About Shafiq Hirani

Apartment owners hire me to raise net operating income (NOI), cut wasted expenses, and position a building for a stronger refinance or sale.

I am a commercial real estate broker and advisor with RE/MAX Distinctive Commercial, focused on DC multifamily. I hold a real estate broker license in Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland. My clients own apartment buildings of 4 to 50 units, both individuals and LLCs. I have spent more than 35 years in real estate. See how Isell and buy DC apartment buildings of 4 to 50 units.

Insula, the Roman apartment block. Reditus, its return. Exitus, the owner's exit. I navigate owners from one to the next.

What changed for building owners

For years a rising market masked weak operating performance and rewarded set-and-forget ownership: buy the building, collect the rent, and let appreciation carry the value. Higher interest rates ended that. A lender or a buyer today prices a building on the NOI it actually produces.

The market will no longer carry an underperforming building. The owner has to improve it, deliberately and on a schedule. That is the work I do.

How I work

Before I recommend anything, I read your business plan, your goals for the property, and your financials. Those three inputs decide whether the right move is a rent strategy, an expense review, a refinance, or a sale.

An advisor who recommends a listing before reading your operating statements is guessing with your equity.

I apply this same process to every property I advise on, whether the building needs real repair or is already stable and looking for more upside. Smaller corrections to income and expenses compound into a higher NOI and a higher valuation.

Also an owner

I advise apartment owners on NOI, refinance, and exit planning. I have also been an owner myself, and still am.

I currently own a mixed-use building in Dupont Circle, Washington DC. Across my career, I have developed more than 20 mixed-use projects and owned more than $220 million in commercial real estate throughout North America.

That ownership shapes how I read your numbers. I am not reading your operating statement as an outsider.

What I trained in

I hold the CCIM designation, an MBA, and a Professional Engineer license. The engineering training shapes how I read a building: its systems, its condition, and its true operating cost alongside the rent roll. The MBA and the CCIM training drive how I underwrite the numbers.

Before your next lender conversation

If your loan matures inside two years, start the expense work this month rather than at application. The numbers you book now set your refinance value.

Pull the trailing twelve months of operating statements. Mark every expense line you have not renegotiated in that period. That marked list is your NOI recovery plan. Work it while the numbers can still change.

Request a building audit below. Bring the marked list.