridging the gap between renting and owning. They explore how taking land out of the speculative market can stabilize neighborhoods and create permanently affordable homes for first-generation homebuyers. You’ll learn how Amanda and her team are making it possible for families who have shaped Atlanta to remain rooted as the city grows, building equity through homeownership without fear of displacement.

What you’ll hear:

• Why homeownership is key to closing Atlanta’s 46:1 racial wealth gap.

• How the community land trust model permanently locks in affordability by placing land in community control.

• How Atlanta Land Trust serves as a stepping stone from renting to owning, so families aren’t displaced by rising housing costs.

• What it takes to scale this model, leveraging public incentives and partnerships to keep housing affordable for generations.

• The real-world impact: families using affordable homeownership to pursue education and build generational wealth.

About Our Guest: Amanda Rhein is the Executive Director of the Atlanta Land Trust, a nonprofit creating permanently affordable housing near the Atlanta BeltLine and throughout the city. A seasoned real estate professional with extensive experience in public-private partnerships and community development, she previously served as Senior Director of Transit-Oriented Development at MARTA, where she helped build transit-connected communities and promote equitable growth. Amanda also spent a decade at Invest Atlanta, focusing on revitalizing the city’s most underserved neighborhoods.

SUBSCRIBE: Create the Village is a podcast with bold conversations about innovation, leadership, and community development in real estate. Visit our official website to listen: https://integral-online.com/create-the-village-podcast/ and subscribe with your favorite podcast app.

Impact investors provide the last dollars to unlock attainable housing.

Many promising housing projects get close to the finish line and then stall because the last dollars aren’t there. This episode looks at a practical fix: bring mission-minded funders and public partners to the table to cover the remaining costs so homes can actually get built.

Host Ade Sanusi, Vice President, Asset & Investment Management, The Integral Group, talks with Marc Pollack, President & Board Chairman, EQ Housing Advisors, about why he started a nonprofit to strengthen the housing ecosystem, how communities can add the missing piece without waste, and simple guardrails that keep results for families front and center. They also dig into when preserving existing homes beats starting from scratch, and how to repeat what works at scale across metro Atlanta and beyond.

What you’ll hear

• Why “almost ready” projects stall—and how to close the remaining costs

• How foundations, donors, and city partners work with builders to move more homes forward

• When preservation delivers faster, more affordable results than new construction

• Straightforward accountability so everyone does their part and communities benefit

About Our Guest Marc Pollack is President & Board Chairman of EQ Housing Advisors and Senior Advisor & Chairman Emeritus of RangeWater Real Estate. With 35+ years in multifamily, he has led the development, acquisition, and disposition of 30,000+ housing units valued at over $4B across the Sunbelt. In 2020 he co-founded the Atlanta Affordable Housing Fund to help create and preserve affordable homes with flexible, low-interest financing. A frequent national speaker and longtime Atlantan, Marc brings a practical, partnership-first approach informed by award-winning mixed-use work, including The Battery Atlanta.

𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗦𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗕𝗘: Create the Village is a podcast with bold conversations about innovation, leadership, and community development in real estate. Visit our official website to listen: https://integral-online.com/create-the-village-podcast/ and subscribe with your favorite podcast app.

Developers don’t just need better plans, they need workflows that line up from plan to permit.

Homebuilding still runs on disconnected files and manual redlines. Design changes don’t reach sales, purchasing, or the field in time, creating RFIs, delays, and budget creep.

Host Jordan Jones, Principal – Integral Carolinas and Marc Minor, Co-Founder & CEO, Higharc, unpack a design-to-build approach that centralizes data and automates plan sets, options, pricing, and documents. One change updates everywhere. The payoff: fewer surprises, cleaner submittals, faster approvals, and projects that pencil, so communities see attainable housing delivered on schedule. CEO of The Integral Group, Egbert Perry, closes with why modernization is a community development strategy, not just a tech upgrade.

About Our Guest Marc Minor is Co-Founder & CEO of Higharc, the homebuilding cloud that connects design, sales, and construction for production builders. Before Higharc, Marc launched Carbon and Desktop Metal out of stealth to unicorn scale, leading their market debuts. He brings manufacturing-grade rigor to residential delivery—standardizing what counts and personalizing where it matters.

𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗦𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗕𝗘: Create the Village is a podcast with bold conversations about innovation, leadership, and community development in real estate. Visit our official website to listen: https://integral-online.com/create-the-village-podcast/ and subscribe with your favorite podcast app.

Lasting change in communities starts with the right connections.

In this week’s Create the Village, Kareem Brantley, Principal - Integral Florida, hosts a powerful conversation with two leaders driving equity and opportunity in real estate: Kenasha Paul, founder and CEO of the Black Professionals Network (BPN), and Chad Musgrove, Sr. Vice President at M&T Bank and President of the Black Real Estate Investment Council (BRIC). Together, they share the vision behind BRIC and how it’s turning relationships into tangible, generational impact.

From Kenasha’s mission to create an ecosystem of legacy builders, to Chad’s commitment to expanding access to capital, this episode dives into:

• Why real estate opportunity requires both the “who” and the “how”
• How BRIC leverages BPN’s infrastructure to accelerate collaboration and deal flow
• The importance of aligned values, intentional mentorship, and strategic partnerships
• How public policy, private capital, and community leadership intersect to create equitable growth

In the closing segment, Egbert Perry, CEO of The Integral Group, reflects on why infrastructure isn’t just about concrete and pipes, it’s about people and networks that create trust and unlock economic mobility. His insights underscore the real foundation for change: relationships that strengthen communities and open doors for the next generation.

ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Kenasha Paul is an attorney, entrepreneur, and community leader dedicated to connecting Black professionals across industries. As founder of BPN, she’s building a nationwide network designed to ensure the next generation has both access and opportunity.

Chad Musgrove is Sr. Vice President at M&T Bank with expertise in multifamily lending and a passion for creating pathways for underrepresented developers. He is the President of BRIC and is passionate about BRIC’s mission to unite people, capital, and community impact.

𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗦𝗖𝗥𝗜𝗕𝗘: Create the Village is a podcast with bold conversations about innovation, leadership, and community development in real estate. Visit our official website to listen: https://integral-online.com/create-the-village-podcast/ and subscribe with your favorite podcast app.