[object Object]

← back to Rentv Ad Engine

initial scaffold: RENTV ad engine — harvest + extract pipeline + viewer

017da308b42261638786c796b290abcf65db44c0 · 2026-08-07 08:49:36 -0700 · Steve Abrams

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

Files touched

Diff

commit 017da308b42261638786c796b290abcf65db44c0
Author: Steve Abrams <steve@designerwallcoverings.com>
Date:   Fri Aug 7 08:49:36 2026 -0700

    initial scaffold: RENTV ad engine — harvest + extract pipeline + viewer
    
    Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
---
 .deploy.conf                     |  11 +
 .gitignore                       |   9 +
 README.md                        |  44 ++
 data/advertisers.json            |  88 ++++
 data/extractions/1012976399.json |  56 +++
 data/extractions/1039101858.json |  41 ++
 data/extractions/1056513923.json |  56 +++
 data/extractions/1059913595.json |  55 +++
 data/extractions/1079649123.json |  55 +++
 data/extractions/1083187666.json |  26 +
 data/extractions/1083187746.json |  25 +
 data/extractions/1083187814.json |  27 ++
 data/extractions/1083188249.json |  27 ++
 data/extractions/1106281388.json |  55 +++
 data/extractions/1115700624.json |  54 +++
 data/extractions/1138312637.json |  56 +++
 data/extractions/1178561985.json |  67 +++
 data/extractions/1199114985.json |  67 +++
 data/extractions/1200839794.json |  69 +++
 data/extractions/862593366.json  | 126 +++++
 data/extractions/865035925.json  |  84 ++++
 data/extractions/868849453.json  |  57 +++
 data/extractions/886025667.json  |  47 ++
 data/extractions/906276616.json  |  55 +++
 data/extractions/911412212.json  |  56 +++
 data/extractions/931863337.json  |  56 +++
 data/extractions/953281926.json  |  38 ++
 data/extractions/978657040.json  |  75 +++
 data/extractions/989909369.json  |  86 ++++
 data/guests.json                 |  27 ++
 data/manifest.json               | 993 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 data/transcripts/1012976399.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/101654810.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/1039101858.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1056513923.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1059913595.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/107204372.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/107762220.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/1079649123.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1083187666.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1083187746.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1083187814.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1083188249.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1083190047.txt  |   0
 data/transcripts/109994315.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/1106281388.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1115700624.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1138312637.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1158999653.txt  |   0
 data/transcripts/1178561985.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/117977696.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/1199114985.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/1200839794.txt  |   1 +
 data/transcripts/125349744.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/135939853.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142347178.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142347291.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142347515.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142348009.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142348532.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142348827.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142350083.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142351726.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/142353259.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/143827823.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/144943180.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/149786738.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/157877482.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/157877500.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/157877501.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/157877502.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/157877503.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/157877504.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162573796.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162573927.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162574294.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162574320.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162574338.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162574358.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162712456.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162712493.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/162712517.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/167990145.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/167990176.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/167990218.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/167990238.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/167990250.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/167990282.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/171347069.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/172014042.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/172014125.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/172014837.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/188261706.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/188271441.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/208460446.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/227217030.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/227224358.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/228295912.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/232088787.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/242491490.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/308597317.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/31239971.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/315327378.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/316709134.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/32191299.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/33583429.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/35868287.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/38894517.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/39610422.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/42140576.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/429079440.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/434219208.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/44468806.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/46769758.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/48347303.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/493420423.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/503234116.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/50591120.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/507211620.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/52820750.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/55380262.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/565693580.txt   |   0
 data/transcripts/56573116.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/65258106.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/69208165.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/71974003.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/721184140.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/739081927.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/763442741.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/763447786.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/77077219.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/771348410.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/795355693.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/811518445.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/812981342.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/812982818.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/82824854.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/830276773.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/830279080.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/831673533.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/85237519.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/852462696.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/862593366.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/865035925.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/868849453.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/886025667.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/906276616.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/90807750.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/911412212.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/931863337.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/95064851.txt    |   0
 data/transcripts/953281926.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/978657040.txt   |   1 +
 data/transcripts/989909369.txt   |   1 +
 package.json                     |  14 +
 public/index.html                | 291 ++++++++++++
 scripts/extract.py               | 224 +++++++++
 scripts/harvest-transcripts.py   | 119 +++++
 server.js                        |  65 +++
 159 files changed, 3339 insertions(+)

diff --git a/.deploy.conf b/.deploy.conf
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a5569e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.deploy.conf
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+PROJECT_NAME=rentv-ad-engine
+DEPLOY_HOST=45.61.58.125
+DEPLOY_PATH=/root/public-projects/rentv-ad-engine
+HEALTH_URL=http://localhost:9789/api/health
+INSTALL_CMD=""
+BUILD_CMD=""
+# Zero-dependency Node server — no npm install needed.
+# Data files (advertisers.json/guests.json/manifest.json/transcripts) are produced by the
+# LOCAL pipeline (harvest + extract). Deploy is Steve-gated; if wired into rentv later,
+# coordinate with claude-rentv (owns the live rentv app) before any rentv file edits.
+RSYNC_EXTRA_EXCLUDES="data/transcripts"
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee324dd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+node_modules/
+.env*
+tmp/
+*.log
+.DS_Store
+dist/
+build/
+.next/
+data/transcripts/*.vtt
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3305867
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+# RENTV Ad Engine
+
+A searchable directory of **every advertiser/sponsor** and **every guest** across
+RENTV's Vimeo video library (`vimeo.com/user9059207`), harvested from Vimeo's free
+auto-caption transcripts. Local-only, **$0** — no paid APIs.
+
+Born from TK-10343. DTD verdict (5/5): standalone project, reads
+`~/Projects/rentv/data/vimeo-library.json` **READ-ONLY** as the single source of the
+video list (no drift). Designed to mount into `rentv.agentabrams.com/advertisers`
+later with Steve's approval.
+
+## Pipeline
+
+| Node | Script | What it does | Cost |
+|------|--------|--------------|------|
+| A — Harvest | `scripts/harvest-transcripts.py` | Fetches each video's auto-caption VTT via the Vimeo viewer-JWT; writes `data/transcripts/<id>.txt` + `data/manifest.json` | $0 |
+| B+C — Extract | `scripts/extract.py` | Local Ollama (qwen2.5, JSON mode) + regex backstop → advertisers (name/website/phone/category/pitch/episodes) and guests (name/title/company/location/topics/quotes) | $0 |
+| D — Ad-card OCR | *(Phase 2)* | ffmpeg intro/outro frames → tesseract/qwen2.5vl for on-screen logos + mailing addresses not spoken aloud | $0 |
+| E — Viewer | `server.js` + `public/index.html` | Zero-dep Node server; searchable/sortable advertiser + guest directory, Basic-Auth gated | $0 |
+
+## Run
+
+```bash
+python3 scripts/harvest-transcripts.py   # refresh transcripts (re-run when new episodes drop)
+python3 scripts/extract.py               # rebuild advertisers.json + guests.json (incremental cache)
+node server.js                           # serve at http://localhost:9789  (admin / DW2024!)
+```
+
+Env: `OLLAMA_MODEL` (default `qwen2.5:latest`), `OLLAMA_URL`, `PORT` (9789), `BASIC_AUTH`.
+
+## Coverage note
+
+Vimeo auto-captions the 22 long "CRE Talk" interview episodes richly (55–75k chars each).
+Conference panels and short clips often have thin/no auto-captions — those yield little,
+by design of Vimeo's captioner, not a bug here. `data/manifest.json` records per-video
+`caption_chars` + `has_captions`; the Coverage tab surfaces exactly what was transcribed.
+
+## Data files (git-tracked, regenerable)
+
+- `data/manifest.json` — per-video transcript coverage
+- `data/advertisers.json` — the deduped advertiser registry (the engine's payload)
+- `data/guests.json` — per-episode guest records
+- `data/extractions/<id>.json` — per-video raw extraction cache (incremental)
+- `data/transcripts/<id>.txt` — plain-text transcripts (`.vtt` raw is gitignored)
diff --git a/data/advertisers.json b/data/advertisers.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5eeb8fb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/advertisers.json
@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+{
+ "generated_at": "2026-08-07 08:46:08",
+ "count": 4,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "aliases": [],
+   "category": "developer|investor",
+   "websites": [],
+   "phones": [],
+   "contacts": [
+    "David Parker, Head of Chase Partners"
+   ],
+   "pitch": "Leading investor and developer of industrial properties in Southern California for over 30 years, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties.",
+   "appearances": 1,
+   "episodes": [
+    {
+     "id": 1200839794,
+     "title": "CRE Talk Episode #22 with Bill Shopoff",
+     "url": "https://vimeo.com/1200839794"
+    }
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "aliases": [],
+   "category": "lender",
+   "websites": [],
+   "phones": [
+    "800-752-9533"
+   ],
+   "contacts": [
+    "Uncle Chuck or John McLean"
+   ],
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, known for unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates.",
+   "appearances": 1,
+   "episodes": [
+    {
+     "id": 1200839794,
+     "title": "CRE Talk Episode #22 with Bill Shopoff",
+     "url": "https://vimeo.com/1200839794"
+    }
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Provident Savings Bank",
+   "aliases": [],
+   "category": "lender",
+   "websites": [
+    "myprovident.com"
+   ],
+   "phones": [
+    "951-403-0567"
+   ],
+   "contacts": [
+    "Gina Conant, Vice President and Sales Manager of Commercial Real Estate Lending"
+   ],
+   "pitch": "A California-focused portfolio lender with a legacy dating back to 1956, providing financing for properties ranging from light industrial to multifamily.",
+   "appearances": 1,
+   "episodes": [
+    {
+     "id": 1200839794,
+     "title": "CRE Talk Episode #22 with Bill Shopoff",
+     "url": "https://vimeo.com/1200839794"
+    }
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Rockefeller Group",
+   "aliases": [],
+   "category": "developer",
+   "websites": [
+    "rockefellergroup.com"
+   ],
+   "phones": [],
+   "contacts": [],
+   "pitch": "Delivers exceptional experiences and value creation through dedication to quality in the built environment, developing, owning, and operating properties.",
+   "appearances": 1,
+   "episodes": [
+    {
+     "id": 1200839794,
+     "title": "CRE Talk Episode #22 with Bill Shopoff",
+     "url": "https://vimeo.com/1200839794"
+    }
+   ]
+  }
+ ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1012976399.json b/data/extractions/1012976399.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a7cdf0a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1012976399.json
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+{
+ "id": 1012976399,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #12 - Kaitlin Arduino",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1012976399",
+ "duration": 3050,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "commercial real estate inspectors",
+   "category": "other",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "818-957-4654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive simple solutions."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807-529-533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McClain",
+   "pitch": "Specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "paramount Property Tax Appeal",
+   "category": "other",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "(858) 758-9515",
+   "contact_person": "Wes Nichols",
+   "pitch": "Helping to lower property taxes, even if you have great income, with the deadline to file in November."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Kaitlin Arden Murphy",
+   "title": "President",
+   "company": "Murphy Development",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "History and development of Murphy Development in Otay Mesa, San Diego",
+    "Industrial property developments and sales strategies",
+    "Market trends and opportunities in commercial real estate"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "The company was started by my dad, Mike Murphy, as one of the pioneers in the Otai Mesa area.",
+    "We changed the lot lines. We maximized the residential, we sold that to Coal Rich, and then we also reserved those to, um, the site next door, 12 acres for two more industrial buildings.",
+    "The market was escalating like crazy, and it was really neat to be a part of."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "tv.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": [
+  "8587589515"
+ ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1039101858.json b/data/extractions/1039101858.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..599bf84
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1039101858.json
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+{
+ "id": 1039101858,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #13 - Ethan Penner",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1039101858",
+ "duration": 4613,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "First",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Not explicitly stated, but likely a lender offering financial services."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Ethan Penner",
+   "title": "CEO",
+   "company": "Mosaic real estate investors",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Creation and evolution of the CMBS market",
+    "Investment strategies in a highly competitive industry",
+    "Impact of interest rate changes on real estate investment"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "Too many people in their careers are, are doing something that is akin to bringing sand to the beach. And the beach has plenty of sand and doesn't need any more sand.",
+    "The big story has been the extreme reduction in interest rates. If you go to like that 40 year period, a guy like Warren Buffett became wildly rich.",
+    "What he did was get long duration and hold on for 40 years."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "chasepartners.com",
+  "intersection.com",
+  "intersections.com",
+  "tv.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1056513923.json b/data/extractions/1056513923.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..572564b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1056513923.json
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+{
+ "id": 1056513923,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #14 - John McNellis",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1056513923",
+ "duration": 3012,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807 529533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McClain",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial Real Estate Inspectors",
+   "category": "inspector",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Skilled inspectors providing critical, easily understood information and inexpensive solutions for commercial real estate inspections."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer|investor",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "david@chasepartners.com",
+   "contact_person": "David Parker",
+   "pitch": "A leading investor and developer of industrial properties focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties with non-performing debt."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "John McNellis",
+   "title": "Head of Mcne Partners",
+   "company": "Mcne Partners",
+   "location": "Northern California",
+   "topics": [
+    "Management of shopping centers in Northern California",
+    "Rental trends and sales performance",
+    "Mixed-use property portfolio in Palo Alto",
+    "Adapting to market changes"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We're keeping rents flat.",
+    "You gotta be ahead of the curve.",
+    "Until the urban retail needs a daytime population, so I took Lululemon out and replaced it with a tenant who hasn't got his final permit yet, cutting the rent by 30%."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "chasepartners.com",
+  "tv.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1059913595.json b/data/extractions/1059913595.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8bf9bee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1059913595.json
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+{
+ "id": 1059913595,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #15 - Marc Brutten",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1059913595",
+ "duration": 4111,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer|broker",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "David@chasepartners.com",
+   "contact_person": "David Parker",
+   "pitch": "A leading investor and developer of industrial properties in Southern California, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties with non-performing debt."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807 529533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McLean",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial Real Estate Inspectors",
+   "category": "other|service",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Skilled inspectors providing critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive, simple solutions for commercial real estate."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Mark Brutten",
+   "title": "CEO of Bruton Global",
+   "company": "Bruton Global, Brixton Capital, Westco Capital",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Overview of Bruton Global and its portfolio companies (Brixton Capital, Westco Capital)",
+    "Launch of Broughton Private Access",
+    "Decision-making process for exiting investments",
+    "Tax efficiency strategies"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "I started in 1979 and, uh, started in San Diego.",
+    "Those folks, um, invest side by side with us, and we'll put up a, um, you know, a portion of the equity, and then they'll put up the balance of the equity, and we will do, um, end up doing a series series of transactions with those folks and hold the assets from five to 10 years, really depending on the business plan for the asset.",
+    "If it's, if it's, uh, I'll call it a light duty business plan with just some, uh, light renovation, possibly, uh, facade work, you know, that that asset may only be held for three or four years."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "chasepartners.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1079649123.json b/data/extractions/1079649123.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e7a380f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1079649123.json
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+{
+ "id": 1079649123,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #16 - Alex Zikakis",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1079649123",
+ "duration": 3750,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial Real Estate Inspectors",
+   "category": "other",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive and simple solutions whenever possible."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807529533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McClain",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rate."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer|investor",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "David Parker",
+   "pitch": "A leading investor and developer of industrial properties throughout Southern California, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties with non-performing debt."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Alex Zikakis",
+   "title": "President",
+   "company": "Capstone Advisors",
+   "location": "Carlsbad, California",
+   "topics": [
+    "Overview of Capstone Advisors and its portfolio",
+    "Recent acquisitions in shopping centers, industrial buildings, and office properties",
+    "Investment strategy and market focus"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "The company is 28 years old. Um, it's based in Carlsbad, California.",
+    "Last year we bought four deals. Um, and, um, three were value add. Um, and one was classic core plus, uh, a highly, highly performing grocery anchored center in Salt Lake.",
+    "It was a property that was going vacant. It, uh, had a lot of great attributes and it was completely mispriced."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "chasepartners.com",
+  "tv.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1083187666.json b/data/extractions/1083187666.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3e4c71a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1083187666.json
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+{
+ "id": 1083187666,
+ "title": "1000015101",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083187666",
+ "duration": 23,
+ "advertisers": [],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "John Doe",
+   "title": "State Senator",
+   "company": "California State Senate",
+   "location": "Sacramento, California",
+   "topics": [
+    "Business Friendliness",
+    "Government Regulations",
+    "Economic Development"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "I'm literally gonna try to go from 50th to first in one year.",
+    "Get government restrictions, bring common sense into the whole dialogue."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1083187746.json b/data/extractions/1083187746.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..da7d00c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1083187746.json
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+{
+ "id": 1083187746,
+ "title": "1000015116",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083187746",
+ "duration": 19,
+ "advertisers": [],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "John Doe",
+   "title": "Chief Development Officer",
+   "company": "Greenfield Developments",
+   "location": "Los Angeles, CA",
+   "topics": [
+    "Land entitlements and development progress",
+    "Market conditions and challenges"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We've entitled more square footage than any developer by far.",
+    "The last 45 days has been a lot of pencils down."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1083187814.json b/data/extractions/1083187814.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..04e6bb6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1083187814.json
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+{
+ "id": 1083187814,
+ "title": "1000015119",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083187814",
+ "duration": 116,
+ "advertisers": [],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "John Doe",
+   "title": "Chief Economist",
+   "company": "Rockefeller Group",
+   "location": "New York City, NY",
+   "topics": [
+    "Supply chain disruptions due to reduced cargo traffic from China",
+    "Impact on consumer spending and GDP",
+    "Real estate market trends in Southern California"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "You can't make decisions, you can't make capital expenditures, expansion plans when you don't have a clear picture of what's going on.",
+    "40% of the world's cargo traffic is coming into ports like Long Beach, with 45% from China, and those boats aren't showing up.",
+    "The brokers are talking about how quiet it's getting, the homes are not ringing, the email traffic is slowing."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1083188249.json b/data/extractions/1083188249.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..170bf9e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1083188249.json
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+{
+ "id": 1083188249,
+ "title": "1000015093",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083188249",
+ "duration": 26,
+ "advertisers": [],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "John Doe",
+   "title": "Founder and CEO",
+   "company": "DiveTech Innovations",
+   "location": "San Francisco Bay Area",
+   "topics": [
+    "Visionary Leadership",
+    "Real Estate Technology",
+    "Start-up Challenges"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "'I believed at the age of 31 that why not? I'll do it.'",
+    "'If this was possible, why hasn't it already been done?'",
+    "'Along the way people would say, well, if this was possible, why hasn't it already been done?'"
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1106281388.json b/data/extractions/1106281388.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fbb15d9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1106281388.json
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+{
+ "id": 1106281388,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #17 Chris Rising",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1106281388",
+ "duration": 4122,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer|investor",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "David Parker at David@chasepartners.com",
+   "pitch": "A longtime supporter of Rent TV, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties with non-performing debt."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807 529533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McLean",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Southern California focused commercial real estate inspectors",
+   "category": "property mgmt|inspection services",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Skilled inspectors providing critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive solutions to protect your deal."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Christopher Rising",
+   "title": "Co-founder, CEO",
+   "company": "Rising Realty Partners",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Company background and evolution",
+    "Deal sourcing strategies",
+    "IRR focus in deal evaluation",
+    "Cash flow prioritization"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "It's an evolving company. It, uh, didn't, we've been in business now for, uh, 12, going on 13 years.",
+    "Going to one of Those gray areas, I don't think you ever, I don't think, you know, and The seller doesn't know either. Probably.",
+    "This thing can't spit off. We're not in the, we're not, we're not building ground up. We're not taking that kind of risk."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "chasepartners.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1115700624.json b/data/extractions/1115700624.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..33545d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1115700624.json
@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+{
+ "id": 1115700624,
+ "title": "CRE Talk  Episode #18 Terry Tallen",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1115700624",
+ "duration": 3804,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California",
+   "category": "inspection service",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information and inexpensive solutions to protect your deal."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807529533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck, SA is known or John McLean",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer|investor",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "David Parker",
+   "pitch": "Focused on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties with non-performing debt. Offers fast decisions and closes for property owners, lenders, or brokers."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Terrence Tallen",
+   "title": "Head of Talen Capital Group",
+   "company": "Talen Capital Group",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Real Estate Investment Strategies",
+    "Exit Strategies for Institutional Deals",
+    "Leasing and Property Renovation"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We bought it in the mid thirties, uh, and, uh, you know, in, uh, 2012.",
+    "And during the process, we, we asked our leasing broker who was, uh, Carol Ian, who's a very, very good broker, actually, outstanding leasing broker.",
+    "So it was a regular retail store. It was, uh, business to business store, and then their back, you know, re backroom regional offices."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "chasepartners.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1138312637.json b/data/extractions/1138312637.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0b248c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1138312637.json
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+{
+ "id": 1138312637,
+ "title": "CRE Talk Episode #19 - Chris Tourtellotte",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1138312637",
+ "duration": 3700,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer",
+   "website": "www.chasepartners.com",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "Dave Parker, David@chasepartners.com",
+   "pitch": "A leading developer and investor of industrial properties in Southern California for 30 years, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807529533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McClain",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast fundings, no prepayment penalty and fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial Real Estate Inspectors",
+   "category": "inspection service",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Skilled inspectors providing critically needed inspection information, easily understood terms, and simple solutions for commercial real estate."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Chris Tolo",
+   "title": "Managing Director",
+   "company": "LA Development",
+   "location": "Marina del Rey, Los Angeles",
+   "topics": [
+    "Overview of LA and other business involvement",
+    "Portfolio size and sectors",
+    "Institutional vs. high net worth investors",
+    "Exit strategies for deals"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We're based in Marina del Rey, uh, Los Angeles.",
+    "And we're actually starting to think more about doing that, Uhhuh.",
+    "You could have a, a, let's say you have a institutional LP and, um, the fund managers in New York, right?"
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "chasepartners.com",
+  "partners.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1178561985.json b/data/extractions/1178561985.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b512ea3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1178561985.json
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+{
+ "id": 1178561985,
+ "title": "CRE Talk Episode #20 with Colton Sudberry",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1178561985",
+ "duration": 3470,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Rockefeller Group",
+   "category": "developer",
+   "website": "rockefellergroup.com",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Develops, owns, and operates extraordinary properties in the built environment."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Provident Savings Bank",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "myprovident.com",
+   "phone": "951-403-0567",
+   "contact_person": "Gina Conant, Vice President and Sales Manager",
+   "pitch": "A California-focused portfolio lender with a legacy dating back to 1956."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer|investor",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "david@chasepartners.com",
+   "contact_person": "David Parker, head of Chase",
+   "pitch": "A leading investor and developer of industrial properties in Southern California."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "800-752-9533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McLean",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms and fast funding."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Colton Sudberry",
+   "title": "President & CEO of Sudberry Development Company",
+   "company": "Sudberry Development Company",
+   "location": "San Diego County, California",
+   "topics": [
+    "Community development in San Diego County",
+    "Mixed-use projects and future developments",
+    "Office building strategies"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "The Sudberry name has meant more to its community and region than any other.",
+    "We're currently focusing on mixed-use projects that include retail, residential, and office spaces.",
+    "With the changing conditions, we might not pursue significant office development in this phase."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "chasepartners.com",
+  "myprovident.com",
+  "rockefellergroup.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": [
+  "8007529533",
+  "9514030567"
+ ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1199114985.json b/data/extractions/1199114985.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f775ef3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1199114985.json
@@ -0,0 +1,67 @@
+{
+ "id": 1199114985,
+ "title": "CRE Talk Episode #21 with Daniel Weiss",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1199114985",
+ "duration": 4051,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Rockefeller Group",
+   "category": "developer",
+   "website": "rockefellergroup.com",
+   "pitch": "Develops, owns, and operates extraordinary properties."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Provident Savings Bank",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "myprovident.com",
+   "phone": "951-403-0567",
+   "contact_person": "Gina Conant, Sales Manager",
+   "pitch": "A trusted resource for brokers and investors seeking financing for property types ranging from light industrial to multi-family."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer|investor",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Leading investor and developer of industrial properties in Southern California, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties, other distressed assets, or properties with non-performing debt."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "800-752-9533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McLean",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Daniel Weiss",
+   "title": "President",
+   "company": "Strauss Investments",
+   "location": "San Diego County",
+   "topics": [
+    "Office property investments",
+    "Complex real estate transactions",
+    "Maximizing sale proceeds"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We've been actively buying office properties lately.",
+    "Explaining that there's this easement in perpetuity on the roof that you don't really own was a challenge.",
+    "By employing that strategy, we were able to maximize our sale proceeds."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "allstargroup.com",
+  "allstargroupevents.com",
+  "chasepartners.com",
+  "myprovident.com",
+  "rockefellergroup.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": [
+  "8007529533",
+  "9514030567"
+ ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/1200839794.json b/data/extractions/1200839794.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7de1a1c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/1200839794.json
@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+{
+ "id": 1200839794,
+ "title": "CRE Talk Episode #22 with Bill Shopoff",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/1200839794",
+ "duration": 3979,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Rockefeller Group",
+   "category": "developer",
+   "website": "rockefellergroup.com",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Delivers exceptional experiences and value creation through dedication to quality in the built environment, developing, owning, and operating properties."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Provident Savings Bank",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "myprovident.com",
+   "phone": "951-403-0567",
+   "contact_person": "Gina Conant, Vice President and Sales Manager of Commercial Real Estate Lending",
+   "pitch": "A California-focused portfolio lender with a legacy dating back to 1956, providing financing for properties ranging from light industrial to multifamily."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Chase Partners",
+   "category": "developer|investor",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "David Parker, Head of Chase Partners",
+   "pitch": "Leading investor and developer of industrial properties in Southern California for over 30 years, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "800-752-9533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McLean",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, known for unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Bill Shopoff",
+   "title": "CEO",
+   "company": "Shopoff Realty Investments",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "New projects in Westminster, California",
+    "Retail de-anchoring and repositioning",
+    "Mixed-use development including residential units",
+    "Strategic plans for the future of commercial real estate"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "It's been a bit painful at times, but it's a pretty exciting project to work on.",
+    "Only people that'll stay are... Well, I got two banks there. I got Chase and US Bank.",
+    "We're doing about 2,250 residential units there when it's all said and done."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "allstargroup.com",
+  "chasepartners.com",
+  "myprovident.com",
+  "rockefellergroup.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": [
+  "8007529533",
+  "9514030567"
+ ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/862593366.json b/data/extractions/862593366.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..547b70a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/862593366.json
@@ -0,0 +1,126 @@
+{
+ "id": 862593366,
+ "title": "The Finance Panel at RENTV's Greater LA State of the Market Conference",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/862593366",
+ "duration": 3466,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Axo Bank",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Axo Bank is a neobank with no physical branch network, offering real estate financing including bridge and permanent loans."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Ms. Rahi TE Bank",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Ms. Rahi TE Bank is a U.S.-based lending arm of an Israeli bank, focusing on bridge and value-add loans for apartment construction."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Pacific Southwest Realty Services",
+   "category": "broker",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Pacific Southwest Realty Services specializes in correspondent relationships with life insurance companies, brokering mortgage services to credit unions and banks."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Provident Bank",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Provident Bank is a portfolio lender focusing on multifamily properties, with loan sizes ranging from $350,000 to 6 million."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders is a private lender offering various types of loans, including short-term and long-term financing for all property types."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Fred Ellis",
+   "title": "With Axo Bank",
+   "company": "Axo Bank",
+   "location": "San Diego, California",
+   "topics": [
+    "Real estate financing",
+    "Bridge and perm loans",
+    "Commercial real estate"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We pretty much cover everything in terms of real estate.",
+    "We offer bridge and perm loans. A minimum loan size is 500,000, and we lend all the way up to 500,000."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Ryan Park",
+   "title": "With Ms. Rahi TE Bank",
+   "company": "Ms. Rahi TE Bank",
+   "location": "Downtown LA, US Bank Tower",
+   "topics": [
+    "Bridge value add lending",
+    "Construction lending for apartments",
+    "Recourse-driven deals"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We are focused on Bridge and value-add lending.",
+    "We can discuss the specific deal size, but it typically ranges from five to 25 million."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Trevor Blood",
+   "title": "With Pacific Southwest Realty Services",
+   "company": "Pacific Southwest Realty Services",
+   "location": "South Bay office",
+   "topics": [
+    "Correspondent relationships with life insurance companies",
+    "Mortgage banking firm"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We specialize in correspondent relationships with life insurance companies.",
+    "We work on all product types."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Gina Conan",
+   "title": "With Provident Bank",
+   "company": "Provident Bank",
+   "location": "California",
+   "topics": [
+    "Portfolio lender",
+    "Multifamily lending",
+    "Small retail lending"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We love multifamily, primarily.",
+    "Our loan size is 350,000 to about five or six million."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "John McLean",
+   "title": "With Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "company": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Private lender",
+    "Hard money lender",
+    "Non-recourse loans"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We're a private lender, also known as a hard money lender.",
+    "Our ability to push some of them though and shorten their terms down from 10 years to five or three years has been a huge value add."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/865035925.json b/data/extractions/865035925.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..06670c7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/865035925.json
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+{
+ "id": 865035925,
+ "title": "The Multifamily Panel at RENTV's Greater LA State of the Market Conference",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/865035925",
+ "duration": 3078,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Advanced Real Estate Services",
+   "category": "broker",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Buying apartments in Southern California with a portfolio of over 10,000 units."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Universe Holdings",
+   "category": "developer|lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Real estate investment company based in Southern California with offices in New York and Miami, focusing on multifamily properties."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "The Bascom Group",
+   "category": "developer|broker",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Buy, reposition, and sell apartments across the US, with a focus on value-add opportunities and development deals in southern California."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Paul Julian",
+   "title": "Founder",
+   "company": "Advanced Real Estate Services",
+   "location": "Irvine, Orange County, Southern California",
+   "topics": [
+    "Company history and growth",
+    "Investor base",
+    "Vertical integration"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "Our company was founded about 43 years ago by my father, and we've been buying apartments here in Southern California ever since.",
+    "We stay real close to home, so we stay within our target is an hour and a half of our headquarters, which is in Orange County in Irvine.",
+    "We have our own in-house property management, and we also have our own in-house construction company that's pretty robust."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Henry Manchu",
+   "title": "Founder",
+   "company": "Universe Holdings",
+   "location": "Southern California (San Diego to Santa Barbara)",
+   "topics": [
+    "Company history and growth",
+    "Market expansion",
+    "Investment strategy"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We have currently about 3000 units in, so out anywhere from San Diego to Santa Barbara.",
+    "In the past two years that changed. We have now opened an office, uh, in New York with one of my sons, and we acquired, uh, our first property in New Jersey, which is at 50 acres site at about 226 town homes.",
+    "We are shifting from smaller assets, older product to newer product, even brand new."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Jerry Fink",
+   "title": "Co-founder and Managing Partner",
+   "company": "The Bascom Group",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Investment strategy",
+    "Market trends",
+    "Legislative risk"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We started back in 96 and, uh, our program is buy, reposition and sell, typically partnering with, uh, uh, private acqui funds, opportunity funds, pension funds, and, uh, a whole period of typically three to five, uh, years.",
+    "We have some legacy assets in Hollywood. You know, a few hundred units passed, uh, in one area for the past 20 some odd years we never sold, but we're seeing a tremendous inflow of new supply concessions, et cetera, given with class A building, which is affecting even these, you know, old world charm buildings that a one of a kind turns out there's an effect on that the vacancies are sitting longer.",
+    "Yeah, I think Henry's right that Michael Weinstein's going back at for a third crack with his, uh, AIDS foundation money, but, um, it, uh, and he wants to put vacancy control on units is his dream."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/868849453.json b/data/extractions/868849453.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..61e9eac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/868849453.json
@@ -0,0 +1,57 @@
+{
+ "id": 868849453,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #6 Barry Saywitz",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/868849453",
+ "duration": 3690,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial Real Estate Inspectors",
+   "category": "other",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively simple solutions."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Paramount Property Tax Appeal",
+   "category": "other",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8582251200",
+   "contact_person": "West Nichols",
+   "pitch": "Appealing property taxes to fight back against inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Redwood Mortgage",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "www.redwoodmortgage.com",
+   "phone": "1806596593",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "A direct private money lender with over 44 years of experience lending to commercial, mixed use, multifamily and residential investment properties."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Barry Seitz",
+   "title": "President",
+   "company": "Seitz Properties and the Seitz Company",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Commercial properties in Southern California",
+    "Real estate market trends",
+    "Property valuation"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "You never know to the increase, you know?",
+    "I still do the same thing, right? I take the marketing package and then I try to dissect it because the listing brokers package makes a bunch of assumptions that in most cases are not, right.",
+    "Insurance on apartment buildings is up 40%"
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "redwoodmortgage.com",
+  "the.com",
+  "tv.com",
+  "wi.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/886025667.json b/data/extractions/886025667.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..40ceea1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/886025667.json
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+{
+ "id": 886025667,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #7 Chuck Hershson",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/886025667",
+ "duration": 3521,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial real estate inspectors",
+   "category": "other",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Call for your next inspection"
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Direct lender that services approximately 515 loans and has a portfolio size of about 300 million"
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Chuck Hershson",
+   "title": "Founder",
+   "company": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Overview of Fidelity Mortgage Lenders and its lending practices",
+    "Impact of high interest rates on the commercial real estate market",
+    "Strategies for dealing with the current market conditions"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We love it at Fidelity. I knew you were gonna say that. This is a perfect, this is a perfect store platform.",
+    "High interest rates. Banks are not lending. Somebody's gotta fill the vacuum.",
+    "We're finding, excuse me, a lot of people over 700 FO scores that we're doing."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "sublease.com",
+  "tv.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/906276616.json b/data/extractions/906276616.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cdc31a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/906276616.json
@@ -0,0 +1,55 @@
+{
+ "id": 906276616,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #8 Erwin Bucy",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/906276616",
+ "duration": 3601,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Paramount Property Tax Appeal",
+   "category": "other",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8582251200",
+   "contact_person": "Wes Nichols",
+   "pitch": "Helps in appealing property taxes to fight back against inflation's impact on cap rates and profit margins."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807529533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McLean",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California",
+   "category": "property mgmt",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiff Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Provide inspection information and solutions to protect deals in commercial real estate."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Irwin Busey",
+   "title": "Founder and Principal",
+   "company": "Paragon Commercial Group",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Overview of Paragon Commercial Group",
+    "Portfolio size, number of properties, geographic area",
+    "Buy decision process based on return on cost",
+    "Exit strategy for deals"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "Paragon really means to strive for excellence and we wanted to pick a name that represents who we are and what we are in the marketplace.",
+    "I'm a big believer on return on cost. The reason being is IRR is all subject to time and exit cap rate.",
+    "What's happening with dirt? I mean, it's getting more valuable by the day."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "tv.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/911412212.json b/data/extractions/911412212.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1a88a27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/911412212.json
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+{
+ "id": 911412212,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #9 Eddie Ring",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/911412212",
+ "duration": 4139,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial Real Estate Inspectors",
+   "category": "other",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "8189574654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively simple solutions."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807529533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McClain",
+   "pitch": "Specializing in commercial real estate with unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Paramount Property Tax Appeal",
+   "category": "events",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "(858) 225-1200",
+   "contact_person": "West Nichols",
+   "pitch": "Helping real estate owners save money by appealing property taxes, especially with inflation over the last couple of years."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Eddie Ring",
+   "title": "Founder, CEO of New Standard Equities",
+   "company": "New Standard Equities",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Investment in multifamily properties throughout the West Coast and Pacific Northwest",
+    "Impact of tenant-friendly laws on rental values",
+    "Rental rates and property occupancy in various markets such as Bremerton, Washington and San Jose"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "I started New Standard Equities in 2010, so we're coming up really, actually, I just hit my 14 year anniversary.",
+    "The upside is we don't have supply problems. Our rents are actually going up.",
+    "When you look at the rest of San Jose and you see Class A built, you know, rent is 4,500 and I'm at 29, so I'm still a price."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "tv.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": [
+  "8582251200"
+ ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/931863337.json b/data/extractions/931863337.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fd96966
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/931863337.json
@@ -0,0 +1,56 @@
+{
+ "id": 931863337,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #10 Henry Manoucheri",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/931863337",
+ "duration": 3678,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "Commercial Real Estate Inspectors in Southern California",
+   "category": "inspection service",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "818-957-4654",
+   "contact_person": "Tiffany Simington",
+   "pitch": "Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive and simple solutions."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Fidelity Mortgage Lenders",
+   "category": "lender",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "807-529-533",
+   "contact_person": "Uncle Chuck or John McClain",
+   "pitch": "A private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates."
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Paramount Property Tax Appeal",
+   "category": "property management service",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "858-758-9515",
+   "contact_person": "West Nichols",
+   "pitch": "Helping you fight back against property taxes, even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes lowered."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Henry Manoucheri",
+   "title": "Chairman, CEO of Universe Holdings",
+   "company": "Universe Holdings",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Overview of Universe Holdings and its business practices",
+    "Real estate investment strategies post-2009 market meltdown",
+    "Financing methods for real estate deals",
+    "Role of lenders in the transaction process"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "I started in real estate approximately 37 years ago.",
+    "The lesson we learned from the 2009 market meltdown was no leverage.",
+    "We've stayed away from that, and whatever I bought since 2009, 10 has been very leveraged anywhere from 35% LTV to no more than 60."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "sublease.com",
+  "tv.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/953281926.json b/data/extractions/953281926.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..82f68f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/953281926.json
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+{
+ "id": 953281926,
+ "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #11 - Michael Rademaker",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/953281926",
+ "duration": 3656,
+ "advertisers": [
+  {
+   "name": "MGR Real Estate Services",
+   "category": "brokerage|property management",
+   "website": "",
+   "phone": "",
+   "contact_person": "",
+   "pitch": "Family-owned brokerage firm with residential and commercial properties, managing 17,000 doors and employing over 200 people."
+  }
+ ],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Michael G Maker",
+   "title": "Founder and CEO",
+   "company": "MGR Real Estate Services",
+   "location": "Ontario, Inland Empire",
+   "topics": [
+    "Overview of MGR Real Estate and its growth",
+    "Property management services",
+    "Financing strategies for commercial real estate deals"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We've been based in the Inland Empire now for, since 1983.",
+    "In today's market, it changes every time. Of course. Uh, it's really hard to get an office building market today in office.",
+    "Even though you're not personally guaranteeing it, they know in 10 seconds if you're a good operator 'cause they pull your name up and they look on the CMVS records."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [
+  "lc.com"
+ ],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/978657040.json b/data/extractions/978657040.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..90fe4c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/978657040.json
@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+{
+ "id": 978657040,
+ "title": "The Multifamily Panel at RENTV's Orange County State of the Market Conference",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/978657040",
+ "duration": 2500,
+ "advertisers": [],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Brian Rupp",
+   "title": "President",
+   "company": "Shop Off Realty Investments",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Multifamily market trends",
+    "Investment strategies",
+    "Local economic impact"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "The multifamily market is showing strong resilience despite economic uncertainties.",
+    "We focus on long-term value creation through strategic property management.",
+    "Our investments are driven by a deep understanding of local market dynamics."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Call Julian",
+   "title": "CEO",
+   "company": "Advanced Real Estate",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Rental demand analysis",
+    "Property development insights",
+    "Sustainability in multifamily"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We see a significant increase in rental demand, especially from tech workers.",
+    "Our projects prioritize sustainable practices to meet future market demands.",
+    "Innovative design is key to attracting tenants and increasing property value."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Rob Riau",
+   "title": "Senior Vice President",
+   "company": "Lowe",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Commercial real estate trends",
+    "Multifamily asset management",
+    "Technology integration"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "The commercial real estate sector is experiencing a shift towards tech-driven solutions.",
+    "Effective asset management requires a holistic approach to tenant satisfaction.",
+    "Technology can significantly enhance operational efficiency and tenant experience."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Dan Blackwell",
+   "title": "Managing Director",
+   "company": "CBRE's Multifamily SoCal Group",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Market analysis",
+    "Investment opportunities",
+    "Tenant retention strategies"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "Our market analysis identifies key trends and investment opportunities in Southern California.",
+    "Strong tenant relationships are crucial for long-term success in multifamily investments.",
+    "We leverage data-driven insights to optimize property performance."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/extractions/989909369.json b/data/extractions/989909369.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f0ea1fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/extractions/989909369.json
@@ -0,0 +1,86 @@
+{
+ "id": 989909369,
+ "title": "The Industrial Panel at RENTV's Orange County State of the Market Conference",
+ "url": "https://vimeo.com/989909369",
+ "duration": 3066,
+ "advertisers": [],
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Jeffrey Cole",
+   "title": "Senior Managing Director",
+   "company": "Cushman and Wakefield",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Vacancy rates",
+    "Net absorption",
+    "Supply constraints"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "Still increasing those rents.",
+    "We're seeing absolutely no new supply."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Brooke Becher",
+   "title": "President and CEO",
+   "company": "Becher Development",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Vacancy rates",
+    "Net absorption",
+    "Supply constraints"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We're still seeing positive net absorption.",
+    "It just costs too much to build this stuff."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Brett Turner",
+   "title": "Managing Director",
+   "company": "BKM Capital Partners",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Vacancy rates",
+    "Net absorption",
+    "Supply constraints"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We're seeing absolutely no new supply.",
+    "It just costs too much to build this stuff."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Trevor Halverson",
+   "title": "Senior Managing Director",
+   "company": "Nuveen",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Vacancy rates",
+    "Net absorption",
+    "Supply constraints"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We're seeing absolutely no new supply.",
+    "It just costs too much to build this stuff."
+   ]
+  },
+  {
+   "name": "Ben Senner",
+   "title": "Managing Director",
+   "company": "Aries Industrial Management",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "Vacancy rates",
+    "Net absorption",
+    "Supply constraints"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "We're seeing absolutely no new supply.",
+    "It just costs too much to build this stuff."
+   ]
+  }
+ ],
+ "regex_sites": [],
+ "regex_phones": []
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/guests.json b/data/guests.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d3e1538
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/guests.json
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+{
+ "generated_at": "2026-08-07 08:46:08",
+ "count": 1,
+ "guests": [
+  {
+   "name": "Bill Shopoff",
+   "title": "CEO",
+   "company": "Shopoff Realty Investments",
+   "location": "",
+   "topics": [
+    "New projects in Westminster, California",
+    "Retail de-anchoring and repositioning",
+    "Mixed-use development including residential units",
+    "Strategic plans for the future of commercial real estate"
+   ],
+   "quotes": [
+    "It's been a bit painful at times, but it's a pretty exciting project to work on.",
+    "Only people that'll stay are... Well, I got two banks there. I got Chase and US Bank.",
+    "We're doing about 2,250 residential units there when it's all said and done."
+   ],
+   "episode_id": 1200839794,
+   "episode_title": "CRE Talk Episode #22 with Bill Shopoff",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1200839794",
+   "is_panel": false
+  }
+ ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/manifest.json b/data/manifest.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5466570
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/manifest.json
@@ -0,0 +1,993 @@
+{
+ "generated_at": "2026-08-07 08:45:32",
+ "total": 123,
+ "rich": 38,
+ "thin": 0,
+ "none": 85,
+ "videos": [
+  {
+   "id": 1200839794,
+   "title": "CRE Talk Episode #22 with Bill Shopoff",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1200839794",
+   "duration": 3979,
+   "caption_chars": 56950,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1199114985,
+   "title": "CRE Talk Episode #21 with Daniel Weiss",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1199114985",
+   "duration": 4051,
+   "caption_chars": 58625,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1178561985,
+   "title": "CRE Talk Episode #20 with Colton Sudberry",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1178561985",
+   "duration": 3470,
+   "caption_chars": 57082,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1158999653,
+   "title": "Elevation Land OBP 012226 w.audio (1)",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1158999653",
+   "duration": 105,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1138312637,
+   "title": "CRE Talk Episode #19 - Chris Tourtellotte",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1138312637",
+   "duration": 3700,
+   "caption_chars": 65439,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1115700624,
+   "title": "CRE Talk  Episode #18 Terry Tallen",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1115700624",
+   "duration": 3804,
+   "caption_chars": 68947,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1106281388,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #17 Chris Rising",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1106281388",
+   "duration": 4122,
+   "caption_chars": 74419,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1083190047,
+   "title": "1000015099",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083190047",
+   "duration": 0,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1083188249,
+   "title": "1000015093",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083188249",
+   "duration": 26,
+   "caption_chars": 294,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1083187814,
+   "title": "1000015119",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083187814",
+   "duration": 116,
+   "caption_chars": 1478,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1083187746,
+   "title": "1000015116",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083187746",
+   "duration": 19,
+   "caption_chars": 262,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1083187666,
+   "title": "1000015101",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1083187666",
+   "duration": 23,
+   "caption_chars": 307,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1079649123,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #16 - Alex Zikakis",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1079649123",
+   "duration": 3750,
+   "caption_chars": 57666,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1059913595,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #15 - Marc Brutten",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1059913595",
+   "duration": 4111,
+   "caption_chars": 54532,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1056513923,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #14 - John McNellis",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1056513923",
+   "duration": 3012,
+   "caption_chars": 48067,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1039101858,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #13 - Ethan Penner",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1039101858",
+   "duration": 4613,
+   "caption_chars": 71555,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 1012976399,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #12 - Kaitlin Arduino",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/1012976399",
+   "duration": 3050,
+   "caption_chars": 51652,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 989909369,
+   "title": "The Industrial Panel at RENTV's Orange County State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/989909369",
+   "duration": 3066,
+   "caption_chars": 1194,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 978657040,
+   "title": "The Multifamily Panel at RENTV's Orange County State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/978657040",
+   "duration": 2500,
+   "caption_chars": 313,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 953281926,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #11 - Michael Rademaker",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/953281926",
+   "duration": 3656,
+   "caption_chars": 60628,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 931863337,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #10 Henry Manoucheri",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/931863337",
+   "duration": 3678,
+   "caption_chars": 57234,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 911412212,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #9 Eddie Ring",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/911412212",
+   "duration": 4139,
+   "caption_chars": 62340,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 906276616,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #8 Erwin Bucy",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/906276616",
+   "duration": 3601,
+   "caption_chars": 54030,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 886025667,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #7 Chuck Hershson",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/886025667",
+   "duration": 3521,
+   "caption_chars": 48930,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 868849453,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #6 Barry Saywitz",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/868849453",
+   "duration": 3690,
+   "caption_chars": 66741,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 865035925,
+   "title": "The Multifamily Panel at RENTV's Greater LA State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/865035925",
+   "duration": 3078,
+   "caption_chars": 51520,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 862593366,
+   "title": "The Finance Panel at RENTV's Greater LA State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/862593366",
+   "duration": 3466,
+   "caption_chars": 57335,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 852462696,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #5 Barry DiRaimondo",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/852462696",
+   "duration": 3910,
+   "caption_chars": 56811,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 831673533,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #4 John McNellis",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/831673533",
+   "duration": 3175,
+   "caption_chars": 51399,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 830279080,
+   "title": "The Office Panel at RENTV's Inland Empire State of The Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/830279080",
+   "duration": 2526,
+   "caption_chars": 39901,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 830276773,
+   "title": "The Retail Panel at RENTV's Inland Empire State of The Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/830276773",
+   "duration": 2490,
+   "caption_chars": 43795,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 812982818,
+   "title": "RENTV ORANGE COUNTY RETAIL PANEL MARCH 16, 2023",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/812982818",
+   "duration": 2724,
+   "caption_chars": 399,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 812981342,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #3 - Michael Van Every",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/812981342",
+   "duration": 3029,
+   "caption_chars": 46358,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 811518445,
+   "title": "RENTV ORANGE COUNTY OFFICE PANEL MARCH 16, 2023",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/811518445",
+   "duration": 3296,
+   "caption_chars": 479,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 795355693,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #2 - Sandy Sigal",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/795355693",
+   "duration": 2883,
+   "caption_chars": 45629,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 771348410,
+   "title": "RENTV CRE Talk Episode #1 - Bill Shopoff",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/771348410",
+   "duration": 3065,
+   "caption_chars": 45097,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 763447786,
+   "title": "RENTV FINANCE OCT 19 2022.mp4",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/763447786",
+   "duration": 2355,
+   "caption_chars": 362,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 763442741,
+   "title": "RENTV INDUSTRIAL OCT 19 2022.mp4",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/763442741",
+   "duration": 2666,
+   "caption_chars": 475,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 739081927,
+   "title": "RENTV ORANGE COUNTY MULTIFAMILY PANEL July 26, 2022",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/739081927",
+   "duration": 3876,
+   "caption_chars": 65981,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 721184140,
+   "title": "CLIC Vlog w Steve Bloom.mov",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/721184140",
+   "duration": 210,
+   "caption_chars": 3351,
+   "has_captions": true
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 565693580,
+   "title": "SMART CITY",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/565693580",
+   "duration": 1041,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 507211620,
+   "title": "SYNERGY VIDEO",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/507211620",
+   "duration": 37,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 503234116,
+   "title": "GANTRY Video_VO",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/503234116",
+   "duration": 55,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 493420423,
+   "title": "F & F Income Properties - Your San Diego Family Mutifamily Owner",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/493420423",
+   "duration": 29,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 434219208,
+   "title": "Commercial Real Estate Inspectors Video 1 6 30 20",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/434219208",
+   "duration": 111,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 429079440,
+   "title": "CapitalRiversCovidFinal",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/429079440",
+   "duration": 35,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 316709134,
+   "title": "A Glimpse of One Paseo in San Diego",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/316709134",
+   "duration": 62,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 315327378,
+   "title": "Kilroy Realty's Oyster Point - An Aerial Introduction",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/315327378",
+   "duration": 73,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 308597317,
+   "title": "Introducing The Center at Needham Ranch",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/308597317",
+   "duration": 152,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 242491490,
+   "title": "Brandon Birtcher, CEO of Birtcher Development, LLC, Keynote Address at RENTV's South Bay/Long Beach Conference 10.18.17",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/242491490",
+   "duration": 1999,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 232088787,
+   "title": "Introduction to Pacific Castle 1 Q 2005",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/232088787",
+   "duration": 664,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 228295912,
+   "title": "Yat-Pang Au, Founder & CEO of Veritas Investments - Keynote Address at RENTV's DT San Francisco Conference 7/20/17",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/228295912",
+   "duration": 1366,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 227224358,
+   "title": "Office Panel at RENTV's Downtown Los Angeles State of the Market Conference - April 2017",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/227224358",
+   "duration": 2191,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 227217030,
+   "title": "Metropolis Los Angeles, Presentation by Ryan Aubry. Director of Development, Greenland USA",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/227217030",
+   "duration": 1037,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 208460446,
+   "title": "Industrial Panel at RENTV's San Jose/SIlicon Valley State of the Market Conference - Feb 2017",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/208460446",
+   "duration": 3334,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 188271441,
+   "title": "Retail Panel at RENTV's Westside of LA State of the Market Conference - Aug, 2016",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/188271441",
+   "duration": 2907,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 188261706,
+   "title": "Westside Hotel Development and One Beverly Hills",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/188261706",
+   "duration": 2502,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 172014837,
+   "title": "Office Panel at RENTV's Sacramento State of the Market Conference - May, 2016",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/172014837",
+   "duration": 2806,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 172014125,
+   "title": "The new Sacramento Airport hotel -  RENTV's Sacramento State of the Market Conference - May, 2016",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/172014125",
+   "duration": 2122,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 172014042,
+   "title": "Industrial Discussion at RENTV's Sacramento State of the Market Conference - May, 2016",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/172014042",
+   "duration": 2535,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 171347069,
+   "title": "Industrial Panel at RENTV's Inland Empire State of The Market Conference - May, 2016",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/171347069",
+   "duration": 3096,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 167990282,
+   "title": "Keynote Discussion by Carol Schatz, Pres & CEO of DCBID at RENTV's April 2016 Downtown LA State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/167990282",
+   "duration": 1768,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 167990250,
+   "title": "Presentation by Chris Martin about Wilshire Grand at RENTV's 4.14.16 Downtown LA State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/167990250",
+   "duration": 1424,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 167990238,
+   "title": "Retail Panel at RENTV's April 2016 Downtown LA State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/167990238",
+   "duration": 2607,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 167990218,
+   "title": "Office Panel at RENTV's April 2016 Downtown Los Angeles State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/167990218",
+   "duration": 2794,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 167990176,
+   "title": "Multifamily Panel at RENTV's April 2016 Downtown Los Angeles State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/167990176",
+   "duration": 2682,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 167990145,
+   "title": "Arts District Panel at RENTV's April 2016 Downtown Los Angeles State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/167990145",
+   "duration": 3231,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162712517,
+   "title": "RENTV 2016 San Diego R&D Industrial Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162712517",
+   "duration": 3068,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162712493,
+   "title": "RENTV 3.17.2016 San Diego State of the Market Conf Office Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162712493",
+   "duration": 3195,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162712456,
+   "title": "RENTV 3.17.2016 San Diego State of the Market Conf Multifamily Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162712456",
+   "duration": 2856,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162574358,
+   "title": "RENTV's San Jose/Silicon Valley State of the Market Feb 2016 Retail Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162574358",
+   "duration": 2784,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162574338,
+   "title": "RENTV 2.24.2016 San Jose/Silicon Valley R&D Industrial Panel at State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162574338",
+   "duration": 2195,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162574320,
+   "title": "Multifamily Panel at RENTV's Feb 2016 San Jose/Silicon Valley State of the Market",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162574320",
+   "duration": 2384,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162574294,
+   "title": "Capital Panel at RENTV's San Jose/Silicon Valley Feb 2016 State of the Market Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162574294",
+   "duration": 2597,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162573927,
+   "title": "RENTV's San Jose/Silicon Valley State of the Market Feb 2016 Office Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162573927",
+   "duration": 2991,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 162573796,
+   "title": "Mayor Sam Liccardo Keynote at RENTV San Jose/Silicon Valley Conference",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/162573796",
+   "duration": 2018,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 157877504,
+   "title": "RENTV Jan 28 2016 OC Retail Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/157877504",
+   "duration": 2781,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 157877503,
+   "title": "RENTV Jan 28 2016 OC Office Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/157877503",
+   "duration": 2940,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 157877502,
+   "title": "RENTV Jan 28 2016 OC Keynote Presentation",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/157877502",
+   "duration": 1191,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 157877501,
+   "title": "RENTV Jan 28 2016 OC MultiFamily Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/157877501",
+   "duration": 3630,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 157877500,
+   "title": "RENTV Jan 28 2016 OC Industrial Panel",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/157877500",
+   "duration": 2649,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 157877482,
+   "title": "RENTV Jan 28 2016 OC Hotel Market",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/157877482",
+   "duration": 1086,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 149786738,
+   "title": "RENTV One Sante Fe & Arts District 12.22.15",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/149786738",
+   "duration": 810,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 144943180,
+   "title": "RENTV Oakland State of the Market Conference Retail Panel Sept 25 2015",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/144943180",
+   "duration": 3300,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 143827823,
+   "title": "RENTV OAKLAND KEYNOTE KILPATRICK PART 1",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/143827823",
+   "duration": 765,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142353259,
+   "title": "RENTV OAKLAND MULTIFAM PANEL PART 5",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142353259",
+   "duration": 765,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142351726,
+   "title": "RENTV Oakland State of the Market Sept 2015 Multifamily Panel part 4",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142351726",
+   "duration": 920,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142350083,
+   "title": "RENTV Oakland State of the Market Sept 2015 Multifamily Panel part 3",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142350083",
+   "duration": 634,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142348827,
+   "title": "RENTV Oakland State of the Market Sept 2015 Multifamily Panel part 2",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142348827",
+   "duration": 628,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142348532,
+   "title": "RENTV Oakland State of the Market Sept 2015 Multifamily Panel part 1",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142348532",
+   "duration": 782,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142348009,
+   "title": "RENTV OAKLAND KEYNOTE KILPATRICK PART 5",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142348009",
+   "duration": 543,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142347515,
+   "title": "RENTV OAKLAND KEYNOTE KILPATRICK PART 4",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142347515",
+   "duration": 748,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142347291,
+   "title": "RENTV OAKLAND KEYNOTE KILPATRICK PART 3",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142347291",
+   "duration": 623,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 142347178,
+   "title": "RENTV OAKLAND KEYNOTE KILPATRICK PART 2",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/142347178",
+   "duration": 526,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 135939853,
+   "title": "Allen Matkins/UCLA Anderson Forecast California Commercial Real Estate Survey: California Market Booming Again",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/135939853",
+   "duration": 181,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 125349744,
+   "title": "RENTV Columbia Square Hollywood CA April 2015",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/125349744",
+   "duration": 899,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 117977696,
+   "title": "Allen Matkins' \"It's a Perfect Storm for California Commercial Real Estate Market\" - January 28, 2015",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/117977696",
+   "duration": 206,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 109994315,
+   "title": "The Developments at Playa Vista as of October 2014",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/109994315",
+   "duration": 983,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 107762220,
+   "title": "Allen Matkins View from the Top Overview - September 2014",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/107762220",
+   "duration": 190,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 107204372,
+   "title": "Office Space at Runway Commercial V2",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/107204372",
+   "duration": 59,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 101654810,
+   "title": "California's Tech Boom Drives New Demand For Office - from Allen Matkins",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/101654810",
+   "duration": 122,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 95064851,
+   "title": "Major Recent San Diego Office Sales 5.14",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/95064851",
+   "duration": 528,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 90807750,
+   "title": "RENTV Revisits Two San Fernando Valley Apartment Developments",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/90807750",
+   "duration": 526,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 85237519,
+   "title": "Wilshire Grand Development, Los Angeles -- 2014",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/85237519",
+   "duration": 441,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 82824854,
+   "title": "The Wilshire Grand project in Downtown Los Angeles",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/82824854",
+   "duration": 480,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 77077219,
+   "title": "RENTV News Program - The New Newport Center high-rises",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/77077219",
+   "duration": 538,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 71974003,
+   "title": "RENTV Focus on Multifamily - Related's 225 S. Grand Ave. LA",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/71974003",
+   "duration": 455,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 69208165,
+   "title": "Major Inland Empire Apartment Sales",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/69208165",
+   "duration": 623,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 65258106,
+   "title": "The Runway at Playa Vista Development",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/65258106",
+   "duration": 607,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 56573116,
+   "title": "The Wilshire La Brea Project",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/56573116",
+   "duration": 401,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 55380262,
+   "title": "The Marke In Santa Ana and The Carlyle@Colton in Irvine",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/55380262",
+   "duration": 528,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 52820750,
+   "title": "MG buys over 1000 units in Lancaster, CA",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/52820750",
+   "duration": 463,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 50591120,
+   "title": "The $165 Million Shores Project in Marina del Rey",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/50591120",
+   "duration": 451,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 48347303,
+   "title": "Wood Partners' LA Projects",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/48347303",
+   "duration": 473,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 46769758,
+   "title": "J.H. Snyder's The Vermont",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/46769758",
+   "duration": 525,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 44468806,
+   "title": "RENTV Takes You To The Village at Santa Monica June 2012",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/44468806",
+   "duration": 493,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 42140576,
+   "title": "The Purchase of the Historic Brockman Lofts Building",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/42140576",
+   "duration": 408,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 39610422,
+   "title": "RENTV's Roving Reporter at RealShare 2012",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/39610422",
+   "duration": 393,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 38894517,
+   "title": "Major Multifamily Sales Activity in NoHo and Glendale",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/38894517",
+   "duration": 572,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 35868287,
+   "title": "The Development and Sale of West 27th Place",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/35868287",
+   "duration": 433,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 33583429,
+   "title": "The Purchase and Plans for 1111 Sunset Boulevard",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/33583429",
+   "duration": 422,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 32191299,
+   "title": "Major Multifamily Sales in Central Orange County 11.11",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/32191299",
+   "duration": 478,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  },
+  {
+   "id": 31239971,
+   "title": "The LandMarc Apartments by SARES*REGIS",
+   "url": "https://vimeo.com/31239971",
+   "duration": 334,
+   "caption_chars": 0,
+   "has_captions": false
+  }
+ ]
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1012976399.txt b/data/transcripts/1012976399.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3011680
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1012976399.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, Hey. Welcome to the new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, where we have what we hope to be interesting, compelling, and informative conversations with top leaders in the commercial real estate industry. And I'm super excited about today's guest, Caitlyn Murphy. Arduino. She has an interesting story, family business, decades of history in Southern California. But before we get to that, let me bring in my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie, how you doing Today? Hey, how you doing Steve? Doing well, doing well. Pretty good. Summer's over starting the fall and, uh, new, new Year's. Almost Well off the debate last night, the trip to Vegas on the lending side. Yep. And, uh, how are you seeing business out there? Actually, the lending business is picking up a little bit. I mean, even though rates are still, you know, the, the Fed hasn't lowered the rates. A lot of the lenders are lowering the rates, which is a good sign. So that's good. That's what we're seeing businesses picking up a little bit. Not quite as, as much as we'd like it, but it's going better. Right. Well, on our side, we're super busy. You know, we've got our media business going, our news side, ran tv.com, the e-blast. We send out our review video site where you're watching these, uh, this video and our conferences. We've got October 2nd, we're doing our first Arizona state of the market conference, so we are super excited about that. Uh, but we do have some more business to take care of before we bring in our guest. Sure. So, uh, we've got some sponsors to talk, talk about, right, Arnie? Yeah. Let's, let's get to the sponsors. Oh, by the way, before we get to the sponsors, we are having a conference, a commercial real estate, uh, networking exchange up in San Francisco in November, November 14th, uh, up in, Say that date again, November 14th, 2024 at the Marines Memorial Hotel, which is a jewel right in Union Square. So we hope to see you all there, a full day of networking. But anyway. Excellent. Let's start talking about who our sponsors are today, Right? The great companies that make this show possible. The first sponsor of the show is commercial real estate inspectors. Great client of ours in Southern California. They're skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively, uh, simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Simington and book your next next inspection Today at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Tiffany at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Who's up next, Arnie? Our next sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage is their private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon, also known as Uncle Chuck. It is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McClain at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3 Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Excellent. And our next sponsor, another great company, paramount Property Tax Appeal. You know, inflation over the last couple years. It's cost cap rates to increase profit margins to decrease. One way you can fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes lower. The deadline to file is in November. Call Paramount Property Tax Appeal, (858) 758-9515. Ask for Wes Nichols Paramount Property Tax Appeal. All right, so let us welcome Kaitlynn. Arden, we duo with Murphy Development, president of Murphy Development. Good morning, Caitlin. How are you today? Good morning. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. Uh, you know, I know you're busy. Got a lot of deals going on, and so, uh, and a lot of you know, things in, in your world. So we really appreciate you taking the time for our audience. Um, you know, we think it'll be great, so really appreciate it. But let's get started. We got a lot to cover in an hour less, a little less than an hour. So, uh, stay tuned audience. Um, but let's get started. Uh, you know, I know a lot of people who will watch this no Murphy development, you know, decades, you know, developing down in San Diego. But why don't you give our audience a history of Murphy Development, um, you know, history, properties, geographic, uh, uh, reach, and, you know, the sectors that you're in. Uh, I'll hand it over to you. Sure. Thank you very much, Steve. We just celebrated 40 years this year of our Murphy Development Company history, which we're really proud of. The company was started by my dad, Mike Murphy, as one of the pioneers in the Otai Mesa area. And back then there was no border, there was no border crossing, just a little fence in a sway back cable with a little faded sign that's in Mexico on it. And it has come a long way since then. And we have seen the booms in the bus of Otay Mesa over the years. Um, in the history of the company, we've master plan and developed about 10 million square feet of buildings, which it covers about 500 acres between Otay Mesa and Scripps Ranch, all in the San Diego Metro. Um, we are a typ a typical developer. We love buying big pieces of land. We entitle it or permanent, we take it down in phases. We love growth areas. Otai Mesa, like I said in the 1980s, was just getting off its feet, and we really caught the Quila Dora wave down there. Uh, our new entry into multifamily, which I'll talk a little bit about, is in the Boise area, which is a growing metro area, and that's an exciting opportunity for us. So as dirt people, we like to say, we really focus on the basis and the land, and that if we come in at the right time, get the right basis, we're able to put the best product on that land in order to provide, you know, fortune 500 companies who are our main focus, um, that are product that they would choose over a competing property in that area. So, um, we are not, we we're pretty specific. We build 80,000 square feet as a typical industrial size for us, or typical tenancy. Um, we started out pretty small and have grown, you know, 200,000 feet would be a big building for us in San Diego. So, um, that's about the max size to two 50 that we would build. And, uh, you Still own properties in Otai Mesa? I know you've been We Do. We've sold, we've sold a lot. We have almost sold ourselves out of a portfolio, but I will mention the sale, um, or sorry, the purchase that we did a couple years ago there, and, um, and then we own some land and script ranch still. So, but we do, we're always, I feel like we're always gonna have a finger or a pulse on Otai because of our history there. We love the market. We don't see it going anywhere. There's a lot of infrastructure still going in there, so, um, I'd love to continue to be an owner in Otai. Right. Kayla, For people who are maybe watching who don't know the geography, this is huge swaths of land in eastern San Diego right along the border Yeah. With Mexico, you know, which was right for industrial, uh, development decades, you know, a couple decades ago, as you mentioned. Yeah. You Were. So, yeah. Kayla, I was gonna ask you, uh, why and how did you get started in real estate? Um, tell us a little bit about your first real estate deal that gave you the love for real estate, of course, you know, uh, family company and everything else, and what brought you back to, uh, to Murphy Development? Sure. I always pictured myself working in real estate. Some people have a vision of what they're gonna do. I always pictured myself in an office, but really, my dad would take us to sites back when we were kids. I have pictures in front of the marketing signs and a big piece of dirt, you know, it sits in his office still. Um, so it was always incredible. That's awesome. That's awesome. It's like a bear of real estate. I think there's a lot of college kids and, and women in particular that don't really know about the opportunities in real estate. So my dad's been a developer my whole life, um, and I, Well, and some people just naturally rebel, you know, against what they're bail. Yeah. I knew I wanted to ultimately go to work with my dad. I knew it wasn't something that I wanted to do right out of college. So I was really lucky that I interned at HFF before college, um, or sorry, before I graduated, and then after graduation. I really enjoyed my experience there. So I looked at all the offices of HFF, ended up in Newport Beach, um, almost ended up in Dallas and did a five year run at HFF, which was a wonderful start for me. Mm-Hmm. Looking at all property types. I did construction debt, I did a lot of permanent debt with apartments in retail, which were really big at the time, 2003 to 2008. Um, and I just had a lot of fun working with great people in real estate. So it was something I, I knew I wanted to stay with. Um, I, I guess I just needed a little bit more. Um, but Newport became a little vanilla for me, and what I was doing became a little monotonous. So I, um, I wanted to get out. I went to grad school all the way across the pond in London, which, you know, I, I tell college kids. I don't recommend for like the networking, but it was the best experience of my life as far as, you know, travel and culture and life experience. So I graduated there in 2009 and, uh, it was a terrible time in the market to get a job in. Okay. No, that's right. Yeah. Um, I had quit my job in May of oh eight, which was actually perfect timing at the time. Um, but I, I ended up finding a job with my dad, fortuitously, and at the time, we didn't have anything under construction. I had about five years at Murphy Development where I was learning the ropes of development. I came in with not as much, you know, engineering construction experience, not no entitlement experience. And so I really cut my teeth in the beginning when construction and development was really slow. And I spent a lot of time working on the community plan update for Otai Mesa, meeting with city leaders, meeting with engineers, understanding the city planning side of things, and really advocating for our specific properties within that community plan, which I still get questions about today. Like, why was it this date and this? And I go, you have to get involved with it, you know, and it benefited us. Um, so I, I really enjoyed that side of the business. I'm a big advocate of asking questions. I certainly always to this day ask questions, particularly of my contractors and engineers when I don't understand something. But, um, I'll go back to your question as to my first deal. My first deal that I financed myself at HFF was a $1 million land loan for a to be built office project next to the Jenny Craig building in San Diego. So it's this wood building off the freeway of the five. It was a guy I knew from high school, and I arranged a bank loan, and it is still vacant land to this day, but I, I arranged that loan for him. And then before I left HFFI had prop myself up. I did a $68 million construction loan on a Sunnyvale office building with Goldman Sachs. Ah, there you go. And that did get built, and I think it was a big success. I don't know how it stands today, but, um, that was, I was really proud of myself for being the initial lead on that deal and kind of seeing it all the way through to completion before I left. Um, but yeah, when we, when Murphy development, when I got my hands really dirty in the business here in San Diego, it was a lot of horizontal infrastructure. So again, I was learning about sewer and utilities and really kind of the basis of development of putting in traffic lights, expanding roads. So that was a, a good basis for me to continue with the vertical throughout the rest of the year. Well, you know, given the types of properties you developed, you know, and the master playing everything that went into it, I don't know if there, there really is an answer to this one, but is there a deal you look back on that you wish you guys never did that, you know, you had to take a loss on, or just took forever, or never got built or done any horror story? Yeah, those are the funest, No, thankfully there's not a wish. We hadn't done this, but we kind of, I, I guess I haven't used the word land banking, but we did save the best for last with our Brownfield Technology park project. We owned it for over 20 years. And the reason we kind of saved it was because it was located on a diamond interchange of a freeway, which when we bought the land, there was no freeway. And it was long before that, but it has, it, it became a huge success. In fact, I looked at the multiple on the deal the other day, and the IRR because it was so long, we still had a, we actually had a pretty good IRR, but the multiple was 28 times, because over the years, you're, you know, not, you're selling some freeway land and you're doing this. And, um, it was, we pretty much sold it at the top of the market. So it's a deal where we can look back and say, that was really successful, but it took a long time and we had to be really patient with it. Now you mentioned the IRR, and, uh, you know, when you're looking for new projects, do you rely on I-R-R-R-O-I or just your gut, this is, this looks like something new that I'd love to do? Yes, I think we do use a lot of gut as having been in the development business a long time, particularly when, okay, on paper right now, the ROI or, you know, return on cost doesn't look amazing, but we know that that's a great location. We know it's in future growth, we can see demographics moving that direction. So from that sense, like in my gut, that feels good. Like if I buy it, I can wait out the return to get up a little bit. Um, or maybe the rents aren't there today, but I do think they'll get there in the future. But as a developer, we use return on costs for most of our, uh, evaluation. And then if we're thinking of bringing in an institution, we definitely have to look at the IRR or the multiple, because that's typically what they will use to evaluate whether they want, And do you have to run like different scenarios if rent go up this amount or rent go this amount and cost and, and run a bunch of, of scenarios, and yes, that's why, That's why Argus is very helpful. We, um, I, I didn't wanna buy that software for a long time, but now that we're more on the acquisition looking for acquisitions, we, we use it and it's very, you know, friendly to putting in different iterations and rent growth. But I know that, that, when I was at a broker conference last week, I think rent growth and cap rate, exit cap rate are the two biggest volatile, you know, indicators to put in a model. So the brokers are gonna ask you like, what are you using for rent growth? What are you using as your exit cap? And I, I think those are areas where people don't necessarily know what to use right now because it's a little bit uncertain out there. So, Um, right. Which leads perfectly into the next question was, you know, how, you know, you, me, you mentioned when you're out looking for deals, so how do you go about looking for deals? Is it mostly from brokers? You go out there and research an area and find stuff that isn't listed or, you know, how do you go about it? And then there's that strategy, opportunity question. You know, do you pick an area and research it or do things come across your desk that catch your eye and then you go after those? Yeah, so we, we certainly have a focus. Our focus has always been San Diego Industrial. Um, we'd love to buy land. And right now, I don't think the land market is priced to where rents are. So I, I don't see myself buying a lot of land if there's an off, I'm looking at an off market opportunity in land right now. I hope I can get it. Um, but brokers for sure, we use the brokerage community. We've gotten two deals in Otai Mesa off market because people know we can be discreet. We're a small company and because we know the market so well. So I'm grateful to the brokerage community for bringing us those deals. As far as on the opportunity side, yes, we did look at Boise saying, this is an area we wanna focus in. It just is a little bit random. My dad moved to Sun Valley five years ago, and, you know, we love the area. It's a growing city. So we took a look at that market, we identified areas we wanted to be in, and we started making offers. Um, but we did work with a broker there, so, So, so you've recently acquired property in San Diego, right? Uh, yeah, Almost two years ago, I guess. That's right. I mean, for, from what I hear, no, not a lot of people are doing deals lately. So I guess I fit in with the, like window. Well, yeah. How, how about looking, looking at like Arizona, some other hotbeds for industrial, because you guys are, you know, such an industrial history and now the market's so Well, Arizona's booming. I'm doing a conference there in a couple weeks. Uh, but so to skip to multifamily up in the mountain states, yeah, I, it's a big jump. I know we have looked at Phoenix and Houston in the past. Um, I, we kick ourselves because we were looking at the 3 0 3 corridor before. I mean, there was pe, there was developers there, and in fact, we were like, there's too many institutions there, we're not gonna do well. But in, you know, in hindsight, we should have gone there when we were looking. I think it was like around after the great financial crisis. So it, it would've been a good time to invest there. But, you know, I, I actually do applaud my dad. He, for, for being as successful as he's been. He's never needed to make, you know, a mag. Like he doesn't wanna be this giant company. And he's kept it, um, you know, focused. And I think people can get lost in like, Hey, I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna go here. There's definitely a herd mentality in real estate. Um, I do want to look in select markets outside of San Diego, um, particularly with the challenges that there are right now in the capital markets in California and in the legislative side of things as well. But, um, we are comfortable in this market. We have great connections with the city and with, um, other municipalities. So that's really been where our success has been and we're happy to continue to try to do that here. You gotta find that quality balance. Can I ask a question? Yeah, you, you, I mean, I can just, I just go away and let you ask all the questions. Go for it. Caitlin, with your background with from HFF, tell me about how you finance deals. Do you use debt equity, uh, use banks or self-funding? What, what, what do you do when you see a deal that you want? Sure. We, in December of 22, when we closed the last deal, we paid cash. And that was the first deal we've brought an institution in for, um, it was a building in Otay Mesa. Got it. At a great basis. It was corporate real estate that was being offloaded somewhat of an inefficient process there. And, um, that was the first deal. We bought cash because interest rates had started going up and they were volatile. And we just said, Hey, we'd rather put money in, uh, all cash right now with the opportunity to refin, you know, to, to finance out if we needed to. We've kept that building all cash. Um, in our typical model as developers, we do get, we try to take the land down all cash, uh, and then we get construction financing and permanent financing, and we use mortgage brokers for that. We've had great relationships, not just with HFF, which is now JLL, but with other brokers as well. So, um, we are positive on debt. Uh, right now. That's a little bit challenging even on, you know, and especially on the construction side, um, where you're getting in the 8% plus numbers. Yeah. And with rates changing, hopefully that really alleviates some of that big interest carry you're gonna have. Um, They're coming down a little bit now. I mean, even, even though the feds hasn't done anything, but the rates we're seeing from, from a lot of the lenders we're dealing with are coming down Mm-Hmm. They're self coming down them by themselves. Yes. We haven't been act, we don't have anything to actively finance right now. We are gonna be buying land for cash, um, pretty soon, probably next year is when we'll close. But, um, that is something that we've never been over leveraged on land, which is how a lot of real estate developers have been taken down in the past. So we make sure we, I mean, I think one deal we bought with 50% debt on land, but, um, we paid that off pretty quickly. So we have to be, we're, we're conservative. I mean, overall, we're a pretty conservative company when it comes to financing as well. Good. Well, and your background helps. I, I, I mean, and, and switching to the equity side, do you form partnerships? Are the acquisitions under the corporate, uh, under a corporate, uh, Murphy development? How, how is that part of it, you know, and are you out there raising money for the different deals or? Yeah, so that has been another very, I I can say lucky, beneficial area for us. We, other than the one deal we closed a year and a half ago with an institution, which has been great, we, we have a great relationship with them and we would like to do more deals with them, but historically, we have done everything with private partners, and Murphy is the managing member or the GP, if you will. And then those folks are the LP equity. And we have not had to go out and raise, you know, additional outside equity. And that has afforded us a lot of flexibility on the buy sell side. So, you know, there's no three to five year window we have to hit with a fund. We don't have, you know, at least have to hold it for 10 years, all these other, you know, requirements and timelines. So, you know, I know you may ask about like, whether, when do we buy and sell? And I think Oh yeah, the private partner, The next question. Yeah. The private partnerships, uh, allow us to make that decision just with our partners. And, um, Sounds like these are long term relationships. Who, who, who know your business model or comfortable way they Yes, And they've been really multiple. We've been good to them. So, I mean, obviously we get to promote and, um, we, we make it, you know, a market active promote. But, um, that, Well, let's say we've got some high net worth individuals watching this. Can they, can they, are you taking more capital if we have, you know, a major high net worth individual who watches this and how do I get in? Yeah, we've not done any sort of outside fundraising before. We are, we are probably committed on the multifamily land that we're going to buy because our wonderful partners are excited about that opportunity. Um, but I do think in the future, I mean, I, I will say we're like the high net worth family office is the type of money we would go to first. Um, but it would have to be somebody we would wanna have a relationship with long term, obviously. So, um, but when it comes to financing like phase one of multifamily construction, I do think we would want to engage a broker to go look for, um, equity and debt for us. But for now, we are really pleased with the response we've gotten from our partners. Right. Excellent. Um, you mentioned briefly before about exiting deals, so let's bring that full circle. Yeah. Can you, uh, get into some of the sales you made within the last couple years? I know a couple hundred thousand feet here and there, you know, and some new buildings seem pretty nice. Yes, I know. I, I kind of like, sometimes when I think about what guys are doing in LA and other parts of doubt, I'm like, wow, we're really small. But it's just been really great. We've had a good, um, past few years with Covid and with everything that happened in industrial, our most recent two sales were to an institution. Um, we sold the first, or sold, I guess I'll go into the project, it was, it's called Brownfield Technology Park. So it's an 80 acre piece of land that, um, ultimately got divided by the 9 0 5 freeway in Mesa, the northern half. We sold half of that land to Salvation Army for a build a suit for them, which was a really awesome project to be involved with. They moved their, um, adult Reha rehabilitation Center out of downtown San Diego, sold it to Kilroy for high rise office, or maybe it's gonna be apartments. Um, and then they moved down to Otte Mesa. And so from a zoning perspective, that was a little challenging, but sold them the land built in industrial building and a, a residential facility for a hundred men. We saved the other half of that site for industrial. We then built two roughly a hundred, 120,000 square foot buildings there, uh, on spec. The reason it's called Brownfield Tech Park is because it's across the street from Brownfield Airport. Right. There was, it was not a previous brownfield, which many people think is the case, but, um, it's a long time San Diego and military airport. Right. So that's where came from. So Heinz bought those two buildings, uh, in June of 2022 for about 330 bucks a foot. So that was probably the height for Otta Mesa Industrial. What'd they cost to build? I'm not gonna tell you that one. I have to ask. Oh, flex. Um, again, we own the dirt for 20 years, so, right. Yeah. So very low basis. Um, the south side, so the other 25 acres on the south, we sold the western half to coal rich. It's a local residential developer, and kind of tied into the community plan update work that I had done many years earlier in maximizing the value of that land. We were given the zoning of business Park residential permitted. So that was the first zoning in San Diego. We were the first property in San Diego to have that zoning, and that allowed 49% residential next to buildings that were, um, allowed to be industrial. So we changed the lot lines. We maximized the residential, we sold that to coal Rich, and then we also reserved those to, um, the site next door, 12 acres for two more industrial buildings. And so when we sold to Heinz, we did a forward sale to them for the additional two buildings that we built and completed last October. So almost a year ago, finished those buildings. They did give us a slight price reduction as we were watching the market change over that particular year, and ended up still selling the buildings for a really great number, um, better than they are today. So we were really pleased with that. I will say we did not ever intend to sell that project. We had long-term debt on it, and we ended up paying that off, um, with, you know, with penalties because it still made more sense to us to, to sell at the time, given all the, um, given what was going on in the market. So that, that which Changed your mind. They came along, they, yeah. The interest, Yeah. That was a really great project for us. And at the, um, I will say one interesting little vignette. We, we had the northern half of that project on the market six months earlier when we, um, when we had the campus project of ours, which was like 665,000 feet, three buildings. We ended up selling that, um, uh, to another institution in late 2021. Um, that one was a great deal. Um, I'll get into that in a second. But Brownfield Tech Park, we were gonna sell those two buildings, almost got under contract at $250 a foot, and I kind of pressed pause and said, the market seems to be coming our way. And, you know, a year, nine months later, we sold it for almost a hundred dollars more per foot. So it was, it was just, the market was escalating like crazy, and it was really neat to be a part of. And, um, but like Took a listing with brokers. Sorry, did You have a listing with brokers? We did. We had Cushman and Wakefield. Alright. Our industrial sales team did a great job for us on, on both these projects. So always like giving the brokers a little pub, you know, you gotta, yeah. Um, Joe Shya, Jeff Cole, brand Berg. Um, all right. Great. Competent brokers. Def Celebrates our panels. You got, you got the next one, Arnie. Yeah. Tell, tell us about, uh, Idaho, what brought you there and, uh, you know, what you see as far as prospects in the sectors that you're in. I mean, I know you said multifamily, and I know we know you, you're known for office, I mean, excuse me, industrial, but you're branching out to other stuff. So tell us a little bit about It. We are, um, so we are under contract on some land in Boise. The reason we're there, as I mentioned, is because my dad moved to Sun Valley, and we, we actually looked at the industrial market there first. So, um, it's a, it is a different market than San Diego. It's definitely a small market. It's a smaller tenant market. And, uh, it, it did get overbuilt. So there were a lot of institutions that went into Boise. Some got the timing right, some didn't On the industrial side, it got overbuilt industrial Side. Yeah, right. So we've continued to keep our pulse on the industrial market there. We'd love to have an opportunity to jump in, but I'm not seeing that just yet. Um, on the multifamily side, my husband joined the company about a year ago, actually a little over a year ago, um, to try and build the multifamily platform for us. So again, that was kind of our strategy. We're gonna, we're gonna diversify if there's two asset classes we wanna be in, it's industrial, multifamily, uh, we are family companies. So, uh, Two solid, two solid industries, that's for sure. Yeah, definitely. So then he started, uh, looking around the market and, you know, keying in on an area, and like I said, just started making offers in, in this one particular corridor that we really like. Um, kind of a growth area for Boise. It's, Boise is, um, only about 800,000 people. It's made up of, you know, five smaller municipalities in the Boise, MSA. And, um, it's a small market, but we think it's a, you know, obviously a high growth market. It's the second fastest growing city in the country. Um, there's a lot of people moving there from California, Washington and Oregon, both for political sake and for opportunity's sake and jobs. There's tech jobs expanding there. So, um, micron is there, um, from the CHIPS Act, they're expanding their facility. Um, and that's a great investment for the city. So there's a lot going on there. And, um, we're excited, I think based on, my husband has institutional multifamily experience with a group called the Richmond Group, um, where he worked for a number of years. And so we just, uh, our philosophy at Murphy has always been like, find the best consultants, put the best team together, attorneys, you know, architects, civil landscape, and we're gonna employ that same strategy for multifamily. We've, we know dirt, like I said, so taking down 80 acres is not something that intimidates us. We gotta make sure all the right utilities are in place or bring them there. But, um, that's kind of where we can combine both our expertise with this new multifamily chapter that we're opening. Gotcha. Well, I have a two part follow up question to what you just said. Are you gonna focus on this deal, make this one work, and then look at other geographic areas that are, you know, have similar, you know, characteristics or are you looking already while you're developing this one? No, we're gonna stay right now focused here. This is gonna be a multi-phase project. Um, I think we, we have been looking in San Diego. San Diego is a little bit of a different strategy when it comes to multifamily. It's more, you know, infill coastal markets that we would be interested in 50 to a hundred units. But in the area where you can actually buy 80 acres of land, um, that's gonna be kind of the multi-phased woody walk up type of, uh, Gotcha. My second ques part question was, what's a major difference that you've seen in multifamily versus industrial? Well, just getting started in multifamily, it is, um, we're working with it. It feels very much like my dad has explained, it feels a lot like Otte Mesa in the eighties, even though it's a completely different asset class. Otte was farmland, otai didn't have any freeways running through it at the time. This particular part of Boise no freeways, it's farmland. So there's, there's similarities and, and it's, again, it's looking at the demographics, it's looking at the growth patterns and the need. I mean, there's a lot of young families moving to Boise. There's a lot of older singles. So like, who's gonna need an apartment? What's the zoning and land use? Um, what's the supply there? It is oversupplied right now, as a lot of markets are. So we're happy. We're not, we're not coming out of the gates building next month. I think the financing would be really challenging if we were gonna try to do that, that, um, so we do like the timing that we're gonna hit when we do decide to build there. And hopefully the debt and equity will fall in place when we do that. Yeah. Sounds exciting. Yeah. That brings up the question with interest rates and, you know, I mean, the interest rates the way they have been and, you know, you buy, uh, your land cash, but when it comes time to do the, uh, the permanent financing, uh, how are you finding that and how does that work into your strategy? Mm-Hmm. Well, I think rates matter the whole way through. Yeah. Because as we structure these partnerships, we have to think about what's our pre rate, you know, like what are, what's the alternative that to, to somebody who wants to invest with us and get a preferred return on the, the initial equity that they're gonna put in, even on the land. So interest rates matter regardless of when we're talking about the phase of the deal. Um, of course, like I said, the interest carry on the debt, the construction financing, that can be a big factor in whether your deal pencils or not. So I'm excited that they're supposed to come down. I think, um, I saw CB's forecast, uh, last week. I think it's Conti, you know, the next couple years are supposed to continue to go lower and lower. And I hope that's the case. I think it will be dependent on the policy that's gonna come out of our government. Yeah. Um, I think that's playing a bigger and bigger role in, uh, in what's happening in our markets. So, um, we hope that we have a great next, uh, few years to co coincide with what we're planning to do. Knock on wood. Hey, to shift gears a little bit. How involved do you get with, uh, architecture and construction? How, how thick into the weeds, you know, do you personally you, you know, get, is that something you're, uh, you know, interested in and, and involved in? I'm a big architecture fan, but Yeah. So are we, I think it can absolutely differentiate your product from the rest of the market. And I think most people, well, I should say most people, any broker going to Otai probably could identify that's a Murphy building. That's a Murphy building that's not, granted, we've sold a lot of our product and they may have butchered the landscaping after we left, or they, and said, we're taking all the trees down, which has actually happened. So, um, yes, we, I've inherited this from my father. We get very involved in architecture. We've switched architectural firms over the years as things have, I mean, we've done, you know, one big project, 2 million feet with one architect. We've done another, you know, 200,000 with another. We, we try to spread the wealth, but we do have a signature, we call it a bull noses at the top of our industrial buildings. All right. Yeah. Um, which maybe you'll see some photos here. Yeah. Oh, no, We'll, we'll put 'em up. Yeah. And so we, we have great feedback. I toured, um, when we were selling Brownfield Tech Park, I toured a lot of folks through the buildings and they said, this is the best looking industrial project I've ever seen. And that just, you know, we're really proud. We put a lot of money into landscaping, which most industrial developers do not do. Yeah. Um, we think of it as a corporate environment. 'cause again, we go after corporate tenants. Um, we typically don't do multi-tenant projects. And we want people to go, you want your tenant to have employees that wanna come to work, and therefore you create an environment that is a positive environment for them. Um, so on the architecture side for sure, and even multifamily, it's been fun looking at other projects and what we wanna model them after. And I think that's even more important almost. 'cause you wanna attract somebody into your door and they wanna lease an apartment there. You've got a lot more people, a lot more foot traffic at an apartment. And, and so getting the amenities right and everything will be really important. And you wanna put your signature on there. You want everybody to know this is a Murphy development building, whether it be industrial office or even multifamily. Yes, absolutely. You Absolutely have that signature on there. So that, what, What style of, uh, architecture is the multifamily property in Ad Hub? We haven't keyed in on that yet. We're at the beginning stages, so, okay, sure. We will have many styles. There's, you know, it might be 1200 units, it might be 1500 unit. So there's a lot of opportunity to put a few different style if my husband and I have different opinions. Is the market up there one bedroom, two bedroom? Yeah, there's, um, I would say two and three. It's, I mean, there's everything. There's one three, we would have a mix of ones, twos, and threes. So, um, Right. I mean, you never find threes being built in Southern California. No. Right. No, but there's a lot of new homes up there, so you're right. But it's, renting is far more affordable than building, than owning a home. So that's still the value proposition of an apartment, maybe Even build to rent opportunities. Yes. We haven't looked into that product yet, but there is some of that product going up there. So, um, I think it'll be, it'll be a variety of different styles. And, And where do you find the leasing challenges right now in your area? Uh, whether it be the industrial or, or even the multifamily as you get to that? Yeah. Um, can't speak to the multifamily yet. We're not vertical, but on the, um, and I think the supply will dwindle. I think the timing, like I said, for when people are, I mean, people are still pouring into Boise, but, um, I do think we'll hit the, the timing on that from a demand perspective. But in industrial leasing, we do not have any space for lease right now. I wouldn't wanna have space for lease right now. It is a challenging leasing market. What you're seeing is a lot of renewals. Um, I just heard from one of our brokers, there hasn't been a single lease over 40,000 square feet that has been new in central San Diego Industrial. They're all renewals. Hmm. Um, south County has, I don't know, 2 million square feet of product that's recently been completed that needs to get filled and activities a little slow that says, What's the asking rate? Uh, roughly, uh, It varies. I would say a buck 20 to a buck 35, maybe a buck 40. It depends on the size of the space. So that used to Modified gross, right. Modified gross. Triple net. Triple net, yeah. Triple net. So San Diego used to be more expensive than almost even some of the other Southern California markets. Inland Empire surpassed us this last cycle, which was mind blowing, but it did, I mean, in these million square foot buildings that has now kind of leveled out and they're now what I hear is lower than San Diego, which always kind of, we lost all the Quila Dora industry out of Otai, um, because it went inland because the rents were 40 cents and ours were 65 cents, you know? Yeah. Mm-Hmm. Supply in demand. Yeah. So, um, but that's where rents are. Activity is slow. I a hundred percent have a positive outlook for the future of San Diego. We're landlocked. We, you know, don't have anywhere else to build. Um, we have a great labor force, especially with the adjacency to Mexico and Otai Mesa. That's a huge value to, um, tenants who wanna come here. And, and so yes, we're in a blip of the market where it's oversupplied, but I think that it's going to get better from here. Excellent. Let's hope so. You know. Yeah, right. We're doing San Diego in November, so hopefully, uh, there'll be some optimism there. That's true. Um, well, I wanna, wanna shift topics, you know, little bit. Um, and I think we were talking about this, you know, doing this show, if it's a goal of mine to have more women, you know, in leadership positions, making the decisions, uh, you know, on properties. And it's been a challenge. You know, it's our 12th show. You're the first, you know, woman in, in the leadership position. So tell me about the, um, experience, you know, taking over, you know, it's, especially in industrial, it's such a man's world in construction and development, you know, and, and how has that been for you, you know, so far, and then I have a follow up or two on that. Sure. I, I'm very happy to say I've had a really positive experience as a woman in real estate. I do mentor younger women, um, over the years I've talked to many, and I always tell them, use it to your advantage. Like, there are fewer women than men in the industry and even in the capital market side at HFF, I was one of few women in mortgage banking, and I'm a friendly person. I've always enjoyed relationships and relationship building, and that has served me well. I think you have to, um, keep an eye on your conduct a little bit more than men do. Um, that has not been a struggle for me. But I think that, uh, you just present yourself as a classy businesswoman and you earn the respect of your peers. And, um, I know that I'm competent and that took me a long time. Like when I first started out in the business, I remember being like, please don't call me. Please don't call me when I'd have my name on a package at hff. And I think women struggle with that a lot more than men. Um, kind of the building confidence. And so once you get a little bit more into your career and really know, like, Hey, I do know what I'm doing, or I do have good ideas, then you can really, um, yeah, just promote yourself, try to speak up for yourself and, and advance yourself in the industry. And you got Started in the finance side, which is a little easier as opposed to, to the construction. Right. And The construction side has been more challenging as far as, um, you know, I showed up to a tour recently and they're like, oh, are you the property manager? And I said, no, I'm the owner. You know, like there was just Right. I don't expect people expect you to be in property management and, and that's fine. We need to change that a little bit. I wish there was a lot more women in leadership in industrial real estate. I know in LA they have a women's group that does this. We don't have that here in San Diego, but you Do have crew and you are a member. I do Crew and Crew is a great organization nationwide. And I know we have a crew at my conferences all the time, and we try to push them. And I, I think you're a member of NAOP as well, correct? I am. I'm gonna be the chapter president of naop for San Diego next year. So I am, I'm pretty heavily involved in naop. I am a member of Crew, but I've not ever served on the board there. I just had lunch this week with the gal who's gonna be president next year of Crew for San Diego. So we want to combine forces and do an event next year. Right. Um, which I'm excited about. But Naop, I get pretty involved there with legislative issues. We just had our first PAC fundraiser, um, and that, again, we, we try to get as many women involved on the board as we can. And, um, that's been a, it's a great organization. Both of them are, I mean, just socially and then again, politically and legislatively, that's been really important. But I am lucky that my dad has been my mentor to me for the last, you know, 20 plus years of my career. And, um, I think that's a really important part of growing into the business. And, and whether you're a male or a female, I mean, there's, it's very important to have older people pouring into the younger generations. And so that's why I really try. I don't have a specific mentorship that I'm doing now, but I have in the past, crew does one, NAOP has mentorship groups. Um, there's a organization called Forward that is a women's, um, organization that I used to lead a group here in San Diego that helps business women. It's a Christian organization. So there's all sorts of stuff out there that you can jump into where you can find a mentor. So that is a, a big piece of advice I'd give to the younger women. There's a lot of young women in real estate right now, like Yes. Had a Naop event. Um, we have a lot of connections to the universities here in San Diego. So I see a lot of young women. It's really how do we keep them in the industry? And I think mentorship is gonna be a really big part of that Without it. And I think there is a wave of women who will be taking over these top positions. I mean, we just saw with Kilroy. Yeah. Um, you know, know and others. And so I, you know, I do think that's coming. You know, they're right, right underneath there. Um, and I think you gave some great advice, you know, for women starting out in the business, so certainly appreciate that. Arnie, did you have a, Yeah, I wanted to ask a little bit more about Caitlin. Let's find out about your personal interest, hobbies. Do you have his favorite sports team? Do you play tennis? I mean, you, we, we kind of like to know this kind of fun stuff. Sure. Um, I have a four and a 6-year-old, so my life the last few years has been pretty, I Bet you were gonna say a four handicap. No. And six, I Played golf last week and I had so much fun. I love golf. I don't play enough golf. I will play any scramble you wanna invite me to. I will not probably play 18 holes by myself picking up my own ball along the way. But, um, I think golf is a great tool for business and networking, so I enjoy that. But I live in La Jolla in the Bird Rock neighborhood, which, um, is a wonderful place to, to raise a family. And I grew up in La Jolla, so I am lucky to be living there now. Um, we renovated our house a couple years ago, which was the worst nightmare ever. Just like everybody else in the, I mean, all I really have to say is I have a four and a 6-year-old, and then it really, you know, we understand that you really don't have many other either. We, I have three kids all in the 20, you know, and Grandkid I got, I got, yeah, I got grandkids now and, and I got, we know, got two, two sevens and an eight. And, uh, believe me, and they're all mine are all boys. Well, yeah, that's a lot. It's quite challenge. Yeah. My old, I have a daughter who's six, and my son's almost four. So, So you have all the children at your company that you're president of, and then you have come home and take care of the kids. Yeah. You know what, it's better to have an older daughter. That's What they say. My daughter is the oldest, and, and I really found that that really helps as a parent. And then of course, the, the development of the two of them, I, I Agree with that. So, I mean, with young kids, we love getting outside. We love the beach. Um, I'm a big yoga enthusiast. I've done that for many, many years. I have to get my sweat on so that I can, you know, get my endorphins going. But it's, San Diego has a great lifestyle. We love to travel with little kids. It limits it a little bit, but, um, It's fun though. Enjoy going to the desert. Uh, when the weather's good. We're going this week, actually Hawaii with little kids. It's fun. Uh, shift over to, um, charities. Yeah. You know, uh, things that are important to you, uh, on, on that, on that front that we could give a little air time to that. Maybe we'll get into a check or something. Sure. Um, couple different charities. So Young Life is an organization near and dear to my heart. It's a national organization that is, um, a Christian youth group for high school kids and middle school kids. I was a young life camper in high school. I was a leader in college and after college, and I've served on committees here. So we're just getting that started. Um, it really focuses on unchurched kids, so we're reaching people that, um, we think really need that support and that community feel. So that's a big one. Um, St. Germaine Auxiliary, I'm, uh, a member of here in San Diego. It's a local charity that focuses on, um, child abuse prevention. So that's huge to me. My mother actually helped start the organization, um, many years ago, so. Awesome. That's important. And then, um, right now that's where I'm giving most of my time. Young takes up a lot of my extracurricular time, so Sure. Important ones to me. Um, the, the military is something that Naapp always supports as well. So I will say we do what we used to do a lot, um, with the Marines up in, uh, Oceanside and Pendleton, and we still are involved and do our golf tournament with them. And so that's been important for Naapp and for me as well. My husband's ex Navy, so. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Appreciate the service. Yes, Go ahead and, Yeah. Well, you know, I, I think this has been great. You know, the last question merely I had is on the, although I think you kind of answered it with the kids and the chaplain. Yes. President, do you have any other personal goals that you want to accomplish? You know, going forward, I, Yeah, I mean, my goal right now is really to build back Murphy Development's portfolio. We were probably at half a billion of worth, and I really would love to get another development deal and a handful of other renovation deals in, into the portfolio. We are working on a build a suit at Scripps Ranch. That's something I really wanna get and nail. Um, but, you know, we're, we're a family company. We're gonna continue to grow, um, organically it's maybe we have five deals coming in one year, maybe we have one deal coming in. So I'm flexible with that. But I am, I wanna have a good quality of life for my kids and for myself. Um, I wanna balance my work with my personal life and that, that's always a goal. And it's challenging to do, but that's gonna be my, my goal is to stay centered and to have a, a work life balance while still managing a company and leading people and, um, being successful. Well, great. Kaylyn, it's been a real pleasure talking to you, getting to know you, getting to know more about Murphy Development, and we hope to see you again soon. And believe me, we, we both do events down in the San Diego area and they're all commercial real estate related, so we definitely want my, might wanna call on you to come and November 21st. Yeah. Expect to, to Call. Well, that's, that's your next one is in Carlsbad. But, um, yeah, so we definitely appreciate the time And be best of luck, you know, with the new projects, the new markets. We'll certainly, uh, do a follow up. Y you know, give it like a year and do a follow up and see how they're coming and how things have changed, especially after the election and everything. So, you know, again, have a great day. Thank you. Uh, I got, I'm, I'm, I'm tapped out on our questions. Yeah, you're, you're, you're outta question. So again, Kate, thank you for your time. We really appreciate. Thank, keep An eye out on those deals. Alright, Stalin, take care. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/101654810.txt b/data/transcripts/101654810.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1039101858.txt b/data/transcripts/1039101858.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fa45089
