RAMZI BORDEAUX

About Ramzi Bordeaux

Samuel Ramzi Boutros, born in Orlando, FL on November 29, 1984 to Odette Boutros and Ramzi Attia Boutros. Samuel is the youngest of 4 children fathered by Ramzi with 23 years between him and his youngest sibling and 33 years between him and his oldest.Samuel is the first generation in his family to be born in the United States. Ramzi and Odette, were born and raised in Egypt and moved to the US in 1981. Ramzi was the oldest of 9 children in a lower than poverty level environment. He eventually was tasked with being the patriarch of the family at the age of 22 when his father died. Ramzi moved Samuel to St. Petersburg in 1988 after Samuel’s mother, Odette, died at the age of 37 when Samuel was 15 months and 9 days old. Ramzi was 55 years old when he fathered Samuel and at that time had been advised by many doctors that due to his bad heart condition, he would likely live another 10 years at the very best. Ramzi went on to live 25 more years. Ramzi, having to start over once he moved to the US, ultimately landed himself in the real estate business as an investor. He focused a great deal of his time with Samuel preaching good work ethic and proper etiquette and both self respect and respect of others. He also emphasized the importance of education. Samuel graduated from Canterbury School of Florida in 2003 and went on to graduate from the University of South Florida in May of 2007 with a Bachelors in international marketing and minor in Psychology. He then went on to graduate from Florida Coastal School of Law in May of 2010, which was the same month Samuel’s father passed away and Samuel was left to figure out how to fend for himself. This “silver spoon to rags to riches” story is one that should inspire anyone lacking direction as Samuel is known for saying “you never know what you can do till you believe you have no choice. Boutros ultimately landed a position at Rahdert, Steele (now known as Rahdert & Mortimer), which is a law firm owned by George Rahdert, who was loosely depicted by Denzel Washington in the movie Philadelphia because he had won two cases in front of the supreme court at the early stages of his career. Rahdert saw Boutros as someone that could help breathe life into not only his law practice but his real estate business that had both suffered due to the recession caused by the banking industry. It was at his time working for George, Boutros saw an opportunity created by the very financial iunstitutions that had caused the recession that could not only create income and equity for himself without expending money, that at that time Boutros didn’t have, but could also help the banks and borrowers as they worked through their financial woes. The strategy was, to Boutros, simple as long as everyone was on board, benefited, and were fully informed. The FDIC, having given out all of that bail out money, placed deadlines on each bank they helped to correct different non-performing loans, etc. or they would be shut down. Boutros, having been involved with the firm’s foreclosure defense and title/closings focused on the smaller banks as they didn’t have the same ability to sweep these problem loans “under a rug”. For example, Boutros would approach Bank A and knowing that they were told by the FDIC to correct at least 20 of their 100 non-preforming single family home loans; he would find a borrower and contract for as little as 10% of what the borrower owed and present to the bank the following terms: 1) the bank would lend Boutros 100%; and 2) 5 year amortization instead of 15, 20, or 30. Bank A would benefit from correcting the non performing loan, substituting the creditor out that has bad credit with someone (Boutros) who had clean credit; and Boutros would be able to pay back the money quickly and as promised because of the low purchase price/debt service vs. the ability to rent out the properties at less than market rates to ensure they stay rented. This strategy proved to be successful and caught the attention of Rahdert, who was facing financial woes himself due to being heavily invested in real estate and heavy debt structure. Boutros, ultimately helped solve a great deal of Rahdert’s issues and purchased 6 properties from Rahdert (5 in one day) and went from employee to working for himself over night. Boutros’ claim to fame is the 47,600 square foot Historic Kress Building located at 475 Central Ave in downtown, Saint Petersburg, Florida, which Boutros purchased from Rahdert on June 2, 2011. The building was only 20% occupied when Boutros purchased it. A lot of time and effort by Boutros was put into breathing new life into the, now, thriving landmark. Since then, Boutros has gone on to become an advocate for equal rights and has volunteered a great deal of his time to tutoring under privileged inner city youth. He believes in giving back and helping children to the extent that he adopted two brothers (aged 8 and 7) when on a mission trip to Honduras and Nicaragua and paid their way to attend a boarding school run by a church missionary located in Honduras all the way through graduation of high school. Now, Boutros proudly sponsors at least two children a year to benefit in the same way the two he adopted did. Even with all of the accolades Boutros has under his belt, he is adamant that his greatest achievements and biggest blessing and honor is to be a dad. With two daughters and one son, all aged 6 and under, Boutros believes his greatest work is yet to come.
www.samuelramziboutros.com