The Real Estate Kid

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Jamal Haddad has a simple desire: to move out of his dingy basement apartment and up into a sunny unit on the 16th floor. Yet this 16-year-old boy and his drunk father can’t come close to affording the rent for this vacant flat on the little they earn as supers of the building. He already is working harder than most adults; attending school, running his own part-time painting business and taking care of most of the repairs in the 186 unit New York City structure. His father, Ameer, once a highly respected doctor in Palestine, lost himself to drink a decade ago to numb the pain of a horrible tragedy in his life. 

Changing apartments seems an impossible dream until Jamal suddenly learns a secret about the landlord. In the course of trying to help the man, Jamal’s ambitions grow until he not only wants to become rich enough to buy the building, vanquish all foes but also eliminate homelessness as well. How can a mere boy get 90 million dollars to buy a piece of New York City? How can he fend off the mob and solve a housing problem that adults and governments can’t seem to fix? 

In this adventurous quest, Jamal confronts one overwhelming crisis after another as he deals with financiers, criminals, law enforcement and above all his own doubts and fears.  Entering the adult world of high stakes finance, he also gains a different kind of riches through changing relationships with his father, his girlfriend, Sara, and with a pack of talented and ambitious kids like himself who are out to change the world. Only through his own ingenuity and grit and the formation of a group of kid entrepreneurs called The Enterprise Gang does he stand any chance of succeeding.