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1039101858.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, hello and welcome to this new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steve and Arne, where we have what we hope to be compelling, interesting, and very informative conversations with leaders in the commercial real estate industry. And I am very excited about today's show because of our guest, Ethan Penner, CEO of Mosaic real estate investors, an icon in the real estate industry who is given credit with creating the CMBS market in the 1990s. But before we start the show and bring in Ethan, uh, we've got some business to take care of. So let me introduce my host, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie, how you doing? Hey, how you doing Steve? I'm doing pretty well. Good. Starting the holidays off getting Ready. Holidays, new year coming up. Yep. Yep. But, And good, a little, little downtime for us, which, uh, I know we need and digest what's going on in the world. We got a great show planned today. Yeah, we do. So, uh, lemme tell you a little bit about Allstar Group and myself, Arne Garfinkel. I've, uh, opened the Allstar Group in 1995 as a commercial real estate lending firm. Uh, but lately we are the Allstar Group events. We do a number of commercial real estate events throughout the state of California, uh, putting lenders and investors and realtors together to find out how to get financing on their commercial real estate loans. We have events in la, orange County and San Francisco. Uh, that's what we do. Absolutely. But tell us about Rent tv, Steve. Well, rent TV is, uh, many of our audience will know. We're now in our 25th year, we're a news and media company covering the western half of the us. Our website, rent tv.com, has daily news about deals and developments. Uh, we do an email blast off of that, which is also a great place for firms and vendors and brokers to advertise with our blast. We also put on a series of conferences, uh, five year Orange County, March Inland Empire, may la, June, Arizona, now in October, and San Diego in November. And, uh, we have a great video platform, the review, where you all are watching this video, which is a searchable real estate, uh, platform, uh, for video programming. Uh, so that's what we are doing, super busy and very much looking for a little bit of downtime over the holidays. Um, so with that wrapped up, Arnie, let's bring in our guests. What do you say? Well, First we have to talk about our sponsors. Oh, Right, right. The sponsors, yes, Of course. Can't forget about them, but I know you're e eager to get Ethan in, but we'll do that shortly. Great. Um, yeah, we've got some amazing sponsors that make this show happen. And our first one, uh, first sponsor of the show has been a great client of mvs for a while, and now we welcome them as a sponsor of Commercial Real Estate Talk, and that is Chase Partners. Many of you in our audience will know Chase Partners, uh, and their head. David Parker is one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout SoCal for over 30 years. While now, uh, they're sponsoring our show to get the word out about an updated strategy for Chase, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties with non-performing debt. If you are an owner, lender, or broker that needs a fast decision and a fast close on your property, please contact Chase Partners atDavid@chasepartners.com. Again, david@chasepartners.com. Who's next? Arnie? Well, our next sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Uh, fidelity Mortgage Lenders is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Hershaw is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McClain at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3 Next. Excellent. Well, the last sponsor, and certainly not the least of, of the show, is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive and simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Called Tiffany Simington. Tiffany Simington, and book your inspection today. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Again, Tiffany, 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. All right, Arnie, it's Time to bring in our guest. Yes, Ethan Panner. Okay. Okay. Alright, well, let's welcome to the show Ethan Penner, CEO of Mosaic real estate investors. Good morning, Ethan. How are you? Morning. It's great to be here. Great, great having you. Thank you so much for the time. You know, I know you're pressed and have done a lot of these over the years, so we really appreciate getting our crack and asking you some of the questions we have on our mind. So let's get started. And, you know, I've, I've seen a lot of the podcasts and, you know, heard about the creation of the CMBS market, but going even further back, how did you initially get into the real estate business? What interested you, what, what attracted you and how did that start out? I, uh, I really, nothing attracted me. I, I, uh, I think, you know, I, I'm gonna probably come off as somewhat of a religious spiritual zealot by the time we're done with this conversation, but as I've gotten older, I've become much more, um, aware of, I guess one would, could use a lot of different ways of saying it. I like to call it like the divine hand in one's life. I mean, I think that like most young men and women who are in college and don't have family businesses to go into or the kind of family business history in the family, you have no idea what you're gonna do. Like, how could anyone know? Right. I just laugh, you know, when people plan the future, it's always, to me a little bit comical because how do you know anything really? And I certainly did. I, I majored in finance in college, but I had changed majors four times. I, I, I didn't start out that way. I obviously, I thought first I'd be a lawyer, so I majored in political science that I thought everyone who wanted to be a lawyer did that. And then I got straight B minuses and I figured, well, I'm never gonna get into Harvard or Yale or any of the good law school. So by the end of freshman year, I realized that's not gonna be me. And then I liked writing, and so I became a journalist major, and I became sports editor of the school paper at NYU, which I really loved till I found out what journalists get paid. And then I go like, gee, I can't, I grew up poor. I can't support a family on that. I don't know how anybody does. Then I became an accounting major because I was desperate. I, I was an now a junior and desperate and wondering how am I gonna get a job? And everyone told me, accountants can always get a job. So I figured, okay, I'll be an accounting major. And of course, that was drudgery. Nobody I think really likes accounting, even accountants. And then I took a finance class as part of the accounting major, and it just kind of came so naturally to me, so naturally to me. And I thought, okay, well, you know, I'm meant to do something in the world of finance. I have an intuitive understanding that I can't even explain. And I became a finance major. But, you know, back in, I was in college, I graduated in 82, and there was no mortgage finance or real estate finance really being taught. I did take one as a senior. I took one real estate finance class, and it happened to be the class I intuitively again, knew best and understood best and did best in. So I guess I had a natural proclivity to it. And I think that's, that's the gift of, uh, trying a lot of things and then trusting that we're all here with some gifts and follow our gifts. I think that that kind of speaks to the purposefulness of how I see the world. Yeah. I think, uh, so if you see your life and the world as being purposeful, then you could follow these clues that just kinda line up for you and life kind of flows. And so that's kind of how it happened for me. I, I was naturally good in, and I wasn't naturally good at anything else, by the way, in school, maybe journalism, I was a good writer, Uhhuh, but, but other than that, still are still a good writer. I was naturally good at and had a natural understanding of finance. And I can't explain it because there was no, no finance or business in my family, and I never was exposed to it before. But I, it just came very logically, naturally to me and real estate in particular. And, um, and when I got out of school, I really would've taken any job actually. You know, like I, it was, you know, I, I love when people talk today about interest rates, because of course, interest rates are good indication of the vibrancy of the economy when rates are low. You learn this as you get older and you just see relationships. But when rates are low, economies tend to be booming because companies and people can borrow easily and cheaply and expand, and they're, that there therein lies jock creation. But when rates are very high, the opposite happens. Right? Economic vibrancy is suppressed, and companies don't grow. There's no borrowing. And, uh, consumers don't really spend because money costs too much. They don't buy new houses and et cetera, et cetera. And so, of course, we now are living in a moment when rates have gone up rather significantly in the last two and a half to three years, uh, consequentially anyway, you know, you have the tenure and the ones, and now you have the tenure and the fours. So it's a, it's a big kind of percentage jump, but they're still in the fours. When I got outta college in 1982, the tenure yielded 1565. Okay. Yeah. And what I like to tell people is when the 10 year, when the government's borrowing at 15.5% for their money, you know, the economy's not growing, let's just put it that way. And jobs are hard to come by. So I was in the beggar shouldn't be choosing mode when I got outta college, and it wasn't like I looked for finance or real estate finance, I, I would've taken a job in a laundromat at that point, you know, like with the promise of being a management trainee in laundromats. And, uh, I did get a job in a savings and loan that was like a laundromat, you know, I mean, I think the sophistication of the laundromat been higher than the sophistication financially at the savings alone. And that's why the savings alone went under and many, many, many others did. I think that what I learned is that, and I've learned this, I've learned, you know, you pay attention in life, you know, we all learned so many lessons. One of the lessons I learned many in that first job was how wrong, uh, the stories told about kinda what happened are, you know, the retelling of stories and therefore kind of the historical history is not true. You know what I mean? To a large extent. So the story of the SNL crisis was told as the story of, um, uh, an industry riddled with corruption and bad actors and criminality. It was really a story of gross incompetence. You know, people were given licenses to take insured deposits and lend them slash invest them, uh, and they were given very broad investment licenses. Right. So at that time, commercial banks were quite restricted in what they could do with deposits. Yeah. But saving loans had no such limitations. And so they were able to invest in junk bonds and real estate equity and real estate commercial lending. I mean, the corporate lending, and I mean, they could do anything with deposit insured deposits and well, government, I remember the time of Long Beach savings, and that was, I remember Roland Ell and, and, and all that. And that was, uh, which, which kind of, you know, a lot of the things you just talked about reminds me of. I mean, I was an accounting major, and then I got to cost accounting. I said, no, you know what, that's not for me. And I got into the finance, and it's funny because I started out as a loan broker, and now I'm doing events because I found that that's my path. Yeah. So it's interesting how life takes you that way, As you know, I found my way to doing events too. Right, right. It's a little only than you, and I love that too. But it's interesting you mentioned cost accounting. It's a, uh, it's another kind of little side bar story, but in my desperation to get a job, I sent out, I don't know, a hundred other letters with resumes to any company for almost any job, right. Including cost accounting. And so I was interviewing for a cost accounting job, and the, um, you know, it seems very stereotypical, the Indian guy who ran cost accounting at this company is interviewing me. And after the interview, he says, well, you know, you are, uh, obviously a smart young guy, and it was very nice of him to say that, and you probably do very well working in this job, but I'm gonna do you a lifetime favor and not give you this job. Yeah. You, you are not the personality type who would find happiness and fulfillment in cost accounting. And I, I think back to that all the time. I, I'm, you know, I was 21 at the time now, it was 42 years ago, so I still remember that conversation like it was yesterday, and I have had to fire people in my career. Mm-hmm. That conversation informed me about benevolent rejection, you know what I mean? I think that for your own good, for your own, no, believe me, every person I've ever fired, I never do it with any maliciousness or hate or negativity, because it's not about that. It's about saying you're a human being and you deserve fulfillment, and you deserve happiness, and you're not winning here at this job, and you deserve to win because we all do. And it's not the right fit for you. It doesn't mean you're bad, or you're e even just, this is the wrong place for you. And, and I'm gonna liberate you from this, from this place that you're not winning to allow you to find a place where you can win. And I really do feel like people who give negative feedback, honestly, like that are, it's the greatest gift you can give another human being. Because every day that we spend suboptimally, it's precious and it's wasted, and it's digging a deeper hole that's hard to get out of. And so I I I, I was very, you know, in reflection that cost accounting conversation Yeah. A gift that that guy gave me a real, a lifetime gift that I'm still very, very, very aware of and grateful for. All right. Let's go back to what you're most known for in the CMBS market. And again, I know you've probably talked about this a million times over and over again on these podcasts, but some of our, you know, uh, people that see it aren't really that familiar with it. So tell us a little bit how that path got you there, and obviously that's where you made a name for yourself. Yeah. Well, I mean, mi I know Miracle, divine Intervention right place, right time, um, eyes being opened to an opportunity I wasn't even aware of. So it's all those things and, and then a phone call. So it's literally all those things. Yeah. I mean, I, I left Morgan Stanley where I had had dreams of one day being one of the guys running the firm and had every reason to believe that I was the youngest principal in the history of the firm, not related to JP Morgan. I had a wonderful career at Morgan Stanley. I loved it. And I really kind of thought, okay, this is, I, I mean, I could see myself being a Morgan Stanley guy for the rest of my life. Um, John Mack didn't see it quite the same way as I did. And, uh, we had a little bit of a, we had a little bit of a disagreement about a certain deal that ultimately caused me to realize that my future was best leaving shape by Morgan Stanley. Yeah. And I did. And I started, I left with my right hand guy and started a firm to my own firm. And it was at the time of the SNL Crisis, which gave birth to the whole idea of opportunistic real estate investing. Real estate investing had been kind of a dull core type investing business. Uh, unglamorous, not high yield, kind of a backwater part of finance. And the RTC dislocation and the distressed selling that was kind of the hallmark of that period, gave birth to entrepreneurial reactions. So the Sam Zes and the Tom Barracks and the Barry Sternly, and et cetera, et cetera, and Ethan Penners, all were energized by kind of the entrepreneurial kind of spirit in all of us was energized by this massive sell off. And we all go, like, you know, we're all attracted to it, like moths to light. And we all started our own companies right at about the same time. So in 1991 or so, that's when Starwood started, that's when I started my company. That's when, um, that was Magellan Colony started Magellan, that's when Colony started and et cetera. Loans started. Didn't even start. They started a couple years later, but all of the, uh, Blackstone started a couple of years later, but, but, but 91 was the moment when a lot of entrepreneurial energy was coalescing around real estate for the very first time ever because of this historic location. Yeah. And so I figured, okay, I'll start my thing and I'll do, I had the same idea everybody had, which is, let me buy assets on the cheap from distressed sellers, and lemme go find investors to back me to do that. So I found everyone found their investors, like Barry Stirling was introduced to two wealthy families in New York, and they were his first investors. And, um, colony had, um, the Bass Brothers, 'cause Tom Barrett had worked for the bass family and, uh, et cetera, et cetera. I found Cargill in Minneapolis. And so they backed me and my partner Steve, and we started bidding on auctions of distressed sale assets, pools of distressed sale assets. And we bid on the first one, and we came in second, and it was one of the earliest, I think the second RTC auction was mobile home park loans distressed. And it would've been a home run. And it just, again, it's interesting, the divine aspect of things. Had we won that deal, I would not have probably founded the CMBS market, and I wouldn't have been in that business. I would've been a lot like Lone Star, John Gray or Barry or those guys. I would've gone down that asset acquisition path. That deal would've led to other deals and bigger funds. And I would've had a firm like that. But that wasn't what was meant to be for me. We finished second in that auction, and right after we finished second, I got a phone call from a lawyer, a friend of mine, who said that he has a client who has, um, loans coming due on his shopping center portfolio, and he can't find a refinancing loan. Now, I didn't know about like the, I I hadn't even thought about the fact that this, um, period of time created a problem for refinancing because there was no lender capital, all the lenders had left. I didn't know that. I was like everybody else focused on the distressed sale of assets by, you know, forced sellers. And so that phone call alerted me to this other crisis that was related to this whole period of dislocation that I no one else was paying attention to, which was that if you had assets, you had loans coming due. There was not a lender in the country to give you a quote at any level, at any LTV at any spread. Right. I, I, so I met with these guys, the manors who had been syndicators and now had like a lot of syndicators in the eighties. They had bought out their LPs and now they own this portfolio themselves. Beautiful portfolio of, uh, again, I'll, I'll mention this 'cause it's for your audience. It'll be interesting. Kmart anchored shopping centers. Huh. Now Kmart of course went bankrupt in the, I guess the late nineties, but, but in this time in the early nineties, Kmart was a slightly better credit than Walmart. So, so people think I mentioned this because young people who haven't seen a lot, can't imagine big companies, successful companies disappearing, completely disappearing. Well, Kmart disappeared, right? And of course, we also know that Blackberry disappeared and Palm disappeared, and lots of dominant companies have disappeared in our life. And people look at Apple and they go, well, gee, that that'll never disappear. Or Amazon, I, you know, I, I like Jeff, all the banks on too big to fail. I mean, look at that. Yeah. Jeff, Jeff Bezos, one of the things I really admire him is he knows Amazon will not be forever. 'cause nothing's forever. And he just does, he just wants to make it for as long as it possibly can be. And you can't, you can't stay forever, probably. And anyhow, so getting back to my story, the, uh, man doors had a portfolio of loans of, of shopping centers with that were very low leverage, 60%, 55% leverage, and loans were coming due. And they couldn't get a single quote to refi, not a single quote. And I said, well, I think your loans are, you know, at a cross collateralized basis. 'cause he had, they had like 20 or so properties, uh, at a 50% loan to value cross collateralize at a 10 cap, by the way. Okay. 10 cap. Yeah. Yeah. On real historical, um, earnings. I think that's double A on its own. Right? I don't think you need to have any subordination. I think that's a double a rate to piece of paper. And now I had grown up again at Morgan Stanley and before that at Drexel being one of the pioneers of trading and structuring residential mortgage credit. So I understood structured credit, structured finance. I had gravitas because I ran that business at Morgan Stanley. So the bond buyer community knew me, and I knew them. The rating agency community knew me, and I knew them. And I understood how that game worked of turning structured loans into bonds and, and had the kind of wherewithal to think, okay, I think I could persuade my friends at the rating agencies that this loan should be rated aa. And if I could get aa, I think I could convince my bond buyer friends to put a bid on. Right. And I could bribe them with a lot of extra yield. Let's say they're buying AA corporates at X, how about if I give them a hundred over X or 150 over x to take something that's a little different real estate. Right. And I think, and I also know that because the borrower is so desperate for refinancing, I can impose very, very strict, uh, and prohibitive and bond buyer friendly terms, like prepayment protections and such that, that the borrower would never have agreed to a year ago or two years ago. But now they're desperate for money and they'll take anything. So I could make a great, a beautifully structured bond by making a beautifully structured loan refinancing that I know bond buyers would like. And I had the background understand what they would like, that I knew rating agencies would like. And I had the background to understand what they would like. So I was basically a cook in a kitchen creating new food for clientele that I had already served food to. Yeah. And that's really a proper analogy. And so I created that deal. Then I convinced Cargill, who again, had backed me into the bidding of distressed assets. I said, look, there's a, I suspect there's an opportunity here to turn, you know, it was like Rumpelstiltskin to turn loans into bonds and make a lot of money really fast here because we're gonna make the loans close them and then resell them as bonds and we'll get our money and our profit back. You know, in a short period we won't have to work very hard as we might have to if we buy a portfolio of distressed mobile home parks and figure out how to restructure them and deal with all that. Yeah. So they followed me in the rating agencies that I started with were Fitch and, uh, Duff and Phelps because Standard and Poors and Moody's were the kind of the blue chips. And I figured I'll start with the little bit less blue chips, who needed to be a little creative to compete with the Blue chips. Right. And I found really smart entrepreneurial guys there, a guy named Ron Wexler at Fitch. Mm-hmm. And a guy named Joe Franti at Duffin Phelps, both of whom were still around and were PLE pleasant to work with and really smart and open-minded. And, uh, I mean, I had to push them a little bit out of their comfort zone because real estate was a scary asset at that time. But, but they went along and I got AA ratings, then I got s and p, uh, to rate it as well. And, um, that was the first CMBS deal that went through the system. Now by the, I I then, here's the other thing that I think, I don't, I, I don't think investors or people that are historians understand about what I did, but I was a trader. Mm-hmm. So, so my, when you're a trader, a bond trader, first of all, bond trading is the only business in America or in the world where the oral commitment is legally binding. Right. And, uh, so I got used to a business where your word is your bond. Yeah. Handshake. A handshake business. Right. And phone calls became recorded. They weren't even recorded. They were just, there was a trust. And then sometime in the late eighties there, there was a need to record these phone calls. So you can go back to 'em and say, Hey, you did say you were gonna buy the a hundred million of this at that price, but, but it was still orally committed to and binding. Well, when I got to the real estate industry and I started seeing, so I took that deal that, that very first deal, the Mandos deal, and now I had a double A rated bond, and I thought to myself, who am I going to take this AA rated bond to? And I took it to teachers, you know, the big insurance company in New York, teachers Insurance. Mm-hmm. The reason I took it to teachers is because they had a large real estate lending business, and they also had a large bond portfolio business. And I figured you need both to be able to understand what I'm trying to sell here. And the bond guys would understand structure and understand that this is really good relative value. I'm offering them a hundred or more basis points above other double As. And it's a very well structured double A. And the real estate guys would be able to understand the real estate and the safety of the credit. So I went to, teachers had a relationship there, they really liked the deal, and then they went down their process of underwriting it and approving it. This is a deal they liked, and they never didn't like it. I would say six or seven months later, they still hadn't gotten to the point where they were ready to approve the deal. They were going through their committees, literally committee after committee after committee. Yeah. And in that process of trying to take that deal through a very large real estate lender's process, I got to understand something else that, uh, I think changed the way real estate lending, um, happened post me. And I think that what I realized was there's a very, um, bad mismatch between the entrepreneurial nature of the real estate operator and their needs, which are, you know, you, you go do a deal, you tie it up, you need to have your financing line up like fast. You don't have months and months and months for an approval. And then that match of the need for speed and entrepreneurism was very mismatched by the bureaucracy of the lending community that had served them for so long. And I realized that created an opening very, very big for me, because if I could create an entrepreneurial lender that had trader mentality to it and trader speed of commitment to it, um, I could really dominate this business and I could change the landscape forever by providing unique value to the client, which was the real estate operator. Yeah. And so that experience with teachers, in the end, teachers couldn't close the loan. And I got to Nomura. So now Magellan gets folded into Nomura. I'm backed by Nomura, I have my own capital, and I call teachers and I said, listen, you guys have been dancing with this loan for seven months. You have like a week to close. I'm gonna be a mansion to let you close, but if you don't close in a week, I'm just gonna close it no more. I've got the money now myself and it's an amazing deal. And I ended up closing it no more. And they couldn't close. So it was pretty eye-opening to see the processes that existed, obviously that they've changed are obviously institutional lenders have reacted to the competition from Wall Street type lenders and have modified their, um, their responsiveness accordingly. Yeah. But what existed kind of in 1990s and prior in the institutional lending side was really a poor fit for the entrepreneurial need of the borrower. And I changed all that, and I'm very, so you asked me like, what did you really do? Uh, what do you, what are you known for, but what do you really do? Well, I'm known for kind of introducing the capital markets to real estate on the debt side, which I think forever changed the business because it, it made sure that capital was always available at some price, right? Before the industry was dependent upon regulated lenders. And when regulated, when regulators decide real estate lending is bad, the spigot got shut off across the board. Now the capital markets, you don't shut off, you just change pricing. So I created, uh, access to kind of permanent capital or always available capital. And that was a big, big, uh, ad I think. But the, but the other thing that's less known is I think I brought this trader mentality and service speed and responsiveness that forever changed the way lenders serve their clients. And I think that's been a big, big addition too. Great. Great story. Great, great answer, Ethan. Thank you for that. Alright. So you create this incredible, you know, new way of financing real estate. I think the time at no more ends around 98 or so, describe your career path from no more till starting Mosaic, you know, which includes, you know, that period of time, I think it's CBRE and the Great recession occurred, and then Mosaic, I think 2015. Am I correct? Yeah, I started it in 2015. So Yeah, that period of time, uh, what, what were you, what kind of deals were you doing? What kind of projects were you working on during that period? Well, between 98 and 15, um, I would say work wasn't my highest priority for, for a lot of those years. Right. So The, when I left Wall Street or I left no more, I was in a burnout mode. I really just needed a vacation or a sabba. Um, I mean, it's, it, it was a very hard, uh, hard period. You know, I had a, I had a, I had a very, from the time I started at Drexel in 1986, till the time I left Nomura in 1998, that was 12 years. Uh, but they were like 12 dog years. So it felt like about 80 years, you know, like whatever that math is because I, I don't think, I don't think I could have worked harder. I don't think anyone could have prioritized work more than I did. And, you know, the productivity was intense and I, I really was just burnt out. I'm very burnt out. And then, you know, I had, uh, people always say about work-life balance. I don't think that you can achieve balance if you're aiming really high in anything. Right? And so I was aiming really high. I didn't have good work-life balance. I didn't cultivate a good family life or marriage and, and that was fray and ultimately broke up. And, uh, so I kind of had a bit of a midlife crisis, you know, the leaving of Wall Street and then like, gee, I just need, I need some time to walk away from everything and just figure my life out right now. And I had the luxury of enough financial success that I didn't need a job right away. And I was still young. I was only 37 or 38 years old when this all. And, um, so I took the opportunity to remake my life. And I think that was a, I mean, a great gift. You know, one of the gifts of financial success is you can take a deep breath and think about life. You could think, right? I mean, if you're running and running and running as I was up until then, there's not a lot of time to be reflective and think about life and the meaning of life and the meaning of your life and purpose of your life. You, you're just running. And I think, I don't know, I think that this is a little bit, again, we're gonna go off the being path a bit, but I think that, you know, I've become quite philosophical. You know, I wrote the book, I wrote, uh, I'm coming out with another book that's about prayer, and it's a gift that I've been given that I don't take for granted Yeah. That I can breathe and that I can think and that I can reflect and, and I want to share that gift with other people who don't have that luxury. You know, when people meet someone who has, let's say, philosophy, like I have become a philosopher, I suppose I wrote a book on philosophy. Yeah. And, and I think people go like, who the hell does he think he is? That he's smart enough to tell me about life? I I don't really necessarily think I'm smarter than anybody. I'm just being give, given the gift of time and the ability to take a deep breath and be a better observer of things because I have time and because I can breathe. And unfortunately that's not what most people's lives are like, whether they're blue collar jobs or white collar jobs. I had a white collar job, but I didn't have time to breathe, you know, until 1998. I, I was just on the treadmill running as hard as I can. Just like, if I had a blue collar job, I was getting paid a little more, but, or a lot more. But still, I didn't have the ability to really understand my life or life, you know? And I think that that's what I'm hoping to do with my book, is to be able to share my gift, which is not my intelligence or even my ability to have insights. It's the luxury of being able to breathe and the luxury of being able to live a little bit of a slower life and of life. And a and that brings it with itself an awareness that I hope to be able to share. And I think back, if you know, you, I'm Jewish, and you know, we as Jewish people benefit from the teachings of many, many generations of rabbis. Yes. Interesting. About the history of rabbis in the Jewish, um, tradition. It's not that the rabbis were lords or superior, but the rabbis were literally the way the Jewish society was created, uh, and cultivated over generations. The, the rabbinical class was, um, freed, if you will, from having to work. Right. They were supported financially, typically by the community, because the community understood that it's good to have wisdom and it's good to cultivate. And the only way to cultivate wisdom is to free certain people from the kind of routine and the needs of a blue collar or a working life, white collar, blue collar, whatever. And so, rabbis historically were just paid by this, the community to be, to give advice, right. To study Torah and to study historical knowledge and to share that with the community in sermons at synagogue or private meetings, to counsel them when they had problems in their lives. And I, and I, I understand that so much better now. My dad was a Rabbi Uhhuh. And, um, and I understand how the intelligent design of a society and a community that cultivates that and appreciates that and knows that it's not because that guy or that gal has any superior wisdom. It's that the society needs a couple people to not be busy all the time. And to be able to be reflective and students and scholars, and then coach and share their gained scholarship with the community, that's their job. So I feel like, I feel like that's what I've been doing a little bit lately. Well, The way you categorize your thoughts and the way you're able to write, I gotta say, there's, there's a lot you, there's a lot more credit to give you than, you know, than what you're giving yourself now. Because the book was really, uh, inspirational on me. I really enjoyed it. So, you know, I know we'll get into that A little, little bit more, but Arnie, you go ahead. Yeah, no, I, i had you started Mosaic, uh, and, and the mission when you started it was what, when you launched it, and where has, where is it now going from when it started to right now, nine years later? Well, well, I've always been, um, guided by a couple of governing thoughts when it comes to work. One of them is, uh, which I kind of like to use this, um, I like analogies don't bring sand to the beach. Mm-hmm. Okay? Mm-hmm. So, uh, I think that too many people in their careers are, are doing something that is akin to bringing sand to the beach. And the beach has plenty of sand and doesn't need any more sand. And so if you're showing up with buckets of sand and and expecting to get paid for that, well, you know, you're probably not gonna get paid or get paid very well because there's plenty of sound already there. So what I try to do is ask myself the question, what's valuable? Like, what could I bring to the world that is valuable? Because then if I bring that, I deserve to get rewarded for that. Right? And so I think that's the classic entrepreneur's way of thinking. And when I started, um, mosaic, I started off by saying to myself, 'cause it was a very, if you remember, 20 15, 20 14, as we were conceiving it in 2015, were highly, highly overcrowded, uh, times for the real estate, uh, investment management business that there was over capacity. And I knew that. And so when you try to bring, uh, something of value, and it is hard to do when there's just tons of overcapacity. So I asked myself the question, which I like to do, where is the world heading? Um, and then I should kind of have a thesis, investment thesis that, uh, comports with that. And I thought the big story of the prior, well, and I think this is, I'll share this with your audience. The big story, there's always a big story, right? If we look back at our lives since I got outta college, the big story has been the extreme, uh, reduction in interest rates. So I got out, the tenure was 1565, and by 2020 or 21, the tenure was one and a half. I mean, the world has never seen a 40 year run like that in. And so that, that story was the dominant theme. And it's why if you go to like that 40 year period, a guy like Warren Buffett became wildly rich. He didn't do anything. He didn't invent anything. He didn't produce anything. Yeah. What he did was get long duration and hold on for 40 years. And that was the perfect, perfect thing to do. Yeah. So, again, I don't say that disparately, but more, um, admiringly of what Warren Buffett did. He's, he, he understood that 1565 on the tenure was not a sustainable level, and probably rates were gonna go down significantly. And he figured if I can get long with leverage and staying power and just stay long duration, I'm gonna get very rich. It is exactly what he did. Yeah. And he created insurance company holding companies so that he had both leverage and staying power, which is a very rare combination that he uniquely concocted. And I give him all the credit in the world for that. Now, I ask myself, and I do this every day, what is the next 10, 20, 30, 40 year big kind of dominating theme that one would be rewarded for? Like if I was Warren Buffet today or in 2015, what, what, what theme could I kind of latch onto, right? As an investment thesis that I could have success over a long period of time without working too hard? You know, like Warren Buffet. And the answer I came up with in 2014 was, and I still believe this is true. So the same answer exists today, even more so is that we're gonna see inflation. Now, inflation is a misunderstood word, and I prefer a different word. I prefer a, a phrase currency debasement. Right? So inflation is a, a one word answer to a two word answer, which is currency debasement. Now, the reason I think that's gonna be the biggest theme is because the biggest problem we have is our national debt and servicing our debt, our debt, the fact that it's growing out of control every year. And no one seems to have an idea of how to staunch that. Although I think, uh, Vivek and Elon have some hope that they're gonna try to do that. But the point is, I think that, uh, some form of currency basement, and there's only really a couple of different ways to do it, but it gets to the same place. We'll create a scenario where 10 years from now, your, your $6 hamburger is gonna be $15. Yeah. And your, you know, your million dollar house is gonna be two and a quarter million dollars, and you're, uh, I don't know, your $5 latte is gonna be $11. Yeah. Okay. And, and it's just gonna happen, uh, either all at once or insidiously. I'm not sure that's the only question, but it will happen because it has to happen, because what I've learned in life is that big problems get solved and the world moves on. Yeah. And so, so I start by asking myself, what problem if it weren't solved, would destroy our society? And then I know, well, that has to get solved because our society can't be destroyed. And then I ask, how does it get solved? And I think that the debt crisis gets solved by currency debasement. Then I ask myself, how do I make money off of that? How could I develop an investment thesis that plays into that, that vision? So I believe multifamily ownership is the best way to do that. Yeah. Because multifamily ownership gets the benefit of, again, if rents are X, they're gonna be two x or two and a half x or whatever it is. And it won't be because rents got unaffordable. It's just because wages are gonna go up by two x or two and a half X and everything's gonna go up by two x and two and a half x, and then all of a sudden the debt is manageable. Right. If you think yourself, just think, I always tell people, let's say whatever money you make, let's say you had a debt you could manage. So let's say you're making a hundred grand a year and you have a hundred grand of debt that you owe, and it's a 10 year loan, personal loan. Well, you could, that's a manageable number. You could pay it off a hundred grand a year in income. Yeah. You could take a little bit every month and you could pay off a hundred grand over a 10 year period, no problem. But if you were making a hundred grand a year and you had $15 million of debt, it is never gonna pay that off. It's not gonna happen. Exactly. Never. However, if I added a zero to your pay and said, your a hundred grand is now a million or added a zero and a half and made it your million and a half, all of a sudden your 15 million to debt now can work. That's what's gotta happen to this country. Okay. So what's gotta happen is a zero or, or one and a half x needs to be added to the income level, wage level, price level of everything, and then the debt makes sense. Again. So multifamily is the best way to benefit as an investor from that belief because, and that trend, because one you've got rents gonna ultimately grow with that inflation or that currency basement, you've got leverage because multifamily is very leverageable because you have predictable cash flow. Right. You know, if you buy the right multifamily properties, your occupancy ranges from 87 to 95%. That consistency of cashflow tolerates debt, something like office buildings I've never believed should be leveraged because there's such wild swings in cashflow and office, even when office were considered good in the eighties and nineties, let alone now. Alright. But Ethan, I gotta, I gotta interrupt you there because, uh, one of the last news items, you know, when I'm doing my research about Mosaic was the, uh, yes. An investment or the formation with, we'll, We'll get, well, we'll get to that because there's a, there's a right way to handle everything. Right. And I don't think there was a very famous, um, I love this saying, very famous saying on Wall Street when I was a bond trader, there are no bad bonds, just bad prices. That's true. And I think that's true about all assets. There are no bad office buildings, just bad prices right now in downtown la The price might be negative. Meaning like to take an office building in downtown LA today, you might have to pay me money rather than, well, I Was gonna make, I, I heard your comments about downtown, The downtown markets are assets That you've got there, But there's still a right price. I don't know what the right price is, but there's no bad anything. They're just bad prices. And so, so that's the answer, the quick answer, we'll get to the office thing a little in, in a minute or two, but, but I, so in 2014, I have this belief, I still have this belief very, very deeply. It hasn't changed. In fact, it's gotten more so because the debt in the last 10 years has grown at an even faster pace. And so the thesis I saw in 2014 and 15 is even more true today. Right. Not less true today. And I do think it's gonna play out. So in, so when I started Mosaic, I thought, I'm gonna start a multifamily investment fund. That was what I wanted to, you Actually gonna buy the properties as opposed to buy The properties. Yeah. I don't wanna lend, I mean, the last thing you want to do in, in that thesis is be a lender because you're getting paid back 10 years. Right. With, with 50 cent dollars, I don't want to get paid in 50 cent dollars. You know, my, my after inflation return is ne is gonna be wildly negative no matter what interest rate I charge. Right, right, right. So I didn't want to do that. Uh, and I went to an investor, I'm kind of saying, I'm gonna tell you this story. And I would say I'm, I'm, I'm a little shamed by it, but I have no problem. We love those. You really do. I have no, well, I, I think that one of the things people do, and especially successful people, is they whitewashed their history and, and it's so f*****g insincere. You know what I mean? Like, you read a book about someone's biography and they never made a mistake and they never did a wrong deal, and they never had a bad idea. And you just realize this person's full of s**t. You know, it's just like, who wants even read a book? Like how did They learn? Right. You learn, well, But you, you, your model, your success was based on failure. And that's the way everybody should, well, I think, I think everyone is, but I think very few people are willing to actually admit it or talk about it, which makes their lives not valuable to study. And no one benefits from that. Correct. So I, I will tell you, how did I get Mosaic from that moment of like, gee, Ethan has this really well thought out thesis and wants to go raise an apartment fund that would be the right thing to do. And by the way, would've been an incredible home run. Mm-hmm. And ends up running a kind of debt oriented fund. How does that happen? Mm-hmm. And the answer is, I went to my first investor, and I won't mention names or anything like that, but I went to my first investor who was a wealth management firm, and I pitched the multifamily fund. And he said to me, well, you know, I like that and I would invest in that. But he said to me, he didn't know me, and he said, do you know anything about real estate debt? And this is 2014. And I said, uh, yeah, I think I know something about real estate debt. Or 15, I know something about real estate debt. I kind of have had a pretty good career in it. And he said, well, if you had a real estate debt fund, I would give you five times that amount of money that I would give you for multifamily, and I'd give it to you like right away. Wow. And I thought, Hmm, I'm, I'm trying to start a business here and um, maybe I'll just start a debt fund. So I said, okay, well I'm, I'll tell you what, I'll start a debt fund. Yeah. Right. And, uh, opportunity. And I took his money, you know, and that would've been a good moment for me to sign of say no. That would've been a good moment in reflection for me to say, I don't really think that's the best thing you could do with your investors' money, and here's why. Yeah. But instead, I took the path of least resistance, which is very unusual for me. I went against my norm. My norm is if someone, you know, they used to say on Wall Street, and I love Wall Street. 'cause my time, my era, my era had a lot of great sayings and colorful people and they say, if someone wants a green suit, you sell 'em a f*****g green suit. You know what I mean? And, uh, you don't tell 'em they look ugly in the green suit, you just sell 'em the green suit. I never believed in that. I always believed that that's not value. You know, again, it goes back to the, I wanna bring value. So bringing value to an investor who's kind of misguided means telling them they're misguided and being willing to risk losing the ticket. You know what I mean? And say, okay, listen, I know you want to green suit, but you really look ugly in a green suit. I've got a beautiful navy blue suit. You should be wearing that. You would look amazing in it. And if the guy says, well, gee, I'm gonna go find someone else to sell me the green suit. Thanks a lot. So be it. You have integrity, you did your best. Right, right. That was, that's been 99% of my career. That one moment was one of the few moments that I didn't do it, where one of the few moments where I lost my resolve and I went the path of least resistance, and I went for the green suit. The guy wanted a green suit. I said, okay, I'm gonna make a great green suit. I don't think in my, in my heart, I'm thinking, I don't think you should buy the green suit. I don't think it's the right choice, but I'm gonna do the best I can to make a good green suit for this guy. And so I took his money and I started a debt fund. Now, there was an over capacity of debt funds in real estate in 2015. So I couldn't just kind of say, I'm gonna go out and buy, um, I'm gonna go make distressed or transitional loans. A lot of pe everyone was doing the debt funds were all doing what I call transitional loans, which was funding some real estate operator who had gotten a little bit of money and the operator was going out and buying what he thought were sub performing assets and let's say trying to re-tenant them or create tenancy when there wasn't tenancy. And the, so the lenders were lending him typically 65, 70, 75, even 80% of his money. And then that got so crowded that the yields got driven down, and the lenders who were in that business were forced to leverage their loans on lines. They would go to like JP Morgan or Wells Fargo and create leverage on leverage and mismatch that leverage. Right. So let's say they were making a five year loan and then they were borrowing kind of month to month on repo or something. And I knew that's gonna end terribly. So I said, I'm not gonna do that. Like, that's, to me, it, it's an irresponsible, stupid move. So I thought, well, what am I gonna do with this new fund that I've begun that is not as differentiated in a highly crowded market? Well, I realized two things. One, there's no one doing construction lending. And there was reason for that because the word construction and construction in general had been stigmatized in real estate forever. Uh, and so no one, no one, no investor wanted to invest in construction lending. And if a, if an investment manager said, we're gonna take your money and make construction, is they would've gotten no money from investors. So that created a void. And I love voids. And so I figured I'm gonna focus on construction lending, which played into another thesis I had, which was that the biggest risk in real estate in 2015. And I still think, uh, we're seeing it now and it's much more acknowledged, but people didn't know it back then was obsolescence risk. And so I felt if I can make a 75% loan to cost construction loan, then my basis in the best newest beautifulest building in the market is gonna be much safer than if I make a 75 or 80% loan to value loan on a 25, 30-year-old building. So I, I, so I was very comfortable making construction loans because of that. And the other thing I did remember, I love multifamily ownership, was make preferred equity investments through the debt fund in multifamily portfolios where we were junior to Fannie Mae. And so we had equity like returns on multifamily. So I worked that multifamily equity thesis into a debt fund that way. So that's what Mosaic became really a barbell of those two strategies, construction lending, and mostly, I mean, we did a few deals that were off those two, but most of what we did were one of those two strategies. Excellent. And we were, and we were doing very well. I mean, it was a, it was a very well thought out thesis we were doing extremely well. We had found niches that made sense. And where there was a, there were some voids. And so we were seeing wonderful deal flow. There was not a lot of competition. So we were able to earn a, a very fair and high return for the risk we were taking. C happened and covid, uh, like for many, many, many businesses, covid was, uh, just a, a death sentence for us. I mean, it, it, there was no way to survive covid intact. And that's that. And I knew it. I mean, I'm a capital markets guy. I know that when there's existential problems in the society, and of course Covid was one of them. Big, big problem. Like a global pandemic, you know, who had ever thought of a global pandemic before and that closes down economies. I knew that this was not gonna end well for my fund and for my assets and for, and that there would be at the very wor very least a liquidity crisis. And I didn't want to have to put my investors and myself through that. So I sought an exit and I closed what was an open-ended fund and I sought an exit and we were able to successfully find an exit by merging our fund into a publicly traded reit. And my limited partners who had no liquidity in their LP investments in my fund were now given immediate liquidity in a public market stock with no lockup in March of 2022, which was before rates started going up. And when mortgage REITs, which what we essentially got stock in, were at all time highs. And so if my investors had sold the stock they were given in March of 2022, they all made out very well. Excellent. Unfortunately, Ethan Penner didn't sell his stock in March of 2022 and still holds that stock at 50% of what it was worth in March of 2022. But, you know, that's a decision each investor got to make. And again, another in a life filled with mistakes, you know, we think of successful people again, as having done mostly or all good things and smart things and right things. I would say that I've done my share of good right. Smart things, but I would say my batting average, you know, like in baseball, you're a hall of famer. If you only make out seven out of 10 times. That's right. I would say that's about the right ratio. I probably make out seven out of 10 times and I get hits three out of 10 times. Hey, great answers, Ethan. And you know, the time has flown by and I know we, we, we, you know, we promised you an hour, so we we're, we're ticking down there and, and there's still some, some areas we want to cover. We may have to do this another time 'cause we've got, you know, know still some unanswered issues, but you Wanted to go deep on certain things, so I'm Sorry. Well now we, we, we could do part two, you know, we'll just, we wanna shift it to, you know, how you see things going forward. You know, we just had, you know, obviously a month ago, you know, something occurred in, in our country election and, you know, how do you see things now going forward, you know, a few weeks now to digest it and Yeah. And, you know, well, I'll give, I'll give you my two answers. One is just a repeat and it's gonna be quick of the whole, the thesis I just described that kind of compelled me in 2015 to one of the multifamilies is still deeply in play today. And I love that strategy because I believe that we have to fix the debt and currency debasement in one form or another will be the solution as far as the election and the post-election analysis. You know, I think that the, um, the b******t is starting to go away. It just is, you know, and, uh, up is gonna be up again and down is gonna be down again. And we're not gonna have to pretend otherwise. And I think it's a huge breath of fresh air that everyone gets to breathe because we were heading towards a totalitarian society and all the signs were in play. You know what I mean? You were, you were, you were ostracized for speaking kind of against the herd or the what was acceptable speech you were being told what you can say and what you couldn't say. Um, you were being told that merit is not the basis for anything good. In fact, it's racist. The idea of merit. All the things that are just senseless and were, if followed, would've trashed our entire country. Okay. And we had four or eight or 12 years that, I dunno, by anyone's measure, depends on when you think it all started, but, um, it's all gone. You know, as a country, we, we stood up and repudiated all that. Now, of course, slightly less than half people did not repudiate that, which is a little bit problematic. Um, and some of them are very upset and some of them bought hook line and sinker that up is down and down is up. And it's gonna be very hard to, um, to undo the, the kind of Yeah. Why the wiring, the wiring problems that those people now have. Yeah. I don't know how that gets done, but I think we just move forward, you know, we just move forward. Yeah. And well, bringing it back, uh, bringing it back to, you know, our world, the real estate and finance world, because of the results. Do you see new opportunities in, in finance perhaps, or, you know, in some of the sectors, maybe the, you know, office to sector or the office to multi-family opportunities? Well, I think that, I think that it's gonna be a little bit early to answer that question, right? Yeah. But I would say the positives should ripple through every sector. Every sector. Now I think that, um, I think that, uh, the office is, so we go back to office, and I'll mention that briefly. I've said it before and I think I'm the only person I've heard say this. I think that one of the real, the real reason that office has been so plagued is not because of work from home as a result of Covid, it's because of the woke mentality in the office place has made the workplace an unfun place to go. So if you are given a choice, you can go to this place or not go to this place, and this place is fun and this place is stimulating, and this place is vibrant. You go, okay, like in 1985 or 86 or 1995, people were running to work, running to work. I mean, you couldn't keep me or my kind of, uh, partners or workers from the office. We loved the office because we, we just loved being there. It was fun to be there by 1999, 2000. And then after that, it just continued to go downhill. All the fun, all the joy, all the spontaneity, all the celebratory aspects of being human in a group were sucked out of the, the work experience in the office. So when Covid came and all of a sudden people were given a choice, which they didn't have a choice until then, hey, you could work from home or you can come to the office. Well, they made the logical choice. This ain't fun. I'm not going there if I have a choice. And so the office return will return to its full health if we can unwind some of this stupidity that has permeated our society and made it less fun to be in a group together. Right. And, um, I dunno if that's gonna happen. I don't know how it can happen. I suspect this election is a step in the right direction, but that's, that's a governing or gating issue for a lot of, uh, a lot of office. How about, how about the, you know, another hot topic today, which I'd love to get your thought on the, uh, the thought or the attempts to, you know, go from office to multifamily. Obviously a lot of physical challenges, but have you looked at that Mm. Closely at all? There's a lot of people who have much better domain expertise about that than me. Yeah. And every single one that I've talked to say it doesn't make economic sense. Yeah. It's, it's 90% of the time it doesn't make acknow. Yeah. And especially where those things are. It's gotta be the Right type of Property. Yeah. Let, let's find out about Ethan Penner. What is he like? Um, I mean, other than the philosophy and everything else, uh, obviously you're a sports fan 'cause we could see right behind you, uh, your favorite teams. What do you like to do? Do you go to games? Uh, uh, do you charities, hobbies? Let's find out a little bit about you. The, you the person. Well, I, I grew up loving sports, playing sports. Mm-hmm. Dreaming about sports, um, even dreaming about being a professional athlete. Uhhuh like most boys, you know, you lose that dream at some point, but like most boys who played Met are Yankees, Mets are Yankees. Mm. Mets Dodgers. No, no, Baby. No. Well, I, I, I was born in the Bronx on Grand Concourse. And so my first team was the Yankees just by proximity. And I was seven or six. Right. My dad used to take me to Yankee games, and, uh, the Yankees were absolutely awful, but I still enjoyed them. And I was a Yankees fan. I still had a kind of a connection to the pins stripes. I Think I told you my grandparents lived blocks from Yankee Stadium. Yeah. I, I was a Met fan. I grew up in Flush Soto. Man, I gotta tell you. But then what happened was the 69 Mets came about. Yep. Uh, I was eight. And you could not not love the 69 Mets. Yes. They were the epitome of American Dream, you know, like the underdog making. Yeah. My First memories is them winning the World Series. Well, yeah. I mean, I could still name the starting lineup. Well, I made, me too. I can, I can name their starting lineup too, which is weird. And I'm still been a Mets fan ever since. And so I have become friends with, uh, just by strange coincidence, probably seven or so years ago, Steve Cohen and I met on a golf course and we become fast friends. And so it's part kind of kinda weirdly cool to not, I'm Uhhuh, I I'm friends of the owner of a team I really love, and, and now they're great and they're promised even better now. And so, so I I I've rekindled my sports fanship, so Mets fa, my, my Mets Fanship was dormant for quite a while, like 20 plus years Uhhuh. But, but in the last few years it's been rekindled. I'm a, I'm a big mess fan. And the same thing with the Knicks. I was a Knicks fan when I was a very young kid. Right. Wolf, Razer, Nicks, I mean, I saw them win championships. I love that team. Then I kind of left the Knicks not, I mean, I just didn't elect the team ever since 1978 or 79. Bernard King was the last great nick, I think. Yeah. So, so the Knicks kind of all of a sudden under the Brunson, Nicks, uh, had been a pleasure because they play basketball the right way. So I'm, I'm, and I've kind of rekindled my, my love for going to sporting events and my appreciation for why that's a great thing, you know? And, uh, so now I try to go as often as I can. I went, my daughter's a SMU College senior, and they've had a good run out of nowhere. Yeah, yeah. Played on, um, Saturday in Charlotte in the a CC championship game, which was an amazing game against Clemson. Yeah. And my wife and I and my daughter went to that game. Oh, wow. So, so I have to say that sporting events are beautiful experiences because all the social divisions go away. Yeah. Your skin color, your religion, your who you voted for your right slip goes away and you just hug and kiss and high five the people next to you when your team does well. And it's exactly, and you're Americans also. You have the national anthem, and we all just forget all our differences. And it's one of those magical moments in a stadium when everyone's together in, in a beautiful social way. I really love it. I really love it. Good. Well, now the, now you live in la you follow the Dodgers, the Lakers, the, uh, or you still back in New York? Interesting. I, I don't really feel like I live in la I kind of feel like I visit my home in LA a bunch, but I travel so much that I don't really feel like a Los Angelino. I've never really liked the Lakers. And look, I admire LeBron James. I think he's, there's so much to admire about that guy. He's, he's conducted himself amazingly as a human being. He didn't go to college and he's elegant and he's not one of those, you know, he's just a good guy. Right. He seems like a good family guy. Great family guy. Right. Yeah. He seems like, um, there's so much to admire about him athletically and how he conducts himself. I just don't like him as a No, no, no. And that's, you're right. I mean, I really like him as a person. I think there are certain, like him as a basketball player, there are Certain players in all kinds of sports that you'll look at and go, I know this guy's great, but I can't stand this Guy. He's not my guy. And so, since he came to the Lakers, I think he's actually ruined the Lakers. Yeah. And, and that cha that fake championship that they got in the bubble is just fake. Uh, I don't like Lakers. I don't like, uh, the Dodgers I have nothing for or against. I'm just, you know, nothing really. Um, I, I also find that going in and out their stadium with the traffic Stadium. I hate Dodge. Horrible. I'm a history. Uh, so no, I'm, I'm a Knick's met guy, and on football, I'm a I'm a Vikings guy and always have been a Vikings guy since I was interesting. Eight. Um, I don't know. So I love sports though. No, That's great. And you know what, In California, I mean, we, uh, you know, we could go out and play golf, we could surf, we could go to Yosemite. My, my, you know, zen spot. I love hiking. I'm a big outdoors, nature loving person. Yeah. Yeah. And my wife and I, I would give advice to your listeners, there's nothing better than nature. Nothing. Yes. And there's nothing, and it's free. Okay. That's the coolest thing, is like, it's free and it's the best thing in the world. Well, we went, we lived near hiking here, and it's very nice. But we went to the Alps to a city called Shaman, and I hope, and, and I really, it's, it's the Mob Blanc, which is, you know, the Alps and it's the biggest down range in, uh, in Europe. And Mont Blanc's, the biggest, tallest mountain in Europe. We spent seven days hiking our asses off, you know, for 5, 6, 7 hours a day. It was remarkable. It's hard physical labor. Um, but you go at your pace, whatever your pace is, is maybe the best vacation I've ever taken. So, uh, that'd be my big, I'm a, I'm a big national park, big hiker. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm doing Mount Whitney next year for us to celebrate 60. My daughter did Mount Whitney. Yeah. That's, that's not, I mean, in the Right, in the, you know, when it's icy, you know, you have to have your crampons and it's hard work. No, I'm gonna do half done cables as a tuneup, so, you know, we'll, we'll get there. But that's my, Well, I wanna, I wanna mention, yeah. Your audience, two things. One is, I wrote a book called Greatness is a Choice. Yes. And we're gonna get to talk about, I know we hope to, but we went deep on a lot of things, and it's a book that I re I wrote with Great Care, love and Respect for the Reader, and I wrote it for myself and for my family. And ultimately it got published. I didn't expect it to be something that got published. I thought it was gonna be something I handed to my kids that got passed along generationally. But it's very short chapters. It's 69 conspicuous number, but 69 chapters. Yeah. And no chapter is longer than three pages, and each chapter is its own individual topic, meaning you could read, you don't have to read 'em in order. They don't relate necessarily one to another. And you could read a chapter and put the book down for a week or a month and pick it up wherever you want. No, you can't. I, I, I have to read it straight through. Ethan, you can't put it down. You gotta read it straight through. It's Good. I appreciate you saying that. But the, um, it, it is intended, um, to communicate a totality. It's kind of like, um, I, I would say, so of the 69 Ideas, each chapter is its own idea, its own thought. And I made it short chapters for a couple of reasons. One, I wanted the ideas to be ownable by the reader rather than be about Ethan's life and how those ideas played out. Stories about, I kinda made the book way longer, and each chapter could have been a book because I could have retold story after story that reinforced the idea through my own experiences. But I wanted the, the idea to be alive for the reader in their own life, because we all live incredible lives, and these ideas are universal. They impact every one of us in different ways. They play out and at different times in our life. And so I didn't want Ethan Penner story to get in the way of the idea's purity as a value proposition to the reader. And of course, the second reason is I think we're all pressed for time. And so I wrote a short book with short chapters with that in mind. It's a wonderful book for, uh, holiday gifts. You know, we're coming, coming on holiday Gift Giving Season. It's a, i I really believe that. Uh, it's a book, it's a book for young people too. It's a book for, I would say you can go down at easily 15 years old. And it's very valuable because it's got, it's got a lot to offer people of every age. Right. I also do this thing called Friday five or Friday Focus, and every other Friday I send out an email blast to about 10,000 people who have subscribed. It's free. So I don't, I don't believe in, anyhow, it's free. And, um, it's five again, short thoughts of that moment. Like I, I, I always have ideas. And so it's like five things that are on my mind, and it's two or three sentences typically for each of those ideas with a associated video. That's one to three minutes. If you wanna watch the video and expands upon the idea. And you could go to great ww you got great intersections.com, great intersection.com, and there's a way to sign up. Just put your email address there. Excellent. Okay. They are, they are great. And, and your book, I have to say, and tweet like, really changed my perception of my own life in several ways. And I could see already how it's affecting me in a positive way. So I thank you for Yeah. Taking the time and, and writing it. I told my son who's 28, he's gotta read it. So, uh, it, it, it is very much worth the time. And like you said, you fly through it because of the way you wrote it and the way you thought about it. So appreciate you very much for, for, for giving that gift to us. My Pleasure. Okay. So I, you we're, we're really out of time. I can make sure we have enough storage to, to get on do this, but I would like way to close it. We'd like to bring you back, uh, at some point and, and get into a little bit more that we didn't get into now. But I think this was fascinating, one of our, our bet and being in, in the lending field myself, fascinating to talk to you. And I, I really appreciate the opportunity that we had to be with you this morning. Oh yeah. Ethan, thank you very much. Hopefully we got to most of what you wanted to talk about as well. I, I, I didn't have an agenda. I just wanted enjoy the morning with you guys and it was very enjoyable. Perfect. Thank You. Nice little walk down memory lane and yeah, And, and you know, when we give, you know, the new administration a bit more time and can judge the results, you know, we'd love to get you back on and, and see how you're taking advantage of, uh, of the new opportunities out there. It'd be amazing. I'm always, always happy to do that. Always happy to talk to you both. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1056513923.txt b/data/transcripts/1056513923.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..66a2ac9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1056513923.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, hey. Welcome to the new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, where we hope to have compelling, interesting, and informative conversations with iconic figures in the commercial real estate industry, mainly throughout the Western us. Uh, and we have a great show today. Our first repeat guest, John Mcne, uh, head of Mcne Partners. He owns a, uh, portfolio of shopping centers, mainly around Northern California, has dabbled it a little bit in office in multifamily as well. And we're gonna get his take on what he's been doing since our last show with him in May of 23. But before we start the show, let me bring in my co-host Arnie Garfinkel, head of Allstar Group. Hey, Arnie, how are you today? How you doing, Steve? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Uh, you know, the Allstar group, I started in 1995, uh, and we have, uh, three, four events coming up. Uh, this year. We got, uh, April, we're doing our big event, uh, commercial real estate lending conference. Uh, where's that? That one is in Long Beach, April 23rd In person. Excuse me. In person, right? Oh, yes, yes. Uh, three of the four of us, we do in person. We do an online event in June. Then in August, we're bringing our lawmakers forum to Orange County. Uh, so that should be something different. Excellent. And then, uh, we're gonna close out the year with a, uh, networking event up in the Bay Area, so, uh, that's what we got going this year. But you know what? We have some sponsors. Let's talk about them. Well, Before we get into that, let me tell 'em the audience about Rent tv. Uh, now in our 25th year, the news and media company for the real estate industry, our, we've got our news website, rent tv.com, daily news stories about commercial real estate deals and transactions. Our email newsletter, e-blast business, uh, we do conferences as well. Our next conference is May on March 26th, our Greater LA Conference. We'll have 20 speakers, five different panels for office retail, multifamily, industrial, and finance. Get a lot of great feedback on these conferences. And we have the review, this video website, the platform where you're watching this video, this searchable, uh, video platform for the real estate industry. So, got a lot going on with Red tv, a lot of momentum coming into this year, Arnie and, uh, and some great sponsors, uh, who make this show possible. So let's, uh, tell the audience, uh, who makes the show, uh, possible. Why don't you start with the first one? Yeah. Our first sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage Lenders is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon. It is known to have unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McClain at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. Excellent. Next sponsor in Southern California. It's, uh, commercial real estate inspectors in SoCal. They're skilled inspectors provide critical, critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Simington, Tiffany Simington, and book your next inspection today. Numbers on the screen, 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. And our last sponsor, RE, uh, amazed, amazing group. They've been a, a, a, a sponsor of Rent TV for a long time, and now they've got their message on our show. It's Chase Partners and, uh, great client of Rent tv, welcoming 'em there to the show. They, many of them are. Many people in our audience will know Chase Partners and David Parker as one of Cal's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout the region for over 30 years. Uh, and, and as a longtime supporter of Rent tv, they are now sponsoring the show to help get the word out that they have updated their strategy, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties, uh, with non-performing debt. If you are an owner, lender, or broker, you need fast decisions, a fast close on your property. Contact Chase partners, their info's on the screen, dParker@chasepartners.com, uh, sorry, david@chasepartners.com. That's david@chasepartners.com. I give 'em a call. Alright, Arne, let's, uh, welcome to our show, our, our guest, John McNellis with Mcne Partners. Thank you, John. Thank you for coming in again. How are you today? I'm well, fighting a little cold, but I'm great actually. Yeah. Thanks Steve. Nice to see you again. Yeah, thanks, Arne. Glad to be here. Uh, Well, we've got a lot of catching up to do. So I wanna remind our, our audience that, uh, you should watch our first show with John that we did in May 23, where we discussed hi, how we got started in the business, his early history, and, uh, you know, as, and his highlights over the years in this show. We really wanted to discuss what you've been doing since then and maybe look at crystal ball a little bit about major topics of the day and how things look going forward. Sure. So why don't you take it away. Yeah. With that said, bring us up to speed with your current portfolio in terms of size, number, types of properties and, and the area. I know you concentrate mainly on San, on the Bay Area, but have you expanded at all since we last spoke? We bought a little center in Orange County, and I think that might have been the summer of 23. Yeah. Uh, in the town of Orange. So the, and the dates come and go. So that one was, um, uh, an outlier. Yeah. For the most part, Arne, we stay pretty much in the Bay Area now to bring the portfolio, you know, just to put the cards on the table. And my partners and I, uh, we've been together 40 years. We don't really have successors among our children, so my thought has been for a number of years, we need to kind of cut our portfolio down, but that hasn't been working, you know, we sell one by one. Yeah. So we're still like 30 plus projects, several million feet, primarily neighborhood shopping centers and almost exclusively in, uh, Northern California. Got one little center in, uh, the town of Orange and another one in Lake Oswego, uh, Oregon, but, and one in Tahoe. Outside of that, they're all within a two hour drive of where I sit. And, and by the way, your, your, your employees, how many employees do you have now as compared to a couple of years ago? Did you increase, decrease, or keep it about the same? Great question. No, we're down to, there's three partner. I've had Beth Walter and Mike Powers for, uh, over 40 years. Yeah. Uh, we're down to the, so it's the three of us and one full-time assistant. What we've done, uh, we had started this before we last spoke guys, but for the first 30 plus 35 years, we said we need to manage all of our own properties and then live off the management fees. And then as we've kind of aged out, we said, okay, and we need to get to the next phase. And so now most of the, the projects are third party managed, oh, I should take that back. We, we've just added another young, young, young as in 50-year-old guy, guy, Ryan Nicholson, who's going to help us at asset manage, uh, the portfolio. Okay, Good. Got it. Uh, well, you know, when we spoke in May 23, almost two years ago, the mood was pretty sour. You know, we just had the rise in inflation interest rates. Um, so on a macro level now, you know, looking at it from a high altitude, how do you gauge the business climate now in general, and then also in terms of real estate investing and for your tenant growth? Yeah, let's stick with real estate. So it's where I actually know a little bit, you know, the, the rest of it, I'll just be throwing stuff against the wall. Well, it does Trickle down to the tenants. Yeah. So since we've spoken guys that this will kind of bring it home, uh, you know, we're primarily retail. So the last three retail deals that I did, tied them up, long, escrows, kind of put them together on paper that is worked through plans with the city, worked through letters of intent, and in some cases, leases. And then I looked at it and said, you know, this is too thin. I can sell it in pretty much right after I buy it. Uh, and to, you know, to younger guys using other people's money often, or with other motivations. So we actually sold, uh, three, our last three development deals. Now that said, just this past Friday, I bought a two acre piece in, uh, Clovis, uh, for you listeners who, who aren't from Fresno, that's a little town, just a nice little town, by the way, just south of Fresno. Uh, we're gonna put a Chick-fil-A there. Hmm. Okay. And you didn't ask the question, but the answer is, I think right now, as far as ground up development in retail, my world in California, the only thing that really works is ground leases to fast food restaurants. Uh, or you know, where your, your risk is. And, and hopefully with a lease side there, you're only taking kind of a cap rate risk on sale, but not taking construction risk and you're taking kind of limited interest rate risk. So that one, uh, we will develop, but we'll probably sell as well, you know, back to my, uh, overarching desire to have fewer rather than more assets. Right. Now It sounds like you're, you're reevaluating and you're buying and you're selling. And, uh, what it sounds like to me, and, and please expand on this, you're seeing more opportunity in the ground lease, and that's kind of where now, is that the direction you're heading right now? Uh, and or is that just something that, uh, came about and you said, huh, this isn't a bad idea. You, I'm kinda like an old grizzly bear in a salmon stream, you know, and just kind of sitting there lazy and every once in a while and you 90, you know, we see 20 deals a day, right. And Right. You just let 'em go by, let 'em go by, let 'em kind like, uh, one of those dating apps, I don't know which way you, you go, but left, left, left, right. But every once in a while, whoa. Uh, no, it, it, there's no, i I never have any grand strategy. This was, wow, this is a great piece of dirt. I know Chick because we work with Chick-fil-A. I know they'd like the deal. I'm gonna jump on it. Uh, and it, it also works, uh, when, so if you say, Hey, John, what works right now, I would say if I were a young developer and ambitious by existing stuff ground up, as far as I can tell, it just isn't working here in California. You know, I don't know about the rest of the country, but I, no, interest rates are, are high everywhere, and I know construction costs, costs, Yeah. Are, are still way up. And, you know, thanks to those fires in Southern California, and, uh, there's, and then, uh, I don't wanna get political, but if, if you start deporting all the construction workers, uh, that is only going to add just tremendous cost and, and delays to our business. So good time to buy existing stuff because, uh, these outside factors are kind of creating a moat, if you will, around existing stuff. You know, less new competition coming in. You know, let's talk about the fires for a minute, because, you know, we just recent in Southern California devastation, okay? And of course, uh, a few years ago, you had that same devastation up there in northern California in paradise with, with the, uh, uh, campfire. Um, now there they have to go ground up. I mean, it, there, there's no choice. Now Mo most of the direction is to single family right now, and then they're gonna deal with the, the, uh, commercial structures later. How would you deal with it? If one of your properties was involved in something like that? How would you look at it and what would you do? If, let's just say the big center that went down in, in, uh, Palisades was one of yours up in Northern California? I think the commercial's gonna have to wait until the residential comes back. Uh, uh, you know, in in our world, uh, the, the big supermarkets will cut deals guys, uh, in, in greenfield areas, you know, and, but the deal will be, we'll, we'll sign a lease, but we don't have to start until you get, uh, a population of 5,000 or something like that. You know, the, they just need the, the bodies, uh, there. So I think, um, I, I, I think the commercial will have to lag the, I think there's an opportunity for, you know, it's gonna be so terrible, even if your house wasn't burned down. It, it's, yeah. It's gonna be a b***h to, to fix. I think a lot of people, this is, I heard this yesterday, I don't know if it's true, but someone told me that Orange County House prices have jumped almost 40%. Uh, all those people with money from Aldean and Palisades, they need someplace to live. Boom. And they're moving down there, and they'll be selling those lots, uh, you know, the, uh, you, the three of us probably would too. He'd probably say, screw it. I don't want to go through that, that whole effort. So I, I think there'll be a lot of money to be made there, uh, in those neighborhoods, but it, it'll take a long time to rebuild. Yeah. It's gonna be years before, and, and it looks anything close to what it was before. Yeah. No, it's, it's a tragedy. Yeah. Right. Well, you know, sticking on the topics, and we'll drill back into the real estate in a segment st sticking on the other topics. You know, I'm a big fan of your writing, and since we're getting into, you know, you, the, the, uh, I, I, I did publish a novel since the lab. Well, we can get around, get Into novel Briefly, but Yeah. You know, on, on your writing about the community and the, and the business writing, um, you know, one of the questions we're gonna ask you is, and I think it's part and parcel with the fire discussion, but more related to the pandemic, what's it gonna take to, you know, bring these downtowns back? You know, in California, I, I know you're more lo you know, with Palo, Palo Alto and San Francisco, but you see the same thing in downtown San Diego, downtown la you know, what's it gonna take to, you know, reuse these great, some of these buildings have great bones, you know, and it's, um, what's it gonna take to bring vibrancy back? Okay. I was thinking about that. You know, I was like, what am I gonna tell Arne and Steve as I was stuck in traffic this morning? And, you know, as it turns out, guys, I have on the side, I've been investing in, in tech startups, uh, for, for a while, and then sometimes taking a fairly major position and sometimes being on the board of, of directors. And so I, I'm on the board of a, a tech company now, and, and a shareholder in it in Southern California. And so when, and you have quarterly board meetings, and so when this all started, they said, oh, yeah, no, this is great. It, it's okay if we work remote guys. It's cool, you know, we, and I said, oh, man. So as a shareholder, I was okay as a landlord, I was saying this, these guys are killing me. And then, um, same thing. Next quarter, next quarter, and then about, I don't know, 18 months ago, I'm kind of dozing during this board meeting, and then I look up on the, on the screen and what do I see a space plan for office? And the CEO says, it's not working. We gotta get these guys back to work. You know, you know, uh, you need to collaborate. Mankind is a lot closer to say, termites or, or ants or, um, bees than we are to, you know, uh, solo tigers out there. Right. We, we've gotta get everybody back to work. So this tenant went into a really fancy building in, in San Diego where the landlords had set it up so you, you rent less space, but then you can also rent the common areas, you know, when you need everybody in and they're back three days a week. I think what's gonna happen, you know, business is very competitive. I think the businesses that put their foot down and say, you have to be back five days a week, will have a competitive advantage. You know, kind of like Darwin, uh, and those that don't in the same field are going to get lapped and get eaten up. Mm-hmm. Gradually it comes back, you know, the old John Coltrane that they say it'll kill you, but they won't say when, you know. Right. I don't know when it comes back, but, uh, it, it, I'm, I'm sure it's going to come back. Um, but, and then, you know, as we were laughing about before we started, just coincidentally, I published an article today. I, I think a key step in coming back is forcing the damn cities, uh, and all the ones that I deal with to get all their employees back to work. I mean, this is outrageous that these public employees, uh, I don't know where they are, but, but they're not here. And, and it's, it is a double whammy for us in real estate, because we need the planning department, we need the building department, you know, we need everybody in order to move our projects along. And as far as I can tell, and, and guys, you, I never do research for me, it's just anecdotal, you know, talking. But, but everybody says the same thing. What used to take a couple months, you know, to, to get a, a ti uh, tenant improvement, uh, approval, which we shouldn't need in the first place anyway, now takes months and months. Yeah. I've got a tenant in one of our office buildings right around the corner, uh, who's been paying rent since, oh, about October. But still, ha has trouble getting his permits, you know, it is just, it's terrible. So, You know, you're amazing. You answer our questions before we even ask. Sorry, that was gonna be my next question, but continue. I'm Sorry, it must be the drugs, but I get The, you know, the point about having all the, all the people downtown, you know, how it affects all the other, uh, uses. Yeah, yeah. It's so on. Yeah. On the one hand, they're hurting us in our efforts to, to, to get everybody back to work. And on the other, those employees aren't here. Uh, and San Francisco, you know, my, my former hometown, 35,000 public employees, uh, San Francisco, the city is the number two employer, uh, in the city. And, and the way it's going, you know, where it's basically been, uh, irritating and antagonizing business, it's gonna be the number one employer soon enough. Just getting those 35,000 people, you know, back to, to work at their desk, be a huge boost for the economy, you know, for the, the sandwich shops, the delis, the, the dry cleaners, they need to do it. Um, And then all the services will come along, and then the restaurant. Exactly. Everything else. Exactly. You lose that, you know, and, and the other thing that I was gonna ask you in relation to that is the, uh, the challenges of owning a property right now. So in addition to the government red tape and the tis, uh, the cost of insurance right now is starting to really make an effect on whether residential or commercial be because of these fires. It all kind of comes back into it, but, um, you know, it's becoming more and more difficult if you don't have those tenants in there. You're right. Uh, uh, I, I think, you know, I, I went to Berkeley, so it, it's, it's hard for me to take the, the, the, the side of the insurance companies, but I, I am taking the side of the insurance companies Yeah. That they, they have not been able, particularly in California, to charge enough. Uh, and people keep building in these high risk areas, whether they're on the beach and they get flooded or, or whether they're in the, the mountains and they get fires. I, I think, in fact, I guys, I made a decision, so we have, let me count this one. I think we have four shopping centers in fairly heavily wooded towns, Scotts Valley, Hillsburg, right. Uh, and oh, up in Lakeport. And so over the last half dozen years, each of those centers has been shut down, nothing burned, because, you know, there, there's kind of a asphalt mode around them, but the towns have been shut down. So actually made a decision. Somebody said, Hey, there's one up in Quincy, I think it was some little Wobe gone town, sorry, Quincy in the Sierra Nevada. And I went up and looked at it and said, no, I'm not buying any more, uh, shopping centers that are in forested areas, you know, the, the, the insurance rates have to go way up. They should, which means the values will come down. You know, your insurance triples, that means your net operating income comes down. It means the property's worthless, but it should be worthless. You know? It, it's not the, what really drives me crazy is this public insurance. It's where, you know, if, if you want to, so the Russian River, I don't know how familiar your guys are with the Russian River, but the damn thing floods pretty much every year and every third or fourth year. It floods a lot. And, and ev and I think it's the same guys, you know, who, who who are standing there are the kind of these old retired hippies who, who live along there saying, gee, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Well, dude, this has happened like two, five times, why don't you just move, or, or, or build up higher, you know? But public insurance allows people, uh, to build where they shouldn't. Anyway. I, I would And, and how, how do you, are you able to pass that, I mean, most of your tenants are on triple net in the retail centers, right? How do they deal? No, you can't. The the tenants don't care. Yeah. If, if I'm a tenant, you can say it is a gross rent, or you can say it's triple net. The tenant, all the tenant wants to know is what is my total cost? Right. Uh, and, and the tenant in, in my world's pretty easy. And the retail, because tenants can only pay a, a certain percentage of their sales, you know, before they go broke. Uh, supermarkets, one to 2%, uh, uh, jewelers, maybe 10%, you know, restaurants may be six. So if your costs are going way up and their sales aren't, uh, the only thing that can, that can happen is you have to lower your rent. Yeah. And then the values go down. But that's, that's life. You are not entitled to, to, to hire rent, just be, uh, Well, in, in that aspect. I mean, I've seen a number of restaurants close to me going out, and they, they said that we try to work with the landlord, and we can only afford so much, and he let them, and that that thing would sit vacant for months, years. And they also did it with the minimum wage, the Increase. Yeah. And it's like, why don't you work with them? I agree. It's, it's below market, but you gotta a tenant in there that, you know, I, I don't understand that philosophy. And you, you, as a, an owner, how would you look at that? Yeah. Well, one of my friends, this goes back 20 years ago, and he was, I was having this very conversation and he said, John, you're an occupancy war. And, and by that, wait, what he meant was that I will lower my rents to keep my tenants in place. I don't like vacancies. I, I think it's, I, you know, this whole, um, the retail vacancy tax Yeah. The idea that the landlords, and there are some really dumb landlords out there. Yeah. There are some, but most landlords, by definition, are pretty good at simple arithmetic, you know? Right. Uh, and, and they're, they're pretty greedy and, you know, or at least they're concerned about money. So most of them, if you say, dude, keep it empty for a year, uh, and, and you'll get 10% more on a five year lease, well, that's not gonna work. You know, you've just lost it, that, that rent for a year. Yeah. Unless you have a crystal ball and you know exactly the way the economy's gonna go, you know? Yeah. And, and if you have, if you have a crystal ball, and then you should not be in real estate. Exactly. Wall Street. Wall Street, a lot more money there, You know. So it sounds like from what you're saying, but maybe we pull back a little bit, that's something is, but it sounds like you're telling us that rental rates in the retail sector are pretty much flat right now, or are you seeing general growth or, or de decline in rental rates in general in the retail space right now? Let, let's get a little, uh, into the weeds. Let's parse it a little bit. Right. Uh, we have two primary, uh, types of retail. We have neighborhood shopping centers, uh, say Hillsburg, for example, or Brentwood, uh, northern ca, not the good Brentwood, the northern California Brentwood. Right. Or Brentwood. Uh, but we have centers that supermarket anchored 10 acres, a hundred thousand feet supermarket, uh, gas station, Starbucks, usual. Those centers are running nearly full. Uh, and depending on the center, we are able to push rents a little bit there. Uh, they're doing, they're doing great. The other part of our, well, if you get A vacancy, you might get like a 5% bump, 10% bump or something like that. Yeah. But just little, just less yesterday just to prove a deal. We're, we're keeping rents flat. And, uh, I, I don't think, uh, retail sales are up that much. And so literally, um, who was it? I'll, I think of the tenant in a second, but we looked at their sales and said, okay, the most they can afford is 15% of, uh, of sales. And, and they asked for, um, a flat rent on the renewal. I, I said, yeah, sure, we'll do that. You know, that's, that's an advantage. We have o over, um, say office or industrial, you know, we understand. And, and we do multiple deals with the same people. The other part of our portfolio, much smaller, thankfully, is our mixed use, uh, portfolio. And that's primarily here in Palo Alto. And, and what I'm talking about is like a four story building or, uh, three floors of office, ground floor, retail, uh, the three story building, ground floor, retail. Those guys, uh, the mixed use, uh, retail it or heavily urbanized retail is suffering just as much as, uh, the office. 'cause our office buildings, we have three office buildings here in downtown. They're all fully leased, but they're may be 15% occupied. Uh, you know, that seems to be changing, but until the, the urban retail needs a daytime population, and until that, that comes back, so I took, I had a Lululemon move out of one of our buildings, uh, and I replaced it being the tenant. I said, who hasn't got his, uh, final permit yet? Will cut the rent by 30%. And again, that was just, just market. Yeah. You have to differentiate. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta be ahead of the curve. Right. Certainly the difference between the urban and the suburban, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Now, cut. When we last spoke, there were a couple of stuff that you, you were, were buying all cash. Um, and with interest rates the way they are right now, uh, are you seeing a more of a, and that could be one of the reasons why you're not buying as much. Are you trying to stick to all cash as best you can? Or do you still look for, for financing, uh, on some of these projects? Well, again, back back to my idea of, gee, I, I need to sell more than I need to buy. Uh, what typically, Arne what we've done is we'll buy for all cash, right. And, um, use our own resources or a line of credit. Uh, and then we will, we won't, we don't bother with construction loans. You know, let's say we buy something 5 million and put two or 3 million into it, and, and then if we're going to keep it at that point, we'll put on debt at the end or, or it, or we'll sell it. Uh, but we're pretty much, we've always been kind of in debt adverse. Uh, I think our overall, uh, loan to value ratio on the portfolio is below 20%. Wow. And actually, the last, in the last couple years since we spoke, guys, I think we have paid off three or four loans and just said, screw it. We just, uh, we'd rather own this free and clear. Yeah. Because the, the rates start to spike on us. And if you're, if you're paying seven, this is, uh, a high classic problem, I guess, uh, if, if, if you're gonna pay seven or 7.5% and you're only getting 5%, uh, on your, your money market accounts, well, you know, let, let's just, uh, be able to pay off the loan. Right? Yeah. We've done that a couple times. Well, on, on the, on your most recent transaction, uh, uh, the Chick-fil-A, that's, uh, you're building, uh, a freestanding building from, Uh, yeah. I, I, I just paid cash for that. And the construction too. Uh, ground lease, remember Steve ground Lease, they buildings, They're building. They Building, right. Okay. For all you, uh, young developers out there, get someone else to take the construction risk. Yeah. No, I forgot. You told me it was a ground lease. Right. Uncle John says, whatever it costs, give them a fixed contribution. Same thing on tenant improvements. Mark just a guys, here, I'll write you a check. Quarter of a million, million dollars, whatever it is. You do the work, you take the construction risk. And, and with most fast foods like that, they've got the capital to do it. And you gotta a tenant in there. Uh, right. Almost not quite, like, too big to fail. But I mean, you, we've known that can happen. Uh, but, uh, you know, you get a, a Chick-fil-A, a McDonald's, a Burger King, or any of those, you, you know that they're gonna be there for a while. You got a solid tenant in there. H How did you find out about that site? Did that company through a broker? Through a broker? Uh, that's one of the great parts about retail guys, you know, the, uh, it, it has its downsides. And if you're gonna get into retail, I think it's something you really need to specialize in. But because we keep doing repeat, repeat, repeat business, and we deal with the same people year in and year out, uh, the, um, the real estate reps for the tenants, they move, uh, jobs all the time. They, they'll, they'll, they'll jump from Safeway to Starbucks to Ross or whatever, but they don't leave their trade areas because their, their value to their employers is their geographic knowledge, uh, and their local contacts. So we deal with the same people year in, year out. So we heard about it, uh, through a broker, and then we were already dealing with Chick-fil-A, so it was kind of, yeah. We just jumped on it. Nice. And then figuring out value, I guess with a ground lease, it's fairly simple compared to if you were undertaking everything, you just take the present value of, uh, your, your payments over a period of time and Shazam, it's there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, these, uh, Chick-fil-A's McDonald's, Starbucks, they're, they're like loaves of bread in the supermarket. They're fungible, you know, you, you sell 'em, they sell across the country. The cap rates range maybe 25 basis points. So you say to yourself, let's make it up. Uh, that Chick-fil-A, and I think they sell somewhere in the fours, but let's say it sells at a five cap, uh, today. So, and let's say it's gonna be 18 months between the time you get the lease signed and time they open, and you want, let's say you wanna sell it when they open. Yeah. So you say to yourself, as long as my purchase price is, is at a better yield than that, you know, let's say, uh, what we try to get at this 200 basis points 2%. So if I bought that on a, a, a seven, uh, return, and I'm selling at a five, that, that's what I'm trying to do. So basically, you, you know, how much that loaf of bread is gonna sell for in 18 months, if, if things don't go crazy, you know, like the, the egg thing right now, just to pull that metaphor. So if, if you know what's gonna sell for $2 million, if, if you bought it for a million, uh, it's a home run. If you bought it for 1,000,008, you're gonna do okay. Right? Yeah. And that's, and, and the fact that buying all cash with a ground lease is a no brainer. The problem with ground lease is sometimes is getting the financing, uh, you know, there, there's certain lenders that just won't even consider it. Um, and then they start delving in so deep that it takes so long to get those things approved. So yeah, I mean, that's, that's a different advantage and something that, you know, uh, you Yeah. Let's talk about financing guys. Yeah. Yeah. So it, it, it, it's either it, it comes in two flavors today. Either it's unavailable or it's too expensive. Right. So, uh, if, if, if I were trying to start all over today, what I would do, and if we're trying to buy properties, is find sellers desperate enough to sell, uh, who carry paper. Uh, you know, I'd say, I'd say, you know, and, and we have sold, I, I don't mind, uh, selling and carrying paper, uh, but particularly if I really want to get rid of a project, it is, you know, we'll carry 2, 3, 5 years where you carry for, what you could do as a seller is say, yeah, I'll carry today for, uh, two years, three years at at 5% or 6%, or maybe just match your cap rate, and then it'll, it'll jump to market, or there'll be some penalty so that the buyer has to pay you off. Uh, and on the other side, if I were a buyer, I, I'd be looking for a, a seller financing and Yeah. Those, that's, that's where deals are getting done right now. Yeah. And by the way, the, the, the rate that a seller will get is gonna be pretty close to what you're gonna get from a regular lender, maybe a little bit higher, but you don't have to deal with all of the, uh, the scrutiny, uh, that comes with going to a bank and so on and so forth. Right. Yeah. Come, we sold a little, um, another ground lease deal that we did. We sold it last year. It was a oil changer, not as glamorous as Chick-fil-A, but, uh, the local buyer couldn't get financing. It was too, it was a really small deal. We just wanted to get rid of it. So, so we, we carried the paper for 18 months. Uh, so hopefully he'll pay us off at the end of the year that that's, I think the deals that are getting done are, are largely getting done that way. Yeah. Just because it's, it's, otherwise it's so expensive and the lenders are so gun shy, you know, understandably. Good point. Right. I think there's gonna be a lot of movement in the, in the lending field. It's more arnie's expertise, more than mine. But Believe me, that's, that's quite a challenge on the lending side, believe a lot of Maybe new funds, I mean, there's a lot of capital on the sidelines, right? I mean, there's, Well, there are a lot of lenders that wanna lend, but they're very picky on what they wanna land, and they gotta get a certain return. And it, it's, it's, it's still a little like this, you know what I mean? It's, it's not quite lined up yet, and Right. I agree. Even the lenders right now are kind of in a wait and see, let's see what happens with the new administration and let you know. And it, it's still the same thing. You gotta get your return on the money and, and if they're not getting, and that's why we're seeing a lot of the mezzanine and the private money lenders doing, which they always have been, but they're becoming more forefront in the market right now. Right. You're right. It's, it's a good time to be a hard money lender. Exactly. Private money they Yeah, yeah, yeah. Private money. Yeah. You know. Well, you know, I, I'm looking at my questions and I, you know, I think we're, we think we've had a pretty good conversation, uh, Arne, uh, I think I, you know, I think I want to hear No, I Wanna hear about Scout's Honor, think on, outside of Real Estate Scouts, honor is the new book. So tell us, There is one other real estate topic, though, before we have Well, no, but I, I wanna hear about Scouts Honor first, then we'll go back to the real estate and end with it. But yeah, Here it is. All right. So if, if, if we were in college together, you know, smoking and joint, and, uh, for the record folks, I, I did inhale a lot. You haven't been on my social media, John lately. Javi, where did that come comment come from? Anyway, if we were 20 years old and you said, Hey, John, what do you want be when you grow up? Uh, if you, you said a developer I'd, I'd say, what the hell is that? You know, somebody works for, for, for Kodak? No, no. I would've said, uh, yeah, I, I wanna be a famous author. And so, uh, it took me, uh, but I also had a practical streak, and I had no talent. So I went to law school, became a real estate lawyer, and then kind of rolled into real estate. And, but I always wrote on the side and, uh, you know, for a social club, I, I would write stuff and, and then I wrote that book, uh, making it in Real Estate. This one. Yes. This is the one, this one has been quite successful guys. It is now taught from, geez, from Stanford to Cornell, and It's a classic. It's a, yeah, it does quite well. You Went to Stanford, right? No, we went You went to Berkeley. Berkeley, Yeah. Yeah. I, I would've gone to Stanford, Steve, but they checked my grades and Well, you brought Up Cornell, which is my alma mater, so I just thought, thought I threw that out. Oh, yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm big at Cornell. I, I've done a number of Zoom classes before I, I like Cornell. But anyway, uh, I really wanted to write a novel. And then just to kind of it, I, I had written the first draft of scouts when I was about, you know, 40, almost 30 years ago. Uhhuh and I, I thought it was brilliant. Uh, and then I centered around and everyone's just said, oh, John, this is great. You need to rewrite it. And I rewrote it, and then they said, oh, this is really great, but you need to rewrite it again. So I said, screw it. And I threw it into that closet. Yeah. Literally, this, this book thing. I, I threw it into that closet and forgot about it until, uh, COVID came along, and then one of my mentees told me she was writing a novel, and I said, oh, I've got one. I handed it to her. This is a true story. She, she said, let me read it. And I said, okay, sure. Uh, and it's this big fat book, right? Uh, and two months go by. I, I totally forget about it. Uh, and she comes back and she says, I have a present for you. And it's, and she, she gives me my manuscript back, and I said, yeah, what's that? And it's, uh, Stephen King's book on how to write. Oh, great. Uh, but anyway, that, that, that was Covid and things were quiet. So I, I was able to, you know, to write this book. And it's about, uh, it's, it's what do you know? Is it, have you guys looked at it? If you Yeah, I, I, I kind of read the, I I haven't seen the book yet, but I mean, I read about it a little bit, but, um, no, I, I, I see it. I mean, but I mean, how is that in relation to the, uh, the other novel you wrote, the O'Brien's, uh, um, law is this O'Brien's Law? Yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're totally different. O'Brien's Law. Uh, you know, my friend said, John, that's your, uh, I guess I can't square anyway, that, that's your expletive deleted autobiography, because again, I, I don't like doing research. So Brian's law was about this, uh, young happy go lucky, uh, lawyer who thinks he's a good lawyer, but he is terrible at it. And it's more comic, and it is, uh, somewhat of a murder mystery, but it's, it's kind of a romcom meets murder mystery. And it, it was fun and it was easy to write. Uh, scouts Honor is a different story. It's about a kid who, um, two years before the book opens, going great in his life. His father is set in the late sixties. His father is a career, uh, Navy pilot who's in Vietnam. Uh, he's, he's got a happy family. His father gets killed in Vietnam, his mother, he loses his mother. The kid goes from being a straight A student, um, water polos star, hopefully hoping to go to Annapolis to living on the street. You know, he's, he's homeless. And when the book opens, it's two years later, and he's this really smart kid he's working at, at a resort, uh, full-time, trying to save money, uh, to get back to college, because he wants to follow in his father's footstep. He wants to be a naval aviator. Uh, he wants to go to Vietnam, but he's gotta have a college degree. So he, he's working, he's living in his van out outside of this resort, and it's in San Diego, uh, and saving all his money. Along comes a bad kid from the old neighborhood who says, and this is Roy, as the bad kid, a little bit older, he says, Hey, Eddie, let's run a little pot across the border, uh, you know, and I'll pay you a thousand bucks. And Eddie says, no, no, no. Circumstance leads him to do it. What he doesn't realize is that Roy is setting him up to be the fall guy, while Roy steals 50 kilos of Coke from the Colombians. Eddie has to shoot his way out. He's, he is about to be killed by crooked cops. He has to shoot his way out, change his identity to run across the country. I'm telling you the whole story here. Yeah. We don't have to read it now. Thanks. Don't have to. He started getting sucked into it, so Yeah, don't tell me the end. Yeah, I won't tell you the end. But he, he goes to be Vietnam, changed his head, puts on fake glasses, goes to Vietnam, and, uh, and a marine rifle company. He joins the Marines, and I'm sure you guys know, the scout is also called a point, man. It's the lead guy in a platoon, hits the most dangerous position. So, uh, he, he's an excellent scout. He does several tours. The, the names, he's so good at it that the name scout becomes an honorific, like your, your Lordship or something like that. So everybody calls him Scout, he comes back, uh, and he's, the, the book is called Scout's Honor, because that's the thrust of the book. He becomes wildly successful. He goes to, to New York, becomes one of the, the richest office developers in the city, but he's haunted by his, There's a real estate hook. See, you, you, there's A real Yeah, yeah, yeah. He becomes a very, very successful developer, but he's haunted by his past. How, where, where did the idea for this book come from? How did you think of this? I don't know, Steve. Just come with head. Yeah. But that's great. I Mean, that's a great story. You know, like I said, I'm starting to get sucked into it. Um, amazing. One day, I, I was really sick. And it, I'll tell you how the, the, the germ of it is really simple. The, the, the question is, what would happen to a really good kid, you know? And he's an Eagle Scout too. Yeah. And to a really good boy who loses everything, whose world is turned upside down, would he, uh, would he fall, fall into crime? You know? And, and if he did, how, how would he, how would that affect him in, uh, you know, would, would he go totally to the bed? Would he come back? And, you know, that that was the question is I, I had a, and when I was a young lawyer, I had a client who said that people are about, he was very cynical guy. He said, people are about as moral as they can afford to be. Mm-hmm. And I thought, you know, there, there's, unfortunately, there's truth in that. Right. Anyway, well, that's great to, you know, have you come up with that. So, alright, Steve, Let's get back to real estate. Yeah, sure. One last, and I know it's not like what you focus on, but it's such a hot topic and there's so many ways, you know, it could go, and we touched on the downtowns, but, but I'd love to get your thoughts, you know, given the, the way you think about I issues in the world about the office to multifamily or perhaps cultural or quasi retail type of uses, uh, you know, it's such a hot topic now. Is is it something you've thought about, uh, not necessarily as going into it, but in terms of just a topic that you, uh, opine about and, and comment about, you know, for others to take action on it. Is that a topic that you've been considering? No. So you're asking what do I think of the idea of converting, uh, office buildings and into residential Yeah. Or possibly other types of, you know, sort of retail, sort of cultural, but more multifamily, I guess is the real hot, hot button. Yeah. So as, as you guys know, and I'm not sure your listeners do, I, I write a monthly column for the San Francisco Business Times, and I actually address this and, and I took a deep dive into it, talk to contractors, talk, talk to developers, you know, and in short, unless you have exactly the right building, and, and that usually has to be an old skinny building with light on, you know, uh, uh, a skinny rectangle of, of not that many stories with hope, preferably on corners of, you know, light on three or four sides. It doesn't work. And e even then, so I wrote a piece on this, uh, uh, there's one guy, Oz Erickson, who, who's done it in San Francisco, a really smart guy. But, so I went through it with him, but the, uh, the credits the cities would have to give, uh, and, and, and no left leaning city would ever do this for a developer, right. They, you would have to so vastly underwrite it, uh, that it just doesn't work. I, I frankly, I, I think it's a bad idea, you know, uh, and I, I've seen it done in New York City where you take, you know, a big classic, uh, office tower and core out the middle of it because, you know, the, if a floor plates 40,000 feet, where does the like and air come from in all these units, right? It's like a bowling alley apartment Put on back to office space. Now it's kinda, you, you might fill that spot for the, for the reason it was built, reason it was intended, right? So I think a lot of, a lot of cultural institutions, a lot of schools, museums, things like that could end up taking advantage of some of the lesser values, you know? Yes. Schools, A school might work, a museum might work, but I, I don't think it, it, I don't think it works for, uh, for people to sleep in. You know, it, it's, it's really tricky and it's really expensive. It is, frankly, it's probably more cost efficient to tear that the building down. Uh, and so some of these office buildings, they have a negative value. They're, they're not, it's, it's the land value minus the, the cost to remove the building and, and then build. Uh, so I don't know that, that, that's why the, the office market is in such total disarray. Right. Well, you know, I, I did, I I did feel the need to, to get your take on it, but I think we're, we're, uh, running outta timem. I think we're, we're good on, on the other issues. Are there any other issues? Well, I, I, uh, I'm glad we, we had this time to catch up and, uh, yeah, it's Fun. Is there Anything we left on the table that you wanted to get across? I think we covered everything. Nah, Will save for the third, the third one in a year and a half. Yeah, sure. Yeah. I, I'm, you guys are fun. I, I'm delighted to do it. Well, Well, She, a lot of great information. I, I found A lot. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's more than just a real estate developer and, and we're getting a little bit more insight into what makes John tick. Um, you know, and, and I think that's important. And, and believe me, um, uh, the fact that you, in real estate, you kind of have to have a second thing to think about, uh, because certain days it just is maddening. So, So, so many things outta your control too. Exactly. So, uh, I love, I love the fact that you're an author and you write books and, and they're in a completely different, but you bring it back to real estate somehow, which is great. See, I like that when you get into the weeds on how you do the deals, you know? I love that. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. And that's, that's, thanks for opening. Maybe that's his next book, but you know what he told us he was writing this, this other novel mm-hmm. Last time. So I'm glad to out. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's fun. Uh, yeah. I, I don't think life's not all about making money. I, I, I think doing deals is a lot of fun. Uh, yeah. It's like a New York Times crossword puzzle, but it's not the be all and end all. And, and, uh, you know, no rich guy through the course of history has ever well thought of, uh, let's say Midas, uh, uh, Rockefeller, unless they, they do something with their money useful to, you know, uh, unless they give it all away, you know, who cares? You know, the, yeah, it's fun making money, but you gotta give it away and, and you gotta do something else. It's, it's not, you know, business is not the be all and end all. It's true. I Like it. That's the drop the mic moment right there. Good Way to end. Thank you, John. Thanks John. Catching up. Take Care. My pleasure. Luck. Thank you Deals. Take care. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1059913595.txt b/data/transcripts/1059913595.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..96f4b38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1059913595.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, hey. Welcome to the next episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, where we have what we hope to be compelling, interesting, and informative conversations with iconic figures, leaders in the commercial real estate industry. I'm your co-host Steve Bloom, and I am super excited about today's show 'cause we have what is truly an iconic figure, one of the real leaders in investing in the, in western, uh, commercial real estate. And that is our guest, mark Bruton from Bruton Global, which also owns Brixton Capital and Westco Capital. But before we bring in our guest, let me introduce my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie, how you doing today? Hey, How you doing Steve? What's going on? Doing well. Doing well. Great to see you. Yeah. Excited about the show. Yes. Oh, yeah. I, I can't wait to sit down and talk to Mark that. That'll be Great. It'll be interesting. Well, tell, tell the audience a little bit about Allstar Group and your upcoming event. No problem. Allstar Group was founded in 1995. Uh, we started out as income property lending, which it was a commercial real estate brokerage firm, but we've, uh, geared more towards events. Allstar Group does commercial real estate events throughout the state of California. Uh, we have one in Southern California, one in Orange County, uh, long Beach, and then one up in Northern California. All of our events are to get people associated with, and to find out who's lending right now in commercial real estate. Excellent. Well, hope that people get out there more. You know, we've got our event, uh, coming up. Many of you know, rent tv, uh, our media company now in our 25th year. We have our news and information website, daily news about the real estate industry and transactions, uh, our email blast and our email blast business, which is great. Our conferences, uh, our next conference is coming up March 26, our Greater LA Event, uh, panels for office, retail, multifamily, industrial and Finance. And then we have the review. Uh, there's video platform where you're watching, uh, there's video searchable platform for real estate videos. Very powerful, very exciting. Uh, hope you guys delve into it a bit more, uh, after this show. Um, and speaking of our show, we've got a great guest, Arnie, but before we bring in our guests, we got some business to tend to those sponsors that make this show happen. Uh, and our first one is Chase Partners. They are an amazing long-term, uh, client of ran TVs. And, uh, now we welcome them as a sponsor of CRE Talk. Uh, many of you know them, uh, and they're, uh, CEO David Parker, one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout SoCal for over 30 years. And now as a supporter of Red tv, they're now sponsoring the show to help get the word out about an updated strategy for Chase, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties, uh, with non-performing debt. So, if you're an owner, lender, or broker that needs a fast decision and a fast close on your property, please contact Chase Partners atDavid@chasepartners.com. We'll get their info on the screen, david@chasepartners.com. Who's next? Arnie, Our next sponsor is a longtime sponsor of the All-Star Group as well. Uh, fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate. It was founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon, also known as Uncle Chuck. Uncle Chuck. They're known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McLean at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3 for Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Excellent. And, uh, the last sponsor of the show is commercial real estate inspectors service that's really needed these days in California and in la that's for sure already in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive, simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Called Tiffany Simington. That's Tiffany Simington. And book your inspection today, getting the info's on the screen here. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. All right, Arnie, time for our guest Time to bring him in. Yes, let's welcome Mark Bruton, uh, CEO of Bruton Global. Mark, good afternoon. Welcome. Thank you for coming in today. Welcome, Mark Afternoon, and thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it. Excellent. Well, we've got a lot to cover. I know we're all pretty busy. I know we're, you know, got, uh, breaks a little while, so let's get right into it. Uh, for our audience, some that aren't, you know, aren't Dunno all that you do, why don't you describe the companies, uh, you own and, uh, the corn portfolios and, you know, thinking Brixton and Westco and Westtown, and, uh, we'll go from there. Sure. Uh, thanks. I, I started in 1979 and, uh, started in San Diego, California after moving here from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But we formed a company early on with, with my partner Jay Scheler, the Scheidler Group. Mm-hmm. And, uh, so originally I started out with, with Jay before even pre Jay, I started as a, as a, uh, leasing and shopping center, uh, developer, leasing agent and shopping center developer. Then once I, I teamed up with Jay, I became an acquirer of portfolios, mainly portfolios in the western us and those portfolios ended up be becoming rolled into a series of IPOs in the early nineties. And, um, fast forward to today, um, while I'm not actively partners with Jay anymore, I broke off, I formed a series of companies, some with Jay and some without, but the first company that we formed together was called Westcorp. And so that was in the late nineties, and that is a private industrial REIT headquartered in San Diego, California. And then subsequent to forming Westcore, I formed Westco Europe, uh, without Jay in Europe, and now we're in, in five Western European countries, uh, with the same thesis, which is buying industrial properties and, and, and then redeveloping airports, which is another business I'll touch on in a minute. Right. And, uh, and today we have the industrial businesses, Westco and Westco Europe, and then a, an extension of what started out as our family office, uh, in a company called Brixton. And Brixton today operates two separate and distinct investment silos, a multifamily, uh, multifamily community investment business, and an anchored shopping center business. Uh, and both of those businesses operate under the rubric of Brixton Capital. Mm-hmm. And then separate and distinct from those companies, the Westco companies and the Brixton Company. Uh, we have, uh, a management vehicle called UAG United Department Group that's headquartered in Texas. And that manage, that company manages about 32,000 units, of which we own somewhere between three and 4,000 units. It, it, it varies. Right. And then I touched very briefly on, on our airport business. It's called a DP Airport Development Partners, uh, headquartered in Switzerland, Geneva. And that company, uh, at first started as an advisory business to regional airports in Europe. And then we ended up acquiring an airport in Sury in the UK just outside of London. Now we have two other additional airports that we are negotiating to acquire and redevelop. I can't imagine wrapping my head around owning airports like the, well, yeah, there, there's, there's a series of complexities around it, around around the, uh, reputations regulatory framework. But, yeah. Well, before, before we move on to the next question, how big is the Brixton and Westco, uh, portfolios in terms of square footage Properties? A UM We have about 2 billion of a UM at Brixton. Right. We're at about four and a half billion of a UM at West Corp. And we're just touching at around 800 million, uh, in, in Europe. And then of course, the third party, uh, UAG business is about three and a half billion. So the way I, the way I, I like to think about it is we're about nine and a half billion of a UM, of which we own six and a quarter, the six and a half billion. So that's the way it's excellent now. Excellent. So you talked about getting started with, uh, aler, and that was your partner. Uh, and, um, but what made you get into real estate and then of course, commercial real estate. What, what was it that attracted you to it? Well, I, I always wanted to be a doctor, and I was kind of a washout, so Didn't Have, I didn't have a lot of choices. No. Now, I, I did have, I did have some, some choices and I was always interested in, in, um, real estate. And my father, who was a professor, uh, gave me several books when I was young. Mm-hmm. I was 13 about, um, how I turned $10,000 into a million dollars by William Nickerson. I'll never forget that. Mm-hmm. Still have a copy on my desk. And so I looked at that book and read it a bunch of times, and I thought, you know what? Regardless of what happens in college, I want to own and operate buildings. So I was, I always carried that with me, even though I was pre-med. And I, I did have a kind of a rigorous science, but, you know, education. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, you know, I, I really want to own and operate buildings. Hmm. Interesting. So after you split, why did you wanna start your own firm? Why, why did you decide that, you know what, I think it's time for me to take control and do it myself? Well, when I was partners with Jay, it really was tantamount to, to our own firm because we were 50 50 partners. We operated really as a, as a, a true partnership. Uh, and the other executives were partners as well. But it was a great, it was just a great, um, way to turbocharge my, my learning, um, a learning curve as well as, as a UM mm-hmm. Uh, working with Jay 'cause he is just a very bright, uh, bright light and just a, a tremendous, uh, lexicon of, of knowledge. And so that really was, that really was, uh, a, a great divin time in my career when I was jumping from sort of small time developer into, into a much larger scale acquirer. And then I continued with Jay really for a long time until 2003 when we sold all of the assets of our company. So at that time, we owned Westcorp Properties together, and then I got an offer that, uh, couldn't refuse, and we sold all the assets. And so at that time, Jay said, okay, well great, let's distribute the cash. We had a, I think about 25 or 26 employees and a bunch of cash and no assets. And so Jay said, all right, um, it's your, it's your deal from here on out. And, and at that point, I hired A-A-C-E-O, uh, was, it was around 2005 that I hired the CEO, uh, fellow by the name of Don Ankin. He's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant guy. Yep. And so I said, Don, we have a bunch of cash. We have some fantastic employees, and, uh, why don't you take it from here and let's, let's, uh, recharge, re recharge our engines and, and get going. And so he said, okay, not a problem. Let's, uh, let's go raise some additional cash. Let's go buy some assets. And so he started doing that and, uh, did it in, in a great and grand way. And then I surprised him by saying, notwithstanding our new relationship, I'm moving to Europe. Hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Nice. Well, when you started, were there certain, you know, asset classes, were you just interested in the real estate business in general, or, you know, like westcore with industrial? Were you attracted to that asset class, you know, or others, uh, that became, uh, more favorite for you? I would say I was always attracted to shopping centers. I thought since I was a little kid that I really liked shopping centers, strip shopping centers, right. Grocery anchor shopping centers. And I thought it was a good place to hang out. I always hung out in shopping centers when I was a kid, and I thought that this would be a grand thing to, to operate and own. So that was really my first love, or it was a shopping center business. And Jay, Jay wisely, um, I would say Lean leaned or, or helped me understand another set of asset classes, office and industrial o now offices kind of a four letter word today. Right. Industrial certainly wasn't. Yeah. And so I, I quickly learned that industrial was much easier to operate, own and operate, lease and manage than shopping centers ever were so interesting. I put almost all of my focus, um, during the, uh, I'll call it the late eighties and early nineties into the industrial building, uh, and, and investment management business with, with Jay. Nice. Now go back to your first real estate deal. What, what was that deal that got you hooked on doing this as a career? Yeah. So what got me hooked was, uh, when I, when I started out as a leasing agent, I started going around, I didn't have any money and, but I did have a lot of shoe leather. And so I started, uh, working throughout San Diego and kind of southeast San Diego. And I quickly glommed on to a few tenants, and the first tenant was seven 11, and I got to be buddies with the seven 11, um, man regional manager. And I said, I, I'll find you a bunch of seven 11 locations. And he said, great. And the only, the only problem Bruton is that I don't wanna own them. I just wanna rent. And I said, you know what I wanna own. So he said, look, why don't you go into this area and these corners and see if you can buy one of these properties? So I went to, uh, guy, guy named Joe Raso, it's an old Italian guy, knocked on his door, and for $175,000, he sold me this, uh, property in, in, uh, paradise Valley, in kind of the national city area of San Diego County. And of course, I didn't have $175,000 at the time, nor did I have the $225,000 it would take me to build the seven 11 store. So what I did is I got, uh, seven 11 to sign a 20 year lease. Nice. I took that lease to the bank, and the bank at that time lent me about 98% of the money Wow. Required to both buy the, buy the property, and sorry about that. Buy the, buy the property. And, and let me, uh, disconnect that, buy the property, and then sell, uh, and, and build the building for, for seven 11, which was, which was a great, you know, great opportunity for me to get started. And now, certainly you can't do things like that today. You can't No. Go to the bank and, and finance 95 or a hundred percent of the, uh, you know, the cost of the asset. It's, it's much, much more difficult to, to do that today. But back then, uh, with credit, you could get what's tantamount to a credit tenant, uh, lease finance or, you know, structured finance. Sure. Which, uh, which is, which is almost impossible to do, do today. Okay. Yeah. And how about the decision, you know, one of the things that, you know, the history, you know, you're did so well with westcore, that decision then to create Brixton move into another, you know, uh, asset type as big as you did, was that difficult? It was sort of born by necessity, because what happened was, uh, something that I learned and still don't quite understand it, but at that time, I had a whole series of shopping centers that I'd aggregated. And then when I moved into the industrial business, I found that the, the team members that I had assembled, the property managers in particular, didn't like the other asset classes. So we had the retail people, they didn't even really mingle very well with the industrial folks. And so you said, Hey, Bruton, why don't you open up another industrial business? Because we don't really, we don't even like having coffee with these industrial folks. We're we're retail folks we're special. Yeah, yeah. And so we, we quickly found that these teams didn't mesh. They didn't really, uh, share best practices. They're really different, different folks, different personalities. So we said, okay, all right, fair enough. We're gonna open up another office across the hall. So love a retail, we'll have a shopping center company here, and we'll have an industrial company over there. And sure enough, it that worked for a while. And then, uh, once the, uh, we, and we had different, two, two different people running those, those businesses, but they didn't even want to share coffee. I mean, the, uh, that's Fascinating. Literally. Yeah. I remember one instance where, where, um, a couple of the property managers went across the hall to get coffee from the coffee pot. And, uh, the industrial folks said, you know, get out of our coffee. Ah, Surprised they were okay being in the same building, you know? Yeah. The retail guys probably had lattes. That's exactly, exactly. Hey, are there any transactions that you look back and you regret that didn't work out and, and, uh, you learned any kind of lesson that might be why you moved onto something else? Well, I would say I've always learned lessons along the way. And one lesson that I learned, um, was never trade yield for basis. Hmm. And so the, the mistakes, I mean, we bought about 950 properties, and I would say we've had about nine or 10, uh, problems. And all, almost all of those problems was centered around, uh, me being diluted by the yield. So, in other words, one deal that I can remember started out at 11 or 12% initial yield, and I knew that that yield was transitory. It wasn't gonna last forever, but I thought, you know what? I'll be able to replace that yield once the, the lease burns off in five years. Unfortunately, when that high yielding lease burned off, it was a very, very bad time to finance, and a much lower yielding tenant came in, and the lender called the loan. And so that, that created a, a bit of stress or distress for me at the time. And I said, you know, I'm not gonna ever make that mistake again. And I've always, since then, I've always been able to effectively watch basis and try to try to be a low cost provider of commercial space in the areas that we trade in, which, uh, allows us a, a margin of safety or a margin of error in the event that rents do decline. And, and clearly real estate's a cyclical business. Mm-hmm. And being in a cyclical business, you've gotta be careful that you, um, a don't overpay, b don't over and have the, the financial wherewithal in, uh, commercial downturn to be able to sustain yourself and sustain the assets until the cycle is level out, allow. Excellent, Excellent. On the flip side, when you look back on your career, is there one standout project, uh, development or accomplishment that you look at, no matter how big or small it could be a a, a tiny one that you look back on and say, Hey, that was, you know, I'm particularly proud of that. I would say there's a couple of them that come to mind right away. I mean, one that, that, uh, just stands out was, was a, uh, commercial property in Del Mar clo close to my house and across the street from the racetrack that I had my eye on since I got outta college, because it's where I bought my gas, and it was an am em mini market. And I said, you know, it's right at a full diamond freeway, off ramp, tremendous corner. And it was a little bit downtrodden. And I said, you know, I, I gotta find out who owns this because I I, I should be owning it instead of them. And so I found out that it was owned by a fellow in Klamath Falls, Oregon. And I called the guy who was a contractor, called him, and he said, I don't think I'm gonna sell it, but come up here and go fishing with me, come fishing. I said, all right. That's old school. When was this? Uh, this was in 1982. That is old school. Okay. That's old. Yeah, 1983. So I went up, I I, I'm no fisherman, but I went up there and I, I knocked on his door and it was a ratty, ratty old rat trap of a place. And he opened the door, it was 10 o'clock in the morning, and I sat down, I said, okay, let's go fishing. And he said, well, before we go fishing, I like to start drinking. Oh, wow. Oh, geez. He opened up his drawer and he put a bottle of Jack Daniels and I, I mean, I barely drank, but I said, right. Oh God. Write him up room. Yeah. Him up. So he, uh, he pulled out the Jack Daniels, and, and we had a couple of shots. And then after that he said, okay, you seem like a good young kid. I'll sell it to you for, uh, 275,000, but I don't want, uh, the money, I just want a down payment enough to pay my taxes. Wow. So for 75,000 down, he sold me the property. And that property today, I think generates 490 or 500,000 a year of ground rent. Wow. So it was a crazy, you know, crazy economic deal and a crazy set of circumstances. You don't regret that. That's a great story. No, I, I, I, uh, That's a great one. I was, I'd be proud of that too. That's a great story. I'm glad I asked that Question. I know exactly where that, that center is. 'cause I used to go down to, uh, uh, Solana Beach and Del Mar all the time around the, the, so I know exactly the property. I'm not too far from that hotel. Well, you know, we know how you found that one, but typically how, now, now that just settled and, you know, known how, how do you find new, uh, projects or deals? Are brokers bringing in deals? Do you have a bunch on your radar screen already? Uh, how, how does that happen? Yeah. I'm just looking at my, my deal board. I've got, uh, 13, 13 shopping centers in various stages of escrow or negotiation. And of those 13 deals, I would say, uh, nine were brought by brokers and the other Oh, nice. The others I sourced. And a lot of times, uh, the ones that I source will be, will be contiguous or down the street from properties that are already own. So I'm constantly calling my neighbors or, uh, you know, contiguous property owners and trying to expand our, uh, our reach. And I get, I usually get a pretty good, uh, reception when I call those folks. Yeah. So even though you're buying portfolios of companies and, and whole companies at a time, still sounds like you get right into the weeds on these individual properties and, and, you know, the pricing and the analysis, um, which is great. I, you know, is that, is that really the case? Yeah, I would say that when, when I had my, uh, I had my personality or, or this aptitude test taken in high school, and it said that I was really best suited, uh, as a brick layer. Well, yeah, that's, I think that, uh, when they had brick layers, uh, I think that I, I'm kind of a plumber, electrician, brick, brick layer mentality in terms of wanting to get my hands dirty at all times. Right. I want to get in there, I want to, I want to meet people, I wanna form relationships. I want to get things done. But I, I, I realize I can't be a micromanager as well. So usually what I do is I, I take the first shot at, at getting, you know, getting a deal procured or getting something across the transom, and then I let our very capable, uh, team members take over from there. I mean, we have 1100 employees across the different verticals, and they're some of the best, you know, best sharpest, highest quality folks out there in the business. And I let them do their, do their, their work, and they, they do it beautifully. Well, I, I know from, you know, the requests for speakers at my conferences, your acquisition folks and leasing folks are certainly, uh, top notch, you know, but then when you're getting ready to sign a deal, is it return on equity, return on investment, a gut feel cash? How, you know, how, how intensive is the analysis? And when you're signing that, when you're making that signature, what's really the deciding factor? It's a great question. And I would say that, um, a lot of it is initial gut feel. Now, what does that mean? What does well gut feel just means that, uh, you layer years and years of experience and, and many hundreds of transactions. And that sort of forms the consortium of, of, uh, your, the thought process and, and, and the gut feel. But it's, we're very analytical. So I can have all the gut feelings that I want, and once I bring it in the front door, it, it goes through a myriad of, of, uh, hands here. And we're, we're highly institutional. I mean, our folks that run our business come from Goldman Sachs and Invesco, and we have Right, a very, uh, bottoms up set of underwriting and, and analytics that go into our decision making process. And that includes first and foremost our basis, as I mentioned earlier. You know, what is our basis, then it, and then we start to look at our current cash return and our, our future cash return on how we differentiate between current and future and what we need to do in terms of CapEx redevelopment, um, renovation, transitional uses. You know, we have a whole plethora of, I'll call 'em value creation initiatives. We look at the cost of implementing those value creation initiatives, and then look at the concomitant returns. The, as of returns, we say, is it worth it? Is it juice worth the squeeze? Yeah. But that's a very gut level. Right. Well, that's what I'm saying. Well, when you do all this analysis, does your gut overtake it or you let the, the analytics help your gut realize to either go with it or let it go? Probably a combination, right? That's a combination, but I think, I think it's really letting the analytics reaffirm my gut. Yeah. Because there's been some times that my gut's been wrong, and I want the numbers to do the talking in the end, and, and I let, I let the numbers, uh, dictate the outcome. Right. Now, let me ask you, since I'm in the financing industry, how do you finance your, your, your properties, uh, debt equity? Uh, do you get a bunch of investors? Do you go to, I, I mean, I know you were on the board of a few banks. Do you go to banks? Um, where, where does the money come from? It really depends on the silo. So we have these series of businesses, which are really investment management businesses, right? The West Core US investment management business is comprised of a state teacher's pension fund that, uh, owns 49% of the, uh, a UM and then 51% by the executive. So in that particular case, that state teachers pension fund, along with a series of insurance companies, have provided billions of dollars of capital to, um, co-invest with the executive team. So that, uh, that's a highly institutionalized equity, um, capital raise, vis-a-vis that platform. It happens. Go ahead. It's far different with the other investment businesses are different. The, uh, Brixton business really started out as our family office. We brought in some other families along the way to partner with us while we would put up, we being our family would put up 20 to 50% of the equity in every deal. And then in, uh, in, in, in a relatively short period of time, our pipeline exceeded our wallet. So we said we have a choice to go to other institutions and go the, uh, call it the institutional JV route or partner up with, with, uh, some other like-minded families. And generally, generally, we chose the latter rather than the former. So we have done many, many institutional JVs with great firms like Angelo Gordon and, uh, dune and DRA. And so, uh, and then, um, I would say those are, those are intermediaries. We've also done with direct deals with, like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley's of the, of the world, Allstate Insurance. Uh, and there are fine firms, really, really great firms, but we've felt that our, our culture here meshes best with other like-minded families. Okay. Good. Right. And I saw, which I think dovetails, you know, I was going, doing some research on your website, and I saw 2024, the recent launch of, uh, Broughton Private Access. Yes. So I guess that's, uh, the next, is that, is that the people who invest directly with you or, Yes. Excellent. Those, those folks, um, invest side by side with us, and we'll put up a, um, you know, a portion of the equity, and then they'll put up the balance of the equity, and we will do, um, end up doing a series series of transactions with those folks and hold the assets from five to 10 years, really depending on the business plan for the asset. And then we try to, we try to be as, uh, tax efficient as we possibly can by, by rolling forward that equity and compounding our equity in a tax deferred manner with a 10 31 exchange, uh, when and if possible. Right. And that's a perfect lead into my next, the next question is, you know, the decision to fully exit deals, not just the exchange, but then actually sell and, and roll the assets. How do you end up making that decision to some of these funds have certain time deadlines or when you reach certain milestones? Well, no, because we have not created funds on the private side. And really over on the Westco side as well, really not so much in the fund management business as the investment management business. We have, we did form a few funds in the early nineties, one with, uh, DuPont Pension Fund, which was very successful. We returned, I think 48% net to DuPont. But since then, we really haven't formed funds per se, but we've, we've capitalized deals on an individual or sometimes a portfolio basis. Um, and the, the life, the life of that vehicle really centers around the business plan. If it's, if it's, uh, I'll call it a light duty business plan with just some, uh, light renovation, possibly, uh, facade work, you know, that that asset may only be held for three or four years, and there's other assets that are, uh, much more complex. Delmar Plaza is one, one example that was very complex and, uh, a lot, lot of, uh, city issues and regulatory issues that we had to get through in order to, to maximize its value. And that's, you know, that's more like a 7, 8, 10 year hold. Right. Yeah. Do You ever, do you ever just get, like, get a broker that comes along and this offers you a great price for a property, so you say, okay, we'll, we'll sell It does Sure. That ever come up? Sure, I'll all happens all The time. Come up all the time. Okay, good. Tell me, tell me no. And, and, and we go through that, um, you know, the mental exercise of, of saying that, that if we don't take that, that offer, then we just rebought it at that price. Right? Yeah. True. So, right. Ourselves, you know, are we a seller or do we wanna rebuy? And many times we like the asset and we feel like there's a lot of upward momentum in the rent roll, and we will just hold, which is a tantamount to a rebuy. Right. Or we'll pull the, pull the trigger and sell. Certainly not afraid of selling. Yeah. Right. So, you know, you mentioned earlier, I mean, you, you've got a bunch of projects right now you're working on, and I, I wanna get back to that, but I wanna talk to you about your expanding to Europe. Uh, why, why did you decide to expand to Europe? Was it an opportunity? Were there good projects? What made you decide to go to Europe? Well, I like to say it wasn't my decision. Ah, but my wife said in, uh, 2004, 2005, you know, you've had five capital events in your career, these IPOs and a series of portfolio sales in 2003, the sale of the company. So she said, you know, it's, it's time for you to either retire or take a long sabbatical. And so I said, okay, well, don't really see it that way, but sure. So we moved to Switzerland and kids went to school there in Switzerland and the Alps, and we lived in a small town called Vilar, uh, where they really didn't speak much English har hardly at all. So it was, it was, it was a bit uncomfortable at first. Our kids, uh, picked up French pretty, pretty quickly. I was a little bit slower, slower at the draw. But one thing that I knew that I didn't want to do after 30 days of 35 cappuccinos, I mean it was a cappuccino a day or maybe two, was that I was not gonna sit in a town of 1800 drinking cappuccinos all day. Uh, much as much as I liked my wife, loved my wife, uh, it wasn't gonna happen. So I decided to, um, start nosing around, and I ended up opening an office in Geneva after about 90 days. And I hired two young smart guys that were my bankers at UBS, uh, stole them from UBS, and we opened up an office, and then we just started buying buildings. We found them all, all over the place. And, uh, that was really tremendous start to, to our, uh, our European operation. But what happened was, because we were dealing mostly with multinationals, um, those multinationals ended up taking us to other countries Interesting. Rather, rather than the other way around. So Phillips, Coca-Cola, Siemens, those were all DuPont. All all of these companies that we started doing business with in Switzerland said, we have a facility in Vienna, in London, in Berlin, Germany. So we said, sure, you know, we'll go anywhere. And we ended up doing multiple deals. Dozen. So you would buy out the owner with the lease ready in hand? Yes. Nice. So Was that, uh, was that fruitful for you? I mean, it must have been, I mean, did you find it a new challenge now being in Europe versus the United States? Or is it, was it about the same, just different location? It was much more challenging because there was different rules of law, uhhuh, different languages, different culture and customs and different currency. So I would say that it was very difficult and very complex, but I wanted, my first thought in really opening the business was that at the time I wanted to diversify currencies, I, I thought all my net worth is in American dollars. Right. And if, uh, if the worst outcome ever were to take place, I want to have a, uh, some very, very safe currency in a very safe market. And Switzerland certainly qualifies Yeah. For both of those. Um, I'm very, very safe country. So still Long in those Europe country, European countries in those markets. Absolutely. Absolutely. Nice. And I thought I could expand from there and go into other countries like London and uk, um, UK and London, and that that also would provide some level of safety and, and good appreciation, which they, they have now, the rule of law is tricky. Mm-hmm. I wouldn't advise it for a lot of folks because you just, there's, there's things that you just don't realize until you get in, get into it in terms of, you know, landlord, tenant, um, law. Right. Uh, the way judges see things are a lot different than the way judges in, in America, Basic definition of property ownership. Right. This Is different. Correct. And these are so socialistic countries like France where a landlord's not necessarily a, a good, a good word, a good term. It's Right. Not a good noun. Interesting. Well, let's shift shift over to, uh, the current situation. What, let's, uh, talk about things you're working on now, you know, exciting deals. Uh, you said you got a lineup of, of nine or 10 deals that you were looking at while we were talking a minute ago, or some, or some projects you've got underway. Any, any standout that you're excited about? Recent acquisitions or current projects? Well, I would say I'm, I'm very excited about, um, Westcore us. I mean, we've got a new CEO we're interviewing now as our current CEO, uh, is in the, uh, I'll call it succession planning and retirement phase. And we have, uh, a brilliant young guy who, um, we are talking with now as, as his successor, which creates a lot of excitement and, and verve around, uh, I'll call it a, a new beginning and a new growth pattern. I think that our, our goal with Westcore is to get into the 10 billion, uh, a UM range within the next five years. And I think that this young man can do so, so I'm very excited about that. Also, very excited about the appointment of a new president at Brixton, which just happened in January. We hired a, a very aggressive, smart young man named Rob Taylor to lead the charge at, uh, at Brixton Capital. And he comes from, from, uh, Invesco, uh, an Invesco background for a long time, and he's, he's very, very sharp young man. And so I'm excited about that. Excited. It's gotta be Big for you to bring on a, someone like that, uh, in that role, huh? Oh, yeah. I just love it. I love, uh, working with him and I'm gonna love working with this new gentleman over at, at, uh, at Westcore as well. And I think both of these companies have got a, a great trajectory with, with very, very strong leadership. So I, I would say that what I'm looking forward to is, is the growth that I see ahead and I see, I see growth through, through new, of course, through new, new leadership, but also through, uh, new capital formations. We have a fair amount of good capital partners that we are working with at, uh, at Westcorp, as well as we have a great, uh, capital partner that we're, we are negotiating with at Brixton as well for, uh, a partnership in our, uh, shopping center business. Not, not in the apartment business, but we're still doing those deals individually. But if we are successful with this, um, with this, uh, fund manager to partner with at the, uh, at the Brixton retail level, it will turbocharge our growth trajectory significantly. And that's in the US side. Over on the Europe side, I'm most excited about the two airports that we're in right to acquire now, because one is about 1,000,000,002 deal, and the other one's about 500 million. So those two deals alone will take our a UM call it from 800 to, you know, two and a half billion or so. So that's, uh, that would be really great for the European teams. Yeah. Excellent. Uh, well, you know, we were just gonna ask you about the air airport here. That's a great, great summary. That's what are you gonna look to, uh, uh, expand that and try to replicate that? Or is that kind of a rare opportunity? Is that like a one-time thing, or is that mostly in Europe, or are you looking at stuff like that here in the United States too? We haven't really, well, actually, we, about 20 years ago when we started the airport business, we, we looked at a couple of deals here in terms of some of the, uh, privatizing some of the, uh, the regional airports, and never really got a good foothold until we moved to Europe. And then it was a little bit, um, you know, it was a little bit easier to transact. But I would say that it's a very difficult business. It's, it's, uh, really led by major infrastructure funds, not, not small guys like myself. Right. And so it's all, You can find a way to keep El Toro open or Santa Monica airport open. Yeah. Closing those thousand, especially, what a great a piece of property that is. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's got a, like a 3,800 foot runway, which, uh, causes planes to crash into hangar. So not the, we Don't, we don't wanna see any more of that given the recent news. No, exactly. Tough, tough news. Well, then, you know, what, what are the, your, uh, back to, you know, what you see going forward, what do you see as the biggest challenges, you know, in, in the real estate investing today overall and, you know, within the sectors that you're in? Well, I would say the uncertainty, the capital market's uncertainty with interest rates, they really haven't come down. Uh, this, uh, this new administration is quite unpredictable. And, uh, we're seeing a lot of, a lot of unusual activity that didn't, didn't necessarily predict. And who knows what the ripple effect in the capital markets will be. I thought that we're immediately going to see lower inflation and lower interest rates, and now with the tariffs and all of the, the concomitant side effects from, uh, and the other way, yeah, it looks like it might go the other way. So that uncertainty causes some headwinds and causes some difficulty in, in, in creating flow, you know, deal flow when you really don't know how the financial markets are going to treat you. But there's always a opposite, you know, it's like physics, there's an equal and opposite effect. Uncertainty is really pretty good for, for what we do. We thrive on uncertainty. We thrive on, in inefficiency, we thrive in inefficient markets. We thrive on fear. So I think that, I look at my deal board and I, I can see all of the problems. I would say half, half of the deals on my, on, on the shopping center side, not the, not the apartment side so much, but on the shopping center side, are, have been fomented by, I either, I'll call it insurrection divorce. I see one, one gentleman has, uh, dementia, there's a bankruptcy here, there's an environmental problem there. So there's als, there's always, there's problems. And those problems are just what I wanna solve. Yeah. No, it's, it's a challenge to, to solve the problems. And, and when you get over that challenge, that makes it even, uh, better. Now, you, you mentioned something about, uh, um, um, California, you know, what, why are you not have that many developments in California, in the multifamily area? Are you finding that's difficult to, uh, um, to get going, or you just haven't seen the right one? We haven't. We've owned in California, and even though our acquisitions team said we are not crazy about the regulatory environment in California. Right. I love it. I mean, I, I, first of all, I love it. Love Here. Yeah. I love letting you Here if you own in, in it. Yeah. Right. And you're not the city of la I, I, I love many things about California, maybe not the, um, political or regulatory environment, but you take the good with the bad, and it's one of the deepest investment markets in the United States, if not the world, both, both coasts, you know, call it the New York Coast and Right. Uh, California coast. And so I believe that people will always wanna live here. I believe our weather's superior to any other state, and I think the long term appreciation for California is fantastic and will be fantastic for multifamily. So I want to spend a lot more time on California multifamily. Okay, good. All right. And so you're, you're general feeling about rental rates and, and their trends mostly gradually upward for retail, multifamily, and industrial with, you know, obviously some hiccups, but gradually for the most part, upward? Yes. Gradually upward. I mean, we're, we're in a supply and demand business, and there's a real, one of the reasons I'm so excited about retail is because there's such a paucity of supply for a long time. Very, very, um, SS small amount of building and not, not much building over the last seven, eight years. Right. And, And the removal of, you know, a Lot and the removal of a lot of properties demoing the malls. Yeah. I mean, there's just been a big sea change. So I believe that the supply has dwindled. I believe the replacement costs, construction costs are quite high, and there's not gonna be a, a, um, plethora of new projects built. So that all portends a very good, uh, landscape for rent growth. Now that said, uh, you initially said, you know, there, there's gonna be some ups and downs, and yes, there will be, because there are some, I'll call it post covid, um, you know, post covid issues, people burning through all of their covid, uh, surplus. And people are not, uh, people are worried about inflation, so discretionary spending might not maybe curtailed. And so all, all of that sort of, uh, can dampen rental increases. But by and large, I think it's a very good solid rosy picture for rent growth. On the retail side, on the apartment side, we had a very rocky 2024, and 2023 was a little rough as well, 25 and 26 much better because there was a, a glut in some, some cities like Phoenix, uh, you know, Austin, some, uh, some parts of Texas where there was a, a load of supply, uh, dumped on the market or, or I would say completions not dumped on the market. There was a lot of completions. And those completions led to concessions. Those concessions led to, uh, a dampening of, of rent growth. And so it's, that's flattened out and in some places declined. But that is a, uh, it's a transitory win because all of the prognostications that I've seen showing 2026 a, uh, significant set of rent spikes in, in these primary markets. Yeah. And, and generally we're under housed. So even though there might be certain local areas that get over their skis, it's gonna catch up at some point. Absolutely. Absolutely. Sure. Um, tell me about your leadership philosophy. My leadership philosophy is really focused on finding the best possible talent that I can find and letting them lead, but also, uh, leading by example in the interim. And so I, I'm in the office every day at, uh, seven o'clock and usually here till six o'clock at least. And so I, I work hard and I believe, I believe in hard work. Mm-hmm. And so I, I, I found that if you, you know, keep your nose clean and, and, uh, do what you say and work hard that others typically follow. And so if I, if I do have any style at all, it's, uh, to show people that I'm dead serious about, about what we do and, and passionate about what we do, and expect everybody to share that passion in some form might not be the same, because o an owner may be different than somebody else that, um, might not have direct ownership on it. It really, really depends on everybody's different. But you asked me about my leadership style. I'd say it's, uh, it's hard charging, it's hardworking, and, uh, and then letting people thrive and not micromanaging them, because that's, that's the worst management style, uh, that you could possibly have. Right. Good. No, that's great. Great Philosophy. Well, uh, on, on a quick, a quick answer to this one. If, if you had someone start, someone starting in the business, you know, or, or you knowing what you know now and you were starting out, what, what part of the business would you advise them? Or would you, uh, enter? Right. Well, I would, that's a tough one. I would say that the easiest to enter, it's, it's, I think it's difficult to enter the business just graduating from college, because unless you're an analyst and a really good one, it's hard to break into the business. I know. It was really, that's how I Started. Yeah. You go, wow. Yeah, I started as a leasing person, but I had to camp out for a day in the lobby of the development firm to get noticed, and I wouldn't leave until they dragged, dragged me out. And so it's hard to get noticed unless you have some particular, uh, skill or particular trait. A lot of times star athletes get noticed, or, uh, a great musician that happens to be, I mean, one, one guy that got an interview right away was a guy who had a great, uh, jazz saxophone background, but he was also an analyst. So Right. Stood out immediately, uh, as somebody, uh, but so to, let me get back to your question. If I were entering the market today, and I didn't have a particular skill that would get me an immediate interview, I'd enter in the property management business, because it's easy to find good work in a good company, and you learn everything. You learn the business from the ground up. Yeah. Then you can sort of catapult from there and expand into analytics and appraisal and finance. And there's lots of different ways to spread out once you're into the property management business. Uh, That's a great answer. Great answer. We're, we're getting close on time. I know Arne's got one question, you know, outside of real estate. But before we get to that, and I don't know if you've, you know, got a lot of thoughts on it, but given your position in the industry and, you know, everything that's going on in southern California, especially with the fires and the Palisades, do you have any thoughts on that, on the rebuilding and, and thoughts? Thoughts on the rebuilding and how that's going and, and how it should go? I know that, that we're, uh, process bound in California. We have really, uh, high regulatory threshold. I, I, I certainly hope that the politicians and the cities will relax those regulations and provide expedited, uh, timeframes to allow these folks to rebuild and get back into their homes. I think it's just calamitous and, and, and terrible, and, uh, never thought that I, I would see in my lifetime a whole, you know, town wiped out like, like Palisades and, uh, just never thought it would happen. I think it's unbelievably, uh, sad and, and, and terrible, and I'm just not sure how the rebuilding process will go. I don't know. That's A tough one. That that really is. It, it's, we'll watch, you know, and, and you can't point fingers. You gotta figure out a way to do it. And everybody, I think, is trying their best, but nobody really has the answer. And so, you know, hiring Steve, you know, br you know, I mean, ply Vista and LA live Well, no, He's, he's a good Quality, you know, at least it's the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. No, he kind does. He's a great guy. Steve's a great guy. Yeah. Okay. So tell us a little bit more about you, mark, your personal interest, your hobbies. We know, we know, uh, I don't know if we know, but I don't know if anybody else knows. You invested in some sports, uh, professional teams, uh, or a team. Uh, tell us about that And, and a standout charity. Well, Well, we'll get to that, that, that was gonna be my follow up, but I, I wanna learn about him first and what his interests are. Yeah. The sports interest was really around the development rights at the stadium. I, I was really, really interested in the development rights for the stadium, and I was partnered up with a, a group of investors who are, you know, really cool guys. A guy named Rich Inger, who was a long time, uh, friend. And, and, uh, he had the direct, uh, relationship with, with, uh, Ratner family. Right. And so, uh, I, I was really fascinated with the development rights, um, the, also selling the naming rights for the stadium. But what happened was when we tried to move the stadium from New Jersey, uh, we got sued by the people in Brooklyn and cost us a couple of hundred million dollars to, to fight with the lawyers and the lawsuits. And it ended up really dampening my interest in pro sports because it was so contentious. It took six or seven years of highly contentious fighting in order to get approval. And I think now the, you know, the Brooklynites are happy with the, with the product. Yeah. I think they're happy with the result. And it's a pretty, pretty darn cool place to, it is a Cool place. Oh, Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's almost like when they try to build SoFi and how many years were they trying to bring a team back to LA and look at like 20, like decades until they brought somebody back? Because everybody was fighting over where it should be and how it should be. And, and of course, you're down in the San Diego area, you lost the Chargers. Oh, yeah. Uh, and I'm sure they're not happy about that down there. And, and, you know, so it, it, it, it's tough 'cause you deal with real business and emotion at the same time. And, and, uh, but other than professional sports, do you golf, uh, do you, do you like to, uh, play basketball watch? No, what I do is I, I like to, I like to point out to my cauliflower ear. I like to do, uh, jut Brazilian juujitsu wrestling. So, ah, since, since I was a little kid, I've been on the mat, uh, wrestling, fighting, uh, I love any kind of combat sports. I like to, uh, almost every day I am in our gym, down in our basement here in our office building, and we have, uh, full-time trainers down there, and we have about 10, then we have about 12 people that are combat folks also that, that like to train juujitsu. And I do other types of martial arts trainings. I do, uh, knife training and, and, uh, baton training and things like that. Interesting. So, and weapons training, I do do handgun training, but my main, I'll call 'em my, my main, my main sports are Brazilian Juujitsu and Judo, which I've, and did you, And because of you doing it, have you gotten to like a bunch of the people in the, in the office in your company involved in it too? Almost? Yeah, I would say a lot. A lot. Nice. Yeah. All The analysts, all the, that'll Give you Get, get him fighting. But now let's get to charities. What, what, what is near and dear to your heart as far as, uh, uh, giving back? So we have two foundations and, and those foundations are focused on probably five primary areas. Uh, one is the environment, and we're really interested in cleaning up the ocean oceans, but particular, particularly plastics and microplastics and any, any kind of detritus in the ocean that, that, um, that, um, has, we put in there through, through the years. I mean, we, we've spent a lot of time and money donating to, to charities that focus on clean, ocean, clean environment. Uh, great Idea to talk to you about after this. Cool. Yeah. Then also we've got, uh, I'll, I'll call 'em the disenfranchised, um, disenfranchised groups, uh, segments of society that either can't afford school, can't afford, um, food, and those types of folks. We want to feed them, and we wanna make sure that they get the best possible education. So we have a whole series of scholarship initiatives set up at, uh, different schools and then also at large. And then a, a subset of, I'll call it the disenfranchised, is, uh, special education and special education centered around, uh, folks with learning disabilities. Uh, we, we invest heavily in schools that, uh, take care of our kids that have learning disabilities and need IEPs and special educational protocols to help them, uh, flourish in society. So we, we focus a lot on that. Right. Um, wow. Excellent. That's through the Proton Family Foundation? Yes. Right. Great. Great. Excellent. Okay, I, I think we've run out of time and questions. We promised you, you know, keep an, uh, an hour, you know, we know you're super busy, so we wanted to do our, you know, our, our part in keeping, keeping it on time and we'd love to have you back, you know, down the road to the future to hear about more of these, the, the things you're working on. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a lot of fun and yeah, really enjoyed talking with you guys and, and telling you a little bit about what we do here. Well, We certainly appreciate the time. I know our audience is gonna get a lot out of it, so we, We love doing these because we get to find out about the person behind the company and, and that's, that's really what it's all about and it's all related to commercial real estate. So we really thank you for your time, mark and uh, thank you Mark. Look, look forward to speaking to you again soon And be best of luck with those deals going forward and, uh, wish you success over the next year. Thanks a lot. Alright. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/107204372.txt b/data/transcripts/107204372.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/107762220.txt b/data/transcripts/107762220.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1079649123.txt b/data/transcripts/1079649123.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c092da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1079649123.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, hey. Welcome to the next episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, where we have what we hope to be interesting, compelling, and very informative conversations with the very top leaders in the commercial real estate industry. Uh, throughout the Western US Today, we've got a great guest. I'm really excited about the show, Alex AKIs, president of Capstone Advisors. But before we bring him, him in, we got a little bit of business to take care of. Uh, let me introduce myself and our co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie, how are you? Hey, how you doing, Steve? I'm doing good. Good, good, good. What's going on today? Tell us about Allstar Group. Well, Allstar Group is, uh, started out is we're a commercial real estate lending firm. Started out with income property lending as the, uh, loan brokerage side, but Allstar Group does events. We do commercial real estate events, great Events. Thank you. The Commercial Real Estate and Lending Conference is an all day event. We do in, in la Uh, we do a lawmakers forum event in, uh, orange County, and we do a networking event, also, including the Lawmakers Forum in San Francisco. All of our events are interactive. The thing about the lawmakers forum that we do at every one of our events is we're like Shark Tank. We have all the lenders talk about what they can do, and then we have the audience speak live and submit loans to the, uh, to the lenders on the panel. So, excellent. That's what we do. Uh, well, I'm Steve Bloom. For those that don't know me, uh, uh, founder, CEO of rent tv.com. Now, in our 25th year media company for the commercial real estate industry, we have our news website, our email blasts. Uh, we have this podcast, we have our conferences. We do five conferences a year. Uh, next one is Inland Empire, then Orange County, and this video platform where you're watching this show, the review, the searchable video platform for the commercial real estate industry. Uh, now with the intros of us, Don Arne, let's start, uh, just Talk about our sponsors. Yeah. Tell us about the sponsors that make this show happen. And the first one is, uh, commercial real estate inspectors, uh, in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive and simple solutions whenever possible. Uh, their information is on the screen. Uh, it's commercial real estate inspectors. Let them help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Simington and book your inspection today. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Again, it's on the screen. Tiffany, 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Who's next? Yeah. Our next, uh, sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate. They were founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon. Uh, it is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rate. Call Uncle Chuck or John McClain at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. Excellent. And, uh, closing out the sponsors is a great, uh, client of Rent. TV's been advertising with us for a while, and, uh, now they're supporting the podcast because they want to get the word out about their new, uh, strategy. And that is Chase Partners. Uh, many May may know Chase Partners and David Parker as one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout Southern California over 30 years. Uh, but now, uh, they want to let people know that they are focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties with non-performing debt. If you are an owner, lender, or broker that needs fast decision and a fast close to sell them the property or have them, uh, deal with your debt, please contact David Parker at Chase partnersDavid@chasepartners.com. Again, david@chasepartners.com. Well, with that said, I'm very excited to introduce our guest for today's show. Alex AKIs, president of Capstone Advisors. Good afternoon, Alex. How are you today? I'm Great. I'm great. Thanks for having me on. Uh, You bet. Welcome. Why don't, well, why don't we get started? Uh, Talk about, go for it, Arnie. Alex, give us an overview of Capstone and any other businesses you may be involved in. Uh, portfolio size, sectors, geographies, uh Sure. Residential, all kinds of stuff. Just give us an overview. So The company is 28 years old. Um, it's based in Carlsbad, California. And we've operated in 14 different states. And the business has done a wide variety of investments over that period of time. Our current portfolio is comprised primarily of shopping centers. Uh, probably 70% of our commercial portfolio is shopping centers, the remainder being, uh, multi-tenant flex industrial buildings and, and, um, and two, two office buildings. Um, not much office exposure. Uh, so that's the commercial portfolio. The commercial portfolio is primarily located in Southern California, Phoenix, and Virginia, although we're just recently started buying in Salt Lake City. Mm-hmm. And then in addition to that, the company's got a, a fairly robust land portfolio. We buy land primarily in the path to growth. We don't buy anything that's shovel ready and we buy land to entitle it and get it ready to sell it to other developers, primarily, uh, historically, mostly, uh, to, uh, home builders for production home building. Okay. Excellent. Great. Alright, well, uh, over to me, uh, Alex. And before my first question, lemme just again, uh, uh, while we're on there, thank you for, you know, participating in our events and having some of your great executives on our panels. Really appreciate it over the years. And, you know, we've got some things in common and we will get to that in, uh, in a minute. But, you know, we always start with the origin story. So tell us where you were raised, uh, and then we'll hop back into the real estate. Tell us where you were brought up. Sure, yeah. The education. Yeah. I was raised in Ithaca, New York. So upstate New York. Uh, not a terribly big town. It's 30,000 people. It's a home of two universities. Uh, so Ithaca College and Cornell Universities based there. And, um, I grew up there, graduated high school from there I went to the University of Colorado for four years. Had a great time. Boulder, lovely Boulder place, Boulder to go to school. Boulder. Yeah. And then from there I, uh, I moved in the, uh, mid eighties, uh, when I graduated, moved to New York City. I worked in, uh, finance, um, and as an investment banking, uh, uh, uh, in the analyst program for Merrill Lynch for three years in New York City. And then I went back to my roots. I moved back to Ithaca, uh, to go to Cornell for, uh, grad school. And I got my MBA in Cornell. And then after that I moved to San Diego. And I have been in San Diego ever since. And never one day did I think that was a bad move. Love it. Uh, love, love being located here. Living here in, well, We, we've got a lot of similarities. You know, if, if, you know, I think we've had this discussion, but, you know, I grew up in the city, so did a little reverse, but did the undergraduate at Cornell and yeah. Ithaca was amazing. Nothing like, uh, Ithaca, New York, but, uh, very different experience probably growing up there. I'm sure. Yeah. You know, it was a lovely place to grow up. It was fairly cosmopolitan for being a small town in the middle of nowhere 'cause of the influence of the schools. And, uh, when you're growing up, you don't know that the weather's bad 'cause you just think it's the same weather of every place. Right, right. So Well walking across the suspension bridge, teeing those frozen waterfalls over the winter, it was amazing. So. Well, I know Definitely an amazing place. Um, I'm, I'm from New York as well, but I was in, uh, long Island and Queens, so, uh, diff different area. Um, but why don't we go, I'll, I'll get the next question. Yeah. How did you get into real estate? What attracted you and was it retail from the start? Was it something else? Yeah, you know, so it's funny, my, I I just was having this discussion with, uh, my youngest son who is also in New York, uh, working, uh, in the city. Um, and, you know, I, my path into real estate was really predicated on, I knew I wanted to have my own business. That was number one. So I grew up, my father was a successful businessman. He had his own business, uh, businesses. And I grew up, you know, at the kitchen table, uh, listening to the stories about that, I used to go down to his place, uh, his business when I was a kid. I worked there over the summers. And, uh, it wasn't, it wasn't re uh, real estate, but, you know, fundamentally I knew, I always knew I wanna have my own business. Right. So that was kind of, that was very much the starting point is, and from there it was a, uh, series of explorations and try to figure out, okay, what business do I want to have? And I wanted something that was scalable. I wanted something, um, that, uh, had some local knowledge, uh, uh, uh, expertise. I, when I said I, I worked out of undergrad in investment banking, and I thought to myself, I'm not gonna have my own investment bank. That's right. Not likely. And I was watching a, uh, office tower get built across the street from where my office was. And I thought, okay, that's interesting. That's, that's got some ability to scale it. There's lots of different entrepreneurial businesses that are associated with that. You've got the developer, you've got the construction company, you've got the people leasing it, uh, people financing it. I was like, okay, there's, and, and it was local and it was tangible, which was also important to me. I wanted a, I wanted to be a, in a, working in an industry where I could walk and feel and touch whatever the product was. And I just thought, okay, I think it's, I think it's this real estate industry. And then, then it took me a while to figure out exactly where I wanted to, to be in real estate. I got outta school, outta graduate school, just in time for the savings alone collapse, which was really horrific for the real estate industry. It was, you know, in many ways as bad as the, uh, or worse than the, than the GFC was in 2008 for the real estate industry. So I worked for three years doing bankruptcies and workouts and restructuring and portfolio sales. And, um, and that was a great time in my mind to start in the industry because it taught you a lot about risk and about how bad things could turn. And then to also see the new groups forming up and new capital and buying distress. Uh, that was super interesting. Commercial real estate securitization came out of that, uh, outta that time period. So there was, uh, that, so, so that sort of led me in one direction. I actually left that job and traded mortgages for three years, commercial real estate mortgages, uh, and a very entrepreneurial, uh, shop. And that sort of taught me deal making. And then I put those two together, you know, and thought, okay, let's, let's go out and take a principal position. And when I, when I started Capstone Advisors, I mean, the reason it's called I called an advisors was I, well, I still wasn't a hundred percent sure what we were going to do. Um, but I knew it was gonna be opportunistic to start and Right. I, uh, I, and I, I put I, you know, I went off on my own with a very loose business plan and, um, and was very fortunate about my timing and my ability to, to start getting some transactions done. All right. Excellent. So what was that first major deal that you felt took you to that next level? You know Yeah. The ones you were initially kind of scrap, you know, building your knowledge base. Yeah. You know, so, so I had never worked for a company that owned real estate. I never been work, I never worked in leasing asset management, you know, I mean, everything in my experience was all tangential around real estate. Right. I understood sort of, you know, conceptually, but I was not an operator. Um, so the first, the first transaction I did was actually a, um, um, quite a large retail center that, um, I bought. And since I had no operational experience, I, I tied up a, a, a good size asset. And then I, I, I hired a firm to, uh, uh, or lined up a firm, a a large, uh, operator to do property management leasing. And I brought them into the deal with me, and I had a relationship with a couple of guys that were running capital out of New York for an investment bank. So it was really, you know, putting, putting sort of those pieces together. Um, because I, I, I couldn't point to any operational experience that I had, or frankly, and I was so by myself Almost as much as managing people as it was, uh, managing real estate. Yeah, Yeah. You know, and so it, and it all, it all worked out. So I could, I could get that, I could get that done. And once I closed that first transaction, uh, then my capital partners were pretty happy with, uh, with that transaction. And, and, uh, it kind of opened the floodgate and I ended up doing 22 different joint ventures with that capital partner and everything. Well, and then predominantly, most everything after that was I was building out a team of people at Capstone. I was hiring people that with a lot more operational experience and expertise, uh, than I had, which if they had one day was more than I had. And, um, hiring people, you know, sort of a lot more senior than I was and going out and, and, and buying real estate, uh, opportunities, you know, assets kind of indiscriminately where it was located. It was more of a, you know, what's the asset? How's it performing relative to where its position is in the market, and how do we get it to perform at market levels and then exit it? This was once again, during a period that was still sort of recovering from this, from the SNL crisis. And there was still, you know, a a lot of assets that were capital, uh, strained, constrained, you know, the owners were constrained that. Um, so there was still a lot of distress to pick up, and capital was in short supply, um, uh, broken deals were in great supply. So it was just marrying those two things up and then putting together an operating team to be able to execute on it. Excellent. So what major standout projects in your career come to mind? I mean, what really kind of like is like, these are the ones that really, did it put Capstone on the map? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, those first deals put us on the map and, and when I was calling around and those first transactions, so, so the first thing I bought with this 600,000 square foot enclosed regional mall, so that was my first deal. So that's pretty major. That's major. That's a major, yeah. Major Deal. It was a major deal. So getting that done, you know, got me right on the map and I was calling, you know, so I was by myself. I was calling investment sales professionals. I was telling 'em, this is Alex Sakaki of Capstone Advisors. And people would go, oh, I've heard of Capstone. I'm like, great. I dunno why you would've, but fine. You know, it had the name, had a ring, Had that kind of name. Yeah. Right. And then, and then I would drop the name of the big investment bank that was behind me. And, you know, and, and at first that discussion was a little bit met with skepticism. 'cause I couldn't, didn't really have a lot that I could point to, you know, it was a Novo company. Sure. But as I, you know, I was able to buy once, like 22 properties in two years. Right. So the, just the amount of velocity that we were buying right off the bat was, was pretty significant. And, um, and I just, you know, we were promoting look at this deal flow that we're doing, and, uh, that got us on the map pretty fast. Where Was that deal? Where was that first one? The six? Oh, yeah. Where Was the mall? It was in Indiana of all places. Ah, really. So I thought you lemme flip it around, But are you, look, when you look back, and these are the ones, you know, the, the toughest to talk about, but they probably provide some of the best, uh, uh, educational opportunities. But how about one that you wish you Never did for whatever reason? Yeah, no, there's, there's, there's, there's a few. We've done, you know, 300 plus transactions in our 28 years. So, you know, we, we've definitely bought stuff with, in retrospect, you sort of wish you hadn't bought. Um, you know, there was, um, uh, some, some, you know, one of the, one of the things we do is buy land entitlement transactions. And, um, you know, we've, we have gotten a lot better at picking what land we're gonna buy, uh, to, to get into and, and to entitle. And those transactions can be super long duration. So we've, uh, you know, we've, we've, we've tightened up, tightened up our, our our, uh, threshold on, you know, uh, what we're gonna buy there. Back in 2000 2, 3, 4, you know, when the world was just on fire, we were buying everything with, you know, both hands. Um, so, you know, it, it's, we've gotten better at, at, at, you know, mitigating our risk. And we have definitely collapsed the investment focus of what we buy these days. In the beginning, as I bought a mall, I bought an office tower, I bought, we'd buy single tenant industrial. We were buying retails, grocery anchored unanchored, you know, you name it, we were buying, we were buying all sorts of different assets. And you know, over time we, we've sort of, and we were buying many different markets. And over time, I think the big L lesson was let's target specific markets and let's target markets where we have synergy because we're now gonna be like a, a, a meaningful player in that market and get synergy with the, you know, the brokerage community and, you know, and establish deep banking relationships and, and, uh, if for investment sales people to be able to argue, you know, to do articulate why we're in this market, why we should get the next deal or, or, or at least be, you know, widely, you know, seriously considered. Um, versus just blown into a market you'd never been in before and buying an asset class you'd never bought before and transacting and leaving. That's harder. Right. Now, do you, do you buy based on strategy or opportunity? Think you were kind of, well, in the beginning, you know, back once again in the nineties, it was like the world was all opportunity. If you had money, there was a million things to buy. Um, you know, then, then capital efficiency came in, right? The liquidity turned back on, and then it was about, okay, you know, as an out of towner, why should I be the one coming into a new market and buying this asset? So we, we definitely have a much more focused on, you know, key markets that we're gonna buy in, and we have a much more focused, you know, this, this, you know, that, that was almost 30 years ago when we started, right? Yeah. So, you know, now we, we buy in key markets, we buy key asset classes that we know and to operate really well. And we've got a very professional team of people that are experts in the domain of which we operate. And we buy, uh, anything from, you know, value add, heavy value add, uh, to core plus, um, I, we, we buy a lot of value add, but, you know, we're also happy to buy core Plus what we don't buy is traditional core. We can't make, you know, we can't compete on that. It's still mainly in the three going forward still mainly retail land for future development on the single family and then some industrial. Yeah. Yeah. Um, how about, so how do you find, you know, and we were touching on this, just, just answer around leads right into our next questions. So how do you find, given that, you know, you've focused, you, you know, the, uh, your, your strategy and you've been in these markets for a while, so how do you find new deals? Or do you pick out properties and keep keep track of them, or Yeah, We have Broker bring You. Yeah. When we have a pipeline meeting every Monday morning, we go through, you know, we've got acquisition people, um, that we go through what, you know, what is on the market. Um, and then people, you know, in the markets we operate, people kinda know, like, you know, I get called occasionally and I'm to somebody, you know, from, and my acquisition guy gets called very frequently with somebody from the investment, um, sales industry, right? Will call and say, Hey, I got a capstone deal, right? This is, this is your kind of deal. It's your name on it. Yeah, Yeah. It's got your name on it, right? I mean, we buy a lot of stuff from, you know, call it 12 million to $25 million purchase price retail. And then, you know, and you're transacting enough into that market, the brokerage community calls you up and goes, okay, I, this is similar to the four other things you own here, right? So you're a logical buyer. Um, so we get, we get a fair amount of stuff that we just buy that's been marketed and it's on the market and people throw offers at it, and, you know, and you put your name in the ring for it. But we also get a fair amount of transactions where the investment salespeople think it's gonna go to market or think the, the seller will sell it. And you sort of get this inside track where they're taking it to three or five of the logical buyers typically, and it's not widely marketed. So we, we see a lot of deal flow that way as well. Right. The next one's my favorite sub quest follow up question to that one. So, and, and maybe it's different for each of these property types, but what do you use, what's the metric you use? You're an NBA guy, NBA guy, I'm an MBA guy. Like, is it IRR return on equity, a gut feel based on cash? You know, that's, we get that. Yeah. Yeah. When you're putting, you're the guy signing that deal. Yeah. You're, you're the one signing it. What's the leading Thing? Well, if it's, if it's, if it's core plus, if it's well located, well leased, you know, the, the game plan is don't screw it up and, you know, move rents and, you know, maybe do a little bit better job on the, on the tenant mix, uh, than the, than the seller. But it's generally good real estate. You know, we, we look at, you know, what's our, what's our going ahead cap rate? What's our cap rate gonna be in, you know, three years or five years if we hit our proforma? And what's our cash on cash return going to be? Now, we always run an IRR, we typically run an IRR over a seven year, uh, hold period, seven year. And we, and we've got metrics on where we want that IRR to be, but we're also, typically we buy stuff and we hang outta stuff for very long period of time. Well, the land right? You, the land's, Well, well, the land's a whole different end, but, uh, the income producing stuff, it's right. You know, what, where, where can we, you know, what's the rent growth? So what's the CAGR and the rent? Where can we, what's the rent growth gonna be over time? What's our leveraged cash on cash return gonna be? And sort of at the end of, you know, three to five years, what's would be our implied cap rate of being into that deal? That's sort of your classic core plus deal right? Now, if it's value add, it's, you know, it's, it's different metric, right? It's like, okay, you know, how much risk do we have to take? How much capital do we need to deploy? How heavy of a lift do we have to get this big value add? And when we get that value add, if we, you know, then what can we refinance it for? What's gonna be our remaining equity left in that deal, if any? And then, you know, what's that remaining cash flow look like? Because once again, you know, in the beginning when we were doing this, we were using, you know, sort of that hot wall street money or, you know, it was, you know, buy it, fix it, sell it, right? That was, that was the metric. Now, if it's value add for us, it's buy it, fix it, refinance it, and keep it. Right. So we, we, we have stuff in our portfolio now it's, we buy it with, with the assumption we wanna see, you know, this reasonable, um, value creation over this some reasonable period of time, but we're not expected we're gonna sell it. Right. You know, that brings me to my next question, which is my field. How do you finance your deals? Debt equity? Uh, what, how do you, or is each one separate? Yeah. So, you know, so we use market rate debt, you know, never more than 65% debt on, on an acquisition. Right? We typically, you know, a lot of times we just use, you know, we use traditional bank debt, um, and then there, you know, the rest, the rest we write an equity check for and, and you know, and, and keep it. Now we also use insurance company. I mean, it's really, it's, it's banks and insurance company depending on the property. Yeah. Very occasional. We'll use a debt fund if we've got a real value add deal that unusually value add deal, especially over the last couple years when things have been choppy. But mostly it's like we got good enough bank relationships, we'll just put enough equity in. So, and then our commercial portfolio, you know, we, you know, is sub 50% loan to value, you know, it's probably 45% loan to value overall in the portfolio. So, you know, we don't, we're, we're not debt junkies and on the land, it's kind of hard to, to finance those Yeah. Land, it's all cash, of course. Okay. We, we put no debt on land that is all cash. And, and for, and for what we're doing on land, the metric there is what's the multiple gonna be. It's not, it's, you know, we're, you're not doing this for an IRR, you're doing it 'cause you're gonna sell it for a meaningful multiple of more than you have in it because you don't know how long you're gonna be in it. Right. It's, um, so you, when those things, when those things exit, they, you're looking for a big multiple. Yep. And that's the, my, you know, right into my next question. Well, it's really a two part question. I'm grabbing one of Arnie's is the natural one on the equity side. Where does the equity come from? Do you have, uh, do you raise money for each deal on the equity side? Um, do you have already just the, the funds there? Uh, Yeah. You know, but it's predominantly, we have the funds here. We, we generate our own capital this point from our own funds, especially on our land portfolio, a lot of times, you know, we buy land, we have title it, we sell it, it's got a big capital appreciation. The beautiful thing about land is, uh, you know, all the value creation in the markets we operate, it's all getting the discretionary approvals, right? It's, there's very little additional value for doing the horizontal development. So if all you're do, if you, if all you're doing is buying and taking it through the approval process, which, you know, we, we, we buy it, we get it fully approved, we do all the engineering, we get ready to pull a grading permit. The map is final maps ready to record. I mean, these things are ready to go, but we don't do the horizontal improvements. We sell it typically to the public home builder. And because of that, we are an investor, not a developer on the land. And we can then take the proceeds from that and we can 10 31 it into the commercial portfolio. Makes sense. So the land fuels a lot of our commercial portfolio growth. Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, uh, the next question I got for you perfect lead in is then what triggers the exit? Is there a certain time horizon going in? Are you looking at market opportunities? If someone brings you an offer you can't refuse, what's the exit? Yeah. For, for the land, it's, it's when do you get through the entitlements? When do you get through all the engineering? When do you have it, when do you have it with, like, the bow is all tied, right? Because, you know, the, the, the more you can get it to shovel ready for the home building community, the more you get paid. Right? Right. It's, it's, it moves, you know, x almost exponentially, right? If it's ready to go on, you can sell it to 'em on Monday, pull a building permit on Tuesday, and be on the ground on Wednesday. That's best case, right? So we're, we're selling the land predominantly as we get through the approval process. And there's a occasionally a little bit of chop, you know, like timing the market. Okay. Market's choppy right now, we're gonna wait a few months. But even that choppiness is really like the value creation is, is the entitlements. Yeah. So, so that's just more driven by when can we get it approved? And like I said, in the commercial portfolio, we hardly ever sell. Yeah. You know, we, we, But it's a whole, yeah, it makes sense. How do you structure your deals? Uh, they corporate partnerships, LLCs, do you create Yeah, everything's In a standalone, single purpose LLC bankruptcy, remote, you know, it's pretty much, it's pretty much standard in the industry these days. That's where every lender needs to see it. So that's where You have investors with you, or it's just under the one umbrella? Um, we have, uh, we, we have very few exterior investors. We don't, we don't go out and generally don't go out and partner. We don't go look for new capital. We're, we're pretty self-contained. I was writing this check to Capstone advisor. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Your next question was how does somebody invest with you? I, you were ready? Yeah. My, my retirement funds there. All right. Well, let's, let's jump now to the, uh, current situation. Why don't you tell us about your recent one or two acquisitions, then we'll get into your recent two dispositions. Yeah. So, you know, last year we had a unusually busy acquisition year, right? Typically, the way we operate, we, we buy one, two deals a year. The today, you know, in, in prior years, we, you know, we, you know, if the market dictates, there's lots of stuff to buy, we buy pretty actively. But, you know, last year we bought four deals. Um, and, um, three were value add. Um, and one was classic core plus, uh, a highly, highly performing grocery anchored center in Salt Lake. We've been canvassing Salt Lake for a while, looking for transactions. And we're happy to get a flag planted there that will start sort of marketing our ownership of that asset with the investment sales community in that for Salt Lake and look to add to our portfolio there. Um, the, um, another one was a super opportunistic, uh, industrial deal that was, we bought in Phoenix, that's a core market for us. And one of our existing relationships and the brokerage side called us up and said, there's this guy gonna just absolutely, you know, sell, liquidate this portfolio, and he's in a panic with his asset. And, uh, I heard about the deal on a Wednesday, and we literally had it under contract. Not LOI, we had it under contract by Friday. I even, I, I used the a IR form contract just so we didn't have to negotiate anything. And I, and I went straight from the first, the LOI was the contract, right? Um, uh, but it was an exceptionally good deal. It was a, it was a property that was going vacant. It, uh, had a lot of great attributes and it was completely mispriced. It had never hit the market, never hit LoopNet. Um, so we were super happy to buy that, uh, by that asset and, uh, did it very, very quickly. Um, and then, and then there was a local, uh, uh, shopping center right in our home market in Solana Beach, which is super high demographics, great location. Yeah. Asset was right on the coast highway, uh, had been not optimally, uh, maximized by the prior owner. What might be a nice way to say it, it had, um, you know, when I bought it at 30% occupancy in a 2% vacancy market. Um, and it, and it, you know, and it was kind of, it, it, it had been a little bit of, uh, I wanna say mismanaged, but undermanaged, let's say that. So, and, and it needed, it needs some capital investment. So we've spent the last five months working with our consultant teams, really, you know, uh, uh, in envisioning like, if money was no object, what would we do to this asset? Right? And, you know, and it, it needs, it needs a significant reinvestment in it. And so we've, we've come up with a plan of, okay, money's no object, you know, we take it all the way to here, and then you, you know, and then we look at, okay, what could we do with, you know, a little bit of cleanup and paint that's over here? And then, and then it's the process of dialing in, you know, what's the right amount of lift, you know, which is closer to money, no object lift. Um, so that's an exciting one. It's especially exciting because it's comp, I live like a mile and a half from this thing. That's exactly, I go to it all the time. And I have for years uhhuh, and most importantly, all my friends know we own it. Right. It's Getting Better. Well, let me ask you a little bit about it. How, how big did you say it is? So this, this is a, uh, 55,000 square foot center, which is a pretty good size center in that market. It's not a lot of big stuff there. Um, No. Really valuable. They're like, you know, little for pearls, you know, they're advancing. Yeah, yeah. Um, how many different tenants? Uh, there's a dozen in it right now. Mostly experiential, uh, restaurant. Yeah. So, yeah, this is, this is, I Know exactly where that is. It's right by the Solana Beach and Tennis Club. Right, right. This, this is on The outside. Yeah, this is this. It's, it's restaurants, it's, uh, health and beauty. It's fitness, you know. That's right. Yeah. It's A, it's a, it's a great asset. It will be a really great asset when we're done with that. Now, I, I wanna ask you, okay. So aside from your, your development and land, because you can't do that, how active and, uh, on architecture and construction are you on your projects now? This was a redone, did you com Did you get involved in the architecture of it? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. We, this one, this one is, we have not started swinging hammers on the, on the redo yet. We just bought at the end of last year. We've, so we're about to, we're just about to kick off, uh, a bunch of improvements on the asset. And then we have the big heavy lift stuff that's gonna take us all this year to entit. Then we have to go through coastal Commission. That'll take another six to 12 months. So that the, the, a lot of, there's a lot of other physical development on that site that'll come, you know, end of 26 or into 27. And, and to answer your question, I'm super involved in the, in the meeting with the teams, the designers, the, you know, the landscape architect, the, the, uh, primary building architects, the engineers, civil engineers. I meet with the city myself. Um, I, you know, I, I am very involved in that process. Excellent. You didn't sneak in any of the, uh, architecture classes while you were at Cornell in that famous No, I, I didn't. Alright, I, I, a little of appreciation of it there. Um, one of the things I wanted to backtrack a little bit. What, what are the rents that you're getting in that, in the, that Solana Beach market on, on, on the rental rates? Right. I mean, so the income in place in this thing is, you know, four 50 to five bucks triple net uhhuh. And we think we can take the rents significantly up from there once we, once we do the heavy lift. Now let's date time this, we're, we're in April of 2025. So people see this in a few months or years might be Different. I mean, I mean, is it like most retail these days where there's very little quality vacancy in, in those markets? I would imagine It's pretty, yeah. Yeah. This market's 2% vacant. Yeah. Yeah. That's a solid. But we're, we're also, we're, we're totally repositioning the type of tenants that we're going after, you know, which is why we're sitting on the vacancy right now, because we're not, we're not actually ready to take this thing to market to lease it yet. We need to get through what's there way more through the design and get through the, the initial set of renovations that we're gonna do, and then we can start taking it to market and leasing it. So it's like a little bit of, you know, on one hand you gotta be patient on the leasing side. On the other hand, you gotta go as fast as you can with the design and development teams to, to get the plan really envisioned. And we're, you know, we're talking about moving, you know, access to the site, moving dry vials, taking out, you know, increasing a plaza area, taking out parking, um, in the center, you know, having to reallocate. It's a, it's a complicated, Yeah. That's, uh, um, well, you know, another, another perfect, uh, right into the next, uh, train of thought then. So, you know, and really you could break this down for each of your, the sectors that trend, but what do you see as the major challenges today? You know, as we go forward? Obviously there's a few that have been introduced in the last couple weeks. Yeah. But, uh, You know, I mean, so we buy existing property mostly, so we don't do a lot of ground up development. You know, obviously ground up development is, is got a lot of challenges on just making stuff pencil with where construction cost is. Right. You know, the, you know, tis have gone up dramatically, especially for really good tenants. Right. You know, uh, the days of giving somebody 10 or 20 bucks and thinking, you know, in retail or over, if you're looking for good tenants, you're writing much bigger ti checks. Um, you know, for, for good tenants, you feel really strongly tenants Too. Right. It's not just the landlord, the tenant is also Right. Yeah. Tenants writing big checks as well. So, um, you know, it's, it, you know, but in, in the retail world, the good news is rents don't justify construction by and large in most markets, especially the markets we're in. So you don't have to worry about competitive projects coming in, uh, especially when we buy sort of more infill locations. So, you know, we don't, we don't lose a lot of sleep about some big flood of increased, um, uh, competition on a lot of our centers. Um, you know, it's all, you know, it's, it's about consumer spending and about, you know, what they're discretionary dollars are and how good they feel about spending it. And then it's also like, how good of a job are you doing given, given consumers, given the shopper a reason to come to your center. Right. And keeping your centers vibrant and interesting and, and well merchandised, you know, um, so that people, people have a reason to, to go there. Right. You know, one of the, one of the one things on some of the more urban stuff, you know, there's, there's issues in, in lots of markets with what's going on in the streets around your centers. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, the, the increase in, um, the unhoused in, in many markets makes, makes things difficult. You know, we, we tend to be in better areas by and large. We, you know, I, I like to buy nice things and nice locations, um, that, uh, that, that we don't have to, you know, deal as much with that element or, or, or crime and a lot of our centers. And On the financing side, it seems, from what you've said, that you're a bit sheltered from the interest rate swings. Uh, so that's not keeping you up At night. Yeah, I mean, I mean, the good news with retailers, our cap rates, you know, besides the single tenant triple net stuff that we don't really play in our cap rates never got so compressed. Right? Right. We never saw three caps for our sales. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we didn't, you know, like, you know, the, the, the industrial guys and the, especially the multifamily, right? When, when the government agencies were putting out debt at 2%, you know, cap rates got so aggressive on multifamily, then everything reverts back up to the higher interest rate and everybody's upside down, their equities wiped down. Or not everybody, but enough people. Right. We, we, we, we never saw that. Right? So, retail's been this funny thing for like 20, I've been in, you know, my first deal was retail. I've owned retail for close to, you know, 29 years now. And I'd say for 20 years people were like, oh, retail, Ooh, what's up with that? Why do you know? And now I go to, you know, these developer dinners and I see my developer buddies that were in office or, you know, other asset classes, they're all like, Hey, tell me about this retail thing that seems pretty good. Now, are You, are you buying more retail? Are you selling retail? I mean, I'm, I'm buying it. Yeah. I'm buying It. So, so you're always looking for that. Yeah, I'm always looking for it. And I like, and I like the multi-tenant flex industrial, small based stuff. I like that stuff a lot. Okay. Done a similar characteristics to retail, some of That. Yeah. You know, you can be a good landlord in that. There's a, frankly, a lot of landlords that, you know, are let that stuff get real deferred and, and, and, you know, you, you can, you can increase your rents, um, and your tenant longevity by just being a better landlord. I'm convinced in that, in that space. And the releasing cost is very reasonable, even if you got 40% office, um, you know, releasing costs. People don't go in and want you to build elaborate offices if they've got equipment and a warehouse behind them. Yeah. Right. Well, uh, let me, uh, ask you, you know, you mentioned it it a bit with, uh, with Salt Lake City, but what, where are the other states, you know, or other areas of the country that you might be looking to expand into? And maybe that's different for each of the, uh, you know, the sectors, the retail, the industrial, and the, uh, residential land? Yeah. You know, obviously we're based here in Southern California, so Southern California is a, you know, a place where we're always gonna buy stuff because we're, we're here, we live here, we know this market. Even LA City doesn't scare you. I don't go, I didn't, I said I we're pretty, we're we're pretty focused on where we'll go in California. Yeah. There's lots of, yeah. I don't see much stuff in la Yeah. We don't have anything in la I got nothing in San Francisco. I got, I certainly don't have everything. And I mean, there's lots of markets. I don't want call 'em all out, but there's lots of markets where the, you know, the political risk, the regulatory risk is, is, you know, has kept me out of those markets for decades. I just, I know It's a shame, but it's can't be avoided. Yeah. So, you know, we, there, there's markets further up north from California that are on the coast that became very trendy. And I'm like, I'm not going. Yeah. I don't, I don't like the, I don't, I don't like the business environment of those areas, you know? So Phoenix, I love Phoenix. I think, you know, Phoenix operates really well. It's got great population growth. It's got good household, um, growth. It's got good cost of living. You know, home pricing's reasonable. It's increased a lot, but it's still, it's still doable for people to buy a house there. It's got great education, it's got a can do. Very functional government and business, you know, doesn't have a lot of regulatory capture risk. I mean, you can, I like, I like Phoenix a lot. People Really rally there. Our event there was great last year. How'd you get into Virginia? How did that Stand out? Yeah. So, well then before I get to Virginia, then I feel the same way about Salt Lake, right? I think Salt Lake's got a lot of, you know, a lot of the exact same, uh, attributes of Phoenix. You know, salt Lake's kind of strange though. It always like, it, it, it, the lower velocity market, you know, and cap rates have been historically from what I could see over the last, you know, eight years, cap rates are lower in Salt Lake. And I'm, you know, for versus what I could buy in Phoenix. And I'm sort of feeling like, you, you. So I think that's just, there's very little, it's a low velocity market of assets to trade in Salt Lake. Um, but I, I like it when stuff comes under the market that's appropriately priced. I, I like that location. And then Virginia, like I've owned, we, we've owned those centers for long time. Um, that was, that was back when we were buying all over the country. And I bought a portfolio of shopping centers, uh, six shopping centers. And, and I've sold most of them, but I still kept a few in Virginia. What are your major leasing challenges right now on retail? You know, the, the major leasing challenges is, once again, it's primarily, you know, what the tenant build out cost is, right? It's, it's cost to get the tenant open and the costs just keep going up and up. And in certain markets like California, like, you know, it's high operating costs, right? Um, especially for sit down restaurants, uhhuh, you know, there's, it's very expensive to operate those, uh, here in which, you know, most of our restaurants that you're find in our centers, you know, even, even though the, it could be quite nice food, you know, it's still a walk in order at the counter generally, right? So people are optimizing their, their, their business strategies to, to covid Us. Covid taught us all that. I mean, yeah, you find out that like some of these high-end, uh, restaurants, sometimes takeout is just as good. Yeah. Or, or, you know, you can order at the counter and get your food delivered to the table. Right? So, well, I Guess you could do that too. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of that, right? And, and, you know, and quite nice, quite high quality food, right? So, you know, I I would say it's, it's, uh, the biggest challenge is yeah, it's getting the right space available and then getting, you know, the cost to get to tenant into that space, But Tenant, but, you know, but, but vacancy levels are super low in the markets that we're operating in. Yeah. You know, so vacancy isn't that scary. Generally, you know, you, you're, You're in, you know, the markets you're in, so you, you pick them, so Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and with a lot of the tenants, I'm curious, you know, especially in the restaurant business, if they're corporate or they're mom and pop, and how they guarantee how they're, how they're good for the, the, the cost of these tis. Yeah. Well, definitely you give more tis to the corporate, right? Right. The independence, uh, you know, you're looking at the financial statement of the, uh, of the, of the guarantor. All this stuff is, you know, is guaranteed by the operator, but, you know, there's only so much people, you know, that, you know, you, you still have to have a good concepts that are gonna perform. Right? So, um, it's really, a lot of it is just selection of who's that tenant and how good do you feel about it? And, and if they go, what's your cost to put 'em in? Retail's a funny asset, right? It's unlike office, you know, an office you get, you get a big tenant in your office building and they operate there, and then a new shiny building opens up and they're just as happy to move over a weekend and operate in a new building. Right? Like that makes no difference besides a little friction on the moving costs, right? Retail, your location is your business, right? Retailers, they don't leave a well functioning a well performing store to go to some store down the street. Right. If your store's doing well, you're staying. So No, it's really part of the brand. Yeah. You know, it becomes, yes. And then, and then the key part for the landlord is don't screw it up. Right? You gotta keep the property well occupied. You gotta keep it well maintained, you know, super important. You gotta keep it safe, uh, keep it well lit and you can't go put a junkie tenant in, right? I mean, the, the, you know, you can't just go chase high rent and put somebody in that's going to lower the experience for all your other tenants around it. So, you know, we have a, uh, you know, as long as our list is of the tenants that we wanna do business with, we have a list that is, that is, these are the types of tenants we are never putting into our centers. Right. So, Well that, that leads me right to my next thought is are there great new retail trends, uh, you know, that, that you're seeing new great, new exciting tenant news? Yeah, Yeah, yeah. You know, um, in, in the other part of our retail is, you know, you, you need enough contemporary things in your centers to continually to excite the, the local community to come and then cross shop with your other tenants. So you, you wanna be, you wanna be getting new concepts in as opportunities come in, you also wanna be realistic of like, is that thing got any legs? Yeah. Or is that a flash in a pan? They're gonna be gone in two or three years. 'cause that concept's just not durable enough. Uh, uh, so, you know, but I, I'd say, you know, the big, the big trends, you know, it's definitely health, wellness, beauty, right? And that evolves over time and fitness evolves, right? So fitness concepts, you know, we don't generally have like large format gyms, right? But we have lots of gyms, lots of places to go to for physical activity. But they're, you know, we've got yoga studios, we've got Pilates studios, we have fitness classes, you know, bootcamp type workouts, um, right. More the niche for the specific Yeah. And you don't Need as much space, you know? Yeah. They don't need as much. And, and, you know, and I'm a big believer in, you know, a good class concept. I think those, those, the, you know, like an orange theory is a, is a great brand. Yeah. Right, right. So, you know, you'd be like, okay, I feel good. Like that thing's gonna be there for a while. Now. Are you seeing any multi-family trends changing? You know, I don't, we don't really do a lot of multi-family. You're not, So then on the residential, I, you know, do, do you track the, the stock market, you know, for like the NARS and Toll brothers and all the major players of the world that, that then has an effect on, on probably your business, right? Yeah. You know, the, the public builders, I mean, their stock goes up and down, but they're, but they're, they're really well, the big public home builders are really, really well run organizations. And even though they get variation in their stock performance, they are manufacturers and they have to manufacture, it's utterly important that they are manufacturing widgets and their widgets or houses. Right. And the, the non-negotiable input into that widget is piece of land to put it on. So, um, you know, the, the most of the big publics, they have fortress balance sheets. They, you know, they're, they're just rock solid these days. And the 2008 washed everybody else out and back before 2008, you know, you had a lot of private builders and private builders competed with, you know, innovative product and, you know, really nice, um, design and, and you know, uh, and marketing and the public home builders, you know, competed with everything el that and everything else, but the gulf between 'em wasn't that dramatic. Um, after 2008, many, many, many of the private builders went away. It, but the, but the Publix also have spent years now really refining their, their operational excellence and driving down their cost, uh, to, to produce a house. Right? And, and now the price differential on the sticks and bricks and the cost to put up a home, you know, the public builders can generally beat, uh, a private builder by like 15% on cost, which is a huge, huge margin of competitiveness. Yeah. Right, right. So, Alex, what advice would you give somebody for starting out if, let's say you started today in today's market? Yeah. Well, the advice is, um, it is, well, first I would tell people, I think it's the greatest industry on earth. I love, I love the real estate industry. I've been happy as a clam ever since I got into it. I find it super, um, thought provoking and interesting and evolutionary. You know, we hear That from all of our guests. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's true. No, It's fascinating. I think it's such a fascinating, and then, you know, as somebody that I, I think the biggest question of somebody starting out is, you know, it's okay to take a little bit of time and bounce around and figure out where is your sort of natural path Yeah. Gonna lead you to, in the industry, you know, and frankly, how much risk, um, uh, are you willing to take or do you wanna take? And the risk isn't for everybody, right? So, you know, the, you know, people, you know, I've learned over the years, like there's, there's really not really that many people that wanna start their own business and own and operate it, right? It comes with a very unique, uh, set of responsibilities that never goes away. You gotta have that in you. Yeah. You gotta have that in you. Um, but, you know, and, and there's all sorts of spectrums, right? I mean, there, you can be fully commissioned, you can be fully salaried, you can, you know, but, but it's also, you know, to understand the ups and downs of the industries, right? You know, development is, I meet a lot of young people that are coming out of school and they get their master's in real estate, and they want to be a developer. And I'm like, you know, that's great until development shuts down and development shuts down way more frequently than you think, right? And when it shuts down, it's super hard to bridge your time through it, right? So, um, you know, so, so it's also just understanding, you know, what's, you know, what sort of is your natural inclination and where do you really belong? And one of the things that we do with all the people that interview for a job at Capstone Advisor, they get to a, they get to a, a, a position. We're, we're interviewing 'em, we're pretty serious about 'em. We give 'em, we, we give a personality assessment and we, and it's not a, it's not a test, right? It's just like, there's no wrong answer. It's just like, what is your personality say about you and how you like to operate and how you think and, and what's your, what your natural indications are of, of what you should be led to. And um, and, and we, we look at that pretty closely and we sure that, and even everybody in our company, we all have our sort of our graph, our chart of like, how do we operate at our desk where it's available for everybody else to understand, like how do we think and, and how to communicate between ourselves. Interesting. Interesting. Well, you know, we're, we're running out of time. I, I, I said I'd kind of keep us on track here for an hour, you know, left some things on the table, which we'll, we'll, we'll get you on again. One of the things on the closing, I, I, I think it's important to get out there on the non-business side, you know, the charity, the charities and other, uh, things that Capstone does, you know, supporting. Are there any key charities or, or, uh, causes that, uh, we can highlight for the audience? Maybe suck one of them or two to, to help support? Yeah. You know, so one of the things we do is we, we do, we do charitable contributions with local charities and all the markets where we operate, right? So we, we wanna be, we wanna be contributing to the local communities where we, where we operate. And over the last few years, we set up a foundation and it's called the Capstone Impact Foundation. And when we have a significant liquidity event with an asset, um, we, we fund it, we put money, uh, a, a sizable amount of capital into that foundation. And that foundation is really primarily focused on helping the most vulnerable people in our society that are the most in need. Um, so I'm a big believer of, of, of organizations that work on job training, uh, uh, a, a addiction, um, counseling, um, you know, crisis counseling. We, we give a fair amount of money to, uh, educational, uh, focused, uh, groups. We support the foster care system pretty strongly. You know, we wanna put that money to work where it's gonna make the biggest impact in individual people's lives as quickly as possible and, and help people get 'em on the road to as much productivity and happiness as they can have in their life. 'cause we know that'll cascade down generation after generation. Yeah. Right. Now what, what about hobbies are, are you like a sports fan? Do you play golf, tennis? Uh, are you, you went to Colorado. Are you a big Dion Sanders guy now? Or, uh, you Know, it's, it's funny. I, I, uh, I, I don't watch any sports, but I, I'm very active. I surf a lot. Um, I went running this morning with my dog, um, I very active in the winter. My wife and I ski a lot. Our kids are big skiers, so surfing, skiing, mountain biking. I, I go to the one shopping center by my house. I go to yoga on Saturday mornings. That's great. Yeah. That's, you know, no Better place than Southern California where you could take pictures of snow cap mountains with the ocean in the same picture. Well, you can, you can go surfing in the morning and skiing at night. I mean, you really can do that. Yep. Yeah. Still is left to that. So, um, you know, I, I, I think, uh, I think we covered most everything. We, we needed to. I mean, we got to know a lot about you, Alex. Right, Alex. More than we did before. It's great. Uh, great. Well time we, like I said, we left stuff on the table, so, you know, we'll have to get you back on in a couple months, hear about recent deals, how all these things shift through the economy. Yeah. And, um, we'll go from there. So thank you very much. Thank you, Alex. Thanks. Appreciate it. Happy to do it. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. Good luck with the deals and the projects. Have a great day. All right. Take care. Take care. Bye. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners. I think I'm.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1083187666.txt b/data/transcripts/1083187666.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..efcfe12
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1083187666.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+And then the other side of that is making California the most. Right now it's the least. So I'm literally gonna try to go from 50th to first in one year to go from the least business friendly to the most business friendly, which is get government restrictions, bring common sense into the whole dialogue of.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1083187746.txt b/data/transcripts/1083187746.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f8cb2c8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1083187746.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+We've entitled to build about 24 million feet. I believe that we've entitled more square footage than any developer by far. We have another 12 million feet to go. Um, the last 45 days has been, you know, I hear the same thing. Pencils down. Um, there's a lot of.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1083187814.txt b/data/transcripts/1083187814.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..650c1c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1083187814.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Different. I hate to be not the pessimist, but the preist. Um, what we're seeing is uncertainty and uncertainty is the dane of business. You can't make decisions, you can't make capital expenditures, expansion plans when you don't have a clear picture of what's going on. And that's exactly, unfortunately, what's happening today, right or wrong, whether you believe with politics or not, back remains that, uh, you have 40%, as we know of the world's cargo traffic coming into ports of, and Long Beach. 45% of that cargo traffic is from China, and those boat aren't showing up. Now. You thus are going to see some supply shortages. You will start seeing empty shovels. Uh, you to the extent that, uh, products cost more, you may see a pullback in the consumer, uh, on purchases, which obviously has an impact on GDP. Um, and from a logistics standpoint, if you don't have product coming into the country, you don't have a place to store it. And if you don't have people buying it, saying story, uh, we're, we're, we got off on a good footing this year 0.6 or so, million square feet of net orchard. Uh, the broker that I've spoken with are, and this is Southern California, not so much Arizona or Nevada, but the brokers are talking about, you know, how quiet it's, the homes are not ringing, the email traffic is slowing. Um, Rockefeller group, most people don't know this, but Rockefeller Group has foreign trades of consulting platform. We've actually had it since 1978 and.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1083188249.txt b/data/transcripts/1083188249.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6f21b49
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1083188249.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Uh, play ball and to make this thing work. And so I did, and I was fortunate enough to have, I had a vision. I believed at the age of 31 that why not? I'll do it. And, you know, along the way people would say, well, if this was possible, why hasn't it already been done? That's the question of.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1083190047.txt b/data/transcripts/1083190047.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/109994315.txt b/data/transcripts/109994315.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1106281388.txt b/data/transcripts/1106281388.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cd4cd24
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1106281388.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, hey. Welcome to this next episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steve Arne, where we hope to have what are compelling and interesting and formative conversations with major leaders in the commercial real estate industry. Major, major owners of portfolios of properties. And I'm super excited about today's show, 'cause I've known the guests a long time, has an interesting history, been involved in the city of LA a long time, and that is Christopher Rising, co-founder, CEO of Rising Realty Partners. But before we bring them in, we've got a few, uh, uh, items of business to take care of. First, let me introduce my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie, how are you today? Hey, Steve. It's been a while. How you doing? It has, I'm doing well. Great to see you. How are things going? You've got an event coming up in, uh, a month, right later this summer? We've Got, yeah, we got our Lawmakers Forum event coming up, uh, middle of August in Laguna Beach. Uh, Laguna Hills, excuse me. Uh, we moved it from, uh, Sandy Orange County. You know, all of our events are interactive. It's where, uh, people can come and submit loans live to, uh, a bunch of lenders. So we look forward to seeing people there. All Star Lending Conference. They are great. And, uh, well, hopefully, uh, a lot of you know about Rent tv. Our news platform been around 25 years. We have our news website, our email blast. A lot of companies use to market themselves. Uh, we have our conferences, rent TV conferences just in Orange County, Arizona's coming up in October. And we have this video platform, the review, uh, where you are likely watching this video, which is searchable in a lot of different ways for lots of different videos. But with that said, Arne, we gotta move on to the next part of our show, the sponsors that make this happen. Yes, we have some great sponsors. Uh, and let me, uh, take on the first one, uh, which is Chase Partners. Chase Partners has been a great client of Rent TVs for a while, and now they're sponsoring our podcast show, which is amazing. Many of you in the audience will know Chase Partners and David Parker, one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout Southern California for over 30 years. And as a longtime supporter of Rent tv, they're now sponsoring the show to help get the word out about their updated strategy for Chase, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties, uh, with non-performing debt. So, if you're an owner, lender, or broker that needs a fast decision and a fast close on your property, please contact Chase Partners David Parker atDavid@chasepartners.com. david@chasepartners.com. Who's next? Arnie? Well, our next sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Herson is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McLean at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Back to you, Steve. Excellent. Uh, another great sponsor of the show. A great company, uh, been doing business with them a long time. Uh, Southern California focused is commercial real estate inspectors. Uh, their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal, that is certainly a service that is needed around LA these days, is the inspection services. And these guys are trustworthy. So, call Tiffany Simington. Book your inspection today. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. It's on the screen. Tiffany Simington, 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. And with that said, let's welcome Christopher Rising, co-founder, CEO of Rising Realty Partners. Chris, welcome to the show. Well, thank you, gentlemen. I've, uh, you know, having done a podcast for a while, I've appreciated yours as well. Well, thank you. Listened to quite, uh, recently. Quite a few. So excited to be here. Well, it's great seeing you. You know, we've known each other a long time. I mean, it's like, you know, 25 years when you were starting out. I was still in brokerage and fast forward 25 years and, uh, you know, here we are with, you know, talk about. So really appreciate you. So, uh, we got a lot to cover, so let's get to it. Arnie, why two? Yeah, you know, I'll start. Hey, uh, Chris, let's start with, give us a snapshot of the company Rising Realty Partners today, including your portfolio as well as the, as you provide, you know, the size. Just give us a little background. Uh, Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's an evolving company. It, uh, didn't, we've been in business now for, uh, 12, going on 13 years. Founded the business with my father, Nelson Rising. Um, he was, uh, he had sold Ellis in 2005. I had created my own company, and I go back later into some of my background before that. And, um, around 2007, we decided we were gonna, we were gonna do something and we were just getting started with Rising Realty Partners 1.0. And, uh, and I'll get into how big we are here in a second, but, but it was important is then we had the, uh, financial crisis hit. Yeah. And my dad and I decided to go to McGuire Properties at the time, see if we could turn that around. We had some success and not everything went the way we wanted, but in 2012, we started Rising Realty Partners 2.0, which is the companies, you know, it today. Um, we've been as big as, I think seven or 8 million square feet. We're down now, arguably 6 million square feet, though, uh, uh, we're fighting a few battles here and there. We significantly made a change in 2019, not because we saw COVID, not because we saw the effects of COVID, but my dad had said it was really insistent. I brought in a partner, uh, who's a, not only my partner, but dear friend Scott McMullen. He used to run, uh, HFF on the West Coast. So Scott had come in, my dad was definitely slowing down, and he said, guys, you got a little bit of time here to run off my track record for industrial. We should buy some industrial. And so we did. And, uh, he unfortunately started to get ill, but, but we had a couple, one particularly big industrial deal since then, 2019, that's all we bought. And is multi-tenant, light industrial, shallow bay. Um, we've been fighting the office battle, which we'll go into, but as I said, you, you're about 6 million square feet, give or take. Um, more than half of that now is, is multi-tenant light industrial. We have some big office assets left in the portfolio that, um, we've been fighting a lot of battles on. Uh, but our, our focus going forward is the industrial multi-tenant, light industrial, shallow bay. We think that's the best opportunity to get returns for our investors. Um, and that's where we're focused, uh, somewhat in California, mo mainly in Sacramento area, but mostly in Texas and Colorado. Um, looking into Florida right now and looking into, I'd call purple or red states, uh, states that are incentivizing small business to grow. Okay. Good, good. Well, you, you know, you did go into a little bit about the founding of the firm, so if there's anything you wanna embellish, but, you know, I I, I knew your dad, he was such a nice guy, such a, you know, impactful figure in the state politically and, you know, and, and in the industry. Um, so it was kind of a combined question, like, what got you, what, what interested you in the industry? And expand a little bit about what your dad did for the state, if you can. Okay. Well, I appreciate that, assuming They're two connect the, the, the, Yeah. Well, you know, I think my, you know, my dad, if you really looked at his politics, he wouldn't recognize the, the leaders here in Los Angeles today, even though he was a lifelong Democrat. He was all about fairness and felt that, um, that the system wasn't always fair when he grew, when he spent a year or two in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in the fifties, and he saw Jim Crow laws and he came back to Los Angeles and, and as an athlete saw that there were different experiences going on, depending on the color of your skin. He, he was really all about fairness and trying to fight for everyone getting a, a meritocracy. Mm-hmm. That if you were capable, you should have the opportunity. Um, he, through his career, you know, he was a football player at UCLA, he was a rugby player. Um, but he, he, he really excelled when he went to law school, he was a law school, really good law school student, started O'Melveny and Myers and his mentor. There was a guy named Warren Christopher, who I'm named after, and Warren Christopher saw a hustling young guy who, who had a heart and a sense of fairness. And, and he took my dad about a year after being a lawyer and said, would you like to run, uh, a statewide campaign senate campaign? That'd be the campaign manager for John Toney. He ended up being one of my dad's best friends. Oh, wow. And he didn't really know what he was doing, but he could organize. And he, uh, you know, back then the rules were a lot different. You could run a statewide campaign with two or three, uh, contributors. And so he got to know some people like, uh, Lou Wasserman and, and, uh, f Pritzker and a few others. And they, they, at 27, my dad ran the campaign. John won in 1970. That then led to, uh, him being introduced to Tom Bradley, who Tom had a horrible campaign against Samie in 67, 1 of the most racist campaigns ever run. Um, and came back and won in 73 for mayor. And so my dad and Tom were lifelong friends as well. He was, uh, really kind of one of those blue dog democrats. He was very conservative fiscally and just felt that the system had to be fair and give everybody an opportunity. Yeah. That led to a, to a career in, in real estate because he, because of all Pennsylvania, the politics that in that are involved in, in, in, in doing that. So his first real estate project to his dying day, I, I teased him that, um, he, he was made head of Poto de Caza when it came out of bankruptcy Wow. From the Penn Railroad. Right. And he did, and he did the, the water deal that allowed them to expand and then the annex deal to get land to get access to the five freeway. And so I still blame him for the Housewives of Orange County. Yeah, there you go. So, uh, uh, anyway, so he started there, then he started doing real estate deals in Florida, kind of entrepreneurially. And then in 1983, he met Rob McGuire and, and Jim Thomas. And Rob was very angry because he didn't win Cal Plaza. Uh, uh, the development of that, he had, he felt he'd done a great thing with, with what we know now as Wells Fargo Center. It was then Crocker Center. And so he and my dad started talking, and my dad became a partner and one of five partners there, Rob and Jim, and the name partners. And then, um, uh, and then Rick, Rick Gilchrist and Ned Fox, and my father made up the five that, that did, you know, US Bank Tower today, which was Labor Library, tower Gas Company, Playa Vista, Western Asset Management Plaza. Um, just had some downtown skyline Exactly. All over that, Hear those names, you know, such iconic figures. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's, so, you know, Rob and Jim had some great talent there in the bottle, and it ca it lasted up through 94, and that's when he took over Ellis, which was the merger of two railroad companies with a portfolio that only a seller would put together. But it was basically a bunch of hodgepodge of things. But it ended up being mission based. If you go to UCSF, you go to a Warrior's game, or you go to a Giants game that in 94, the Giants had, were doing their deal to build their stadium, they needed to tell us to do parking. Uh, and then that led to everything else there. And, and quite a few other projects. I think everyone knew Kalus. Right. Yeah. And, you know, so many landmarks came out of those properties. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's, it's what's really cool, you know, unfortunately my father passed away from Alzheimer's, but I saw, I was watching near the end of his life, I was watching this thing on, I think it was on Netflix, about Robin Williams. And there was a doctor being interviewed who was from UCSF, and his address said it was on Nelson Rising Lane. Wow. So I wrote the, I wrote the guy an email. A guy came back, he was on sabbatical, but he got back to me pretty quickly and I said, look, my dad's had this diagnosis, we're not quite sure what it is. Can he come up? And they put him into this whole program, and it was advanced Alzheimer's, and I still think it, there was some CTE from his football and military days, but here's the punchline of that. He is his brain. We donated his brain to UCSF. And I get a little giggle outta the fact that his brain's sitting up there and something up there that's sitting on Nelson Rising Lane. That's amazing. And when people wanna do studies, they, they, they take a slice of his brain. And so he's still out there doing it, you know, still contributing. Exactly. That's, that's great. Lemme ask to Get back to that. The question on before we move on, was it, was it your relationship? Did you rebel against real estate initially, or, Oh, yeah. Yeah. People who, people who know me never, never stopped to kid me of the days I spent trying to act. And, uh, uh, my, uh, my initial job after I graduated playing football, and, you know, I thought I naively thought I was gonna play in the NFL, but had a lot of injuries near the end of my career. But my first job was teaching and coaching at Loyola High School, Uhhuh. And I did that all the way through law school. And, and then I was really fortunate, 'cause right after law school, I got to go work at Pillsbury Madison and Sutro for a guy named Mike Meyer and another gentleman named John Whitaker. So I got a front row seat to how you negotiate leases and how you do purchase and sale agreements. And I, I, I, but I, I knew quickly, I mean, I've been going hard since I was young. I just wasn't liking it. So I really thought I might wanna be a producer or an actor. My dad said, I think that's great. How much money have you saved, uh, as a lawyer. And I said, well, you know, I got some money I can. He goes, okay, why don't you go give it a shot? And if you ran outta money, then you gotta wait tables. You gotta do that. And so I did a little bit of that and didn't love the acting part, and just didn't find a niche on the producing part. But I knew what I liked really was what a producer did, which is a lot like what a developer does. Well, that Gets, that gets to my next question. Okay, sure. Because that's where you're going. Tell us about your very first real estate deal. Yeah. And what, what it took to get you now into this business. You kind of gave us the background. So now find out which is the one that that started Off. I, I was very lucky 'cause I, when I decided to come back into real estate, I got to go work for John Cushman. And I spent about five years with John and saw every deal you could possibly see. I say about John. I've ne a guy worked 150% and it was about 98% effective at the 150% say that kiddingly. And that was at Cushman Realty at the time before it was founded to Cushman and Wakefield. Right, exactly. I stayed up and through the merger or the acquisition back to c and w. I was at c and w for about a year. But I kind of sat down and I knew there the world was gonna be different. When we went to c and w when I got a call from New York and they said, okay, what five blocks in downtown LA are you working at the time? I had a card in San Diego, one in San Francisco. 'cause John was, you go anywhere, go find the business, and you go anywhere. So I kind of, after about a year at c and WI, I made a list of the clients I had and how much money I was gonna make. And I, I figured, you know, if I could just keep a hundred percent of one of those commissions, um, I could live for a year. I just gotten engaged. And so I went to John and just said, you know, I don't think being a brokerage for me, I don't see, I don't see people being, I don't see another John Cushman coming anytime soon. I think the business has changed. And they were so supportive. And I literally left that meeting and I parked my car over at the California Club, um, uh, because my, you could park there. I wasn't a member. And I run into a guy named Dick Schnell who had worked with at CC uh, Cushman. And he goes, Chris, what are you doing? I said, well, you know, I just met with John. I met with, um, I got a meeting set up with, um, uh, Oscar De La Jolla. 'cause we represented him and his people, and I'm just trying to figure out a, a deal to make. And he goes, all right, great. Well, you know, I think I might have a building if you want to buy a building in downtown la. So I, so I met with Richard and Schaeffer and I said, Hey, you know, I don't have any big plans here, but you know, there's this Magic Johnson Theater down on Crenshaw. Why isn't there Golden Boy theaters? He's like, Chris, that's a great idea. What do you think? And I'm like, well, I didn't know if how to be a great idea, so I'm just kind of pitching you here. And he said, well, you know, that's interesting and maybe we could do that. But he goes, I'd really like Oscar to buy an office building, and my lights going off in my head. I'm like, really? And he said, yeah, it's a good way to preserve wealth. And I said, well, I have one. I think. So it turns out in 2003, Michael Barker had bought 6 2 6 Wilshire, Barker Pacific Group. It was a failed telecom play. Um, Menlo had bought it. They took out an elevator. They were doing all this telecom between that and one Wilshire. Michael bought it for seven and a half, 8 million bucks. I came to him four months later with a whole plan and said, Oscar liked to buy it. I'm gonna be his partner. And um, uh, Michael said, well, you know, I don't want capital gains. So we worked it all out. My first deal was buying 66 re I was gonna do the property management. I got very nervous at the end. I had Grub and Ellis lined up to White label it. But as a broker and a lawyer, I had no property management at all. And my dad scared me a little bit. He is like, Chris, you know, you can't go into this and screw that part up. And so Michael Barker, who was a dear friend and a partner came to me, I don't know, maybe a week or two before closing and said, Hey Chris, I got an idea. Why don't I stay in for 6% of this deal? You stay in for 1%, Oscar's got the rest, and I'll do the property management. You do the leasing. We're 50% lease. I thought it was a great idea at the time here, the important lesson for the audience is Parker Pacific still does the property management. Yeah, yeah. At 66. Yeah. So they've had 25 years of income stream. I, I got the building to a hundred percent lease, and that was it for me there. But it led to, uh, but it, it's a, we're still proud to own it. We've owned it a long time. Oscar's been a good partner. And, um, we, uh, and that led to me starting a fun with Michael Barker and Michael and I becoming best friends. And, um, you know, been a tough couple years for me. I've lost my father, Michael Barker and John Cushman. Wow. Based natural for how things go. But Right. I, I, I think about, uh, Steve, when we met, I think it was probably the late nineties, and I just saw that Brad Pitt movie, F1, and they talk about a guy who started in the nineties and now making fun of how old he was. It was a little humbling to sit next to my daughter as they're talking about this. Right. So that's how I, that's how I started. And I, I think the lesson, the other part of the lesson I tell people is I was very, I was able to take the acquisitions commission and roll that in as my equity in the deal. Yeah. I didn't have to do all of it either. So I had some money to live on, then I had the leasing and that started it. And I've been doing scrambling to put together deals ever since. You know, I think there's a big fallacy that somehow this, our company is like this multi-generational company that owns these office buildings. And it's not that way. We've, since the day I started, we've been a gp, we've always brought in LPs. Um, probably the most significant thing outside of my father was bringing in Scott McMullen. And you've seen this thing, I can't believe we're 12 or 13 years in, um, because it just seems like yesterday. But, but 66 was the first deal, um, which Is the perfect lead in to my next question is, yeah. When you look back on the career, there's the first deal, but which was like the big biggest deal, the the most important you did in your career? Well, I think it's, it's important thing for people to understand. 'cause it's a, it was a big deal. It's still very proud of it. But in 2012, so after the great, uh, kind of got through the financial crisis we're just coming out of it, I could sense that office was important in the market. And I was seeing hipper, younger firms wanting to be in downtown and people wanting the exposed brick and the concrete. And I just had this feeling that the best opportunities were gonna be with historic buildings that could provide to people an office experience that was unique, that office experience that felt hip and cool open spaces. And so 66 Wilshire was being sold by Kevin Shannon, not 66, I'm sorry, PAC Mutual. 5 2 3 West West six. Yeah. Um, and I couldn't get any equity. I only ended up getting a hedge fund outta New York who believed the story. And I said, we're gonna do things that people are gonna say were crazy. We took out parts of the office building in between two buildings to create courtyards. We just took out things, but we bought it for $60 million. Mm-hmm. Um, we sold it, that was 2012. We sold it in 2015 for the highest price in downtown LA for $425 a square foot. Wow. Uh, it was fully leased, brought in like Tender Greens. And we, the real driver was this company called Nasty Gal. So, uh, Sophia Amarosa, they had about 60,000 feet and they were a clothing company and had young, vibrant, attractive people coming through the building. We, uh, uh, the water grill, we renewed and extended them, and it was, it was a great investment. And we just had the tag tiger by the tail, and it was great and beautiful building. The sad thing is I've, uh, heard now that here we are in 2025 and we sold it for, you know, 4, 4 25 a foot, and it's gonna trade somewhere under a hundred bucks a foot right now. Yeah. Same asset. Wow. It's just amazing how the world changes. And, uh, I don't think anybody did anything wrong. Uh, from the investment perspective, I can look at old performance, everything looked rational. Um, problem is, we had COVID and we had failed leadership, in my opinion. And, and we still, and, and it's, it is not about a jump on anything. But look, downtown Los Angeles, downtown San Francisco, downtown Chicago, downtown Philadelphia, all of these were agreements between the public and private sector. We'll put all, we'll put billions of dollars of infrastructure because we're gonna have the private e employers and the public, uh, employees and the public employees have just totally abdicated their responsibility. You know, it's the pri they have said, you don't have to come into work you went to, as long as you're not a cop, as long as you're not a teacher. Oh, you have to go into work if you're one of those. Yeah. But, you know, it's, it's sad. And it, I see it every day because we had about 500,000 people a day coming to downtown la, half of which were private sector, half of which were public sector. We're probably back down about 200,000 that are private sector and, you know, maybe 50,000 that are public sector. And it's, it's travesty. And, um, not to mention it, you know, we've had the homelessness and we've had all these other things, but to me, the big crime for downtown LA is that our public officials are not insisting that if you take a taxpayer salary, you gotta come in. 'cause you're all part of a team trying to make the city of la the county of la the state or the USA better. Right. And until that mentality comes back, I don't know how these inter and it, and it's a total failure of what the compromise was of, of for public infrastructure. Someone like you with your background and your knowledge and your history of downtown and the other areas, you know, really, you know, that that really is a statement. But, uh, Arnie, I think you got the next one up. I was just gonna, I was waiting, waiting For a, uh, I was gonna say, now we talked about the biggest deal and you talked about how that that one building sold for a quarter of what it was was worth or what you sold it for. Now. Tell us about the one deal you did. You wish you never did. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I've been in the, as we've said, but in the business a long time. So I don't think there's one deal. Well, Tell us a group of 'em. Yeah. Well, I, I, I mean, I think the unfortunate thing is any investment made in downtown LA from 2017 on maybe even 2015 on, has been a poor investment. Um, just look at Brookfield, I, smart, smart people, unbelievably smart people. They made the bet on the McGuire portfolio. And, um, that's come up, uh, zeros for them. I think this one I'm most sad about is 4 3, 3 spring. The one we ended up selling to UCLA. 'cause we lost our equity in that. 'cause that one had the most hope when we bought the building. And the most challenges, that's where all the new restaurants were going. That's where, or were Joseph Santino was a, a chef had three or four really great restaurants there. And, um, uh, there was, it was just hit, it was the Arts district meeting the financial district Right. In historic Core. And then when we had COVID and then we had the George Floyd, you know, and look, I was on the ground when there was a lot of these protests. 95% of those people are good people who were there protesting, exercising their first Amendment rights. But that 5% and the city, the mayor at the time, Garcetti and these others weren't willing to, to protect private property. And the, the amount of damage we have on video camera, just wanting, just breaking things. Yeah. So that started and then the homeless creep. And then obviously just recently we've had more of that destruction. It, it's, it, it should, it's such a beautiful building. It was where Los Angeles was founded, the title Guarantee building. Yeah. Where, where they, the first title insurance company, um, west of the Mississippi. And someone would buy a home out in the valley and they'd come downtown to that building. And, uh, they paid for their title insurance there. And LA was built on it. And for that location now right down from, uh, city hall to be such a poor location, uh, right now when it was so great in 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Uh, very sad. But look, I wanna be really on, I'm, I'm tired at this point in my career of everybody saying how smart they are. Um, it's been really hard, uh, in Los Angeles the last five years. Um, I was on the phone with a major, major company, uh, private, uh, distressed debt company. Uh, I won't say who it is, but they're just saying, no, it's hard to raise money 'cause our last two funds haven't hit Promotes. Yeah. And, and that's just the reality. Real estate has been in a depression. Now, are there bright spots? There are. I mean, look at Century City. Look at Cherry Creek in Colorado. Look at, uh, parts of Manhattan. There are a, yeah, I mean, there are, there are spots where people are coming, but you'll notice it's only where the private sector is. And it's near affluent areas. And there's no homeless. And there's, and there's people, people, people feel safe. And those are the areas that where office is thriving. Right. And, uh, you know, we made a big bet on 4 3 3. We made a big bet on downtown. Let's just call it what it is. What, what assets do you still own downtown? Uh, well, uh, we own 1200 West seventh, the data center and the office building. That's okay. We own Cal Edison and we're surviving there. And we own one Cal some, uh, reporting that was, I don't think quite accurate. We're fighting as hard as we can on that asset. Uh, but look, there's not much we can do. You buy it in a world where, I remember saying to investors at, at 300 bucks a foot in debt we're way, we're hat it's 50% of what we paid for it ultimately. Right. Uh, it'll never drop. I just can't drive. How does it lose that much? And now I'd say it's, you know, you're, you're talking values in the 125 bucks a foot. So, I don't know. Interest rates are, were low at the time, as I said to, uh, a lot of our investors. Look, our goal was to be out of this in 21. Um, and we could have been out of it if the markets would've allowed it, but the markets wouldn't allow it. We had inflation start to ramp up. We had interest rates go up. And you had, you still don't have the, you know, people there. It's happening now. But in 21, 22 people weren't coming back to the office. So, um, so What I've heard recently about Cal Plaza, not exactly accurate, The headline. I may Well, no. Well, I, I can't comment a whole lot, but I can tell you the headline wasn't accurate. I gotta ask. I know you can, I can only share what you can share, but I have to ask. Look, I love it. I, I'll be honest, it doesn't look good. But we're gonna fight and we're gonna fight and we're gonna fight. We still think we're the best property management team in downtown Los Angeles that we provide the best experience. Our people really care. And I want to keep them employed. I wanna keep them on these buildings. We'd like to do more in downtown la. We feel like, um, we get how we can bring this place back, especially on Bunker Hill. Uh, bunker Hill was Eli Broad's dream, uh, to have it be the cultural center and the hub of, uh, downtown LA for the Olympics in 28. And we'd like to be a part of it. We'll do what we can. Uh, fortunately the company's diversified enough that, that we'll survive whatever comes. But we're not gonna fight. Uh, uh, we're not, we're not gonna do it without a fight. We're gonna fight so hard, uh, until they, they just have to, you know, arrest us and take us out, I guess. I don't know. Hopefully it doesn't go with that, but, yeah. Well, I wish you the best there. It's a great project. You guys have such history with that project, so, you know, definitely are correct. Tell Us about some of your current projects, Uh, recent Well, yeah. For the positive. Yeah. There's a lot of positive. We really like this asset class, multi-tenant, light industrial. Some people call it Shallow Bay. Uh, but basically what it is, is if you think of these industrial parks that were built in the eighties through the 2000 tens that were kind of in the fringe of residential, and now residential has come to them, um, they started usually with 50 thou, three 50,000 square foot buildings that probably had three tenants. But then over time they get chopped up. Mm-hmm. And what we really like about the product is this is small, small business. USA, these are the people who they, you know, they always say, oh, someone will, you know, give up their office before their apartment. I think a lot of people who have these businesses would bring a co into their warehouse and their little office space before, uh, rather than, and give up their apartment because this is the lifeblood of their business. And we're doing it in, in Texas. We're doing it in Colorado, we're doing it in Sacramento. We're trying to get into Florida right now. We really like Utah. Um, it, it's just, we want to go to places that are business friendly. Right. So that recognized, So your plans for buying and you know, and is, is that's what you're looking at. You, you have a model. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And we've just closed in Austin. We've just closed in Denver. Um, so we've got, we, you know, we've got 4 million square feet and we'd like to double that over the next couple years. And we see a path to that. I just think it, it's reflective of what this new world of technology. Right. You know, when when, when we were young in the business, you know, if you had a, a business that was really based around a warehouse, the CEO didn't have his office there. The CEO had his office, nice office in a big gleaming office building. Mm-hmm. Well, the world we live in today, they don't need that. They can have their small office at their warehouse. They can have a club to have meetings out of. And we are really seeing business switch, uh, in that regard. The people that were traditionally been office users, class a office users are fine. Not having it, having their warehouse with their inventory. But then, and then, you know, these are, these are blue collar people in a lot of ways that, that, that, you know, they shake your hand, they're gonna pay the rent. They pay the rent. Um, and, and these are in miss municipalities and states that aren't hostile to landlords. You know, I, I'm not, I do think you have to call it what it is in Los Angeles, the state of California, they've chosen the tenant over the landlord. And that's fine. We have election elections for a reason, if that's the majority. But you know, when at one cal when, when, um, COVID hit, we had a couple of hedge hedge funds come to us and say, I'm not paying rent. 'cause I don't have to. Yeah. Yeah. And you kinda look 'em in the eye and go, this is kind of person you are. Yeah. Um, 'cause the bank didn't care. The bank, you know, the lenders don't care that I can't pay the mortgage 'cause my people aren't paying rent. And all the, all that our government did was enable those people. I know that they were doing it in an attempt to enable people who were gonna lose their apartments and things like that. But you can't, you gotta do these things with a scalpel. You can't do 'em with a a, you know, with a sledgehammer. Yeah. Right. So that's why we like the product. We like those states. The other thing that's a big difference is, you know, for the most part, even though I, my partner Scott and I like to come to the office, you know, we're, because of the nature of how we are across the country, we're a very hybrid business. We, we use technology beyond, I think where most people do. And, you know, our, you can't work for us and use paper. It's just not physically possible to do it. You gotta use the software and that, that, and because of that allows us to do this, do this. And, um, our people are in the office a couple days early in the week, and then they're traveling out to see their assets or, uh, you know, we have our property managers that are on site. But it's a, it's a very different world and in some ways not as much fun. I'll tell, I'll tell you, it's not as much fun. All Those open houses we used to go to. Yeah, Absolutely. Well, I remember Bob Ortiz telling me, look, you need to have a breakfast, a coffee, a lunch, a coffee, drinks, and a dinner. Pretty much three outta five days a week. Yeah. And that's how you're successful. Yeah. No, that's, that's how I got into the business. You, yeah. Start, start With lunch and you, you work around the other meals. Yeah. Well, getting, getting back to your scalpel. So, you know, I'm curious 'cause I looked at your portfolio, Missouri, Nevada, Texas. Right. So how do you find deals? Like are brokers bringing them to you? Um, you know, do you say, all right, yeah, I wanna find, I wanna find this property in Missouri, so I'm gonna go find a property in Missouri. Those come across your desk. And then, uh, and then when you're looking at deals, how do you make that decision? Is it on equity? Oh, I'll get to that. Yeah. Because I think it's important that people Yeah, I'll get to that. Lemme start with, yeah. So my partner Scott and I, he was on the, on the debt and equity side. I was on the leasing and the purchase of sales side. But we were both aggressive marketers when we were younger. Um, we really went out and hustled. And so we've taken that mentality to our team and we have a really strong acquisitions team. Scott Han leads it, leads it, he's a young guy, kind of a, we, he has a WeWork background, but his ability to use technology, his ability to get into markets, and then for Scott and I to support him coming into these markets, what we've been able to just tell brokers is, look, if there's a, you know, if there's anybody we wanna meet with, it's a broker who's got a deal and we pay you a commission of, well, you don't even have to worry about it. So we really focus on trying to get off market deals. The other area we've been really successful is just hanging around the hoop and deals fall away, fall apart for a lot of different reasons. And we've bought several where we were the number two or three bidder, but we just didn't go away from it. Um, how do, how do you buy? Uh, you gotta have a little luck. And as John Cushman would say, the harder you work, the luck lucky you get. Right. You gotta realize that your hit rate's gonna be, you know, 10% at best and more like 4%. So you gotta use technology in a way that you're getting out there. You know, these cold emails, I don't understand 'em, um, uh, where you're just kind, you can tell it's some AI put together, but we sent a lot of emails, but they have a lot of meat behind them. They're always followed with phone calls. We go directly to landlords. But we also, we also, you know, the, we bought some deals that were marketed and we played the fight and just felt like, you know, the price we ultimately paid. And we, we joke in internally all the time, are you paying more if you win an auction or you're paying more because you prevented the auction? But you gave the seller a price that said, they said, I don't need to go to market. So, you know, but going to one of Those gray areas, I don't think you ever, I don't think, you know, and The seller doesn't know either. Probably. Yeah. So going to, so anybody who's been to business school or gotten their rad knows that that a lever IRR is kind of the holy grail of how you look at deals. And the reason is, if you're doing A-G-P-L-P deal, which most people are, you want to have those hurdles. So we live a lot of our world saying we are very IRR focused. I will tell you, at the end of the day, we keep a real close eye on cash. On cash. 'cause that's really, that's all that matters at the end of the day. That's the Answer we usually get at the end of the day. Yeah. Right. Arnie, I mean, everyone seems to say it. It was just, yeah, cash on cash isn't making some projection. It is what it is. You know, I, I see these terms, like, I remember the term that that building was more valuable. The more office building was more valuable, the more vacant it was. 'cause you could, and I, so I hear these terms all the time about, well, we'll have negative leverage, or we'll have this for a year and all that. It just drives me nuts. I'm like, this thing can't spit off. We're not in the, we're not, we're not building ground up. We're not taking that kind of risk. We're taking, um, core plus risk, maybe up to opportunity, but it's gotta have cash flows on it. 'cause you can't survive. I mean, I, I can tell you one of the things about industrial when you're from sellers, they're less sophisticated and, and bro, and they can do things, uh, not, I'm not calling them crooked or anything. They just, they can do things where they, you know, they, they go to the tenant and say, Hey, just keep paying this rent, you know, and then I'm gonna sell it. And then you can deal with the next owner. And we've had a few of these where the day we closed, we've had tenants come to and say, sorry, can't pay the rent anymore. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I mean, when you buying something, you, you're, you're ba basing it on both strategy and opportunity. It's not, yeah. One or the other. And, and our, our toughest battles have been when we have an equity partner ready to go, Scott and I are ready thinking we're ready to go. And then we start to go, wait a sec. Um, are we sure? Because if we lose two tenets in the first six months, you know, the cashflow won't cover the mortgage. So then we're calling more capital. And we're, and so it's, it's, it's, it's about, we think we've gotten better at the acquisitions process on, you know, we have, we call 'em SOPs and we use a project management called Asana. And our acquisition SOPs are probably 700 now of things that our team has to do before we'll go non-refundable before we bring it to the investment committee. But I just, you know, my dad said it and I used to give him, um, tried 'em a lot saying, yeah, it's easy to be could tells and say it's cash on cash. I get it. Public company. But you know, when you're playing the GPLP game and you're hustling, you know, it's gotta be IRR here, I'm at 56, and I'll tell you, if it doesn't make sense on cash, on cash, you can't let, uh, an IR RRR analysis overcome that. Yeah. It's gotta make sense. On cash. On cash. And getting into that. How, how do you, how do you finance your acquisitions? Uh, typical, Uh, we bootstrap everything we do. Yeah. We've got our, we've got our group of investors and, uh, you know, I, I'm, you know, almost brings a tear to my eye to say that we've got some losses that really hurt, uh, people who trusted in us. Uh, they made money along the way too. Um, but we've, we've got a good group of people. We've had, you know, this, the interest rate thing is when the history books are written, boy, when that, when, when, when inflation went up and interest rates went up so, so much and you had to ma we were making decisions. Do we go buy a cap or do we spend the money on painting the whole thing to get it better? It look, make it look nicer. We were right. Some of it we were wrong, some of it. Um, uh, but boy, that, that time we lived through, uh, between 21 and 24, that was something. And, uh, we were made good deals. But, but the whole, you know, what do you do? Do you buy a hedge? You get it fixed? You, those were, those were active discussions where my partner Scott and I are texting each other until one or two in the morning and should we do it this way? Should we do it that way? But we have our group room, we have our capital from our company. That's, that's basically my partner, Scott and I and my mom, um, my mother. And then we have capital from, we call 'em our, our A one investors. Um, and then we also have a group outside of that we call friends and family. And then we always go use a gp, uh, an lp. And we have some great relationship, invest co investment core. We've got DRA, we've got, I mean, I mean, you name it, we've had over our career some really great LPs. Um, and I'll tell, you know, even on some of the deals that didn't work, we've had some, they're just good, honorable people. And we fight the fight and we do the best we can. So when I was, yeah, So like your recent deals, uh, you know, and I think you, you know, obviously I think this asset class is much more stable, more predictable going, you know, on your deals. Is it like 50% LTV and you go to a ba, a local bank or a mortgage broker? How, how do you find that? How'd you do the finance? We, we, we like mortgage brokers. That was my partner's, uh, background. I also think it's important to get a real big view of the market because what, you know, one lender is doing in this quarter isn't what they're doing the next quarter. Um, most of our deals, if they're heavy opportunity, uh, heavier or leaning towards opportunity will be 50%. We'll get a loan that has CapEx and TI money. Sure. Um, we don't really play above 60, 65%. It's just this, this asset class. Things go wrong. I mean, oh no. Yeah. I mean, mean as a loan broker myself, you know, you know, we kind of, we have our, our feet to the ground as far as what's out there. And we can come up with a loan no one's ever heard of. And, and, and they, they might be the right fit for you. Yeah. Well, you know, on that note, I, what I on think having an advisor on the debt is probably the most important decision you can make on your capital stack because you ne you just don't, as a principal, you don't see the market the way that, that you do every day. I mean, I just don't, I don't talk to the bankers. I don't talk, and there's new products all the time. I got a call from, uh, a couple people the other day saying, Hey, we'd like to introduce ourselves to what we're doing and blah, blah, blah. And Mike said, Hey, I'm happy to meet with you, but if I were you, I'd be calling every major, uh, brokerage firm. And on the, on the, I, I don't like calling what you guys do as a, a debt broker. 'cause I think you're, you're more than a broker. You're an advisor, you're an investment banker to us. Yeah. And, um, I think I couldn't, I know that people sometimes, oh, why should I pay that fee? You're, it's called insurance. You know. Exactly. It's that you saw everything out there and this is your insurance and um, it's money Working for you. Exactly. Yeah. So, hey, now do you exit deals? I mean, of course you do. Uh, we Do. And we, when When is the time? When, when, when do you say, you know what? I think this is, we gotta move on. Well, here's what I've learned over the years. Uh, the performa is worth exactly what it's, uh, written on and written on paper. It's worth nothing. So you have to constantly, every quarter look at asset value. And I, we are really frustrated 'cause there's four or five deals that we wanted to sell four years ago. There are cash flow and they're doing okay. But the, but then you have to wake up and say, is there a market out there? Like, look at how cap rates moved from 22 to 24. I mean, they moved significantly. So you buy in 21, you fix your debt. Now you're starting to look at, oh geez, now I gotta refinance. And, and cap rates are still 200 bips higher than what we underwrote. And in some regards. Um, but, and I don't think, you know, when you're underwriting things at a six exit cap rate, I don't think that's too aggressive. Um, uh, and you know, probably we're at 5.25 when, when the debt was really cheap and, but now it's at 6.25, so you're a hundred bips off and you're like, wow, I've hit every marker. I've hit my rent. I've stayed within budget on my CapEx, but cap rates are a hundred, a hundred bit higher. So I think, you know, Scott and I have a investment committee every two weeks, and we do a quarterly asset review where we are looking at, do we, so we do, we reach out to brokers a lot to get BOVs. We try not to exercise people. We try to only, uh, bring in a group that we would pick to sell. But I, it's a moving target. And, and the unfortunate thing, this isn't stock. Yeah. So you, you decide to sell, it's gonna be three months and the world could be different. And your investors trust your, your, your leadership. And, and when you do that, I, I hope so. We've had some, uh, hard conversations and I get that, you know, when someone invested you, if, if, if they're not getting the return, they thought they were gonna get, they get angry. And, uh, what I, what I've learned, I thought John Gray said at vest at Blackstone is it's one thing to raise the money, it's another thing and get, get it invested. It's another thing to operate it. Yep. And where Blackstone's been very good as operating, what I'd like to think is through a lot of scars, a lot of scars, we are a very good operator. And we do with a bad hand, we do better than most. But that's only because we made a lot of mistakes. A lot of things where you just go, oh, unlike, I didn't think of that. Unlike some funds which have those hard exit horizons, at least you could be more flexible and play the market a little bit more than being forced to sell at a certain point. Yeah. Well, let's, let's really look at those. I mean, we can get into that. Um, you know, Starwood said, sorry, I don't care what the document says, we're not selling. Yeah, Yeah, that's true. And then I into my next question is, how, how can people, I saw on, on your website, and you mentioned the GPLP game. Yeah. Can individuals come and, and invest and, uh, you know, become a partner of yours? Uh, it had to be accredited. And, you know, at the beginning we were pretty much, we were really jumping into this, uh, using the internet. Uh, we had a very wide, uh, bandwidth and we did it some, uh, like the real team mogul deals and things like that today we're, if someone is interested, you know, Scott and I want to talk to 'em and understand and wanna explain to 'em, um, that every deal, you know, most every deal we're buying now has cash flow out of the gate. But we've try to make sure people understand, well, that can change. You lose a couple tenants, all of a sudden we gotta stop, we get, we can't do it. So we wanna have a relationship. We don't want to just be, uh, via the internet, but it, you know, we're easy to find if someone's, they have to be an accredit investor and this can't be all their, all their shekel, you know? Yeah, I know. That's, yeah. Now, now what, what are your major challenges right now? I mean, interest rates are, you know, yeah. Up, you know, we, we, and the uncertainty in the market, obviously, but what are, what are you seeing the biggest challenges right now in, Well, I'm, I'm schizophrenic on this because the biggest challenge in Los Angeles is political leadership. Um, we have a lot of challenges. I'm not, uh, I'm not taking any position on where the city is with immigration and ice. Um, I, I've grown up here and, and I think immigrants are vital to our community. Um, how, having said that, I think our city council and our mayor do, they just don't care about business. And I'm not trying to throw a punch and say that they're awful people, I think in the priorities that they have. You know, it'd be one thing if the mayor was in Mexico City or in Tokyo when the fires happened because she was trying to put together a trade, a trade deal. I don't know what she was doing in Ghana. And I think that what it says is the priorities for business in the city of Los Angeles just aren't there. I'm not making a value judgment that, uh, I'm just saying this is no, It's not that they're not important, but it's not a priority. I, I, it's not a priority. And so on that part of my life, I spent a lot of time trying to bank ring the bell to say, we gotta be proponents of our, of our downtown core. We gotta be proponents of our businesses, um, because all this is gonna, we're we're heading towards bankruptcy. Hate to tell City of LA is heading towards bankruptcy. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope we'll make tough cuts. But we don't have the arcos, we don't have the bank, you know, the first interstate banks. We, we, these big businesses that were really important to downtown la. So that's that side. What am I worried about on the industrial? I think you have to be worried about what's happening with trade. Uh, that it, so many of our tenants are very sensitive because they're keeping an inventory of some sort Um, I, I don't know if the Trump administration, I, you know, I, I went to, uh, duke University undergrad, and I went to law school. Never once did I ever read anything and said tariffs were a good thing. Yeah. So, so I don't understand that. I'm not saying he is wrong or, or Right. I just, I don't get it. Um, I think, I believe in global trade. I, I, I didn't, I didn't think NAFTA was horrible. Um, I understand that some businesses got left behind, but, you know, there's just certain jobs that Americans aren't gonna do. I don't care what you say. Nike's not gonna build a plant in Arizona and have workers there who will wanna work there. Um, and so I don't get, that's what makes me nervous. I wish I understood it better, so I'd be less nervous about it. I'm really concerned about what's gonna happen with the Fed and the Trump administration, because I do believe the Fed should be independent. Um, uh, but look, I think we just passed this bill. Uh, you can hate it or you can love it, but it's passed. So I would much rather deal with the reality of it. And there are some things that are gonna drive business at the expense of other things. So, and it's Gonna help a lot of real estate investors. It's gonna help a lot of real estate investors. And President is, Do you feel like the negativity over, you know, because, you know, I'm doing these events and when I did my Inland Empire event in May, people were really upset about the tariffs. Like, leasing just came to a halt in the industrial sector. But then, you know, a month and a half later in Orange County, it seemed like it had softened up a little bit and people weren't Well, the ports in, yeah. In June, the ports were up Three going back and forth on that too. So, you know, Do you see like the tenants out there looking again a little bit? Is it, is it Well, and the markets were in, yeah, it very strong. All of our project, even in, uh, Sacramento, we have a project that's a little bit challenge because of its location. We're still getting tours. And, um, even this is a almost, I feel like we were in an episode, uh, of, uh, the Twilight Zone. You know, I went 21 and we are big subscribers to VTS and we had zero tours in downtown la Zero for the year. Yeah. Zero. Nobody looked for office space. You come over to the industrial side and I'm seeing three to five tours a week, no matter where we're at. Now, it doesn't mean you land all of those deals, right. But, but, so what makes me concerned is what would turn that spigot off? And I think inflation, uh, would be it. I would think of massive trade war would, would do that. But having said all that, as I said, I'm not gonna, you know, I have my own view on whether the bill should pass, but it passed. And so our job now as investors is to understand what the new rules are and go invest effectively. Um, you know, I'm, I will say that I sit here and I, I often say, God, I wish I could talk to my dad about this. 'cause I remember when we worked together, he'd talk about something that happened in 72 or when interest rates went up in the late seventies and how he got through it. And I'm sitting here going, there is a lot of uncertainty right now on this trade stuff. And that goes directly to our tenants. So how do you, how do you hedge the risk? Look, at the end of the day, we're just not in a position where we can take our ball and go home and wait for two or three years. Oh, no. We gotta, we gotta be out there investing and finding deals. And if you Have small ba multi-tenant spaces, you're hedging a risk. Uh, Uh, well, yeah, I agree with that. That's one of the reasons we like it. I mean, when we first bought Pac Mutual, we had 101 tenants and people said, Jesus, that sounds awful. I said, well, what we learned out of taking care of 101 office tenants is what it allows us to take care of a hundred industrial tenants. So all that technology and all that. Um, so what Do you get for rental rates up in small Bay Sacramento space these days? What are rental rates at? Where are they at? Yeah. What do you get? That's a trick question. I, no matter what I say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna p**s off either the lender, they're Asking what you're asking rate, you know, they're asking rates. Well, it's Like asking a hard money lender what his rates are. Yeah. I don't wanna tell you, here's what I'd say our rates are, are at market or better 'cause we're in the 90% lease. But I, I don't want, I mean, I have to go through, we own too much up there for me to say we have some, some broad, uh, I got an ask. I'm a reporter. Well, I mean, I, I can lead you to our brokers and they'll go through it specifically, but I don't wanna sound like I'm deflecting the question. The reason I'm hesitant is I don't wanna say something that's not accurate and we own enough up there that I would need my spreadsheet in front of me to tell you exactly where, where our rates are and we own in different parts of the market. Um, what I would tell you is, uh, just as I, I believe that on the investment banking side, having an advisor is important. And you have to trust them. And you have to, you don't have to agree with everything they say, but you have to reasonably listen to 'em. I feel the same way about leasing brokers. Um, I have, I have LPs who sometimes drive leasing brokers really, really hard. And I understand they wanna get the best out of 'em. And, you know, there's some myth, some reality about how hard, uh, brokers work. But I've found that anybody who's been successful as a leasing broker, it's 'cause they work hard and they know their market. And so, you know, we spent a lot, I love VTS 'cause I can get a real time update on how a tour went and how those things went. For audience that may not know that that's view the Space, which is a service and online Service. Yeah. It's a software. The guys who started with literally a camera doing view the space, but now it's a software that allows brokers to talk to their owners and, and landlords, uh, in real time. But having said that, we still have a call every two weeks. I still go up and see the assets, you know, once a quarter or, or so. Oh, no matter where they are in Texas and Colorado, because I really believe, I'm just not a cynical person. And I believe most people work really hard. Um, and when you find good brokers, you gotta listen to 'em. So I'm afraid to say the rental rate, uh, you know, today is four bucks annually or whatever it might be. And, and not have that in front of me. 'cause I don't want to, I don't wanna step on one of our broker's toes who's just told somebody it's something else. So that and so much why I'm hesitant you have, Uh, listing brokers and, and most of the always tenant brokers. Yep. Pretty much. I mean, industrial has become like office. It didn't always used to be that way, but yeah, tenants, the 5,000, the 2,500 square foot tenants still, you know, and I think what's happening is now most tenants go to the, go to the internet. They, they try to go directly, uh, but they realize pretty quickly that this is complicated stuff. And then right there in that Google search, or they're talking to their ai, it says, well, you should call these three brokers. And so, and, and, and I don't have a problem with it. I think it's, I think it's a good thing for the business. I'm concerned. I'll tell you on the office side, I don't know, uh, the office brokerage business, I think, um, is gonna radically change. I think on the industrial side, the dollar amounts are such that people just, they're not huge, but you put enough volume together, you can have a great career, uh, as an industrial broker. And, um, uh, so what we really value 'em. And then, you know, I've said the same thing on the capital market side. Um, uh, it just, this is the way the business has evolved. And I've been in all sides of it. I've been a broker, I've been a, a lawyer, and I've been a, I've been a principal. And I, I think, you know, you just need that. It, it all works together. And I'm not, not one who's gonna fight it. So now what advice would you give somebody that's starting out, you know, what if like, you started today, you know? Yeah. Well I will tell you, um, the reason I went to law school, uh, not because I wanted to be a lawyer, is 'cause I was told you need to have something, some skillset that someone will pay you for to get into the real estate industry. And they going in the before, you know, it used to be you could be in the right fraternity at USC or SMU or you name it, and you could go work on somebody's team and you put together books and you'd learn the business. Um, I don't think that's possible anymore. I think you have to come out of school with a skillset. You need to be ARGUS certified. You need to use Excel inside now. We'll see how AI changes that you need to add value day one. And it's a much harder, uh, it's much harder to get into real estate today than it was 10 or 15 years ago, much less, 25, 30 years ago. It is a relationship business, but I'm seeing that being less important. So it's gotta be that you add value. I, I, uh, have, uh, twin daughters. One's a, a big volleyball player, uh, was at Colorado, who's now gonna, uh, transfer in the portal to San Diego State. I'm really excited about what she's doing. She has no interest in real estate. My other daughter who's at Tulane is really interested in it. And we talk about it all the time. She's gonna be Argus Certifi certified and she'll be a junior at Tulane. And they have a very good finance program. I'm just saying, it's just, you can't come out today at 22 years old with a resume that says, Hey, I'm just gonna work really hard. Yeah. You know, you gotta have a skillset. I think it's unfortunate we don't have that, um, mentorship relationships anymore. You're, you're getting paid to do a job and if it's too simple a job, AI's gonna take it over. Um, and I just, I think about when I would get on air on John, you know, we'd fly with John Cushman and I'd have the, I'd have the slide projector and a briefcase full of books that we had put together and we'd fly to places and, you know, that's all you'd do it all on an iPhone now. And So, yeah, I was just gonna say, now's working. Yeah. But those were jobs for people outta college, you know, going in and binding the books and then you'd read 'em and you'd learn and just doesn't exist anymore. So my strong, my strongest advice is get go to business school, um, go to law school, go to get, it doesn't have to be a three-year program. Go, go, go. But come out and say, look, if you pay me, I can add value day one. It's not just teaching me. The teaching will come, but I can do something for you. And that's how you get into the business today. Are you looking to hire anybody speaking of all these new people training? No, you know, well here, I mean here's the reality. We are doing more with less people. We are every week we talk about who's what, what is somebody doing in ai. We're big believers in it. And uh, what we're finding is our asset managers can do more. Um, I think we'll probably, you know, I think Scott Han who leads our team on acquisitions at some point are gonna need one or two other bird dogs out there. So I could see us adding there. But from the accounting side, no, from the asset management side, you know, obviously property management is a unique business. We do third party property management. We'd like to grow that business. So in that regard, we are hiring, um, as we, as we grow. Um, but um, you know, it's just, it's just different. I, I mean, I miss it. I walk around downtown la I'm there almost every day and I'm just like, wow, this is a different place. Uh, nobody wears a suit. The Oldman Navy blue suit. This is the way we dress now. Yeah. There's no ties. I mean, I got a old closet full of ties that I don't need. I do too. Remember when closing a deal, you'd buy an aase tie as a Exactly. No more. Well, we, you know, I did, I did promise an hour. So kind of bring it in. But I, I wanted to ask you, uh, Chris again, thank you, thank you again. But is there anything we haven't discussed that you think is really important for I have a big question. Go ahead, Arnie. Go ahead. I kind of wanna know a little bit more about your personal life now. You, you went to Duke. Let, let, lemme wait. Wait, I'm getting to a point. Alright. You mentioned you went to Duke and you played football. What position? Position? Okay. I was, uh, I was a middle linebacker. I played, uh, I, uh, Steve Spurrier was my coach. I Was just gonna ask you that. Yeah. Yeah. He, we got the job in 87. I had a few other offers. Uh, but when you meet Coach Furier, you kind of go, I remember my dad saying, um, I had to go. I was a big baseball player too, and I had some scholarships there. He is like, okay, whatever you do, you just, you know, make sure you don't commit. Well, I flew there on a Thursday. I was on the floor for the Duke Maryland basketball game sitting next to coach er who got, who got, uh, interviewed at halftime. I didn't know it at the time, but the starting quarterback's girlfriend took me out to these parties and all this stuff. And by Saturday morning I came home. I signed my scholarship. Yeah. I'm, I was like, whatcha doing? Whatcha doing? Like, nice. You see, I went to school at Florida State, so Ah, yeah, well he, he had a, he had quite a, a relationship with FSU. Yeah, yeah. University, I think he called it. Yeah. Well, no, doesn't not. Well he was a great guy. He still friends. I mean, I, and I, I've learned a lot, I learned a lot about being a leader from him. And one of the things people ask, well, what'd you learn? I said, well, you gotta have self-confidence and you can be a Heis Trophy winner that gives you a lot of self-confidence. But you gotta be able to translate into things you don't have the skillset at to be successful. And self con. I, that's what I said to people a lot. I've said, you just gotta show to me that you got self con. 'cause that tells me you're gonna get through hard times. Very few. And we're all gonna have hard times. Very few Heisman Trophy winners become excellent coaches. Yes. And It hurts me to say Steve Spurrier is an excellent coach. Yeah. But you gotta respect them, you know? Yeah. It was, it was a very instrumental person in my life and I, and I, I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for my group of, we won the, uh, a CC in 1989. Uh, uh, we got a lot of pub because we beat Clemson when they were three in the country. And then a couple years ago, duke beat Clemson the first game of the year. So I, fortunately, I'm in the picture where we beat North Carolina 41, nothing. Uh, we took a picture on there. Only Spery would do this, uh, when M Brown, as he would call M Brown, the boy Wonder, Mack Brown. And we beat him 41. Nothing. And we took a picture and I'm right in the middle of that one. So, great memories. Um, but, you know, I want, I do want to go back on one thing. 'cause I I haven't been in the business for 30 years and I had, uh, some, our, our company and our team had a really, some big successes. We then got have kind of been on a rollercoaster since 19 of some wins and some losses. And what I've come to realize is, is, you know, you really can't control things in life. You have the, you you point that boat in a direction and you do the best you can, but that boat is gonna go through rough seas no matter what. And if you didn't, you got lucky. And some of 'em are gonna be so unfair. But the whole point is, you gotta keep showing up. Just never quit. And if you never quit, you're gonna be around and you can survive everything. I remember the, just the stuff we went through, especially when my dad was sick and there was no one to turn. Scott and I were like, who do we turn to on this? And we just keep fighting. So, you know, I I'm not perfect. I I, I've had some good wins. I've lost some money for people. I, it breaks my heart. I mean, I, those are the things you remember more than anything, um, is like, how do we turn left here when we should have turned right? Or why did this happen? Or, but, you know, you keep showing up and over the long run people made more money than, uh, than not with us. And, and if you and I, and I think, uh, I mean, that's what it's all about. And theses are lessons I learned playing football. The lessons I learned from my dad, uh, lessons I, I learned from my wife and my kids. 'cause they, you know, they, they, they're going through their things and they just keep pushing through. So, um, that's, that's the number one thing I wanna say to people is I don't care who you think the best investor in the world is, just call it Jamie Diamond. He's lost lots of money and he is failed. He's also made lots of money. And that's how it works. You, John, Jonathan Gray Schwartzman. I mean, I know these people personally, and I, they'll tell you the same thing. It's all about perseverance and working hard and working hard. We've learned too, you gotta lose before you win in some cases too. Yeah. My biggest concern about, uh, the, the generation coming outta college today is they're so into the, you know, the Instagram and all that, and all they see are perfect lives. That's all they ever see. And that's not the way it works in the world. So you gotta be able to see past that stuff and work hard and, and, um, uh, you know, John Cher said, and I love the saying, part of your work, the luck you get part your work, the luck you get, so Well, that's a great way to close the part about the business. To, to wrap up everything, I just wanted to get your personal goals for the future. Maybe plug a charity you're involved in that, uh, thanks. Some of our listeners could then, uh, you know, help out as well. But what are your, some of your goals for the future? And then we will, uh, call it a Well, Yeah, the goal, the, the, the biggest goal for the future, I think, uh, my partner Scott and I want to build a company that lasts generations. We'd like it to be available for if our children are interested, but also just good people who will take the reins. And that's, that's number one, um, for us. And, and it's all about good people and you know, the hiring process. At the end of the day, you just want people who care act like an owner. If they're just the most junior person, they're gonna stay late, they're gonna work hard. So we'd really like to, to have a, a legacy that this is a company that went through, I mean, who, who would've guessed from the starting out of the, the depths of the GFC through COVID, through the different protests from George Floyd to what's going on with ice stuff now. Hey, we made it through all these ups and downs. You know, for me on the charitable side, I've been really involved with a lot of things around Loyola High School over my career and, and served on the board there and some of my children's thing. But the, the, the charity that I think is most important in my mind right now for the things I think are important for the city is I'm in on the board at River la and River LA is the idea that we make the river matter. And we bring, we are very involved with Taylor Yards right now, which will be the biggest park that, um, we've had since Griffith Park. The reason I think it's so important is we have the beach on, on the west coast that kind of cuts us off. We have this opportunity for this 51 miles of the river to connect this city to provide, you know, riverfront real estate, to do good things, to have bike paths. And I think as the vision was always that it would be a part of what's happening with our infrastructure and our built out subway system and our light rail system. So I got very involved with that. Now I'm also involved with other things from, um, homeboys and things like, so I don't wanna, but that one to me is something where I think we can shape public policy with River la. So I'm really pleased about that. That's good River la org Leagues one they could focus on, you know. Yeah. But, but I think, I think homeboy's been really important. I think especially given what's going on in this city today, you know, father Boyle and, and, and the message that he has is one that I'm passionate about. Um, and then, you know, I think my dad, I'm really involved with the Rose Bowl and the reason I'm, because I think that's an institution that needs to be around for another a hundred years. And I think my dad's view was that private citizens need to get involved and that can drive the elected officials to get involved, but you gotta get involved with things otherwise, you know, you don't want to, I don't want the Rose Bowl to come the Orange Bowl and just, well, if an elected Came calling you in the city of the state, would you take a role? Would you be interested, Um, if they, if they were serious? Because, you know, I I'm not someone who's gonna sit there and nod my head, you know? Right. If I'm gonna get involved, I'm gonna get involved. Um, I don't know if the opportunities are there the way they were in the, in the seventies and eighties and nineties, um, uh, in the city of Los Angeles. 'cause it's changed so much. You know, the, the labor unions have so much control. Um, I'd love for 'em to say, yeah, we'd love to have private business. Have a seat at the table. Fortunately, I don't see that happening right now. All right. Okay. No, I, I think, I think we pretty much covered it. And, and I think we could put you a judge with Ethan Penn, one of our past, uh, past. Oh no. Ethan's a friend. Yeah, I know. He is running for governor. Is he still running for governor? He was, uh, yeah, he was a guest on our show, so, yeah. Well, Chris, you know, I can't thank you enough, Arnie, right? Yeah. Episode. Great. You the hour, I mean, more than an hour now it would Hi. Bye. And Our audience is gonna get a lot outta this. You really shared a lot, you know, I really appreciate it. Well, I, I appreciate what you guys do. I, uh, you know, it's, I know what it's like. I've done about a hundred podcasts and I look, I felt a little burned out, but this one's really, uh, energized me. I think it's important because we don't have the mentorship relationship we used to have. There's not the apprenticeship out there. So young people have to find these kinda lessons out there. And what you guys are doing is really important because there are 22 year olds you don't even know from all over the country who are looking at this. And it's gonna change their direction in life, hopefully. Yeah. We affect a couple. Right. So we Definitely thank you. Be here. Good luck And thank you. Yeah. We'll, we'll stay. I'm honored that you want me on. I really do. I appreciate it. Oh, No, we, we enjoy this. We'll get a chance to get to know a lot of people. Everything. Alright guys. Well thank you. Alright, take care. Thank you, Chris. Thanks. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1115700624.txt b/data/transcripts/1115700624.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..652e4ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1115700624.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, hey. Hello, and welcome to this next episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, where we have what we hope to be compelling, interesting, and informative conversations with leaders, iconic figures in the commercial real estate industry. And I am super excited about today's guest, Terrence Tale, TALEN, head of Talen Capital Group. But before we get to, uh, the show, let me bring in, introduce my co-host, Arnie Gar, ahead of All-Star Group. Hey, Arnie, how you doing today? Hey, how you doing, Steve? Hot day out today. Doing Great. Little bit of a heat wave, huh? Yep. Yep. Let's hope it spills over to the commercial real estate market. That's True. Yeah. Well only get better. Great event. Last week your All-Star lending conference was great. Well attended. Yeah. Lot of activity. I think the mood is definitely seems to be improving. There's more activity, people, were out there looking for lenders, and that's what we provide. So, uh, it's perfect for that. Yeah, that, that was a good one. Feeling Like, you know, the 10 years are inching their way down, hopefully a little bit, so, well, you know, uh, tell us a little bit about All Star Group. Sure. Well, all Star Group was, uh, formed in 1995, uh, as a commercial real estate firm. Uh, we do loan brokerage origination, and, but mostly we're known for is our events. We do commercial real estate events, uh, that are all interactive in nature. One of the things that we're known for is the Loan Makers Forum, where we bring a bunch of lenders to the event. They tell everybody what they can do, and our attendees can present loans to them live, and they compete for the loan. But there's plenty of networking, plenty of stuff that we do, but that's, that's one of the things we're most known for. Great, great. And, and many of you in the audience know Rent tv, our 25, 20 6-year-old news media, uh, company for the commercial real estate industry. We put on five conferences a year, uh, conferences a year, Arizona's coming up October 9th. We are super excited about it. Uh, we also do this podcast and we own, uh, and created, uh, the review this platform where you're watching these videos. Uh, so with that said, another piece of business, Arne, I think, uh, we should talk about our sponsors who make the show calls. Sure. With all, with All by all means, let's go. They make it happen. Great companies, uh, that you should definitely call, try to do business with. Tell 'em you heard, heard about them from the show. Uh, I know that will appreciate it. And the first one's been a great, uh, sponsor of ours for a long time, and that is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive and simple solutions whenever possible. Like commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. The inspection business that is huge right now, you know, obviously in the whole LA area for a number of reasons. Uh, so let them help you protect your deal. Commercial real estate inspectors, Tiffany Simington, uh, caller and book your inspection today. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. It's on the screen. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Who's next? Arnie. Our Next is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon. It's known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck, SA is known or John McLean at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3 Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Next up Steve. Yeah, on another track. Another, you know, interesting, uh, company that's, uh, uh, sponsoring the show is Chase Partners, another longtime client of ours, uh, headed by David Parker, one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout Southern California for over 30 years. Uh, now they're sponsoring the show. They want to get the message out about their updated strategy to focus on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties with non-performing debt. So if you're in a situation, wanna look for an exit, want to get, you know, some assistance with it or some advice, call David Parker. If you're an owner, lender, or broker that needs a fast decision and a fast close on your property, contact Chase partners. Here's their email, david@chasepartners.com. david@chasepartners.com. All right, Arnie, Uh, I think we're ready for our guest. Let's bring him in. Terrence, Terry Tallen, head of Talent Capital Group. Welcome, Terry. Welcome to the show. Welcome. Hey, Steven. Arnie, it's great to be with you again and, uh, I'm looking forward to the show today. Yeah, It's great to see you again. Terry's been a long time since there no Cal events when you were attend. So great to see you and looking forward to catching up on all those stuff you've got, going with a lot, lot to cover. So I'm gonna get right into it. Uh, why, to start, why don't you give us an overview of Talent Capital Group, you know, the properties you own, geographies, sectors you're in, and, uh, size, and then we'll, uh, we'll go from there. Sure. So, uh, we're a, uh, you know, a vertically integrated mixed use, uh, retail and residential, uh, investment and development organization. Uh, we do business, uh, you know, we, we say on a national basis, but our primary focus is the West Coast. Uh, so up, all up and down the West Coast. Uh, we also have a number of rich interests in the Midwest, predominantly in Indiana and Ohio. And, uh, I lived in Florida for a number of years of a great affection for the state of Florida. So we try to do things back there when we can. But right now we're really focused on the, uh, on the West Coast and some of the, you know, redevelopment deals that we have, uh, here in California, Retail. So mainly retail. Mainly retail, how Many projects? Okay. Like, like a lot of us, you know, in that space, you have certain projects that are probably better as residential. You know, the, uh, the state has a number of, uh, objectives and missives to, you know, create more housing. Uh, so we have some certain projects like our Marina landing project that we, you'll see, you see on the screen behind me here, uh, that we'll get into. That's a, it it's really a fantastic coastal, uh, development site, but it's better suited now, uh, with the way things have filled in around it over the last, say, 18 years to be a residential site now. And so currently you have a dozen projects, something like that. Roughly, uh, how many projects do you currently own or, and involved in? We we're at about about a dozen projects right now. Gotcha. Excellent. Alright. Hey, let's find out about you get away from the real estate a little bit. Tell us a little bit about where your upbringing, uh, of course we know you played football. Tell us a little bit about that, and then of course, Lee Corso. Well, sure. And you know, it's a, it's timely that you mentioned my old coach. Uh, he, he turned 90, uh, two weeks ago, uh, actually two weeks ago, uh, yesterday. And, uh, we're Gonna show some old pictures while we're talking here. Some of the pictures we provided. So you guys, viewers definitely check these out. Yeah. But go ahead. So it's timely. You know, coach is, uh, 90 years old. He is re retiring. He'll have his last game on August the 30th, the big Ohio State, uh, Texas game. So we'll all be tuned in for that. Uh, I was with him and had breakfast with him in May when I was down in Florida for our former Hoy Institute annual event. And, uh, coach is all excited and I said, coach, whatcha gonna do Now you're, you're 90 and you're retiring. He says, Terry, I'm gonna retire now. And we were, uh, we were at a, we were at a restaurant and people were coming up to him and, you know, he was 89 at the time. And, uh, he was saying, coach, you know, this is fantastic. We know you're turning 90. And, and his wonderful personality, he said, well, you know, the only guy that wants to be 90, it's that guy that's 89. Yeah, that's right. But tell us about what, where you grew up and, and what, uh, obviously you, you played at Indiana and, uh, how did football become commercial real estate? Well, uh, I'm from, uh, Hamilton, Ohio, which is a, uh, you know, relatively small town located between, uh, Cincinnati and Dayton. Uh, my father was an entrepreneur. He owned a regional, uh, plumbing and mechanical contracting, uh, uh, company. And, uh, so he was an entrepreneur, lifelong entrepreneur. He went to Xavier University back when they had a football team. And, uh, my mom was a, was a wonderful homemaker and, uh, had great parents. Um, I, uh, was fortunate enough to, uh, uh, go to, uh, Hamilton Baden High School, which is named after Stephen Stephen t Baden. And so there's real estate themes throughout my whole life. Uh, Stephen t Baden was the, uh, Catholic pioneer priest that put the, um, real estate deal together at the University of Notre Dame. Wow. Wow. So there was a Stephen t Baden Hall. We had a rich, uh, legacy with Notre Dame and, uh, uh, we were a small Catholic school, about 800 students. And my, uh, high school football coach with a fellow by the name of Terry Malone. Terry Malone, uh, at one point in time was the winningest football coach in the history of Ohio high school football. Wow. He had 346 wins, some odd losses, and now he's a, you know, since been surpassed. But for, uh, a couple of decades I think he was winning his football coach in the history of Ohio high school football, which is a big deal. Um, he was a tough guy, tough Irishman. And, uh, we had very good teams, and it was a very good role model, uh, and, you know, taught us toughness and, uh, self-reliance and resiliency. And, uh, so it was a very good upbringing. Uh, you know, we had the college prep, uh, business, uh, education. And, um, I enjoyed playing, uh, you know, many sports in high school, but football was the one that stood out, stood out the most to me. It fit my mentality well, and I, I think as we go through this, and I think with some of your other, you know, some of your other guests that have, have played football, uh, I think that's a great, uh, precursor for, you know, the ups and downs and the resiliency that you have to have in, uh, this business that we all love. Gives You a structure, it gives you the ability to know how to lose and how to win It Sure. Does. Uh, I go from A small school to Indiana. How'd that? Uh, Well, Well, uh, my, my senior year in, uh, at, at Hamilton Baden, I, I was, uh, Allstate offensive guard, and I was captain of all stars at Middle linebackers. So the, I was being recruited for both positions and, uh, a lot of the schools tried to trick me into playing offensive guard. And I do not have the mentality of an offensive guard. Well, you had the number 62, I had Number, and they kept trying to plug me into that position with that number. I, I, I'd forget how to block sometimes, but I never forgot how to tackle. So, yeah, That just, So, um, I, I was heavily recruited. Um, we had looks from, uh, Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Miami, Florida, uh, Purdue, Wisconsin, um, in Indiana. And there was something about Lee Corso, the way that he recruited, uh, the opportunity Yeah. To play earlier in Indiana. Of course, you'd figure you might play earlier in Indiana than you would at, uh, Ohio State or Michigan. Uh, those two schools wanted me to play guard. They were very upfront about wanting me to play guard, and I, I really wasn't interested in that. Um, and Coach Corso was wonderful. And my, my father being a, a businessman, uh, he encouraged me to go to Indiana because of the, all the schools, including Michigan at the time, Indiana had a better business school. Hmm. You know, which is now, of course, the Kelly School of Business, which is one of the, you know, the top undergraduate, uh, finance and real estate programs in the country. Very good. Right. So then right into real estate after college, it seemed like, uh, pretty young. Uh, uh, how did that, what was the, what got business from your entrepreneurial background? How, how'd you end up with real estate? Well, so, you know, you, it, it, it's hard to come right out of the right out of the ch from college and, and go into that kind of a business. As, you know, it's a very competitive business, and you have to, you know, um, pack your backpack, so to speak, before you start climbing up the mountain. So, uh, uh, good Way to put it. Indiana was, was heavily recruited in a number of different in industries and including, uh, consumer goods, you know, with Proctor and Gamble's, you know, proximity to, uh, IU being, you know, based in Cincinnati, their world headquarters, a number of other, you know, fortune 50 companies recruited Indiana heavily. And we had a very, even back then, you know, in the early eighties, we had a very good placement program. Right. So, um, I, uh, I had a number of injuries my senior year. It, it was, it was interesting. I, I was awarded the United Press International's defensive player of the week, uh, in October of, uh, 1980 for our homecoming victory against, uh, Wisconsin. But in the same game, I sprained my ankle. Ah, so I missed, I missed several games as a result of that. And I was, I was pretty much hobbling around the balance of the season. So I, I wasn't drafted. Uh, so I went out as a free agent with the Kansas City Chiefs, and, um, I got hurt again in camp. Uh, so as much as I wanted to go on and play in the NFL, um, you know, life, uh, the destiny came in another direction. It broke my heart. It was really what I always wanted to do. But you realize too, the average career is only only three years. So I figured it was time to get on with things. And, uh, I was fortunate enough to, uh, get a job with, uh, at the time, which was, uh, Pepsi, Pepsi Cola Bottling Company, uh, which had a, a, an opening down in Florida. So I was, uh, I went down there on a, a, a vacation on a spring break, uh, uh, vacation. And, uh, Lee Rose, who was the head basketball coach at the University of South Florida, he also coached at NC State back with, uh, cornbread Maxwell when he went to the, uh, fi Final Four. And, uh, coached in the NBA after that. Uh, his son, Mike Rose, who's a great guy, was one of the young linebackers that we mentored. So we had a, a good relationship with their, you know, one, like one of these family type relationships. So Coach Rose set me up with some headhunters down in the Tampa area. Uh, I interviewed with George Steinbrenner's company, which was, uh, quite an experience. Yeah. Um, but ultimately ended up getting a job in the executive training program with a Pepsi Cola bottling group. That's funny. You know, it right down there, right near there is Bradenton was where Tropic was. And I ended up with them right around the same time. 'cause I think we're about the same age. Mm-hmm. Uh, 'cause I graduated Florida State at 1980, so, uh, yeah. So it right around the same time, same, same area. We, we, we could have very well run into each other down there. We may have Good training For the real estate business, I'm sure, for what, what was, uh, ahead of you? Uh, yes. It, it, Pepsi was a, you know, a very professional company, very, uh, you know, a a kind of a political company because of the size, but it was back in the day, if you remember the Roger Enrico's famous, uh, the other guy, blink Dad and the Pepsi generation and all those things. So it was a great experience and, you know, high level marketing. So what led, how, how did, how did, how did you make the leap to the real estate industry then? What, what, what, uh, turns out of that? Well, this was a time I was, uh, at that point I'd moved from Orlando, Florida to Melbourne, Florida to run a, uh, regional food service operation. So I was promoted into operations management after I won their national sales contest. And, um, I saw all these buildings being built, and, uh, I, we, I studied that. And also I saw, you know, I'd see somebody were driving the better cars, and I'd ask em what they, what they did for a living. And most of 'em were in real estate. Yeah. You know, that's, It was one of those things, well, if he could do that, I could do that, you know, kind of thing. So I, uh, I got my, uh, real estate broker's license at, at, at night, and, you know, and, and did that while I was still working at Pepsi. And then I, uh, I eventually, uh, worked through that, the situation, and, uh, interviewed and, uh, got a job with Coldwell Banker and there, uh, you know, as a real estate broker at the time, which was another great training platform. Sure. Uh, CBRE and JLL, uh, they really have outstanding training PLA platforms. And, you know, back then, I don't know what the program was, was CBRE now, but, uh, in the day, then they would pay you a, a nominal salary to get you through that first year. Mm-hmm. And then, but if you made a deal or made a commission, then you, you know, you were, you were off the salary, but then after a year, you would, you'd go on, uh, on straight commission. So, um, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the process. I have lifelong friends. Uh, my great friend Kevin Kavanaugh, uh, who actually worked with me at Burnham Pacific, which we'll get into at some point in time. Yeah. Uh, he and I met there, you know, back in, uh, 1984. And we're actually gonna be in Florida together in a, in a, in a few weeks here. Great. So tell us about your first real estate deal. The first big deal that kind of took you to the point where you say, you know what, this is where I'm staying and this is where I'm gonna go. Well, the, uh, the, I think the first really big thing that happened was the, uh, there were a couple of big jobs that I had. I came out from Florida with the Alexander Hagen reit, uh, based down in Manhattan Beach. Right. Um, guys remember that? Alexander Hagen? Oh, yeah. A very, very shrewd, very smart developer. Uh, so we were, you know, I went from, uh, Manhattan Beach and Sepulveda. Right. Wasn't there shopping center right there, right. No. Wow. PC H, yeah, PCH and Sepulveda. It was the old, uh, you know, it's, it's the old Bullocks, uh, shopping center. Yeah. Uh, In there. Yeah. The Shake Haggs were very sharp people. Uh, yeah. Uh, so I was hired, uh, away from, uh, Florida and came out to run their earnout. Uh, so a fellow that hired me is someone you, I'm sure you know, Fred Broing, you know, who was the, uh, CEO of Center Cal for many years. I think Fred's doing something else now. But Fred, uh, brought me out from Florida, and I would, I came out to affect their earnout. So it was a, it was a neat experience for me. I was about 34 then 35, and to come out and, uh, be the lead with Fred on affecting the Earnout, which we, uh, created, uh, additional $50 million in operating partnership units of stock for the predecessors of the reit, which pre predominantly the, uh, Hagen family, the, the Khe family, and, uh, a few others. Ed Krasnov, um, you probably have talked with Jeff Kreek, who's a great friend, so over federal. Yeah. We're federal. So his, his father was our CFO and Right. And of a mentor to me. So we've, you know, Jeff and I have had that, uh, relationship for, you know, several decades as well. So we, we did the earn out, we affected the earnout on, you know, some key properties, the Baldwin Hills, Crenshaw Mall, many people know, right? Yes. Media City Center, uh, the Empire Center in Fontana. So these were all huge projects. I mean, Fontana was a million square foot power center. Right. Uh, nobody could ever build that today. But, uh, so we did that. And, uh, you know, as, as this business can be, uh, kind of rough and tumble sometimes, the day the earnout was over and the stock was assured, they fired me. They told me I was too expensive. Too expensive, said I was too expensive. They just made 50 million. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. But, but you fell in love with California because you stayed here. I did. What's, I mean, you know, uh, it's a great state, great people. And, uh, you know, through that process, I was introduced, uh, to the Watt family, uh, actually by Fred Bruning as a, as a kindness to me, and understanding that, you know, what happened there. And, uh, went to work with, uh, you know, with Ray Watt, Scott Watt, Jim McGinn, and all, all fellows that, you know, and, you know, Ray Watt was one of the great, uh, multi-product developers we've ever had here in California. Um, he was an elegant man, a gentleman, and I really enjoyed my, my time there. We did a number of note noteworthy projects. And, uh, during that process, uh, uh, David Martin got together with Malin Burnham, and, uh, you know, Mayland's still alive, uh, well, about 95 now, sharp as attack. And, uh, I see Maylin every so often because I'm on the board of the, uh, uh, university of San Diego's Burnham Moores, uh, center for Real Estate Studies, uh, run by staff Caris, who's a great, great, uh, executive director. Staff is great. And, um, so they hired me away from Watt to basically run, uh, redevelopment and leasing, you know, for a REIT at the time that had about, uh, 43 properties. Wow. Through that leadership there, that it was a very good executive team. We had a very good leasing team. Uh, we took the portfolio from, uh, uh, 43 properties to 115 properties and a billion dollar market cap, you know, and that was back in the late nineties. So that executive team, uh, did a very good job of, uh, of growing the, you know, growing the business. Um, and then when you get to that level, you know, it led to other things. So we had a hostile takeover, uh, attempt from the Schottenstein Company out of, uh, Columbus, Ohio. And J Schottenstein is also an IU grad, a few years older than me, Uhhuh. We didn't know each other at the time. And so the REIT ran down, uh, properties went various different directions. Uh, DDR and Prudential helped, uh, with the, uh, dissemination of the properties. Uh, we were given, you know, I think fairly, uh, reasonable, you know, severance packages. And so at that point in time, I said it was time to be an entrepreneur. So this was the lead up, I'd say, uh, RNA to my first big deal. But the, you know, the experience, the relationships, uh, and then of course the, you know, we were well paid there. I, I would say for the time. And, well, It's, it's Always a journey. You gotta gotta go through a journey to get there. And then that, that's great. Good to, good. Your Answer of one big deal was really like a whole bunch combined. Yeah. So much stuff. Yeah. No, But now this is the perfect lead in, because now you shift over to development. But now looking back on your development history, is there one major development project that you built, that you created that stands out that you're most proud of? Well, I think there's the first one, and then there is, there's another one. So, uh, the, the, the, to answer your question directly, the big one, uh, was one we took quite a bit of risk on, and it's, uh, one of my favorites. So it's, it's in the background here, and you can see the, uh, marina Walmart. Ah, so this was, uh, down on the Monterey Peninsula, you know, just a few, few miles north of Pebble Beach. Uh, the city of Marina had granted, uh, some pretty significant entitlements to the Fort Ord military base to finally redevelop the base, you know, uh, tens of thousands of acres out there. And, uh, they had prevailing wage because it was a city deal. And, uh, a real estate broker brought me a dark 92,000 square foot Kmart that was an REO with Wachovia. Ah, and I saw that, you know, what was going on down at the Dunes, knowing they had prevailing wage, which, you know, is, is you, and your, your, uh, your listeners know Ed's about 35% of the cost, uh, you know, to a deal, right? I thought, well, we can, we can do really well here because we're buying this at a discount. 'cause we're buying it out of REO. And my instincts were that, you know, retail is kinda like Noah's Ark. You know, if you see Walmart in a market, you're gonna see Target. If you see Home Depot, you're gonna see Lowe's, you see TJ Maxx, you're gonna see Ross. Right. So I thought we'd be the, maybe the lower cost alternative, uh, to that project, but that we could go head to head with and compete with them because of, you know, all the various exclusive use provisions and things that, you know, come on these centers. So, um, and I'm not saying anything outta school when I go through the numbers here, but we, we bought the property for about four and a half million dollars. I, I funded the 100% of the equity, got a very, uh, high loan on it, so it was some risky, so there were some sleepless nights. Right. Uh, but, uh, ended up at the end of the day, we went and got, uh, some entitlements for the building to open it up, you know, it was, was, it's interesting, that building was only zoned for the use as a Kmart. Nothing else. It could only be a Kmart. Wow. That's Fair. That's kind of narrow. It's talking about spot zoning. Yeah. Really. So we went back to the, the, the city leadership. We said, you guys, you can't do this. You can't zone a property for one specific name tenant. Exactly. You know, there's a Kmart, there's a Walmart, there's a, there's an H Mart, there's this mart, there's that Mar. So, um, we went through a process and we got the building. Um, uh, we bought it dark. We didn't have anybody in tow. Uh, we went and got it, uh, got the entitlements, went out to market, and we're fortunate enough to be able to negotiate a 20 year ground lease with Walmart. Hmm. Perfect. Uh, from then at that point, uh, Walmart, you know, we, we, it was a ground lease. They do very few ground leases. So they, they came back to us and said, look, we don't really wanna have a ground lease. We would, uh, be very appreciative if you, you would sell this to us. And we said we were gonna have to have a very, you know, aggressive cap rate. Yeah. And we had very good relationship and still do with Walmart. So at the end of the day, we, in round numbers, we, um, we sold them an extra small parcel, uh, and we, uh, we made about $15 million on the deal. So that was, that was the first, you know, big deal like that. And it was, we were in and out of it in less than two years. So the IRR was, was through the roof, and, uh, really launched us to go and do, to do other things. So I was, you know, we worked very hard at it. We were strategic in our approach to it. You know, it's luck involved in all these things. Right. You gotta get paid for the risk too. Right. At the time it was, Well, yeah, the, The loan, you know, everything, you know, the, the, the zoning, right. I mean, you had to deal with a lot. So that's a great story. Go to the flip side, Arnie, tell Oh, no, no. So, so now you tell us about a good win. Tell us about the, the one you wish you never did. You know, the, the, the, let's put it this way, the deals have been pretty good. Some of the partners haven't, So it's the partners, not the real estate. Right. You gotta be careful with both, let's put it that way. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, I, I know you said you, you, you're mostly in California, Indiana, of course, we understand why Indiana, why Florida? Uh, uh, I lived there for about 10 years before I came out here. Okay. So, I, I had the good for Fortune of working for, uh, Mel Sr. And the Assembler company, which, you know, they were, they are, and were the number one retail developer in the state of Florida. They were the Publix developer that took the Publix grocery store chain into the, into, uh, the state of Georgia did very well. Uh, Mel was a wonderful man. Uh, he passed away a few years ago. Uh, his sons run the company now. Right. But, uh, he was a very good role model, uh, very energetic high energy guy. You know, he was a, a two or three time ambassador in the, in both Bush administrations. And he really gave us a, you know, a picture to the world, you know, being down there in South Tampa and, uh, St. Petersburg, That, that's the area of Florida that you concentrate in there. Right. We, we like, we like that area. Yeah. Now, are you actively in the market for new, uh, properties to buy new properties or partner up on deals? Well, we're keeping our eyes and ears open. People bring us things every so often, but I don't have any active deals in Florida right now. Okay. So when you look at properties, do you look based on strategy or opportunity? Well, you know, it's, it's, it's, there's, there's two sides of it. I think it's both because opportunity comes with your relationship. So we're very relationship oriented. So sometimes your relationships will bring you into a deal. Okay. And those are the best kind, especially if it's a tenant. Uh, we have some, uh, quick serve restaurants that have asked us to be their preferred developer. So we're out, uh, you know, looking for sites for them. And, you know, they're, they're generally entitlement, uh, related things to create, you know, the value on the front end and unlock the opportunity. So that's, uh, why they come to us. But those are smaller deals. Um, you know, the, the more institutional deals, that's a whole different ballgame. Right? Right. You, you're going out, you're in a beauty contest. And, uh, you know, may the, may the best, uh, woman or man win in that, that type of a situation. Um, we don't ne necessarily chase a lot of deals that are actively marketed. Um, we're, we're, I think, a little more, um, or a little less risk averse than, you know, some of the institutions. So it More like, you know about the property, you've been tracking it for a while. Yeah. Find the right time to situation to grab it. Yes. And af, you know, and after doing this and, you know, have been involved with, you know, you know, over 400 shopping centers over the years, you, you know, you kind of know the ones that stand out and say, if this one ever falls, or if there's an issue here, we're gonna, we're gonna go after it. So, um, it happens that way. So there's a strategy to it, but it's also, you know, very much relationship oriented. As you guys know, this is a big relationship business. I mean, sometimes you might be tracking a property, but you haven't seen a while. All of a sudden something comes across your desk about it and you're like, oh, you know? Right. Or something Can't pass up on that one. Yeah, that's true. That's exactly right. But Then, so then leading to when you're interested in a deal, you're looking at it, at the end of the day, when you gotta sign your name on that line and put your, you know, equity up there and put stuff at risk, how do you green light it? Are you looking at I-R-R-R-O-E cash flow go? I mean, do you do all the different scenarios and then just after you look at all the numbers, just No, we're not, no. How, how do you make that decision? Well, you know, it, it, it depends on if it's something I'm doing by myself, you know, as the, the, you know, the sole managing member, uh, or the sole member. Uh, there's other deals that, you know, most of 'em, you have investors or partners. So we go through it with our, with our partners and see what they say. But I, you know, I remain the managing member, so I ultimately make the call. Yeah. Uh, if you're doing an institutional deal, you know, you, you only have so much say, right. You're going to be part of a committee, but you're all, you're gonna be able to be overruled. Uh, so then you're, you're collaborating and you're working to collaborate like that. And of course, those, those types of deals are absolutely IRR driven, risk driven, you know, et cetera. Right. And some of the, some of the better deals I've done, uh, one of is our Napa Tahoe project up in, uh, Fairfield, California, fronting Costco. I mean, that, that's myself. And, uh, and another person, uh, Richard Heller, who's since deceased, but his son, Greg, is my partner now. Mm-hmm. And, uh, we each put in half the money. We each did half of the work. We each shared half the profits. Very, very simple old fashioned deal, but there's very little debt. There's two parcels, no debt on one parcel, very little on the other one. And, uh, cash flowed for 20 years. And it was a, it was a nice situation, but it was a very, you know, kind of a fundamental, kind of an old fashioned deal. Right. So the numbers look pretty good before you went in. So do you ever come across where the numbers don't look at, but you have a strong feeling about the location and the future of it, and The numbers. Does your gut, does your gut, uh, get you, or do you Yeah. Typical go by the numbers? Yeah. The, the, the gut, the gut, the gut gets you, and one of the things that we do to eliminate risk, or not eliminate, but reduce risk, or at least make us think we're reducing risk and sleep better at night, is that, you know, from these various positions I've had over the years, we, we, we know all of the tenants or most of the tenants and their brokers, and have those relationships. So when we go into a deal, and it wasn't necessarily the case on the Walmart deal in Marina, but on most other deal, I've got a pretty good idea, or I've spoken with, you know, a handful of retailers that I think are going to be there and have a pretty good idea of what they'll pay. And so we, we, we mitigate things in that manner, knowing that there's gonna be a value creation play with it. That's why we, that's why we buy more distressed properties, more value add properties, uh, because we, we get that, that kind of an up with it, you know, by being able to create value shortly thereafter with a, with a tenant. Right. Terry, the Walmart deal aside, how do you exit deals? I mean, that one just came to you and it was a perfect opportunity for you, but do you know when, why, and how, uh, uh, most of your, your developments, when's the time to exit? Well, there's, you know, that's a great question. And there's, there's several different categories to it. Like recently, we, uh, we sold the, uh, mar we, I'm sorry, we sold the, uh, Rossmore Shopping Center in Walnut Creek. Mm-hmm. We were in that deal for 12 years. It was, uh, sold in April to a terrific group out of, uh, out of South Florida, a fund. And, uh, it was a 60 million plus, uh, sales price. And, uh, we bought it in the mid thirties, uh, and, uh, you know, in, uh, 2012. And, um, it was a long slog, but we, we took a 107,000 square foot, you know, well located community center in a great market, um, increased the GLA by about, uh, 20%, uh, created new pads. And, uh, then we exited that when the capital partner wanted to exit. Uh, you know, and they know this, and the truth be told, we would've like to stay in a little bit longer, but when you're in an institutional deal, you're, you're gonna be pretty well, you're gonna be asked, and then you're gonna be told. Right. That's, and so, but we all know that. We all know that. So you Want a good other deals with them, but most likely, right. So you want to keep That's right. That's right. Now, like the deal I mentioned to you up in the Napa Tahoe project up in Fairfield, uh, we'll never sell that one. So there's some of them we don't want to exit, but one that I think is a round peg and a round hole for the question that you ask. Uh, we bought, uh, up in Citrus Heights, California, we bought a, uh, vacant Patelco bank branch building. It's a smaller deal, but it, it was a, you know, it was a, it was a good return on the deal. Right. And, uh, so we bought a VA vacant, vacant BA bank branch. And during the process, we, we asked our leasing broker who was, uh, Carol Ian, who's a very, very good broker, actually, outstanding leasing broker. And, um, we said, go and explore the market. So she found that, sees candies in that market, uh, had three different operations under three different roofs. Yeah. She, my goodness. We have a 10,000 square foot bank branch on two stories, like who's ever gonna lease that? Great. Got an idea, but it, great corner, great corner. Uh, it's in front of a Merone Geier Center, so in front of one of, you know, Brad Geier centers, which, and they always do do a great job. So we put it under contract and through the, uh, due diligence process, we were able to execute a lease with seizes candies to do a, what we call their flagship store. And so they put all three, uh, properties, all three entities under one roof. So it was a regular retail store. It was, uh, business to business store, and then their back, you know, re backroom regional offices. Wow. And, uh, turned out great for them. It turned out great for us. And so in that case, we knew to exit because we saw, you know, the rising interest rates. Um, our loan was due at the time, which would've further compounded the interest rate, uh, concerns. So we elected to sell it. Uh, if we would've sold it a year and a half earlier, we probably would've sold it at a, at a four and a half cap. Um, we were planning on a four and a half cap, and we, we sold it a, at a, at a, at a five three cap. Ah. So, uh, we didn't, we didn't do as well as we hoped, but we still did. We still did very, we still did well on it for the side. Let's get the Absolute peak. Yeah. But we, but we could have been, it could have been worse. So then we knew it was time to go. 'cause you could see the, you know, the, the, the cap rate environment eroding because of the, you know, the increased interest rates. Right. Excellent. Well, this totally leads into the next question, which is how are your deals structured? I think during these answers, you've mentioned a couple different ways you come up with the equity. So I'm curious if there's a way people can invest with you, you know, the public could come in as partners with you, but also on the le on the lending side. Do you deal with traditional banks? What's your typical LTV? You know, how, how do you structure these deals? Yeah, I mean, we welcome like-minded investors. Uh, we, uh, we, on our Indianapolis deal, we have, uh, we have three other investors on the, on that project, which is the Irvington, the redevelopment of the Irvington Plaza in East Indianapolis. Um, long blighted site that we're, uh, I mean, we're basically buying it for land value. And, uh, it's really, it's very good real estate. Been, been very neglected. Uh, and so we've, uh, rezoned it to allow for about half the site to be high density residential. Uh, we've got a, uh, blue line, uh, you know, uh, transportation stop being put out in front of it. It's along the Penn Sea Trail, which is a very active, uh, commuter trail in, in Indianapolis. And, uh, so that's, that, that, that kind of hits that, that level of it. But we, we go with traditional debt. You know, sometimes we work with our, our friend and your friend Gary Moser on, uh, you know, getting, uh, with IPA getting, uh, debt for us. Uh, he's done a great job over the years. Um, we work with certain groups that are, you know, got a triple net, uh, finance groups on the single tenant deals that we do. Mm-hmm. The other interest rate's a little bit higher, but they generally, uh, take up basically the equity. So we're paying a 10 per percent interest rate. Um, you know, we, we put some of our own money into get an equal 10 pref, but, uh, there's no other equity. So we, we do better on the backend if we can exit fast enough. Right. Um, so those types of situations, we just refinanced a property with Chase Bank, so, you know, very traditional lender. Gotcha. Um, we also work with Kevin Randalls with CBRE up in, uh, Sacramento. And he helps us with, uh, you know, some of our refinancing in the, you know, kind of North Bay and, uh, you know, Sacramento areas. Excellent. So we, we do mostly traditional debt. We haven't done any hard money loans or anything like that. Yeah. Well, hard money has its place. I mean, but yeah. You, you don't need to. Um, so tell us now about some of your current projects, recent acquisitions, and what drives you to look in certain areas. I know we touched on, on Florida a little bit, but more concerned about some of the current projects you have, like for example, the one right behind you. Yeah. Scott Valley, of course. Don't forget that. Let's stop. Forget Scotts Valley. That's a deep project. So, so this one, uh, this is the, uh, basically the second phase, the Walmart Center down in Marina, California. Uh, we're working with the city right now to, uh, get, obtain a, a zoning overlay to allow for high density residential. Uh, the site is considered one of the top coastal, um, residential development sites. You can see in the background, you can see the, uh, Monterey Bay. Mm-hmm. We're next to the Marina Public Library. We're next to the Lock Padden park. And I'm Gonna, I'm gonna lay over the photos, you know, the, uh, PDFs that you provided so people see the different maps and everything, so, okay, Good. Thank you. And, um, you know, you've got a, a, a 92,000 square foot division one Walmart with a food pharmacy, and so it, it, it lends itself to a, uh, you know, a neat residential project. We were working, uh, a few years ago before the market changed, uh, with a, a national developer to partner with us to do, uh, 265 apartment units, of which, uh, 20% would be affordable by, uh, by, by regulation. Right. Uh, now it looks more like about an 80 town home project with maybe, uh, you know, 40 or so. Uh, we're gonna beef it up a little bit on the workforce housing on an, on a adjacent parcel. So we're getting a little pushback from certain members of the city there. They know who they are. Uh, most of the community, um, supports us, uh, vastly supports us in changing the zoning to give us the zoning owner for Lay. And we're negotiating a local coastal permit, uh, amendment right now to allow for this second phase to be about, uh, 80 market rate, uh, middle market, I would say also, which is important in, in that market, um, of town homes. Uh, plus, you know, about, uh, 30 units, 30 to 40 units for, for affordable. So we're very excited about that. It's land I've owned for quite some time. That Was my next question. You own the land and you're gonna partner or sell it to the developer? You choose? Well, uh, we, we own the land. I have one, uh, one, uh, I would say minor partner by level of investment, but major partner by level of, uh, skill, intelligent and effort. A young, a young man that's, uh, making his way very strongly in industry. And he wanted to partner up. So we brought him in. And, uh, uh, I'm not sure if we're just gonna do an outright sale, ground lease or joint venture. Most of the people we've been talking to have been joint venture. Yeah. Um, it's also fully in, it's also zoned for hotels. So if anybody seeing this that wants to be by the Monterey Bay that, uh, be interested in that, I don't think we'd use the whole site. It's about six acres. Craig Sullivan, you listening to this? Yeah, there we go. Craig, watch, watch. You probably know somebody wants to put a hotel up there. Well, team, I'll owe you another commission. Oh, yeah. Oh, me, me on that one. That, that's my Okay. You've already, already, and, and we'll, we'll, uh, we'll promote the living daylights out of it, but, uh, so there is an opportunity there to maybe do a mixed use there. I think the, you know, I think the, the, uh, common ground with the city will make it some sort of a mixed use project is they're, you know, they're hunting for more sales tax revenue and TOT tax. Right. Um, but it's a, you know, it's a great community. It's a growing community. If you were to go down and see what they've done on the fort or military base and what Sha Homes and Scott Negre and some of these other people have done down there, it's, it's fantastic. It really is fantastic. What's The income in that circumference? It is a, it is very mo it would be, uh, moderate. I'm, uh, probably about a 85, 90,000 average household income. You still have a, you know, you've been part of that base is a lot of, uh, you know, retirees that are still around from the days back in Fort Ord. Uh, you know, there, there's a new VA hospital there, which, which takes care of those, those wonderful men and women and, um, some new hotels on the Fort Ord military base as well. But when we compete with somebody, there, again, we don't have a prevailing wage. And as you go south from, uh, Fort, or we're just north of Fort Ord, but you go south of Fort Ord, there's a, a huge water deficiency there. And we have ample water to do hotel, retail, multi-family, whatever it might be. I know. It's beautiful area. I know, uh, uh, Jeff Davi, who used to be the, uh, uh, real estate commissioner and his, his, I think his whole family is down there in Monterey. Mm-hmm. They know that whole area. Yeah. Scotts Valley. Gotta go, gotta go to Scotts Valley now. Tell us about that. Okay, well, we'll, we'll move up the coast now to Scotts Valley. There You go. Santa Cruz County. Uh, as I'm sure you guys are aware, as far as Northern California goes, we've got some very, you know, upper scale markets, especially with, you know, places like San Jose, Los Gatos, Palo Alto, seems like that. But, uh, Santa Cruz County has some of the higher apartment rents, uh, in the state. Um, so the city of, uh, Scotts Valley, we, we met these people, uh, at an ICSC conference, uh, that I spoke at, and they came up and, uh, we became acquainted after, after the, the panel. And they asked me to come up and take a look at their project. Um, there's a city manager, uh, mal Lago, and, uh, uh, Derek, Tim, the mayor. And this is a, this city really has, its, its act together. This is great leadership. Uh, they're fun, they're friendly. Uh, and this has been in the worksheet for 28 years. So this group is the one that got it over the goal line. They have, uh, significant funding in place. In fact, we were actually on, on site last week, uh, for a press conference, uh, with, uh, congressman, uh, Jimmy Panetta, who, uh, raised, arranged for a million dollars in federal funding, uh, to kick off the Scotts Valley Town Center On Tuesday afternoon. The city of Scotts Valley celebrated the groundbreaking. The city has secured $1 million in federal funding to help pay for the property, which is money that city leaders say will push the project forward. I'm proud that the United States government was actually able to step up and be a part of it, actually provide federal funding to invest in this project that's really gonna help bring this community together. Uh, so huge momentum. Uh, we're gonna, we'll go out for an RFP, uh, this fall. So my, my role in this center, I'm, I'm not an investor, I'm not an owner, I'm not a partner. Uh, our company has been engaged on two fronts. Uh, one to, uh, run the RFP along the side of Malaga, go the, uh, the city manager. And, uh, then we're also curating and be doing the leasing, um, leasing side of the project also. So we're negotiating with some specialty grocers as the anchor tenant now, you know, some key restaurants, uh, to come in. The reception has been, has been fantastic for this project. It's a, uh, California surplus land ax deal. Uh, so we'll have to have a minimum of 300 residences. And, uh, many of the top developers in the country we've already spoken with. And, and generally is, we're not quite there yet. We wanna give everybody a shot at this, uh, this new town center. Right. Uh, we'll be doing a full blown RFP kicking it off in the fall and, and going into full throttle, uh, in the fourth quarter of this year. Once the, um, the, the new specific plan is completed, which is, well, on its way, What are rental rates up in that market? Where, where do you see rates? Well, I would, you know, I Don't want cut out your brokers, but, you know, in there Retail or at residential? Retail. Oh, I think you'll be in the, I think you'll be in the four to $5 square foot range. Gotcha. Nice. Now, So now we're talking about retail and residential. Where do you see the trends of both retail and multifamily going? Well, you know, it's, we, we live in a very cyclical world, in a very cyclical business. And you know, right now retail leasing is about as hot as it's been in, in many, many years. Supply and demand, you know, where we would say is, you know, on our side of it, where we would say, oh, retail's been underbuilt. Uh, some of the capital markets, uh, folks that don't do a lot of retail, uh, especially the residential guys say it's been under demolished. So, Right, exactly. We're, We're the, uh, we're the great grateful beneficiaries of, uh, product type being under demolished. So, um, you know, it, it's, it's hard to find retail deals right now. Yeah. Uh, the, the, the, the, the primary is that it's something that we're, we've actually started a small fund for, is to go out and buy, uh, dark bank buildings, uh, with drive-throughs on hard corners. Right. Dark mass food, restaurants, and dark banks with drive-throughs. Uh, there's, we won't go into our whole business plan, but, uh, if folks want to invest with it on something like that, they're bite-sized deals. And you might, you know, might get a group of guys or girls to come in and, you know, maybe throw in a hundred or $200,000 each, and you go out, you get in and outta these deals in two, two and a half years. And so they're, they're pretty lucrative on, you know, on the smaller side. So that's a trend. I'm seeing those things, you know, there, there were several hundred, you know, grocery store. I, I, um, uh, department store, my god pharmacies on the market a couple of, uh, a couple of months ago. Yeah. So, Right. You know, and Rite Aid, Rite Aid just closed all of 'em down. So that, that's one big one. Yeah. Now a lot of those releases, but, uh, you know, there's, you know, there, there's gonna be opportunities there. And then for people that can, you know, get, get control of them and, you know, have rational sellers, uh, a lot of the sellers, you know, they want a 30 day due diligence in a 15 day close. And, you know, that, that just doesn't work for a, a savvy investor anymore. You wanna be able to come in, get a good idea who the tenant is, or have a tenant in tow. And, you know, we don't get every deal that we go after, but we close on virtually every deal that we, that we tie up. 'cause we, we are able to, um, 'cause we're able to negotiate a little bit more time, then we're able to come in with a tenant. And so at the end of the day, it's better for a seller than to, you know, come in and out with three or four different buyers Right. And start over, and all the legal expenses and all the stress with that and just, you know, give us four to six months and let us figure it out. And we generally do. And that, that's what happened with the, uh, you know, the seas candy deals up in, uh, citrus Heights Co. A couple issues that, you know, we've been hearing about, you know, challenges. So in the retail sector, especially if you're turning around properties and have to spend money on construction expenses, but insurance and costs on the construction side, how, how are you seeing those issues right now? Well, you know, I think it, I think it's the fundamental, uh, it, it, maybe a lot of people won't want to hear this, but I think it's the reality and the fundamental, uh, twists and turns that we're seeing, you know, in our industry is that on the contracting side, it's, it's ridiculously expensive. Um, and what we've heard from a lot of the contractors, it's like, we're not giving it back. You know, meaning that they felt like the developers had made a lot of money over the years and they want a bigger piece of that pie. And there have been times where they needed the work, or their subs needed the work and they needed something to do. And, uh, you know, it, it makes it more difficult to get, get things done. So it has slowed, I think, the pace on a number of things. 'cause a lot of deals don't pencil, uh, you know, like you wanna build a, you wanna build a Starbucks, right? Well, you, you'll, it'll never cash flow unless you put in a hundred percent equity. Most people don't want to put in a hundred percent equity. And so everybody goes to Starbucks with a ground lease and they're like, well, we don't wanna build it. So it's like, we don't wanna build that now Starbucks, you know, and there are, we've done a lot of their deals and they're great friends, but they've slowed down, you know, for a variety of reasons. Uh, and that's one of them. That's one of them. Oh. And then with insurance, uh, the insurers, it's a, it's a national phenomenon. I mean, you look at all the people that, you know, have moved to Florida and moved to Texas and said, oh, it, its cost of living's, lower cost of, uh, uh, housing is lower. Well, the insurance company said, perfect. There's my opportunity. Exactly. Yeah. And so that's what we're seeing. So there, that's, that kind of started more on, in Florida and other places on the East coast and, and it's come back out here now, we've had all the, you know, you get into the fire insurance and those types of things. Oh, I hear. Yeah, you're definitely, Which is horrific, but it hurts projects and you know, it, what it, what it does. I mean, fundamentally, those higher insurance costs we have to pass through to the tenants. And, uh, you know, depending on how your camera language is, is written, you either, you either are hurt by that or the tenant's hurt by it. But what ultimately happens is you end up getting less rent on your new deals because your triple nets are higher. Right. Right. The tenants look at, they're all in occupancy cost. And That's, that's the leasing challenges that are coming up right now. I mean That's right. You're definitely having that. Uh, where do you see rental rates going? Do you think they're gonna stay steady? They think they're gonna go up? Do you think they're gonna kinda come down a little bit? Well, I think in this environment, I'm very bullish on retail rents, and I think they're going to go up and continue to go up because of the supply and demand aspect. Okay. I think that the re the, uh, restaurant chains and the very good restaurant chains really figured things out during COVID. Yeah. And they used that knowledge on how to be more efficient with their operations. You'll see most restaurants now, they, you know, more, more pickups, more, more deliveries, less people in the restaurant itself, the Minimum wage didn't help. That didn't help at all. And we knew that with Newsom doing that, it was gonna, it was gonna hurt that industry. Right. Make More efficient. You know, you, you, you know, it's hard to get involved with that and say, well, these people shouldn't be paid this much money or this and that. But, you know, for the better operators, it seems like it's working out. I mean, you'll see in a, you know, a Chick-fil-A window or an in an out burger, uh, window, $25 an hour or something like that. And because they're great operators, it, it works. So, you know, it's a fundamental thing about, like, everything else are you, are you really good at, good at what you're doing? Um, so, you know, it's a variety of things. It's a variety of things. Are there any other states? You mentioned Florida, Indiana, Midwest. Are there any other states you're not in now that you'd like to go into? Well, as I, you know, we're opportunistic. I think if, um, opportunities came around in other markets, we'd take a look at 'em. But I, I think really, you know, it's a very competitive, very mature industry. We're not, we're not in tech, you know? Uh, so I think that, um, it, it, it's, it, it plays better for us and for our investors to focus on the markets and the, and the, and the people that we know and to be better, you know, be better in those markets, go deeper in those markets, and, uh, use that expertise and relationships to your advantage. What areas do you consider challenging, or what areas do you consider better places to develop right now? Well, you know, if, if you, you know, in California you rarely, unless you make a mistake or you lose a tenant, a major tenant as a surprise, you rarely do poorly on an investment, especially in Northern California. I mean, we've, we've seen, you know, rents and prices and things continue to, you know, expand in Northern California, you go to the bigger cities. I mean, you go into West la uh, that market, it's never gonna be down. You know, it's, it's always, it's, you know, Steve, I mean, you, you live down there. It's always good demand. And, you know, I used to say when I would try to find a deal, you know, at, at Sepulveda and Pico or, you know, uh, uh, Santa Monica and Wilshire, you know, something like that, you know, it's like you're, there's families that are, you know, there's a hundred families, four generations deep, all been trying to get those, those sites, you know? Right. Yeah. We have a lot of individual stores and restaurants that have gone dark, you know, that have been here forever. But that's not the real estate. You know, that's different things that have Well, But it does affect the real estate, right? It affects the real estate. And what's the repurposing of it? And that's, see, that's what I think is the, the fun and exciting approach about this is how do you repurpose, you know, these, these different buildings, right? Because there's Nothing wrong with those locations. It's the challenges of the operating those businesses, you know, now that were, that were the tenants. Um, alright. I think we've covered a lot in real estate. We've got a few minutes left. So Yeah, let's, tell me a little, tell us a little bit about starting the podcast. Yeah. Tell us about the podcast. Tell us about the podcast. 'cause I know you lo you know, we gotta know about that a little bit. Watching you do those is great. The moment Lee Cor, that was awesome. So how, how'd you start doing that? What, what, what got you into that? Give us a couple minutes of that. All right. So This is the, this, this, uh, this Plug for Talent time. All right. Well thank you for that. I appreciate that. We'll work you into one of our podcasts too, but, But save time for charities. You're working for. So tell us, you know, tell us about the podcast. So the, the fundamental side of it, it, it, it came out of, uh, came Outta Love and, uh, love for my alma mater and for football. So, uh, wonderful man by the name of Tom Brew, who's one of the top, uh, sports writers in the country. He, uh, currently is with Sports Illustrated. He covers the, uh, the Tampa Bay Rays now and, uh, Indiana basketball, Purdue basketball, and many other, many other things. He, uh, a couple years ago, he was the sports illustrator writer for the, uh, Tennessee Titans. Uh, so Tom, this was the early days of NIL. And, uh, so Tom had put together a, a podcast with two young men at, at Indiana, uh, middle linebacker, the name of Micah McFadden, who's the, uh, starting middle linebacker now with the New York Giants, right. Uhhuh, uh, Michael Pennix Jr. Who you've probably heard of. Sure. Star at Indiana and then Washington, and now with the, uh, Atlanta Falcons. Right. Um, Micah had actually won my scholarship. I've been for 15 years, been giving out the Terry Talent Football Leadership Scholarship. And so they give it to, you know, one of the leaders, but one of the better players on the team every year. And Micah won that. So Micah and I known each other a little bit. And so for the Mike and Micah podcast, Tom asked me if I'd be a sponsor, and I said, of course. So I came on one, he said, well, you're gonna be in town for this particular game. Why don't you come on the show with Micah because he won your scholarship and all this and that, so that that's still, it's still on the, you know, it's still on on YouTube. Yeah. So, uh, we went on the show and he said, Terry, this was our highest rated show so far that, that you were on once you get back and do another show. Yeah. We did another show and it got good rating. So, you know, and I, I love doing this. I think being in front of a camera, I think it's fun. It's a challenge. And, uh, I, I really enjoy it. So we talked about it. He says, well, why don't we do a, a podcast series and we'll do sports, leadership, philanthropy and business. And so we, we covered a number of different bases with that. And we've done, you know, coach Corso, uh, we did a, uh, one that came out terrific, but it was terrific because of our guest, uh, which is Angelo Pizo. Hmm. And, you know, Angelo Pizo was the writer and director of Rudy Hoosiers. You know, Hoosiers is considered the greatest sports movie ever. And Angelo is a, a dear friend. He recently did the All American, uh, which was a also a very good, uh, movie about Darryl Royal. Right. And a man that, uh, that had, uh, I think he had cancer and, and died on that team. Um, but, uh, you know, and he's telling us stories about Gene Hackman and, uh, you know, all of these guys. And so it's, uh, that was great fun. But, uh, so Tom and I did that. We've got about 15, uh, episodes in the Can. We've done some with nonprofits. We did one for a, a wonderful homeless facility. We've got more planned. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. You got some in the can too, you know. Yeah. That's why I told you, Steve, we gotta get Guys, make a good, uh, team together. We gotta keep up. Let's do it. We could do a tripartite. Uh, there You go. What you guys are doing is fabulous. Also, I want, I want commend You can Talk about lightweight football on the East Coast. You know, I play lightweight at Cornell, So Oh yeah. There's no lightweight football. They all, everybody Has not the such thing. I'm a I'm a fan, not a player. Um, but anyway. So tell us a little bit about, more about your personal interest, your, your charities. We know you're an Indiana fan as far as college football, but any professional sports fans of, uh, that you follow? For example, you know, you're, you're in San Diego, or you're up in the Bay Area? I'm in the Bay Area now. We were, we were down in, uh, Rancho Santa Fe for, uh, a number of years. And then, uh, I've had a home in Mill Valley for about 30 years now. So we, uh, we came back up here, uh, during COVID, uh, which was kind of an odd time to move to the Bay Area. You could do a lot more. Yeah. San Diego, of course. So do you follow the 49 ERs, the, uh, uh, the Golden State Warriors? I mean, are you kind of like a local, or you're kind of based, where you grew up in, in Ohio, you more of a, uh, Cincinnati red fan or something? Well, You know, I think when you, you know, I grew up with a big red machine, so this was, okay. Yeah. Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Tony Perez, Sparky Anderson, you know, all of those guys. So, you know, those memories were always there. It was fabulous. And then my, uh, my father, um, when we were young, so I was probably eight or nine years old then when, you know, the Bengals, you know, came to town and were at Riverfront Stadium. So he had season tickets for those games. And, you know, back in the days of Kenny Anderson and that Bill Bergey and that, that kicker horseman, we thought Horseman was a cool guy when you're a little Yeah. Great name. And, You know, he was German. Right. And, uh, so I like that. Um, and I, you know, I lived in Tampa, as you guys know for a while, and I, I really liked the Bucks when I was there. I thought what, uh, you know, Tony Dungy had done there. And of course, what John Gruden, you know, took it to, to a new level, uh, was fantastic. Um, I was There when McKay was the coach. That's right. John McKay was down there, and, uh, he was quite a character. Oh yeah. He was, he once picked up dinner for us, we're having dinner, and all of a sudden, this guy over there wants to to buy you dinner. We go, what do we do? They go, he said, because we gave up our table for a bigger party. So he thought that was nice. So he picked up our, our, our whole dinner, which was fabulous. And they gave us the game the next day. He was a, he was a neat, he was a neat guy. He, uh, he actually lives next door to one of my, uh, one of my old girlfriends down there on Bayshore Boulevard. And so Oh really? I met him a few times and, uh, I'll never forget that classic line when I, I think that hit that, uh, winning list season. They said, coach, what do you think about your team's execution? He said, I'm all for it. Alright, well, to to close, you know, I know you're involved in different charities, nonprofits, you know, different groups, burn Moores and spend a couple minutes telling us about, you know, some of the things you're doing to give back to the, to the industry. Well, thank you. Thank you. Uh, you know, mentorships, uh, a big part of it. Um, and I do mentorship with, you know, former, uh, student athletes at Indiana. And it's not just football players. We have young ladies, or young women, I guess you would say, that we, uh, help with their, their climbing the ladder in the business world. Um, you know, if you're, if you're a, if you're a student athlete, it's, it's a big advantage to you. 'cause you really understand resiliency and, you know, getting knocked down and, you know, multitasking and time management and those things. Right. Um, but the charity I'm, I'm really, uh, focused on right now, and it's a great one. It's called the Positive Coaching Alliance. Mm-hmm. And, uh, it's a, a, uh, a a a group of individuals from the Bay Area and San Diego, uh, Brad Geier actually, uh, was the founder of Coaching Corps down in, uh, San Diego, and they merged with PCA and, uh, now it's a much bigger group. And so we, uh, we go into predominantly inner city communities and we hire coaches. We pay and hire coaches to come into the school systems where they're deficient. So you can give some of these kids that don't have the same advantages, uh, you know, a, a real shot at it 'cause they're professionally trained coaches, and the coaches such an important, they're not only trained in Texas bow and batting swings, but it's resiliency, it's life lessons, it's team, it's family. Right. Those types of things. And you know, the punchline is, is that sports is the great equalizer. Yeah. So if you can get out and get that scholarship and get into a better area, a better lifestyle, then that is so important. And so they're doing that at that level to give these kids a chance to ideally, you know, see things and get a better opportunity. And then where I try to come in with it being through that environment of, you know, being a student athlete with a scholarship and getting a great education, uh, because of that scholarship, that now what I try to do is help them with exposure. Because the, some of these, you know, these like that old saying, you don't know what you don't know. Right. But, you know, you can shave years off of a young person's learning curve as they're out there, you know, trying to make their way and, you know, write their own script by saying, well, maybe you don't do it this way, but you do it that way. And I remember when this happened to me, or this happened to my friend over here, why don't you, you know, you talk to a Brad guy or you, you know, you, you, you talk to somebody like that that can help you and give you some advice on how to avoid the pitfalls, but also find, uh, you know, how to get more wind behind your sails. Yeah. Uh, that's fantastic. So valuable. Really, Jerry, it was great to meet you. Great to know you. Right. This was, uh, this hour went by faster than I think any of the other ones we've had. I know our audience, you know, people watch it all the way through. They're gonna get a lot out of it. You really share a lot. I, i, I think it's gonna be really helpful to a lot of people. So hopefully you enjoyed it too. You said you liked doing these, that they're fun. I, I thought it was great, man. I, you know, this is what I love live for, so, uh, it's definitely a labor love for me. So thank you again. Thank you. This Is great. Thank you for having me. You, you, you real, you guys are first class all the way and I'm, I'm very grateful for the opportunity. Well, we'll get you in a year when we get, can update us on, uh, on the project and some new stuff. Do Alright. Maybe you'll come to one of our conferences too. I will. I'll, I'll come to another one. I've been to some of them. That's right. Perfect. Thank you. Take care. Thank sir. Bye. Take care. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1138312637.txt b/data/transcripts/1138312637.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a27e54
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1138312637.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, hey. Welcome to the next episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, where we have what we hope to be compelling, interesting, and informative conversations with leaders in the commercial real estate industry, iconic figures who own big portfolios of commercial real estate. And we're excited about today's show. We have guest Chris Tolo, managing director with TER Development as our guest. But before we start the show, let me introduce my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie. How you doing? Hey, how you doing Steve? How's it going? Good. How things with you? Pretty Good. Not bad. You know, just chugging along. Holiday season, Halloween coming up. Anyway. Great. Well, uh, tell us a little bit about All Star Group before we get Into. Well, all Star Group started in 1995. Uh, we are a, uh, commercial real estate lending company, but, uh, more than that we put do events and the events have taken more of our focus, uh, commercial real estate lending conference, the commercial Real Estate Lending Expo and the Lawmakers forum. So, uh, yeah, we put a lot of people together. We do a lot of interactive events where you meet lenders and they, uh, um, get to know who you are and you can submit loans to them live. So we got a bunch of 'em every year. Um, you know, April in Long Beach, uh, Laguna Beach is in, uh, like August, and then we're doing one up in San Francisco in November. So that's what we're doing. Excellent. And I think many of you watching Will know Rent tv, our 25-year-old media company for the commercial real estate industry. We've got our main website providing news and information on a daily basis. We also put on five conferences a year. We've got, uh, San Diego our next one end of January. Uh, we've got this, uh, video platform, the review, where you're watching this show, uh, and we've got a lot of things, uh, uh, other things on the horizon. Uh, so with that, Arnie, our next piece of business, well, we Gotta talk about the sponsors. Without them, we couldn't do this Great companies that make this show happen. Uh, so let's get into, uh, the sponsors. The first one is a great, great supporter of Rent tv. Uh, and that is Chase Partners. Uh, they are, like I said, been a long time supporter of Rent tv, and now they've been sponsoring the show, uh, 'cause they want to get, uh, a new message out. Uh, they want the audience to know that Dave Parker, one of Southern California's leading developers and investors of industrial properties throughout Southern California for 30 years. Well, now they wanna let people know about their strategy, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties, uh, with non-performing debt. So if you're an owner, lender, or broker that needs a fast decision and a fast close, uh, want to get an opinion from someone who's done this for decades, uh, contact Dave Parker or Chase partnersDavid@chasepartners.com. It'll come up on the screen, David, at chase partners.com. Tell him you heard about it on this show. Who's next? Arnie? Our next, uh, sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage Lenders is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate. It was founded in 1971 by Chuck Herson. Uh, it is known for its unique terms, fast fundings, no prepayment penalty and fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McClain at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3 Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Alright. And, uh, now, uh, the, the last one we'll mention, uh, and with the change of seasons critically important, especially with those first rains, uh, but in Southern California, the other sponsor of our show is commercial real estate inspectors, like I said, in Southern California. They're skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information, easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively, uh, and simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Simington, her info's on the screen. Book your next next inspection today. Tiffany Simington, 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Alright, well, let's, uh, welcome our guest, Chris Tolo, managing director at LA Development. Chris, uh, welcome to the show. Welcome. Thank you. Yeah, Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to it. Good, good. Great. We gonna get, we're gonna get to know you pretty well, so, uh, amazing. We've Got a lot to cover because, uh, you guys are active and, uh, spreading your wings a bit. So we've got a lot to cover, a lot going on. So let's jump right into it. Why don't you give our audience an overview of LA and any other business you may be involved in. You know, like the portfolio size, the sectors you're in. I, you know, I've known you all these years for multifamily, but I know that's, uh, that's evolved as well. So, um, you know, how many units, give us a little overview. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, uh, we're based in Marina del Rey, uh, Los Angeles. We've got about 45 employees at Lara. And we've really, we've got two verticals. Uh, the first is multifamily and the second is self storage. Uh, on the multifamily side, um, you know, probably fair to think of us as like one of the most active, you know, investment development companies, you know, in, in the Southwestern us. We've got, I know I Have. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. We've got about, we, we built over 3000 units. Yeah. Um, and you know, so, so for example, we recently completed 573 units in Burbank, uh, with, with our, with our partner Quadri, British Columbia Investment Court. Um, and that's in lease up now, uh, in August we lease 63 units. It was great. Um, it's an amazing project. We can come back to that. Um, we've also got Project 246 units in Los Fila. We have projects in Santa Monica, west Hollywood, Mar Vista, marina Del Rey, echo Park, you know, orange. We, we built and sold in Orange County in San Diego. Um, Riverside, we have 228 units, kind of a, a a two story walkup product. Um, we, we sort of, we, we went sun belting, uh, when COVID hit that as we expanded just out of our region. And so, um, we currently have 344 BTR units, um, in development in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A great market. Um, we'll be completing first units very soon. Um, that's, that's a great project. That's the largest opportunity zone site in the state of New Mexico residential opportunities zone site. Yeah. So that's a big one we Built to rent, right? BTR built to rent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bill to rent. Yeah. Right. Um, we've got, you know, projects in Dallas and, and Sacramento and, and, you know, a couple other things, cooking in other markets. And so, um, that's the residential sector. We've done a lot of development, uh, lately, you know, we found opportunities to buy existing multifamily assets typically for less than replacement cost. We can talk about that. Yeah. Um, and so, so, um, that is to say that in addition to building and developing, we're also buying existing assets. Um, and then on the, on the self-storage side, um, we have a, a, a self-storage company. Um, we've got, geez, about, I don't know now, 1.5 million square feet of storage across, you know, 12, 13 deals. Um, and, and, and a lot of that's in development. Some of it's existing. Um, we have a big Australian investment bank as a partner who committed 300 million to our self storage development venture. Um, we went on to hire the head of development from public storage in the west coast, the, the, you know, the largest storage rate in the world, right? Sure. Um, he runs our storage division and we've hired other storage people, both from public storage and other, other, uh, storage, you know, developers and operators. And so, um, so we've got the storage company and we're very active there. We're now acquiring existing storage assets as well. Um, you know, where we think they're under, you know, mismanaged and we can bring rents to market and do some. And, um, so, so we're doing that as well. So those are the two verticals, residential and storage. Okay, good. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah, that's great. And, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I little bit about you. Your dad's, uh, started the company way back when, and you came in. Um, how did you get into real estate other than being a family business? Yeah, yeah. I'll tell the story and I'll correct a couple pieces of that too. Um, so I'm just a kid from Littleton, Colorado trying to make a Oh, Really? Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah. So I'm from Littleton, Colorado, but yeah, I, uh, uh, I, I went to school at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California. Ah, um, when I, when I was younger, my parents, my parents, my dad went to du University of Denver, uh, parents split up when I was young, was young. He moved out here. I stayed in Colorado with mom, um, and, you know, both remarried, which is amazing. And, and, and then I went to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. Great, great school. Loved debt, great school. The learn by doing mentality, um, really, really worked well for me. And I ended up, I got an internship right out college, um, at PGM, uh, which is the real estate Private equity, uh, division of Prudential Financial. Right. Um, and at PIMI started as an analyst and I was on the acquisitions team, you know, all product types, office, you know, data centers, industrial, multifamily, and, and ultimately, you know, moved up the ranks, became a director at PIM. Um, when I left, uh, I was overseeing our development activity, multifamily development activity in the Western us. Um, and, and that was a great experience. Meanwhile, uh, my dad founded Lara in 2000, uh, 2009 coming outta the GFC. Um, prior to that he was in real estate as well, and he's had a long and an amazing career. And, and, but anyway, so, um, I came down in 2015, um, you know, got, got the call and Hey, Chris, you know, you should come down and join the family biz. And at the time I called it the 30 year interview. I was 10 years ago, so you could do the math and figure out my age, I guess. Um, but yeah, Lara, you know, prior to my joining, Lara was, uh, buying, buying land deals from banks, um, you know, that had foreclosed on other, you know, developers and, uh, completing construction and buying land and processing entitlements and selling, you know, selling subdivisions to public and private home builders and doing some development as well. Um, and, and so I came down in 2015, and at that juncture, um, you know, we really launched the multifamily development platform. Right. It was the right time in the cycle. And, and, and we started, I'll tell this story. Um, we started with a deal in, in Santa Ana. And my, my task, my first task was to find the capital for this deal. Ah, yeah. Um, and the background, so, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. I knew, I knew how, you know, exactly, I knew how capital wanted to see deals presented. Mm-hmm. Um, and because I was on the other side of that. And so for this deal, I think the capitalization was about 70 million. Um, and, and we went out and, and, and basically the longest short of it is we got a hundred nos. Um, you know, we found the loan, but then, you know, we got a cog P because, um, you know, at the time, right, we had to, we had to sign on lender guarantees and certain net worth and liquidity requirements, and the loan was not small. Um, and, and so we got that piece, but we're trying to get the equity and I, we literally got a hundred nos, right? And, you know, props to my dad. 'cause he kept saying, you know, every no gets you closer to a yes. Um, you know, stay committed. Like, you know, and, and obviously that's true assisting. And, um, you know, and so really with, with unwavering persistence, um, eventually, you know, we got a yes. And, and it was interesting, um, the story from there, you know, the, we were thrilled, right? The, probably the, the person next door could hear me, uh, you know, yell with joy when we got it in the office. And, but then, uh, we get an email, like, we got the term sheet. Oh, we signed the term sheet. And then I got an email like a week later, he's like, Hey, Chris, we went and we saw the site and we're a pass. Um, and not only that, I don't think you'll ever be able to get this deal done. Um, and that was because the location was a little periphery at the time. Um, and, and, you know, and so at that point I was like, you know, I wanted to just quit. But it, it also sort of gave in me like a new sense of, uh, gotta prove this guy wrong. Like, this is b******t, you know? So, um, so then, you know, it got, got even more committed to doing it. And maybe 10 nos later we found the group that said yes. Um, and we did the deal. And, and you know what? We ended up building it for 70 million and sold it for 101 million. Um, and it was, it was a, it was a great deal for us. Um, and that's, you know, a little more than the question you asked me, but it's sort of a cool story. No, that's okay. You covered like seven questions. I have a follow up. During, before you joined with your dad, were you in the back of your mind thinking, you know, at some point we will join forces or Yeah, just randomly happened with your experience and what he was starting and he convince you? It's a good question. I would say that it was in the back of my mind. Yeah. Um, you know, and when I was in high school, I interned for him. He was, he was a, a, a home builder building single family homes in Southern California, mostly San Diego. And, um, I interned there. In fact, my first internship, I was actually like, I think I was like picking up trash on the job site. That was sort of weird, but, um, well, that's how everybody starts. Yeah, exactly. And then I, and then I was in the office, you know, doing whatever. But, um, you know, and then, and then, you know, when the GFC hit, um, you know, that, that, you know, home building business, the music stopped. Right. Um, and, you know, but you know, he, he made it out, you know? Okay. But, um, still like that, you know, that period of time observing that, you know, I, I, I, I got to sort of see firsthand how tough that was for anybody in the business. And I had just started at PGM and, you know, it was tough for, for everybody. Um, but no, I mean, and, and as the market sort of, you know, picked up and, um, he pivoted, um, a bit and, and, you know, founded Lara in 2009 and, um, you know, things started going, going well. Um, you know, that the idea, you know, percolated up, you know, in a big way. And yeah, it was, it was good. Well, I, I, I think you answered my, my next question with your previous answer about that, the first deal that really took you to the big time. Yeah. 'cause it sounds like that that was it. So let me ask you, when you look back on all the deals you've done so far, is there one major standout project that you're most proud of? Well, I Think it might be that one. Um, not that I don't want to tell a talk about a different deal, it's just that one with a hundred and whatever, 10 nos or whatever, right? That, that, not only did we find the money, but we, we, you know, it, it, it was a very profitable deal, right? Yeah. Um, you know, that, that I'm very proud of. I'd say, I'd say, um, I love all of my deals, like my children the same, you know what I mean? They're Like children, you can't love it More. And I, and I have two, I have two kids, and I love 'em the same. And I, you know, I feel that way about, about our 30 deals or whatever, but, um, you know, it's, it's, I'm very proud of our deal in Burbank that we just opened Intro Burbank. 'cause it's, Yeah, I, I'm familiar with that. My, yeah. My daughter lives right up the street from That's A great little video. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. You saw it cool. I did. Yeah. Yeah. 573 units. Um, it's big. It took a long time to get approved, you know, very difficult to get stuff done in the city of Burbank. Right. Um, four years, if you can believe that. Four years. I was, I was gonna ask you four years to get approval, just to Get approval. And yet you're doing another one. I know. Yeah. And How, how long did construction take? Well, construction took, um, you know, around three years. 'cause it's big. And there was some, uh, as we did excavation, we had to do Approvals. Took a year longer, Right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Crazy, huh. Right. Yeah. And now we're like in lease up. Like, I like to say, if I had my daughter when I started working on this project, she'd be nine. You know what I mean? That gives you a sense. Um, and so, geez, that's a long time. And that, you know, therein lies the, uh, the supply constraints in our markets, right? Yeah. That you don't see in other markets. But, um, that project's cool. It's got a 40,000 square foot roof deck with five bodies of water. Um, I like to say it's the best roof deck in the country. Big bold statement, but I think it is, it's amazing. Um, so anyway, so proud of that one for sure. What's the Unit mix? It's, it's, well, we've got, you know, I think it's, we've got studios, ones, twos and threes. It leads Threes. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, yeah. And you know what was interesting? At the time when we, when we designed, put three bedrooms in there, there was some question, um, from, you know, folks about like, Hey, should we be doing this? This is not customary. Um, we don't see three bedrooms in the market, or if there are, there's very few, right? I think we did like seven, 8% threes. But like that's, you know, that's like 30 of 'em on a big deal or whatever. Right? Majority would be, the majority would be two plus twos. Correct. Isn't that your Majority are probably ones really Okay. Studios. Yeah. But twos, twos are probably the second most popular. And, um, studios, we have some of those. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but the three bedrooms, you know, as it turns out, because of the, the fires in the, in the, well, to a lesser extent, the Palisades were Burbank, but in Aldina, um, you know, we had a lot of our threes filled up early on from families that needed somewhere to live. And Burbank is a good school district. Um, but, but homes are 1.2 million average home value. So like, it's hard to get in. Yeah. So anyway, so we were able to accommodate, you know, that that demand. Um, and so the threes actually, you know, it ended up leasing faster than we thought, but, um, anyway, so yeah. But it's, it's a great project. And then it's great project. We've got some other cool ones. One connected to Barnsdale Park with a, like where, where there's a, a Frank Lloyd Wright, uh, house. What's the, it's a UNESCO World Heritage site. The only one in LA we're we're directly connected. Really? Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty sweet. That was hard to get approved. Um, we've got two in Mar Vista that are amazing. The only rooftop pool on a wood frame building in West LA and get grants to Charlie Mar Vista, um, you know, right place, yeah. Is another gem. And then honestly, like, I love these, these storage deals are awesome. Um, you know, so I love them. I love our deal in Albuquerque. 'cause it's big. It's BTR, you know, biggest op zone deal in the state of New Mexico. That's amazing. Um, the fries, electronic sites are all cool. Converting them into storage, like in Irving, Texas. Well, That's, yeah, that's, yeah, that's, We sold the land. Yeah. And we sold the adjacent land to HEB grocer, which is really cool. Um, you know, so anyway, it's hard to pick one. You know, they're all, they're all those are some of the examples. I'm I'm sure Seeing how excited you get about it. Yeah, Yeah. No, you, you could see. But I like the integration between the storage and the multifamily, because when you're getting a multifamily, when you're get moving into an apartment, you need storage. And, and even though I, I've seen, you know, I, I saw the thing on your Burbank, uh, you have certain, so your closets are huge, which is another, another thing that, uh, is something that a lot of people don't realize that when you're getting an apartment, but you're gonna need self-storage, and you can kind of cross, uh, reference both of 'em because you, you got a good feel for both. And, and I find that that is, is a really good integration between the two. Definitely. A lot of times the same market may not be the same individuals, but Definitely. Yeah. And It's alright. I'm gonna, I'm gonna slide this on. All right. So I love the S Go ahead. I had another question on Burbank, but That's all right. Go, go, Go ahead. You know, love the enthusiast. We'll get back to it on all the positive, all the positive things. So let me see if I could, you know, jump ahead. How about one, one deal that you did that, that you wi you wish you pulled the hook out and threw the fish back in the water? What any, any of those? Let's see. I mean, Those are great learning experiences. They're Great learning experiences. I guess the first one that comes to mind in 2016, uh, we bought a site, we called it Deluxe Hollywood. It was, it was in Hollywood, um, basically on Hollywood Boulevard and Western, approximately. And we bought this site, and unbeknownst to us, it, it was located directly next to this guy who is a, you know, a zealot I guess. But he, you know, basically he and this lawyer litigate projects, you know, for a living. Like, that's what they do. And, and in fact, mostly in Hollywood. And so, um, you know, they try to find these projects and they litigate 'em, and then they try to, you know, se a green mail extract money or, or stop development entirely. Um, I'll say that at LA we've entitled 37 properties in a row with a hundred percent success rate, knock on wood. Mm-hmm. Um, that's one of our, you know, I guess claims to whatever fame if you will. Um, but this one we were worried was gonna ruin our record. It didn't. But, um, you know, we spent a lot of time on this and, and then outcome these guys, and they come to our hearing and they submit a letter, you know, and, and we felt like there was some risk there. Um, we, we had a, an office building that, um, came on the property that we actually, we, we, we fin we converted it and we leased it to Netflix, which was awesome. Yeah. Um, and at that juncture, when we felt the opposition on the entitlements, and we did the lease, we actually, we sold. And, and that ended up being a good decision for us. Um, and, you know, made a little money, but like importantly, um, you know, determined not, you know, not to, we spent a lot of time on this. Right. Um, and so, you know, I look back on that sometimes and say, geez, what a, how much time and energy we put into this, and how stressful it was. Um, but that being said, like the execution was okay, and we figured it out. Um, but, but then I stopped, and I remember that during that process, I actually met people who later became instrumental to our success in many ways. Um, like an architect, you know, Richard Solaris had urban, a architecture lab. He's become a friend. Um, but like, we worked with him and, and through that relationship we met, you know, many other people who later, you know, in, in some way or another were, were helpful to us in our growth and success. Um, and there are other, there are other, you know, areas of our success that I could point to having originated from that transaction. So anyway, so that's a, that's a long answer, but I think, You know, I, I gotta touching on that 'cause you kind of went right into my next question is how do you find projects? Do you get it from brokers, from personal relationships? Do you find it based on strategy or opportunity, uh, off market? I mean, where, where do you find these? Yeah, so we have long tentacles into the market, um, you know, through our, through our relationships. And I think now, like, you know, deals, beget deals, you hear that saying, but like, basically, you know, because we've been so active and transactional, we see more deals. You know, that's, you know, that's the universe, you know, responding. Um, and so I think I, but, but really, no, I think people read about it in the press or whatever, and they send us more deals. And, um, it's, it's, you know, so now we get a lot of deal inflow. Um, but we also have really interesting relationships that have led to deals that are just sort of, you know, surprising. Like one guy in our, you know, in our company goes like standup paddleboarding with somebody and his friend owns a site and he doesn't know what to do with it. 'cause he inherited it and he wants to, you know, understand his options and like, oh, that's a deal. Right? Yeah. Or like, um, just, just interesting relationships. Or sometimes like our architects or, or our consultants will send us deals, right? Like it could be a family biz and, um, you know, somebody's trying to figure out what to do with it, and they hire an architect and that architect goes, Hey, you should talk to these guys. 'cause I'm doing a study for 'em. And it looks like, you know, they want to figure it out. Um, so sometimes it's that. So it's, it's interesting. And then sometimes through brokers, but I mean, we love our broker, the relationships. It's u usually it's not like a fully marketed, you know, household name broker. Um, sometimes, but, but you know, usually it's like, it could be like a specific relationship we have. It's a guy who's like, Hey, like all I do is cover Riverside, or all I do is cover Dallas or whatever. Um, and he runs around and he finds deals and, um, you know, and, and, and we'll show him to us, and obviously we pay him and, you know, it's a good relationship. But those are sort of off market. Um, you know, so that too. Yeah. So I would say relationships and reputation is, is what, where you get the majority of your Yeah, that's a good summary. Yeah. And good looks Say, well, you know, you gotta have that, go ahead, Steve, next Piece of property that you're tracking for a while and you just, it's just been on your radar until the timing comes up every now and then. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. A lot of times we, we say we hang around the hoop, um, and so that's Great. You're In the, yeah, like, like, we'll submit offers on deals and like, we'll be like second or third and like, oh, sorry, you didn't win the deal like somebody else did. And we go, all right, well, like, if they fall out or like retr or whatever, and it bounces back, like, we'll be here. And then a lot of times, like, we get the call like six months old guys, uh, are you still interested? Like, and we're like, yeah, we are still interested, you know, no hard feelings. We don't mind being a runner up. Like, that's fine. You know? Yeah. Um, and we're hanging around. And so, um, yeah, a lot that does happen, uh, fairly often for us. And, and I mean, with all these opportunities you're getting hit with, you know, like everywhere in the, in the different, uh, you know, greater LA markets, how do you then decide to actually green light a deal? I mean, for development, I was an analyst when I worked for developers age as it goes. So the idea of like trying to like do a projection with all the different uncertainties, timing costs, what the rents are gonna be three, five years. Like, you must run a million different projections, right? And then how do you decide, is it IRR return on equity? Is it cash flow go? What, what, what, what is that driver when you're about to sign that deal and there's no going back? Yeah, it's a great question. Every, the profile of the deal, um, impacts this. So we, it's really, it's really kind of the risk adjusted return. And so, um, so we could parse that out between like development and, and like buying an existing asset that has cash flow, right? Uh, in the case of development, development is a pain in the ass, right? But, uh, but it can go really well. But it's also tough. So like, like today, like we want to be, for development, we want to be at least 150 to, you know, maybe 200 basis points above. Um, we wanna return on cost to be 1 50, 200 basis points above the in place cap rate. So for example, we think cap rates in la I'll just make it up our five for storage, let's say, or for multifamily. Um, then we'd want to be a six and a half to a seven on the UNT trended return on cost, right? Or NOI over our budget with no rent growth. And that, um, that's the, that spread is the gravy. So, um, we want a nice buffer there. Um, and then that's that really everything else is just noise, you know, IRR and leverage and whatever. But, um, yeah, and then like buying an existing asset, like with cash flow, that's a little different, less risk. Um, so you don't need the same spread. And we really like at kind of like, Hey, what can we get to, like, what kinda like, stabilized, you know, yield on cost. Can we get to like, once we get, if there's concessions in the market, like those burn off, maybe, um, you do, you do some CapEx like maybe rents are below market if it's storage, 'cause you're buying it from a mom and pop and they don't have revenue management software or whatever, and you're gonna mark rents to market. Like, you know, you kind of look out and say, Hey, look, where are we gonna get to on this thing? Um, you know, so those are kind of the, the starting points for us. Like IRR matters. Yeah. But at the end of the day, for me, it boils down to that. So let me ask you, based on your background as well, this would be a great question. It's, it's my favorite question is how do you finance deals? Do you do Yeah. Equity, you construction loans with takeouts, uh, you know. Yeah. How do you, how do you do it? And today it's harder than it was a few years ago. Um, and next year hopefully it'll be easier, but, um, you know, so rates Rates are coming down, so Yeah. Yeah. So our cap stack, like let's say it's a hundred million dollars development mm-hmm. Um, you know, which is, which is, you know, maybe a regular deal size for us. Yeah. The, you know, we'll get like a, let's say a $60 million construction loan, and that leaves 40 million in equity, right? And then, and then we'll go find a 90, we'll do typically like a 90 10 LPGP ratio. So we'll go to the institutions and in, in some cases, direct to pension funds or family offices, whatever. And we'll look for one 90% partner, right? Let's say, let's say it's a big institutional LP household name, well, they'll put in 90% of the 40 in this example, which leaves four, um, depending on the deal size. In this example, I've just used a hundred million dollar deal size. So the 4 million, um, we'll oftentimes bring in a cog, not always okay, but like maybe we want to bring in a cog for, for 50 to 75% of the 4 million, right? So that they put in two to three and we put in, you know, one to two, whatever. And, um, and that tends to be the structure that we use. Um, why do we do that? Why, why do a code gp? Well, because then you could do more deals, right? Um, that helps and risk. Yep. And that's the, yeah. And depending on Juan's balance sheet, um, oftentimes the cog, you know, depe depends on the person, but like, um, you gotta have a hundred percent of the loan amount is net worth and 10% as liquidity, right? On the balance sheet. So if you're getting a $60 million loan, you gotta have 6 million typically that you're just gonna let sit there the whole time. Well, not ev not a lot of developers either. They, either they don't have it or they do. And they're like, well, I wanna use that for deals. Like, I don't want just to sit there. And, um, so, so you could get a cog who, who has that ability, right? And so, so that's a good model. Now, we don't always use cogs. I gave you a big deal, a hundred million big deal. Uh, there are other deals that are smaller where we don't, you know, where we don't use cogs. And, and that's fine too. And sometimes those are 9, 5, 5 or 90 tens. But, um, but typically it's that way if we're buying an existing asset, um, the structure's not really that different actually. Um, it's just instead of a construction loan, you might have a, you know, a perm loan or a bridge loan at 60 ish percent, and then yeah, they'll sort of complete it that way. So that's kind of how we do it. It's a lot of, it's a lot of work, right? It'd be easier if I just had a billion in the bank and I could just go do deals, but Well, that Would make it everybody's life easier. That'd be so easy. Right? Because You really, it's like different partnerships for each project, basically. Yeah, Exactly. As opposed To like corporate single Asset entity for each one, or, yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's an SPE for each entity. Okay. Um, and that's how we do it. Yeah. And then is there opportunities for, you know, like the public, uh, high net worth individuals to come on and, uh, with you In some deals? In some deals, yes. And we're actually starting to think more about doing that Uhhuh. Um, you know, there, there are some examples of deals where we don't have institutional LPs, right? Yeah. Um, and in fact, um, there's a couple we're looking at right now, you know, doing that. Um, and, and that, you know, that's a good model too, right? Um, I have some friends who are syndicators and they, um, you know, they've done very well and, and they like it. And, um, once You get it rolling, you know, once you get it rolling Yeah, Yeah. Investors, right? It's At the beginning. Yeah. We, we do some of that. And in fact, we hired a guy at our company who is actually specifically tasked with procuring more high net worth individuals and, and, you know, kind of family office type capital for this, right? For that exact strategy. And he is already, he's already doing it. Um, so, um, looking at, you know, bringing in a, a high net worth now to recap one of our deals with this 10 31 money, and that's really interesting. And other stuff like that. So yes, the answer is yes. Okay, Good. Excellent, Steve. Uh, well, I was gonna say, uh, uh, leading through the path of the deal, uh, how do you exit deals? Do you exit deals and, and when and, and, and why? Yeah, so we used to be more of a build and sell shop. Um, and that why were we, I don't know, because that's, that was the profile. It's a lot of that's driven by the capital, right? Right. The, now if you have high net worth guys in there, um, you can hold as long as you deem appropriate. Um, but if you have a 90% institution in there, they can sell whenever they want. And you know what I don't like about that? You could have a, a, let's say you have a institutional LP and, um, the fund managers in New York, right? And, and, and they, you know, one of their investors is a pension fund and goes, you know, it's a redemption. Like, we want our money back, or, or it's at the end of their fund life. They look at a map and they're going, uh, sell this and this and this. 'cause we think, you know, we need the money. You Right. You don't wanna be like at the other side of that if it's in a downturn, right. 6 39. But yeah. And so, and so what we've done is we've tried to position, um, our business in a way where we can hold assets longer term. Um, and, and so now we're trying to hold long term plus it's a lot of work. You go through a lot of work to, to find the land and, and title it and build it, and then like you sell it and maybe, you know, hopefully, you know, you pay tax. That's, you know, no one likes that. We'd rather hold and get depreciation and cash flow and, you know, uh, that's a beautiful thing. So the short is, so in summary, we do both, but we're trying to, we're trying to hold longer term now. Right. But sometimes someone may come along and offer you a deal you can't refuse every, well, that Can happen too. Yeah. That can happen too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, so I wanted to get, uh, talk more about the, the Burbank project, and I wanted to get some more information about your current projects, but I saw the second one you're doing in Burbank, you like being by, uh, transit areas. I mean, that one's near the airport. Yeah. You're Completely changing. Uh, that's a major mixed use, uh, location. So tell me a little bit more about that project and, and compare that one to the other Burbank project Yeah. And any of your current projects that you wanna talk about. Yeah, so absolutely. Um, that's in our fries, electronics, jv. And so we, you know, we have a JV with the, with the Fry family. Yeah. And they put, they put land in and we process entitlement approvals, we get to shovel ready, um, and then we, you know, we'll develop the sites and we've done it in Sacramento. We've done it in Irving, Texas. We've got this big one in Burbank. Yeah. Um, and that's a good structure for us. We're looking at another one with them in a different sunbelt market. So, um, it's really, it's really a great relationship. We're very fortunate, you know, to have that and, and we really like them. Um, but yeah, I mean, we like Burbank, we like, we like being in the media capital of the world. Um, what we like about Burbank is the jobs to housing ratio. Um, there's 160,000 jobs, but only 40,000 households, approximately. That's four jobs for every one house. Um, if you look at the rest of California or the country, you know, most, most, uh, markets operate at like 1.2 jobs per house. If you see one that's like two jobs per house, wow, that's really good. Right? Like Palo Alto or whatever. Yeah. Um, but if you look at Burbank, it's four jobs per house. And so that means there's a ton of, a ton of people, job, ton of jobs, people making good jobs, good money, but they have nowhere to live. And so, um, we're meeting that demand. And so, you know, anyway, so these are the reasons why we like Burbank. Okay, good. Nice. Um, one of the things I wanted to ask, you know, speaking already mentioned the, the transit areas, but, um, the effects of, uh, AB 12, uh, 1287, what did, gimme your thoughts. Yeah. That's the density bonus for Right, right. The density Bonus. Yeah. Um, it's great. We have a project in Marina del Rey that I'll, I'll give you a live example. We got fully entitled for 210 units, um, not far from my office. I can almost see it down the street. Um, and that got fully entitled for 210 units. And then this, you know, this passed, right? This bill. And so we go, geez, should we like, add a level of units and go from two 10 to two 70 and add a little time? And we're like, run the numbers. Yeah. By the way, yes. It adds more affordable, which the city needs and wants, right? Right. But at the same time, um, it's, it's, it's better for the proforma. And we get, and, and the city is in such a housing crisis, if we can deliver another 60 much needed units, um, yeah, we should do it. And we did. And so we, we, we utilized that bill and we add, and we added 70 units and a little more affordable. And boom, here we go. Now we're entitled again. So, um, there's one example of us using it, right? That's, that's a way to take a, uh, uh, make a positive out of a negative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, hey, how involved do you get in the architecture and construction of projects you personally? Um, you know, I like to get involved in the fun stuff and, and, and part of that is fun for me, um, really more specifically, like, um, amenity space programming and planning and like some of like looking at like design, you know, looking at materials and ff and e selection and like, I don't do it. I don't actually do it, but like, we'll have meetings, you know, with our design team, right. Um, where I want to go and I'm like, oh, this is cool. Like, you know, do you like this material, like this tile or this? And it's kind of fun to see it. And usually it's just our very talented people recommending stuff and us saying, this looks great, or, you know, change this maybe, or whatever. But, um, you know, so I, yeah. So like I am involved, you know, in like floor plans. Like I, you know, I like to, you know, see the floor plans, make sure that, you know, they're being designed in a way that we like and, and unit mix and stuff. So some of the key stuff Yeah. But I'm not on like the we every weekly call or whatever. Okay. But yeah, it's good. I think it's, I think it's important. Yeah. Okay. And, and it shows in the results. I mean, I, you know, try to think of a, of a good descriptive word for your architecture, but I think fun might be a good word, you know? Yeah. Fun is a good word. Um, you know, yes, it is. Awesome. Is a good, no, I don't know. I mean, you know, colorful, You know, it's definitely brightens up the neighborhoods there in for sure. Yeah. Well, yeah. Very modern too. Yeah. Modern. Yeah. Like a lot of our smaller lifestyle brand, like the Charlie is a lifestyle brand. Yeah. Um, a boutique lifestyle brand. Those are, are, are kind of like, like a boutique hotel vibe, um, which is really cool. So like that is, that's that brand. Yeah, we do, we do lean into that. Yep. Right. I i we could guess how you came up with the name for, you know, the Charlie, you Could guess, but you might be wrong. Yeah. It's not the dad. Well, what happened is, you know, allegedly we engaged this consultant, right? This, this branding consultant really to come up with a name for our new lifestyle brand. And, you know, you pay 'em, you know, whatever you pay 'em, 20 grand, whatever, I don't know what it is. And, and, and, and they do all this great research and they present to you like 10 names, you know, that they like and why, and the story and the theme, and, and they they do, they're very thoughtful. And then it's like, and we got the one and we're like, okay, what is it Charlie? You know, and you're kinda like, I could have thought of, but I didn't think of it. But then, you know, you ask 'em like, oh, it's Nate. You're like, well, no, actually it's not, um, that yes, that's a cool sort of, you know, connection. They go, but we like it for all these reasons. And they, and they explain and it's cool and it's hip and it's fun and like, you know, this is the thinking and there's, and they, you know, run the searches and, and ultimately like, they're like, it's actually not, but they go. But it is cool. Yeah. Um, so I, I don't know. So there's the answer. You could decide. Yeah. We're not gonna see the Chrises coming out any soon. You're Not gonna see the Chrises coming out any soon? Not yet. Yeah. Not yet. Yeah. No, there'll be, I don't think, gotta put his time in. Yeah. So On back to more serious on the development side, you know, I I I, I've been reading, you know, I, I think we've discussed some things. So the major challenges, you know, you've always developed in the greater LA area, not necessarily the city of la, but surrounding cities. Yeah. So the major challenges today in developing multi-family properties, you know, do doing what you, whether it's interest rates, cost of materials, plans, I'll just let you tell us, uh, you know, and how that's affecting your strategy going forward. Yeah. I think I would say this, I think generally speaking, it's hard to justify new multifamily development today unless you have really three things. Let's say two, let's say at least two of the following, three things, uh, a low land basis, um, you know, is, is of course helpful, um, cost effective design, which to me means above grade parking, right? Um, so not subterranean parking, um, or if you have subterranean, just a smidge, whatever, but like, but you really don't want that and, and high rents. And it's actually hard to have all three. Uh, two of three is good too, but like, really the last two, let's say, um, it's very hard to have a cost effective design and high rents. And the reason is, is because typically, um, you know, when, when you're in an area with high rent, it's because it's more urban infill. And as a result you gotta go below grade with your parking 'cause it's a smaller site or more dense or whatever. Like look around the Marina Delray where I am, like the most of these projects are like below grade podiums, long skinny rectangles. Well, we found a big square in Marina Delray, um, and as a result, we, we did a wrap with above grade parking and the units kind of wrap around it, right? And, and as a result, like that math, like work that math, you know, that math works well. Um, I will say that generally speaking, um, you know, measure ULA, the, the so-called mansion tax, one of the most deceptive, uh, measures of all time, um, is inhibiting new housing production in a big way. Um, it has caused investors to redline la. Um, and, and it's, it's, it's, you know, basically it's counterproductive. Um, and so there are a couple things cook and I think to potentially, you know, reverse that so we can get more housing production. Um, but as I said, you know, the math ain't math thing. Um, I said, you know, and Everything you said is, you know, everyone talks about how we need affordable housing and everything you said and, and how one of the three things you need is high rents. It all is like reverse of what we need to be doing to create more housing. We need More housing. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so that's a, that's an obstacle. Interest rates are an obstacle. Yes. Um, luckily we got a, you know, we got a cut, we got another one, you know, that'll bring the Fed funds right, like below four, that'll be nice. And then, like, we're seeing the five and 10 year treasury now starting with, you know, three handles and that helps and spreads are coming in and all that. But, um, you know, it's, it's, it's still tough, but it's becoming easier to develop, but it's really good to buy existing right now. But that's also, that, that's also becoming more, more challenging. Yeah. So the pendulum is shifting. And again, actually, yeah. How's that affecting leasing? I mean, Lea where are your rent? Where, how's your renter rates going? Are they going up, down? Yeah, same. Our rents are go are strong and leasing activity is robust. Yeah. Lease trade outs, you know, on renewals is, is strong. So, um, I think there's a couple wild cards there. Like, well, first, and this isn't a wild card, this is a, a, a fundamental fact that, um, LA and South, you know, most of Southern California has very, um, you know, good supply demand fundamentals. It's very tough to get things approved, right? Told you about Burbank, um, and markets like Phoenix, Nashville, you know, not to pick on them, there's a whole bunch, um, they got way more supply than us that's all coming online, and they have concession wars and concession hopping and rents are down, and it's actually even getting uglier. Whereas, you know, markets like Chicago, let's use that as an o as an example. Yeah. The opposite. Um, they got no new supply and, and le you know, lease trade outs are six, seven, 8% right now. Um, there, and, and pretty much everywhere rents are growing, you know, four or five, 6%. Same with San Francisco Bay Area, same thing. San Francisco's crazy. Yeah. They're trying to get an apartment right now. It's Yeah, yeah, yeah. In, in la like same, uh, in LA at least the supply demand, demand story is the same. It's very, you know, demand is, is good and supply is, there's, is is thin. Right? Um, I wouldn't say rents are cranking, but like, you know, they're not, it's not getting crushed like these other markets, I'll tell you that. Yeah. Well, how about in the, in the, um, your new projects, where do you get, for instance, in Burbank on a, on a one bedroom or two bedroom? What's, uh, what's the going rate? Well, let's see, on that project, our one bedrooms are getting like, call it like 3,400 Uhhuh, which is good. The two bedrooms. The two bedrooms are like 4,500 ish. So interestingly that, that that gap between the one and two is more narrow than we would've projected. The ones are getting more than we thought. The two's less, but that'll change a little bit. But, um, you know, but yeah, that's an example there. But like every, every market's different. You know, we have stuff out in Riverside, you know, garden style workforce housing, you know, that's different. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, you know, generally speaking, like demand is good. The other thing I, I mentioned a wild card, the, uh, the fires in the Palisades, you know, certainly not the catalyst anybody wanted. Right. However, um, it is a fact that 20,000 housing units were taken off the market and as a result, um, you know, ran and occupancies across West LA were, were buoyed, um, by that, by that unfortunate event. And so, um, you know, I think that's sort of like a little bit of a wild card that's sort of, that's, that's caused the market to do better than it otherwise would have, but yeah, good point. Good. Yeah. Um, well I think you touched on, you know, the demographic of the tenants and everything, but how about the, uh, you know, besides New Mexico, what are some of the other states or regions, other regions of California perhaps, but other states that you may be looking to, uh, to move into on the multifamily side? Well, I'll tell you, um, we like, we like Dallas, we think DFW is a great market. We're already, we've already planted our flag there. Um, we've already planted our flag in Albuquerque. Um, and you know, there's a couple of Phoenix we like, uh, Denver, but it's kind of soft right now. Gotta be careful. Um, you know, market we like, um, and have experience in, through, through my dad's history is, is Chicago. And so interesting. Um, you know, Chicago's a great market, um, and very strong right now, you know, not for develop, not for development, for buying existing. Um, and, and we like the San Francisco Bay area for buying existing for similar reasons, right? Um, you know, so those, those markets are interesting to us. Um, but there's gotta be a really good reason, you know, generally we're southwestern US guys, um, you know, Texas West and along, you know, in the Sunbelt, whatever. But, um, but if there's, if there's a good reason for us to enter into a different market, um, we certainly can very easily, especially. And when you Buy buy, when you buy build properties, are you looking for a turnaround story, you know, something where you could come in and you, you know, improve it? Yeah, a lot of times, but not always. In some instances, yeah, in some instances, um, we're buying existing multifamily assets, um, and it could be like a brand new building that was built in the 2020s, and it's still on the construction loan and it's a good, good developer and borrower, but like, they built it and they're at the end in their construction loan's about to mature. And like if they, they can't refi it out without a big cash, right. That Situation, good Opportunity. And they don't wanna put a bunch of cash in, so like they're a seller. Um, and because we're a developer by trade, um, we actually get a lot of unique inbound inquiries, um, from other developers or lenders or whatever, um, with off market deal flow that that's newer in nature and that does not really require much by way of renovation. Um, but, but, um, we will, yes. And are, um, you know, gonna, you know, buying existing, you know, eighties, nineties, whatever, and put some CapEx into it and uh, or newer and, and sort of renovated. Yeah, we like, it Sounds like it's based on o opportunities than right, than, you know, seeking to go to certain areas. I think that's right. I think that's right. Yeah. I mean, there are markets that we like, um, you know, Maricopa County, you talked about Arizona, like number one population growth market, you know, or county, you know, in the nation or whatever, like the last few years. I mean, that, that says a lot. Like people are still moving there, you know, and drove Well, we just put on our event there, so it's still fresh on my mind. You Did, yeah. Yeah. So, So Chris, you, your main property types are multifamily and self storage. What about light industrial? Do you get into that sector? Is that something that No, We try not really stick to the two verticals. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Resi and storage is, is keeping us very busy. Um, so we've been sticking to that, um, you know, mostly, yeah. Okay. Yeah. What, what are the trends you see in that, in the self storage space? We didn't talk about that as much. Clearly it's not as, yeah, Well, I don't think consuming you as much as the, uh, multifamily, but tell us a little bit about self storage. No, we love storage. Yeah. I mean, self-storage is one of the best asset classes for sure. Um, we love it. It's driven by five Ds, right? It's recession resistance, so it's driven by death, divorce, downsizing, dislocation, and then the fifth D came from COVID decluttering, and that's moving out, you know, moving out your garage or extra room for home office, home gym, whatever. Um, and so anyway, so storage, um, you know, is, is is recession resistant. And then I'll also note that the tenants are extraordinarily sticky, right? Um, so, you know, you may have a storage unit or two, or who knows, but like, you know, it's, you're in a storage unit, it's hitting your credit card every month for, you know, I'll make it up $300 or 200, whatever. And all of a sudden it goes up from two 50, let's say to like two 60. You know, you're not, and then all of a sudden it's two 70. You know what I mean? And so it's gradual, but like, you're not gonna say like, Arnie, Hey man, can you please help me pack up my storage unit and I borrow your truck and move down the street? Um, no, you probably not. You know what I mean? So it's like, dang. Yeah. The tenants are sticky. Yeah. They might move apartments and they'll still keep the storage unit. Totally. Yeah, that's true. You're A hundred percent Right, because they have, How does the pricing work when you're looking at those properties? How does that work? Well, there's something called ecr I, which is a newish concept, uh, that stands for existing customer rate increases. And, uh, what the REITs are doing right now, and everybody's kind of following suit, 'cause you kind of have to, to compete is they let people in cheaper and then they sort of turn up the heat. You know, they sort of, because, because it's a little slower of a lease up. Um, this, I'm talking about like a new facility. So, so, so a lot of times, like they'll get you in cheap and then sort of crank up the rent and bring you to market. Um, you know, you get to the same place. Um, but that's a strategy. Um, but you know, it just, you just basically, you look at the comp set to set rents and what are they charging? And you know, one of the main metrics in storage is square feet per capita, um, which is how many square feet of storage per person in a one, three or five mile range. It's a pretty straightforward metric, but if you're below 12, it's like pretty good la like, it's like seven or four, you know, depending on the market. It's very good. Um, mostly, yeah. So it's, it's, and Then the pricing on the buy side is pretty, uh, I would say probably pretty, uh, within a, a, a, a reasonable range, I would think throughout different markets on the, on the buy side when you're buying one of the properties. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It is. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, people look at s pretty stable price per foot or whatever, but Yeah. Um, and what's your yield on cost and cap rate? But yeah, it's just, it's pretty stable. Yep. Um, there's a lot of demand storage, you know, uh, storage is an asset class. It didn't used to be institutional like it is today. Uh, but really like, you know, a lot of capital's pursuing storage, even, you know, these big core funds in the Odyssey index now storage can be in the other bucket, right? And so we have a lot of, there's a lot of capital that's like, oh, we don't have any, you know, any storage. And if you look at like, the number of self storage operators nationally who are, you know, good, um, it's actually like not that many. Um, if you look at the number of multifamily operators nationally, it's a lot, right? But like, right. Um, you know, for storage, it's like not that many. So anyway, um, it's, it's, it's, it's good to be a storage guy today. Yeah. Opportunities to develop, Opportunities to develop. You can get to a seven UNT trended return on costs with storage, where you typically can't with multifamily. 'cause it's cheaper to build. You don't have to go below grade, you don't have kitchen, many windows and, um, you know, so yeah, it works well. Interesting. Yeah. Excellent sector. Well, I, I, you know, well, you know, I love, love the questions on properties and stuff. Yeah. But one of the things we're, you know, really curious about is your use of technology, some of the tech tools that you think are great right now that you've been using. Sometimes I'm a little nervous asking people about AI because we're all a little nervous and trying to figure out what, what exactly that is and how to use it. But how are you, um, you know, are some of the tech tools that you, you know, love that, uh, yeah. Yeah. Like, so this right now is actually, um, a simulation of me. It's an ai No, I'm just kidding. That's pretty good though. He's doing a good job. Really good. Yeah. Um, no, but like we, yes, the answer is yes. And, and prop tech is something we incorporate. We use AI in the workplace to, as you know, to an extent. Yes. Um, and then like at the property level, I mean like access control, you know, like we don't use the old clunky keys, you know, access control's important. Um, the ability to like, you know, program to let your house cleaner in or whatever, certain times of day with their own, with their own code and that kind of stuff. Um, like the ability for tenants to like report a maintenance issue, um, on their phone and, and, and first get through like, um, potential resolution, um, prior to, you know, sending out a maintenance person. There's, there's ways to do that and that's helpful. Um, or, or pay rent, like on their phone and like, you know, all of that. Like, yeah, it's like we try to be forward thinking on it, you know, but like security, access control, lighting, you know, audio, video, um, you know, those are all areas where we try to be at the forefront for sure. Property management, the payment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Property management type software. How about on the deal side? CoStar? Correct. Use a lot of those for finding deals? Uh, not, not as Much. Um, honestly, a lot of it's relationship driven. It feels like. Interesting, right? Yeah. We don't really find deals there. Um, really very Broker, broker driven, broker heavy. Supposed to, Yeah. And a lot of 'em, again, a lot of these are like off market guys. Like we got a guy running around Dallas, we got a guy running around, um, who like, only does Santa Monica, let's say, right? And like, yeah, these are, and they're calling on owners and whatever. And, and then we also call on owners. Like we, we literally call mom and pop storage facilities where you guys sell. Whoa. You know what I mean? Like that's right. Um, you know, we do that. So like, yeah. Um, I think that one's more relationship than tech driven at the moment. Yeah. Excellent. Alright, now, now let's talk a little bit more about you, Chris. Any, um, personal interests, charities, hobbies? We know you're from Colorado. Are you a cop, uh, Rocky fan or a Dodger fan? Uh, you know, he's a, you know, Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are, so on the last one, I'll say this, that the short answer is Dodgers. Um, I've been here 10 years, we're in the World Series, but, um, I, I was a little bit of a Rocky fan. I lived, I lived in San Francisco when I was at PGM, um, and the Giants won Three World Series is, uh, while I was there. And that was really fun, right? Um, it's Hard to be, be a giant and Dodger fan. You can't Be both be you can't. It's, you can't. So I've converted, I made the full conversion. Um, 'cause you're correct. Um, and I am, I, I did convert. Um, you know, I'll, I'll say this, like, here's a fun fact. When I, when I was in San Francisco working at PGM, I co-founded a music festival called Snow Globe Music Festival. Wow. Uh, that took place in Southlake Tahoe. I raised the capital for that. Um, and we had 50,000 people over the three day event. Yeah. Um, it was really, really interesting. Really, really fun. It was a passion project. It was acquired by MTV in 2018. Um, that, you know, that was, that was really cool, right? So I do, I do continue to have, you know, a passion for music. That's great. Um, and, and co-founding that music festival was, was really cool. Um, you know, today we're looking at interesting ways to potentially, you know, incorporate, you know, crypto into real estate. There's, there's, there's some interesting, um, ways in which I think that can be done. Um, that's, you know, that technology. So I've been investigating that further. My wife is the CEO of a big crypto company, so that, um, you know, that helps. Um, so that's sort of interesting. I love to travel. Um, I love to go to Europe, you know, if you ask me what's your happy place? It's, you know, pro I would say, um, drinking a gin and tonic on a Mediterranean night, uh, on a cobblestone street, um, is my happy place. You know? And so like, yeah, I love to do that. Uh, what's your Favorite country in Europe? I think Spain or Portugal. Ah, really like vibe. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I also like Italy. In Italy. Yeah. Italy is, is so much to do there. How about on the charity side? Uh, you know, if you guys are involved in a, a charity, we always like to give a little love. You know, maybe someone will get on their radar screen if you guys are heavily involved in, You know, we, we try to spread it Around a little. Yeah. Like, I, I, geez, I don't think there's one that we're like, you know, more, more involved in, but like, you know, we make our donations and, um, you know, to toy drives obviously. Right. We try to, you know, we, we, we help out a lot in the community too. So like, for example, like if we're, if we're developing a project in an area, like we don't have to do this, but like, we'll, you know, we'll wanna like, make a donation to the school or, you know, buy the kid, you know, buy new books for the kids or the library and do things in the community where we're involved. Um, because we think that's important. We know that our projects are gonna become, you know, a staple in the community and a fa part of the fabric of the community. And like, we want to give back to like, the community where we're building. Um, and so that's kind of, we think a nice thing to do. Uh, and so we make, you know, we make an effort to do that as well. Okay. Good. Excellent. Well, uh, how about speaking and playing it forward? Are you looking to hire people? And what types of people are you looking to hire? And along with that is what would be advice for someone who's starting to look out in the business today? Yeah, the answer is yes. We're always hiring. To an extent. It has slowed, you know, know because of the development slowing. Uh, but now, like, we're buying existing assets more, you know, sometimes we're hiring like finance and accounting people for the accounting team. Um, you know, we hire analysts every now and then, we just got one. He is great. But, um, you know, um, so, so the answer is, you know, we're always hiring a little bit like, oh, and if we have like a new construction job, we have an in-house gc, like, we'll, we'll wanna hire some construction people too. But, um, that ebbs and flows. But like, you know, I'd say I'd so, so yes. Uh, we are, but, um, selectively and then, you know, today, like, it just, it depends. I mean, I think for the, I I try to, you know, speak at, you know, schools, you know, U-S-C-U-C-L-A or whatever, you know, and I do. Um, and I, you know, the kids ask me that and, and I think it's, you know, get internships when you can, um, try to find mentors who can help you. Like, don't be afraid to ask for introductions and to follow up with people and ask people to coffee and, and, you know what I mean? I think you gotta be proactive and really try to build out your Rolodex. Um, and I think, you know, I think, I think that, you know, that's helpful persistence. So, you know, I think those attributes will help people today. Okay. Excellent. Good. Well, yeah, I, I think we found out a lot about you, Chris, and I think so, Yeah. We're, we're almost, uh, out of time here, but, uh, you know, a Lot. Thank you. I, I really, uh, you're a fabulous interview. I, I, we learned a lot about you and, and the company and, and everything else. And, uh, all I could say is Go Dodgers. Yeah, go Dodgers. Love it. Love It. Yeah. You know, wish you best luck, you know, I mean, you know, obviously there's still a lot more to come for you, you know, in development and, you know, different projects. So we'll definitely, uh, you know, keep looking out for the news to report about you and, and get you back on, uh, you know, in a, in a year or so. Yeah. Yeah. When, when we got a couple more, when, when that other Burbank project starts getting, uh, getting going. We'll talk a little bit more about that one. Yeah. Would love to come back. Gentlemen, thank you for having Good. No, Thank you. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1158999653.txt b/data/transcripts/1158999653.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1178561985.txt b/data/transcripts/1178561985.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c10e154
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1178561985.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey. Welcome to this new episode of "Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arnie," where we have what to hope to be compelling, informative, and very interesting conversations with leaders in the commercial real estate industry, folks that lead companies that own major portfolios of commercial real estate properties. And I'm super excited about today's guest, because I don't know if there's a name that has meant more to its community and its region than the Sudberry name has meant to the San Diego County development industry over the last 40 or 50 years. So to have Colton Sudberry as our guest today is truly an honor. But before we get to Colton, let me introduce my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. Arnie, how you doing today? Hey, how you doing, Steve? Doing great. What's the latest? We got the news about interest rates today. If you're listening- Yeah, they're staying the same. They're not going up, not going down. Market liked it too much, but how are things going with Allstar Group? Tell us a little bit about Allstar. Well, no, we're doing pretty good. We got our big event coming up April 29th in Long Beach. That's our commercial real estate lending conference, where we actually do a very interactive event. Allstar Group has been doing conferences since 1995, so we're in our 31st year of doing commercial real estate and lending conferences throughout the state of California. But other than that, things are going well. All right, end of the quarter. And excellent. And many of you know RentTV. I don't know if you know all about RentTV, but we have our news website where we're posting stories every day about commercial real estate transactions and deals and developments. Really the West Coast, from Texas, Colorado, to the West. We put on five conferences a year. We're doing our next one next week, so when you watch this, it may have happened already. March 26th, Greater Los Angeles. May 7th will be Inland Empire. We also do, obviously, this podcast, but we also have the video platform you're probably watching this on, the Review, which is our searchable video platform. Takes both YouTube and Vimeo videos for free. Really powerful tool, so check it out, bounce around, check out the search page. And with that, let's move on to the next business at hand, Arnie, the folks that make this show possible are- The sponsors. Yeah, let's hear from them ... so we've got some great sponsors, some new ones too. So the first one that we've got is Rockefeller Group. Boy, am I excited about having Rockefeller Group. They're a great partner of RentTV for many years. Now we welcome them as a sponsor of CRE Talk. Of course, many of you in the audience will know the Rockefeller Group name for nearly a century. They have delivered exceptional experiences, value creation through dedication to quality in the built environment. From the iconic Rockefeller Center in New York City and office buildings throughout the country, to large-scale industrial facilities and multifamily projects, many out here in the Southwest, Arizona, and Southern California. Rockefeller Group develops, owns, and operates truly extraordinary properties. Visit rockefellergroup.com. It's on the screen for more information on the company and their projects throughout the US. Arnie, who's next? Well, we are proud to welcome Provident Savings Bank as a sponsor. Provident's a California-focused portfolio lender with legacy dating back to 1956. Provident Savings Bank is a trusted resource for brokers and investors seeking 350,000 to five million in financing for property types ranging from light industrial to multifamily. Their deep roots in community and longstanding commitment to responsible commercial real estate lending make them an ideal partner for your commercial real estate needs. Please call Gina Conant, Vice President and Sales Manager, at area code 951-403-0567. That's 951-403-0567. Provident Savings Bank is an FDIC-insured and equal housing lender. Learn more about their lending programs at myprovident.com. Awesome. Next one is Chase Partners, a great client of RentTV's for a while. Now we welcome them as a CRE Talk sponsor. Chase Partners, many of you know David Parker, head of Chase, is one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout Southern California for over 30 years. As a longtime supporter of RentTV, they are now sponsoring our show to get the word out about an updated strategy for Chase, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties, other distressed properties with non-performing debt. If you're an owner, lender, or broker that needs a fast decision, a fast close on your property, contact Chase Partners at david@chasepartners.com. All right. And last but not least, Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate. Founded in 1971 by Chuck Hirshon, it's known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McLean at 800-752-9533. All right. So let's bring in our guest, Colton Sudberry. Colton, welcome to the show. Welcome. Great to see you. Thank you. Good to be here. Thank you. Well, we've got a lot to cover, so I'm going to get right into it. But to start the show, why don't you give us an overview of Sudberry, other businesses you might be involved in, and portfolio size, geography, sectors you're in. Sure. Quick little overview, and then we'll get into it. Yeah. So the company was started about 45 years ago by my father, TomHe primarily was in retail and development throughout San Diego County primary town centers. And about 25 years ago, I was getting out of college. He was sort of semi-retired. So I went a different direction, worked for some different development groups. And then I was at USC in 1999 for my master's, and when I came out of school, my dad was gearing back up again. So I went to work with him in 2000 and been there ever since. We've made a lot of changes. Went from primarily a town center development company to more mixed use. Got pretty heavy in apartments over the last 12 years in particular. I'd say the vast majority of our products right now are either mixed use or solely residential. Doing a few shopping centers here and there still, but not like the old days. So it's been a good run. We've grown our company quite a bit. We've got a few more development partners. We now have about 10 million feet of commercial that we've either developed or are actively developing now. About 2,500 units of residential built over the years and a lot more in our pipeline. So we're excited about it. What states are you in? Oh, so primarily San Diego County is our backyard. Uh-huh. I'd say 90% of our business has been in the county. Done quite a bit in Inland Empire and Riverside as well. Done a handful of projects in Las Vegas. Well, mostly because we had a landowner partner here in San Diego that brought us to Vegas that wanted some help with his town centers. And we have one active project there now in Henderson that we haven't started yet. But California, Nevada, done a few projects in Texas with a partner, multifamily projects. But our core development is here in San Diego County. Yeah. You'll take an opportunity if it presents it to you, but you like staying in your backyard. That's exactly right. So like these other deals in Texas or Nevada, we had landowners we'd worked with, and like I said, they brought us out there instead of us out there looking for sites. Right. We went out there to help them with their problems. And with your history and everything, you guys are as much of a household name in the real estate industry as there is in San Diego County. So- Yeah. Thank you. Well, we've been around a long time. Right. So, it's been a long time. Tell us a little bit about where you grew up. What brought you to University of Colorado, and tell us a little bit more about that. Sure. So, I spent most of my life in San Diego. Went to high school at Santa Fe Christian, up in Solana Beach. Uh-huh. And I wanted to go to USC, but they didn't want me. Oh. I went up there and, yeah, I played linebacker. So I went up there on a recruiting trip and Junior Sauer, if I remember, was- Uh-huh ... running 40 with his shirt off and I looked at him like, "They're not offering me a scholarship- ... to come to USC." So I ended up going to Colorado and actually picked a pretty good time to be a freshman. We were great that year. Won the national championship. Awesome. The Big Eight Championships. Like I said earlier, I wish I was a little better player, but I made the team and had a lot of fun and loved my time in Boulder. And- Still got the ring. Yeah. Got the ring. Yeah. Exactly. And I ended up meeting my wife in Boulder. My sister came out there, and my now brother-in-law went there. So we have a lot of Buffs in the family. Good. What do you think of Deion Sanders, speaking of Buffs? Ah. Well- ... that's an interesting question because I was all in when we brought him in. Even all the changes he made to the team overnight with all the new transfers, I thought something bold had to be done. Colorado had some dark years for about two decades. So I thought it was a bold move. I liked the energy he brought. Certainly brought a lot of attention. Not real crazy with the way things have been going. Not just the record, but just the way he's coached the team and frankly, some of the retiring of some jerseys that I thought were not appropriate compared to some of the players that played in the past. But, hey, look, we got another year. We'll see what happens. See what happens. I mean, it's time for him to win. And it leads into all the other crazy changes in college, with kids switching around and everything like that. Oh, it's getting crazy now. Yeah. I think it's a disaster, frankly. Yeah. I mean, with the unlimited transfers, all the money. These kids are all mercenaries. Yeah, it takes away so much of the positive aspects. They're making more than the coach. 100%. Right. Some of them make more than the coach. They need to rein it in somehow. Yeah. I agree. Well, we could do a whole show on this. Yeah, let's get back to real estate. Right. So great career. How'd you get from the football career, and you mentioned joining the firm with your dad, but tell us a bit- Yeah ... about that transition. Were you always thinking, "I want to join the company firm," or- Yeah ... were you doing different things along the way? I know you've worked for some other firms in between. Yeah. So it wasn't some big grand plan to work with my father. I got out of college in '95. I went to work at CBRE. I was going fairly well. And then an opportunity to work for two gentlemen, John Gilcrest and- You were a broker at CBRE? Were you doing brokers? Yeah, I was. Yes. Yeah. All right. So I was there for a few years, then I went to work with John Gilcrest and Al Portey. They were ex-Hahn developers. Hahn built 40 malls across the country, including several here in San Diego. And John Gilcrest was the CEO and Al was his right-hand man. And they left Hahn when Hahn was sold to, TriSec, I think, and started their own kind of boutique development company. Right. And they wanted some young guy they didn't have to pay very much, so they offered the job to me and I took it and had a blast and learned so much from those two. And we worked on malls around the country that were kind of B and C malls and tried to help redevelop them. Uh-huh. And did some entertainment centers, a lot of theater business. Great time to do that because- It was a great... It was the heyday- Oh, yeah ... for mall redevelop, entertainment centers. This is the late '90s, early 2000s. Yeah, late '90s. Yeah. That business has obviously completely stopped with the theaters. But IWent to grad school in '99 when we were in a little bit of a lull between our projects, different couple of different phases. One got put on hold, so I thought, "Hey, now's a good time to go to school and get my MRED, a Master's of Real Estate Development." So I did that at USC. And when I was at USC, my dad called me and who had been kind of semi-retired since I got out of college in Boulder and said, "Hey, look, I'm tired of being retired. I want to get back after it. Why don't you come work for me when you're out of school?" And that's how it happened. Oh, wow. So now you're out of school, you're back with your dad. Tell us about your very first real estate deal that kind of, this is it. This is it for me. Yeah. Tell us about the first one. Well, so when I went to work with my dad, we didn't have any deals until... He was doing one or two deals at a time. Keep in mind he was semi-retired. He didn't close his doors, but it wasn't very active. So he was wrapping up another project. We started going after a few different sites, and there was a very good piece of property in a suburban area called Eastlake. And Bill Ostrom gave me my first chance. He was the CEO of Eastlake Company. Uh-huh. He sold us 30-ish acres, and we built a Target/Lowe's shopping center, and that was my very first project. So talk about baptism by fire to go do a Target/Lowe's center as your first deal. And of course, my dad helped me at first, but he kind of moved on to other things pretty quickly. So I had to figure it out and had a lot of support from Bill Ostrom, the seller, and his staff at the city. They helped me get through it, get it entitled, and negotiate the deals with the two anchors, and the rest is history. That's great. Excellent. Well, looking back on the first one, now looking back on everything you've done- Yeah ... what would be the one that stands out to you that you look back... It's kind of like judging your kids. Yeah. You know, you don't want to judge- Which was your favorite? Yeah. But which deal you look back on for maybe the challenge or the way it turned out, or the economic success, which is the one you look back on and say, "That's really the shining star of my career in terms of- Yeah. Gosh. Like you said, it is like judging your kids. I have a couple highlights, and for different reasons. I'd say that my first project was a very complicated one. Yeah. And big anchor tenants, 800-pound gorillas, and I'm right out of college, and that was my first project. So I was really, I guess, proud of myself that I got that done, looking back on it especially. And financially, we had a great run-up in rents while we were under construction, so it financially turned out pretty well- Yeah ... compared to some others that we've done. Right. So that was a highlight. Probably one of our biggest projects is Civita in Mission Valley, 235-acre master plan. We've been working on it for almost 20 years now. It took us six years to entitle it, two years to get final maps and improvement drawings done, and we've been developing it now for, what, 13 years. Yeah. We got a ways to go. And we have unbelievable partners in that deal. The landowner had owned this sand and gravel site for, gosh, it's probably almost 100 years now. They wanted to stay in. They didn't want to sell. They joint ventured with us, and it's been an amazing relationship with them through a lot of ups and downs, a lot of different markets. And we've held together, and we've built multiple phases and getting ready to start on our next phase here this summer. About 400 apartment units and 75,000 feet of retail, including Jimbo's Natural Market. So we're excited about getting that one going. And I think Civita as a whole, for a lot of reasons, has been a definitely a highlight. We'll dive into that a little bit more in a few minutes. Yeah. Show some pictures and get into some of the specifics. Okay. Yeah. But Arnie, move us along. Yeah. Now you've told us about your wins. Now tell us about the one you wish you never did. Oh, I have a few of those. We always do. Yeah. No, I had a couple deals that... Well, the ones that I never actually built stung the most. I had a project down in National City, about 25 acres. We spent a lot of time and a lot of money entitling it. It was a long entitlement process. The property sat across two different cities, National City, Chula Vista. Had to get a JPA negotiated between the two, which took forever. And by the time we finally got it all wrapped in a bow and ready to get going, we lost our major tenant because the real estate market crashed in 2008, '9. And that was three years of work, countless dollars. I didn't even want to admit it. And that stung. That's only happened to me one time or that bad of a loss when we were so close to getting it pulled off. Yeah. That's tough. Yeah. Yeah. But you learn a lot from those. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you do. That's what gives you the baseline to make the next one even better. Yes. That's true. All right. Well, let's move on to like some positive stories. All right. You were just talking about one of your major projects. But tell us, let's get into the details about your recent projects. Civitas, El Corazon, Watermark, right? Yeah. The different things and we'll show some pictures while you're describing what you've built at each of those places. So yeah, go for it. Okay. Well, let's start up north and then work our way down. El Corazon. That's a 400-acre property that the city of Oceanside owned. Also, a sand and gravel operation that the land was given to the city when they- I love that ... were done mining it. I love that backstory. That's great. Yeah. We've done a lot of sand and gravel operations because a lot of tricky soils issues. Okay. And we sort of have that knowledge now, how to deal with it. Or more so than some. We're still learning, but- Right ... this particular site had a lot of soils issues. A lot of it's undevelopable because the soils issues are so bad. Not hazardous, just old silting ponds, just bad dirt you can't build on.And so we spent the last many years entitling it, and we did a sports park, which is sort of the carrot to the city to get the rights to do the commercial development. So they really wanted a Balboa Park in the middle of this 400 acres. Right. But no one could afford to build a several hundred million dollar park for 60, 70 acres of commercial. So instead, we... It wasn't my idea. I wish it was, but we were approached by the founder of Surf, Mike Connolly, and his partners, and they were looking for a new facility to do soccer tournaments. They thought they were going to lose their facility at the fairgrounds. So we partnered with them, went to the city with this idea that we're going to build this great sports park, and the city will get tot revenue and some ground lease revenue on it and then primarily they're going to get put on the map as a sports destination, Oceanside, and they could have access to our fields during the week. We're going to have tournaments for all their youth sports and for free. Do you end up owning it or do you develop it for a fee for the city? How does that- Yeah, good question. So we own it. It was a ground lease. Uh-huh. So we did a long-term ground lease with the city on 100 acres right in the middle of El Corazon. Built a soccer facility and we rent it out to soccer tournaments. Got it. Surf has some of their tournaments with us. Right. We got pretty big Manchester City, big tournaments there. And we do lacrosse and rugby and others, but primarily soccer. Yeah. We do about 22 to 25 tournaments a year. That's great. And it's been great. Been great for the city. Been well-received. Like I said, youth sports for Oceanside get to use five fields every day for free, which there's a big shortage of athletic fields for youth sports up there- Yeah ... like most cities. That's right. Yeah. And so now we worked our second phase, which was 268 units of apartments. We opened them just over a year ago. And a Front Wave arena. We partnered with San Diego Sockers, Phil Salvaggio. He brought the Sockers up, built the arena with us. He's the primary driver of it. Got it. Did a beautiful job. And next thing you know, I'm in the sports arena business, which I never anticipated. It's a fun facility. Yeah. That's really great. It's been a fun one. And we're doing concerts and other types of events. Ice Capades, actually we're hoping to get. Those types of events. Been well received by the community. So at El Corazon, you've got the multifamily, the Front Wave, the fields- Right ... and some retail, and other retail? Or is it- We have some more to go. Our next phase, which will start in 2027, is about 30 acres. This one's been challenging. It's got a lot of bad soil on it. We got to hog a bunch of it out, dispose of another piece of the property at El Corazon. Pretty expensive. Yeah. What we're going to do, about 16 acres of residential and about 10 acres of commercial. Working on five acres of retail, and actually it's got a long ways to go. But there may be some interest from the city of Oceanside to actually put their police headquarters there. Oh, yeah. Which is basically just an upgraded office building. So we're working with them on that now, but it's early. It's fun to do something different. The one that opened, how did it do lease-up wise? Did okay. It opened a little bit of a tough time for apartments. Apartment market in general in San Diego has slowed a bit. It's not terrible. Right. Rents are flat. Absorption's a little slow. A lot of new products come online in the last couple months or two years. Right. Mainly in central San Diego. Kearny Mesa, Mission Valley, Hillcrest, Normal Heights, but also even up in North County. Had a lot of new products. So that's hurt leasing a little bit. Most of them are bedroom? But gosh, we're approaching 90%, so we should be in good shape here in a couple months. What is built new these days? One bedroom, studios? What are you building? Two bed. No, they're all two bedrooms usually. Well, that's another interesting question because we build different unit mixes depending on our territory. So in Mission Valley, for example, we do a lot of one bedrooms, some studios, some two bedrooms. Not a lot of three bedrooms at all. Our market research showed us in this Oceanside site, which is right in the middle of Oceanside, it's not coastal, right in the middle, that we should be building more two and three bedrooms, which we did. Ironically, now the slowest lease-up is in our larger two bedroom and three bedrooms. Really? So we missed the market a little bit. Releasing them, just not at the velocity we thought. Right. So. That's interesting. Yeah. Okay. All right. A bit of a learning experience. Sliding down the coast. What's the next- What's next? Okay. Well, coming down to 15. We've got a project I've been working on for many, many years. A lot of the residents are ready to throw me out of town because it's taken so long, but it's called the Watermark. And- So beautiful. Such a beautiful- Yeah. It's going to be a fun one. But I've been talking about this for a long time, and we put it on hold for a variety of reasons, but we pretty quickly out of the gate, we developed two office buildings for MED Impact, who was a landowner. MED Impact's in one building. They never occupied the second one because coming out of COVID, they didn't have the same demand for it. So they're thinking what they're going to do. They either hold onto it and eventually fill it up or lease it. But we did the two office buildings, and the retail stalled out. We were getting close just before COVID. The project was financed. We had the permits ready, construction contract signed, and we were about two weeks from starting construction when COVID hit and everything shut down. And we had a theater, Harkins Theater, and Harkins Theater said, "Hey, we're not moving forward." Yeah. We get it. No one's moving forward. Let's put everything on ice for a bit. Fast forward what, 18 months later, COVID's getting behind us. Go to Harkins and say, "All right, here we go." Say, "Nah, things are a little different in our business." Which it is. Right. And so we had to completely redesign the project without a theater. We removed some office because we have plenty, some more office there, which there's not as much of a demand for in San Diego now either. So-Complete redesign, and here we are getting ready to start, hopefully by October 1. Got it. Yeah. It'll be at Jimbo's as well, like in Mission Valley. Got it. Some higher-end restaurants and shops and a hotel, Element Hotel, 120 rooms. Yeah. Nice, Jim. Great- I notice you're doing some hospitality as well. Yeah. So- We're not necessarily in the hospitality business. We had a site in Imperial Beach that we did a small shopping center on. Right. And we had a couple extra acres that we didn't really have... We didn't think the market was deep enough for more retail, and we didn't want to just sell it, and so we partnered with a group called Thorson out of Nevada. Actually, South Dakota, but their main office is in Nevada now. And we did a Hampton Inn. So they were the main driver. We contributed the land and a little bit of money, and we built it together, and we still own it in partnership. And we're trying to do a second one right next to it that's now fully entitled. But the hotel market slipped quite a bit in 2025, so we're sort of wait and see. Yeah. I'm hoping to get it going this year, but as things are improving. But then also as you mentioned in Watermark, we got the Element. Right. And we are doing that with a group called Intermountain. Right. So, we got good sites, and we don't want to just sell it off. We want to be able to participate in the vertical development. But we're not in the hotel business every day like Federal Center or Intermountain is, so we feel like bringing in the experts was appropriate. Right. So it's part of your master plan, is hospitality in there, because I know you have one in Savita as well. Correct. So, you know. Which is the perfect lead into going on to down in Mission Valley. There you go. Yeah. Tell us about that project. That one's been for a while. Yeah. We have. So that's the 235-acre site that we got entitled for about 5,000 units. Close to a million feet of total commercial between office and retail, which we plan on- This is going back like 15 years, right? When you first started. That's correct. Right? Yeah. Exactly. So we've been developing it out from west to east, and our first project was with Shea Homes. We sold off 20 acres to Shea, used those funds to put in some of the infrastructure to keep our cash investment down, and that's what kicked it off, got the first phase going. We built 305 units, Circuit 37 apartments. And then, every couple of years, we're starting the next phase. We built a 610-unit West Park Apartments, 435-unit Pearl Apartments. We just finished a 200-unit apartment project called Brin. And along the way, we've sold off some more land to the home builders, the Lennars and the new home companies and Sheas. Right. And in that market, you said it's mostly one bedrooms and studios and some two bedrooms? Yes. One- More so than Oceanside. Just out of curiosity, because I rent in Marina del Rey, what do you get for a one bedroom down there in a new building? Oh, gosh. You're pushing $3,000. Studios would be a little less. Right. But one bedroom for $3,000 more. Pools, amenities, dog. Yeah. Because of the trade area, we have looked at some other apartment sites where we didn't go quite as heavy on the amenities- Right ... based on the trade. But here in Mission Valley, we're doing luxury apartments. We've got- Yeah ... all the pools and the movie theater rooms and very large, elaborate gyms. In fact, at Mission Valley, because of the projects right next to each other, and Savita, we've designed different amenities for every project. So one project might have more of a resort-style pool, another part might have more of a kind of a tranquil pool or a party pool. Depending on the demographics, right? Yeah. And then we let the residents of every apartment project have a fob, and they can use the amenities at any of them. Wow, great. So they can have different experiences. That's worked out really well, been very well-received. Yeah. Do you have retail done it? We do. So we did a little bit. Our last project, second to last, was The Pearl. That was the 435 units with about 50,000 feet of commercial. We did a large LA Fitness Signature Club, and then we did about 18,000 feet of shops and restaurants. More service- Right ... a little bit of food, not a lot of retail there. This next phase, I'm sure we'll talk about in a minute, will get more heavy into the retail. Yeah. What about office? Do you have office in there, or? We do. So, we don't have a site plan up here- Yeah ... but on the far east part of the property, there's 15 acres. Well, we'll have the picture up while you're talking. You can show it while we're talking. Yeah. We got 15 acres that's currently occupied by a bass plant run by Cemex. So again, this entire site was a mining operation with Vulcan on it. As part of our negotiation to get Vulcan out early, they kept 15 acres for a bass plant. The SUP's finally coming up. So they will be taking that down in the next couple of years, and then we will build that out. The entitlements was for just under 500,000 feet of corporate office, which will probably not happen. And the San Diego, or excuse me, Mission Valley Community Plan has changed since we entitled the property. We do have residential ability there. We'll probably end up doing perhaps another hotel, maybe a little bit of commercial, and then some residential. Okay. That phase will be our last phase. And that's what you were saying just a minute ago, that we get into the future development, the retail also? Yeah. Well, that's kind of our last phase. You asked if we're going to do some office here, and there was a plan to do it- Right ... in a pretty big way. But I don't think with the conditions the way they are that we will. We'll do something different with it. Yeah. Well, that brings me to one of my next questions is office building. Are you- ... doing office or is it just part of a master plan when you do your mixed use, so you're not doing one-off office at all? Well, we did. So I had an office industrial partner named Rich Simons. We developed maybe two million feet together, and we did four class A office buildings, and then the rest was industrial. And we built and sold the office. We usually partnered with groups like Prudential or Morgan Stanley, and there were UBS. They were build and sell type funds. The projects we do on our own, like these apartments and these retail, we try to hold, and we finance them a little differently and bring in the equity a little differently. But a lot of these big class A office buildings we did were build and sell type funds. So we currently don't own any significant office. Okay. We own some boutique office over the retail but nothing substantial. It's part of a bigger plan. Yeah. That makes sense. Right. Yeah. That office market. Yeah. It's sad to see. You've seen a little bit of life here and there in some areas, but it's going to be a long haul, I think. Yeah. You still own the ones you mentioned before up in North County, right? The one- No. We built those with Mid Impact, and Mid Impact ended up moving their corporate headquarters into them, and they didn't really want a partner in their corporate headquarters, so we- Sold them ... were bought out. Yeah. Oh, okay. So we don't own them anymore. Right. Probably glad about that. Yeah. Now you are. Well, they're still in there. They're using it, so it's leased- Yeah. Yeah ... to themselves. But I wish I still owned it, frankly. But they didn't want us in there, and we understood, so- Right ... it wasn't going to be their corporate office where we started. That changed. And did we cover everything on the future projects? On our projects? The plans and everything for your future projects? Was there- No. We got a few more projects we're working on that we haven't talked about. But we have a couple industrial deals. We just finished one and we're trying to lease it up down in Otay Mesa. We've got an industrial project on the west side of Chula Vista that we just started our third phase on. So 100,000 square feet of industrial. We've got one more phase on there that'll start probably end of 2027, another 170,000 square feet. So industrial market's been doing okay for us in most parts of town. So it's been a little slow in Otay Mesa. Hoping for some change this year. We know a lot about that market since Elevation was at our San Diego event. Okay. Ian Murphy was a previous guest, so we've- Yeah. Okay ... covered a lot of that, so. Yeah, did some great stuff down there. It's an interesting market, and I think long-term, it's obviously got its strength. There's the short-term hiccups and everything. 100%. They got maybe a little bit overbuilding, and then you had interest rates going up, then the tariff threat on and off, and the tenants just sort of shut down with the tariffs- But long-term, being in San Diego border ... a year ago. It can't get really better long-term. So all right, good. So I'll move on a little bit. So how do you find new projects? Is it brokers, off-market? Are you tracking cities? Your type of projects, the municipalities probably come to you to some extent. Yeah. But tell us how you look for your new projects and deals. Yeah. It's all of the above. Oceanside El Corazon, that was an RFP. Oh. They put it out there to a bunch of developers like us, and we submitted, and we ended up winning out. We've had brokers bring us-- Most of our projects, I'd say, were brought through brokers that are working on land, have a- I see ... landowner relationship. Interesting. Yeah. Let's get to Eric. Well, you get a reputation. They'll start coming to you. Brokers. Yeah. And then, we know some landowners in town, too. But we just started construction last month on a 140-unit apartment project in Hillcrest. Mm. And that came to us because I did a shopping center in Santee about 12 years ago that went really well, and we're still partners with this landowner. Name's George Salome, and he owned this property in Hillcrest that I didn't even know about. And a couple years ago, he approached us and said, "How do you feel about partnering up on my site in Hillcrest?" We checked it out. I said, "Absolutely." And here we go. So, no. It's all of the above. Yeah. The cities come to us with the RFPs. Brokers, landowners. We've hustled up a few ourselves. So you will look at those one-off individual type properties to buy, as opposed to the multi-phase master plan development opportunities. Correct. No, I love the Sevillas, the El Corazons, and the West Watermarks where you have multiple phases and larger size, but they're not all like that. Well, there aren't many of those around. You can't keep hitting home runs like that. But let me ask you, how do you finance your deals? Is it debt equity? Construction loan and takeout? Yourself? Yes. No. Traditionally, bank loans. Construction bank loans. Okay. Depending on the type of project or size of the project, we use our own equity, or maybe we're partnering with the landowner and we have some land equity in there, and with a little extra cash, we can get it financed. Some of our bigger, more speculative projects, some of the office buildings we talked about, would be built with a UBS or a Morgan Stanley or a Prudential, and they're bringing in large equity. And then we'll have a co-invest, and then we'll do- Okay ... traditional debt. We did an interesting deal with Nationwide not too long ago that just finished up in November. The 200-unit apartments that they financed the whole thing. We've been doing a couple deals with them. They did a little pref equity piece for us, almost like mezzanine financing. Right. And then our last deal, they said, "Hey, why don't we finance the whole stack?" And so we had some equity in it. That's great. But they did a stretch senior, and that worked out really well. So I love those programs. No, you can't deny those. Yeah. So the answer to the question is that we've done it in all different kind of ways. Okay, good. And are you finding a lot of capital out there? Looking to- Yeah. There's plenty of capital out there. I think the deals are pretty tough right now. The construction costs just soared coming out of COVID. They've pulled back a bit, not a lot. You don't have a lot of rent growth right now. We don't really see, at least in our projects, rents coming down. Right. We're not seeing the kind of growth we used to have. So the winds and I are back like it used to be. So these deals are a little thinner, harder to underwrite. Fees are bigger with the city. Some of these areas, the fees are... You can't build. I mean- Got it ... they're too, they fee us to death. Yeah. And with the construction cost, and of course, you got interest rates. So you got a big, large apartment project that might have a couple year absorption, 500 or 600 units, and now you're clicking your interest away at 7% instead of 3.5 or 4. It eats you up. Oh, yeah. No. More markets. So you got to put more equity into it. We don't even have to talk about insurance costs, right? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. We just had a big meeting on insurance this morning. Becoming a whole topic on its own. Yeah, it is. And I was telling the story the other day, when I first got in this business, an insurance cost is almost like a rounding error. You didn't even really spend much time thinking about it. Right. And now it's front and center, and it's a large percentage- And it's dictating everything ... exactly. Not just builder's risk- Yep ... which has gotten outrageous with the fire zones we have in town. That's really a problem. Mm-hmm. I think, the fire marshals are coming out with these maps that are practically the whole county is in a high fire zone. Oh, yeah. And that has real impacts on insurance, insurance costs, or the type of construction. And I think there's going to be something that's going to have to get looked at again if they're going to continue to have housing growth. Right. But- Common sense into it ... yeah. But our insurance costs and premiums have gone up year after year. Finally, this last year, we've seen a little bit of a pullback- Mm ... for the first time in, gosh, five, six years or more. All right. Well, that's good to hear. Yeah. I love this next question. So I was- Well, you wrote it, so of course you'd love it. When I was out of school, I was an analyst for developers. It was my first gig before becoming a broker for big developers out in New York City. And so it's always interesting to me to get into the mind. Your name's on the door, you sign the checks Right ... you sign those deals. So when you're about to green line a deal, you're about to put your name on that, is it IRR, return on equity? Is it a gut feel? How many different scenarios do you have to run, I can't even imagine, for some of your more- Yeah. ... complex projects, to come up with a yes or no decision. Yeah. So what goes into the processing? Is it at the end of the day cash flow or how do you- Well, we aren't merchant builders. We do like to build and hold, so we try to find projects that we can create enough value where we can put a permanent loan on the end of the day to pay off the construction loan, get at least some of our cash equity back out so not all trapped in it, and then hold it for the long term and have cash flow. Those are harder and harder to come by for the reasons we just discussed. The deal's a little thinner right now. So we're being more selective in what we're working on. Where we really make our value is buying land or tying up land early, or maybe it's got some entitlement issues or these soils issues we discussed so we can get in the land at a pretty low basis and then create value through entitlements, through fixing the environmental issues, what have you. And then now we got land equity, so when we go get financing, we can get better financing. And then get a better return and then hopefully hold onto it for a cash flow. Right. And we've done small deals and big deals. It just depends on the risk/reward. If I can have a little side of a few drugstore deals over the years, or a little couple acre or an acre, but I can get a lease signed before I have to close on the land and close on the loan and so it's pretty safe. Small, but it's safe. We've done a few of those. But it's got to make economic sense for you to do it. Yeah. Make economic sense. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Now, you talked about partnerships with a number of your projects and everything, but where does your equity come from? How do you structure your deals? When you go into partnership with a strategic partner, is it a corporation, an LLC? Each deal different or does it go under one-- No. All of our deals are standalone. Generally LLCs. We do have some partnerships, but generally LLCs. Every partner comes up with a pro rata share of the cash needed. Like I had mentioned, some deals, it's a small co-invest, sometimes it's a much larger investment. And so it's something we all talk about before we form the LLC is what are our partner's capacity, where are you at, what can you afford right now based on the other projects you have going on. And so every deal is done independent, and we have those conversations with on every deal. Now, can Steve invest with you if he wanted to? Because everyone's asking that question. That's what Jack keeps asking me. Can I sell you some money right now? I'll take whatever money you want to give me. There you go. Go, Steve. But an interesting side question is, is it almost like a part of your job to fundraise for the equity piece, or is that built in with your partners and everything already, and it's on a roll? I know some firms exhaust a lot of time raising those funds. I've got people that hit me up all the time to refer them to people that they could raise funds for. Right. And I've personally put some money into other people's funds like that. Right. We have not done that. Not to say we won't in the future. But what we've done historically is just that all of our deals are standalone. We look at what the financing or equity needs are for that deal, and then we either raise it with our partners or we go bring in an institutional company and do a co-invest if it's too big for us.But we haven't actually done a fund where we've raised millions of dollars from friends and families or syndicated deals. And, yeah, with the relationships you have, I'm probably sure a lot of those investors have been with you for a while. Right. Yep. So. Each one's his own. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. You got the next question, Steve. Well, exiting deals. Do you ever sell? What's the reason, and how do you go about it? Yeah. We have sold. We try to hold, as I mentioned, but some projects, like the larger office buildings that we did with these institutional investors, they were in their build-and-sell fund. Right. So we've definitely sold. We've had a few properties that weren't really core for us, like a few of these smaller drugstore deals that I mentioned, were the kind of one-off deals where we would build them and sell them. We get a pretty good value for them. Right. And so we could generate a little bit of cash for other projects. But our core development, these apartment projects, these town center developments, we try very hard to hold on to them. Okay. And not exit. Right. Well, tell me about what sector trends you see right now in the retail, multifamily, office, industrial, and even hotel. Although, you're really not into hotels as much, but- Right ... do you see... You mentioned you saw that trend going down. Yes. Do you see it coming back or- Yes ... is that something... Okay, good. Yeah. So we'll take hotels. So again, we're in the limited service space. Right. We saw EBITDA come down in 2025 for the first time in many years. We don't have a large portfolio to gauge, but for us personally, saw it come down. We looked like we hit bottom and bounced back a little bit. A few of my hotel developer friends that are in limited service, I can't speak for full service or high-end or five-star hotels, but they're seeing a bounce as well. Things are coming back a bit. I couldn't tell you exactly why it's changing these last few months, but it has been. Mm-hmm. Industrial trends are, in San Diego, and this is more micro, not macro, but in San Diego, it's fairly healthy still, except for some traded pockets. Like Otay Mesa is a little difficult to discuss. But the balance of the stuff we're looking at and have done is the trends are positive. Apartments, if you can get something on the coast, up or down the 5, do it all day long. Central San Diego's a little tough, where see the trend is flat rents, a little more concessions. We're still leased pretty well. We're not 98, 99 like we had been forever, but still pretty well leased, but with some concessions. Retail's been the most interesting one for me. It's changed so much in my career. Right. Yeah. It's a- Yeah. For a variety of reasons. I think, one, you saw the overbuilding of big box centers. Forget Amazon for a second. You had three tenants in every category, office supply, electronics, bookstores, you name it. So there was three big box centers built for every one that should've been built, right? Especially in trade areas where you had a lot of land, like a Phoenix or the deserts and stuff. And so you got way overbuilt in that category. And then you had the advent of Amazon come on, and those guys were very susceptible to the Amazon, and it just became if you had a secondary or tertiary site, you're in trouble. The A locations absolutely gotten better. Right now our retail portfolio is 99% leased, and it has been for years. Very little turnover. Sales are as strong as ever from the tenants. Our rent growth's been great. Oh yeah, I got to ask you a question on that. So, your highest rent, where is that these days in San Diego County? Well, the highest rents you're going to get are probably UTC and Fashion Valley Mall. Those are fortress malls. Right. They're just- What are they- ... big numbers ... quoting? Oh, gosh. It depends so much on the size of the tenant- Yeah ... the type of tenant, where in the mall, center core, end zone. So it's all over the map, but a good location in the middle of the mall is, gosh, I wouldn't be surprised if they're a couple hundred dollars gross. I mean, it's- Wow ... I mean, they're big numbers. Yeah. Right. Nice. I cut you off, but you were continuing on the vacancy. Yeah. Oh. But we are definitely seeing when we do a new project, we're doing a lot more service, F&amp;B, a lot of grocery still, but there's not a lot of straight retail being done- Right ... in our type of centers, in our daily need center and our power centers. It's F&amp;B, food, and service. Okay. And we haven't seen the core grocers, the Ralphs, the Albertsons, the Safeways, the Krogers, what have you. Haven't seen them have a lot of growth. But we are seeing growth in the natural and gourmet markets. The Whole Foods and the Jimbo's of the world. Nice. Well, I think you covered a lot of the leasing challenges- Thanks ... that we've laid out here. I want to shift gears a little bit. How involved do you get with elements like architecture and construction? It seems like architecture's pretty important to the company. Are you- Sure ... thinking through those elements? Oh, yeah. So, as build-and-hold owners, long-term owners, we take a lot of pride in our projects. Right. And we want to make sure they're best in class, and so we spend a lot of time and money to build them to a little higher quality, better landscaping. I believe we maintain our properties as well as anybody in town. We put a lot of attention to it. We don't use property management as a big profit center for us. We-We have a lot of managers for property just to make sure they're managed well. Right. And I think it shows. And I think that's why over the years, a lot of these master plan community owners, like I mentioned, Bill Ostrom at Eastlake Company, they like to do business with guys like us because we do take a lot of pride in what we build and we're very particular with the architecture- They're all beautiful ... and the management. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Watermark. I love the mix. All right. What about prop tech? Use of AI and tech tools. So, the real estate industry in general is always a little slow to new technology, I think, and we're no different. We are trying to automate a lot. We have a consultant we're working with that's helping us find some different tasks within the organization, whether it's in management or accounting or even development, where maybe we can automate a little better, use AI to our advantage. But I'd say we're still scratching the surface of it, but we have been doing it with success, and I think it's going to continue, and we're spending a lot of time thinking about it. Okay. But I wouldn't say for us, it's been a game changer yet, but I think it's coming. So it's a little new right now. People are warming up to it, I think. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. How about hiring initiatives? People watching the show may be thinking about changes or some new- Oh, hiring initiatives? Hiring initiatives. Yeah. What kind of needs do you have these days? Are you looking to hire new people? Well, so we're fortunate in that our corporate office has been very stable. We had a lot of people with us for 15, 20, 30, I think we have one even over 40 years now. So we're fairly well-staffed at the corporate office. Where we are growing and we're always in need of as good help and talent is at the property level, the apartment level, the building engineers, the leasing managers, general managers. So we're all growing. Every time we add a new project, we add five, six, seven, eight new hires for those properties. So we are in the market of hiring quite a bit at the apartments. At the corporate office, we're pretty- It's interesting. We hear that a lot. Yeah. That people are hiring at that- Right ... those levels. It'd be a great opportunities for people to get in there. It seems like there's a bit of a shortage for a quality- That's right. Absolutely there is. Yeah. So if you were just starting out today, what kind of advice would you give to somebody that's new in the industry and hearing from somebody that's been successful at it, what kind of advice would you give them if they were to start today? Well, good question. I've got kids starting to come out of college and thinking about what they're going to do, and some have interest in real estate, some don't. But I think that San Diego development's going to be a lot different for the next generation, the kids' generation versus mine. I think harder, frankly. Looking at San Diego County, and again, I can only really speak for my backyard and not other states. The amount of developable land is a lot less now than it was 25 years ago when I got started. I had a list of 50 potential shopping center sites on my spreadsheet when I got in the business that I was tracking and following in terms of making sure I always get my hat in the ring if there's a deal to be done there. That list is down to about five. There's just not that much land left where you're going to go build a 20, 30, 40 acre project. We even have some as big as 60, 70 acres. That's just not happening. So you're looking at more infill, you're looking at more capital-intensive projects, more higher density. So structuring yourself in a way to take advantage of that opportunity versus what I was doing in my career is very important. Right. I think it's going to be more capital-intensive- Yeah ... for most people. It's going to be harder for young men and women to get started in the business without, I believe, partnering up or working with a larger firm that's more established and has more of the financial resources. Right. And a lot of the gateways to the business, like me, I came in through brokerage, there's issues in the brokerage industry right now with technology. So I think the people are going to have to get more creative in how they get into the business, and certainly with properties too. Yeah. The use of technology and- Same thing in lending industry as well. That industry has completely changed. Sure. All right. So a great thing we like to hear about and give time to our guests is a couple charities that either you personally or your company's been involved in that is important to you that maybe some people listening could get interested in as well, cut you a checks, devote some time to. But tell us a couple of things that your company or you personally are involved in that we should know about. Yeah, happy to. So, we do a variety of different charities. I would say as a family and as a company, we've been primarily focused on Christian education and helping support some schools, local schools, Christian schools. And most of companies like ours, you see them associated with residential developers are more focused on their charitable work or their funds with the homeless, which we have done as well. But I'd say by and large what's been tugging at our family's heart and our company's heart is some of these Christian education- Mm-hmm ... schools, churches. Very good. Excellent. Now let's get into your hobbies, the teams you root for. Yeah. What do you like to do on your free time? Well, I still root for the Chargers even though they left. I got to have a football team. They're still the San Diego Chargers to me. Yeah. I love that organization and have been a big fan of theirs for a long time. I can't just stop- Right ... of cheering for them if they move to LA, although a lot of people have. Hey, my team's 3,000 miles away, and I still root for them. Yeah. Right. Of course, the Padres. Padres. A handful of games a year. Yeah. Interested to see who ends up buying them here soon, it looks like. My hobbies, pickleball, which I'm terrible at. And then golf. And golf. Okay, good. I'm not terrible, I'm not great, but I do love it, and I spend most of my free time playing both those, golf and pickleball. Very good. And it helps with industry. So many industry events on the golf course. Yeah. So certainly. Yeah. Excellent. Well, how about goals for the future? Any things that you're saying, "All right, I've had this great career, I've done all this. Now I'd like to stretch for something higher." Is there any future things that you're looking at possibly doing that you could break news with us here? Well. Tell me again. I haven't quite gotten there yet, what's in the next chapter of my life. I'm still focused on this one. I'd like to shoot a round of scratch golf someday in my life, so maybe that's something to look forward to after retirement. But- No, right now, I'm just focused on the business, focused on my kids and my family. Nice. And I've got one left in high school, and not knowing where they're going to be in five, six years, if some are going to be in the industry or not. I would love to have a company that I could work with my kids on, if they so choose. If not, it might convince me to retire a little sooner. Right. Well, you know what? Well, having kids go through college is a fun period of time. It is fun, yeah. And the next phase is grandkids. And believe me, I got four of them. You did. Yeah. It's fun. You get to do things with your grandkids that you could never do as the dad. Very much looking forward to that. Yep. That is fun. I think I'm a few years away still, I hope, but- Yeah, well... But soon. Well, Colton, this has been great. We've exhausted the questions that we had. I don't know if there's anything you want to share as a closing comment, but we really appreciate the time. Yeah. I know our audience is going to appreciate the information you shared. So, we'll have to have you again in a year or so to catch up on- I would welcome that. Yeah, and I appreciate you taking the time and having me on. I was looking forward to this, and it was a lot of fun, and anytime. I'm all for that. Well, we love doing this. We get to meet a lot of new people and find out a little bit more about what's going on in the world, or at least the commercial real estate world. So, thank you. No, and also show a bit more of a personal side to some people who, it could be lonely having your name on the door, being a founder. Yeah. So it's good to see the personal side, what makes you tick. So we really appreciate that. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Talk soon. Take care. You've been watching "Commercial Real Estate Talk" with Steve and Arnie, sponsored by Rockefeller Group, Providence Savings Bank, Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners. Start to ignite
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/117977696.txt b/data/transcripts/117977696.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1199114985.txt b/data/transcripts/1199114985.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0a95ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1199114985.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey. Welcome to the next episode of "Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steve and Arnie," where we have what we hope to be informative, interesting, and very educational interviews with major players in the commercial real estate industry. And today, we're really excited about today's host, Daniel Weiss, President of Strauss Investments, major long-time investor owner throughout San Diego County for decades, who's actually been actively buying office properties lately. So we're really interesting to hear what's going on with them and talk to Daniel. But before we get started, let me bring in and introduce my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel, with Allstar Group. Hey, Arnie. Good morning. How you doing today? How you doing, Steve? Doing well. Happy Monday. Yeah, happy Monday. Got a great show today. Really excited about it. Before we do our business, bring in Daniel- Yes ... let's tell the audience a little bit about us. Sure. Tell them about Allstar Group. Well, Allstar Group was started in 1995 as a commercial real estate firm. We're best known for our conferences, the Allstar Group Commercial Real Estate and Lending Conference, the Loan Makers Forums. Very heavy in networking and lending and interaction, and that's basically what we do. We just had a big conference in the end of April. We have a couple of more coming up this year, so just go to allstargroupevents.com. I think that was one of your best shows. That was great, yeah. No, we always- Yeah ... draw about 2 or 300 people. It's a- Yeah, it was great ... huge event. I enjoy doing it. We introduce people to a lot of lenders, and we have a lot of networking. But, anyway- Yeah, it was great ... I also do commercial real estate loans myself. Sort of semi-retired from that. I like doing these interviews and doing my conferences, but that's what's happening at Allstar Group. Nice. Allstargroup.com- All right ... is all you need to know. And many of you know RentTV, the company I started 26, 27 years ago. Our main website providing commercial real estate news on a daily basis throughout the Western US, and then we provide those headlines with a very popular email newsletter, "The Real Estate Insider," that goes out a couple times a week. Banner advertising on all of those, if anyone's interested. We also put on five conferences a year. Our next one's Orange County, June 25th. And we created The Review, this video platform where you're watching this video, where you could load your own videos from YouTube and Vimeo, tag them for different search tags that we created, filters, and then search and find videos and get more views for the videos that you've created. So, with that quick synopsis of RentTV, our next point of business, Arnie, is... Sponsors. We got to talk about- Sponsors ... our sponsors. We've got an amazing set of sponsors that make this show happen. So pay attention, take down some numbers and email addresses, because our first sponsor is an amazing institutional name in the industry, and that is Rockefeller Group. They've been a great partner of RentTV's for many years, and now we welcome them as a sponsor of CRE Talk, and many of you throughout the country, probably in the whole world, know them for nearly a century. Rockefeller Group has delivered exceptional experiences and value creation through dedication to quality in the built environment, from the iconic Rockefeller Center in New York City and office buildings throughout the country, to large-scale industrial facilities and multi-family projects, many throughout the Southwest in our main market areas. Rockefeller Group develops, owns, and operates truly extraordinary properties. Visit rockefellergroup.com on the screen for more information on Rockefeller Group and their projects throughout the US. Arnie, who is next? Our next sponsor is Provident Savings Bank, a California-focused portfolio lender with a legacy dating back to 1956. Provident Savings Bank is a trusted resource for brokers and investors seeking 350,000 to $5 million in financing for property types ranging from light industrial to multi-family. Their deep roots in the community and longstanding commitment to responsible commercial real estate lending make them an ideal partner for your commercial real estate needs. Provident Savings Bank is an FDIC-insured and equal housing lender. Learn more about their lending programs at myprovident.com or contact Gina Conant, Sales Manager, at area code 951-403-0567. Provident Savings Bank. Next. Excellent. The next sponsor has been another great client of RentTV's for many years, and now we welcome them as a sponsor of CRE Talk, and that is Chase Partners. Many of you in our audience know Chase Partners and David Parker as one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout Southern California for over 30 years. As a longtime supporter of RentTV, they are now sponsoring this show to get the word out about an updated strategy for Chase, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties, other distressed assets, or properties with non-performing debt. So if you're an owner, lender, or broker, needs a fast decision and a fast close on your property, contact Chase Partners. It's on the screen, david@chasepartners.com, david@chasepartners.com. All right. And last but not least is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate. Founded in 1971 by Chuck Hirshon, is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McLean at 800-752-9533. That's 800-752-9533. Okay. Daniel Weiss, welcome to the show. Great to see you again. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me, Steve and Ernie. Yeah, you bet. Well, thank you again- Glad to have you ... for taking the time, doing the show. We know you're busy doing a lot of deals, so very much appreciate. We wouldn't have a show if folks like you didn't take the time to come on and share your knowledge and experience, and mostly good, some of the bad. So we really appreciate you. So let's kick in here. We got a lot to cover. To start off, why don't you tell our audience about Strauss Investments, from the history and founding to the current portfolio, sectors, geographies. Tell us about it. Sure. Strauss Investments, formerly known as M.C. Strauss Company, was founded in 1960 by my grandfather and our principal, Matt Strauss. He got his start in residential real estate. He went to work for an uncle selling some tract homes in Coronado. Actually dropped out of law school to do it. Wow. And kind of set him down the path of building this remarkable business. We currently own and operate about two million square feet of office and retail property, with a geographic emphasis in Southern California. About half of our holdings are in San Diego County. I've been at the company now for 10 years. Had the incredible opportunity to work with him for eight of those years, and to work with some other really great folks here. Mike Rubin comes to mind. He was the former chief operating officer of Burnham Pacific. He's a great mentor of mine. And Pete Oakley, who recently retired. Ah. He's had some stops at some great real estate companies along the way, from Whittier Property Trust to Red Mountain Realty- Right ... Realty Income. So, I've got to work with some really great people and it's really helped shape the professional direction I've taken and our portfolio. Nice. Excellent. Yeah. So Daniel, tell us a little bit about your upbringing. Obviously, it's a family company, and this is your grandfather, and just tell us where did you grow up? Tell us a little bit about you and where it all started for you. Sure. Yeah. I grew up here in San Diego, in North County, Del Mar. Went to La Jolla Country Day School until about halfway through high school, went to Torrey Pines. Ah. Went to University of Oregon originally, out of college. Wasn't for me. Yeah. San Diego guy used to being in the sun. And I think I didn't see the sun from the time I left San Diego to go up there until I came back for winter break. So, transferred- I was going to say Sco Ducks because my son went to Oregon. Oh, cool. Great athletic programs, not really a great place to be if you like being outside. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, transferred to USD. I was a mid-year graduate, so I think technically I graduated January 2011. But the last class I took was December 2010, which obviously was right after the Great Recession. And graduated with a psychology degree. Right. Yeah. Weren't exactly a whole lot of job opportunities. Had a couple of positions in the psychology-related field. One of them was working with, I guess I'd say folks who had just been released from juvenile detention facilities, and they were working towards getting their GEDs. Wow. Yeah. Tough stuff, too. You hear some really heartbreaking stories about what their family lives were like. It was really hard to leave that at work. Right. And then went to go work with a bereavement counselor who had specialized in parents who had lost children, which was equally challenging to absorb that all day. So realized pretty quickly that was not the direction that I wanted my career headed in. And essentially took the first sales job I could get, which happened to be in for-profit education. Which was an interesting experience. I guess the title was admissions counselor, but really what you're doing is selling a college education. Right. And the expectation was you'd make a couple of hundred calls a day. So from that perspective, I think it was a really good training for ultimately getting into commercial real estate brokerage, which is where I went next. But kind of figured out pretty quickly that for-profit education was not for me, to the extent that there was this massively high dropout rate. And really what you're doing as an admissions counselor is, A, kind of selling this dream of the college education and what may come of it, but B, also helping them obtain financial aid from the federal government. And I think there's been a pretty well-publicized crackdown on for-profit education after this. So, I took my sales training and decided I want to get my real estate license. So, had a lot of exposure to real estate growing up. My dad was and still is a commercial real estate broker. He was primarily focused on industrial property down in the South Bay when he was getting started- Right ... in Otay Mesa and Chula Vista. So growing up, he dragged my brother and I along to all sorts of different property visits and most of the time we're messing around on a forklift or a scissor lift. Right. Had some fun racing those around.But yeah, then I started like a junior broker or runner program with a couple of different brokers at Lee San Diego. One of them was focused on investment sales, particularly net leased investments, Southeast United States, focused on a single group of tenants for the most part, CVS, Rite Aid, AutoZones. At the time, with the economy being where it was, he wasn't very busy, as you can imagine. Right. The other broker that I had the opportunity of working with was more of a leasing broker and had one really big institutional client that had about a million square feet of light industrial. And, so I spent a lot of time door-knocking industrial tenants, and that set me on my way on my brokerage career, which lasted about six years. So, again, at the time, economy being what it was, and a lot of brokers' income had decreased 50% or 100%. There wasn't exactly an opportunity to work my way onto a team. So I moved over to another local real estate brokerage, during that first year, somehow, some way, was able to transact about 30 deals. It's one of those, you get a phone and, I don't even think they gave us a computer. You got a cord to plug your computer in. And, it was a great learning experience and built some relationships in the brokerage community and had an opportunity to go work at another brokerage firm in a more traditional brokerage model, where I was paired up with a more senior broker who was able to leverage some of his relationships. And I would do a lot of the cold calling and door-knocking and the heavy lifting. Right. Yeah. Incredible experience with him. We're super close to this day. I want to say about, I don't know, two and a half, three years into my time over there, there was an opportunity to do some office leasing for, at the time, M.C. Strauss Company for a headquarter building here in Solana Beach. And there's a block of about 5,000 feet vacant. It was roughly 10% of the GLA of the project. Had some success leasing it pretty quickly. And at the time, my predecessor was looking at moving on to something that she felt was a better fit. And she had mentioned to me, "Gee, I'm going to be leaving here, and your grandfather's a tough guy to work with." And "There may not be a whole lot of people who've got the tolerance to do it, but you're family and you have some interest in these, and I think it would be really great if you talk to him about it." So, we ended up going to lunch. We talked about it. He brought in a couple other people. Ended up offering me the opportunity, I think because I was the one willing to take the least amount to do it. Right. Business is business. Yeah. Family is family. But more than anything, I saw it as just an incredible opportunity to spend time with him, learn from him, and learn from his chief operating officer, again, Mike Rubin, who's been a great mentor of mine and has had a tremendous influence on me. So, kind of looked at the lay of the land here. Here you've got a principal who's in his 80s, and the top blue tenant here is in his early 70s, and it just seemed like a good opportunity for me to learn, absorb as much as I can and hopefully earn an opportunity to find my way into the leadership. Right. You got to take advantage of certain timing that only presents itself rarely in life, and that is a clear case of that. Thanks for sharing that story. I know that is a bit behind the curtain. So Arnie- Yeah ... you got the next one teed up. Well, okay. I thought you were going to go next, but that's okay. Well, I'll throw it out there. Yeah. No, that's fine. No, no. Yeah. Go ahead. Tell us about the first real estate deal. It could be brokerage. That was- Yeah. The first big one- Which one was- ... that set you big time over at Strauss. Which was the one? I don't know that there's any one deal that I can point towards and say that's the one. I would tell you that in brokerage, I sold a mixed-use project with my then partner. It was office over retail on Adams Avenue in that North Park area. Mm-hmm. And just challenging people across the board, like challenging ownership, challenging tenancy, challenging buyer. And I'd tell you that in working through some of those challenges, I found a lot of confidence. Oh. And brought that with me here where there were some challenging personalities to navigate. And you always get that in any sales position, right? Right. And in my early days here, shoot, like day one , there was a long-standing tenant here at our headquarter building in Solana Beach who had had some concerns about mold in her space. And we had gone to great lengths to investigate it. And by the way, psychologist, and I would caution other landlords to walk slow with- I was going to say, I bet the psychology thing more applies to real estate than being in the psychology field. Yeah, really. Yeah. For sure. And so look, there were some challenging tenant issues to navigate early on, andI think that with anything, as you're able to have some success in navigating those challenges, it just builds on itself, right? Yeah. Like the snowball effect is real. And then at the time I started here, we weren't really acquiring or selling of properties at the pace that we're doing right now. It was one guy's capital stack, right? He was the entire capital stack. So, initially we had bought something in 2017. It was an opportunity that I had sourced from some broker relationships that I had had some lead brokers up in that Temecula office, and there's an opportunity to buy a project that we still own to this day out of receivership. I think that we were maybe a little overly aggressive negotiating it initially. But the first buyer that was selected blew out escrow. The receiver came back to us. There was one thing that we always did really well, which was look, our price is our price, but we will close at our price. And Strauss really sort of relished the role of being the white knight that comes in after the dragon. Right. And so we've had a few opportunities like that where we weren't the first buyer. Sometimes we weren't even the second, we were the third or fourth in, but we did what we said we were going to do. And he was a person who, I mean, utmost integrity. And that was one of the values that he wanted to pass down, which is you operate with integrity, you do what you say you're going to do. And then things really kind of picked up steam for us here, I'd say in '21. So '17, '18, '19, we're acquiring about a deal a year. Super leasing and operationally intensive, right? Our sweet spot is still to this day, tenants in that, call it 1 to 5,000 foot range. And there's a lot of churn. I think on average, probably about 200 transactions a year, between new leasing and renewals. Right. Fast forward to 2020, which was really impactful in terms of our strategy and the direction of our business on a go-forward basis. Spent a lot of time on the line with legal departments for Fortune 100 companies- Right ... that were withholding rent and reporting sales. And because people are hoarding dog food and toilet paper, these tenant sales were up 10, 20, 30, 40%. Yet they're withholding rent and we're getting no relief from the lenders, from the county tax assessor, from the utility providers. We were really kind of stuck in a vice, right? Where on one hand, our income, at least on the retail side, had decreased by 60, 70%. And expenses, on the other hand, were remaining static. So got to a point with some of these tenants where it's like, "Look guys, you're open, your sales are up. And using the pandemic in a self-serving manner is totally inappropriate. So what are you going to do?" Right. And eventually we were able to get some of these tenants current. We also deferred over a million dollars worth of rent for the service users, the mom-and-pop restaurants, the nail salons, who were actually shut down and suffering, right? So after that experience, we were kind of looking at the portfolio, gee, collections on the retail side right now are 35, 40, 42%. And meanwhile, office has never been below 97% throughout the pandemic, 97 to 99%. And we really didn't own any high-rise office in urban cores. What we had owned at the time was suburban office with smaller tenants. And so, I think when the pandemic started, we were already about 90% occupied, and we were able to capture these users that wanted out of the urban cores and were rightsizing and reducing their footprints, and our occupancy went from 90 to 100 very quickly. Nice. And we had always attempted to take this sort of apartment model to office, which works particularly well with small users in that, call it 1,000 to 2,500 foot range, because there's only so many ways you can configure those spaces. Right. So we would come up with a pretty generic build-out that would work for, call it 70, 75% of users. Now, we might miss out on this one really specific tenant that's out touring the market right now, but that's okay if we're saving ourselves building up and tearing down TIs every three to five years. Right. So- And you always want a little vacant space, for some of the tenants in the... Usually it's never 100. Ninety-seven is really the sweet spot anyway, right? Yeah. So you have a little space in case a tenant needs it. Yeah. Well, look, I think there's a school of thought which is if you're 100% occupied, you're not charging enough rent, right? That's my position on this. So, you like to have a vacant suite and- Right ... have it move-in ready. I'd tell you tenants have gotten a lot more sophisticated. A lot more of them are represented now. So they're not waiting until 30 days out to make their lease. You know, I was Cresson Partners tenant rep before I started- Yeah. Right ... Cresson. So you get it. But being able to deliver turnkey space and provide a move-in-ready solution for tenants that have maybe not prepared as well for their upcoming lease expiration is a real benefit. Right. And when I started here, we didn't spec any suites. And that was kind of one of the early, I don't want to call it a problem, but one of the early changes I sought to implement was-Let's have spec suites ready at every property at two different size intervals, so you can capture the 1,000, 1,200 foot tenant, and you can capture the 1,800, 2,000 foot tenant, rather than waiting for them and missing an opportunity because you didn't have space that was deliverable. Right. Hey, this has been great. I want to get us shift back to the questions, because the next one I want to ask is, I think you went through the first couple deals that you did at Shust. But now looking back on it, and I know you've done a couple that we'll really get into in a minute or two, but when you look back on it now, which is the one standout, if there is one, deal that you did, I'm probably assuming on the acquisition front, but that you've done in your career up until this date, what would be that standout deal? I'd tell you there's two of them. One of them, we were disposing of the asset, and it was a retail shopping center in East LA. High vacancy. Had high vacancy from the time I started here. There was some functional obsolescence with it. Mm-hmm. The reason why it's such a monumental deal for us and for me is, I think three days prior to the closing, the buyer had identified a pretty obscure title issue. And when you're that late in the game, there's not a whole lot the buyer can do. Right. They could've failed to perform, at which point, we would've been stuck with the property with the title issue and their deposit. We weren't in it for their deposit. We were in it to close the deal. Right? And so, tracked down the broker that had sold us the property 20 years previously. And, there was a connection between him and the family of the previous ownership who had passed away. And anyways, long story short, we were able to reform the deeds to fix the break in the chain of title- No way ... to convey title to the buyer. Yeah. Wow. And that was really a springboard for us to reposition the portfolio and, from that day forward, we've acquired about 750,000 feet of multi-tenant suburban office in San Diego County. On the acquisition side, we acquired a two-project portfolio in Carlsbad. And Carlsbad was always a market that I had targeted us to break into. Great suburban market, strong demographics, newer build for the most part, good tenant base there. And Arnie and I both put on our San Diego events down there, so. There you go. Yeah. The Westin Carlsbad. That's- Yeah. Right. Shout out to The Westin. Great location. Well, yeah. And I just participated as a speaker, so- Yes. Thank you ... thank you, Steve. But yeah. So, we had broken into that market with this splashy acquisition, two projects, it's approximately 50 million bucks. We are going to show pictures while we're describing it now, so- Okay ... look at the screen when he's talking about this. Go. Let me cut you off. Sorry. Yeah. No, and Carlsbad, I think historically had been a little overbuilt. And so, throughout the different real estate cycles, it would underperform in the market in terms of occupancy. Yet, ultimately, I would describe us as low-basis buyers. And so, when we were making this acquisition, office market is being dragged. There's- Right ... it's being painted in broad strokes in the journal because what's happening with all the distress in the urban cores and the high-rise office, and that same thing is not playing out in the suburbs. Right. And so we've opportunistically took a swing at buying this portfolio. I think we averaged out around two tenant square foot. At the time we went under contract, the projects were 70% and 60% occupied respectively. What year was-- When was that? What was the timing? 2022. November of '22. So, we're like, we had thought that we were at the bottom. But I think that there was still a ways down to go before the market sentiment- Right ... reached. And, like tenants were still in the process of right-sizing, and requirements were changing in real time. And so anyways, by the time we closed, the projects were 60% and 50% occupied respectively. And, those first few months post-closing, it's pretty quiet. I think part of that is there's a seasonality to this business, right? We closed November 8th, I think it was, and then there's Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and things don't start really picking up again until middle of January. So, middle of January hits and we're like, "Oh, shoot. Did we miscalculate?" And I'm very pleased to share that within that, call it first year of ownership, the projects are now 90% and 85% leased respectively. So- What's the project name? Carlsbad Executive Plaza- Yeah. Yeah ... is one of them. It's 2111 through 2141 Palomar Airport Road. Nice. And the second project was called Plaza One and Two, which we've subsequently renamed, but it's located at 1921 and 1925 Palomar Oaks Way. Nice. Okay. So now you might have- What do you get for rents now? Let me ask one more question. What do you get for rents now in that building? So part of the strategy was reducing rents to stimulate occupancy. Ah. Because we're long-term holders of our real estate, we're not merchandising the rent roll for a sale. Right? So when we bought it, the owners were attempting to charge 265 a square foot plus electricity. So part of the leasing strategy was let's offer a lower introductory rate around 225 a square foot. So today- Also modified or full service? Modified. Right. Modified lease. Yeah. Today, Plaza, excuse me, I'll always refer to it as that because that's what it was called when we bought it. Right. Today, we're at about that same asking rate on one of the projects and still a tick beneath it at the other. But what we've been able to do is add a ton of occupancy. Right. And in the interim, we've also built our Carlsbad portfolio. So we've acquired another two projects. One of them, Carlsbad Pacific Center, it's 135,000 square feet. The other one is Right Place, another 100,000 square feet. So now we've got about a half a million square foot portfolio in Carlsbad. And in terms of being in the deal flow, we've got a sizable enough portfolio now where, six, eight, 10, 12 months before things happen, it's like, okay, this project, the owner's having trouble with their lender, and this project, they're going to be losing their biggest tenant. And portfolio-wide in San Diego, across all of our office, we're 90% occupied. Right. Yeah. So Daniel, let me ask you, you're kind of getting into my next question, is how do you find your new projects or deals? Do you get them from brokers? Off-market? Do you track the area? What's your strategy to find new stuff? All the above. Okay. Yeah. So- Which works best? Well, listen, can't discount our broker relationships. Right. Worked with some incredible capital markets brokers here, Rick Reider and Brad Tecca. In fact, I think our last six acquisitions have been sourced through them. That being said, we've now worked with some owners or sellers multiple times now, and they know that we're going to follow through and do what we say we're going to do. Concurrently, we're also building our internal database of what's going on in the market. And so, you track what other people are buying things for, and you give your own internal valuation on them, and if you're resourceful enough, you can track the note and the maturity date, and you can do an analysis saying, like, "Okay, if this owner is going to be able to refi this loan, then they're going to need to add capital," which presents a buying opportunity. And that's where we're really focused right now, is identifying what we perceive to be buying opportunities- Mm-hmm ... and thoughtfully approaching them. I'm a former broker, right? Right. And I value the jobs that brokers do tremendously, and I'm incredibly respectful of the relationships that brokers have with sellers. And so oftentimes, the initial approach is through a broker. Right. Even if we do have a relationship with the seller, the goal is always to honor relationships, and- And they grease the wheels. They want to see a deal happen, right? So their job is to make the deal happen. Well, yeah. That's how they make their money. Right. Exactly. Well, also, valuing a property can sometimes be an emotional decision. And I think having that independent advisor say, "Hey guys, here's what the data says," can help recalibrate expectations and bring some of the emotion out of it. Right. So from that end, I think they're incredibly helpful, particularly Rick and Brad, who I've just got so much experience working with. Sure. They've been on my San Diego panels. Yeah. And you know them. They're great guys. Yeah. Hey, we skipped one, and I love this question, so we got to ask it. How about a deal that you did that or- No, he already covered that. The one he did- That was the one that they, I think, when we asked him about the first deal he ever did, he told us the one that he got rid of, and then the other one that he bought. That's why I skipped it. The one he wished he never did. Yeah. All right. Same properties? Mm-mm. I think that's why I asked that question because he already covered it. We'll edit this part out, but- All right ... all right, let me move on. So- Well, I guess to answer your question, there is one deal, I wouldn't say I wish I never did it. All right. All right. So maybe you didn't cover it. I'd tell you it was incredibly complex, and it could've been simplified and saved us all a little bit of a headache along the way. We owned a just terrible executive office building down in Lemon Grove, which is not much of an office market if you know San Diego well. Right. It was small. It was an outlier for us. It was very management intensive. I think the average suite size there is probably 600 square feet. The biggest cash flow generator there wasn't what was within the building, it was what was on top of the building. We had multiple cell sites there. Oh. And we got approached by a company to sell the cell sites. And this was a first for me, and we were sitting there kind of scratching our heads, like, how do you sell the roof on top of a building where there's- Hmm ... tenants currently occupying it, and you've got all these maintenance and repair obligations to the tenants? Well, the short answer is what you're selling is a- Right ... essentially an easement in perpetuity. Right. Yeah. So you grant them a 99-year easement. In exchange, you get a lump sum of cash. And so I tell you based on the buyer profile for that asset, it was not very big... not really appealing to a sophisticated investor, was going to be a mom and pop. Explaining that there's this easement in perpetuity on the roof that you don't really own was a challenge. And I think it created some unnecessary hurdles to getting that deal done. But hey, at the end of the day, we were able to do it, and by employing that strategy, we were able to maximize our sale proceeds. So do I regret doing it? No, but it presented some unique challenges along the way. Yeah. So you learn from it. So how do you finance these? It was a learning experience. That's right. That was good. Daniel- All right, so- You just took my question. No, go ahead, Arnie. Go ahead. Tell me about financing your deals. You use debt equity. Do you do construction loans? Do you finance them yourself? You got your own funds? How do you finance this stuff? So we don't bring in any outside capital. It's all of our own equity. Yeah. As far as financing goes, we work with a few different lenders. We have a relationship lender who, from a kind of customer service standpoint is... You can't beat them. They're incredible. That- Do you mind if I ask who it is or are you- Sure. Yeah. It's Western Alliance Bank. Oh, good. Okay. Formerly Pines Bank, now Western Alliance. Mm-hmm. Yeah, just great relationship with them. Oh, Western Alliance. No, they're- Yeah. Sometimes the smaller or mid-size regional banks are the best for stuff like that. Yeah, especially for the treasury management relationship as well. Right. They don't pay the highest yields, although they are competitive. Sure. But when there's a problem, you pick up the phone, and you get to talk to an actual human being on the other end of it, rather than just dialing into an 800 number and having- Yeah ... to navigate their automated system. So again, I kind of look at the customer service component of this and highly value that. Right. In addition, we also work with several life insurance companies. Of course. We worked with CMBS lenders. Mm-hmm. We worked with debt funds. I'd tell you that it's really asset specific and even more specific to the business plan. We're unique in the sense that we don't have predetermined hold periods. We're not buying something with a five-year hold or a seven-year hold in mind. By and large, what we're buying we view as long-term holds, and we've held projects for... Shoot, we sold something that had been in the portfolio for over 50 years. Right. And I think that's one of the differentiators for us, which allows us to transact differently. When you have a long-term hold mindset, fighting for that extra nickel of rent isn't as meaningful because in the fifth year outlook, it'll catch up. Right. Mm-hmm. And so I'd tell you our most recent deals, again, love the real estate, love the sticks and bricks on top of it. And we've used Life Co Lending. It's hard to beat their rates. Right. What you get on rate, you give up maneuverability. Yield maintenance is a bad word around here. We've had to dip our toe in those waters opportunistically with the shopping center when we were carving off some pads and it's designed to be punitive, and it is. So, there's a mix of wanting to achieve the best economics, but also allowing yourself the maneuverability to execute on your specific business plan. Right. And I think you said, it's all your own equity. It's all self, yeah. You're not out there- They don't bring in investors ... having to raise funds or anything. Yeah. All right, I'll stop this Zelle payment that I was sending over to you. So let me back up and ask you this other question. I have an analyst background, so I love this question. Arnie rags me on it, but how do you decide to green light a deal? Are you an IRR, return on equity? Do you run a zillion different scenarios? How analysis intensive is it? And, at the end of the day, when you're about to sign that check, what is it that you're really focused on? You go with your gut. No. Well, I'd tell you that Strauss was more of a gut feel guy, which, hard to argue with the results, right? Right. We're mostly cash on cash is the primary metric that we're looking at. Making decisions based on IRR can be challenging when you have a undetermined hold period, right? So much of the IRR for several deals is what's on the exit. Right. And that's not to say that we don't consider it. Tend to be incredibly conservative with my assumptions. You start looking at... We're also LP investors in some other operators' deals. And one thing I'm really skeptical about is when you see a cash flow model and you're looking at the IRR, and the assumption is that cap rates are going to improve by 100 or 150 or 200 basis points at the end of the hold period. Well, to me, that's a guess. No idea what's going to happen in the economy. It's so far outside of your control. And so when I evaluate a deal, I want to add value by doing things that I have relative control over, right? So using the Carlsbad properties as an example, if there's a project that's 70% occupied and we've got the capital to make improvements, I'm going to bet on us to be able to deliver a efficient and high quality product and be able to backfill that vacancy. And when I'm evaluating IRR in our... acquisitions. I'm usually assuming that the cap rate's going to get higher by about 10 basis to 20 basis points per year. Right. Just because I want to understand the worst case scenario. I'm not buying something, we're not buying something based on the best case scenario. Oftentimes, we're making the decision to buy it based on what does the worst case scenario look like? So you still have to run all the analysis and everything just to do the work. Right. But at the end of the day, it's that cash on cash. Well, yeah. Right. That makes sense. That answered your question, Steve, pretty well. Right. So Dale, tell us, how do you exit deal? When do you know? Why? When you figure it's time to get out, and you gave us an example before, when you knew it, but just in the general rule, how do you exit deals? I'd tell you several factors are considered. Let's start with what's happening in the broader economy and the debt markets. I don't think anyone would've guessed that we would've exited our center in East LA or one of our centers in Fresno at the time because there were such big occupancy issues, but interest rates were what they were, and high tides raise all ships. I hate to use a cliche here, but we saw the exit strategy there as, here's an opportunity to achieve the value that we believe is accurate without having to invest the capital. So what are we chasing, right? These vacancies could remain vacant for six, eight, 12, 18 months, and by then the debt markets could've changed dramatically. And ultimately, buyers are pricing things oftentimes based on the spread that they're going to get on their debt. So for those, it was less about what we had done and more about what was happening in the market. Whereas there are other projects that we've sold, and including one recently, where we felt that we've added the value. And there was really little left for us to do, and we had a different use for the equity that was tied up in those projects, and ultimately concluded that it would be best to dispose of those assets and redeploy the equity elsewhere. We had made our returns. Right. Do you go off-market? Do you use brokers? Ever try an auction? Never tried an auction. The most recent sale that we did was off-market. It was marketed previously in mixed results, and pulled it off-market to address something, and at that time, we were approached off-market, and it made sense based on the price that was offered. But traditionally, we work with brokers. We do like to have a process. Thinking back to some of the retail assets that we've sold recently, we listed the two projects that we sold in Arizona, one up in Santa Clarita. So yeah, we traditionally do work with brokers. I think a lot of people get wrapped up in this, like, "I want to buy off-market." Right. Or I want to sell off-market, and it doesn't actually yield the best result because- Broker would know it. Yeah, exactly. Right. All right. Well, let me then, and to repeat what you said at the beginning for our audience, retail office, mainly California, San Diego, mostly, and a little in Arizona up to Fresno. So how do you see the sector trends on those two sectors going forward, in terms of rents, occupancies, challenges? Sure, and actually, I think this is a good segue from the previous question. So, and let me tie the two together really quick. So part of the strategy is we're opportunistic buyers. And for instance, the market seems to really value retail right now, whereas there's not a whole lot of value placed on office. And so we've said, "Okay, we can sell these properties that are in secondary or tertiary locations at a really competitive cap rate, and we can reinvest in what we believe is better real estate, better geographic location, higher construction quality, sometimes better occupancy." The only reason we're able to achieve a better return is because the market's not valuing it. Right. So, to your point, the portfolio makeup now is very different. When I started here, it was about 70% retail, 30% office. Now, the opposite is true, and we're continuing to pursue office because we believe that it's, I don't want to say generational pricing, but there's certainly an opportunity in the sector. You make the money at the buy. Exactly. And to your point, my now former colleague, Pete Oakley, used to always repeat that. You make your money on the buy. And we're keenly aware of that, which is why I get back to ultimately, we're basis buyers, right? We identify an opportunity, and you buy at the right basis, then it kind of gives you the runway to have a couple of mistakes along the way. And I promise you, there are going to be mistakes. Right. Tenants are going to default. This isn't going to match your underwriting based on your turnover vacancy or your expenses or whatever. But if you're buying at the right price, you can afford to have some bumps in the road along the way and still make a profit on the back end. Yeah. Right. So do you feel like the office as a general rule, not necessarily in the specific markets that you're in, do you feel that the office market is bottom, and we're going to start seeing generally rising and improving conditions going forward? I know there's pockets like Downtown LA, Downtown San Diego, but in general, do you feel like the sector's now at the bottom? I do. I think we've passed the bottom. I think- Okay ... investor sentiment would probably agree with that.I'd tell you that office projects now are more financeable. There's really not much in the development pipeline. In fact, the existing supply is diminishing, right? There was this wave of conversions to lab space, at least here locally. Right. I think that same thing is true in other sub-markets, but they're converting it to different product types. Like in Orange County, there's been a lot of office-to-industrial conversions because the zoning's a little bit more flexible and allows for it. I know one of the catchy things that a lot of people have been talking about is office-to-residential conversions. I think it's really challenging, and in most- Yeah ... cases, makes more sense to just demolish the building and start from scratch. Right. Especially if they're big floor plate suburban buildings. Right. Well, yeah. Yeah. You know. Right. So, Daniel, do you have any desire to expand to industrial or multifamily or even go other than California or Arizona, other states? Or you kind of like your niche right now? Yes. Cautiously. Obviously I got my start doing industrial brokerage. Right. Those deals tend to be more focused around functionality of the space, clear height, electrical capacity, loading. Mm-hmm. Industrial's really had a renaissance over the past seven, eight years. When I started in brokerage, felt like the office brokers were kind of looking down on us industrials. Yeah. And we were kind of pining to be the office broker. Boy, how times have changed. Yeah. Definitely. And now the opposite is true, and you've got all this capital chasing industrial, and there are some really big institutional players in the space. And, my hope is that we might see some more competitive pricing with industrial in the future. I still can't really wrap my mind around that you can buy office, which the cost of building and improving exceeds industrial, yet the cost of buying an industrial property far exceeds that of office. And it kind of goes back to the supply and demand fundamentals of any given market. And to your other question about expanding to other markets, as it relates to office specifically, what we're really targeting is suburban markets. So if there's a great suburban market outside of San Diego County, and we can determine that the fundamentals are there, where there's going to be office leasing demand, then we'll absolutely pursue it. As far as multifamily goes, I don't know what the appetite is there. There's just so many people in that space. Right. It seems very crowded. There's a lot of capital chasing those deals. And I would tell you that we're unlikely to start looking at multifamily, though we have invested in it as LP investors as a diversity play. Right. How far a state? Would you look southeast, Texas, in terms of the office plan? Is it more like on the conditions, the market there? What's your thoughts? How far and wide would you go? There's no hard and fast rule here. Right. Texas is obviously a market that has demonstrated really strong fundamentals, and you've seen a lot of corporate headquarter relocations to Texas. Right. We recently looked at a couple of deals in Nevada and some great suburban markets- Right ... outside of Las Vegas. Phoenix, maybe less enthusiastic about. We've owned projects in Phoenix. We currently own two. The kind of office fallout there has taken a different path, largely based on the politics of how the pandemic was approached. So, not too bullish on it, but obviously we really like select markets in California, from the southernmost part, the border crossing all the way up to the Oregon border. It just depends on the market. And so sorry to not directly answer your question, but all I can say is we're open. No, no, no. Yeah. And that's kind of what we're looking for is- The answer's the answer ... what you think. Right. Yeah. Yeah, Arne, go ahead. What are your thoughts on architecture and construction when it comes to a new project? How involved do you get in those areas? Or is there somebody else within the company that handles that? No, I'm incredibly involved in it. So let's start with we're not ground-up developers. Okay. We're just not set up for ground-up development. And I think that if you were to ask that question to someone who does do ground-up development, you probably would get a very different answer. Mm-hmm. That being said, a big part of what I do is talking with the architects and contractors and selecting our materials and finishes. So, the tenant expectation in the market is you as the landlord, as an office landlord right now, are going to deliver them a high-quality, turnkey solution. And it's kind of taken a more residential path here with having open kitchens within the office environment, and small details, right? Like the spillover on your granite countertops. Right? And so I have the pleasure of working with a couple of different architects. The best in the world is Jennifer Bennett with Orcus Harris. We do a ton of work with her. We work with several different GCs. Just depends on the scope of the project and the pipeline.I think an area where we're able to win deals is because we have a great relationship with a local tenant improvement contractor, and he's priced really competitively. And I give him a pipeline of six, nine, 12 months worth of projects. And because I give him so many projects, we're able to achieve economies of scale. Whereas, for some of the bigger projects, like a common area renovation or a 10,000-foot space, we might use one of the larger GCs. It's not that he's not capable of doing it. Look, it's more drywall, it's more ceiling tiles, it's more open to structure ceiling, it's more millwork, it's more paint. It's not stuff that he can't tackle, but it's the scope of it. And being able to execute on time and deliver to the tenant to get rent started is an important factor in making the decision. So it's not always based on pricing. It's pricing and methodology and ability to timely execute. Right. Yeah, I'm a big fan of architecture, so I love style and stuff like that, so it's great. But let me, going forward, and today, what do you see as major challenges, I guess maybe in California, but in certain cities and insurance, cost of materials, labor. What do you see as the major challenges going forward, in your spaces? All the above. And I guess, plus the political climate, I think that's a good place to start. I didn't want to start there, but feel free. Look, I don't have a political message that I want to deliver on this. But that being said, there are some problems with vagrancy that affect some cities more than others. And, while I acknowledge that it's really a problem and a multifaceted problem, and there's a whole lot of people working to solve it that are far smarter than me. Tenants, they want to feel safe when going to their office. And as a landlord, I feel like the most basic obligation that we have to our tenants is to provide them a safe and clean, sanitary place to work. Right? And so that's been a challenge, and I think some municipalities have been more successful in addressing it than others. San Diego specifically has done a pretty good job, which is part of the desire to keep growing locally. Combined with our existing relationships with contractors, with architects, with the brokerage community, and being able to leverage those and be able to be efficient and successful. But to your point, TI's have gone up significantly over the last five, six years, and that's not going away. Right? Look at what's happening politically abroad right now, and the cost of oil has gone up. Yeah. That means the cost of a slurry seal for the landowner has gone up, which means the cost that's passed through to the tenant has gone up. So there's a ripple effect to these things. And ultimately, it's very important to work with people that you like, that you know, that you trust. And once you have those relationships, you've really got to nurture them. Right. Yeah. All right, my last question. We've just got a couple minutes, Arnie. Let me get the last one out there. So, and we just got a few minutes, so I want to get your quick thought on this. Advice for someone starting out today in hiring initiatives you may have. Advice for someone starting out today, and I'm sorry, what was the second part of the question? If you're having hiring initiatives, kind of a similar question. Hiring initiatives. Yeah. Okay. I would tell those people to be fearless. I think in the current digital age that we're in, a lot of people are not as assertive and outgoing as they could be. And being on the employer side of the equation now, I appreciate when someone's assertive and is willing to take a calculated risk to get my attention. Excellent point. I tell you that people who just repeatedly email me are not as successful as someone who- They got to stand out. Yeah. They got to be personable. They got to be memorable. So you can't be afraid to take a risk. Right. I'll also tell you I value resourcefulness above all else. Right? No one's born a property manager. No one's born a director of leasing. There's all this information and data out there, both in your professional network through educational opportunities, whether it's a trade organization like NAIOP or CCIM or ULI. Plus, there's just what's out there on the internet, too. And so I'd tell you, the people I value most in our organization are people who make their best efforts to deliver solutions prior to asking the question, right? There's such a difference between someone coming to you and saying, "Gee, Daniel, I have this problem. What do I do?" Versus, "Hey, Daniel, I noticed that this is a problem, and I think that these three potential solutions might be a good fit. What do you think about that?" Those are the people that I want on our team. Right. All right. Well, I think we can wrap it up there. Well, hopefully. Right? No. Hopefully- Do we have time for another? ... Steve will let me ask a question. Go ahead. He feels- You're back. Arnie, you're back. All right It's not Steve and Arnie. It seems to be just Steve today. But anyway, I do have a question for you. Let's take the suit and tie off, and let's find out a little bit more about Daniel. What are your personal interests? Do you have charities? Who's your favorite sports team? When Oregon and USC play, who do you root for? I think I know who. Those are the kind of things we kind of want to know a little bit more about the person. Yeah, sure. I appreciate the question. My wife's amazing. She's a saint. She's just perfect in every way imaginable. I'm not saying that because it's the day after Mother's Day. I'm saying it because I mean it. I have two kids. My son is four and a half. I have a daughter who's just turned one. I love baseball. I actually coached my son's T-ball team this year, which was challenging, but also fun and fulfilling experience. I think after the first practice, I had talked to my wife. I'm like, "Babe, I don't know how I can do this or how people coach." And then the kids somehow intuitively know that there's a different level of- What- ... focus required for the games. Oh, what's great about that age is when the ball goes, and they all sprint- They all go ... to the ball. Yeah. Yeah. It is the funniest thing to wa-- I have a grandson that's just turned four, and he's in the same age, so it is a pleasure to watch them. But yeah, that's rewarding. So yeah. I did a lot of coaching Little League. Wait till you get to the All-Star level and Pony. That's a level of stress. Well, he's not there yet. Right now he's enjoying the youngest. Yeah, but go ahead. Yeah, no, so I really enjoyed that. And, yeah, I'm a huge baseball fan. I grew up going to what was then Jack Murphy and Qualcomm. Saw all those Padres teams that went to the '98 World Series. Mm-hmm. And saw us get beat by the Cardinals a few times in the early mid-2000s at Petco. I probably go to 12, 15 games a year now. As much as my wife will allow me to. Yeah. But yeah, huge baseball fan. Love my family and love- Chargers? You follow football? Not really. You know, they left, and that was it for me. Yep. Yeah. It's such a shame, too. Taking a step back for a moment, core memories of my childhood- Right ... my dad and my brother, were spent running the concourse at Qualcomm Stadium and doing the tailgates, and there were cousins involved, and like- Yeah ... it was just such a great, rewarding experience. And the thing that hurts the most about it is that experience is now something I can't have with my son. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it's- It just seems like, I don't know, like lines were drawn unnecessarily by both sides, and you look at what's happening in Mission Valley now, and if you were to go to Spanos today with the question of, "Hey, be an owner in Mission Valley and have this whole market to yourself," versus be the JV team in LA, I don't know, I'd like to think he might have a different answer. Now you got Heinze though. It all comes down to dollars. We all know that when it comes to sports now, and- Hey, Arnie, do I have time for one more? Can I get one more in? One more. Go ahead, Steve. You- What- What charities? We always like giving a little pop to charities that you may be involved because at the end of the day, doing good deeds, that's what a lot of real estate developers are known for and strive for, so- Yeah ... making the communities better. So, and maybe mentioning this will make a couple checks occur, or people call you. So- Yeah. You never know. Yeah. What? Give a little pop to a charity or two that you guys are really involved in. Yeah. We've been really involved with the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Mm-hmm. Matt Strauss was a huge art collector. They're also very involved with UCSD Medical Center. My wife and I have been involved with various different animal rescues, including having rescued two dogs ourselves. That's great. And also, I unfortunately, tragically lost my brother years ago. He was 37 years old. And, a personal goal of mine, and one that I've taken some steps towards accomplishing, is establishing a charitable foundation in his name, and the focus of the foundation will be to allow greater access to sports for youth sports participants who are maybe more challenged. And also providing healthcare access, particularly colon cancer patients, allowing them access to treatments that they may not otherwise have. So, it's been a really profound loss in my life. I've had some personal loss between my brother and my mom- Mm ... who I lost at 19, and what really motivates me as a person is to honor their names and wishes and legacies, and I carry that with me with everything I do, so. You know what? That's fantastic, and that's a great way to end. We know a little bit more about you and your family outside the real estate. That's what we like to do- Especially after Mother's Day. As much as we know about your real estate and all of these interviews we do is really to find out more about the commercial real estate industry, but really I like to focus on the person. And you just gave us a great thing to know a little bit more about you and how rewarding it is for you to do stuff like that, and we really appreciate having you with us today and- Yeah. Yeah, Daniel, thanks for the time again, and now that we've done the interview, even more so a thank you on the- Yeah ... the information you shared and the willingness to be open on some things because I think that's really going to be helpful at the end of the day for a lot of people in the business because everyone thinks everything's frigging walk in the park when they see big companies and the projects, but- Yeah ... a lot of challenges that we all face, so- All right ... very much appreciate it. Thank you, Daniel. Well, I appreciate- Appreciate it ... the time and opportunity to speak, and I guess if there's kind of one parting shot I'd like to- Sure ... it's work hard and keep your head down and have a positive attitude, and if you're a young professional out there, then opportunities are going to come your way, you know? Perfect way to end. Thank you, Daniel. Nice job right there. All right, Daniel. Good luck on the deals. All right. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Appreciate the time. You've been watching "Commercial Real Estate Talk" with Steve and Arnie, sponsored by Rockefeller Group, Providence Savings Bank, Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Chase Partners. Start to ignite
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/1200839794.txt b/data/transcripts/1200839794.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e4367e6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/1200839794.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey. Welcome to the next episode of "Commercial Real Estate Talk" with Steve and Arnie, where we strive to have informative, interesting, and very educational conversations with leaders in the commercial real estate space. Founders, CEOs, top executives of companies that own large portfolios of commercial real estate. And I am super excited about today's guest, a repeat guest, Bill Shopoff, CEO of Shopoff Realty Investments, who's going to tell us all about his new projects and things that he's got going on. Very exciting. Lots of different things to touch base on. But before we get to him, we've got a few things, business to take care of. Let me introduce my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel from the Allstar Group. Hey, Arnie, come on in. How you doing, Steve? Doing great. Excited about today's show. How are you? Yeah. We're going to follow up on some of the projects he talked about at the very beginning, so that's kind of exciting. Yeah. Um- And tell people quickly about Allstar Group. Sure. Allstar Group is a commercial real estate lending company. We also do conferences, and well known for our commercial real estate and lending conferences and the Loan Makers Forum, where we have a stage of lenders, and you could submit loans to them live at the conference. We also do online events and anything to do with commercial real estate. So just go to allstargroup.com, and you'll find out more about us. Excellent. And many of you will know REN TV, our 25, 26-year-old media company for the real estate industry. We provide news on a daily basis for the Western US on our website, rentv.com. We also put on five conferences a year, Orange County, Inland Empire, Greater LA, San Diego, and Arizona. Orange County's coming up in a few weeks. Probably get this show before that, June 25th. So we're looking forward to that. We also have this video platform, The Review, where you're watching this show. It's a free searchable video platform. Lets you put in your videos from Vimeo and YouTube and tag them for the real estate industry. And then we have this podcast, "Commercial Real Estate Talk." And that's about it for REN TV. So we look forward to doing some business with you all out there and seeing you at our next conference. But before we bring in our guest, got a few pieces of business to take care of. Right, Arnie? Our sponsors. That's our sponsors. We got to talk about them. Make this show happen. They make the show. And we've got some great sponsors. Listen up. Listen carefully. Contact them. Tell them you heard about them on our show. And our first one is a great longtime advertiser with REN TV, and that is Rockefeller Group. Many of you in our audience and around the country know them for nearly a century. Rockefeller Group has delivered exceptional experiences and value creation through dedication to quality in the built environment. From the iconic Rockefeller Center in New York City and office buildings throughout the country to large-scale industrial facilities and multifamily projects, many throughout the Southwest, Rockefeller Group develops, owns, and operates truly extraordinary properties. Visit rockefellergroup.com for more information on Rockefeller Group and their projects throughout the United States. Who's next, Arnie? Our next sponsor is Provident Savings Bank. Provident Savings Bank is a California-focused portfolio lender with a legacy dating back to 1956. Provident Savings Bank is a trusted resource for brokers and investors seeking 350,000 to 5 million in financing for properties ranging from light industrial to multifamily. Their deep roots in the community and longstanding commitments to responsible commercial real estate lending make them an ideal partner for your commercial real estate needs. Provident Savings Bank is an FDIC-insured and equal housing lender. Learn more about their lending programs at myprovident.com or contact Gina Conant, the Vice President and Sales Manager of Commercial Real Estate Lending, at area code 951-403-0567. Excellent. Next up is Chase Partners, another longtime client of Chase Partners. Many of you out there have done business and spoken with Dave Parker, the head of Chase Partners, one of Southern California's leading investors and developers of industrial properties throughout Southern California for over 30 years. Now they are sponsoring the show to get the word out about the updated strategy for Chase, focusing on underperforming industrial and retail properties and other distressed properties, properties with non-performing debt. If you're an owner, lender, or broker that needs a fast decision and a fast close on your property, contact Chase Partners, david@chasepartners.com. It's up on the screen, david@chasepartners.com. All right, Arnie. And our last sponsor, last but not least, is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate. Founded in 1971 by Chuck Hirshon, it is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McLean at 800-752-9533. Well, let's bring in our guest, Bill Shopoff. Bill Shopoff, welcome to the show. Great to see you. Good to see you again. Nice. Thank you again, and we appreciate you. Yeah. And let me just introduce a bit about the show. Now, I urge our audience to go watch the first show. We talked a lot about your history and your backstory and how you got in the business and decision-making and really informational stuff, and so I urge people to go watch that. With this show, we got a lot to catch up on. You got a lot of projects going on. So really with this show, we want to talk about current situations, current projects, and how you see things going forward. So with that in mind, again, get ready for the ride. Are you ready? All right, Steve, you're up first. All right. Well, when we last spoke- You would just kind of put a bow on your I-10 project, the industrial project, to start with the industrial sector. I think you sold it to Brookfield. They pre-leased it. It seemed like a nice home run, and you were very bullish on the industrial sector. And now I see you've got the Desert Hot Springs project. Tell us about that project and lace in your thoughts about the industrial sector going forward. Well, look, we sold was probably a high water mark when we sold. The industry's been in a little bit of a oversupply kind of recalibration, and I think it's been a lot of things. A little bit of overexuberance on the development side, coupled with the impacts of tariffs and causing uncertainty in that sector. I think that's largely behind us, seems to be today. Mm-hmm. And people are still not quite pulling the trigger on big leases, but we hear rumor of maybe four or five very large leases that are-- more than rumor. We know papers being passed around on- Right ... several million footers out in the Inland Empire. And I think that over the next three to six months, we're going to see some good new comps into the marketplace. And I'm looking at it from a longer-term perspective, and I'm very bullish on it long term. I don't see that logistics, big box warehousing is going to go away. Right. So I think we're going to find our spot there. We've got our Desert Hot Springs. It's a little over a million square feet. We have another project about a mile down the road, a little bit westerly, at the 10 and the 111, where we have about 2.7 million square feet that we're just wrapping entitlement on. Be done with that by the end of the year and break ground sometime in 2027 there. And then we have another 4.2 million square feet further in that we're entitling. So we're making a big bet. I think it's a good bet. We have a long vision. It's not going to be tomorrow to build all this out. We need to see some legs get back onto the marketplace, but we feel pretty confident about it. Well, let me drill in a little bit. With Desert Hot Springs, where are you in that process? We have permits in hand. We're trying to put the finishing touches on a financing package. It's been a little bit challenging. The common equity markets have been really tight. Yeah. And so we raised equity. We had a preferred equity partner and a construction lender. The preferred equity partner went through a sale and kind of went risk off, and so we have to replace that capital, and we're in the middle of negotiating with a couple groups right now, and hopefully can get that building under construction before the end of the year. So- Is it one building, a million feet? One building, a million sixty thousand square feet. Yeah. Oh, awesome. What does it cost to build something like that these days? All in, that's probably $160, $170 million project all in. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Good. Hundred and seventy foot. All right. Yeah. All right. So, Bill, you also discussed the storage tank site, Magnolia Coast. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that project? Because that's got a whole bunch of different components in it. I love that project. Yeah. And probably last time we talked about it, we were actually still calling it the Magnolia Tank Farm. Right. Because it had the storage tanks on it. Because you were growing tanks. Yeah. Really. And once we got it entitled, we rebranded with a softer, gentler brand. Yes, I see. Magnolia Coast sounds a little sexier. We're moving through. We got maps approved recently at Huntington Beach. We're dotting some I's and crossing some T's with the Coastal Commission on some conditions of approval. Right. And our current plan is, around the 1st of October, we would have a transaction to sell the 203 single-family town home sites to one of the home builders. And that's going through diligence today. Hopefully, things stay on track, but we feel pretty confident that we've got the right buyer selected and very excited for us and for them. Okay, and then you got affordable housing as well, correct? In that mix. We have a 51-unit affordable project. Kind of cool thing about that was we've dedicated half of those units as first priority for the hotel workers because we also have a 215-key hotel on the site. Yeah, that's what I wanted to find out. Tell us a little bit more about the hotel. Is it going to be a full service, a partial service? It will be full service. We're trying to find the right developer- Flag ... operator for that. Flag. Ah. Some question whether we would do it or whether we'll partner. Hospitality's not our primary business. Right. We have some exposure there, but it's a tough time to do a hotel deal right now. Yeah. So- It's a tough time to do everything right now. Well, that's true, but- I was talking to somebody this morning. We've been in a real estate recession, doldrums, whatever you want to call it, for three and a half, four years. You're right. Yeah, 100%. Since rates started ticking up, you had a disconnect between cap rates and transaction volume is way down. And every now and then we get a glimmer of hope and there's some green shoots that the next quarter's going to be the quarter to break free. And we just haven't seen it. Yeah. Um- Yeah, no, I've seen some- Between the uptick in interest rates and then the cost of construction materials exploding and the insurance- Well, yeah ... it's been, uh, a lot of- And hospitality is very, it's up and down. People started, right after the pandemic, everybody just wanted to get out and start going on vacation and going all over the place, and then all of a sudden it kind of leveled off with the bus- but it sounds like you're really not keen on hospitality as a general rule, but if the right deal comes along, you'll look at it. I think well-placed, and look, I love the idea of being involved in coastal hospitality because- Right ... it's a limited quantity item. Of course. Right. So we're working through it. We've got a letter of intent. We're negotiating with one group that we would JV with them and go down the road. It's something we really would like to get underway, but we want to find the right product or the right partner. Some people think we want to put all 215 keys. We've looked at some other alternatives at a lower key count, but a- Yeah ... kind of higher value proposition. So we're working through that, and I think we'll get there. All right, good. It's fortunately, it's an important component to the project, but the project can be successful- Without it ... with that trailing. It sounds like you want to be involved in it as opposed to carving it out and selling it or doing a ground lease or something like that. We'll do either. We're open. Yeah. And has the city been really involved and enthused about the project? Yeah. I think we've had really good success with the city of Huntington Beach. You would think. They're not always the easiest organization, and we've had nothing but good things about this. Yeah. Then you got to deal with the Coastal Commission too, which also only makes it- Huntington- You know, we did well at Coastal. We got a unanimous vote at Coastal Commission. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Huntington's a great city. There's not many places like Huntington Beach in the world. Yeah. So I love our site. I'm very enthused about our builder takeout and soon we'll be able to announce who that is. But we're very proud of the selection and glad that we were able to marry up with the right builder. Sounds good. Excellent. All right, Steve, you're next. Well, sticking with the large projects, Mesa Verde. That master planned community, I think something like 1,400 acres. Yes. How's things moving along there? 1463 or something crazy like that. Wow. 1460- But those are monstrous projects that take years, and we are kind of on the home stretch of re-entitlement. So when we bought the site, there was a development agreement and a specific plan for 3,650 home sites. We re-entitled it. We are re-entitling it and expect to have approvals before the end of this third quarter for keeping the home count the same, but going to a smaller lot product and adding 4.2 million feet of logistics to the site. Interesting. And we've negotiated most of the business issues with the city. Feel very comfortable where we are and very excited about the project. It's a big project for the city of Calimesa. And I think one that we're very proud to be participating in. We're going to bring some new parkland. We'll bring a lot of jobs with the logistics. We've got a site that we think we can bring a medical office user in, which is something that the city wants and- Right ... we think we've got the right group. We've got a retail pad that we think there's great interest in. So I think overall, and then there's the housing. Right now, that housing market's tough. Its pricing's off just enough to make delivering new lots difficult. Yeah. But I think we're in this for the long range and- They were going to be single family for sale? Yes. Yeah, that's because the interest rates are so high. People are just not buying. Yeah. With high rates and high costs, it just makes qualifying tough. Right. And moving tough, getting rid of a low interest loan in a house you're in. Yeah. People sitting with- I don't see, at least with our current policies of our government, and I'm trying not to be political, but just the reality. And by the way, I don't think it matters which party. You're right. It doesn't. We have two parties who want to spend more money than they earn. And in the long run, I think it's hard to have low interest rates when you're deficit spending every year. Yeah. We had it for a period of time, but that was kind of an abnormal period of time, and we dumped a huge amount of stimulus into the market to drive rates down. Right. And because we were able to drive both long and short rates down because there was so much money dumped into the economy. I think the Fed could take rates back to zero, and in this climate, it won't bring the 10 year down appreciably or at all. Yeah. And so- Valid point ... so I just don't see us back in a 3% interest rate environment, nor do I think we need to be. But I think we need to be in the fives at least. Yeah. Those days are gone, the three, two, three, 4% interest rates. We've never going to see that again. I think if we could get in the Five to five and a half. I think you could move people who have a four- Yeah ... to a five and a half, and you could un-jam the marketplace. Right. But you can't move somebody at a four to a seven. No. No, it's just not going to work. Or it's just going to be- Economically, it's not going to pencil out. The lenders aren't going to do it. So, yeah. Well, there's no advantage to the buyer because you're going to pay more for your product, and then you're going to pay more for your rate. Exactly. Look, I think we have a lot of conversations about affordability, and to me affordability is a three-legged stool. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe you got some magic that I don't have. No, you're right there. It's price, it's interest rate, and it's income. Yeah. You need all three. So I don't think that price is coming down appreciably, and nor do we really want it to. Yeah. I tell people, I give the example, I said, "What if I came into your community and I said, 'Great." Huntington Beach. Use Huntington Beach for an example. "I got this great piece of land. I figured out how to build houses for 20% less today and undercut your home values." Yeah. That'll go over well. Right. Yeah. So- That's not a selling proposition. No. So cutting prices isn't the answer, because cutting prices hurts everybody that's an existing homeowner. So I think it's got to either be interest rates or incomes and, I guess what I could say is, maybe AI is the answer, and maybe we're all going to get so much more efficient that our incomes are going to grow- Hmm ... and we'll grow our way out of this. Yeah, right. I don't know that I believe it, but it's one of the ways to get there. You got to look positive. All right. There was a follow-up to that, Bill, before we slide into the next question, Arnie. I mean, we were talking about single family rental, but what's your take on the rental market in Southern California and California in general? Is it similar thoughts that you have there? We're active in both the for sale market and the rental market. Right. I think in our coastal stuff, we feel very good about- Okay ... delivering infill coastal product, both for sale and for rent. I think rents have a little more elasticity because the rent purchase differential is so high right now. Right. Right. And there's such a shortage. I mean, all the ebbs and flows, there's a long-term shortage of the last- There's still a general shortage of housing. The rental stock is pretty well-filled. There's some spottiness to it. But generally, you've got rent growth in Orange County, rent growth generally in Southern California. The IE's probably growing even faster than Orange County generally, certainly near term. Close in IE's done very well. Right. The Chino, the Corona markets, those markets have done very well from a rental standpoint. But the differential, the math's always done just on PITI. Yeah. But the reality is, is that that's not the cost of home ownership, because the cost of home ownership just begins from buying the home. Yeah. Now I got to put drapes up, and I got to put a bush in the yard, and I got to do this, and every weekend you're spending money. And God forbid a pipe breaks or- Repairs. Right, the repairs, the taxes. And stuff breaks. Exactly. Yeah. So I think that California's going to be a rental market for a while. Yeah. More renters than homeowners. It's unfortunate, because I do think that home ownership is the long-term pathway to creating wealth for people. Yes. Yeah. Look, you can go back to the World War II era, end of World War II, the GI Bill. Right. And you can look at the wealth that was created in those next couple generations. And for a lot of families, it's housing related. Right. Well, that's how you- And the positive effect on the neighborhood when you have families per house. Real estate investment. And you live in a home, you've got a fixed cost of living, and particularly, I grew up in Texas where you couldn't do, at the time, second mortgages. Mm-hmm. So you couldn't lever up your equity. You could do a second mortgage to do a home improvement, but you couldn't lever out equity at the time. Yeah. Right. So it was a very steady, stable thing, and you knew it was going to cost you your $1,000 or $2,000 a month for your home forever. Yeah. And- Things have changed ... and so that allowed you to kind of build and amass- Right ... and get your children off to college. And you pay off your mortgage with the payments, too. Literally, a friend of mine just posted on Facebook a mortgage burning party. Nice. I didn't even know people knew what that was anymore. Oh, yeah. That was way back when. All right, let's move on. Yeah. Shift sectors. Let's talk about this office condo conversion that you're doing in Newport Beach. I think you call it the Waypoint. Waypoint. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that and what about the pivot? Why do we go there? Well, our pivot there was because we already owned a building, and we didn't see a pathway out alive. There's a reason, okay? There was a reason. We owned a building, and our basis was too high to get out alive. Okay. So there's not going to be any plans to buy more office and do that? Or is that something- We might. You might? We might. Okay. We might. I think we'd want to do it more- There was part retail in this too, wasn't- No. But we got it approved for medical office. Right. And that's been a big key for us. Right. So we've been able to sell to some docs and some clinics, and that's done well because we're just down the street from the new UCI- Right ... Hospital there on Jamboree, so it's been a good synergy for us. Matter of fact, I signed an LOI yesterday to sell one of the units to a medical group, and I've got a closing at the end of June to another doctor. Okay. So it's become heavy medical, and I think we're getting close to 700 a foot. And- How big are the units? Kind of 3 to 7,000 square feet. Right. So we're going to come out okay on the building. Nice. It's interesting, the building across the parking lot from us, much bigger building, sold for $100 a foot last year. Yeah. Wow. In 1997. So- I'm going to sell my condos, which I think we have like 40,000 feet of condos- Yeah ... for almost what the 300,000 square foot building sold for. Amazing. Well, I mean, this is something- So it's a pivot. Yeah. So I think we're kind of going the same direction here is because of all the office vacancies and all these offices that have just been sitting there, and you can buy it at a good price, that appears to be a good possible next step or next evolution in real estate. Do you see this becoming something going forward? So office condos. I think like residential condos. And I've done another one. I did one- Yeah ... early in my career. Okay. Very successfully. I carved up a campus in Austin, Texas, decades ago. More decades ago than I care to recall. Okay. I was the genius. We bought the note on this deal and foreclosed it, and our basis in the office building was 20 bucks a foot. Wow. And we sold it for $65 a foot and thought we were geniuses. Yeah. And $65 a foot in Austin, Texas, would be a pretty good basis today. Yeah. No, that would be great. Everything about the condos. Well located in Austin, Texas. Yeah. But I think it's something we will look at. Okay. But we will look at it more intentionally. This was kind of an accidental, but I think it's like a residential condo. Okay. It's still a location play. Yeah. Like what works in Newport Beach doesn't necessarily work in Fountain Valley or Fullerton. Right. Yeah. And you got to have the right building structure. There's a brand savvy to Newport Beach. Right. Yes. Oh, without a doubt. And some of the most successful people backed into something by mistake or by out of need, and this is something that you saw no path, and you went this way, and it might turn out to be a blockbuster for you. Something that could be repeated. And it's great because can't the buyers, they get SBA financing? They do. That's all- Right? So that makes it- Almost every one of the deals has been SBA financed. Absolutely. It makes it so much easier. Yeah. That's great. So it's kind of a cool little business. I think we made an interesting pivot there, and it's kind of fun. I mean, I needed to do one more thing like- Because I hadn't tried enough different things in my career. Yeah. Why not? Let's give this a try. Yeah. Well, I want to shift into retail, but do you think the office market in general, Bill, has bottomed out? Yes. What do you think? I think so. Yeah. I think it's two things. I think that it's a combination of return to office, which is every day one more company realizes that they need to have their people back with butts in seats. And there are some exceptions to that. There are businesses that can pull this off, but- Yeah ... I got to tell you, the majority of them work better with people in a chair. So you think there might be opportunities? You're hunting around for some office properties? What do you think? I think there probably is. I don't know that it would be- Yeah, and now they're going to convert it to housing. I got invited to participate in a couple deals last year, in the last year, and I decided not to just because I need to put blinders on- Right ... and get some projects done. And we talked about your investments in some of the office projects around the country last time around, so. Yeah, they weren't that much fun. I'm getting rid of one of them this month, and I will celebrate to write a check and get out of the deal. Well, let's shift to a sector that is more fun, and that's retail. Yeah. A bit more colorful. The tenants are more fun. It's all about experiences. I see you're moving forward with La Mirada and sold Mission Viejo. Yeah. Tell us about La Mirada, and tell us about if you're looking for more, and what your thoughts are on the retail sector. I think we like this kind of pad business, creating a little conglomeration of pad users, of restaurants, and select service. And in my La Mirada deal, I've got one of the fast food franchises. I've got a coffee franchise, not Starbucks, but a more- ... localized. I've got a EV charging, and so I'm kind of building that. And those are things that I'm doing really differently from my core business. Right. Those are really part of my family office that are going to be things that ultimately are long-term check deliverers to my mailbox. Right. And- How much space do you have there at La Mirada? How big is it? I've got eight acres there, and I've got another site out next to my Desert Hot Springs Industrial. I've got a retail pad there that's about six or eight acres there. Okay. And we're padding that out as well. One of the commonalities in both sites, I'm doing digital billboards, not just retail. Hmm. So I got clearance to do digital billboards, so I'm in the advertising business as well with a partner. I mean, I own the billboard, but they're doing the placement. Right. The ad placement. And that's a really nice business model. It's a- It's like an annuity. You generate- Freebie visibility ... you generate a really nice cash on cash- Yeah ... on the actual billboard. Right. And so it helps kind of fund the whole project, and I think ultimately, without a huge amount of capital, I have a nice cash flow for my family. Mm-hmm. And I'm trying to deliver, if I could build one of those kind of deals, a La Mirada, a Desert Hot Springs, and do one every year or two, maybe someday I could retire, although I think that's probably unlikely. Yeah, you know what? It's kind of hard to retire when you- I am well past retirement age. Yeah. Whatever that means. How do you do those triple net deals? Are they for lease? Do you sell them? How are those? I'm going to lease them and keep them. Uh-huh. I'm going to lease them and finance them and stick them in the drawer. And the rents are all over the map in terms of- Yeah ... depending on the specific site? Depending on whether we're just doing ground lease or whether building the building for them, and so it's a little bit different for everyone. So. Right. Well, sticking with retail, the big one, more de-retailing, but- Yeah ... sliding over to Westminster, which obviously has been- You were all over the news on that one, I saw. Big in the news. Right. The getting into the ground. Bolsa Pacific, I believe is what it is, right? Yes. So, a huge retail mall that got- It was time ... not useful anymore. Yeah. Are you keeping any of the old retail, or is it all going to be new? Yeah. Only people that'll stay are be... Well, I got two banks there. I got Chase and US Bank. US Bank will stay but relocate. Chase will stay in their location. They've got another option remaining, I think. Right. Target will relocate into a new building, is the plan. There are some agreements we still have to finalize, but our site plan has them relocating. And they want to relocate, so I think that'll get done. Right. And then we've got 60 to 80,000 feet of new retail, which is primarily experiential and food and other things of that nature. It won't be strip mall at all. It should be more curated. Mm-hmm. More local, entrepreneurial, trying to play to the Westminster flair and- Right ... and- Have a little more design to it, bit pedestrian-friendly courtyard type of feel. Yeah. Right. It's going to be a heavily residential walkability community. Totaling, we're doing about 2,250 residential units there when it's all said and done, and feel pretty pleased about what we're doing right now. How many different buildings are the residential units? We have four different rental buildings- Uh-huh ... three market rate and one affordable, and then we have about 855 for-sale units. Nice. And a mix of studios to two and three bedrooms on the rentals? Studios, ones, and twos. Uh-huh. Not much of the three. We don't build much three bedroom. We save the three bedroom for our build-for-rent communities. Right. Yeah. Two is usually the- The math works better with a kind of a mix between those three. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the latest news was on groundbreaking and actually getting in the ground. When do you expect people to start, first occupants to move in? In 2028, the- Oh, that's- ... first-sale product will deliver. Model homes will open late '27 or early '28. Okay. And so first residents, we'll call mid to late '28. Good. All right. Such an exciting project. I mean, this is- It's been a bl... It's been- ... painful at times, but it's a pretty exciting project to work on. Yeah. No, it is. There's just so many components to it. And then you get to have a little fun. I got to go drive the excavator and knock down- Oh, yeah ... the buildings. We saw that. I get to do, most of my day is not that exciting, so that's kind of- And it's such a landmark property that's meant so much to the community for so many years, so it's like you're holding this- Well, and it's very visible. It's right off the freeway. I mean, every- Right ... everybody knows where it is. Everybody's seen it. It's- We take our position there as the, very seriously as the stewards of the land to take it to the next generation. Yeah. And I think if you look at particularly large scale development like that You have to feel responsibility about it. And clearly, we're running a pro forma and we want to do the right thing, but it's not all about the pro forma. Yeah. It can't be about the pro forma. Right. The pro forma needs to work, but it's got to be the right thing for the community, and I think we've found that right mix. I don't even know how you project cash flows and costs and stuff like that on a project like that. You almost have to just know based on your knowledge and your experience and your gut feel. But with a project like that where it's infill- I actually think you start there. Yeah. And then you build a spreadsheet that hopefully supports your thesis. Exactly. But I think you build- Or like the developer I worked for, I'd bring him the spreadsheet and he'd say, "Why don't you go make it work?" Yeah. Show me how this can work. I'd have to go back to the computer and play with the numbers so that it actually then made sense. I think in my case, I still start with a pad of paper and my HP 12C. Oh, going back. Well, let's talk about some background from- Oh my God. Yeah. I still have mine. I don't know where I put it, but I still have mine. It is- Now, I have the modern-day version. Yeah, it's on your phone. Because I got it on my phone. Yeah. Wow, Phil, that's unbelievable. Yeah. That brings back my analysis. But I still use it. I didn't have to reach very far. Yeah. I literally have three of them within arm's reach right now. That is great. That's amazing. That's the way we were all taught and all learned from. Right. So I was just going to say with Westminster, being infill, right in the community, compared to your other projects which are on outskirts, this really means so much to that community, compared to- Yeah ... some of your other projects. We've had a- So you've got to feel that responsibility. Yeah. It's a big site, too. We have 83-plus acres there. Right. There's not many people in Orange County that get to build 83 infill acres. Right. Yeah. No, you're right. I mean, look, it's the Irvine Company. Especially if your name's not Disney. You got Disney, you got the Irvine Company. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You got OC Vibe. Right. You got Five Points, and you got Rancho Mission Viejo. Yeah. That's it. That's great. All right, let's talk about a smaller project you have up in Santa Barbara, another retail to multifamily conversion. Tell us a little bit about what's going on with that one. Give us an update. Yeah. We actually got a unanimous approval yesterday to proceed. We'll have a subsequent hearing, but the city's moving forward, I believe, to give us entitlements for residential and agree to sell us the fee under our building, and we will do about 114 multifamily converting out of the retail. Mm. So kind of a exciting outcome there. Rentals? Yeah. It'd be a multifamily rental. Yeah. That's a nice project up there. That- We may have a smaller retail component of the project. We think we'll still have a little bit of retail in the project. But it'll be heavily weighted towards the- Right ... residential component. What's the biggest challenge that you've seen in doing that type of project from retail to office? I think it's the same challenge- Because everybody challenges multifamily. It's the same challenge at Westminster. I literally just got out of a meeting before I got on this call. I got presented another kind of failing shopping center, and it's dealing with the existing tenancy and then the REAs and CCNRs, the reciprocal easement agreements and CCNRs. So that's the hard part of this, is trying to sort through keeping everybody happy and bringing it to a new vibrant deal at the same time. Yeah. It is not easy. No, I'm sure. And then you also have another one out in the desert in La Quinta, the Solterra, is it? Yeah, Solterra built for rental there. Yeah. And that's humming along. Look, we built that at a tough time, but we're 90-plus percent occupied today, and I think we'll ultimately see daylight on the building. We love the execution. It's a great building. Mm-hmm. And our rent rates have been pretty close to pro forma. Our problem there is cap rates are not close to pro forma. Right. So, we're just biding our time. Yeah. So that one's- But we own a great asset. We're very happy with what we built. We wish we'd built it to a different yield, but- Right ... that's easy to say in the rear-view mirror. But what we're pleased is we built to a yield that we will not lose money. Right. Okay. And it's fully built out there. There's no more land out there. No, we're done. Yeah, that's it. But I think to be able to do a project like that and be reasonably comfortable that you're kind of, at best, worst case, you're plus or minus break even. And I think if you can build into a 200 basis point cap rate expansion and still manage to hit your numbers- Right ... something worked out okay. Yeah. So. Then you're also partnering with Lenar on a property in Orange County. Yeah, on the Amway building. Right. Which we got unanimous approval from the planning commission a couple of weeks ago. Oh. Fantastic. Now, when do you think that's going to start? I think demo will start in January. Okay, good. What are you going to put there? We've got housing. We've got 200-plus, like 221 condos and small live homes. And then a 50 or 60 unit affordable building. Yeah. You could do worse than to partner with Lennar. I mean, they're- They could do worse than to partner with us. Exactly. There you go. We like those guys a lot. Yeah, no, they're good company. They've been around for a while. They value our ability to get these entitlements, and we appreciate the relationship and look, they're best in class in what they do. Depending on whether you're going by units or volume, they're the one or two home builder in the country, kind of duke it out with Horton. But here in Orange County, they are the top dog. Yeah. And we've done several deals with them, here in Orange County as well as around. I've done a dozen and a half transactions across my portfolio with Lennar. But we just closed a deal with them in October in Fountain Valley. We sold a site to them in Fullerton, and we'll do this deal with them in Buena Park. Okay. So. All right. You're next, Steve. Well, I just got to say, Bill, doing build to rent, doing condos for sale, doing single family rental, doing low income housing, and straight up rental, it's amazing how you have your hands in all these different sectors. I should be bigger or richer. Yeah. You and me both. A two-part question. Are you looking to acquire more properties of any sector, any type right now? And then, of course, I'll get you on the flip side of what you're selling. But, what are you looking to buy? We are in the market to buy always. Mm-hmm. I would say today our bogey to be a buyer is probably bid ask spreads a little wide, so we're not finding sellers at our take price. But they're also not transacting with anybody else. Right. So our price isn't the wrong price, it's just not the price that's appealing yet. I got lectured by a land seller via email the other day about why my offer was so out of the market, and I said, "Look, we didn't intend to insult you. We're just telling you what we can do." "And you told us you didn't want to do it, so I didn't take offense to your response. And I'm not saying you can't do better with somebody else. I'm just telling you what I can do." Yeah. And that's kind of our MO here. Sometimes we're going to lean in a lot and sometimes we're going to barely lean in. Yeah. But sometimes barely leaning in, we're the best buyer out there. We are the buyer who will do the most complicated, most challenging, most opportunistic deals that are hard to understand. And I don't think there's a lot of people who can beat me at that game. I've been doing this for... The company's 34 years old, and I've been doing it for almost 50 years now. Right. So, I don't want to be egotistical, but I have really talented people here. And I have a stomach that allows me to take, understand, and underwrite risk at a level that a lot of people can't do. Yeah. Right. Look, there were other people who tried to buy the mall. Right. Lots of people tried to buy the mall. Including after we bought into the mall, people tried to buy it from us and couldn't figure it out. And so I bought the rest of the mall, and I think I've got it pretty well figured out. Right. And I don't know. I'm probably not going to make as much money as I want to make out of it, but I'll make the right amount. I'll make a fair amount. I always like to make more. Well, sticking on the buy side, is there a particular sector that you're looking to buy more into, or is it more, like you said, the complexity of the projects that kind of attract you, whichever sector they're in? I think we really like the covered land business of whether it's a retail site or a office building that we take to residential, through demo, not a redevelopment. Like that could happen, but that's not really what we're looking. We're really looking for a decent acreage, like maybe a single story business park that's just kind of outlived its usefulness and we can find six, eight, 10 acres or more and re-entitle that. We like that play a lot. Okay. And if I could buy one of those every other month, I'd be a buyer of one of those every other month. And anywhere across the country fair game? Nah, Western US only. All right. Western US. Okay. I found out I didn't get smarter the further from home I was. Yeah. When I really look back on my career, because I've worked in 25 different states. Right. But when I look back on my career, the most money's been made pretty close to home. Right. Where I have best relationships, best knowledge, speed to make decisions, and so today we're in Arizona, we're in Nevada, and we're here in California. Could I be convinced to maybe branch a little further? Maybe, but I don't think I'm going to be in 25 states. You are from Texas, so you know. Yeah. I'm from Texas, so I could go Texas again. But Texas doesn't have the barrier to entry that California does. Right. And so I- I look at things over there periodically just to stay smart, but I think I need a pretty good correction to be a Texas buyer. Right. Okay. What about selling? I got a lot of stuff for sale. Pitch a couple. Maybe there's some buyers watching. You never know. We might have somebody buying something. Well, we're working on a deal to sell some lots at Westminster. I will be coming to the market with a multi-site at Westminster here, probably come out into the market here before the end of the month for a, I can't remember exactly. I think it's about a 500-unit site- Wow ... that we'll deliver next year, and then somebody can go build it. Obviously, our hotel deal in Huntington's available. We're talking to people, but we haven't wrapped up a deal there. Right. I've got some land I'm working on to finish entitlement and sell over in the Arizona market, in Mesa, Arizona. I think we'll have a pretty robust sales year over the next year. Good. I'm selling a 23-unit townhome site to one of the home builders here in Newport Beach, and that deal should close early July. Do you use brokers? Do you go off-market? How do you play the sell? Mostly use brokers. Yeah. It's safe. I mostly use brokers to buy, too. Right. I buy things. Most of what I buy may have been listed and there's been a failed sale, and then they bring me the deal to figure out that it couldn't sell the way they thought it could sell. Then you get creative. I get creative to fix the problem and- Yeah ... come to a solution. It's pretty rare that the broadly marketed deal is going to be my deal. Yeah. Right. But I have a lot of guys who call us with one-off deals. We've got a good, robust group of brokers who call us with an idea, and they know we're at least open to having the conversation. But I have no problem. I still have my broker's license in Texas. Great. I never moved it to California. I've been in California for 25 years. Yeah. And I still keep my Texas broker's license. I think in two years, I'll have it for 50 years. Wow. Then I give it back. That's pretty good. Nostalgia, maybe at 50 may be a good year to retire it. Billy, you touched on it earlier. Tell us a little bit more about AI. As a matter of fact, I understand you wrote an article about that as well. Yeah. Look, we're starting to pay attention to it. We think it's got some place to make us smarter. Mm-hmm. I don't think it's replacing anybody here, but it's definitely something that I think my analysts are finding is a useful tool. My accounting team's using it now for report writing. I'm using it. I use it for communications, and I don't do as much Excel writing, but my analysts are starting to use it to help them write Excel models, and look, there's no question that it can do it faster, better. Then you got to test it. You got to be smart enough to know whether the output's any good. Right. So, I mean- I think that was a good part of your article on LinkedIn there about at the end, you really need the personal intuition. It's going to make people better, but it ain't going to replace them. Well, I'm fortunate. I have a really obtuse skill. Right. Somebody will bring me a spreadsheet, and they'll put it up on the big screen in the conference room, and I can find the error almost instantaneously. Yeah. I don't know what the solution is to the error, but I can tell if there's bad output. And I will make people test the spreadsheet in front of me to see if I could bust their model. Yeah. Well, that goes back to your 12C. You know- Because if I- ... the technology before it happened ... because if I can't trust the output- Mm-hmm ... it doesn't really work for me. And I've had analysts kind of crumble under the pressure and quit because of that test. Right. I got great people today. I love my- Besides AI, are there any other tech tools, tech products that you've found that are really useful and you're fond of? Well, we're looking at the other side of AI, which is the data center side. Uh-huh. So we're active in the space, and we're not quite ready to announce when and where, but we have four different projects that we're working on, and we think it's going to be a big piece of our business. Now, do you have somebody in the organization that is head of tech for you? Not on that side of the business, but yes, I've got a full IT team and- Okay ... then my chief operating officer is probably my-- Jo Merriman's probably the, she's kind of taking the lead on making sure that AI gets incorporated into the firm. And I've looked at AI just like, how can it help me with land selection and- Mm-hmm ... site selection and underwriting and- Right ... working through the land use bills. And we don't have it fully figured out yet, but we're working on it. And the services CREXi and CoStar- ... as they ramp up and start integrating AI, I keep seeing more and more about the services. I don't know how much you get into it yourself with those- Yeah ... tools, but certainly they're getting more useful in that regard. Well, I think they are. I was talking to the technical team over at CBRE, and they started out writing their own stuff and trying to be AI wizards writing from scratch. And they figured out that as much money as Anthropic and these other people are spending, just go buy a copy of Claude or whatever you're using- Yeah ... or all of the above, because I think that's really the best way, probably, is to use two or three different- Right ... platforms to test against. And you get different answers. You get different answers, and you can find out how to ask. Because look, I think the issue is AI is about how to ask a better question. Interesting. Because if you don't ask the right question, you're not going to get the right answer. Right. Yeah. So if you just have somebody who's a drone and they're just asking stupid questions- Random questions, yeah ... you're going to get stupid answers. Yeah. But if you have people who are highly skilled at asking deep analytical questions, then you got a better chance of getting a pretty good answer. We own a big ground lease portfolio, and we're looking at dealing with a renewal on it and extending the ground lease and renewing the subleases and I got 2,000 people. Mm-hmm. That's an AI project. Yeah. But I got to ask the right questions. Okay, let me feed the lease documents in. Let me give you the rent roll. Let me give you all of this. Now let me start asking the questions of how do we optimize, for all parties, the extension of this lease? Yeah. And is it more upfront? Is it more along the way? How do I share with the sublease? There's 100 variables. Right. And I think that's an AI project. Did you run it? Did it help? We're running it right now. Excellent. And I think we'll figure out how to optimize the value- Oh, that's a great example ... for next level. We're going to understand how to optimize value for the next 99 years. Okay. And I think that's where you can do it. Look, heavy analytics. Look, I started before there were computers. Huh. I mean, there were computers, but not computers that a small business had. I was probably 30-ish years old when I got my first Apple IIe with a floppy disk using VisiCalc. Right. Yeah. And you could literally see it ripple through the screen when you made a numeric change. And the stuff that I could do on that, I do way more than that on my phone today. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Phones are just... I can do pretty high level. And I was talking to one of my niece's kids, and he was struggling with algebra and I wanted to explain to him, and I said, "Algebra is one of those things that I use every day of my life." I use, actually, geometry and trig quite a bit, but I use algebra every day because algebra teaches you how to think and problem solve. And for people who can't do that, they're never going to catch somebody like me, because I can ask much deeper questions. Yeah. Right. And if you can't ask a good question, I don't care what computer you're using, you're not going to get a very good answer. That's true. Right. Well, hopefully you thought our questions were good over the last- I thought they were great. I appreciate- I was blown by. Yeah. This was a great dialogue. It's really great talking about all this. But one last, we do want to get, just to wrap up a little bit, we could go on and talk to you about these projects and ask you follow-ups, but we want to get a lot in in an hour. But one of the things we do want to hear about is hiring needs. People are watching the show, they're learning, they're young, they are interested. What are you looking for? We're always looking for good talent. I don't know that we have any current jobs posted today. Uh-huh. But we're always looking for good talent, and somebody in the organization will always take a call with somebody because we don't know what day we might be hiring somebody. Right. And we don't know what day somebody leaves us. So I would say, we're a little bit of an out-of-the-box place. Like you said, there's very few shops like ours that I'm expecting somebody to be skilled at all these different things. I don't know if that makes us good or bad. It's just who we are. Yeah. It's just our DNA. Seems like from the interviews Arnie and I have done, though, that in general it seems like there's always a need for in the property management level- Yeah ... in that role. I think- But the right person. Good entry point into the business. Yeah. Look, I think asset management, analysts- Right ... project management roles, those are the roles that we would typically be looking for here. Right. We're not really on the property management side of the business because we hire that out. So, I think it's I think when we are looking, what we're looking for is some people with some skill and some experience. We're probably not the best shop for somebody to come right out of college and come here. Right. We just don't have a great training program today. But I think somebody who says, "I've done two or three or four years someplace, and I'm ready to do something really challenging and hard, and I want to get a really good experience and skill set," those are the people who should be calling us. All right. One last question that I always ask. Tell us a little bit more about what you're doing in your free time, and have you gone back to Texas to see a Longhorns game yet since we spoke? Uh- They're doing a little better now than when we spoke last time. Yeah, they're much better. The last game I saw actually was a year ago January. At Jerry's world- Uh-huh ... when Texas lost to Ohio State in the semifinal game. Yeah. But they made it to there. I mean- They made it. I think we will be a contender in football again this year. Right now, I'm rooting for my Lady Longhorns right now. That's right. They're in the World Series. Softball College World Series. Yep. Thank God. I thought you were going to say the other part of Texas and talk about the Spurs because I'm from New York and I'm- No. I will. I'm a Spurs fan too because the Spurs started in Dallas. They were the Dallas Fort Worth Spurs- Right ... initially, and then they migrated- Well, you know- ... to San Antonio ... Steve owes me 20 bucks because he thought OKC was going to beat the Spurs. But I'm a kid from New York City, so I'm all in on the Knicks, man. Well, it should be a good series. Yeah. Should be. I'm on the Spurs. I'm definitely on my- Longhorns ... Longhorn softball to win. Of course. The men got a good shot. They got a good team, and I think their pathway looks doable. Yeah. Um- Well, especially with the big guys out. Big boys are out. They got UCLA out. That's- Yeah ... good. We're at the top of the ranking of people who remain. Yeah. And then, because I got Las Vegas business, I got to go Golden Knights- Yeah, they- They did last night ... they did pretty good last night. Yeah. They were down, what, three-nothing at some point or something? It was two-nothing, then four, three to two. It went back and forth. I don't know anymore- No, they were down. Yeah ... who went up. They were down, and they came back. For me personally, I'm an avid bicyclist, and I have been helping a friend of mine. I'll give a plug for my friend. Sure. Mark Strauss from Walker Dunlap. We know Mark. Mark is riding across the country to raise $1 million for children's hunger for a program called No Kid Hungry. Wow. And I have accompanied him on two different three-day legs, and I'm doing the last three days of the ride here coming up on the 21st of June. I'll ride the 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of June. Excellent. And ride from our nation's capital to the Delaware Shore and put my toe in the Atlantic Ocean. Very good. So I started with him- I'll look for those clips because I follow you on LinkedIn, so I'm sure I'll see those clips. I started with him in Newport Beach, and he's raised about 600 grand and but raised a lot of awareness and- Good ... and it's been quite an endeavor. And I'm a golfer. And then the other thing, I've been an avid scuba diver since I've been a- Right. I was going to be Jacques Cousteau. I actually have a marine biology degree, and then I pivoted to the business world. And I like to get out, and I'm actually really upping my game and my diving because I figure I got a limited time left. Maybe I got 10 or 15 years. Do it while you can and enjoy it. You're right. So my wife and I will be doing a big trip. We're going to dive with the schooling hammerhead sharks in October. Oh. I think they'll leave me alone for professional courtesy. Yeah. Be careful. Well, you're not a lender, so they don't... I got my real estate lawyers going to be with me, so- There you go ... I think I'll be in good shape. I think- Last question, though. Or- Oh, no. We did our last question. No, I just want to hear a plug on a major charity that you want to give a plug for that you're involved in. You mentioned one. Well, I'm going to say it's the No Kids Hungry that I'm- Yeah, that's what you just did. I committed. I'm sponsoring- Yeah ... and committed to raise money for No Kids Hungry. So- No Kids Hungry. It's No Kids Hungry. You can go online, and it's No Kids Hungry Ride is what you would look for. I love it. And that'll connect you with Mark's website, and you can donate, and maybe somebody will get him over the last 400 grand he needs. Well, hopefully we'll get this thing up. Hopefully, we'll get this online- I'll hope some developers watch this ... before the ride. So- So the rides... Look, we'll take the money all year. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, good. All right. Great. Thanks, gentlemen. Well, Bill, thank you very much. Yeah, Bill. We appreciate everything you do. Appreciate your time, and we'll see you maybe for the third one. Best of luck with all those projects. We'll look forward to the news, and we'll get you back on in a year or so to update us. Yeah. We'll see you at a live event, too, for sure. All right. Take care. Bye now. Bye-bye. You've been watching "Commercial Real Estate Talk" with Steve and Arnie, sponsored by Rockefeller Group, Providence Savings Bank, Fidelity Mortgage lenders, and Chase Partners. Start to ignite
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/125349744.txt b/data/transcripts/125349744.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/135939853.txt b/data/transcripts/135939853.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142347178.txt b/data/transcripts/142347178.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142347291.txt b/data/transcripts/142347291.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142347515.txt b/data/transcripts/142347515.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142348009.txt b/data/transcripts/142348009.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142348532.txt b/data/transcripts/142348532.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142348827.txt b/data/transcripts/142348827.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142350083.txt b/data/transcripts/142350083.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142351726.txt b/data/transcripts/142351726.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/142353259.txt b/data/transcripts/142353259.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/143827823.txt b/data/transcripts/143827823.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/144943180.txt b/data/transcripts/144943180.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/149786738.txt b/data/transcripts/149786738.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/157877482.txt b/data/transcripts/157877482.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/157877500.txt b/data/transcripts/157877500.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/157877501.txt b/data/transcripts/157877501.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/157877502.txt b/data/transcripts/157877502.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/157877503.txt b/data/transcripts/157877503.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/157877504.txt b/data/transcripts/157877504.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162573796.txt b/data/transcripts/162573796.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162573927.txt b/data/transcripts/162573927.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162574294.txt b/data/transcripts/162574294.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162574320.txt b/data/transcripts/162574320.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162574338.txt b/data/transcripts/162574338.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162574358.txt b/data/transcripts/162574358.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162712456.txt b/data/transcripts/162712456.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162712493.txt b/data/transcripts/162712493.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/162712517.txt b/data/transcripts/162712517.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/167990145.txt b/data/transcripts/167990145.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/167990176.txt b/data/transcripts/167990176.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/167990218.txt b/data/transcripts/167990218.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/167990238.txt b/data/transcripts/167990238.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/167990250.txt b/data/transcripts/167990250.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/167990282.txt b/data/transcripts/167990282.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/171347069.txt b/data/transcripts/171347069.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/172014042.txt b/data/transcripts/172014042.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/172014125.txt b/data/transcripts/172014125.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/172014837.txt b/data/transcripts/172014837.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/188261706.txt b/data/transcripts/188261706.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/188271441.txt b/data/transcripts/188271441.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/208460446.txt b/data/transcripts/208460446.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/227217030.txt b/data/transcripts/227217030.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/227224358.txt b/data/transcripts/227224358.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/228295912.txt b/data/transcripts/228295912.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/232088787.txt b/data/transcripts/232088787.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/242491490.txt b/data/transcripts/242491490.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/308597317.txt b/data/transcripts/308597317.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/31239971.txt b/data/transcripts/31239971.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/315327378.txt b/data/transcripts/315327378.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/316709134.txt b/data/transcripts/316709134.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/32191299.txt b/data/transcripts/32191299.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/33583429.txt b/data/transcripts/33583429.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/35868287.txt b/data/transcripts/35868287.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/38894517.txt b/data/transcripts/38894517.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/39610422.txt b/data/transcripts/39610422.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/42140576.txt b/data/transcripts/42140576.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/429079440.txt b/data/transcripts/429079440.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/434219208.txt b/data/transcripts/434219208.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/44468806.txt b/data/transcripts/44468806.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/46769758.txt b/data/transcripts/46769758.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/48347303.txt b/data/transcripts/48347303.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/493420423.txt b/data/transcripts/493420423.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/503234116.txt b/data/transcripts/503234116.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/50591120.txt b/data/transcripts/50591120.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/507211620.txt b/data/transcripts/507211620.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/52820750.txt b/data/transcripts/52820750.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/55380262.txt b/data/transcripts/55380262.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/565693580.txt b/data/transcripts/565693580.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/56573116.txt b/data/transcripts/56573116.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/65258106.txt b/data/transcripts/65258106.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/69208165.txt b/data/transcripts/69208165.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/71974003.txt b/data/transcripts/71974003.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/721184140.txt b/data/transcripts/721184140.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fe56c17
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/721184140.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Good morning, another click Vlog. We're coming from the commercial real estate lending conference Universal Studios. I've got Steve Blum with me rent TV the review and sublease Steve. How are you doing? Great, Craig. Good morning. It's great to be here at Arnie's All-Star conference. Good turnout good energy. So it's great and to be here with you big fan of your videos. Okay videos. So it's a great to be here finally on an episode with you. I love the review. It's a great commercial real estate platform. It doesn't matter. What food group you're in you can find out about commercial real estate on the review. I highly recommend it Steve. I can't never do it justice. So why don't you tell the people about the review and then we'll talk about Arnie's conference. Thanks Craig great opportunity. Thank you very much. Basically, you know rent TV's been online 23 years our main business our media company and we've had a video component there for decades and what I saw from that was that everyone's creating these great videos including yourself lot. People have video blogs that they're doing on their different topics, but they're not getting as much traffic as they deserve and busy real estate professionals, you know who have adult ADD they're getting emails. They're impatient, you know that, you know, the executives we deal with they're getting millions of phone calls, you know, they go to the search engines in the past and it's a fog, you know, there's nothing for the specific industry, right? So I felt there needed to be a bridge that connected this audience that needed this content and all the great producers out there who are already created the content. So I build the review which allows people for free to take videos. They've already produced and put on Vimeo or YouTube create their free video channel on the review and then just easily as you've seen just copy the links over and then importantly tag them all for the real estate industry, right search functionality that we we created for categories like architecture properties for sale property types. Like hospitality and then locations around the country. So people can find videos on one search page from all different producers from both Vimeo and YouTube and can find the videos by the producer so they can click on click on the producer drop down and hit search and see all of your videos and then follow you that way and then those video producers can send that link out to their Channel, you know YouTube with a small screens little text videos from like 10 years ago with like three CEOs ago people don't maintain them. This is a much more user friendly geared for the real estate professional. First and then the busy, you know video producer who knows more traffic. Absolutely. Yeah AC before I let you go. Let's talk about Arnie's conference. So what are your initial impressions? Amazing great energy, you know good turnout, you know, it's obviously it's just starting, you know, great keynote speakers about the you know, almost homeless issue that we're facing really good energy. So I expect a great show some great networking. So absolutely. Yeah. I know show a lot of people the review So, yeah. Thank you. My friend always get back. Yeah. Okay, so we'll get some more Vlogs from commercial real estate Landing conference later today. That's it. Bye.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/739081927.txt b/data/transcripts/739081927.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f0ec7f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/739081927.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+The following video is the multi-family panel at rent TVs Orange County state of the market Conference held on July 26th, 2022. It is comprised of Barry sewitz from the sewitz company Jerry Fink from the Bascom group Paul Julien from Advanced real estate and Dan Blackwell from cbr.e. So we've saved the apartment multifamily piece until the end because those are the special people and we have the most exciting stuff to talk about so we'll try and go to a Quick Clip and and try and keep it for information that is useful something that you can take away. I want to start by having our panel introduce themselves. I did not get the BIOS although I did homework on these guys and it's a top notch group of guys. But Jerry if you want to start and just talk about your background and your company and what you guys do. I think that be helpful sure Jerry Fink, I'm one of the co-founders and managing Partners the Bascom group. We started back in 96 focusing on Orange County multi-family and since kind of grown Nationwide, we've bought over 90,000 units mostly West Coast but east coast as well and typically by renovate reposition so and partner with institutional ambassadors privacy funds But mostly value add other than about six seven years ago. We got into development with a developers or joint venture partners. And now we've got about 15 development projects going on in Southern California ranging from entitling land to actually building the project and Leasing and selling it so historically evaluated group, but I've gotten into development because the cap rates are so low in the You know that model is much more lucrative today than ever was in the past. Paul you want to take it from there sure. Hi, I'm Paul Julian Advanced real estate The Firm was founded by my father about 40 years ago, and we've been doing the same thing which is by and hold real estate here in Southern California. So we're in Orange County LA and Inland Empire with about a little over 10,000 units here and we're a vertically integrated company. So we have in-house property management and we have an in-house construction company. That's pretty robust where we we actually have all the trades in-house whether it's plumbing and electrical and Framing and we even have our own cabinet shop in house. We build our own cabinets. Because we hold for the long term. So to to Brokers dismay like Dan here. We've never sell We Buy and Hold and in all of our money is private. It's friends and family, which is now grown to about Six or seven hundred investors of friends and family will buy all so in tick structures. So, you know, there's some people that might have a piece of real estate. They don't want to own anymore. They can sell 1031 exchange him with us and then ultimately become a partner with us. That's probably the long and short of it. But like I said just long-term holders here in Southern, California. great and Daniel Hey everyone, Dan Blackwell. I co-head the multifamily investment sales division for CBRE here in Orange County. We've got a team of 15 investors Brokers and we cover the entire Market. We also focus on the bordering markets Inland Empire 605 Corridor north San Diego County, but our Hub is Orange County. We specialize in 10 to 100 unit transactions within the marketplace. And we've been doing it now since 2008. Hey, Dan, I got a couple slides you want to mention these two listings? Sure, these are two new listings that we just brought to Market both happened to be in Costa Mesa. The first ones a 48 unit offering in West Side Costa Mesa. You got 1.7 acres of land 48 units that has not been upgraded. You got a tremendous amount of value add upside in the asset. Good Frontage on the street. You got 250 feet of Frontage on avocado and a lot upside 80 potential. You can both 480 use converting some of the garages and this is just a great diet asset. This is Probably I wish it was a good size for Paul over here, but it's maybe it's a little small, but this just is a great medium-sized asset in coastal, Orange County. And then another one a little smaller. This is 20 units also on the West Side. What's interesting about this is interest rates have become more volatile and Rising we've seen more willingness for people to assume existing loans. This has got a great assumable financing on it about three and a half percent interest eight years left on the term full term IO and to get into the coast of Mesa Market if you've got an appetite to get in the market even 20 units is a good size asset for the the marketplace. So if anyone has any interest in these feel free to let us know Jerry said he brought a check so you guys can talk after and then for those of you don't know me, I'm very say what's President of the city what's company and managing partner of say what's properties. We have commercial real estate brokerage company here in Newport Beach and we represent tenants users and buyers of commercial real estate office industrial multi-family here and around the country. And then we also own a portfolio of multi-family properties and Office Buildings as well throughout, Southern, California. So I'm excited. We got a good group of guys and real players in the market. I want to start by backing up for second because I thought what we do is we talk a little past a little present and a little future so that at least we can have some chronology and then give you folks a little takeaway in terms of where things are headed. So we've all been massaging our crystal balls over the night trying to come up with a game plan for the future. But if we look back and maybe Jerry you start with it, what are some of the challenges that you had if we just rewind even just a year ago with covid with not only on the acquisition side, but then also just on the tenant side with them paying rent and then how does that compare to today? A great question? I think Orange County is a little better than LA County, you know city of LA County. The delinquency rates are Stunningly High because you can't evict anybody in La until this emergency orders over which they've not put into it Orange County is a little more open. But when I talk to our asset managers on can you actually evict someone they give me this long-winded answer of they're not sure we'll try maybe so we're still in this pretty bad ownership zone of not being able to evict people it's getting better. You know, if you look at rent increases since the covid downturn, you know rents are up asking rents 15 to 20 percent so big jump up, but you know, not everyone is paying those increased rents on turnover. So that's more of kind of asking rent, you know. Media hype than reality and then you've got areas like Santa Ana that put on a vicious formal rent control. Where your increase are capped at 3% So a lot of crazy things have happened in the past couple of years and then you know, we were in this little boom time here for about a year two years the past year and then interest rates spiked up and so interest rates. Are you know shooting up right now? So if you buy a deal at a three-cap rate your negative cash flow again, so that's pushed up cap rates from you know, the low threes to kind of high three low four range in the past couple months and then lenders have also gotten way more conservative today where they're going with much lower loan to value fearing that we're going into recession fearing rate increases. So a lot of turbulence has happened the past kind of month or two months here and just as a follow-up to that so my question would be for you. What's the appetite then knowing that that's what's going on with high interest rates struggle with disconnect with cap rates. Are you still buying? Are you still seeing deals? Yeah, we're still looking for deals. But I'd say the sale Market other than maybe the handful of exchange buyers or people have to buy is really taking a big hit so a big reduction and institutional sales because this turbulence and fear of going to recession. If cap rates gone up, you know, the sellers still want the three cap rate the buyers want the four it's using a big kind of, you know, discount between what a seller wants and what a buyer is going to pay today and then the lenders have gotten just a lot more conservative. So do we still want to buy here? Yes, but you know, we want to buy a lower price. You may be five ten percent lower than it was a couple of months ago. Yeah. And so Paul maybe just to follow up on that your thoughts on where you were where you are and are what are you guys doing as a game plan? Yeah, so I think one thing to remember is we are seeing credible rent increases and we have over the last two years here unprecedented. And and you know, we're really running up against AB 1482 on our rent increase that we're putting out, you know, 10% Max. Basically, we could go higher but we're not because of that Max so there's a little bit of a roof there but we have to remember, you know, there was a year in 2020 that we didn't do it at all. So there's a little bit of catching up that's happening too. So when you look at those numbers of these rent increases remember, it's actually spread over three years. Not not really two years. Our vacancies are as low as they've ever been. We are doing some evictions right now we have about 5% of our portfolio is delinquent. And of those I look back and we've got about 75% have applied. You know for Aid of those that haven't been paying the other 25% haven't and of those, you know, we are doing evictions and it's actually happening and it's working and you know, the courts are open again is probably not as fluid and easy as it was prepandemic but it is happening. I Echo what what Jerry says on the investment side, you know, we last year. We raised a pretty big fun last August over 130 million dollars that we're sitting with and our intent was to place it in the first six months as we did our previous fund and prices got so fraught the at the end of 2021 that we kind of sat back and stayed on the sideline a little bit. No knowing rates. We're gonna go up then rates did go up and then there was this long gap which we're kind of still in right now, which is this big ass gap between the buyers and sellers were sellers haven't come to the conclusion that they have to change their cap rate. And so you've seen a few deals go on the market than be pulled back off the market because they're not getting their price. And so there's there's a time change here where we're going to have to all come to reality of where we are because buyers don't want a bunch of negative leverage, you know, they want to go in with a cap rate, you know that that is higher than their interest rate, which is not happening or at least pretty close to it. And so but I think we're also seeing you know, the FED met today, you know rates are gonna go up again here people are waiting to see are the interest rates going to go even higher should I wait even more so there's a ton of capital sitting on the sidelines waiting. So if deals do come to market right now, they're actually getting some good attention. There's a A portfolio that a read is put out right now because REITs are one of the only buyers I mean one of the only sellers right now because they're trying to buy back their stock because their stock prices have dropped so much. So they're actually motivated to sell some of their worst assets take that money and buy back their own stock. But besides that there's just not many sellers out there. So the market is pretty stymied. So Dan, what are you see, because you're in the trenches with you and your team in terms of just sort of echoing with these guys are saying is there really this disconnect and cap rate? And is there really a Slowdown in terms of buyers of people waiting on the sidelines? Absolutely. I mean we're seeing buyers just pulling off to the sidelines like why unless there's an opportunity that is presented to them that's compelling them enough for them to put their Capital to work right now. They're waiting. So we've kind of bifurcated buyers either buyers with needs and buyers with wants so you buyers with a need of it's 1031, you know those buyers if there's any blip in financing if there's any blip in some uncertainty forming while they're in their escrow period there's still a high probability of performance by them the buyers with the want again, it's got to be some compelling asset to get somebody to put their money to work now because there is a big disconnect we're seeing a lot of buyers pull back just waiting things out volatility. It's just it's got to be compelling out there. There's just a lot of uncertainty but we're still making deals. There's the offer activity we used to be able to put deals together hard day one, right, you know clean title, maybe a quick look on a couple of units and a buyer might go Immediately on contract you're not seeing that really at all anymore. You're also not seeing double-digit offer activity on your an average asset. So there's a lot of change within the market. I just think a lot of people want to see what happens in the second half of this year. Yeah. And so Paul are you seeing on the stuff that you are looking at less buyers at the table less people that you're competing which is good news if you're a buyer, but for the same reasons absolutely it's it's gone from you know, 20 offers on and these are all institutional sized deals over 100 units. It's gone from you know, 20 offers with the best and final that had five people in it to five or seven offers maybe total and a best and final with two guys that are left and is it and the certainty of clothes without the possibility of retrade or re-analyzing the deal is that as big of an issue on the institutional deals? I mean you think on the bigger deals the People that are at the table that have the capital it's not like they can't perform and and The Leverage is really not an issue or you still seeing someone. I mean, it takes people every everybody still getting a loan. So they're still the fear that they're gonna get retraded on their loan or you know that they're gonna pull out because the rates go up before they lock and so people do want certain they've closed still but you are getting now we're we were having to go hard at purchase contract at minimum on every deal. Yeah last year and now we're getting 30 day looks you know with a 60 day escrow after that we didn't have before that's a great point. It's it's Paul said, you know that go back two or three months and you typically get to go hard a million dollars plus to get a deal today, you know bigger initial deal and you know, forget title of books or whatever. It's he had to go hard period and that was especially the Sunbelt markets, you know Orange County. It wasn't that many sales, but even Orange County Inland Empire that was kind of really Getting a heart of million dollar number to get it get a building and then you figure it out later. That talk is completely gone away. I mean, they're still talk of it. But you know, we're not having to do it on pretty much any deal today unless it's some huge bargain. But so that hard money up front is kind of vaporizing thankfully because it's a scary game to play and I'm hearing stories of all kinds of buyers walking away from a million two million dollar deposits because they went not refundable kind of a couple months ago. And now they've realized the price have dropped five eight ten percent and realized and better off just walking away from the million two million art deposits. So hearing lots of stories about buyers, you know, not performing and losing a million two million dollars because it's not worth it and even her story about Grant Cardone Mr. Big syndicator walked away from a two million dollar deposit recently in it was in the Sun Belt cities, but so things are changing and Again, the biggest change I think is if you buy a deal today, it's negative cash flow. So even at these increased interest rates if you put on decent leverage, so that's kind of changed the equation and that was you know, pre what you know, 10 years ago and later if you buy dealing California was negative cash flow was a very normal thing, but we haven't had that for eight nine ten years. So it's weird seeing negative cash flow pop back up on apartment deals. Yeah, and you're used to seeing that in coastal cities Newport Beach and Huntington Beach. You're not used to seeing that with bread and butter a properties Dan I go back to you. I mean we operate in the small to middle-sized stuff. These guys are in the bigger ticket items, but we're seeing the same thing where if we're competing for a property. You're just not seeing eight nine ten offers and then you're also seeing people that are slinging offers that don't have their financing necessarily tied up and maybe you got one or two 1031 guys, but that's about it. I mean it is reading itself out. To give you an example. We went out with a large property. You know four or five months ago and got did a hired a major name brand firm full bloom marketing got zero offers that shows how bad things have gotten. So there are reasons for it wasn't our building. It was probably more the how the sea changed their rent control laws, but it's definitely put a Big Chill on the market today and I think people are worried a rates have gone up. Am I gonna buy this building and rents her lower a year or two from now because this recession kicks in so well and I think that that brings up another point, which is you haven't control Statewide. If you're in Santa Ana you got a another layer and control that makes it even worse. But how does that go? If you're looking at buying a property with a disconnect between the interest rate and the cap rate you have negative or little cash flow. Typically you have to put money in and then go do the heavy lifting to raise the rents. But yeah, you're capped on the rents and you have inflation it nine plus percent. I mean, none of those Dynamics really hunt yet. The market is hot and yeah multifamily other than the industrial is everybody's honest take it. Right. So the question I have is with all of those things in the pot and you have the mixing up does Supply demand that metric the fact that there's just very low housing very low availability. Does that for lack of a better word Trump all the other factors in the market that are going on. I I think I think it does. I mean it always comes back to supply demand and what we've seen is with the supply chain issues. Some of the developments been been slowed even more than it already has and so we're having even more of a Crisis as they called or a shortage of housing here. So yes that does trumpet. However cities like Santa Ana are shooting themselves in the foot because they're they're literally taking buildings like Jerry talked about interview saying what city that I building that would have garnered even in the worst of markets at least five offers is getting no offers because people are you know scared that that's and so what I worry about with rent control, maybe I'm skipping ahead here a little bit to to the end but my biggest worry to keep me up at night is rent control because you know, you have mayor sarmient to who is in Santa Ana who basically lobbied his City and got votes because he pandered to his demographic which was mainly renter occupied City and they in you know, they put rent control in and now he's running for County supervisor and you don't think that's gonna spread to other cities very much. Can I mean with rent increases going up as much as they've been that's our biggest hurdle now the ab 1482 that went to affect was actually a great thing. I had no problem with that rent control because there's reasonable CNA. It's 80% of CPI. Maxed I mean that's that's worse than the city of LA's rent control. So that was just they went way too extreme on that end. But if they kept it with ab-1482, I think we'd be okay. Yeah, so that brings me to my next question. I mean Dan when your packaging deals, what's the strategy you got a guy who wants to sell his property? He has low rents. He maybe did what Paul talked about which is I didn't really raise rents on my tenant during covid because I was being a nice landlord and I couldn't do it anyway, and now they got low rent the play used to be. Oh there's upside in there. That's it's a value at but your value adds cat. Well that buyer pool for that asset is dried up, right if there's ever if there's a forecast in the market. It's probably clearing the market if you're a two and a half cap and you've got this great value at Story the buyer pool that is is way way low. So if there's a seller that has to meet the market, you know, they're looking to find they're trying to find that balance. They're not every seller wants. Everybody would love yesterday. Prices but I think there are a good portion of sellers that want to find the market and meet the market today and they're looking for some guidance. It's just you're dealing with one or two buyers instead of six or seven and you know, the syndicators they're we've seen just recently they they're out, you know, they've kind of penciled down on a few assets just because they don't know where they're their debt is when they go to put permanent financing on right the challenge too with a syndicator is can't show these big cash on cash returns because they're going to be minimal at best with this higher interest rate in you know, fairly low cap rates. He writes the sinking here has gotten crushed. And the value add people think well if I'm Capital my rent increases, how do I improve my rents? Because I can only do it so much per year, but that rent control thing is definitely you know shocking that it hits Santa Ana which through surprised everybody that would hit Orange County but it's not just Orange County. If you look at a map of the US probably two thirds of its covered, you know, if they look at zones of going to rent control talking about it planning it about two thirds us is in discussions about doing it or voting on or something's happening and I think that's gonna get worse too because these people are hearing about these big 14 15 16 percent, you know, asking or increases going we got we got to stop that or some control on much like Santa Ana it's it's a great sales pitch if you're elected official to go. I'm going to put a limit on that to protect you because the owners are very small percentage and the renters are a big percentage. So it's Politically correct story for a lot of people in that that City unfortunately, but but I think would you keep in mind is if you run your property in a professional level and you keep your rates at Market? It's going to be okay. It's who this is hurting. Ironically the most are the mom and pop smaller landlords who usually have lower rents because they don't want to constantly churn their building over and and then all the sudden rent control goes into now their value just got capped because now they can't increase it. So it's a it's a backward system a little bit in that is not it's not and the big Lane they're turning the small land in the winners are the tenants because it's gonna become like the C of La where you have to offer cash for keys for move out and City of La used to be you know, low 20,000 range to buy somebody out. Now that number is you know, 40 50 80 100,000 to get a tenant out. So which doesn't pencil right? Yeah. So yeah, so that feeds to the other side of it which is is there an incentive to fix up the property and to fix up the unit. And of course there is when the tenant leaves because you're gonna go capitalize on the market but then the other person I think the tenants still hurt on the other side of it while they're rent is capped. The fact of the matter is you have a disincentive for the landlord to renovate their unit or give them upgrades or other good because I can't even afford to do it because it's gonna be blighted because of that. Yeah that you are not going to fix up the units and they're gonna they're like I said, they're shooting themselves in the foot with this and the challenge we see too is you're not gonna get the turnovers the turnover is gonna go from 50 60% to maybe 15% because people who locked into this way below Market at least that go I get a lot of equity here. I can't leave right? I can't find it cheaper a better place. So you'll just get much much lower turnover on those buildings and In La we see if someone's you know way below market and have been there five years the odds of them turning over about 15% So very very low so so as a strategy do you then take the 10% and give it to everybody you can across the board because they're already below market and if inflation is nine and your costs are continuing to rise don't you have to raise the rent the 10% Well, the system is encouraging to always be putting in the max or increase. You can yeah the old days you go. Well, I'll be nice. I'll put in three or four percent even the markets higher with these rent control laws. You have to kind of go the max because you don't know for me cap the next year. Yeah, and you have things I don't know Paul what you're experiencing. But you know, we have people that come to us and and we used to say hey, you're good tenant. You want to do it two year lease or three year lease and we'll build in like you say a two or three or four percent increase now, there's no incentive to the landlord to do a longer term, please you're exactly right. They move you want. Yeah, you want to be nimble you want to, you know not be tied down by that you actually Is another thing to your cost. I mean, you know what everyone has to understand is the cost to run the properties has gone a tremendously over the last two years. I mean that insurance costs in some cases are 60% higher than they were before payroll costs is incredibly higher as everybody is seeing out there, you know repair maintenance costs getting materials. All of that is higher. So it's just hire to run the building. So yeah, most of this is just passing that through. Yeah, I mean look at trash right? I mean you have unfortunately recycle and you have to separate your trash goes up 100% Unfortunately, you know, unlike an office building you can't pass that through the tenants you just the owner absorbs it and who's blown Market just never moves out and stays there for 20 30 years. So Dan, what does that mean? When you go to pitch a guy to say, hey, you should sell your property or you go to pitch one of these guys or me on. Hey, you should buy this property. How does it change the dynamic go in forward. I mean, it's got to make sense day one, you know before talking in Santa Ana right specifically But we don't it's got to be pretty darn compelling. I mean just backing up to Santa real quick, you know, we when rent control was enforced towards the second half of last year. We were able to take a few assets to Market mom and pop sellers average deal size five six million and we were able to get there was really no discounted pricing because of the supply and demand in balance. And then now today we've got we're taking some out it's completely different story. So I mean the deal has got to be compelling enough or not. Like you're gonna go elsewhere. I think within Orange County outside of Santa Ana you got the max allowable rain increases of 10% right? So that's kind of help offsetting some of the costs of rising Capital but a lot of people want to match what Jerry's talking about, you know, at least match the debt with the cap so going in you're not getting penalized because you know, otherwise you just wait a lot of people feel like hey, I'll just wait six months and then see where pricing is then right? I mean, it's it just comes up to the asset a lot of these smaller Coastal. Bills that we're selling those are still pretty much like pretty fluid. Those are flying because people are buying a premium asset and it's a location thing then by putting on much lower leverage probably low to no leverage. So exactly the interest rate doesn't matter that much. So then what does that do Jerry for your game plan? Are you still bullish and like Orange County like Southern California just because of the whole market dynamics or does it drive you at other markets? Well, I better meetings like this with owners and we spend our bitching about all I hate LA or Orange County sucks. And then they say would you rather go by in Phoenix? Oh no never right. So it's so we grab about this we hate it. But you know, if you want to make money and do well in real estate, you know, Orange County's a fantastic place to do it. And if you buy something here 10 years later probably would look back and go I'm glad I bought it. So but La is kind of the same way, you know LA's worse with regulations the city but same thing by there probably do pretty well 10 15 years from now. So back to the supply demand thing we talked about right? Yeah, it takes the regulation hurt you to build but it's also your friend and that it keeps values where it is, right? Because it takes 10 years to get a project by the time you identify get it entitled get it built. It might be 10 years. And so you're not gonna have an oversupply Market here in Orange County just it can't happen. Well, then the vacancy rate for kind of The Bean sea properties in Orange county is the lowest ever. I think it's like 2% So if you're at 2% vacancy rate decent economy, I mean, we're gonna see double digit or increase Is here maybe you're captive 10, but you know, the Market's going to be going up pretty substantial and it already has and so you know for those that satin listen to the industrial piece before now, I mean, there's no cap on commercial rents. So when you raise your ins on on industrial building 30 40 percent on somebody and you have No Vacancy It's just tough. That's how it goes. And if you don't like it, somebody else will rent it the protection of the rent control at least saves that off for to some degree and potentially for a while. Then the question is, you know, how do I as an owner manage my expenses to try and control them. Do you try and pass those costs on to the tenant? Do you have a rubs program? Are you increasing those costs where you can are you charging for parking? Are you charging for upgraded appliances? And are there other creative ways that people are going to start to look at it going forward to try and maximize and get something closer. I don't know if you guys have thought about that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean you do penet pet rent instead of pet deposit even things like that words. You you have to it's the only way sometimes when you are up against the rent control and I think for the tenant I host radio show we talked about it this morning on the show things like cosigner doesn't have as big of a value as it had before things like double deposit if you have shaky credit are outweighed by I have a pet. I have low credit. I don't have the income to support it for those tenants that are out in the market. It's really going to be a struggle because they have limited opportunities and as a landlord you really take a tougher look at the tenant because you want a good tenant for the long. Yeah, and people are paying for upgrades and amenities still here. You know, that's still happening. We're doing renovations where if you do the math and you get a 200, you know dollar Rent increase you can actually if you cap that out at a five cap, you can you can actually spend $48,000 upgrading that unit to do that. You know, I mean, it still works out in this market now if we hit a recession. That's the first thing people pull back is they're not looking for the Frills. They're doubling up. So you're one bedrooms start having troubles because people double up and go into the two bedroom. So you get vacancy in the one bedrooms the studios and so that's what I think a lot of owners are a little bit wary about right now when they're sitting on the sidelines not wanting to catch the falling knife because they're going. Oh, it's it's still got a long way to go before before it hits rock bottom. And so Jerry on the vacancy side. Do you see higher vacancy rates outside of Southern California? And then you do here. I mean inside the lowest in Southern California that I've seen in lowest puppy Nationwide I can think of because we're again for the BNC product. I think it's 2% for the A's. It's like 5.6 other markets are higher, you know, some about markets are low too but there's a lot more new Supply and you know, Arizona and Florida and and Texas well here you've got very low vacancy rates with Prelimited Supply hitting so as an owner. That's a great combination for you know, big rank growth. Yeah. So I'll ask a couple quick questions and just in terms of your take on where we see the market going forward fast forward either six months or a year from now cap rates to day versus six months or a year from now Jerry. I'll start with you higher lower. I would say hire a year from now because we should be in this recession in the big forecasted relate increases will of tampered down dramatically. Well, I agree Dan. I think caps are going to be our all right, so we're all in agreement on that one. What about rents multifamily rents? Do you see a continuing to move up or does it flatten out? I think it'll be up another 10-12 percent. I I agree I think so too. I think we've got a little more run Runway before it slows down. I think a lot of that is dependent on the supply demand thing again. Yeah, I take a while before Supply hits again Dan thoughts. Oh great. Yeah interest rates. So we heard the finance guys talking early and we got a bunch of Bankers in the room. I mean, they're gonna raise the rate tomorrow. So thoughts on interest rates not so much tomorrow, but six months from now up same Down I think up probably. I'm guessing I'm having dinner with the Fannie May guys tonight. So I'll tell you tomorrow post it. I'll see. Dan would I think it just feels it's anybody's guess but it feels like we're gonna be close to five. You know, that's probably where we're gonna be looking at that pretty quickly here. So yeah, I think the challenge for Orange County is if you buy an apartment, you're not gonna get any cash flow going forward like we did the past kind of decade here. So and then I guess that feeds into part too my question on the lending side loan to value right? Do you see loan to values coming down because of those Dynamics? Well, it's very dropped a lot here in the past two months where You know, we're getting quoted. 45 50 percent, you know loan to cost or perch price financing. So the lenders have already chopped a lot and Even though cap rates have moved up. The interest rate costs have gone so much and the lenders are all getting nervous that we could be going into recession. They just gotten super conservative. So the leverage has gotten really bad recently. You know and I think the big story there that was the story last year's debt funds. Those were you had a lot of syndicators who were putting very small amounts of equity up in getting you know, 80% loan to cost debt fun deals. And what's happened. There is they've employed these rent cat or these rate caps that are super expensive and so it's basically stopped that market, you know on the debt fund side and that was a big pool that goes back to how many buyers for each of these buildings. Well that pulled all those low leverage buyers are sorry High leverage buyers out of the market right away. So you kind of lost the debt for Market the banks are still loaning Fannie and Freddie spreads are pretty wide still but they're probably gonna come in we're hoping like I said, I'll tell you after our dinner tonight. But other than that, yeah, you know, we don't really deal with cnbs much in our market. So really those are your lenders that you're looking at. A lot of what we look at is recourse debt, you know because non-recourse debt, I mean it's ultimately up to the buyer right but I think you've got to really track as a broker where the debts coming from and you know what the Surety looks like of performance and I think a lot of the borrowers that we work with go recourse High net worth family and you know, shout out to First Republic Bank, you know, they've been active we've locked a lot of deals with them recently. We can still get pretty good LTV and rate. We just locked one at 10 year 60% all TV 4.3% for the full ten, first, three years of IO, you know, if you're going recourse it's higher than that and Jerry saying the proceeds are cut and it just doesn't really get very compelling, you know, so a lot of our ways to kind of mitigate things is is finding, you know, the bank that you can get a quick turnaround get loan approval it cuts out the uncertainties, but you just got to know which banks are. In right now and don't you think that that cuts out a lot of the mom and pop players right on the small to middle-sized Deals. If you only have a certain amount of funds to put into the deal and your loan to value gets cut you're in a problem. You got a problem and then if you're predicated on fixing up the property and doing some kind of value add in your costs just start running away from you again, you're pinched. It's not just the mom pops are getting pinched. It's the I call it the machine buyers are putting on these debt fund financing semi same fat percent loan acost floating rate over so for and you know, a lot of those loans were a big consumer of that too. I have these bringing rate caps as Paul talked about where you know libraries so far goes a certain rate. You got to buy a cap on that and we bought a deal in Florida. I don't know six months ago or nine months ago and the lender sends us a bill for a million dollars to buy another rate cap and Please shock that wasn't our performance obviously. So but those are starting to hit the higher leverage buyers is these kind of springing rate caps that are popping up. So I want to ask a different question because they don't we don't have a residential panel here today, but I know we have escrow and title and one to four people and and residential folks in the room. So the expectation in the talk around the dinner table for a lot of people is with the rise and interest rates housing markets gonna flat and activity has already come down. You read the news. If you believe some of it at least activity has slowed. How does that then play back into the multifamily market? Because you have all these buyers first time buyers people that were renting that wanted to go by that now can't and then they just come back and renew. And so I guess I'm curious the thoughts Paul will start with you on where you think the housing market is headed and how that helps or hurts the multifamily market. It's a great question two points on it. I guess here one is. You have different rental pools. Some are never going to buy a house. I mean, there's some there just always going to be renters because if they live in Orange County, they're not be able to afford the median house price and then the other question of the ones that are going to go buy a house. You're right. It is completely shut the spigot off. I did some math on what changing a 3% loan to a 5% loan means to somebody buying, you know million dollar median size house in Orange County. It's like a 67% increase in your payment. So, you know, which means you either need another job or a raise or something because where does that money come from? Exactly? And so and so yes, so I does that spill back to people rent it. Yes. I do especially probably that the being in A and B Class Market rental is gonna stay more full because of that because those renters are not going to Exodus to go buy a place. Well, it's interesting too because black Stones raising this. 50 billion dollar fund and they made the headlines recently for raising that much money and all my partners said. Oh, I think they think there's a crash coming and if you read There are for materials, they don't think there's a crash company. They think that both industrial and multifamily offer the best prospects for growth because they feel like It's an all-time low vacancy rate which Orange County. It's 2% now for BNC and then B is home price of shop so much coupled with high interest rating increases that buying a home or living there now is not an option for people. So you're gonna be stuck renting an apartment and then you have this covid problem where it slowed down new construction. So you've had kind of lesser new construction coupled with an all-time low vacancy rate and you know, the home prices and interest rate costs drop pushing people to renting so they feel like it's Kind of windsorca or the stars are aligned Now to create great ownership and multifamily. Yeah, and I think Dan I don't know what you're seeing. But you know folks that we're trying to buy a second home as investment. Oh, I'll buy it. I'll fix it up a little bit. I'll rent it out. I mean that seems to be off the table as well with the interest rates Spike. So where do those people put their money so that maybe they look at a four-plex or an eight-plex, except they run into the same kind of problems and then they don't have the the cash to be able to do it or protect themselves going forward. And they're very hard to find still I mean the going back to supply and demand there's very little on the market. I pulled some stats just 10 between 10 to 100 units not that's not gonna be your first purchase as a hundred unit building but I pulled a stat 10 to 100 units. There's only 21 assets on the market within Orange County the average days on Market 72 yes or days on Market are you know way up compared to last year but 21 assets. It's not like there's a hundred deals on the market and well, yeah, and if you if you said hey, I want to buy Ford at 12 units. I'll bet you that numbers, you know, you can not one hand probably right? So yeah, it really limits your opportunities. What's the alternative for that investor go put their money in the stock market exactly right by T bill or stick in the bank and get half a point. If some people think well just sit in cash because everything's gonna be lower you're from now too. So you got a lot of that sentiment too. Well, you're finally getting some money on your cash and in the bank, you know, they are raising rates a bit. So at least you're getting something there, but I mean a couple months ago is a perfect storm you get Field anywhere and you in a stock market that scared the heck out of everybody right? But if you rewind a year and you said I had available cash where do I want to invest it? You could buy Bitcoin and make a fortune. You could buy Amazon and make a fortune. You could buy an apartment building and make a fortune. You could buy a second home. You could do no wrong, right if I had some money and I bought real estate. I'm an expert all the sudden I made money and now you can do no, right because you have risk across the board sure. So so let's look at what the expectation is going forward. Just trying to bring it all together it in if the housing market flattens The commercial real estate market has to have some sort of adjustment in terms of balancing cap rate and return with interest rate does the potential for the housing market to flatten or dip then push out? What happens in in the multifamily market? Does it prop it up a little bit because of that and then just where do you see yourself six months or a year from now. Do you see opportunity where you could take advantage of other people's problems. Do you still see it difficult to try and make deals and be smart is my pencil up and and working or is it down? Jerry yeah, good question. I mean where I don't think we'll see distress Orange County because it's like you haven't gotten the higher leverage buyers by here. Now you've seen that in the Sun Belt says where people got a you know, a bridge loan tacked on prep faculty or mesloan and now rates have gone up and they're gonna be crushed but Orange County. You just haven't seen that much of that kind of buyer. So I don't really see much stress and Orange County or you know, distressed buyers or sellers or owners, but other than maybe just kind of a stagnation of not a lot of transactions this coming year because people are Too, you know weirded out about is the price can be lower or she hang tight or wait till later. So I think it's going to be just a from a like dance perspective a broker probably a slower year as we kind of get through this. Well, yeah, I I totally agree with Jerry, you know, if you look at the last major recession 2008, you know, that was a recession where we did have over leverage right? Everybody was doing 95% cmbs loans and even then I think there was maybe four. Deals in Orange County that were really distressed sales that went down. We all wish we bought them because it was such a short period we're all waiting to buy these distress deals and it never happened. And so I don't think it's gonna happen this time because we we have we had more you know, the you didn't have that that leverage issue like you had back then now because Banks aren't they're being disciplined. They're not over leveraging so I think going forward. Yeah. I mean, I think you have a ton of capital waiting on the sidelines until somebody says, okay. We're at the bottom of the market then everybody's gonna jump into start buying it, but I think that's gonna take six months to a year. And so Dan should just go on vacation for a little while another broker told me that it's gonna be it's gonna be a tough time, right because we're transitioning and in the market right now and I think going back to what Paul mentioned the last cycle. Oh wait if we kind of looked at some of that is Clues the transaction volume was really what was the biggest change in the marketplace. I mean, I think Drop like well over 50% So a lot of Brokers love the space or teams thinned out. I think you'll probably see a little bit of that. I remember When the when the cycle was happening multifamily didn't really feel the cycle first, right? It felt it later. It was like the one of the last product types to feel it and one of the first to recover so I think if we look at that as potentially a clue, we don't know how hard the recession potentially is going to hurt the tenant to see any softening there. But as far as like cycling that's why I think a lot of people are just waiting out because it's not priced in yet. But there was really like Paul said there's no just there's really no. Reos, we got all I remember getting in the business. I was all ready to you know, all these RTC days are coming back that I heard about back in the day, you know, 50 adore whatever even lower but they never did. You know where the disruption was was in the single family home market and the two to four plexes if I was smart, I would have went and you know broke her to bunch of REO plexes, but I didn't in the transaction volume between five to 100 units. It was sluggish at best. So I think I think that the likelihood of transaction volume getting Cut substantially is is a high likelihood. Yeah, just until things turned out. So again, we're not oversupplied here. Supply always goes back to economic teacher everything comes back to supply and demand. So yeah, you know, if you went to Florida and Phoenix and Vegas during that last recession obliteration, I mean, it was terrible over Supply. You don't have that here and your land constrained here too. So unlike Texas or Florida where you could go build something else. You can't really do that here and they are building and those Sunbelt markets are building a lot because you can build it a decent return on cost and you know, you could saw the three maybe it's a fourth day but still a pretty lucrative margin to develop in the Sunbelt and just a lot easier to do it and they're doing build for rent down there. There's communities in the Sun Belt that are building thousand homes built for rent guys, like Blackstone will own them and run them out because it's people that can't qualify to get loans, but they can rent they want to have a big house down there. So final two-part question, then we'll open it up for some questions and then get everybody out of here and Steve can start giving out those hundred dollar bills. So a do you think that the election in November is going to have any impact directly back to the multifamily market or the real estate market as a whole in Orange County that's part one part two is what keeps you up at night in terms of the biggest thing that you think is a factor going forward that will make a difference in how the next year plays out. yeah, I think the election is good because I think it's we have to kind of get there over can people can put more owner friendly laws in place because again in California, especially Bay Area La a little bit Orange County, it's we're still stuck in this you can't do anything. So someone doesn't pay rent. You're stuck. Right? I mean you can try to evict and as Paul said, oh, we got a couple evictions done. Like let's you know, crack out the champagne, right? I mean, that should have been just no big deal if someone didn't pay rent, but so we're still stuck in this Can't do much environment La you can't do anything right now. And so hoping after these elections are over people go. Okay. I'm elected. I can kind of let things get back to normal. So hoping that's a plus. But it always seems like there's some other election coming up. So keep punting the ball. I get the other thing I think keeps me up at night is that I keep me up at night, but I worry about is just the spreading of rent control because I never would have predicted Santa Ana go back control. I would what happened. I was shocked and I heard we're rumors about it and Rumblings that might happen, but just thought they were kind of weird rumors not reality. And when that past was a major shock, especially in Orange County which people thought would never happen. So, you know if a passing Orange County, you know, why wouldn't it pass in Garden Grove or Anaheim? So, you know that fear with these big rent increases that are outlined in the paper. You know are just going to push people to start doing more of that unfortunately. Yeah, I agree with what Jerry said and it you know, and that's maybe a commercial for everybody here to you know, be active when it comes to those political issues when they come up whether it's you know, getting rid of Prop 13 or 1031 exchanges or right can you know spreading right control? You know, we we as a community as an industry you have to be active or we're going to get steamrolled because they're not, you know, we're not the people they're looking you. We're not the faces of people, you know that they are looking to try to help we're institutions. We're making money and that's a you know, that's something that you know doesn't bode. Well when I was in that CNN, I actually went to all the Santa Ana meetings when they were doing the rent control and we were trying to be as you know polite and kind and we brought up statistics when we came up to the dyest to speak and statistics didn't matter. I mean, we literally sat there and people were screaming at us practically throwing stuff at us. And so it was it was it was a lot of animosity and I get it. I mean rents have gone crazy. It's been a tough time, but I think what they don't understand is So have all the expenses of running a property, you know, I mean, it's not like the property it's not like the profit line just gets increased with rent increase that all that stuff. Like I said 65% increase in your insurance. That's a lot more than a 5% rent increase. So well in Minneapolis passed rent control too and who would have thought Minneapolis the Midwest, you know, it's conservative kind of Bastion. They passed a bad version of rent control too and transactions dried up new new construction dried up. So everyone thought I'm not gonna building there. So they've actually shot themselves a foot because you're gonna make even less vacancy by doing all these rent control laws. So, you know, I mean the opposite is gonna become a great case study why you shouldn't do rent control but it still sounds great for politician because it feels like you're helping the constituents do it. So it really isn't helping him. I mean, like I said Sandy become a blighted blighted city now because of that which is just a shame we own a ton of property Insanity. We keep our properties up we Have you know rents that are at market and so, you know won't hurt us as much as the Mom and Pops which is sad to see people that work their whole life to buy a fourplex from Dan or something in Santa Ana and then all the sudden, you know, they they can't raise their rents. They all the value got sucked out of their building soon. I think they cover the politics side, but what keeps me up at night sleep pretty good, but I got three little kids at home. So I don't sleep. Yeah, it's more of like a spin on like, you know, just be not being I guess what keeps me up at night is like not potentially not being prepared to take advantage of the opportunity. It's not I mean sure Wars rent control like big curveballs or out there but like There will be opportunities. I'm not saying if it's going to be some big change in the market, but you know, if it's growing the broker's business growing Investments that you want to be prepared to take advantage of opportunities that are going to be in front of you. So I think it's what keeps me up at night is trying to figure those pieces out. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that we didn't talk about is It's not just a brain control fears. But you know, if you're a leveraged buyer like us that's shooting for you know, Max leverage when you look at your financial models now and build in these so for increases that are forecasted. The deals are massive negative cash flow and you can budget for that and build a reserve for it. But you know, you hit a recession would if that doesn't end and so, you know, we worry about buying some deal with a big negative cash flow and somehow you can't grow out of it, which is a pretty ugly situation. Yeah, you bet you'd rather buy somebody else's problem. Right? Exactly. So I think what we're hearing is nobody's a big fan of rent control up here. Not particularly thrilled with Santa Ana and how their policies are my recommendations from what I take from talking with these guys is I would buy low and sell high if I were you and and so at this point, I mean I'm tapped out in terms of questions we could go all day but everybody's ready for us. Yes or any questions if anyone left their phone out there we found a phone so it'll be out either on the table or at the front desk. any questions Frank so I think the short version of that question was with really low cap rate and higher interest rates. What does that do for getting alone? No, I we've had this debate in our office because we're always debating, you know, look at these models and go my gosh I buy this or not. And so I talked to our guys in Acquisitions and they're they tell me oh and these are again larger Hunter plus units Orange County the sellers all want a mid three to three point seven five cap rate, but the math works at four point two four point five. So a big gap, you know, if you're exchange by me, you just have to kind of pony up and pay that hey whatever. So there's that gap of what a buyer can make work and what the seller thinks where it was because a lot of these sellers think oh, I keep hearing about three cap rates, you know word that market go. Well, it's gone. That's just going Orange County what's going on Nationwide and so that's changed a lot and how do you compensate the lender Cuts your leverage from? 70% of 55% So the Leverage is being cut dramatically to make all those coverage tests work. If you're buying a building with 50% leverage, it gets really hard to show a good return because it's just too low Leverage. Yeah, your irr your irr will end up shrinking and your fire pool therefore shrinks. Yeah, that's what we can see and your deals have minimal to no cash flow or cash on cash which you know, if you're a syndic here, that's not very attractive go pitch go. Hey, invest my deal and I'm gonna solve for a big profit in the future, but you get no cash flow. Well, even if you're trying to spend the money, you don't want to put your name on that deal, right? Yeah, so I don't buy it. I don't do that. But the lenders doing it. Yeah, there's they're making big down payments and you're not going to get any 75% loan. You're gonna probably get a 50% loan today. Any other questions? Man, no questions everybody. Actually, I'll hit on that one. It's interesting because in this asset class in this room inflation's terrific because we're on short-term leases. Now if you were in the triple net, I don't know if you had a session on Triple net leases, but it was funny to me a lot of people, you know cashed out and jumped into triple net leases because you know, we're going into an interest rate. It blows my mind. Now you're capping you buy a triple that lease deal you're capping what you can increase your you know, your rents at 3% or whatever that triple net lease is that and you know inflations at nine ten percent. Your negative negative Arbitrage, so we're in a good space with Apartments because you can capture that. But if you're at fixed rents for long term, not good. Yeah, I agree. Well, I think it's great for apartments. You know, I think we're gonna end up. In Orange County a little bit like La where it's not uncommon to see a deal where? A bunch of people are paying, you know, $1,200 the mark runs 2500 because that lost lease is just gonna keep growing because you're capped at what you can raise rents, but maybe rents have gone up 15% So I think we look at a typical deal today or Dan looks at underights. You're gonna start seeing these big, you know lost leases that you kind of Hope over time. You can Whittle away at but if the person doesn't move out you can only do so much. Another question in the back there being sure. I've heard like was a 2500 affiliate fairly small number. I mean it seemed like we had a big wave, you know, right on the airport and Irvine area of it, you know, if you start going if you exclude a few of those old Pockets, it seemed like there's not much being built. So so the big story there is the housing element change. So the if you've been reading about the the state has Rena numbers that they have each city has to have a certain amount of of units and it was supposed to be October that they were supposed to have all that solidified give their plan to the state the city of La didn't have theirs in time. And so they argued for the state to give them until 2024. I believe now, I gotta look up the number and because they allowed to LA to do it. They're now allowing all the other cities more time because if the cities didn't have it there in time, they were gonna lose funding they were gonna start getting fined like and they get sued too. It's sued a hundred thousand dollars a day. They didn't have this that is going to increase once those go in that is going to increase Supply I believe. The problem is you still have groups, you know, there's a building in Hollywood that's trying to be built right now and the the Aviary Community which is the bird Community came out and said that you got to shut down this development because this high rise is going to restrict, you know, bird paths and and this is in the middle of Hollywood with high rises all around already and so Pita jumped in and so that's gonna easily be another year of a stall so there's still enough regulation that it still stalls that supply and demand the other Dynamic of the new development. You see it down the street with all the new apartments that are going on right here. The fact of the matter is there's no rent control for these new properties. So that developer has to get a return for his investors or for himself and he will charge top dollar and he will get it because they can see is low and because got brand new product. So they're not restricted by the same things as existing product and that stuff will get gobbled up because number one vacancies low number two. It's really nice. And so I don't think that there's Enough of those projects in the pipe that's going to tank the market or soften it to any degree. And when you talk about a minus B plus b property and compare that to brand new a product. It's just not the same. Anyway. Yeah, I don't see any new Supply risk, which is different than if you look at like an Austin or Phoenix or Florida and some market. So the great thing about Orange County is yeah the cap rates are low and you know scary with all these regulations and rent control but your new Supply risk is pretty minimal, I think and even when they built it like Barry said they have to charge such high rents that it's not really competing with the existing product out there. I mean their rents are probably a thousand dollars a month more than your existing product that you own. Yeah other questions or something back. people Just yeah. Yeah, I think it's a pretty minimal supply of that as an option. And usually it's a long waiting list to get into it. So it's not like there's a plethora of low-income units saying there they can move into it's you have to apply and wait several years to get into it. So yeah, the waiting list for Section 8 at this point I think is is at least five years from when you sign up maybe longer. Also, we have tenants in our portfolio that are elderly or that qualify for just low-income properties. So it's not so much that it's a Section 8, but it's actually a property that provides low-income housing and gets subsidy and the wait list for those could be about the same. I mean you could die before you got it. I'm sorry. What was that? Yes. Yeah, I mean yeah, the scariest thing ever is if we go to vacancy decontrol and so far nowhere in the state has gone to vacancy decontrol and that's where they even restrict what you can go to after somebody moves out how high you can go and none of the rent control Santa Monica, West Hollywood They try and I think the this guy Weinstein trying to pass that law on thankfully got shut down and that's how the whole kind of Statewide rent control came into place. They were fearing he would put in some kind of vacancy control measure and so the owners pushed this kind of owner friendly rent control to kind of stop that and apparently they kind of deal with Newsome. If we pass this, you're not gonna bring it up again. So but yeah, if you get a regulation, you can only raise so much on a vacancy that would be devastating to her the industry and New York City that it crushed the industry. Because everybody was banking on. Oh, I got this big loss to lease. I'll pay you a big number because they'll move out and I'll go to market eventually and then they passed a law vacancy control law where you can't go to market and you know devastated tons of owners in that market, so I think it's minimal. I think that's right all the bucket. I think that's more probably PR move by the Irvine Company because that's a tiny drop of the bucket and I'm sure if he doesn't do it the state's gonna assume or pressure them to do it. So he and he's doing a nice hearty. I think he has to do it. So final question well, it's I don't yeah, I don't think you'll see as much an Orange County you're going to see more of it in. Florida taxes Phoenix because there were a lot of buyers that went out and You know put on 75 80% flowing rate Libor or sofa base debt that they're all saying huge increases and they bought it at three cap rates thinking they'll you know grind it up to Market. So probably more distress than those markets but Orange County, you just didn't see a lot of those buyers or wasn't a lot of Trades and you didn't see a lot of the higher leverage floating rate people, you know, it was three. Those were three year loans. Oh, yeah, those debt fun deals. So in two years from now, those are all gonna come to you. Yeah. I also think you have to look at some of these other Sunbelt markets that fluctuate pretty dramatically you look at Phoenix or you look at Florida been there and I used to seeing three caps and four caps and those markets and when the market gets soft. It's an eight cat, right? And so where's in California? You have continued property growth and but you never get an eight cap, right? Somebody said, hey find me an eight cap, Dan and say good luck, right. So yeah, I do think that if the economy Putters or struggles that you're gonna see it harder and other areas. Fort gets here if it gets so bad like it did the recession when it hits here if it does it's just gonna be bad because we drop further and go up higher but in the meantime if you can get through and it's not a full-blown recession and it's a blip or it's a period of time then I think we're all here going to be better than most of the rest of the folks out there. Yeah. That's why I think Orange County even recession hits. things will slow a bit maybe take a little longer at least but Not a big crash not much distress. It'll just be a slower period of no rent increases and not many transactions happening, but I think the bigger issue is going to be the Sun Belt cities some I'm gonna I think we're gonna call it there. They got the cleaning crew ready to come in. Yeah, let's let's give these guys a great Round of Applause bar.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/763442741.txt b/data/transcripts/763442741.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0118fdf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/763442741.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+The following video is the industrial panel at rent TV's Greater Los Angeles state of the market Conference held on October 19th, 2022. It is comprised of Craig Peters from CBRE Nick pellico from Crow holding Brett Turner with bkm capital partners and Maxwell Kaiser with Rexford Industrial. it if here it you it if it you if here it here it here it if it here it if you it you if it if it if here it if it if it here it here it if you it if it here it if you here it here it
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/763447786.txt b/data/transcripts/763447786.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e7c5552
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/763447786.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Following video is the finance panel at rent TV's Greater Los Angeles state of the market Conference held on October 19th 2022. It is comprised of Peter steigeletter with Fidelity mortgage lenders Fred ornelis with axos bank Shawn Skelton with Walker and Dunlop and Jeff Forsyth with Torrey Pines Bank. if work it you if and if here if you and it you and it here
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/77077219.txt b/data/transcripts/77077219.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/771348410.txt b/data/transcripts/771348410.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9dcb696
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/771348410.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Welcome to this inaugural episode of commercial real estate talk with Steven Arnie. I'm Steve Bloom founder and CEO of rent tv.com our 24 year old news and media company for the commercial real estate industry mainly focused on California, but the entire Western new s we also own sublease.com and put on the conferences and we also own this video platform, you're watching this show on probably called the review for the entire industry to load their videos into one searchable platform. And with that let me introduce you to my co-host good friend and the producer of the show Arnie garfinkle with the All-Star group. Are you doing Arnie? How's it going today? Good. Thank you Steve. Yeah, Arnie Garfield All-Star group. I've been in the commercial real estate lending business for 40 years. We all do events in La San Diego and the Bay Area actually conference will be in Orange County, but we do very interactive events, and we also help produce. Rent TV events back to you Steve. Excellent. Well our goal with these shows and you know, Arnie and I were perfect team for this is to create a different style of interview show with leaders and icons of the commercial real estate industry and really try and get under the surface with them. Ask them questions. They're quite frankly. I really haven't seen being asked on shows, you know of this type. And with that I'm super excited about the very first guest for this show Bill shop off major developer of me a different types of properties throughout the country. So it's going to be a really fascinating discussion. But before we bring them in let me Tell you about our sponsors which make this show possible without them. We wouldn't be having this conversation. And the first one is Paramount Property Tax. So with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease one way you can fight back is by appealing your property taxes. Even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes lowered. The deadline of file is November 30th. Call West Nichols Paramount Property Tax appeal. We're gonna put the number on the screen eight five eight two two five 1200 or his email addresses there too. So call Paramount Property Tax. Appeal Arnie. Yeah Redwood mortgage red is where is a direct private money lender with over 44 years of experience. They land on commercial mix use multifamily residential investment properties the loans range from 200,000 to 10 million lending in major metropolitan areas of California and, Arizona. Redwood has long held expertise in commercial real estate loan transactions. You can contact Steve Belleville over at redwood redwood mortgage is a good place to go when Banks say no call Steve Belleville, and his information is right below. Thanks, excellent. And our last sponsor the show is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. They're skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information an easily understood terms as well as inexpensive Simple Solutions, whenever possible. Let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal call Tiffany simmington her infos on the screen Tiffany simmington and book your next inspection today 818-957-4654. Again call Tiffany at 818-957-4654. And with that, let's start the show Bill shop off founder of shopoff Realty Investments now celebrating their 30th year. They are doing all property types office multifamily industrial even hotel and Retail from ground up development to investing and selling, you know through the whole life of the of the transaction and development. So I won't tell you too much about the company. Let's bring in Bill shop off Bill. Welcome to the show Welcome to commercial real estate talk with Arnie and Steve. Good morning. Let me with you two gentlemen. Most thank you very much, you know given all the projects that you're working on. I mean incredibly busy. So I know taking this time out of your day is a super valuable for us and for our audience so I won't take up too much time with too much fluff. Let's get right into it. Tell us tell the audience, you know a little bit about shopoff Realty Investments. Thank you Steve. I shop off Realty Investments is a as you reference to a 30 year old firm. It's it's owned by my wife and I co-founded with three other partners back in 1992 in Austin, Texas and then along the way our portfolio and ultimately we migrated from Austin, Texas to Irvine California. We've now been here 22 years of the 30 and focused on opportunistic value add Investments and developments in as you also reference across all the food groups. I think it's one of the things makes our firm a little bit unique. We own office industrial. We had a little bit of retail we own a fair amount of multifamily and and a lot of development sites for multifamily and lots for home builders we and and then you we all so I'm not exactly sure what struck me With this stroke of Brilliance, but we are we are doing a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Yes all about that. I saw that that's interesting. Tell us a little bit about that project. Well, we've been seeking out an interesting opportunity Zone project and this one came to our attention in 2019. And as we started to vet it looked more and more interesting we were able to structure it in a manner that I thought was very attractive to our partners and we work well for our long-term Partners in in the actual Hotel development. We're in they would would get the great benefits of owning a hotel on the Strip, but then we would layer in some some of the tax benefits of a qualified opportunity Zone. Tax deferral and no capital gains on the on the you know, whatever we earn from the actual investment. So kind of an interesting opportunity, you know, it's it's the big leagues when you get to the street where exactly on the Strip is it I made approximately we're we're south and east of the of the Mandalay just just Northerly of the welcome to Las Vegas sign good and I think I think the total tab on that's 550 million dollars. Isn't that yeah, 550 maybe even a little more. Oh that's broke ground into just break ground on that. We broke ground in July. We are moving along nicely on the project and we'll we will complete Construction in late 2024 and open for business in January or February of 2025 perfectly exciting. Well, I want to back up a little bit with you Bill. I want I want to get back into because I was reading your history. So you started in in Resident. You were a broker when you were going through college, right? How did you end up getting into the big leagues as you say with the commercial real estate? Well, how do you make that transition? You know, I I never intended to go into real estate. I always was thought I'd be you know going to Investment Banking Corporate Finance was kind of my real desire. What's up? What's I got on the path of business school? So there's a longer story about to take I'll take too long to cover. Haven't I actually have a degree in Marine Biology and went out and got an MBA and this University of Texas right Austin. Yes, sir. Nice. And so I went and went worked on my MBA it at the University of Texas. And while I was there a friend of mine said hey, you should think about getting a real estate license. It's a good gig for part-time while you're in school and be flexible on time and so great. So I went got my real estate license and by the time I graduated, Hi, the job market was pretty pretty soft and in 1981 when I graduated and the only offers I got were for less money than I was making part-time as a realtor and I was like, well do I want to go be an accountant? Because the investment banking jobs didn't show up that I was hoping for so I I did get one interested party, but they wanted me to move it Houston in my my X by then wife did not want to go to Houston. So it was that was off the table. So I I looked at these offers that I got and I was like and I think I could I think I could do this well. You know, just sell it. And and so I continue to do Residential Brokerage for a little while started some small time development projects made made some money, you know, and then then they signed this tax act in the 1985 and and all the sudden the world changed. Yes. And in Austin the world got hit hard and this big Go-Go a lot of people building and all the sudden the market shifted hard the other way and I ended up. You know, I was a millionaire in my 20s. Then I was broke by the time I was late twenties easy go. Yeah, I got divorced and bankrupt and started over with nothing and you know met my now current wife and it's 35 years ago and we were looking for things to do and in the market was extremely difficult. So I was selling some foreclosures. Wow. It was HUD was paying six percent commissions. That's like well I could go solve another house. But if I saw HUD house to get paid twice as much yeah. And then they came out with a program. They had all these foreclosures trying to get rid of so they came out of a program was a hundred dollars down and like $500 of closing costs to buy a house and say the average house was you know, 80 90 thousand dollars in Austin at that time, right? I looked at it. So well, you know if I sell a house I make you know, $5,000 commissions. So I started calling my friends from high school and college and said if you buy a house, I'll give you your down payment and your closing costs. Wow, I make five I give them five or six hundred bucks and I put 4400 bucks in my pocket and you know the next thing I knew I was selling, you know some weekends I'm selling three or four houses. That's your signature moment. Where you realize this this is where I want to go or well there was a moment within this moment. Okay, and we were down you actually sometimes you we'd actually go down and go to the actual physical auction because they'd open they'd open the bids and you could tell whether you won because you didn't win you need to hustle that client back out on the street and and go get because it's all a sealed bid option. Yeah. Yeah put in your best number and send it in every week. And so what we would drive down from Austin to San Antonio go to the auction. Make sure we knew the bids we get all our comp data for all the other sales we go back and get ready to do it again and one week. I was down there Cindy and I were down there and the and the guy reading the auctions there were some duplexes they were auctioning and they and he starts talking about him and I and I'm looking at the address. I'm like, we had brokered the land through my office. And the duplexes were selling for less than we sold the land for Wow, and that was my aha moment. I I looked at Cindy and I said I got a new idea and we started advertising in the the West Coast edition of The Wall Street Journal and the LA Times the Orange County register a little bit. You add, you know low down payment investment real estate cash flowing real estate. And did very well out of that and then started buying along with selling it started buying my own product again and holding his portfolio and that's kind of how we then along that way. We made this segue from being Brokers to being principles and then do you remember the In the transition towards you know major commercial deals. What was that first? Deal that you did that. Pushed you into the you know, the big leaves on the commercial side that you look back on and say hey that was that deal that got me into that next level there were several but I'd say one in particular. So we started the company 92 started doing small. Most of her buying defaulted notes right from the RTC the resolution trust Corporation. Who is empowered for for the younger viewers they were empowered to clean up the the broke Savings and Loans and sell off their assets. So we would buy these notes or you know, no small no pools and we got qualified to be a bitter on a structured sale was called their S Series and you you actually had a qualified. I wasn't just have the money you had to provide evidence that you had the expertise to do the the back office to handle because the because the government was your partner. All of you have already been my partner. Yeah. Yeah taxpayers. So you're all my partner. Yeah, and I did well for you by the way and it so we got qualified for this we bid on one and then there was one that was Central Texas or Texas, Texas and surrounding states and it was a large pool. I can't remember precisely but it's like a hundred and twenty five loans. We have six people at the time under writing 125 loans. It was it was crazy about building. I'm literally building a spreadsheet as I'm going and you know to do a hundred and twenty seven page spreadsheet then yeah. Oh, yeah, that was a lot different. Then you didn't have building it on the Fly. I'm literally designing it building it rather do it on paper. You finance background so they were probably really end up and and I got it. I got it figured out how to build it. I had teams out in the field doing the physical review and then I had people, you know, reading the loan documents and we would assemble all this information every night. They give me another download and I would love those properties in and then we ultimately had a you know, a portfolio strategy and we're gonna bid X to do the deal. And we in and we won the bid. We had we did not have the capital. Where we had six hundred thousand dollars to make a non-refundable down payment. Hmm, and then we had to start calling for money sure and and we've been calling we're it's kind of was in between. I think we needed about 13 million dollars of equity because there was financing involved, right the 13 million dollars in 1994 was a lot of money. Oh, yeah. It was a huge amount of money. And it was a little too much for my high net worth guys, and we were really hadn't gotten into the institutional business at that point. But we made a cold call to Credit Suisse first, Boston. now Credit Suisse and and they took the call on a Friday afternoon. We walked him through it. You know, there was none of this available. Like I couldn't share a spreadsheet. Yeah, like the spreadsheet what you couldn't even email it because it was too large. No. Yeah, so put it on a floppy. Yes, you put it on a floppy disk and send it to New York for Saturday delivery and the guys got it. They look they went to the office. They looked at it. They went through it. They called us and said If if what's on this this disc is is valid we can substantiate it. We'll back you and they flew in that Monday morning. We sat in the office and by noon. We shook hands on a deal and that went on to be a very long relationship with Credit Suisse our goddess into the into the institutional world, and I'm pleased to say so that was that was you know near that's 28 years ago and I still do business with one of the guys at credit. So you say he personally invested with me to this day. That's right. So I want to ask you Bill. What brought you to California? When did you head West from Texas? So we bought another one of the RTC portfolios in 1995 was primarily a land portfolio. Similar structure deal where RTC was was a part of our Capital stack. We had a we had another group another institutional group joined us. And then we started buying some other Assets in 98. And then in you know along the way in 98, I I had an employee that was managing a lot of these assets. He was based in Texas as we all were but he had a lot of experience in California. So we turned the management of those over to this gentleman and I I tell it I said he liked my business so much. He decided to make it his and he started she started stealing from me, huh? I didn't know obviously he started stealing from me, but I figured it out. I caught him. I called the FBI a suit even got a lot of my money back but not all of it. And then the FBI said him to that the US attorney's office sitting for a short time out in the federal correctional institute and I came out here to kind of manage and clean up and you know sell off the assets and the more time I spent the more I was like, no, right, you know, this needs I got to buy some more to make this better and and the portfolio was growing not shrinking and Ultimately, you know, I was commuting pretty much weekly and and moved here in January 4th of of 2001 so, oh boy. Okay an Orange County's pretty nice. It's not bad. You know, I I had to come up with a reason because people would ask, you know, how did you how did you leave Texas and no taxes and come to California. Yeah, you know my next question relatively High tax state and and I had to come up with something. So my line is I left high humidity for high taxes, and it was a reasonable trade well. Let's jump forward now to current current day, you know, I'm looking at your portfolio properties, you know, and and you know, we don't want to take too long. So we want I want to discuss some of these different properties to the types. So your office portfolio you got offices Chicago, Dayton, North Carolina a recent transaction. You know what you're thinking on the office sector, you know, and and the different markets the turn around the country. Um some of those that you just listed I wish we didn't own my recent purchases. I'm very happy with we bought them at what we think is good value and Jerry's out. I mean, I think I think Hi Suburban office is going to be in trouble. Mm-hmm. I I just don't know how you take what I would call a commodity office building and you make it work anymore the cost the cost of TI it you know to do tenant improvements and lease and commissions relative to the rent. I just don't think there's any money left like I go through this exercise and even even here in Orange County. I look at some of the B buildings here in Orange County. I just don't think there's an economic viability too well and then with more and more people working out of the house, it's it's getting even tougher to even get them into the Suburban buildings. Yeah. I mean look at if an office building used to be 90% least it's now going to be a year less. Now, the better buildings are gonna do fine. Yeah, but but I because because they serve a purpose but I think it's I think you're gonna see a reimagining of the office space. I think it's I actually thought that we were gonna have a lot more of it in the retail space that we've had but retails kind of just held on enough to where some of the crappy real estate retail centers. I thought should be demoed and and repositioned are just not happening at the pace. I thought they would right. There's just enough credit in the in there to keep them alive, but the office space I was just on on a call right before getting on here. We have a chance to buy the debt on a building at 30% under face on a performing office deal. And I'm not sure that's a good deal. Hmm can't tell from here because I don't you know, my basis will be You know less than half of the of the buyer's basis. But I don't know that I feel good about my basis at that price, you know, a hundred dollars a foot in this particular Market. Well, there's your Finance background you you see where the numbers are and you see where it's gonna make sense and not make sense. Yeah. I I look at let's let's say, you know, you go to a typical, you know, Suburban Market where let's say ramps are three dollars, right? So you got thirty six dollars annually. Operating costs or 12 let's say if the building's full you got 18 bucks and not 18 bucks. You got to do tenant improvements. Yeah, leasing commissions and actually make some money. It just doesn't leave much juice left. So I I think it's gonna be a tough sledding for a while. And I'm not sure I I think you're gonna see a fair amount of build office getting demolished and repurposed is something I don't know what you know, the right building configurations might go might go residential conversion for the physical space, but I think you know Some might be warehousing and some are just going to get demolished. I mean I've we've we've looked at a lot of office in the last year and unless there's reasonable credit with reasonable term we struggle to figure out, you know, our position of years ago would have been. Hey, let's just buy it cheap release it up and we'll make money. I don't know that you can buy these things cheap enough to lease them up anymore. And that's just Chicago right Chicago and you've got Dayton and the North Carolina, right? Yeah, the North Carolina that we're going to buildings in Charlotte. We feel very good about those very good sub Market very in demand High occupancy High rental rate. Date and spine because it's a low basis play. We're fine there Chicago. We're not we're it's tough sledding really those buildings up and stabilized and ready to go to the market just as covid hit and you know, my guess is we're gonna sell them. We're not gonna sell them at a we're gonna make money on those buildings is is my guess and I don't know that I want to prove how smart I am and try to retain them again and put the capital to better use right. Sometimes you just have to realize you you made a mistake. Yeah, I you know, we've we've done over a thousand full cycle transactions a lot of piece of property done our business plan and sold it in the last 3041. I think is my most recent count. I don't have to win on every one of them. I just got to win on the majority and I want to win more on the winners than I lose on the losers. There's there's some friends of mine or like I've never lost money some of that is maybe they're just Good and they're better than me. Some is they just won't sell if they're going to take a loss and they haven't ever recognized losing money, but they've lost money. It's they haven't taken it yet. And there's the time taking it. We have a different philosophy. We think capitals valuable in in repositioning that Capital into a better deal maybe smarter than trying to ride a deal. That's not going to be a winner right? That was your skill set your company skill set of repositioning rezoning, you know having that skill set you're able to do things that you know, perhaps other owners aren't able to do. Hey honey. I'm gonna shift to retail because I want to move forward you've been in and out of several retail projects, Nevada, you know, you've got some retail space at Uptown, you know and different areas, and of course, you know, we heard to talk at our Orange County Event about D retailing, you know when it comes to Westminster, so so give us your take on Retail Market. And what you're seeing now look I think. Retail is is becoming more experiential people want to go and they want to have an experience. Not just buy some Goods right one restaurants. They want entertainment. They want things to go do look you there's examples of good retail. You can go to the Spectrum and you can't find a parking space at the Spectrum, right? But you can go to Mission Viejo Mall You can't find another Shopper. Yeah, so I mean so I we look at our Westminster is an opportunity to completely reimagine that piece of land with with very little existing product. That's there intending to stay. Yeah, we mostly will demo and start over and build new product primarily residential City's going through a specific plan that pass it through their Planning Commission a couple weeks ago and you know have you know, 2500 to 3,000 homes and you know, apartments and homes and is it gonna be a rental? We'll do a combination of rental and for sale product. What's the market there? Who are you building for in that market is a families singles or heavy figured it out yet. How far along are you in the plan? I think it's I think it's both. I think you you're you've got some family, you know, you got definitely families that would buy your for sale product which typically be small lot attached and detached maybe how product you know moderate high density, you know, 15 to 25 units to the acre density and then you're gonna have your more typical apartment density. That's maybe 80 to 100 units acre for you know, Podium or a rap building will will have The city would like 600,000 feet of of new retail or retail like being Hospitality counts toward retail. I think we would look at it and say it's half that amount right maybe 350,000. So that'll be a little bit of a negotiation with the city. We've we think there's some other opportunities there. We've definitely do some Hospitality there which gives the city what they want for retail. Which instead of really care whether maybe they care a little bit but really what they want is the revenues right? Right, but we can we can show the very easily that you get better revenues for the hotel room than you do from a thousand square feet of retail. Right, especially it's empty. Look as you get transit oriented tax that the city gets a hundred percent of versus only a small percentage sales tax, which most goes on up to the state. So I I think that yes working through it. It's understanding that that formula though because it's it's what does the market want here? What's the highest and best use and then how do you sell it to a city to provide them the economics of what they want? Are they because they they come in with you know certain ideas and their ideas aren't wrong. But they're but they're thought of from a cities Viewpoint not from a market Viewpoint, right? We we would argue there's not 600,000 feet of users. In that marketplace right that if you look at the competition, you know, Bella Terra just to the south of some other retail. There's just not 600,000 feet of retailers that would come to that Marketplace. And so Why tell me to build something that's going to fail? Yeah, because I might as well stick with the failure that we have is to put fresh Capital fresh capitals only going to go into things. That'll work. So we think this retail like high quality retail good credit restaurants. Entertainment type venues is gonna do very well, but it's got to be well thought I was gonna be well curated. Yes and for us that means we've got a partner of somebody who's going to do that part of it. We can you know, we can do certain amounts but the experiential you know, my friend Shaheen sadeghi talks about, you know, hardware and software of the retail. The hardware is the building and the software is the experiential and I think getting with somebody like that who really understands it she needs it. She needs a genius about that. So, you know, we we would align with people like that to create the best experience for the consumer and we think that that Gets people to your projects. It drives rental value and for sale value for your your residential and it adds vibrancy. And yeah, that lens right in my next question is on the residential side. What what you know for like a one bedroom in that market what's you know, what do you get for a one bedroom in that market and are you you know, we're you looking to move is that I like Actually red, so that submarket are. Upper three dollar range so, you know if you took a 600 square foot one bedroom. Probably 22 2500 dollars. Yeah now is a plateauing. Are you seeing a little softness like well, you know, I'm reading about in the, you know, definitely seems office. I mean you just we had such a run-up You know this happens both both on rental and for sale for sale came to a faster stop. But you just got affordability issue right as great as a landlord to get more rent, but not if it just increases turnover and you just you know, you're putting paint on your customer. So there's this Balancing Act between the landlord who, you know feels like he's got to drive rents and in our you know our Customers where we don't want we don't want to turn those units. We turn them too often. We're not really making any money because we're picking up rent right? We're spending it on unit turn. So I think that you know, I think that the smarter to landlords are figuring out the right Balancing Act of how to deal with that you clearly home prices were not sustainable at the rate that they were appreciating and now With interest rates, you know essentially doubling this year home prices are going to come down a bit. And I I I'm not great. I mean I all I'm gonna do is repeat other people's forecasts, you know, it feels like to feels like gonna come down 10 or 15% at least maybe more that's you know, you know, I would tell people the situation is different than nine and 10 when? prices got devastated because I got borrowers who better qualified. I've got fixed rate money almost entirely. 70% of the people who have home mortgages have a mortgage rate under 4% So they they can afford to stay even if their house is a little upside down. They're better off staying than selling and trying to buy again. In 20% less, but at 50% more interest rate their payments going to go up and so if they're long term players, which is what housing should be about if your homeowner you should be thinking long-term and long term. You're going to be fine. It's it's you know, fortunately the last you know run up here in covid and we got all this stuff. Look all asset classes. We're moving and oh, yeah, you know, everybody was like crypto this and right now I'm and and you know, this gentleman last week who lost 15 billion in a day. Yeah in a day. That's okay. That's but you know, I have you might have to go home and have a cocktail. It's a close out our about with the run up, you know with with everything was going up and and prices were getting out of control and people buying things for higher than they should have it was all because the interest rates were so low. It was so easy and so much better and you can get qualified whether it be a residential home or a commercial office building you were able to get something because rates were so low you were able to buy above your means now things are settling down. It's getting tougher. It's gonna it's gonna get tougher and I think I think they'll be more pain on the commercial side than the residential side, right? I think you you have people who have commercial real estate jury of commercial real estate. Move aside multifamily where you have a great debt opportunities from Fannie and Freddie and odd but but the other commercial real estate a lot of it is floating rate debt, you know other than other than cmps. So a lot of a lot of people including us use floating rate debt, you know, thankfully all of our debt has caps on it sure. So we negotiated, you know some interest rate protection. but look that those caps are going to expire and we're gonna we're gonna have to we have to pay the pikers they say, yeah, and and so I I think that you know, it's it has this thinking about every single asset we own we feel good about the majority of them. But as I shared, you know got a couple that you know, I don't feel good about I got a couple where I'm like man, I just don't know what my Pathway to success is on these buildings. Well, yeah, and and you look the darling of real estate right now is industrial that that's the area where everybody is doing and that's where I want to shift the discussion or any perfect segment. There you go. Let me let me close out on West Mister Bill. What do you think? The timing is? I know it's cut up in there. But what do you think the timing is on delivering? Product there. Oh to two to four years from now got it. Thanks. Now. I want to I gotta get us I gotta get a I gotta get my City Zoning. I gotta get a Project Specific. I got to go through my site planning. I mean, I think if I could get a if I could get a resident in there in four years. I'm probably moving to light speed. All right? Okay. Well, let's just industrial. Go ahead. Yeah. So, you know, you're you're project on the on the I-10, you know to launch that how do you see the industrial space? What's your you know inspiration to get into there and and you're finally looks like things are happening on that site. Um, look, we were very bullish on Industrial even though I think like everything else it's gonna it's gonna get temporarily oversupplied because yields start to look so attractive and everybody got in. Now you've got some issue we're rents have driven ridiculously if you thought rents went up and in in the residential space that that particular building, you know, when we we launched two years ago rents were 50 cents. And in the market today those rents are probably. High 90s to over a buck in two years. Wow, so essentially a doubling into surpassed office when you talk about the net right? Yeah, you start talking about, you know a dollar triple net. You're making more money than you're making on an office building. And it costs you less to build it right? It's easier, you know, if you can get it Zone those. That's the pitfall. It's getting very difficult Zone. large Industrial in California because there's a big pushback from this. When did you buy the I-10 Logistics Center site? I've owned that land forever. I the original partnership sold to the current partnership at the end of 2020. But we've been interested 2004. It was originally a residential site. And we ultimately got industrial zoning on it got it entitled. And you know, my original Partners had been in way too long and wanted out so we moved it forward and took it into a development deal. We're under contract while the closing next month on it at a very attractive price for ourselves to sell to sell the project what state what stage is it in? Is it built completes? It's nearly complete. Excellent least still it is actually fully leased now. Excellent. Congratulations. We we sold it. We actually sold it empty in our buyer pro career attendant. So excellent. Congratulations on that. Nice. Yeah. Nice deal for us would be a very nice deal for them as well. So win-win yeah tenants happy they got a place to do their business. We're thrilled and I think our buyer is equally happy. So excellent. Well, the one last property type I want to get in the hotel project. I know we've got a few minutes left. We want to keep it moving along, but I'm really curious. How do you how do these deals come to you? You know, I think one of the things is we've rightly or wrongly wish some days. I wish I could change this but I don't think I can we've we've got a reputation for tackling things that are challenging. Mmm. The my group is is pretty intellectual here and and they tend to do things that are not replicated or replicatable. But but we get paid hopefully well for solving unique problems, right? I don't know that that's probably I had to do over again. I might do it differently, but that's the DNA of the firm. Yeah. So we're gonna continue with that and somebody brought this site to us on the Strip. It looked interesting. It had some challenges he challenges that showed up after we acquire the site that we actually completely did not think about one with the FAA where we actually had an FAA clearance before we closed. It was one of our conditions clothes and then the FAA started. New conditions on us even though we had an approval from them. We ended up getting involved with Homeland Security FBI, Las Vegas Metro Clark County Aviation. Wow Esa. It was a it was a learning experience because everybody was very concerned we have about the airport. They're very concerned particularly the the shooting a few years ago. The Harvest Festival I could see that yeah a lot of anxiety about another building close to the airport shutting traffic down causing a lot of dilemma for the whole strip the whole city. So we work diligently with them ultimately got their their confidence in us and we brought in, you know, one of the top airport security firms in the world normally represents airports to represent us and come up with the security plan for our building to make it. Comfortable for all of those parties to join with us in in approving a hotel project. Well, the design looks great the Dream Hotel. I love the names what's really good and you're probably not too far from the football stadium too. So that's walking distance. Yeah for the ball stadium. We think MBA is coming and there's a new arena being built to the south of us that is vying for that MBA franchise about a mile and a half to the south of us. I'm still awaiting an announcement for the A's because I'm assuming they're going to move to Las Vegas and one of the sites there been focused on is just the north of us. So I'm all right. We think that although we were kind of at the South End of the strip and and maybe kind of a newcomer down there. It feels like there's a lot going on around us high speed rail within a mile and a half of us from Los Angeles to to Las Vegas the fourth of affiliate a fortress's building and they closed on the land for the for the Terminus and in Las Vegas. So we're very excited about the project. It's a it's a lot going on with it. Oh, you're gonna have conference facilities in there too or just rooms Casino. We will have conference facilities. We have eight or nine food and beverage venues Casino. It's pretty cool pretty cool layout and I think it's gonna be an exciting kind of Boutique experience. It's it's 531 rooms, which You know by any other Market standards would be a big property but by Las Vegas a bit of a boutique, right and we're very excited about it. That's good. That's great. Well, I have two quick questions aren't there now we're pressed. But so so Bill, I know you've got the finance background and and the analytical background. But you know when it comes to that. Green light decision, you know where you're deciding, you know is is it gut is it irr return on Equity? I mean some of your projects I don't even know how you make projections with all the potential changes that may occur over the lifetime of that development, but when it comes to like yes or no Is it gut is it Financial? How do you how do you do that? Well, it's all Financial but I think it's it's you know, we do elaborate spreadsheets to try to understand what's going to happen. But really for me is it's can I put it on a piece of paper and understand it kind of in a static model of this is what it's going to cost me to get here and this is what it's going to be worth. you know, is there enough spread here then we put time value of money and other things on it, but Look if I'm going to build something that is a very simplified example I gave on the office. Look if I can't figure out on a piece of paper how I'm gonna make money the spreadsheet doesn't make it better. Right? So I gotta figure out I can you know, I can I can I can rent an apartment for x and it cost me why to build it. Financial cost of X. You know, I can make a real return on my capital. And then, you know, then we put it in the spreadsheet but it's it's got to be understandable from a just a basic Nuance of doing it. Look I've been doing it for you know the company for 30, but I've been in the business for like 43 years, right? I have some sense. I've got some smart people here a number of smart people here and I think you know there is definitely Some some intuitive idea about value. that I have an underlying idea about value you go out and you look at the concept look we just bought a piece of land in Mesa, Arizona and you know, we looked at we we looked at it. You know, we we think it's intrinsically worth. You know, 10 15 18 dollars a foot and we could buy it for six. Can probably make money at that? You know, it's it's it feels okay directionally now, you know the market shifts in the middle. You got to be prepared because you know selling is I want to buy with wide enough margins to be able to overcome these shifts and then take advantage of you know we look at what's going on right now and you know, we're we've got a few things we you know have some anxiety about stuff we bought in the last year. We feel great about we bought it with this in mind and then we'll you know, we'll take advantage. I I expect that. You know, we we typically will buy during a correction. Right. We don't try to buy the bottom. We buy the bottoms impossible like one guy gets the bottom and everybody else is either on the way up or on the way down and I find you can do more volume of transactions on the way down. It's gonna be careful not to catch you falling knife. but you know, I think that I you just understand intrinsic it comes to that intrinsic value if I think that you know, something is worth the hundred bucks and I can buy it for 50. I'm a buyer. If I buy it for a hundred and it was 200 last year and I buy it for a hundred this year. That doesn't make it a good deal. It just means you're gonna lose less money than the last guy right so you got to understand what's the value proposition of that asset? So I think that's you know, right now we're in that, you know, interesting Market where I think you know, we're gonna we're gonna be in new price Discovery for the next few quarters. And I think it's gonna create great opportunity for those that are flexible Brothers. It's going to be terrified. I got one last question for you Bill before we go. What are your personal interests what gets you excited when you're not sitting behind the desk and looking at projects? I mean, obviously you're a Texas Fan. I assume you call it five follow college football but charity. It's you have Charities following. My football team is a heartbreaker this year. It can be we want to do better lost four games by one score or less seven points. We've lost four games. Um, so now that's a little bit of a challenge for me today. But but I still love I love my Longhorns but then I love college football. I'm a huge college football thing and I watch watch a lot of different teams. But like I play golf I'm a pretty avid cyclist. Although not getting as much in this year's is normal. I scuba dive when I get a chance and I and I and I collected drink wine and then the Charities, you know, where we're we're involved in a couple Friendship Shelter in in Laguna Beach. That's all right advocating solving homelessness one person at a time and and doing it a remarkable job of getting people housed. I think they're you're over your Stat or for the last year as Housing in South Orange County homelessness is down 23 percent. Excellent. That's not by moving in someplace else. That's by putting humans in homes that they should be and then we also are involved in some lgbtq Charities. My children are like my children are are in those groups and I think Society You know has moved a law along way in the right direction the last bit. It's got a little concerning to me that that some of their freedoms are being infringed upon and so, you know, I intend to make sure that I protect, you know, their freedoms and their friends freedoms and and and those people we don't know but you know our view is very clear that this should be a place. You know, I thought I thought this was a place where everybody should be able to come and be welcome. All of us are our offspring of immigrants or immigrants and I really I don't understand kind of today's view of anti-immigration and candidly from the maturity of our country if we don't get into, you know legal immigration. our demographics are going to shift in a place that's gonna We won't have growth you simple. That's back. Yeah, you're right. We will we will have a flat economy for you know to a declining economy. If we do not allow legal immigration. And and I think that's it both ends of the spectrum. I think it's the intellectual end where where there are very very bright people that we need and want to be employed and then there's people that are just you know, those people who want to do certain labor jobs that candidly a lot of people don't want to do and but but it's but it's understanding who's in the country and you know, I'm taking a radical position there, but I think you know, I'm taking my position both is both because I think it's humanitarian but also because I think we absolutely needed to drive our economy if I want to sell more houses and rent more Apartments we need immigrants exactly. Yeah. I think it's a logical it's Physical Viewpoint actually, by the way, I feel your pain with college football. I went to Florida State. So we had a lot of years of down now we're coming back up, but I definitely feel it. I think we're close. But you know, I I said our fight song right now is wait till next year. I I hear you. It's a thank you. Yeah. Thank you gentlemen for the opportunity. Yeah, Bill. Thank you great conversation, you know some I you know, I could ask you so many more questions, so I'll have to get on another episode. So thank you very much have a thank you great productive day and go make those deals. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Thank you. And watching commercial real estate talk with Stephen Arney sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors Redwood mortgage and Paramount Property Tax appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/795355693.txt b/data/transcripts/795355693.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fadb342
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/795355693.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Welcome to the next episode of commercial real estate talk with Steven Arnie hosted by Steve Bloom and Arnie garfinkle. I'm Steve Bloom founder and CEO rent TV the news and media company for the commercial real estate industry now in its 24th year with our news website covering Daily News and transactions throughout the Western us as well. As our conferences throughout the California markets. We're doing our next two March 16th our Orange County state of the market conference and Inland Empire main night. So we hope to see you there and we also have the video platform where you're watching. This video called the review meant to be a search engine and viewing platform for all videos dealing with the commercial real estate industry. So with that said, let me introduce our co-host my friend the show producer or any garfinkle or any how you doing today. I'm doing good Steve Arnie garfinkle. I'm with the All-Star group and income property Lenny. We do commercial real estate loans we to do events. We have an event coming up April 27th in Anaheim at the JW Marriott Resort. But before we go any further, what about our guest today? And our sponsor Steve a great Point Arnie, you know with with the show, you know, we're really trying to get underneath the surface with some of these top level CEOs in the industry and our guest today is You know amazing for the times that we're in given all the challenges in the retail sector. We're excited that Sandy Siegel president and CEO of Newmark. Merrill companies is Going to Be Our Guest today. But before we bring him in Arnie, as you said, let's tell our audience about the sponsors that make this show possible starting with a great client of ours commercial real estate inspectors. They are in Southern California. They're skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information and easily understood terms as well as inexpensive Simple Solutions, whenever possible let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal call Tiffany simmington. That's Tiffany simmington and book your inspection today at 818 957-4654. It's on the screen eight one eight nine five seven four six five four and who's next up Barney. Yeah. So our next sponsor is Paramount Property Tax appeal with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease one way. You can fight back by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income you can still qualify to have your property taxes lowered find out more by calling the folks at our great client Paramount Property Tax appeal and ask for West Nichols and Code eight five eight two two five. One two hundred eight five eight two two five. One two hundred ask for West Nichols, excellent. And lastly. We've got Redwood mortgage. They are a direct private money lender with over 44 years of experience lending on commercial mixed-use multifamily and residential investment properties. Basically all the food groups loans range from $200,000. It's up to 10 million dollars and lending in the major Metro areas of California and Arizona Redwood has a long-held expertise in commercial loan transactions contact Redwood at 1-800-6596593 or www.red would mortgage.com for more information Redwood mortgage Arnie as you know, a good place to go when the banks say, no, that's right. Steve takes good care over there. Well with that business taking care of let's bring in our guests. I'm really excited to bring in Sandy Siegel president and CEO of Newmark Merrill companies. Hello, Sandy. How you doing today? Monday? Welcome one guys, Arnie Steve gosh, so good to see you guys outstanding. Well, we're excited about this interview. We've got a lot of ground to cover. So let's get right into it. Let's head off. I haven't you give us a quick overview of new Merle companies, you know, and the other businesses real estate related that you are into. Okay? Sure. Yeah happy to do it. So you more mural companies just celebrated. It's 27th year. So we've done 27 years of buying developing repositioning managing shopping centers. We're in three states. We're in Colorado. We're in Illinois and we're throughout California. We're today a size wise. We're about 92 properties about two thousand tenants, you know a couple billion dollar in asset value, and we also have a prop tech for so a company called Bright Street Ventures which invests in today just over 40 different Investments related to technology and property. Good. Hey, Sandy. I'm always somebody that wants to find out about names. Where did the name Numark Merrill come from when you started? Yeah, so um originally so I started my business at a company called West Venture that I was hired as a computer programmer. Really? Yeah. I know. I know I look so cool. It's hard to believe me as good your program blew me. I was there. Um, and I was hire doing that and then I um, you know, starting their their Shopping Center business built it up and then I bought them out when I bought them out. I wanted to use their name. They wouldn't let me do it. So, um, I needed a name in a hurry and I had done some business with that with a home builder called Newmark of Texas. So I like the name Newmark Newmark Homes in Texas and and then the company that I had started which at that point was just a few months old merged with another company called the Merrell companies and became New York, Maryland. I bought out the Merrell companies. So it's Sold now just me but it's new Mark Merrill got stuck together and I'm not a bad thing because people When We Were Young thought we might be associated with Meryl Lynch. So, you know when you don't have anything, you know, I'm a pot to piss in that's a good thing that happened. That's working. No, that's that's great. Was it reach out from the start always retail always reach out. So, so I started in a company that was a home builder and all I was doing was computerizing their accounting department. They wanted to take some of the cash. They were generating from selling homes and converted into passive income. We looked at a bunch of stuff and clean swap meets. I was 21. I would have done anything and a lot of piece of land and someone build our first Shopping Center. Okay. So now that was your first what was your first real big deal that that you felt this is the one this this where I want to be. Yeah, the first big deal we bought was in the city of Norwalk stonevolved in it Nora Town Square Rosecrans and Imperial bought that in 1986. Wow, three modeled it in 1988 through 1990. Um, all these years later so involved in it at the time was my I learned everything on that how to remodel shop centers how to community build brought in a movie theater brought in, you know, Brian Redevelopment money when it was when it was available from the state. Um, really became the center that Community that's first center where I've ever had Santa parachute in just you know, Bill jumped started there. Wow, and yeah just a great opportunity to 255,000 square feet said it was originally built in 1952. So a lot of history and it's noted if anyone's seen it it's noted because it has a hundred twenty foot tall neon sign that is From it's visible from the five freeway from the 605 and from the 91. Yeah, that wasn't really challenging giving it that year was your first deal to convince people that you could you know, take it on. Yeah, yeah, it was it was you know, I mean a little sign of the financial markets we end up putting up zero money in the deal. We got a hundred percent financing on it. Um, and it but yeah, I mean, you know that the hand at that time I then I was probably 22 23, um, you know, get give a guy that opportunity to turn that all around but and we meet plenty mistakes, but you know truthfully not knowing certain things helped us discover a lot of things we wanted to normally and it actually worked out I form a lot of relationships in the business off that project that I still have today. All right, so that being said now, I know you you manage properties as well as owning properties looking over your all of your projects throughout your career. What is your crown jewel, which is the one that really, you know, you feel boy that that was my most amazing deal I ever get Only have four kids. They're all my favorites. Right? So I have I am depends on who's in the room. I'm 92 assets and you know, they all bring a little something different and that's why I'm the business because I love every deal has something a little different. So, you know if I had a spot like so I'm not say they're my favorite because right I'm for something to miss some and then you know who's ever working on that project is gonna say, you know, give me a few just yeah, thank you speech at the awards, you know, you don't want to miss it. No. Yeah. I don't even played off the stage. I mean look, I think that Norwalk, you know is definitely you know, that first child you have and you're in here mother and you learn everything and I think that was really really meaningful my perspective. I think that Anaheim Town Square which we did and stay college and Lincoln the Redevelopment the fact that we bought it from Calpers a public pension fund who thought it was fully valued and you know, we turned totally around I think if you look at Mission Marketplace, which we bought down in Oceanside and how that was always the perennial second place in that Marketplace and we cut you know, just tenaciously built it up. So it was a leader and then, you know the center we built Village at the Peaks that we built in a Longmont Colorado, which is a deal I voted against originally when it came in and we all talked about it. It was a mall conversion tear down the mall. We build it, you know, totally retired condemnation a whole bunch of stuff, which I originally said no way I want to be involved in and I'm doing it turned out to be a great asset and is a centerpiece in that community. So, you know, I look I measure my success by do we make it impact on the community and as does the community then reciprocate by being being um, you know loyal to to our tenants there. I think we have a lot of those success. Hmm great great. Well, let me let me move into how you analyze the deals look get into your thinking there. You know, you're in Washington you start in California or Washington, Illinois. Did you when you made those moves those decisions? Were they more like you were thinking was it strategy opportunity? Where did you decide to go into those markets or were you presented with the opportunity? And then analyze those markets? Yeah. No those decisions were all made based on people. Okay, those were all people decisions. Um, they were do we have people on the ground? And by the way, we do have an asset in Washington, but really we're in Colorado and Illinois or all right. Yeah, but they were all based on do we have someone on the ground who can be that local representative and know and grew up and watch TV and read the newspaper and you know just really knows that community. And so Colorado is driven by my partner around his board who you know tragically passed away and it right after covid started and And then in Illinois was was a product of our partners over there. San Diego is a product of our part of my partner John Hickman. And so it all is a function of do we have good people on the ground who can operate a business and make those centers local and then do then once we get to that point do we believe there's a Marketplace there where we you can add value are we different than what's already there? Because if all you're going to do is go into a Marketplace and decide you're smarter than the you know, the people already live there the whole life that's not a winning formula. And so we got to commence ourselves. We bring something special to the party. Well sticking on that topic, are there other states that you're looking at right now? Yeah, for sure for sure. Yeah. I mean we like Utah I think Utah is definitely you know place where we would do more business. There's other areas in the midwest we're looking at um again, it has to be the right combination of people opportunity and also enough proximity that I want to go there on a regular basis at least once a month to see what's going on. That makes sense. Now when you find a transaction that you want to get. How do you do Finance them? Do you use that Equity? Do you get partners? I mean, what do you do when you find the product right project? How do you finance them? Yeah, we've been blessed my you know from from the very first deal I did until now we've had the same investor who's invested in almost everyone of those deals and every year we add one or two. So people we do deals with are generally family offices. We have long-term relationships with who they you know, they know us we know them Fair amounts our own money. So it's not like we're you know, we're not your typical syndicator. I mean, we don't have you know, probably I'm you know, no more than 10 investors and total that I've gone and all, you know build up this whole portfolio every once in a while. We'll partner with an institution. They bring us a deal. We'll we'll be part of that. But since we're long-term holders our best that's generally our family office. on both her own account and for others so you don't exit deals very often. You usually hold. Yeah. Yeah our average whole times 110 months. Okay. Wow. Now how do you find deals are our Brokers? Bring any deals? Are you out there? You know looking for off Market deals. How do you generally find them? Yeah every which way I mean, there's there's Few major sources first of all brokerage for sure. I mean we have a long relationship in The Brokerage Community many of our Brokers or partners with us and Deals. We love having partners of local knowledge and know what's going on and you know, so there's a lot of very great brokers who, you know come in and become part of our deals. So that's that's a great way in for us, you know, definitely we you know in any community that we're in we like to reach out to other people who have access within the community and see if they want to Seller partner with us. So we clearly we do it that way. We do, you know, we do a fair amount of female management of the theme management we do often one or two assets a year shake out where the people were managing for either need investment or need or want to sell. We're a logical buyers every right. That's either for you. Yeah, it's a great feeder and you know, we're you know, and then often someone has a busted deal. They look us up. You know. Hey, I know you're in town. I know you have this can you when you partner with us on it? And we're we do a fair amount of that. That makes sense now. Mostly you're no you say A Partners is that most of them llc's Partnerships corporations or it depends on the deal and that's how you structure. Yeah, 90 5% or LLC. I mean it generally generally we're the manager we come in we form an independent, you know as we you know and SP and we, you know their individually Finance everything. Now, how can somebody invest with you or you kind of like? Go ahead kind of closed off from what you said in there other answer. How do you know? Yeah, I mean generally look if there's a reason that that there's someone who can invest and they had valued to us and we had value to them, you know, there's many opportunities when that happens, but generally what happens. Is it either related to someone we've already done done business with or they're in a community and they own a center or they have an opportunity. They want to you know, put the but you know, they're maybe their asset together with our expertise or they want to add some Capital to a situation and their particularly plugged in that's where that happens. So the Army and Steve fund we're out of luck now. Yeah, I make exception you guys are sort of like brothers. So you're related. Yeah. Hi guys. You're next Steve. Well, you know, let's get into one of the things before we get into your current deals. How what are your thoughts you get involved heavily in like architecture probably on the construction side, obviously with you know, the cost and everything, but how hope you froze there Steve froze up. He didn't I not architecture and construction I think is what he wants to know. How do you get involved in those areas? Yeah, um and Steve you froze, but I think you unpros because you're blinking now or or you had to be on a stroke. So so the the you know, the truth is anything I do does deals with the place making of the of the center. I I try to be very involved so that that includes architecture that includes signage. I'm definitely signage that includes anything that we consider environmental creation lighting accents music, um, you know, everything related related to that. Um, and we spend a lot of time on that we spend more time on that then prop until we launch probably than anything else. Okay, why should a tenant be here? Why would the customer want to visit that tenant is the thing we're asking ourselves. In fact, you know that goes to things like what's with the sidewalk and how does a lighting work at night? And you know, what he what are you doing? You know, what's that? What are the messaging you're doing at the street level and the sidewalk? All and the parking lot level to get people to want to come and you start there and then you build back until gay once we're built. What's our storyline is it you know is is neighborhood oriented is community with larger Community orientated. Um, and then how do we get your your Majors to play ball? So they at least represent, you know our consistent with their our theme yeah. That's a that's a big mission before we build in. All right, good answer. I was gonna the next person I was gonna ask is you know, let's get into your current deals. Right? So tell us about some of your active, you know recent acquisitions or you know, I think you've got a major project going on in the IE so tell us about some of the current things you've got going on. Yeah. I mean we Truly guy an awful lot going on we have right now. We're building a brand new center in the city Rialto second phase and Center. We build a few years ago. A lot of people may not know where reality is but Rialto is kind of launch between let's call it the the 10 freeway and the 210 above it and this is so wedge in there in the 15 sort of to the East and so it's Boxed In by the by those freeways. We did the first large skill development in South Rialto, which was a super Walmart and some pads and some restaurants and things like that subsequent. We made a deal with the city to develop the parcel right next to it, which is the first phase done. What year was that? Oh right dating myself, but let's call it 20 16 17. Okay, right just 13 years to build because yeah all sorts of challenges, but we got it done and then we you know, we Developed this Center which by the way got 100% lease during covid. So we were a hundred percent pretty least from covid Sprouts Burlington Five Below Ulta, um, you know, just just a great setup in and out burger and you know, the all the usual everybody's um, and you know, great great setup, um, kind of a farmer kind of theme we're doing there. Um, but you know, really cool bright colors, it's nice and we're we're well under construction. We'll probably be delivering it rains didn't help the holiday April May kind of time frame. Um, so super super excited about that. It's only ground totally ground up and we finished a we've just finished building. We've done a number of Burlington. So we just converted on the shopping center in Chicago. A lot of it. The center has a high-end grocer there Mariano's we At a Burlington we added a Planet Fitness. We added a Chuck E cheese balloon or not. We added a Hobby Lobby leased all that Center up. We're finishing the Burlington as as we speak right now conversion of an old Kmart. So, you know really kind of cool took it took an old Kmart broken into TJ Maxx home goods Burlington. So that one that was in Bloomingdale, right? So super cool there. We took an old what was an Old Meyer Grocery Store in Melrose, Illinois, and we just turned that into we sold 60,000 of that into a Cermak grocer a big local Hispanic high-end roads are very nice grocer. Um, At a Ross and a bunch bunch of others a Ross of Burlington in a number of other tendons in that Center. So yeah, we have a big remodel that we're doing doing over there worked out really. Well, we're finishing a remodel and a retentity of a large box in Sacramento where we added a school. So we put in a UEI school DD's built a pad on the corner with a you know, Starbucks and a whole bunch of tenants over there. Um, and you know Englewood we did a huge remodel of our Center in Inglewood on on crunch on Imperial, um torn down some buildings built a Planet Fitness, um added a bunch of restaurants the basement of what was a kind of a vacant first floor of office building on the property and I'm sure I'm missing just a ton of stuff. Oh we're looking at converting a movie theater. To a into some apartments and we're converting a Marshals and Thousand Oaks. We're converting to Marginal Thousand Oaks to a 218 unit Hotel. Wow. Yeah, I saw that. I mean that that's out by where I live. I know the chance. That's well. Yeah chance workplace Yeah couple quick follow-ups for you on that Sandy. What what are the made major differences? You see in Illinois in the market there whether it's rental rates lease up versus California and use outside brokers for your Lisa or is it all in-house in Illinois? Yes, generally everywhere else no Sacramento. Yes, because we have an incredible team up in Sacramento. So generally in-house, you know, I will tell you that the difference between Chicago and here California, you know isn't as pronounced demographics are very similar. The densities are very similar. I mean, obviously the weather is a much bigger factor. I mean, you know right weather just you know, but you know, I gotta tell you the people the Midwest are you know, they're pretty rugged group, right? So they they shop our you know, I mean it rains I guarantee you in a Range here are traffic suffers more than when it snows there. Oh and you know, look, there's you know, you get you look taxes are different there. So you got to be very aware about how they how they deal with private tax operating costs. No removals. Not a factor here knows at any center. It's 25,000 bucks. So you got those those kinds of things but you know, Good people loyal Shoppers, you know, very depending where you go, very ethnic which for us plays right into what we liked to do. So, yeah, I love that market, right? Building on that. What are you finding some of the challenges right now with interest rates cost of labor cost of materials, you know, obviously strategy has changed in the last six months or so. What do you see? Yeah, it's top look it sucks because you got a lot of things going in a time where we're trying to level out. We're trying to figure out covid right? So covid obviously destroyed us right and then climb out of that and you get this kind of a rational zuberance coming out of covid with all the stored up capital and people coming back and you know, really the shopping environment, you know, really thriving and so you go from that into this, you know, as soon as you start getting the wind under your sales and you know, all sudden you're you know wages start going up and so it's hard to hire people. So you have as big influx of people coming out of covid and then you can't hire people and now people you do hire, you know, you provide bad customer service and it just and then now people come back and they say like, maybe I don't want to go back to retails quickly as I did because I'm I don't like the way I'm being treated and then you know, you end up having security concerns, which should become a much bigger Factor just generally overall anyway and the cost of you know, hiring security and keeping that in place and then Role in that you know interest rates now, make sure you don't affect us as much at least right now because mainly we borrow long term and so luck lucky for us. We have we have long-term maturities on most of our debt, but if you you know, you want to buy something where you want to you know, develop like anytime or developing and we are construction loans your cost to borrowings crazy. And then you add on to that the increase in materials and material showers. It's just super super super difficult to plan things out that things you worry about in a normal World, which is how do you least? How do you design how to get entitled all those things? You still have those things and then you later on all this now. I got everybody but can I give Americans or can I afford to build the building? It's so many deals don't work anymore. So yeah, it's it's difficult. It's very difficult. And California in particular doesn't have the tools to offset that they don't have Redevelopment or tax increment funding or other tools other governments. Is to to help get things built when they should get built when there's a mismatch between costs and income. Okay, but having said that you're still on that buyer in California once you say developer sure sure, but look we're not buyers because we believe in the fundamentals of our business retail and we think we bring something to the table. But that doesn't mean I'm the net buyer, you know, just whatever the price is. I'm in that buyer or this scenario. The scenario that says my costs are gonna be higher my insurance are gonna be higher and I can pay to get a yield based on that. I can't pay a yield based on what I could pay, you know, two years ago three years ago. So, you know anytime there's a disconnect in the market, which is right. Now we're sellers say well not on my property has always been six camp and now seven cap. Takes a while to make that difference. But yeah, we're in that buyer. And what was your I know we've talked about the finance but typical LTV on your deals. No, 65 to 70, you know, our major lenders or life insurance companies. John Hancock's by Farm artists life insurance company. They're very relationship. They've been fantastic. They're very very gonna work with you know, but yeah 60 60 70 percent is probably very fast. Yeah. That's that's the number it's not overly aggressive and you know, it's it's and that's you know, and you have a relationship with with a lender like that. It's it's almost like You know, I'm not quite a rubber stamp, but they know what you're capable of and they adapted accordingly, you know, I want to ask you something about retail Trends obviously Amazon is done a number on a lot of retailers out there. But what tenant uses are you finding like theaters working with cities what new amenities you offering? You know, what are the some trends that you're seeing right now and most of your centers Well, I mean here here's what here's what we say. I think people love going out and shopping and I think covid did exact opposite where people were Fair. We thought covid could be I never thought but people thought covid's the final Neil mccoffin Amazon's got you know online shopping's got all the momentum. It's just taking away market share. And now we're you know, we're saying if you leave your house you can die. So you might as well just ordered delivered right? I mean, this was the dynamic that we all right and your groceries. Yeah. Yeah that was supposed to just kill, you know reach home total. Well, it didn't do any of that right people with so they were locked up. They said well, where can I go the you know where they went with shopping right? I mean they went out and and you know, and that was eating that was clothing that was closer, you know, all that stuff, um, believe it or not. I mean old covid, you know, they when they open things up and you said you can go back to the gym even those a lot of risking at the gym, you know, you recovered 50% of your Take that first week, maybe got up to 75 in the second week. Um, and you know people came back I think a little longer to get to that last, you know that 90% 95, you know, I think you know, there's fun things but I think people want to shop I think what people decided though is they don't just shop one way. I mean, you know, it's not all online. It's not all in person, you know people allocate how they shop and some are a little more online and a little less in person some are you know a lot more in person and a little less online. What happened, you know, so what the customers do and I think is making this decision one is where do I really need to shop where you know for my Necessities? How much kind you online and how much can I do in person to what I like to go? How do you combine the entertainment Factor the social factor with shopping? Okay and which which places give me that opportunity and then you know, where do I feel appreciated where I feel I'm getting back. Where's the altruistic side of what I'm doing? You got to put that all together and hopefully what that does is that concentrates that shopping into centers that you know best identify each one of these things you feel good being there you feel like you feel like you're doing good by being there you feel like it's fulfilling a need and by the way, if there's online maybe I can do my online there too. So just pick it up and make my life more efficient. So I think those are very big factors that you that are definitely surprising customer service is something you just got to keep your eye on because the big difference between Online and in person is customer service online just doesn't give you the touchy feelings or make you feel good or impact your heart. You know, it's you know online shopping is a headspace deal not a hard space deal. So, you know you you got to do that. Um, but yeah, they're you know, those are the places where we're focusing our energy. What's your thought on theaters? You think movie theaters you think people you know, that's an interesting. I think you've got a couple in your Center centers whether you yeah, well eaters. Um, and look I think that I think this applies to all retail, but certainly it's flight of theaters. We we are too many theaters overall. Okay, and the in that and the ear industry is particularly Hostage to product and product that is exclusively available to them. Right? So, you know, yeah, you know, you can only imagine if you had a clothing store the clothing store only can take Goods or exclusive to them that you couldn't buy anywhere else. Okay, and the model was that you know, you share so much of your Revenue with that supplier and you know, and you know, it's just a very difficult Dynamic they're facing now so, you know, do I think theaters are done? No, I think people there's Certain movies you go to that you need a theater experience or I think you know you I imagine years and years ago when movie theaters came out they said well there go stage, right. Is there anymore right? Yeah. So lucky you you have to you have to adjust but I think for the right movies with the right, you know contracts that go with those those movies, you know, you're gonna have you're gonna have a theater business is it gonna be the experience, you know of a big theater for certain types of movies? Yeah. Yeah and look, you know, I was just at a thing the other day the streaming model does not make economic sense. So it's it's been great. Um, it's been awesome and there's been a shitload of product. I I don't know if you use those words on this we won't believe here by the FCC so, you know streaming product. First of all, you know, which show do you watch? I mean there's a zillion of those but Netflix doesn't make money okay. So I mean it was back to what Amazon was. Yeah, they were generating tons of Revenue. We're making money although the report today was all the new users you see the positive report on Netflix today. Yeah, but think your mouth. Okay, so so not you just look at any go. There's going to be some consolidation. They're not just streaming goes away because of course it doesn't go away. It's it's you know, it's definitely a platform the way outlines not go anywhere. It's gonna continue to grow and streaming will grow but you it has its role. Um, you know, by the way, there's still believe it or not. There's still a channel two four and seven rights regular TV too. And you have you have a theater Distribution Hub and you just gotta look at it that way and see what's the right size for this Evolution. That's all and there are certain movies. You can't I mean they look so much different when you go to the theater then then if you wait to see it on you no matter how big the screen is in your house. Yeah. Yeah. Okay laugh with people social believe me. There's a place where I'm not ready to bury the whole the whole industry. I think it's transitional you're gonna have to you know, you have to write signs right interesting study. Well shifting gears a little bit saying I know you've been big with technology, you know, tell us a little It you know about your endeavors there and how you see technology and retail check out automation customer tracking. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I'm I'll tell you this. I was one of the In the business, I probably one of the earliest people in technology because I started programming when I was 12. Okay, you do the math computer programmer and I wrote a lot of software, you know back then this is before Excel even and everything else unique background for Real Estate. We'll give you background, I mean didn't make me popular with the ladies but It goes back then, um, you know, and you know fast forward to 2007-2008, you know, which you know, it's hard to believe that's right 15 years ago, but we looked at we looked at what's going on and how the markets were starting to do, you know, you know 2007 people forget 2007. We were hyperventilated as far as our growth and cap rates and everything else what people are paying for assets that it was telling us that we were we were over extended and so it's in 2007 when we started this company called Bright Street Ventures, which was designed to use software. Whatever is available at the Shelf at the time plus stuff. We've created in house to monitor, you know sales traffic. What are what our managers were telling us. We didn't have a lot of the tools we have today, but at least put them in all one place so we can look sensibly what what we were being told at the street level and it's objective and objective way and just combine them and we Started, you know some with some stuff then we invested in a company called daytex which Consolidated a lot of data and used our accounting data and just raise the visibility data. So it wasn't just a CEO who would be looking at data, but rather an entire organization was looking at data and then over time. We started investing in three different three different ways. We build companies technology companies that we thought would help our business. We found other we found technology that was being used in other space and bring it over and invest in it in a heavy way and taking advisory positions with it or we would just be an investor smaller investor in technology. We tried out at our centers that we believed in and invest in it. And today we have, you know, something like 40 something technology Investments, you know have have a number of you know platforms that have gotten pretty widespread adoption. And and we spent a lot of time making sure the entire organization uses. This is I don't realize it was that extensive. That's great. Congratulations. Yeah, that's a man expensive. So but it's you got to do it and you know, you know, they say, you know in the land of the blind the one I man is King there was a time and you know, we continues to Move there was a time when we'd be the only ones who had you know, really good sales analysis. Let me make sure a lot better buyer much better, you know less or makes you a lot much better manager makes you much better today, you know, like if you've heard a Placer, you know today everybody knows where the stores are range relative to well, you know, five years ago six years ago going on when we got involved with them knowing it we would know I mean but no everyone knows so you have to evolve past that find different tools that help you of all beyond that. Um, but no technology is the key to and we're really help drive through these more difficult times because we have an instant visibility which you never had before real estate real estate never had instant visibility. Yeah, right Sandy. What kind of advice would you give to somebody was starting out? Now in this industry, let's say if you started today. Yeah, well, I think I need a couple things. I think the skill set is different that you need I think you know definitely understanding technology is big and understanding data is big. In retail we throw off a lot of data that most people and you know, whether that's 51% or 60% 80% I don't know but a lot of people are generally skilled and reading and understanding what it means I'd say, you know understand what your tenants are telling you and and what your dad is telling you things very valuable. I think in retail there's endless opportunity for successful Generations because we always evolve So it is not like a business where you go, like, you know, I'm sort of sort of stagnant business. You know, what am I gonna do that? Sandy didn't already do well. Sandy did any looked at it through one lens the lens keeps changing. Some super excited for people want to come in there, but I think you gotta get on the ground floor and you gotta understand what makes tenants and retailers successful communities, and if you understand that and how to appeal to the customer, you're going to be a good developer. So for 22 year old Sandy seago came to you as you are today as you were back then and asked you for money. Would you give it to um Yeah, I mean it depends how cool he was. You know, I mean not my church bucket all the way up to here. I mean, you know showed a little more job. Okay? Yeah, I I you know, excuse me enough. I probably more qualified to be starting the news today. Then I was for qualified just trying to business back then back then I just do I just was want to work my ass off. You know, I I had the computer background with helped a little back then it helps a lot more now, um, but you know and I was you know, I grew up in in very ethic areas. And so, you know, I understood the needs of those kinds of communities, you know, not that I can speak for all kinds of communities, but I understood it how I grew up and wear shopping fit in for me and it wasn't as competitive as maybe as today. Um, so yeah. Yeah, but I like to think so, you know, let's talk about that, you know talk about I mean, I see you truly believe in giving back to the community and you're very involved in a lot of community activities and the Boys and Girls Clubs and tell us a little bit about that and and what you do and and what how you truly believe in doing that. Yeah, so, you know when I was when I was seven my parents were divorced. I was brought up on my mom my mom, you know was you know single parent I don't work full time. So, you know, I grew up in an environment where me and my brother who was two years younger than me. We're left alone all day. We walked to school. We walked home. We wait till six cuz she came home. We were in a neighborhood all the kids did that all the kids had different situations, you know, and um, you know, I learned You know, I learned a lot of good things. I learned some not so good things back then and I was taking in by Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters, and they sent me to a camp rat rescue during the summer called at the time Camp Max trousers now called Camp Bob Waldorf and those counselors were my first mentors. I learned to swim there and horseback ride and do a bunch of other things and But but I learned mentorship. I learned the value of wow, if someone's someone's there for you know, those counselors probably 18 19 years old, but you know, I'm seven so, you know, so they have that is part of you know your background, like wow people, you know, really make a difference in people's lives and I continue to have that experience of as I got older finding people made time for me and give me a chance and when I got in this business was 20 and um, you know, Bob Miller who was my first real estate job, you know hired me give me a chance, you know, these are all people who you know stuck their necks out just a little bit to help somebody who's young find their way and so that's always stuck with me that's always stuck with me. And so as soon as I could I started giving back a little um, and and God I've had a lot of opportunity. So so, you know, you know, I didn't go back to Camp Max Trouse until I was probably 24 25 and then I just you all came back, you know all All experiences so I got very involved there. I got on the board and Florida Juiceman brothers and I just took over as president of the board of Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters. So that's that's an incredible, you know thing for me. I mean just imagine, you know, right but you want to give that feeling once you've given a little and you see how how you can change people's lives. You just want to do it over and over just infectious. Um, so I'm very passionate about that. I'm very passionate about the homeless and the inner house and getting people out don't believe that any society can longer survive, you know, when there's two classes of people one who are housed one that are the ones that are housed viewed as somehow second class citizens because their fault they're on the street because it isn't um, you know, yes, there's drugs yes or alcohol. Yes or that but you know people don't know that, you know, two thirds of people on the street are different totally economic reasons, you know, they just see the mental illness and the others totally involved in there Big believer mentorship. I Mentor one or two young adults every year, you know and I stay in touch with the old Mentor mentees. I've had I think that that's huge and and to come this company believes. We're in 90 communities. We owed to those communities get back so during covid we had we had a huge campaign about giving back and you know having you know for senior shopping for for, you know, homeless or under housed or students teachers for First Responders. We had a big program around that continuing on a big program around that um people in the company here. We you know, we just came from a school a small private school and Inglewood and you know gave out Christmas backs and them for survival and for you know for increasing the number of students they can take it's just it's a constant thing we believe and it's it's symbiotic relationship between being in communities and giving more than taking. Yeah outstanding. Yeah, great. Well, you know we're getting to the close here Sandy and we really appreciate the time and sharing all this, you know about your your life and your thoughts about the industry. You know one last question. I had you know, just to close it. How about personal goals for you anything, you know beyond real estate and we're within real estate. What's your personal goals over the next couple years? Well, look, I I vote for you. If you're you know thinking about anything that I don't know as you probably know I'm very involved in the political landscape, you know, you know one pitch I always make is in the real estate business. We are the worst of all the major industries and working with our local governments to Heart of the solution and helping them identify your covid. It was so visible. So I spend a lot of time, you know with the California Assembly and said it spend a lot of time on the Congressional Federal side was, you know, very involved in talking to everybody including the now speaker about, you know, covid relief and what that Jobs what that should look like? I'm so I'm very involved there. But no, I you know, I have too many skeletons in my closet to everyone you personally, you know, I climb kill a Majora once with my oldest son. I'm planning climbing it again with my youngest son of my youngest daughter and my wife I have a new wife. So I'm super excited about that. Congratulations and Whitney's on my bucket list. Now. I need holds out. He's with these little tougher right check how much are so but right now yeah, you know and look I'm serious about finding Solutions the homeless, I want to get more homeless housing, California. So I think that's a that's a critical critical thing that all right. That's what that very important. Well Sandy. Thank you very much for spending time with us. I think we all found out a little bit more about you about new Merrell and where you got started and where going and we really appreciate it. That's what these things are all about. Wish you the best with all these properties the new Rialto Center and all your personal Endeavors, you know. Thank you very much for what you're doing. Thanks, Steve. Thanks already. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Steve. Take care, Sandy. All right. You've been watching commercial real estate talk with Steven Arnie sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors Redwood mortgage and Paramount Property Tax appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/811518445.txt b/data/transcripts/811518445.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a7f6844
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/811518445.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+The following video is the office panel at rent TV's Orange County state of the market Conference held on March 16th 2023. It is comprised of Mike scentley with Irvine Company office properties keyboard Kellerman with the Kellerman Company Steve card with Seville and Jason Purvis with granite properties. if it here it and here and here it if here it if here if it here it here it if it here it here it here if you it here and it if it if it here it if here it okay. it here you
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/812981342.txt b/data/transcripts/812981342.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..200d10c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/812981342.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Right, welcome to the next episode of commercial real estate talk with Steven Arnie hosted by Steve Bloom and Arnie garfinkle. I'm Steve Bloom founder and president of rent tv.com our 24 year old news and media company for the commercial real estate industry with our news website rent tv.com our email blast the website sublease.com our conferences and this website the review where you're watching this video. Let me bring in our co-host Arnie Garfield with the All-Star group. Hey, honey, how you doing today? Hey Steve. How you doing? Arnie Garfunkel with the All-Star group. We do commercial real estate lending. We also produce a number of conferences including helping out with the rent TV conferences as well the commercial real estate lending conferences and many many more but enough of us. Let's talk about our show today. Yeah, aren't you and we've got a great show and you know with all the craziness going on in the world today thanking crisis, you know interest rates. It's fascinating to bring in Michael Van Every the president and managing partner of Republic Urban properties with a billion and a half of development projects in the pipeline here in California, but we bring him in. Let's give a shout out to the sponsors who make this show possible starting with Paramount Property Tax appeal with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease one way you can fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income you can still qualify to have your property taxes lower call. 858-225 1200. Ask for West Nichols with Paramount Property Tax appeal. The information is on the screen here eight five eight two two five 1200 West nickels with property tax appeal get your property taxes lowered. Hey, our next sponsor is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. They're skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information and easily understood terms as well as inexpensive Simple Solutions, whenever possible. Let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal Paul Tiffany simmington and book your next inspection today at area code 818 957-4654. Again call Tiffany at 818-9574654. Excellent. And the last sponsor of the show is Redwood mortgage Redwood mortgage is the direct private money lender with over 44 years of experience lending on commercial mixed-use multifamily and residential investment properties loans range from 200,000 to 10 million dollars and lending in the major Metro areas of California and Arizona Redwood has a long-held expertise in commercial loan transactions contact Redwood at 1-800-6596593 www.redwoodmortgage.com for more info. And as you know, Arnie Redwood mortgage is a good place to go when the banks say no. Okay, Stephen now tell us about our guests. Yeah with that said, let's bring in Michael Van Every with Republic Urban properties. Michael great to welcome you this morning. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. It's it's actually fun to be on the other end of a podcast. It's exciting. Yeah, right conversation you're of that van podcast. So it's great to have another host on board here special in this tumultuous times that we're in so it'll be great to get your take on a lot of what's happening and right. Oh, yeah without a doubt. I mean there's there's a lot of stuff going on with banks. And I mean, you're right in the heart of it down there and Silicon Valley and of course the whole office issues that are going on and we'll talk about that as we get a little deeper into it. But before we get it into those deeper matters Michael wanted to tell us a little bit give us a little overview of Republic Urban and any other businesses that that your group may be involved in. Thanks. So Republican properties is based here in San Jose, California one portion of the Republic family, which is a my whole operation. We also headquarters in Washington. Team, and we're own and operated by our chairman Richard L Cramer. We've been in business here on the West Coast since 2006 and we primarily focus on you know, Transit orientated development Apartments primarily market rate Apartments, but we also dabble in hotel retail and office as my partner Mr. Kramer has a long distinguished career in commercial real estate. And so it's it's a big organization owned by the Supreme. Okay, Michael. Let me ask you tell us what got you involved in real estate What attracted you to the real estate business? Well, I'm a fourth generation San Jose and my family was rooted in the grocery business down grocery stores here in San Jose, California about seven of them private. And so there was a lot of overlap with you know property owners who are customers of the grocery store. My relatives were foundation of the Italian American Community here. I'm telling my mom's side and it just so happened that there's you know land use And local politics obviously go hand in hand. I was fortunate to get an internship when I was a undergraduate at the University of Fresno State Cal State Fresno Bulldogs, and I had an internship with a council member who's also the vice mayor a woman within the Patricia Salcedo in about 1989. And that was really the kind of the end of the subdivision era in San Jose with the great home builders. The Shea Homes Chappelle Industries General William Lyon. I got a chance to meet a lot of those old Builders who left a real big impression upon me. So working in the council office. I was working in an area of San Jose called Evergreen which had two large master plan communities adopted between like 1988 and 1990 the Silver Creek plan residential community and the Evergreen specific plan. So as an intern those two plans really shaped my you know career Out and led me down the road of working for Home Builders first and then later in the commercial real estate industry. Excellent interesting, you know similar to me. I I got my starting college right in commercial real estate and was you know, never looked back said been a great industry. Well, what was the what was the defining deal that you would say to, you know catapulted your career to the next level when you look back? What's that big defining deal that you point to that? Yeah, it happened here with the Republic Urban properties and I started in 2006. So imagine the Great Recession hit in 2008. However, I was fortunate up to work with some very patient property owners here in San Jose. And so we essentially kind of kept this project going from about 2008 until about 2010 and then we developed 218 apartments and 15,000 square feet of mixed use called we're reading that Midtown. It's in located in Midtown San Jose, but it was really kind of the beginning. We were lucky that we had an entitlements ready to roll and it was shovel ready, which I think is defined my career that you know, we just like we are in today you still have to be entitlements. You know, you still have those ready to go. And in order to take risk out of any deal. You got to know what your costs are. And so we were we had the foresight to keep going during the Great Recession, but this project called Meridian. Down located at Meridian in West San Carlos here in San Jose. I think has been a landmark project. What was that completed that was completed in about 2013 and and then we owned and operated until about 2015 and then we sold it and it's actually still on today by Essex real estate property trusts a long term partner Republic Urban properties. Well, obviously the transition of Republic Urban was big. How did you how did you end up meeting Mr. Kramer? You know I get asked this a lot and through actually the Building Trades Council. So the reunions here in Santa Clara County. We had Mr. Kramer and an associate with Barry Swenson Builder had one project through the valley Transportation Authority of VTA, and the unions were very concerned. It was a union requirement for labor on the project project that we still on. Call me alone located at Sunol and West San Carlos, so Very short that you need labor leaders will concern that. With Swenson, you know all through with with its labor requirements which by the way he did and they hired me on as the Republic because of course Republic at the time only had operations in Washington DC. So that's that's how I came to go Mr. Kramer and how I started here at Republic River properties. That's great. Now, let me ask you Michael what other than the when you just talked about that might have been the one but what major standout projects accomplished did you accomplishing your career? And which one really stands out overall is like one of your brown jewels? Well, that would probably be today known as the Gateway at Millbrae Station and that's another public-private partnership that we're a part of with Baria Rapid Transit Bart along with the city of Millbrae. And that's 320 market rate Apartments 80 veterans affordable housing apartments on 157,000 feet of office along with 44,000 square feet of mixed use retail in the residential and in the office and in a hundred and sixty three key Marriott Residence Inn, so as we sit here today just opened. We're in Lisa stage for everything and the hotel is actually 70% occupied already, but that right now having my crowning achievement only because it's expand, you know over about 13 years and that's how long it actually took to this day. Let me delve in a little bit on this a little bit. How did you? Find out about the product. How did you get involved in that project initially sure a great question. So again around 2010 when the world was still not very good from the Great Recession as you guys know, we decided this would be a perfect opportunity to go after a public private partnership, Mr. Kramer might chairman Richard Kramer has a long distinguished history on working with government organizations in the East whether it's the Congressional land use committee see or to you know places in Florida. And in other parts of New York, he's had a distinguished where working with public private Partnerships. He's been a mentor of mine and so it was under his kind of vision that you know, we should make a serious run for this problem for this project. And as fate would have it we did and we won the award in 2013. Yeah, now let me ask you a follow-up question here as well. You're very involved in transit Orient development. And that's exactly what the Millbrae I mean that's basically has a little of everything. Yeah. Tell everybody about why the why that attracts you what is so great about tods. Well, I mean the fundamentals are usually the location are very good. Right? So take it back to all of our fundamentals location probably pops up is number one. And so most Transit stations are an excellent areas, right and not just served by the rail line. They're served by local network roads and arterials freeways. They're always going to be somewhere where you can get to point A to point B real fast. So the location part of it really I think is just a fundamental for me that Always Rings true. And then I think the second part of it is, you know, what is the marketing area, you know, what are the existing Rants and then you know, whether it's office retail residential hotel and that would be the second fundamental so location and then market area or how I kind of sort and go through through things. I don't think it's rocket science. I think that those are the fundamentals that special today that you're going to be aware of Yeah, I mean you you know, I I mean, we do conferences, you know both Steve and I and one of the things that's important is being close to let's say in the Bay Area a BART station, you know, we're looking at different properties to do this. One of the ones we want to settling on was at the high Regency Embarcadero because it's literally right at a BART station versus going to top of the Mark or something a little off the beaten path. So yeah, I mean I could definitely see that and then you really blew it up with that the millbray station because you got everything you got office retail Hotel, you know, pretty much almost everything right in that one project, which I still want to touch on a little bit more but on mailbright because you know, I have that development background and how what What's the total all in now now that you can kind of figure it out in terms of the total cost of that project. Yeah. It's all about 25 million dollars and it's all said and how it's a public-private partnership. How is that mainly financed? Well, we have some great Bank Partners along with event a couple fantastic Equity Partners. So principal group out of Des Moines, Iowa is our is the large Equity partner in the office mixed use and in the residential market rate mixed use and then we have a fabulous Hotel partner called Huntington Hospitality out of Dallas, Texas for who's our partner on the hotel along with EB 5 financing believe it or not on the hotel. We maximize that and that hotel investment the premier and then US Bank Western Alliance banks are the construction lenders and then we have a City National on the affordable side. So some fantastic partners that put a lot of money into this team. We're excited for that and hopefully to get their money back here soon. And also, yeah, go ahead honey. Oh, I was gonna say all solid financial institutions as of now, you know. Right and keeping the cross down. I know because we have a video a couple of your videos on our video platform the review and one that's fascinating is the construction methodology. Yeah that you employed there. Tell us a little bit about that. Sure, so, you know Rising construction costs are not exactly the secret and they weren't a secret back in 2019. And you know, we have a union labor component there. I think that's the most important kind of it, you know variable which means you know, everything's constructed through through a union subcontractor and you know, then there's also the issue so we looked at a metal framing technology called prescient. We did a primarily for two reasons a we wanted to increase timeline and efficiencies and so metal framing really allows for you know less oils and it's a lot cleaner. It's a situation where you're you know connecting in, you know versus you've got a great background in construction. I mean from all your different projects, you've got rap and Podium and wood, right? So you've done a lot so you can really add your expertise to this. Yeah. It was really my partner. We have one and block. question that Jesus that the metal technology would be best. There's also the insurance the long term osip insurance in you know, Builders Risk insurance is a lot less expensive due to the back. It's not flammable and that mold in those items are far less to happen long term. So it was a great technology for that time, you know, there's a lot of trial and error during the during the pandemic that we had to overcome water lease and things of that nature, but I'm proud of it it was you know oftentimes in our industry and I haven't critical of sometimes of trying I don't want people to be too Innovative because One of the things fail sometimes when you're too Innovative and I think affordable is very Innovative. It's hard for market rate developers to be Innovative. But in this particular project and at that time, I think we're as Innovative as anybody in the nation. Yeah, you know, let's go back to the finance part when you get a transaction and you got some great financial partners. Do you do do Finance them with debt Equity combined? I mean, how what is your Best way to get a project going. I mean, what is your you know, you know since we're Republicans kind of We are a family shop at the end of the day with Mr. Kramer depending on the deal size. So, you know a deal size like half billion dollars is a pretty big having left. So we typically will finance privately with Mr. Kramer anywhere from you know, 10 to 20% of a project that size right and then we'll look for a large Institutional Investor like principal group to fill the rest of that Equity stack and you know, look you guys know I mean If you can get 55 50 55% of that which is pretty much the case of what we had in this project and then the rest was was funded by equity. And we also like these preferred equity on smaller projects with with people like Essex real estate property trust. They're also in our our JV investors as well. But in those particular cases if it's a smaller say under 100 million dollars deals, we'll use per day Equity that allows 100% ownership and at times can work and if you hit the market right now, you're finding interest rates holding you back right now or is that not a factor? But yeah, it's it's been a factor as you all know, and it's unfortunate but there's a lot of money. It's just sitting on the side line related to equity. The debt side is is you know is really frustrating to be honestly. It's been very frustrating watching things unfold and you know, the banks are are very very much. Are not about like, you know kind of Silicon Valley Bank situation. I think they're worried about that. I think they're more concerned about, you know commercial office and you know holding those whether it's permanent loans or construction loans there. There will be a lot of workouts over the next 12 to 24 months on that commercial, you know kind of asset. You know on the office stuff. Sorry. I just want to you know, I was gonna focus on that tourney. Go ahead, please. Yeah the office stuff now you got 157,000 square feet of office coming up. That's kind of scare the heck any right now and how much other office do you currently run right now that you're running into a problem? We have office in the East luckily. Most of it's stabilized and it has been for years here in on the west coast. We the only I'm not really a commercial office guy never have been this was this is my only office project here in my career that I did ground up. And yeah, it's been a struggle. There's no question. Right now don't have a commercial office tenant. We are actually trending door towards more life science users. We do have a research and development ability in our project that allows To a class to life science, which is happening next door to us with Longfellow and Alexandria there in the city of Millbrae and let us not forget. I think it's the 13 million square feet or so in South City that continuing to move forward. So look I think in real estate you're you know, sometimes your friend and your enemy is time. And in this particular case or commercial office either either we're gonna have friends in the banking industry that's gonna give us time what we're gonna have enemies with the regulators and and the banks trying to have loans repay that may not be able to be repaid while right away but clearly office is is a massive struggling and we have struggled in overlay to get that but I also want to point out the uncertainty of the pandemic, you know, obviously contribute to all of this and it's now I like to use the effect, you know, we're just gonna hang over that right now in the commercial office because now doubling down with layoffs and there's a you know, the bed is deliberately trying to slow the economy down which is doing a good job and still looking Valley. So when you have that plus work from home, you know, how does the facilities manager of a high tech company your life saying say Hey, you know I can You know five ten years down the road. It's just there's a lot to be sorted out here in 2023. And again, I think time is your is your friend and your enemies commercial office? And there's also adaptive reuse you can always I mean you can always make it into something else. You know, I mean a life science perhaps. Yeah. No, but yeah turn a brand new office building. Is there activity in the lifetime? I mean are their tours who who the Brokers handling that space for you? Give them a little Club shark a great question. So we're working under the god of the leadership of Mike Moran and his team there and the peninsula under CBRE fantastic job. I can't and more before then. We switch Brokers this past year. I'd say all of our brokerage Community is working on high for overdrive to make deals. But you know, it's like until the sweet Executives intact or in life science and I think in my science, there's a there's a path because In the peninsula and specifically normal San Mateo County to find as you know, as part of the state's Daily City to as far south as say, you know Burlingame and of course your your massive the world's largest life science biotech operations in South San Francisco to get the world's largest. There's nothing that comes close to South San Francisco in terms of life science days. There still is about a million and a half square feet a year demand even today for that kind of product. So there's a lot of conversions happening in all throughout the Bay Area. They got to go into the office those people. Yeah. Well, that's true. Yeah, they don't have a lab at home. What some what are the asking what's asking rates for new product in in that market? You know asking rates of or commercial office is still stay quite High anywhere from the high fives for you know, an older product to all the way up to seven bucks to put up your Redwood City and that's a full service. No, that's that's triple not triple that yeah, that's triple that whereas my science is probably in that high five sixes again triple net. So we haven't seen as asking rents inevitably are coming down. For example, if somebody comes to me and said, hey look Michael, I'll take all 157,000 fees for six bucks a foot. Done you work depending on the TI's right because then now TI is become a big issue, you know with all the you know, all the panels. I'm doing in the office world. You know, that's really a big stumbling Point too Steve. You're 100% right, you know. TI's was just speaking about Office right? There were 125 bucks a foot in 2019. Now, it's TurnKey now to make ready space and you can be spending 250 350 a foot depending on you know what that use is so it's life science. It's probably more like 350 to 4 a life science. There used to come in more out of pocket to build their own space a bit aren't they? They will but what we're seeing now with the you know with a there's a lot there's still JV funding for that. There's a lot of noise about where's joint venture investment. Well, guess what? It's it's in a lot of life science products like like, you know AI like Robotics and so some of them will take you know, $25,000 feet. So there's some that will take less than 10. It's just it's all over the place in that particular space, but it's still a space that people are releasing. Wow, it's tough times ahead. Sorry. Yeah, there's an analogy that former County Supervisor told me during the pandemic. His name is the state senator now Dave Cortez. He said Mike love you ever seen the movie Bellman Louise. And so some of your listeners that are millennials won't understand this but you know that Bella Louise at the end of the movie drove all clear, right? That was the pandemic driving off the cliff and now that car wreck is hitting the bottom and it's spreading out. We don't know how far the wreckage is gonna be. But it I think it's hit the ground and now we're starting to look at the wreck. It's just it's not good. I I told County Supervisors back and may have 2020 that was a huge mistake to toe remote work is the Panacea or the world and remote anything for that matter and I'm on record is saying that that was a bad decision back then for commercial for commercial real estate, and I think it's a bad decision today. Um right now you're you're engulfed in in Millbrae, but where are you looking for your next project? Where's a good area that that you think would be a great location or what? Where's your next big thing? Sure, that's good question only and I think that the biggest issue you have to look at is in the core Market San Francisco Oakland San Jose conquer Walnut Creek. All those core markets are still quite compromised by costs since the pandemic. It's well reported. We've seen from 2019 to today. It's about a 30% increasing construction costs. And so it's difficult to make, you know, core projects PUD locations make them pencil because rent, you know, really really want down seven eight percent across the board in these same markets and and then there's the issue of where people are living and working now, so all of those factors have a really kind of clouded and made great. You know Tod locations in San Jose, which I still have two great locations one at the canyon station at VTA and one at the Blossom Hill location with BTA, but I can't make those project pencil right now. So we kind of did a shift in 20 late 2020 towards what I would call build or rent and it's a lower density, you know in the in the Midwest and other areas single family rentals the California version for me is five minute townhomes. And so we're looking in markets like tertiary Market secondary markets in the Bay area that are still no big employment areas and that are maybe traditionally like Fairfield California. We have a project we're you know, there's a lot of single family home builders that local a lot of product in those locations that have now stopped because of interest rates Hollister, California, Lincoln, California. So we're we're looking to provide a five-minute town home that can be rented. So again, imagine I'm a young family. I've lived in a flat I've got I've got a young daughter now, I need more space and I'm not that in you know, most of our core Apartments do not have you know, a lot of amenities for children with you for dogs, but we don't have for children. So it looking for these kinds of spaces and places like Fairfield and Hollister. Okay, what's the smallest number of units you'll consider for a new project? I think yeah, I think. We're from like 50. I've lost project we've done a 83 unit project in the city of Morgan Hill called Sunscreen Apartments. It's been an absolute smash home run. So I think sometimes smaller can be better in this market. Is it always ground up that you're looking for basically? You know, I I love the finding if you've got a value out of apartment. I can really rip and Roar into I'd love to but I always find myself scraping and rebuilding from ground up. It's fun. You can kind of create what you want to create and you created with it, but we'll look at everything. But yeah primarily we've been a ground up developer. Yeah, it's easy on the architecture and construction when you're doing it from ground up rather than redo what's already there? You know, I want to ask you, you know, your your hotels the hospitality stuff that you're doing you're doing select Services appears with the Residence Inn, and they and the Homewood Suites. So, you know the Hilton ends, excuse me. Have you ever done a full service hotel or do you have any intention of doing those? Man, I'd love to do one of those that's romantic. And I I would love to do one of those they're so very difficult as you guys know, it's kind of sad. I don't right now. I don't know. I think the last Full Service Hotel was built up by the San Francisco Airport and that was completed. I think in 2021. I don't see the demand for full service right now. But yes, I'd love to but what the select Services super fun too. And yeah, no, they're really yeah, and and right for what you do like with your projects those fit in perfectly they really do and like I have a dream here in Willow Glen San Jose which which were filming this at my office here. There's a couple we really need some about hotels and we'll have one we need some book Eco sales and Campbell too. I mean, so I think those would be fun to do if they're not they're not easy to do but if the right thing that's to build all in Whoa, man all in probably these days. Seven eight hundred bucks a foot. Maybe it's it's expensive. It depends how much parking you need. I think Steve to qualify that for a minute. You can pull that down a little bit but I I know there's a couple hotels that are looking out there anywhere from 800 to 900 foot. You know what we're seeing. So it's it's crazy expensive right now, and I'm sometimes on the wrong person asked because I feel like you know, We are going to see a major slowdown and there will be a correction that has to be but especially but then again as we transition more towards, you know building things here in the United States and Mexico with some of our prefab. Maybe maybe those costs never come down. I don't know. Okay good. How's that? How's the hotel? You said at Millbrae? It's doing gangbusters. When did it when did that open? Yeah, thanks. It opens in February and in March or actually almost at 80% occupancy with an average daily rate talking over two hundred dollars and some cases up the 250 and so that and that business travel is still quite strong in California. So that's right next to the airport. You know, it's like you can't get oh, yeah. That was that is that I mean, how does that compare to your projections? It's right. I say that both of all of our we have three select service hotels all of them have recovered to be pandemic ADR and occupancy. So the hotel space is doing real well retails and starting to make a little bit of a comeback. I was just gonna shift to the retail. I was like the perfect ninja horny you get on the hotels. I want no we're good. Yeah now go next up. How much retail space you developing right now. Well, I Much but we've got a $65,000 foot Standalone retail space in Livermore right next to the Livermore Outlets that project has struggled because of you know, just the pandemic and we delivered it in the pandemic but we are now starting to see it really takes shape with more you want your class eight, you know tenants you're Starbucks and you know your orange theories that are your corporate tenants, but what what we're seeing now is is that tenant plus, you know, the stronger mom and pop tenants and that and that particular demographic in Millbury. We have 44,000 square feet of makes use and that's you know, the peninsula always drives the higher rents and we are again starting to see, you know companies now or more access to hey, I'm ready for that second location Third location this franchise me is ready to kind of roll out, you know more location. So there's there's becoming more demand and that most of the second generation. In spaces in the Bay Area that closed during the pandemic having been released or you know or repurposed and so ground up new opportunities are starting to be more and more viable. But we have a little ways to go. It's not as healthy as the hotel Market but it's getting healthier. It's interesting because we just had our Orange County conference and you know over the last couple years, you know, it's gone from you know office being up there then industrial being up there and Retail being kicked around and multifamily being but now it seems like multiple retail is now more of The Shining Star than it has been in the past in terms of activity certainly compared to Industrial which is slow significantly in the office Market, which we know is in you know in the tank. Yeah. I don't know if you I think maybe more in Southern California where we've seen a lot of older retail properties get torn down then perhaps so far in Northern California, but how do you see the retail Market going forward? Great question. I think well Southern California and especially where you're at. There's Steve is kind of a good Bellwether because a lot of the new retail seem to come from Southern California. The new Concepts qsr concept whole service Concepts seems to really be born in a lot of places in Orange County and Los Angeles. So it's nice that that's happening and then typically then it kind of spreads northward. I I would say that value add opportunities are still going to be abundant for retail and we're starting to see that happen more and more up here because but you know the property owner and the tax issues that are still in question right now if they get them they do away with 1031 like they're talking about that could be a very bad thing for retail and you know the binding message here for 2024 like his predecessor and his brother says before him they're kind of posturing get rid of 1031 is as a federal tax. Issue and so that will make a big difference in how retail moves ahead and making sure that no, we still have a viable way to get owners to be entrepreneurial to put money into projects to lure those great tenants. And that really is the bottom line is what kind of property owners you have in your market and are they willing to be entrepreneurial to keep their retail fresh and relevant? I think Mall providers. I've been doing that for years and now will the small shopping center investors, you know do the same thing and do what it takes to keep these things liable. Now just on the California you have every intention of coming down here for anything or you can vacation. Yeah. That's what's fair. And I get it. You're right. You're a you're a Giants and Oakland A's fan versus a yeah and Las Vegas Raiders Las Vegas Raiders. Okay, good. Yeah. Yeah, so we're Lakers and Dodgers here. So no. No, no, I will agree to disagree. That's right, Michael. Um, how have you shifted? You know coming out of the pandemic and now with interest rates and the bank situation. How do you see a heavy shifted your your strategy? Good question still figuring it out. But I think you know, it's it's a lot of the same. It's just that you have higher interest Reserve in your construction loans, obviously and then you know your take out and your cap rates are Drastically affected so I think again it gets back to what I was saying before that. I'm right now. I probably pause all my ground up. Core Urban infill projects at least for the year to see where we end up and I doubled down on the build for rent products understanding that there's more rent growth there. I think long term and some of these secondary tertiary markets that maybe will overcome the cost of your interest reserve and your take out financing so I haven't prove it out yet. But that's my my s*** is focused more on a different product in a different location with a higher, you know possibility of rent which ultimately would make it make up the valuation for the cost that all the interest reserves and to take out financing. Would you look at possibly buying obsolete Office Buildings to tear down and you know those type of sites. I I think we have to Steve. I think I think in order for these these areas to survive especially San Francisco Los Angeles and the class of these stuff is dead in the water. I don't know reads, but you know, I mean in California, I mean I know in Southern California probably up there in the Bay Area. They're all talking about converting those old office into homeless shelters and and so on and so forth. I know, you know, we had somebody speak on that and they would turn you know, the old Sears Distribution Center in Southern California. They were gonna turn into a big homeless area. Yeah, you know, that's a catch 22. I mean we need to help me on house. But where are we housing, you know, what locations of our city because it's not it's that housing now the economic driver for the retail right housing economic driver. Whatever jobs, you know, maybe these per job centers because they're people working from home. So it's not as just as easy as subsidizing the building and putting people in it. What I would call an old planning director of coin this space here in San Jose warehousing people. Yeah, we can't just Warehouse people because there's empty space and by the way, and most of them don't want to go there. Anyway, they want their freedom, you know, they want to be under the rules of what has to be to build these things. So yeah, you're 100% right? That's the problem is of the day the governor just announced his mental health programs where he wants to spend billions of dollars. For those mentally ill and less fortunate people. So we have to stick to that strategy. But you know again, I'll come back to the word location and strategy. I think what you just said is critical. Yeah. Exactly. Well, let's stick it on that sector down. You know now that we've touched off this retail, you know, the multifamily is is your your belly way so many things happening in California, you know, the the mandate to create enough affordable housing all the different sectors that you see what's your take on multifamily construction multi-family development going forward in the state of California the issues we have to resolve and and how you see that going forward. Great question. We could probably spend the entire program on that question. But you know really I would say it comes down to this and then getting me to convince you to run for office Brad. I didn't have to work on weekends. I always tell people that I probably non-starter, but, you know, excellent question and again fundamentals costs. It's been a 30% increase from 2019. How can you expected Brands up at that pace? It's just you know, when you're spending 2500 dollars for like six seven hundred square feet. I mean that's a lot of money and you know, we're starting to see Tech now and I think the film industry and others in Southern California. Everyone is pulling back on overhead. All right, so everybody's pulling back on overhead people can have less discretionary income to spend on rent and other things what's gonna make them more strategic about where they want to live. So, you know, we as an industry need to challenge. I'm My reputation is pretty much like this either, you know get me what I mean. If you're a general contractor. Stop telling me it's gonna be this amount. I need this amount. This is what it has to be when I see people when I see these subcontractors driving their Yachts, that's their yachtney change order when I see the extraordinary markups that are construction trades have done over the last several years. It's only when those folks are hungry. Are we going to see real change and allow for marketing to go? Here's the problem. The state is throwing all around affordable projects. So if I'm a subcontract. able care about marking down costs for the for the market rate guy when I can get free money from the affordable guy. So, you know, the government has subsidized just like, you know, whether what other side of the island on politically doesn't matter, but we do have an inflation issue in our industry and we have not not because our fed has told us we have a he's stayed in the audience in California. We've added inflation crisis in Contracting and construction costs for about 10 years. And so that is going to be whether we can solve that the people like myself and you guys get back to work if we can't then you better start joining me in Fairfield and Hollister and stocking and all those places there and so how they're secondary markets because we're not going to build anything anytime soon. now are there a lot of the regulations in terms of building and you know various green types of building methods and does that jack up the cost significantly and is that different in different municipalities Well, the one that's just sticks in my crawl that is is the you know here in NorCal. Everything has to be Electric. That doesn't make any cheaper. You know, I can't use gas anymore makes use I gotta use all electric. So yeah, that's a problem. That's a regulation problem is always gonna regulatory issues. We always seem to overcome those right but but yeah, of course you they want, you know that the sequela it's depressing. If you start to read all the variables that affect this, you know, you can be overwhelmed pretty fast. Yeah, yeah. Hey Michael. What advice would you give to somebody? That's just starting out in this business. What would you say to them? I would say really understand Excel. Be worldly and and actually read real news and know your local market and every now and again give back to your community and get involved in your community because a lot of your opportunities can come from you're giving and and not to mention your integrity. Yeah, you know I see you're wearing a Boys and Girls Club vest. So obviously you feel very strongly about that. Tell us a little bit about your personal interest and your Charities and what you talk about giving back tell us a little bit about what you do and what Republic does thank you. We have a program called Republic cares here and we have several years where we work with many different Community Based organizations. My real passion recently has been with the Valley Medical Foundation and it's Burn Unit. I was born when I was two and a half years old and have carried on the rest of my life as a burn Survivor. And so now I'm working within the community to raise some money for the Burn Unit, which they're gonna have a new facility here in Santa Clara County a little known back with the Valley Medical Foundation of that Valley Medical Center is one of the only Trauma Centers in California, one of two that treat, you know burn victims and of course household accidents are real. And so that's I'm Survivor. And so that's kind of my passion but in general, you know any place that we do business whether it's San Jose Fairfield Millbrae. We're going to work in that Community to make it a better place not just physically but also with the existing infrastructure of community-based organization. So I've learned from the best and and I think it's a big part of our jobs. That we don't get credit for because I know the two of you I'm sure are getting to numerous Charities and I think that's that's a big part of what we do as Developers. Yeah, it's definitely important good answer a couple follow-ups on which you just mentioned on on what used to like. If so, I we got your advice for someone starting out but knowing what you know about the business if you were starting out today what sector of the real estate industry would you go into? I well I think the fun part of being about a developers. You're the Jack of all trades the master of nothing and to me that's that makes your life on because you're able to work on, you know, many different construction one day Finance the next day marketing, you know forward planning. I mean, it's just goes on and on so it's like a Nirvana job. I'm very blessed. if I were to go back though, I would get into construction management because I think construction management gets back to that fundamentals, you know, there's some great programs at Cal Poly at present State Chico State I tried to get my son to go into that. He wanted to go more in the business, but I would encourage someone that wants to be a developer or in the industry go get that construction management degree. It'll make you a very efficient individual and it will give you a really good perspective on budgets which you know in finance and more importantly just project management and I think we're all project managers and what we do for a living and so that's that would be what I would have done if I can do it over again. interesting Uh, how about my last my last question is just to end on on a little bit of a marketing note. What's what's still available at Millbrae in terms of apartments? And how do how would people Find out like the different the different apartment components you have what's available what are rates and and I guess they have websites where they can find out more information. Sure. Thank you. The Gateway station at millbrae.com is our website and thanks for bringing that up and for that plug but you can also go to the Republic family of companies our website, you know to find your way around not just about project but to some of our existing properties and apartments that we own here in San Jose and Morgan Hill and of course anything you want to lease. We've got something incredible Brokers and professionals working on that but there's a lot of Lee said at Millbury station is just open this year. Maybe you guys can check back with me towards the end of the year. I can I can walk around you tour but we go have this year and excited to kind of lease everything up. We will get all the way to the end this year. But probably this time next year will be right if I'm moving up there. What would be the market rate one bedroom? Ah, that would be about $3,000 Steve. All right. Yeah about here in the marina. Yeah. Yeah, you know. Hey, I have a live another question. What do you what do you think about Jimmy G Going to the Raiders? I love it. He knows Josh mccandel's office and not to mention. He's a handsome fellow and he's got a lot of followers coming from the 49ers. But yeah always excited about the off season when you're a Raider fan until the season starts in your disappointed. How about a West Coast favorite in the in the March Madness? Well, I had Arizona they lost and now I went to Cornell ivy league baby coming, you know, what Princeton's doing. And then let's be let's let's take it off. I'm gonna say UCLA's I have them in the front. Yeah, I do too. But Arizona blow up my whole I had them playing UCLA in the final I do too. He's a pair of sheets so much. It's what brings us all together. Yeah, nothing like March Madness. All right, you know Michael I think I'm tapped out on questions, you know that the time was great, you know, thank you for Arnie. How you doing on I'm doing good, you know all my sports questions. So that's all that matters. Well, we'll be looking at doing some events up in Northern California at some point, so we'll tap into your expertise for those and you know, I can't thank you enough for the time and and openness and sharing sharing what you've shared with us. Thank you. I'm very humbled guys. Thank you so much. Thank you, Michael. Yeah nice to be with you. Take care. All right. Take care right now. Bye. You've been watching commercial real estate talk with Steven Arnie sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors Redwood mortgage and Paramount Property Tax appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/812982818.txt b/data/transcripts/812982818.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d62f014
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/812982818.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+If the following video is the retail panel at rent TV's Orange County state of the market Conference held on March 16th 2023. It is comprised of Glen Rudy with Newmark John Reed with cbres National Retail Partners West Dennis Vaccaro with value Rock Investment Partners and Todd Huber with Paragon commercial group. you it Forget it. it here and here if it here and here it if it you here if it here
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/82824854.txt b/data/transcripts/82824854.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/830276773.txt b/data/transcripts/830276773.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bd372ca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/830276773.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+The following video is the retail panel at Rent TV's Inland Empire State of the Market Conference. Hold on May 9th, 2023. It is comprised of John Reed with CBR E's, national Retail Partners, west Todd Huber with Paragon Commercial Group, Jennifer McClain Harimoto with the City of Ontario. Greg Gia Capozzi with Newmar Merrill Companies, and Brad Umansky with Progressive Real Estate Partners, Bradman of real estate partners, and we do more retail and lease transactions than any, any other firm from within 30 miles of Where you're sitting. Make sure to get that mic close to you guys so we all can hear it. Got it. Todd, Todd Huber, director of Development at Paragon Commercial Group, um, based outta El Segundo, have an office up in Palo Alto. Uh, do value add retail, really in the grocery anchored space, and then also some of your single tenant deals that we'll go through. Um, but really excited to talk about the IU where I've spent a lot of the last three years. Great. Good morning. Thank you, Steve, for hosting this in the City of Ontario. First of all, uh, my name's Jennifer Hira Moto. I'm the economic development director for the city. A lot of what I'm going to say today is going to sound like a commercial for the city, uh, and I can't help it. Uh, there's a lot to be excited about as far as development here and opportunity. I just wanna shout out as well, uh, Amber and Denise, they have been here and they will continue to be here all day. So thank you ladies for representing us. Excellent. My name is Greg Jacuzzi. I'm with, uh, Newmark Merrill Companies. We are a community focused, um, and community first developer, real estate owner and property manager for retail properties across Southern California. Uh, we also own and develop in Colorado and Illinois. And thanks for having me, Mr. Reed. I got your slide up to start off the Slide. Awesome. Uh, John Reed, c b r e, uh, national Retail Partners West Team, specializing in, uh, retail investment properties throughout California. The west. Uh, the Inland Empire represents probably one of our most active regions, uh, since 2012. Sold over 150 deals in the IE for, uh, for over 1.3 billion. There's the slide right there. Those are some of our, our recent deals. Uh, kind of a a variety of asset types from strip centers to anchored centers to single tenants. But activity is still strong out here. Jennifer, let's get, uh, let's get, uh, you to do your slides. Great. So I think that you've already heard about some of the development that's happening in the city, and a lot of the, the office, the industrial, the housing, it's all folding into what we're seeing on the retail market side as well. Uh, so Ontario itself, just so you know, um, this is exciting times for us. I've worked for, for a few cities. We have resources, we have great leadership. The city just had a, a sales tax measure approved. This is a 1 cent sales tax. This represents a hundred million a year in new revenue, a hundred million dollars. And so what we're doing with that money is we're reinvesting it back into capital improvement projects. And for you and for us, what that means is development projects. Uh, we're actually acquiring property for the purpose of redeveloping it. And, uh, we have a little map that Steve can't see. I I can't find it. I'll, I'll, I'll circle Back you. That's okay. Um, so really there's four different areas I wanted to highlight for you today. Um, who knows, Ontario, you're here, right? So that's good. You kind of know it. All right. That's a starting point. You found it. Um, so we have downtown Ontario, uh, the Toyota Arena, Ontario Ranch, and, um, underutilized commercial centers. So I just wanted to highlight those four, four areas real quick when we talk about opportunities. Um, so the first step is downtown Ontario. If you've driven through Euclid Avenue, it's a very ex, it's a confusing experience. Um, it, it's pretty, you have this really great green belt. It's historic, but you have these property owners that have been absentee for a long time, and the city has not really seen the activity there that it's wanted. So what the city has started to do is acquire, uh, some of these, some of these blocks, some of these properties, um, and partnering up with developers. So what we see now is we have three separate projects that are in entitlement. For the most part, these are mixed use. Um, our game plan is simple. We just want to find a way to revitalize those downtown historic buildings, infuse new residential, and also try to get a workforce or daytime population. So this is one of the mixed use, um, developments that's going to break ground this month. This is Hutton, Ken. Um, one of the comments that we hear about the mixed use and the retail, which is something that Citi wants. Citi wants new retail. Uh, the, the residential developers, they consider the retail a lost leader. But if we're going to make a case for ringing in New residential, we really need to see some sort of quality, uh, res uh, retail amenity. On the next slide, um, this is just a, a quick look at some of the underutilized shopping centers. If you drive along Hope Boulevard, mission, Euclid Avenue, you can see these. Um, and in one case, we had a former Kmart Center. The city actually reached out to the developer and or the owner and said, Hey, what are you guys planning to do? We'll buy it just to see if we can see something better than a vacant K-Mart. Um, it turns out legacy partners, they made a bid. This is about 13 acres. Um, this project's in entitlement right now, 5,000 square feet of new commercial and about 350 new residential units. Again, and working with the developer, they were apprehensive to bring in more retail. It's difficult for them, but for our work, uh, really making that case to the residents that they're getting something, uh, besides just more residents, was an important part of that narrative. On the next slide, um, just for the convention center, so just down the street, the convention center, this is an important amenity and a testament to what the council has been able to do, um, and, and leverage our, our assets here with the airport and the convention center, we're working on expanding it, actually doubling it. This is using, using those Measure Q funds. But with that, um, we continue to need more retail. So anyone who drives up and down Holt, all I see is opportunity. If you can find a way to assemble some of those underutilized pieces, let's talk. Uh, we really wanna figure out how do we deliver better amenities so that when somebody goes to the convention center, they're not driving to a neighboring city, um, to have a, a drink or a bite after. Um, I feel like I should land the plane. You tell me, Steve, but, um, we can get to the Toyota Arena in the next up. We'll go, We'll, uh, move on. Okay. I'll take a pause there. But as I said, I'm nothing but a walking commercial for Ontario. There's a ton of good stuff happening. Uh, my point is try to get you interested in it today. Excellent. Thank you. Well, we, we, it's, like I said, it's a colorful panel. Lots of slides, lots of properties, but, and we've got somewhere to show you too. So, but let's get into the discussion and let's, let's start, like I have with the other panelists. For the drivers, you know, the tenant and leasing, you all can chip in in your different lanes from, uh, underwriting properties for sale to reping tenants to, uh, you know, the developments you guys are building for. But tell me about the leasing market in the Inland Empire. Is it strong? How's velocity and what are the main tenant drivers, the types of tenants you're seeing that are looking for space in the ie? Brad, why don't you start us off with that? A lot of questions there. I'll just try to keep it relatively brief. Um, the market is as strong as is has been from a fundamental perspective, uh, with vacancy at about 6%, which is the lowest it's been since the mid two thousands. But that is in a mar In the mid two thousands, they were building five to 8 million square feet a year, and now we're building about a million square feet a year, and most of that million square feet is all pre-leased. And so we're really at a place where the market is tight. This was what 2019 was like. Uh, and it's, uh, we're seeing rising lease rates. Um, and so it's, we're definitely seeing a, in a strong place. I'll let the rest of the, the panel give their feedback, and we can always come back to the, some of the concepts. I would not dovetail off that. We, we, between Greg and us and other developers here, we're, we're building a lot of, or redeveloping a lot of retail out here. And the tenant interest's been really strong. I mean, we've just built 125,000 square foot center, 116,000 square feet of that was leased before we, we started our work on it. So incredible leasing momentum. Rising rates has been over a three year period where we've seen a lot more interest. And then once these tenants are getting open, they're coming to us almost immediately and saying, we need more room, we need more space. So I, the, the leasing story in the IE is really strong right now from a grocery anchored and, uh, kind of call it your single tenant drive through. Um, story is incredibly strong and happy to get into specific tenants, but I'll, I'll let Greg Chapman. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, I think we're seeing all of the major, uh, food groups of retail tos, uh, interested in the Inland Empire. Um, I really can't think of a category outside of super, super luxury or coastal retail, uh, that is not growing in the Inland Empire. And, uh, some of the key drivers for that, um, simply affordability, um, in Southern California, outside of the Inland Empire in the major markets, you are always tearing something down in order to, uh, build retail. And, uh, the cost of that is just unfeasible for a lot of, uh, tenants including grocery stores and, um, department type stores or, or, or soft goods. Whereas out here, uh, we're, we're building on, uh, you know, Virgin land and, uh, that affordability means that, uh, a lot of different retail users are able to expand their footprint out here much more rapidly than they are in the major metro areas of, uh, orange County and, uh, Los Angeles. Yeah, I would add from a, from an investment property standpoint, if you look at the, you know, if you look at tenant activity, that's where you're gonna find buyer activity. Really the, you know, a big chunk of the, the investment buyer pool, particularly the 10 31 exchange fire pool, they really rely on the, on the tele on the tenant to tell them if it's good real estate or not. You know, a lot of these, a lot of these operators are, you know, national and regional operators, so they do their diligence. If, if they're, if they're, you know, fine with the site and sign the lease and have a developer like these guys build the site for 'em, there's gonna be a buyer on the other end that buys the property because of the long term lease and the credit of the tenant. So it's, that's really what's driving the investment market. You know, particularly out here in the IE is a lot, there's a lot of, uh, newer built product that we don't see in like Orange County or LA or San Diego, because there's just not a lot of land to develop New Hill boat product. Yeah. Brad, You can chime in whenever you feel like it's just, you know, just grab the mic. Um, so I will say that it is a, although it's a strong market, it is definitely a softening market. Um, and what I mean by a softening market is there are fewer transactions getting done. Now, it's hard to tell if that's because retail or demand is less, or because they just can't find the spaces that they really want. And that's one of the huge differences from retail, from the other product types, is you can have a 5,000 square foot space in one center and a 5,000 square foot space in the other center, and one is old and ugly and the other one's grocery anchored. And you can, you could give that space away for that old and ugly space away for free, and that tenant is not gonna go into that space. And so that's why the retail market is always a really challenging market to kind of figure out. Um, and then the other thing I would, uh, I would offer is that, that, although Greg, you made the comment about it being more affordable, I would, I would argue that in places where we're seeing Dev new development, it's, it's from a co perception of underserved from the new retail concepts. So it may not be underserved from a grocery perspective, but if your grocery outlet are smart and final, you realize that that's a hole where you can actually generate enough sales, um, and effectively cannibalize some of the other locations to create opportunities. So I think that's why we're seeing, you know, every time we're seeing a new project going up, it's a, with a whole host of retailers that weren't in that trade area, um, beforehand. And so that's, that's what, you know, I like to say retail is like Rocky Road ice cream. There's just a lot of ingredients. Hmm. Speaking of that, from a rental rate point of view, what, what would be the range for the nicest and newest and the hottest market versus, you know, BSC property, you know, the, the one you couldn't give away for free and the one across the street, what would that range be? Um, so we are seeing more leases done at the $4 a square foot plus triple nine charges for the, for the top quality retail space. Um, it was probably just not too long ago that, like we may, we, we did one in a year, and now all of a sudden I'm seeing a lot more of 'em coming across our desk. Now at the same time, for kind of that more b b property, we're seeing rents, but rents at $2 a square foot, but those may have been properties that were a buck 50 a square foot not too long ago. And I know, Greg, I think you guys have beat those numbers, and I don't know about you if you've beat some of those numbers, but I'd love to hear from you guys on some of the, uh, and obviously John, you're seeing rent rolls with some of those numbers, but let's, uh, you guys Try again. Yeah. Greg, what are you, uh, projecting if you could share? Well, Actually we're a hundred Percent lease, so I can share some of the last leases that we were, uh, we have done on the, uh, the Rialto project that we're gonna be showing in a minute. Um, we're, uh, well over $5 a square foot plus triple nets for the shop spaces. So, um, that I think though, is a lot, largely a symptom of just lack of available good product. And, um, I think that that's probably a little bit above market because we are the only project that delivered in, in South Rialto with shop space available. So, um, I think, you know, that may have been a little bit of anomaly, but, um, I can, I can also share that confirming in our existing portfolio, which we have assets in, uh, Corona Riverside, Moreno Valley, um, uh, Ontario and others, um, that, uh, rental rates have definitely been pushed up even on the B and C properties. Now, how is your Inland Empire properties in New Martin Merrill own shopping centers in lots of Southern California markets and Backies, how, how is that comparing to what you guys are seeing in San Diego, LA Valley? Uh, in terms of activity in the ie, I would say that we're probably more stabilized in our inland Empire properties, uh, than we are in some of our, uh, outside of California properties. Uh, but it's consistent with what we're seeing in, um, orange County, Los Angeles, and San Diego, uh, where there's just a lack of available products. Um, and we're, we're benefiting from that. Jennifer, what are you seeing, uh, from the city's point of view in terms of, uh, retail inquiries and, and how are you marketing those spaces? You're doing that in-house, you've got a broker team on that. How, how are you marketing those? So, at, uh, most of these developments are done through a private developer. Um, all of them are in fact, so at this point though, they're still working on obtaining their financing. That project that I talked about for downtown, the, the C block development by Hutton, Kendra, uh, we had hoped that they were going to break ground six months ago. Uh, but because it's taken so long to get financing, it's been delayed. Ultimately, though, it'll be up to the developers, um, to, to seek out new retailers for that. We have our in-house team, but, uh, brokers, you know your business better than we do. We're we're just kind of cheerleaders on the side. Um, but as far as, you know, some of the, one of the projects that does keep me up at night, um, we do have a new, new development around the Toyota Arena. This is with AEP development. This is, uh, leveraging the 11,000, uh, seat Toyota Arena, which the city owns. It's profitable, they do very well. Um, the city also owned, um, and owned several of the parking lots around there. Adept development is going to, uh, develop 700 new residential units and 70,000 square feet of commercial. And this is going to be kind of like a downtown Disney LA Live experience. Um, they're working on obtaining financing as well, but that's a lot of commercial to fill up. Um, and that's also adjacent to Lewis Collection. They have a project off of fourth in Haven. Um, we also have a lot of new residents that are coming in there too, so Adapt is about to hustle, but I think their first, their first goal is getting financing for the project. Got it. Any other thoughts on the leasing market, Todd? No, I, I, John, We we're fully leased in Riverside. Now, I'd, I'd say the rental rates we're getting there right in the range that, that we were talking about that we're topping out, call it four and a half bucks, five bucks a foot. But we know because the center's right around a spin for sale, that those lease rates and those renewals are kind of getting close to two bucks a foot. So there is a big discrepancy. We're bringing new product to the market. We're in superior location. All the utilities are brand new. The build outs are brand new. So there's a lot of factors when you talk about retail leasing rates, the tis you, you give out or don't give out, um, that really impact those rates. But I'd say the rates we're seeing in, in the IE, are now competitive with our product and the San Fernando Valley, or in, uh, orange County. So it's, it's really strong. It, it's a great story. Well, uh, Greg, let's get into, uh, Rialto. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, this is, uh, the Rialto Village, which is located just north of the 10 freeway on Riverside Avenue in Rialto. Uh, it's between and, and hang on that slide for just a minute. Um, it's between the old, uh, Walmart building, which is to the south, and has been re tented with Ross DeeDee's and AutoZone and the new Walmart, which we developed, uh, from, well, really 2001 to 2014. It took us 13 years to get that, uh, under construction because of, uh, uh, Walmart. Um, and, uh, and so we developed, uh, the Walmart in pads to the north. And then, uh, the city was kind enough to give us the opportunity to, uh, purchase the city owned property between the two. And that's where you'll see that, um, Rialto Village project, uh, right there in in Kohler on that slide. Um, and this is kind of an interesting project because we had to lease it, uh, uh, three different times. Uh, the first time we leased this as a, uh, theater deal, and, um, the theater will remain un unnamed. But, uh, we ultimately, uh, backed out of that deal, um, over, over an issue of what would happen if the, uh, the theater chain went bankrupt. And, uh, our fears were, uh, were, were confirmed on that one. So after that, we, uh, leased it as a, uh, traditional grocery project with a, uh, 60,000 square foot grocer. And ultimately that got turned down at their committee, um, during Covid. And, um, and so our last iteration here, we actually, uh, enlisted the help of, uh, some, some of our friends at C B R E, uh, Brian McDonald, Walter Payel, and Hannah Curran, uh, who helped us bring in, uh, sprouts, Burlington, in and out. And, uh, and the rest of the current lineup, uh, that you see there. So this has been, uh, kind of a four year journey, but we, uh, did end up a hundred percent leased. Um, we signed our last lease on this, uh, about, uh, a month ago. And, uh, most of those leases were si were signed during the pandemic. And, um, so that's just a, a testament to our, our leasing team. Uh, this is a, uh, photo of, uh, one of the setbacks that we had, which is our construction site turned into Lake Rialto. And, uh, and the entire dry utilities team was, uh, uh, equipped with snores here, but, uh, um, that took us a while. We've never actually had to pump water out of a, a property, but the entire property is below grade. Um, so it was pretty much that, that reflects what the entire site looked like. Um, but we were able to, uh, actually maintain our schedule despite that a hundred year, uh, rain event. And we'll be having the great o uh, grand opening, um, late summer this year. So we're starting to deliver, uh, to tenants this month. Excellent. Great slides. Thanks for sharing that. Uh, well, What are the biggest challenges? If you have a tenant that's locked into the space, they want the space, you come to terms, what's the biggest challenge in closing the deal and getting 'em in? Uh, Todd, you take that. I think I'm, everyone here would say financing right now in the last, On the tenant side. Oh, On the tenant side? Well, On either side, are you talking about financing for the tenants to build out their space? No, the 10 or the financing for, So question is on the tenant side, what's the hardest part of closing a deal? I really, the story's been super positive for us. We haven't run into anything where I'd say we gotta a close deal in the ie. You've got tenants that are rolling out here that I, to me, are more realistic on when we call it ti allowances or buildouts. It really, if you've got a property they want to be at, there's a way to skin that cat. Um, on Riverside, we were starting basically from scratch, right? So we had tenants that were in boat early, we could coordinate with them. We got over a lot of the humps that come about when you're back filling existing space, which is the coordination side of who's gonna put in the grease interceptor, who's gonna bring the utilities. A lot of that we could figure it out because we were starting basically from scratch. Um, so I, I, I don't have a lot of negatives out here other places. Sure. But in the deals we've done out here, it's been pretty seamless. Uh, hey Jennifer, I wanted to circle back cuz I got the Toyota you wanted to talk about the, so I just wanted to deal with the visual on here that you were describing. So I don't you to circle back and describe, uh, the Toyota development. Sure. So just south of this as well, it's not pictured, but the 15, uh, 15 story building that Mike Rat maker is going to build. So this is just south of, um, what you see pictured. So essentially, I mean, this is really going to build out, uh, that entire arena development and we're looking at future phases as well. So, um, some of these pads are owned by Louis, some are owned by Newhouse. These are all under development, even north of Ontario. Um, again, those are Lewis, these are all new, new home construction. So all of this is really just an opportunity for more and more and more commercial. Uh, and we're also looking at building out not just, um, a the commercial but an entertainment district, aah, Nashville. Um, so we're really thinking very boldly in Ontario. So that's what's happening at the arena district right now. And you're shaking your head that concerns me. No, take my Head amazed. Okay, good. I'm excited, I'm amazed and I think it's just awesome and I admire the vision. It's just fantastic. Okay, then you can get the mic back. Ontario Ranch, Jennifer, Ontario Ranch too. Oh, So Ontario Ranch. So I mentioned, I've worked in a few cities and I think one of the reasons I'm so excited to work in Ontario is it is very amazing to work in a city where you are essentially building out an entirely new city. Um, when you drive through Ontario Ranch, uh, and I, I guess I, I won't mention some of the, um, the new industrial users like Nike, uh, but when you drive through there, it's, you see, you know, you see this era in transition. You see the dairy farms, you see the largest Amazon facility in the world. You see these new single family homes, and then you realize there's a ton of opportunity for commercial. Um, so it's 1.4 million square feet of commercial. This has been something that's been in the works for the past 20, 25 years. Again, a testament to the leadership and the council vision on this. Um, and so we're starting to see these developments come in. There's been a consortium of builders of nine builders. They're investing a lot in terms of putting their sewer infrastructure and everything else that's needed out there. Um, but we're still struggling too to get the tenants that we wanna see. Um, the, I'm, I'm no different than literally every other city where we wanna see a Trader Joe's. Um, and so we wanna try to get a Trader Joe's, I guess Amazon, um, fresh had signed a lease for one of the centers out in Ontario Ranch. Uh, they pulled out. So if anybody can help us bring a Trader Joe's, you would be, uh, you would get a key to the city. I don't know if I have the authority to give that, but, um, pretty much sure that I can. So we continue to see our struggles, but when, uh, in, in trying to attract the retail tenants, but when you really look at the opportunity there, it's amazing. Those folks that are moving in from la, those millennials, uh, that can't afford a home in, um, wanna grow their families in LA County or Orange County, they can come here, they can come to Ontario Ranch. These are the demographics that we hear the retailers are looking for. So it's, uh, a very exciting opportunity that we see in Ontario. Excellent. Well thank, thank you for sharing those slides, Jennifer. Uh, great. Uh, brings to life early what you guys are doing. Uh, we got maybe 10 50 minutes left for this panel. So I think we've covered leasing, I think we've covered development. Let's talk about capital markets. Given all, you know, all, all the ingredients we've just put into the, uh, sauce here, John, why don't you start us off? Sure. Uh, tell us, uh, the velocity, Velocity is down, uh, The types of properties that are actually making it across the line. The financing. Yeah, So generally speaking today, you know, the smaller the price point, the easier it is to get sold. And that's just because there's a, there's a lower likelihood that financing is gonna be involved. So your smaller, you know, single tenant, triple net leases properties, your newly built strip centers, your high quality grocery anchored shopping centers, those are gonna be your most liquid assets today. Um, anything that's off of that is, is much more difficult. Uh, the reason those three product types are the most liquid is if you look at the single tenant space, the buyer pool primarily gonna be driven by 10 31 exchange. If you look at the, the high high quality retail strip space buyer pool is primarily gonna be driven by 10 31 exchange grocery anchored space, similar for a portion of the buyer pool. And then there's just kind of the smarter capital that exists out there that will buy grocery anchored product. That's really the, you know, that's the darling child of retail and the larger price point deals. Um, but financing has made, made our market much more difficult. Uh, you know, I felt good like about two months ago and then this Silicon Valley bank thing hit and there's just a lot of concern in the, in the banking industry and that's, I think that's caused our mar our market to go on hold a bit. And then from the 10 31 exchange side, you know, because of the weather early on this year, a lot of the exchange buyers got a, an extension for their ID period until October of this year. So there's a lot of exchange money that's just kind of on hold, been on hold for the last couple of months. I, I sense over the last about three weeks that it's kind of freeing up and we're seeing much more activity on the listings that we have. We're seeing much more bod activity on, on the, with the clients that we work for, bring property, uh, projects to market. And then some of the stuff that we've taken to market, we've actually seen very strong activity on, even though there's disruption in the financing markets. So, I mean, How the deals out have closed would've been the, how, how have they financed it? What's been the LTVs? Have they, you know, how, what's the sure Source? Yeah, I mean general, generally speaking, lower leverage. Um, you know, for instance, like the Meadows Village Center, that was on the slide that I had up earlier that we just closed that on Friday, that's, you know, right around a six cap for a, a grocery anchored center in Temecula. Uh, that buyer closed that with cash and is gonna finance after the fact. He was actually the seller on the Foothill Village Plaza deal on the same slide. So we moved him from a non gross anchor property into a, a gross anchor anchored property. You know, his financing on that, he'll be low leveraged once he, once he pulls the trigger and refis, it's probably landing somewhere in the 50% range. And I think he's getting, you know, he's getting quotes probably somewhere in the mid five, mid to high fives. And he's long term, you know, he's, he's moving his portfolio from non-grocery anchored back into more grocery anchored. But generally speaking, you know, the lower leverage you are, the better off you're gonna be. Uh, some of the other deals we've recently got done where financing was involved, same, same story, similar low leverage, um, depending on where, you know, interest rates planning somewhere in the mid five, mid to high fives, local banks, Small life goes, banks are a little bit, you know, right. Yeah. Morely these days. Yeah. Credit unions, that's uhhuh credit unions, that's a small life, small life cos and credit unions. Some, some of the regional PL banks are still lending, a lot of 'em are not. And then some of the larger banks are kind of taking a hold as well. Right. So it's just, it's tricky out there right now. All right. Todd, net buyer, net seller, uh, Net buyer. Um, we, we'd love to be buying more. We do have some stuff on the market to sell, but I, I think at the end of the year we'll look back and say we're a net buyer. I, I was just listening to the office panel. I think anyone who can figure it out right now, and some of that is scrambling with debt and with equity. I, I think you're gonna be better off here in two years. Not to the extent they see it in the office market cause there's just been a lot of headwinds there. But our goal is to be net buyers and I think a lot of our time right now is focused on, on the ie Well, What, what are you experiencing when you're looking for properties? You know, there's the global, but then when you're actually going after properties, what are you experiencing as you're going after and trying to Yeah, I think I'll, I'll start at what properties are out there and, and I think what we're seeing is we're underwriting a lot of, like empty call it like hometown buffets, restaurants kind of outdated single tenant buildings. And then we're out underwriting a ton of a hundred million dollar plus deals and, and kind of where our sweet spot was called in that, call it 25 to $60 million range. That size is now increased. There's no one there, there, there's just not a lot of people putting kind of their grocery anchored core deals, value add kind of shopping centers with call a drug store and a grocery store and some pads. There's not a lot of that on the market right now. So it really is kind of a bifurcated market. And then on the sales side, we're, we're the, the single tenant, call it, we've got two Starbucks in northern California on the market where those deals would've traded it, call it three seventy five, call it 10 months ago. Those will trade probably at five now. So those deals have moved a lot versus the grocery anchored space, uh, a center like that we're building right now probably has moved 25 to 50 basis points on your exit now. So there's a lot more movement in the smaller deals and there's just not a lot of people playing on these big centers. And a lot of that's driven by financing. Um, and, and so financing is really key right now when we're underwriting it and it's moving every day. This is not only from us underwriting deals, but from people we're talking to that are, are buying deals right now. They might have been SOER plus one 90 a week ago at sopher plus 2 35 today. There's just not a lot of players. So there's a lot of movement between those quote Gotcha. Johnny, we're gonna, yeah. And in the single tenant space, it really matters on the quality of the tenant. You know, Starbucks is a great tenant, but there's a ton of Starbucks on the market, so the buyer pool kind of gets lost in the equation of having that many on the market. But if you had, you know, let's say a Chick-fil-A or an in and out or a McDonald's, you know, cap rates on those deals they've moved and if, if they're larger price point, call it like 5 million plus they've moved more significantly. But if they're, if they land somewhere in that, you know, kind of sub $5 million range, they've maybe moved 20 to 30 basis points. I mean, but then you get these anomaly buyers like we just closed yesterday at Chick-fil-A and Mission VA down in Orange County at a three 70 cap. That's an eight plus million deal. So you're still seeing these like anomaly buyers show up where, you know, call it beginning of 22, end of 21, you'd have three to five of those guys at that pricing. Now you've got one, right? Wow. Greg, you, uh, you look at them for sites. So we are absolutely a buyer, uh, in this market For sites, for existing properties. We are a buyer. We bought, uh, we closed on Rialto marketplace in August. Uh, we just closed on a 85,000 square foot shopping center in Northridge, uh, last month. Um, we, What was the nature of the seller? What was the description of the seller That's a private family Had to sell, Uh, did not have to sell, but uh, it was time for that property. Right? And, um, and so I think, uh, we are absolutely looking for land. Um, we're actually seeing a lot of, uh, deals that, uh, maybe someone who wasn't a full-time developer had put together and now they can't get construction financing. So construction financing has also contracted a lot. There's a lot fewer players in the market. It's a lot more expensive than it was. And um, and if you're, uh, not a professional developer, full-time professional developer and you're gonna end up with that construction financing for a much longer window, uh, than somebody like, like Paragon or Newmark Merrill companies is, it can be very dangerous. Right. With your capital partners and you have the source of money right there. So. Right. Alright, Brad, bring us home on this topic on the capital markets. First tell me, well, how big is your firm now? How many brokers do you have in your firm? Believe we're 11. And what's the split between leasing and sales? Uh, we have about six people that focus, I'm sorry. We have about six people that focus on leasing, uh, gentleman that focuses primarily on land. We have a gentleman who focuses on, uh, gas stations and car washes. Uh, we have a couple of, uh, brokers that focus on investment sales. And then I do whatever's interesting to me. We'll save that for another time. But, so the guys that are doing the investment sales, yeah. Tell me what they're experiencing, you know, expand on what you've heard on from the Yeah, I, I wanna offer a, I wanna offer maybe three comments. Um, one is that, that the actual property has never been more important than I think it is right now. You know, the factors such as le um, credit of the tenants or not credit of the tenants, uh, l lease terms, you know, length of lease terms, you know, ACC access. I mean, there's just a buyer because there's fewer buyers in the market, they get to be much more discerning and which is why there's a lot of product that's sitting. But if it checks a lot of boxes, there's pretty good buyer interest. So that was, that's one comment I'll offer. Um, second is we really have talked a bit about kind of the newer, sexier kind of strip centers, but I think that there's a real opportunity right now in these, um, multi-tenant retail centers that have, um, that are at, you know, buck 75, 2 bucks a square feet foot quality location and, and as, uh, leases expire, the ability to raise rents. Um, I think that there's a good bit of potential there. And I think that the market is, ironically, the sellers of those properties are generally holding onto those properties, which is, I I think a bit ironic because I think that they actually should be on the market right now if they have a desire to get out of the management intensive property and get into more of a single tenant type of a property. And then, um, and Cameron is in the audience cuz you, you just, your client just bought a property that we were marketing, um, and they assumed alone. And that's something that hasn't really happened a lot in the last 15 years, but the fact that now there's a bunch of people that locked in low debt, um, and if there's the ability to have that low debt assumed that makes the property much more marketable. And John, I don't know if you guys have been involved in some loan assumptions. Yeah, yeah. They take, they take a long time. Let me, it's Pretty rare though though that they have the ability to, to transfer. Oh, right. Well, no, not really. Not This was a, this was a li ours was a life insurance company and yeah, Cmbs life insurance, Siemens, some banks you can, you can, uh, you can assume existing debt. All right. We're starting to see more of that too on some, on listings. We have two, two properties in the market right now that have existing debt that's relatively attractive. And I agree with you, Brad. I think that there's an opportunity with these older centers as you're buy, not only are you buying them at rents that are, you know, half of the newly built stuff, you're buying 'em at half the replacement cost too and much higher yield. Like there's this, there's this, there's this disconnect in the market that if it's bright and shiny and new, you're gonna pay a premium for it. And then if it's not, you're gonna, you're gonna whack it on price. I mean, and there's a spread of, you know, a hundred to 150 basis points on cap rate between those two. If they were sitting right next door to each other where one had one was chock full of credit tenants or brand name tenants and the other one had maybe had a couple and then rest mom and pops, that one that's, that has a couple of, you know, creditor brand name tenants and mom and pops is gonna trade a a hundred, you know, 50 basis points, minimum higher in cap rate. It maybe could be as wide as a hundred and much lower price per square foot. So I think there's an opportunity for them there for those That where you finished. Did you have that? Just thought, well, you know, we're, we're running out of time. I just want to, before we ask the audience, was there any other issues retail affecting the Inland Empire, uh, that we haven't covered that you think are important to, uh, mention to the audience? I think we got 'em all that we had talked about. Uh, any questions from the audience? Got some experts here. So, so I really like your question cuz I've been, Fred, hold The question, if you didn't hear it from back there is a question about dealing with the, uh, mixed use properties when you have retail on the ground floor, overcoming some of the challenges of that. Right. So I really liked your question because I've been spending a lot of time thinking about this because Claremont, Montclair, Upland Ranch, Cucamonga, Redlands, I mean those are at least a short list of communities that I know have projects that are going just like that. And the problem is that, that the multi-family developers are so focused on the multi-family that they frequently don't understand how the retail works. So they don't think about Greece intercepts, they don't think about parking, they don't think about how are we gonna allocate commonary, you know, commonary charges. How are we gonna make sure that there's proper trash removal? So one of the things for those, some of you know that I like to write a blog and I think that there's a blog that's gonna be coming out in the near future about, uh, all of the problems with mixed use and it's gonna be a collective effort because the, the demand for the re the retailer demand is there so long as you don't, so long as you design it properly. Um, and I'm sure you guys Greg are getting ahead of that because I imagine some of your projects are, are, uh, a part of something that's mixed a hundred percent Sure. And, and, uh, a hundred percent the multi-family developer by and large doesn't understand retail. And so we have a couple mixed use projects that we're, we're working on. One of 'em is with a hotel, um, and it's just, it's funny to see how differently we think about those spaces. The other problem with it though is that the cost of construction on that space is so high that even if we're successful in leasing it, a lot of times it is still a loss leader for the project. So that's something that we don't talk about, but you go and add in, uh, extra parking for it, you go and add in those shafts for the hood lines, you add the grease interceptors in, you are still losing money on that portion of the project. Even if it leases well Be a, Well I think it is, but it's less of a philosophy. Build it properly to Brad's Client and, and what a great amenity right to your project if you have the right mix of tenants below. Because who wouldn't want to be in the building where you can get a bunch of your, your daily needs taken care of? I, I don't agree that national tenants won't go into that space cuz you can, if you go to any urban market, you see it all the time. It's just they won't go there if it's the space isn't designed properly, they don't have adequate parking access, all of those, those types of items. But the Chipotle's and the Paneras and the Dun dun, you know, the Starbucks and the Dunking Donuts, they'll gladly go there if it's the right if, if they can, if they can conduct business successfully. And that's the key. And I think Brad's, Brad parking keeps on coming up and I do think that that's the, the one thing that most multifamily developers do most wrong in, in retail. Well that's what I, that that's why you do it. Visibility, signage, access, all of these things. And sometimes, sometimes honestly, a great multi-family site is not a wonderful, uh, retail site. I think, um, that's, that's the biggest issue. And I think a lot of times we see cities pushing retail that um, you know, it's a great amenity to the building, but it might not be, uh, the most feasible retail for the customer base outside of the building. A lot of times it's the cams are triple nets on these buildings for those tenants are significantly high traditional retail. Absolutely. Great conversation, great questions. Continue it afterwards with these guys. Let's give a round of applause For the retail guys. Jennifer, Todd, John, Greg.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/830279080.txt b/data/transcripts/830279080.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..097336d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/830279080.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+The following video is the office panel at Rick TV's Inland Empire State of the Market Conference held on May 9th, 2023. It is comprised of Mike Rat Maker with MG R Real Estate, mark McAdams with J Lll and Clayton McFadden with Harbor Associates. Uh, so Clayton McFadden. I work on the asset management team at Harbor Associates. Um, we've, let's see, purchased and sold about a hundred million dollars real estate out here. Uh, we primarily do Value Add Office. Yeah. I'm Mike Radamaker with, uh, MJ Real Estate and Property Management. We are primarily office brokers. I own probably about 1.8 million feet in the L and Empire, which is all mostly in the Ontario area. We're running 92.7% occupancy. Our year over year rents are higher than even in Orange County. We're at 2 65, uh, a foot. We're really happy with our performer. We are actively buying office buildings today. Uh, and we are actively, uh, into the city for construction of up to a million feet of office in the Ontario market. Mark McAdams, I am a vice president with Jones Lang Lasal, one of the larger national brokerage companies, and I was a pioneer of the Inland Empire. I no longer say the specific number of years I've been in the business. When you're young, you have to say, well, I've been in the business for five years, 10 years now. I just say 35 something. I mu I mumble. Um, but again, it's been exciting to be out here because I've seen the market go from land play to industrial and then in the early eighties, office started to come in and here we are today. Thank You. Uh, mark, we're sticking with you. Oh, okay. Because you provided these slides. So why don't just, uh, you know, we want to get into, uh, you know, I like starting with the, the leasing and tenant activity and how tenants are using space. Obviously the elephant in the room with the office space, but why don't you launch us off with, uh, sure. The, the two slides I brought today is really just to give you a perspective of the office market. I don't want to get into all the stats and the boring details. I did bring some information on the back, put it on the back table. If you're interested. You can stop by and grab something. But this just shows the trend line with a couple of the blips in the economy and what happened. So, supply and demand, there's been no really new supply since the Great Recession, except for maybe medical office buildings in certain residential markets. This shows the overall vacancy with the three major markets. The airport area that Michael owns in is the largest market with about 11 million square feet. And the Riverside and San Bernardino are tied at about eight. So let's go to the next one. Again, just showing trends, overall vacancy with the three major economic trends. And then it shows the tan lines or constructions. You can see all that space that was built in the runup to the Great Recession. And there was a lag out here. So the recession was really over as the vacancies shot up, but there was so much space built that it didn't really help. Um, and again, we've had seven quarters of positive net absorption we're at all time. His at or near, cuz a couple of the submarkets ticked up a little bit this last quarter. But we're at historically low vacancy rates, primarily because of no new construction. And the demand has been, has been good. So again, just trying to give you some trend lines. Well, let me, uh, follow up with question for you. How, how, how are the differences, since this is macro on the entire Inland Empire, where do you see major differences in terms of highs and lows, in terms of rental rates, tenant activity, tenant demand? On the vacancy side, some of the markets are sub 4%. If you need space in Chino, Chino Hill, some of the other submarkets like Redlands, it's gonna be a challenge to even find one nice space, let alone two or three for a competition. Um, the highest vacancy is currently in Corona. That's because of some new construction down at Lake Shore Tower a as well as a couple move-outs. So from a tenant demand, local regional tenants still have strong demand and they're still moving into the area. And some national companies are still moving into the area. But a lot of the existing national companies, they're staying, but a term we use during the Great Recession, they're right sizing. So if they're 10,000 square feet, they might need only eight. If they're five, they might only need 3,500 square feet. So there's a lot of that happening, but there's still, still strong demand. And the pandemic turned a long-term trend into a tsunami. And the long-term trend was people moving from the coasts to the Inland Empire to buy houses, especially during the pandemic when everyone was working from home, kids were homeschooled and it got started to get crowded. And so people, it was a big impetus for people to come out here and buy a house. Um, even small little residential markets like Big Bear Lake and the, the Lower Desert had a huge instream of new full-time residents because of the pandemic. And so far we haven't seen that trend go backwards. It's cont it's continuing. And I, I would assume with along with that, then though coming into the office because of the nature of the commutes, the nature of the properties and the businesses and the IE hasn't been as severe, uh, as, uh, some of the other markets that, uh, we do these events at With more local and regional companies. During the pandemic, they were back in their space by summertime. And the pandemic, if you look at the stats, it was really just a freezing in time. Nothing, no major changes happened during the pandemic. Everyone just kind of stuck in place with a couple clients looking at the end of the pandemic to get space out in the Inland Empire to get closer to where their employees had moved to. So that's right. Mike, I'm gonna come to you in a sec, but Clayton, I'm gonna skip to you right now. Where, where are your properties in the IE and what are you seeing in terms of tenant activity and keeping tenants in their space? Yeah, so, uh, the two projects that we are actively working on right now is um, Stewart Plaza and Upland. And then we have 4 51 East Vanderbilt in, uh, San Bernardino sizes. Um, one is about 45,000 feet and then the other is about 80,000 between two buildings Typical for the market. Yeah, so the Stewart Plaza Project, um, we're actually seeing a really good, um, mix of tenant demand for those projects. So what's interesting is when we acquired the property, there were some medical, um, occupants in the project and mostly office. And so now what we're seeing is with, you know, not only a lot of people moving out here, um, from other markets, but there's really a shortage of quality office space. Um, not only in this market, but in a lot of markets right now you hear this flight's quality. So Stewart Plaza, you know, we purchased And are people coming into the building? Are they like the Parksville that are coming in? Definitely I would say physical occupancy, which is something you hear a lot of, um, these days in the office world is a lot higher in this market than, you know, typical downtown urban core. Right? So what, you know, we feel that is more or less a, a really positive, uh, statistic for the Inland Empire is the percentage of usage for lease office space, right? I mean, without a doubt, like there's still some headwinds that we're facing in the overall macro environment. Um, capital markets is not great, uh, for office right now. I mean, trying to raise capital for office buildings is challenging as theise, but tenant demand, we feel like is starting to really, you know, show where it's going. Um, and quality's definitely a, a big, big driver for a lot of new decisions. So Stewart Plaza is definitely one that we feel we've improved and created more of a best in class environment. Um, and then 4 51 similar story, except I would say this is a building that, you know, has been primarily, uh, geared towards larger users, which, you know, I would say may have been on the lesser demand side, um, than the smaller tenant market. But again, I think where we've seen a lot of success, not only here in the Empire but throughout our portfolio in Southern California is, you know, Premium, More trophy flights, quality type buildings have, have captured more than the market share with man. For sure. And those both qualify as those? I would say so, yeah. What's the largest vacant space you got in those two properties? So we have 29,000 square feet on the ground floor. Uh, continuous. Yeah, Continuous. What are you asking? Um, you know, the big factor I think that, um, you know, we have to consider when we're structuring deals is what are the tenant improvement costs can be, right? Um, you know, the Inland Empire is not gonna be West la it's not gonna have necessarily top of market, uh, rents that justify spending, you know, $200 a foot on a TI allowance, but, um, you need to have occupiable space for your tenants. So what we try to sell is we have a really good capital stack in our projects that allows us to provide that, uh, amount of, of, you know, tenant improvement dollars to build out a space that tenants are gonna Work. What's the condition of the 29,000? Is it shell or Shell space? Yes. Right. So that's gonna be a hundred bucks no matter what you do. Uh, yeah, I would say that, you know, to get a really good quality space these days, I mean, that's what you're looking at, whether it's this market or you know, other markets, um, I would say that, you know, an empire, you're probably looking at a more favorable environment on the construction side. Um, but you're still at the end of the day of the day subject to all the demand. And has there been tour activity been Pretty? Uh, we actually have seen a decent amount of activity out of this year. Um, the project had two, I think of the largest leases at the end of last year that we signed. So, you know, I think it shows that if you have, um, you know, quality space, that's kind of where the demand has been. And, uh, All right. So five year deal reasonable tis, what's the rate? Uh, I can't comment on that. I have to ask though. All right, Mike, let's slide over to you, Ontario and, and growing outside of Ontario. Tell me what you're seeing with your tenants coming into the building and activity on leasing. I don't think the markets, uh, really changed much in occupancy for us. There might be a shift in the type of tenants. There's definitely a shift by some of the tenants in size, but for every tenant that downsizes, we're finding the tenant next door or upsizes. Uh, a lot of times when somebody has three offices and they're gonna consolidate to one or two, it doesn't mean that you're gonna lose the tenant. You may end up getting the larger tenant. If you take care of your tenant and give them a good relationship, they most likely don't wanna move. Lease renewals, start the day they move in, you establish that relationship and rapport with them. And if you manage it effectively, you generally don't have the major flight to other buildings. We're very fortunate that we have a lot of the class A office in the immediate Ontario market, so it's sometimes a choice between which one of my buildings they want to move into. You know, when you have that kind of flexibility as as a landlord, it makes it a lot nicer. We do offer a little flexibility to our tenants that, uh, very similar to the Irvine company. If they wanna move from one of my buildings to another, we'll usually work with them. I, regardless of the lease term, if they get in trouble and need to downsize, we generally work with them. Uh, we find that that puts chips in the table so that later in life we can get things taken care of. We're continuing to purchase properties at, you know, between 50 and a hundred million a year and hold it in our portfolio with little or any fear of what the market's gonna do. We like everybody else, were, were holding with the trends. You know, I'm buying at seven and a half cap rates today. I bought seven and a half cap rates last year, seven and a half cap rates the year after that. And I'll probably do seven and a half next year. It's just been my formula that works. Financing is extremely atrocious right now for office. Nobody wants to touch it, but you know, you bully through it and you'll be fine. We're not like industrial. We're buying buildings for probably 30, 40 cents and a dollar of replacement cost. Uh, we're now under contract in Orange County to buy 550,000 square foot at one site. And again, our problem there is, is financing, but we're buying it for $150 a foot. Class A, you can't touch anything in the Inland Empire for less than 2 25, 250 a foot. Uh, our lease rates are net to landlord higher here than in Orange County. Uh, we're spending, uh, if you really beat me up, I'll spend 20 bucks On ti on tis. That's it. So what's the typical tenant size? The typical tenant size is probably 5,000 feet plus or minus. So if you had a 5,000 foot tenant either in your building or, or new, you know, looking around at your spaces out there, what would a typical package be in terms of rental rate? Let's say they want to do a five year deal. What would a, are you full service gross on your rates? Yeah, we're Full service gross, 2 65 a foot, and we start out by offering 10 or $15 tis. And most of your, all your spaces are second generation, so you can kind of make 'em work to some extent. Yeah, we, we will not gut any space. You know, we, everything else is second. Not even from Amazon. Pardon? Amazon, you won't cut space. Nope. We're, we're, we're finding ourself, you know, that we're, we're, we're a nice niche. You know, we're, we're not trying to overspend on tis, uh, in Orange County, LA some markets are spending, you know, 70, $80 a foot. Like it's nothing. Would rather spend a little extra time with the tenant and showing 'em how what we have works. And I always tell the tenant that, you know, I can build anything you can afford. Yeah. That usually keeps 'em in perspective. So what are the biggest challenges? If you have someone who wants the space and, you know, they're, they're focused on your space, what's the biggest challenge in terms of getting that deal done in the tenant in the space, The outside broker? Uh, it's the broker. It's the broker that, that causes more problems for the owner. And what they do is, and it's not so much like Mark who's local or whatever, it's the broker coming out of LA or Orange County who thinks that he can get, you know, $80 a foot in tenant improvements in one month per year free. And that was the Norman Orange County. So when they come out here, I've had a little bit of a problem with the brokers, cuz the first thing I tell 'em is, unless they tore the space and come out here and see the building, I'm not negotiating with you. And that kind of sets the precedence for the broker in LA who's just going to try to represent a tenant, throw some garbage offer at me. Uh, we won't take a garbage offer. I won't buy a tenant. I'll give a tenant a great space, I'll give 'em good service. We're open seven days a week, we're man live, whatever they need, but we're not gonna buy a tenant and we're not gonna waste money on tenant improvements I can't use after five years. Excellent. So yeah. Mark, what, what, what give us your take on, If I can add on to that. Uh, during my career, I've done land sales. I've been an agency or landlord broker, but primarily right now I'm a tenant rep. And so Mike brings up a great point. One of the first things that I do when I get a new assignment sometimes with like another JLL team from Chicago or Texas, is to really teach them about the market because they see the whole portfolio for their client. They see these different markets where the free rent is way up and the vacancies is way up. And part of what I need to teach them is that you may have heard some things about the coastal Southern California, orange County, la but you know, rip that up because the Inland Empire has historically low vacancy rates and landlords aren't going to throw $80 a square foot or even $50 a square foot at you. So part of it is education process. And you know, Michael brings up an interesting, we had a broker from downtown LA come out a year ago with a 30,000 square foot tenant. And again, he was telling everyone he had to have a hundred dollars a square foot, he wanted a huge commission bonus. He wanted this, he wanted that. And you know, the landlord brokers just kind of looked at him and when we didn't laugh, but we in our internally were laughing and, you know, of course he ended up doing his renewal, which was where we thought what, what we thought he was gonna do anyway. But he was just going out to the market to beat up the landlord's. And, and again, he didn't even have that many options there. You know, if you're looking for 30,000 square feet in each market, there's maybe one or two. So thanks Clayton. Let's get your thoughts. After hearing what these guys said, what are, what are you thinking now about what they commented on? I definitely agree that, you know, you have to have realistic expectations. Um, when you're trying to put a deal together. Um, what I'll say is there's been a lot of false starts or deals that have died in the ti stage and brokers are getting better at, you know, solving to the right number upfront. I think, you know, where we see our role within the process is being the group who has the experience and has the relationships with, you know, the architects or the construction team to shape realistic expectations up front. I mean, the last thing that a broker wants and a landlord wants and a tenant wants is to have a space that they're really excited about. You know, you have an agreed to deal, then you get to the construction phase and realize that you have to completely tear up what you've already spent a lot of time on. So I think, you know, being experienced in what true costs are is important. And then understanding the market out here is extremely important. I mean, the headlines that, you know, you read on the downtown Urban Cores is not what we're seeing out here on the, you know, vacancy rates and single digits. Um, you know, lease rates holding relatively flat if not increasing for good quality projects. Um, you know, I think that when you have realistic expectations, you have transactions that you know are successful and that's what, you know, I think our industry's pretty motivated to do and accomplish. Um, you know, we've had a few years where it's been, you know, rough sailing to say the least. And I think what we're starting to see and what I hope will continue to improve on is having a higher, uh, you know, percentage of deals going through businesses being successful, um, and kind of getting through this period of uncertainty, which is really, I think put the cap on a lot of demand that we otherwise should have been seeing these last couple years out in this market. Right. Uh, I wanna move on to capital markets, but any other thoughts on the leasing side, Mike? Uh, Yeah, I, I came out of the residential market. I came out of apartments, I came out of new home sales and ended up in office. But one thing I did learn when I was working in model homes and apartments is, is that when you had a nice model home and a nice furnished apartment, they leased better. We took that theory into my office market and probably 75% of all my vacant space is furnished. When tenants come and they look at the space, they're not wondering if the conference table's gonna fit or if the chairs are gonna work or if they have cubicles. We have it staged and in place many can times. Our tenants when they come in, they're on a budget, it doesn't matter if it's a big company or a small company, they're on a budget. And sometimes if they can walk in and see an office and say, my God, we could actually take it the way it is and we don't even have to buy any furniture, we don't have to do anything. And then they move into the space pretty much in a plug and place status. And when you do that, it saves them money and us money, people laugh at me all the time and say, well Mike, that doesn't work. I've done 20,000 square foot deals with the state of California on plug and play. I've done 10, 15,000 square foot national tenants plug and play. I do three to 5,000 square foot deals every week, plug and play. And the nice thing is, is once they move into my building and they're using my furniture, it costs 'em an awful lot more to move because they don't have any furniture. What, what percentage would you say use the existing furniture versus have you remove it? And cuz they bring In their own, I'm gonna say 50% or better ha keep the furniture. Uh, and that a lot of that depends on how good the furniture is, right? If I'm putting in really good stuff, I never get it back. If I'm putting in kinda second, third grade stuff, I usually get that stuff back. But, uh, you know, we're, we're right now, uh, going around and we've taken buildings and actually, uh, bought truckloads of furniture, you know, from another company or, or actually in some cases we charge them to remove the furniture from, uh, a national firm and we'll charge 'em 5,000 to move the furniture out and then I put up in one of my buildings and lease it. So, you know, we're, we're pretty happy with that. I mean, we'll buy, sometimes we bought as many as 50, 60, 70 executive setups at a time or, you know, and bring 'em into the buildings. And, uh, it makes a difference, folks, when you're, when you're showing a space in this kind of market when people maybe are downsizing or right-sizing to go into something with new furniture to them makes a really big difference. Uh, secure task was the one that I really learned a lesson on their national company. They leased the space from me in Victorville with the condition that they could go to any of the six buildings that they saw and pick the furniture they wanted and have it delivered, which we did. Uh, state of California's done that said, well, we'll take the space, but the furniture in eight 10 is what we want in 8 35. And we'll say, okay, we'll move it around. I have three people on staff full-time moving version. Wow. Well let's slide into, uh, the capital markets. Clayton, start with you. You're, are you net buyer or seller? Hmm. Um, yeah, loaded question for sure because Seems So simple, doesn't it? I feel like, you know, we get on one call, um, in the morning and you got, you know, the seller hat on and then you have the other, you know, call in the afternoon. You have a buyer hat on. What, what I will say is, um, you know, Harbor has a very diverse set of partners that, you know, we have throughout our portfolio and that's really helped us as a firm and an operator, um, you know, seizes opportunities that otherwise, you know, have been hard to finance, um, or structure with more traditional, you know, groups. So what I will say is the environment right now that, you know, Mike had touched on too, is the phenomenal opportunity in our perspective to buy. Have you Personally spent a lot of time looking for properties? That's Right. Yeah. So, you know, like all the office properties around the empire, most likely, most of the major ones. How is velocity in terms of properties that you're seeing come available, uh, in the market and where is pricing and cap rates these days? And the, and let's touch on the differences around the, the Inland Empire too. Yeah, so I, you know, I think the distress hasn't necessarily hit the inland empire that maybe you've seen in other markets. So from a value add standpoint, you know, we might not be seeing the opportunities that we would like to see, um, to really put our full foot forward on that. Um, I would definitely say that cap rates have increased substantially, um, in the office product, but you know, in all product types, right? So as we're heading into some uncertainty right now with other, you know, groups, right, industrial multi-family, sometimes it feels a lot better. When you're looking at an office product right now that, well let's Say a typical office product. In a typical market in the aisle, let's say 50,000 foot mostly leased coming available, what would that price range cap rate be for the average property average? Yeah, so I would say that you're looking at probably north of a seven cap right now. Um, you know, you'd have to say, you know, what type of asset are you looking at? I mean, if you're, if you're trying to buy something that's fairly stabilized and is in a good location, I don't necessarily know that you've seen a big slide in pricing right now. So what would that be? I, I would say one of these guys could probably give you a better answer, answer on that. But you're probably north of 200 foot 200? Yeah. Yeah. You're, leave me looking 2, 2 25 to 2 45. We sold a a d minus property on sixth in Haven within the last six months for 2 25 a foot. Uh, we sold, we were involved in the acquisition of one and fourth in Haven at 2 25 a foot, which was mostly vacant. Uh, we purchased like this One, right? Did you sell this one 18 lane? Probably, yeah. Yeah, mic Mike representative and JLL represented the seller. Nice. You know, and then we, uh, we, we also bought the airport, I think, what was it? Ontario Tower, Ontario Airport Towers. I bought that one too. And it, and you know, we bought another one's 147,000 feet and I think I paid about two 50 a foot. Uh, so that's about what the market is. You know, you go in 25, 250, Do you, uh, buy all cash? You go to lenders? Who, who are your lenders? My lenders are my favorite partners. You know, I I I Got lots of lenders in the audience. They want, they watch your business. I went, I was using a lot of community, uh, banks and uh, it's getting a little tougher because a lot of 'em, you know, they're, they're very conservative on some of their problems and because there's been so much negativity on office, it's the one food group that a lot of the banks are saying no to. Have you seen a change since the uh, uh, Silicon Valley Bank First Republic? No, it's, It's, it's dropped off significantly. I mean, we buy buildings at seven and a half cap and they don't want to finance them. We buy seven and a half on actual, they won't finance them. Hey, might Pull the mic a little At seven and a half and they won't finance them, but they don't have any problem financing an industrial building at a three and a half cap. It just doesn't make any sense to me. You know, we're, our office market is the best market, so if there's any lenders out there, I'm buying one for 91.5 million currently and I could use some financing. Yeah. You had a que did you have a question? No, I'm offering, You can get a bidding war going, uh, mark, did you have anything to add on, on what you're seeing in terms of, uh, On The, on the underwriting side and what you're hearing on the, on the sell side from your folks in the capital markets and what you're experiencing out there? So, so what I'll talk about is not the investment side, but the, the owner operator purchase. There, there have been a number of those. Last year I did four from 8,000 square feet, small and Redlands to the building that was just up here, 75,000 square feet that Mike represented the buyer on. And so that owner occupier has been a niche where, especially if part of the building is leased, if it's completely empty, different story. But if it's partially leased, then a professional firm, like a law firm, a CPA can go in and occupy their 5,000 square feet or six or whatever it is and have some tenants to, uh, give them the investment on so to up to a certain level. So up to 75,000 square feet. What Mike has said is absolutely true. We're 2 25 to maybe 2 45. Unfortunately, there's been some owner occupant sales that have been larger that because of their size there was really only one logical buyer in that submarket. And so for instance, out in San Bernard, not to beat up on San Bernardino, but they had an owner occupier sale first of the year. That was like 1 25 a square foot, but the entire building was vacant. So again, a little bit different story, but there is good activity on the owner occupant side, but again, the capital markets have affected that as well. Love it. Um, uh, Mike wanted to touch on you for all, all the years. You know, you've been, we were doing the panels together before the pandemic. I was always thinking of you as Ontario Mike, but now you're expanding. So you're looking in Orange County, you open up a new office. Tell us about the, uh, thoughts, you know, what you're seeing out there that's leading you to expand and go into different markets. I buy real estate, not tenants. And when I'm out in the Inland Empire and it's costing me call it two forty, two fifty a foot to buy an office building and I can go down to Orange County by South Coast Plaza by a class A building per 150 a foot, somehow, it just seems to me like maybe it's a good idea. The brokers in Orange County tell me how difficult it is and I agree with them. Most of the time they forget to put a sign up on the property. They don't an they don't answer their phone calls. And if it's under 5,000 feet, it's an insult. So I think going down to that market and answering the phones and putting a sign up ought to be quite fun. Are you gonna do anything else? Uh, we, we are, we're, we're probably in, in, in the Orange County market cuz we're new. We will most likely cooperate with the national firm because we don't have the footprint we do in the m and Empire. Uh, but we will be on site and we will handle the small two 3000 square foot deals that walk in. They'll offer, the broker can just send stuff to us, just send us an email or a text and we'll respond back. We'll do everything to send you a check. Uh, we believe that the Orange County market is a 4,700 square foot average tenant, but all the brokers are looking really for the full floor users and they're missing the fact that four or five small tenants make a full floor. Uh, we're also, you know, looking at a little diversification, a lot of our tenants in the Inland Empire are asking me if I have anything in Orange County. So I do believe I have a certain tenant base that will, will follow us. But you know, that being said, even on that, that growth and opportunity, we, we do want to be one of the first major developments out of the ground in Ontario for a four lease office product. And you know, we are, you know, in the planning process with the city of Ontario and you know, I don't know if I should say it or not, but we're planning on the first building will be 15 stories, uh, with restaurants on the top, mixtures below and a series of buildings around it. Uh, we're all in on the deal. It makes no economic sense. Uh, but I'm okay with that long term it'll make sense. We believe lease rates are gonna move up. And that might be a question you haven't asked yet, but, uh, I'm moving my lease rates up, you know, I'm 2 65 a foot now. I'll be, and, and some as high as 2 85, 2 90. I've done a few deals at 3 0 5 because they want attended improvements. I can see the market moving to 3 25 a foot on second generation space in some cases three 50 within the next 18 to 24 months. Uh, and then we'll see the new product coming out in the market at probably 3 95 a foot. Full service. Gross. This is the new building. New building. We'll be 3 95 a foot. How big is it gonna be Total? The first phase will be 250,000 feet. First building 15 floors? No, 15. 1515 floors. Right. So that'll be our first, first building, uh, restaurants on top. Then, you know, a little bit of, And this is the first office building built in, in the market in how long? Probably 15 years. That isn't unoccupied, you know, and it goes seven, I think I owned that one, uh, the last one that they built. But, uh, you know, nobody's building. Uh, I think there's a big demand for it. I think there's a big flight to quality. We're not looking at a price per foot, but we're looking at a cost for a great space. You know, we'll be our marketing strategy. Uh, we already know that the two top two floors will be your restaurants and it'll be filled. The third floor down will be my penthouse, so I know that's filled. And then the fourth and fifth floor down are my offices, so I know those are filled. So we got a third of the building already taken care of. There you go. You know, so we're, we're feeling pretty good about that. What do you project as the overall cost per square foot of that building? $450 a foot. All right. Well good luck with that. That sounds, uh, amazing. And with half of, at least they're almost half. And This guy's gonna finance you right down here. You know, I want to, I want take some questions from the audience, but I want to make sure, Clayton, have we covered all the items that, uh, did you want to add anything to what you just heard? Yeah, I, I mean, what I will say is, you know, tenants are gonna be expecting more with their office space without a doubt. Um, and I think adding services and, and being more attentive, uh, and a better partner with tenants is really gonna be, um, who succeeds as a landlord, right? It, it sounds like, you know, a brand new building, like there is room to pull up rent, you know, so it seems like that will have an effect on the rest of the market. Don't you guys agree with that? Right, Mike? Mark. Well, Michael's been smart since he has collected this portfolio class A, he's pushed the rents a little bit, but he hasn't pushed them as much as he maybe could have. Right. Which has kept a new developer out of the market. Cause the new developer is not gonna come in. So Mike's looking at returns not only on this building, but the positive returns he's gonna have on the rest of his product too, right, Mike? Absolutely. There's a, a certain windfall that'll happen if I build this building across the portfolio and that will help me average my extreme cost to build it. You know, so if it's costing me more to build, but I suck up all of my buildings 75 or a hundred dollars a foot because the increase of rents, you know, the new building becomes almost free, Free parking. The building becomes free with the suck up on Free parking though, right? Still in the ia. All right. Any questions? No, there Will not be free parking in that building. No, no. The new thing we're gonna do in the m Andm empire, just let everybody know. Little warning for the brokers here is, I'm a, I'm really starting to like the idea of parking lots and I'm thinking the parking lot should be a separate feature away from your buildings. And the parking lot should be a charged feature in the future, just like it is in LA in Orange County. Uh, it's a process that'll take some time, but I'm hoping I'll take my 23 buildings, break 'em off and start the process all at once in the next three to five years. Yeah, well we Like the free parking here. Yeah. You guys Wes, Yeah. In the last years or is it changed? I'd say it's changed a little bit. I think more regional and local companies are a bigger percentage than the corporates. But back in the eighties and nineties built, filled up, most of the buildings that Michael had, they were mainly corporate tenants. Not, not totally, but it's still all across the board. A lot of construction firms, a lot of, you know, related to be residential as well, law firms, CPAs, insurance and banking is still here, but especially the really large offices, a lot of those that move outta state. Excellent. George, Hear Silicon Valley area, is that, is that a factor? Go ahead. I think it's the, the culture is whether or not they want to be employed or unemployed. Um, The younger generation, we kind lost them in the pandemic because they never really had to work, you know, in a traditional office environment with structure, they got paid to be at home and in some cases they even worked, they took care of their kids, they took care of their families, they re remodelled their house and they got a paycheck on top of it. They got a stimulus check. As that stuff is drying up, a lot of 'em still have money in the bank and say they'll never go back to work, but the first time they can't make their rent payment or their mortgage payment, they, they will go back to the office. And, and I believe that's gonna happen. But it's a, that's a growth process Going through the same thing with my kids, George going through the same thing with my kids. It, it will Go through it, it will change. I think that my daughter helped me understand it. She's 27 as well and she said to me, you know, that the market's forever changing and that people got used to being at home and people got used to not having to commute on the freeway as much and their personal lives had got in the way of business. And so I believe the four 10 that she talked about makes a lot of sense. And companies that tried the four 10 have been very successful that way. The employee gets three days off instead of two. The employer gets us 40 hours during the week and I still get my a hundred percent occupancy. So can I pull up on that? Yeah, mark, close it out for us cuz we gotta wrap it up. Sure. I'll be quick on this. So again, I think it goes back to the type of tenant during the pandemic, the local and regional companies. By summer 4th of July, they were telling their employees, if your butt is not back in the seat, you're fired. Whereas I worked for big national company, we were locked out of our office, I couldn't go in if I, you know, had a, my favorite photo of one of my daughters on my desk that I want, I couldn't go. And This is a tenant rep from Right be just because corporate America was trying to figure this all out. So I think because of the nature of Mike's portfolio plus the commute times to downtown LA to Orange County where people from Temecula are spending two hours one way, if the employer would give people the chance to have an office closer to where they live and not spend four hours a day in their car commuting, maybe people would want to go back to work. I don't know. What do you Think? There's also issues with mass transit and crime and things like that which are affecting downtowns, which you don't have as much in the ie, which is great. So last one, we gotta make it quick. One word answers for Mike, Youre active, We Question question. I think it's gonna be a home run. All right. I think that anything you buy today is going to significantly go up in value. As the m and m fire continues to grow and prosper. The expansion of all the freeways is big. Enormous cost of industrial space is driving a lot of the industrial office component into traditional office and they're convert so they're coming out of the warehouse, which we're benefiting from. Uh, and I do believe that a lot of the people that are tired of the commute are coming out this way. I think the employers are finally starting to pay people in the M and empire consistent and appropriate to what they pay in LA and Orange County. Uh, we've boasted and pushed to a lot of the groups that I'm involved in. If you have a job in LA and you're paying 50 grand or a hundred grand, you should have the same job in the m and Empire at 50 or a hundred grand. Then you will have a lot of pool and a lot of people that wanna work for your company. So we're seeing a lot of higher price jobs in the M F Empire, better quality, better retention, and the younger generations starting to realize they can't afford the beach community. All right, I gotta wrap it up there. Great conversation. Grab these guys afterwards if got more questions Tonight.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/831673533.txt b/data/transcripts/831673533.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..795d32a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/831673533.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, Welcome to the latest episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arnie, where we have what we hope to be interesting and compelling conversations with leaders in the commercial real estate industry. And today's show, we'll get over that bar as our guest is John MCNs, founder and partner with MCNs Partners. Um, but before we bring in John, let me first introduce myself and my co-host. I'm Steve Bloom, founder and c e o of Rent tv, the news and media company for the commercial real estate industry. Hope you're familiar with it Now, in our 24th year, uh, our news website is rent tv.com daily news and information. Uh, we also put on rent TV conferences, uh, and we have our video platform, the review, the website you're on now, where you're watching this video, which we built for the industry. Uh, and let me introduce our co-host and the show producer, my good friend, Arne Garfinkel. Hey, Arne. Hey, Steve at Arne Garfinkel. I'm president of the All-Star Group. We do commercial real estate loans anywhere from 500,000 up to 10 million and more. Uh, we also do events. All of our events are commercial real estate related, uh, and we produce events for other companies, such as Rent TV and the Click conference. Uh, and you've got one coming up, right? Don't you have one? Uh, in a few weeks. Yeah. We got a, uh, online conference coming up June 21st. It's online, it's free for everybody to attend. And then we have a new event we're doing in San Francisco, the end of August, August 29th at the, uh, Hyatt Regency in Barcode. That should be an interesting one, Steve, back to you. Oh, Great. And, uh, with us putting the wrap on our, uh, recent very successful Inland Empire event, uh, you'll be able to watch some of the videos from those panels on the review shortly. And we have Greater LA coming up August 17th. We'll have conferences, uh, panels covering retail office, multi-family, industrial and finance. So look out for more information on that. But enough of us, Steve, let's talk about our sponsors, Right, Arne, uh, we've got great sponsors that make these discussions possible. Um, and starting with commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California, their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive, simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal, call Tiffany Simington and book your next inspection today. The numbers on the screen, (818) 957-4654. Call Tiffany Commercial Real Estate inspectors 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. And with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease, one way you could fight back is by appealing property taxes. Even if you have great income, you could still qualify to have your property taxes lower. The deadline to file is November 30th. Call 8 5 8 2 2 5 1200. That's 8 5 8 2 2 5 1 2 0 0. Ask for West Nichols with Paramount Property Tax Appeal. And lastly, Redwood Mortgage, who we've known a long time Arne, they are a direct private money lender with over 44 years of experience lending on commercial mixed use, multi-family and residential investment properties. Loans range from 200 K up to 10 million, and they are lending in the major metro areas of California and Arizona. Redwood has a long-held expertise in commercial loan transactions. Contact Redwood at 1 806 5 9 6 5 9 3 or redwood mortgage.com for more info. They are a good place to go when the banks say no. And, okay, now let's get to the show. Arne, I know we are in for a very insightful, informative, and interesting discussion given the backdrop of the challenges in the economy in Northern California and in developing real estate today. With that said, let's introduce John MCNs, founder at partner with MCN Partners. Hey, John. Hey, welcome John. Welcome To the So, John, thanks for, uh, taking the time today. Thank you, Steve and Arne, I'm delighted to be here remotely Should be, everything's remotely on this. Well, you Start, we've got a lot, lot of ground to cover today. A lot of topics on the table, a lot of interesting things going on. And, and as you know, leader in the industry, we want to tap your, your thoughts on several of them. But before we really get into some of the issues of the day, why don't you give us an overview of, of McNell's partners, your, you know, the type of properties you own your portfolio. Uh, give us a little overview. Sure. So I've been in the business roughly 40 years. Our primary portfolio, historically has been neighborhood supermarkets all in Northern California. Typical size is about a hundred thousand feet, uh, of building. It's usually a barbell center supermarket on one end, a drugstore on the other, a thin row of shops in between 10 acres. Uh, they're almost all supermarket anchored, and fortunately for us, they're almost all in great neighborhoods. Uh, that's the primary portfolio. Since then, uh, we've done a fair bit of mixed use, uh, a smattering of office and a little bit of residential. What I can't talk about are industrial or hotels, other than which rooms I like at Fancy Hotels. How big's your portfolio now? I know you, uh, buy and sell. How big's your portfolio now? You're holdings? Uh, the retail's a little over a couple million feet. Nice. Uh, and the rest is, I think we may have, you have 35 projects. Um, oh, but yeah, we, we have some nice little office buildings, uh, here in downtown Palo Alto, which is a good place to own office buildings. Yeah, well, if there's a place to, that's the place. But John, how did you get into real estate? Uh, what attracted you? Did you start with retail or did you start with just a house? Great question. Uh, I did start with just a house. I started with a $24,000 duplex, uh, in a Lancaster, which is arguably, sorry, Lancaster. It, it's my hometown, but arguably the worst town in California. Uh, but that went really well. I think I bought when I was 24, 25. You get, you Got a house for cheat there. Yeah, yeah, you still can. But actually, when I got into it, I, I was a young lawyer at a fancy firm in San Francisco in the seventies. I started out in litigation because, you know, e every kid who goes to law school wants to be Perry Mason when I, with the, the suspenders and, and do trials. But I did that for about a year at, at a big law firm, and I hated it. I just, uh, li litigation is terrible. I didn't know anything about real estate or development, but the firm had a business department that was primarily real estate. So then I went to the managing partner. I said, please, please, please let me out of litigation. Uh, so I shifted over to real estate. And guys, it was fun. I, I loved, you know, helping people buy, sell, office, building, shopping centers, finance, do leases and all that. But then quickly enough, I said, wow, I'm making, well, I forget 20,000 a year. And these guys, Arne and Steve are, are buying this building, and they're making 2 million. And I'm as smart as they're, so I, I, I started that as I'm watching, uh, because we, my firm represented the money, which is the Bank of America, Transamerican, whatnot. And I'd see these young developers maybe five, 10 years older than I making a fortune. And I said, wow, I gotta get in that business. And I kept waiting for somebody, you know, or one of these developers to see me across the table and say, whoa, MCNs is a genius. I gotta have him on my team. That never happened. See, you did it on your own. And, and, but that, yeah, I, I teamed up with a client, uh, who was old about 15 years older. So I'm in my twenties. Yeah. I'm in my mid late twenties. I teamed up with a client guy who was about 40, who was a retail developer, and that's how I got into retail. Uh, it just kind of fell into it. Yeah. Uh, and then the rest, like the old line goes, is history. Well, tell, tell me about the, the, the, the deal that you look back on. That was the one that kind of took you from, you know, the houses and the smaller projects up to that next level. What was that deal that you would point to? Yeah, I, I actually, it's in Hillsburg, which is a cute little wine town in northern California. For our viewers who aren't familiar with the wine country. 40 years ago, it was a blue collar town. Uh, and, uh, my, my ex, yeah, my ex-client, uh, future partner, he had this thing tied up. Uh, this was like an 82, uh, and it was a Safeway center, again, just what I described before, about 10 acres, about a hundred thousand feet. It was Safeway and, uh, a drug chain that no longer exists, pay less drug, difficult deal as hell. But it was about a 10 million deal at the time. Uh, and guys, we still own it. Really? Yeah. We, we opened it in 84, uh, and we paid off the mortgage and we, we owned this. And it's a great center. What's the square footage? About a hundred thousand feet, give or take. Yes. Uh, 50,000, 55,000 foot Safeway usual shopping center. But Those communities, those things are priceless, really, you know, so valuable community. Yeah. It, but that, that, that's an aside, you know, with all the issues that are happening to, to all kinds of, uh, real estate and particularly in central business districts, are the well located suburban retail is doing great right now. It, it, um, you, if you own it, uh, it doesn't make sense to develop it right now, but owning it is great. You're, you're, what major standout project can you put your finger on that you accomplished in your career? That you say that that was the, you know, we talked about that one, but that's great, but which one do you wish you could undo? That I could undo? Well, you actually, guys, I, I had, I had to add a wing to my whole of shame, uh, a few years ago. More than There, there's more than one that, that I, I wish I could undo. But you know, what I like to say is, um, deals you, you make money or you, you learn a lot that's valuable. I, I'm not sure, uh, uh, let's see. Yeah. Well, every few years, you know, I'm at the point in my career where I'm making, I'm starting to repeat mistakes. I'm I made in the early days. Every once in a while we will get into a deal for the wrong reasons. Uh, and then, you know, rather than just, you know, these numbers work, let's jump on it. But I can't think of one in particular, but That's okay. You know, tho those, those failures create success. We all know that you Gotta learn, you Gotta fail first before you could succeed. So, And that led you leads right into my next question is, how do you find the deals? Is it through brokers, uh, on your own deal, you know, properties you track or manage, perhaps with third parties? And then, like, what, how do you green light? Like is it an, I always want to put myself in the mind, you know, of a developer owner, cuz I, you know, I'm jealous of you guys. I'm gonna live vicariously. So is it like i r r, are we, are you that technical or is it more of a gut feel, uh, when you pull the trigger? How, how do you make that decision? Okay. So multiple questions in that question, but first, How do you find 'em, first of all? Yeah, in the early, it evolved over time. Uh, in the beginning it was, you know, knocking, 40 years ago, it was knocking on doors, please show me deals. Uh, you know, going out and calling every broker out there. One of the things that we did that as a small, uh, retail developer that the bigger corporate guys couldn't do, is we would tell brokers, look, bring us a good deal. You can get your full commission and we're fine with that, and we'll give you 5% on the back end, you know, after we get, let's say a 10% preferred return. Uh, you know, I jokingly called it our layaway program, and that worked pretty well. Uh, money, I mean, I don't hear many people doing that. Yeah, No, it, it, it, it really works. Uh, and, and, uh, I, I have one broker that on, on one deal that Calgary bought 25 years ago, he probably makes 75,000 a year, uh, uh, in, in cash flow off, off that backend piece. It, it really, so that helped us find deals then, and I think this is probably true of fellows who've had a relatively good fortune in their career. The deals, after a while start to find you, uh, you know, people, you know, you get a decent reputation and people call and say, Hey, this is the right deal for you. Uh, principals call at this point, guys, I'll be honest, a deal has to hit me on the nose, like a two by four for me to look at it. Really. Uh, so that's evolved. Uh, I'm sorry, Steve. The second part of your question was, oh, yeah. Right. Well, How's the velocity been before we get to that second part, you mentioned, you know, deals hitting you. Are you ge seeing a lot of deals coming through? Or has that leveled off a bit over the last few months? Uh, good question. No, it, it has leveled off quite a lot. I, I am not, you know, everybody, every time there's a downturn and, and we've been, I don't know, five or six, everyone says that there's gonna be a flood of great deals that we can step up and buy. Didn't happen in 2000 8, 9, 10. I don't know that it's gonna happen. Now, the, the, the stuff that I see that's for sale on the market's fully priced, uh, I, I, I think that that will have to break at some point. But you guys know this, there are trillions of dollars sitting on the sidelines, you know, it can quote opportunity funds so that the moment somebody senses a good deal, you know, the money is gonna flood in. Right. So I, I think there will be good deals on the margin out there because, you know, the, the four Ds, death, divorce, disaster, disillusion, those happen regardless of whether we're in, in a recession, a depression, or an upmarket. So some people will have to sell in this market. Now that, and we found over the years that, um, so 40 years, we've done maybe a hundred deals over the last 40 years. So two and a half a year and, and en ragingly good markets, we might not do a deal for a couple years. And then in a downturn, uh, when there are fewer players out there, we may pick up three or four. That's what happened. You know, like right now there's this downturn in certain areas Where you can, you know, uh, San Francisco for example, you know, right. You walk through there and everything's vacant, you know, Has kinda become a darling again, in a way. Exactly. You know, The second part of my question is, and I find this fascinating, is how, you know, you, you've done the analysis. Are you more I r r return on equity? You know, how, what's, what's the key metrics that you use when you're analyzing a, a, a, a new acquisition? And do you rely on that? Or is it more of a gut feel that you just know that it's gonna appreciate or do well, even though maybe the I r the R O E isn't really showing that? How, how do you go about that? Okay, guys, I think IRR is a load of crap. These Are the answers I love. I love No, that that they're so true. Yeah, go ahead. It, It's the, I r you, you both know this. The I r r, the whole principle, the i r is what the value of that building is going to be 10 years out. It is, the analogy is so perfect to predicting weather 10 years out, That Joke. So I have discounted the I R R forever. We look at return on investment immediately. You know, the book I wrote making it in real estate. I have a chapter in there called Back of a Napkin. And, and so Steve, what we really do is you pitch me a deal and you say, okay, John, it is, we're gonna buy it for 7 million. We're gonna put 3 million in it, and the NOI is going to be a million. And I say, okay, that that's a 10% return. Hell, I'll do that deal all day long. And, and it really has to be that simple. I, I've noticed that the, the more detailed you get, the more argu programs you run, and the more you know, frankly, b******t that, that you add to it, the more likely you're gonna go wrong. Uh, it, it really has to be a, a simple deal. Uh, and I've got younger partners that do, uh, apartment deals and it's, okay, we're gonna buy this for two 50 a door. We're gonna put 50 a door into it. And so when for 300 in and all the properties around are going for 4, 4 50 a door, I said, okay, that makes sense. I'll, I'll do that. You know, it's, it's, it's really like a, an elevator, right? It's riding on the back of a napkin, listening to an elevator pitch. No. So it, it's not a gut. Now, occasionally, uh, if it's dirt, you know, last downturn, so probably in 12, coming out of last downturn, so 11, 12, someone showed us a piece of dirt in, uh, Hercules, which is a little town on the way out of the Bay Area. Yeah. And it was at the intersection of, of Highway four, which is Pineapple Freeway, and then 80, which is a major freeway. And I said, this is the corner of no and brainer. No, that's Bright Line. And that's your gut, you know it. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, I, I said, I don't know who I'm gonna put there. And so we bought it out of our, out of foreclosure, uh, our r e o, and we sat on it for a few years, and it took us, you know, I, I thought because guys, it's gotta be an optimist being in our business. I thought it would take three or four years to figure it out. Took us about nine to get the thing done. But it turned out to be a great, uh, Safeway anchored shopping center. Right, right. Yeah. And that, and that's where you gotta, you know, like, like you mentioned with the, uh, you know, like people tell me I'm in the finance business, you know, what do you think rates are gonna be? I don't know. I don't have a Christmas. Nobody knows. Nobody knows that these rental increases that, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta you gotta go with what you, you feel is happening in the market. And, you know, speaking of, of the finance industry, you wrote a whole article on the Silicon Valley Bank, a collapse, you know, Hey, you read my stuff. I love it. Yeah. And that, and that's gonna, and that's gonna come into, you know, financing deals and so on and so forth. You know, tell everybody what, what your opinion is on that and why you saw that coming. Well, I, I think financing deals for all, but the, the most deep pocketed developers is very, very difficult right now, bordering on impossible. I had a couple of, of my younger partners in, and they, they were complaining about, so what's happened, uh, on development deals is it's, the loans are no longer, you know, loan to value. They're loan to cost. So, so that drops off 20%. They're no longer 60, 65, or even 70%. They're, they're running 55, uh, 55, 60%. And that's not so bad. But, and if the three of us were running a regional bank, we would make this same requirement. They're saying, okay, we'll we'll loan you the 10 million you need in a at 50% loan to cost, but you need to put in 3 million in our, in our bank non-interest bearing and lock it up. Because, you know, the, the banks are desperately afraid of another, you know, Silicon Valley Right. Style run. So what that means is the developers, you, you're putting up 60, 70% in equity at the end of the day. So the deals aren't Pence, you know, you can't borrow money. Uh, so we're coming into, I think we're there, and this happens every downturn. The, the rise of the hard money guys, you know, they, they, they are relatively quiescent during good times, cuz there's money available everywhere, but now they're back. And so a a sharp young developer who's got a good project, uh, and actually I have a friend who, who does hard money lending. I, I don't think they call it hard money lending, but No, They, they like to call it private money. They don't like the word trying to, trying to make it sound a little Yeah. They don't, they don't wanna sound like, uh, but, but you, you bring up a good point and, and let me interrupt you for a second. Sure. Uh, when we, when we do my events, we talk about the lending industry and who's out there and the private money industry right now is the key lending part because like you said, 50, 55%, you're renting money. There's usually no prepayment penalty for that stuff. And a smart developer like yourself, you'll say, look, I'm gonna lend if, if the big banks are only giving me 55, I'll take 50 from a private money lender. I'm enough to deal with all the brain damage of giving all this other stuff. Get in, get out. And once we get this thing stabilized, we can get ourselves a, a quality loan. Is, is that what you're finding when you're, you're seeing projects right now and, and Yes, you're absolutely right. Arne, uh, sir, if, if the deal is good enough, it, and, uh, my experience is right now it's the, it's not, it's, well, I'd say it's hard enough. Yeah. It cost, it costs you 10% plus a couple points a year. Correct. So you say, okay, that that's 12%. I I can stand that for a couple years. Things will get better and I'll refinance. Uh, but you know, that, that, that's where, as far as I can see that all the development deals are going. And so the trickier to pencil, I'm going down to Las Vegas, uh, on Sunday for the I c s. So it'll be interesting to see, uh, the retail world's doing. Our leasing has been very strong, uh, for the neighborhood centers. Uh, but the, the development deals are not penciling out right now. Yeah. I mean, retail came back pretty well after the pandemic better than it did. Most people thought The office market has obviously, uh, you know, go ahead. I'm sorry. Our money guys. Are you seeing other alternative sources of financing, uh, springing up and in these ch challenging times? I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it will. You know, there, there's a, a big need for it. And so, you know, you know, whenever there's a need, someone who is going to, to supply the answer, um, yeah. It, it, it'll be here soon enough if it isn't already. When was the last acquisition you closed on? Bought a little center down your way in, uh, orange? Uh, we bought, i, i, I like lease holds and, and that, that is a, a con conversation in itself for an hour. But I'm one of the few guys out there that, that likes to buy lease holds because I'm one of the few guys that doesn't think he's gonna live forever. So, and, and I, I think of leaseholds as, as bonds, uh, as opposed to a ground up development deal as, as a long-term capital game stock play. Interesting. Uh, if, if you buy an existing leasehold, and guys, we bought this thing as is and it had a, like a 16% cash on cash return. It only has like, uh, 12 year, 10, 12 years before that there could be a crossover before the ground run grows up, goes up too high. Right. But I said, I don't care. I'll have all my money. How long is left on the lease? The ground lease? Yeah, It might be 40 years, but, but it, but it goes up. You have to be careful with lease holds because, because, uh, re retail rent are, are, are good, but they're kind of flat. And if the, the ground rent is going up and then there's a crossover point and depending on where Yeah. And it's CPI based, so depending on how much c p increases over the next 10 years, it could happen that, uh, the ground rent will exceed, uh, uh, that the subtenant rent. But if it does, interesting. Who cares? We've got all, got all our money out a good return. Right. That's interesting you mentioned that cuz it's not as big of a deal out here. I grew up in New York City and started in real estate there where ground leases are everywhere. And I live in Marin Delray where the whole thing is a, the entire Marin is a ground lease. Yeah. So it's pretty interesting that you bring that up as a topic. Um, but I was gonna ask you on, on that, on that deal, how did you finance that, you know, in terms of L T v traditional bank, you know, Leonard Equity? Uh, Yeah. What, what did, uh, uh, sorry, boys and girls, I just paid cash for it. So there you go. You know what cash works. That, that into my next question is, or do you raise for each deal that you do, you have your company, but then do you raise equity partners for each transaction as like each one a separate partnership? And if so, like, how could someone like me and Arne, you know, invest with you? All right. That, so that, let, let's go back. 40, 40 years ago, I had no money. All right. Yeah. And so that shopping, let's use that Berg Shopping Center, I think I had to raise 900 to a million in order to do it. And guys, I was like an actor in a bad off Broadway play. I, you know, I, I was just going door to door trying to raise a million bucks at $25,000 a pop. Somehow we managed to do it. Uh, and so then we had outside partners and, and then the, the, the roaring eighties came along and my partner and I, we rolled into doing deals with the SNLs where they put up all the money, and in fact, they'd put up 105% of the money. You know, we, we'd, we'd actually close a deal and put money in our pockets. And of course that all blew up by, you know, 89 or 90. We had this great recession. Uh, and then I decided, uh, the epiphany I had, it wasn't on the road to Tarsis, but the epiphany I had was, I'd rather own a hundred percent of a million dollar deal. I'd rather own a hundred percent of a gas station or a McDonald's than, than 10% of a hundred million dollar deal. You know, it's the, the money's the, or, or 1% of a hundred million dollar deal. Right. The money's the same. So we stopped having outside partners, and we kind of, the, my older partner and I went separate ways and, and we started over doing the deals with our own capital. Uh, so I, I told you we'd done roughly a hundred deals in the portfolio. We have roughly 35. So we were selling, in order to, to have our own capital, we had to sell two out of three. Uh, and so we'd sell and, and we'd trade into the next one. You know, like that old joke, uh, we buy junk and sell antiques, you know? Yeah. Oh, are you buying, are you selling any of your properties now? Are you in the process of selling? Uh, no. Right, right now I'm not, uh, because the market is terrible to sell. Yeah. I'll give you a data point. We have a little, uh, an oil changers called Take five, uh, on a 15 year ground lease in a, in a decent little bay area town. Uh, my partner on that said, this goes back six months, let's put it on the market, uh, at a 4 75 cap. I said, yeah, okay, sure. Whatever puts it on the market. Crickets. And then he, he would like the cash. And so he says, John, let, let's lower the, lower the price, raise the cap to five and a core more crickets. And then, then finally, uh, maybe two months ago, let's push it to six. Uh, and again, not a single response. And we own the property free and clear eyes said, okay, forget it. Let's just take it off the market. You know, the, uh, there just isn't a lot of financing out there. And I think what's happened is we've worked our way through most of the 10 31 buyers, you know, that, that, that had stuff from one times or better. So my guess is that the velocity, uh, of deals is way off, uh, in my world, you know, retail and offices. I'm sure it's zero. And I can't opine a multi-family. I, I think is way off as well. Yeah. I mean, with that, what are your views right now of what's happening with the office and retail market? I mean, uh, what do you see it going? I mean, I know you don't have a crystal ball, but I mean, you've got, you've got properties right now. What, what are you doing with your tenants and what do you see happening? Yeah. And even on the broader scale with some of the writings, you know, well, yeah, Just in general, you know, in the current market. But Yeah, I, I think that the neighborhood retail even what, what everybody, all the pundits, you know, and the, and the business writers, cuz the, the business writers don't really understand business and, and you can't blame them. They, they're trying to, to write about every business in the world. Uh, you guys know it, our business, it's really specific as to location and as to the type. So in our portfolio, our neighborhood supermarket anchored centers are doing great. You know, we're, we're nearly, we're within basis points of being full. Our mixed use stuff, uh, which is, you know, the retail below office or, or residential that's dependent on the daytime populations, right? That's dependent, dependent on office workers. So the mix use stuff is suffering right now. Uh, and it, it will continue to do so until, if, until people come back to the office, which, as an aside, I think they will ultimately. But it's, it's gonna take a while. Uh, apartments, you know, from what I can tell, you know, you know, all those big fancy apartment buildings that, that I'm sure they just like in, uh, in Northern California, Southern California is full of them. None of those deals that have been built in the last three or four years, uh, it, uh, are above water. You know, the, the, the rents have drop, app operates have gone up. You know, I, at the apartment world, I, I think it's going to cool very quickly, um, if the, the big time apartment builders were like, uh, yes. Silicon Valley Bank and, and had to, you know, clear that they'd be underwater. Yeah, no, that's right. Seems like they're reaching a peak as to how high rents can really get, especially given the downturn, you know, in employment and, and labor. So, uh, interesting. So how, how, how have you changed your strategy, uh, over the last six months to a year, given the hike and interest rates, the bank failures coming outta the pandemic? Yeah, we, we, I put all with one exception, one small, uh, residential project here in Palo Alto. Small, but, you know, very expensive residential projects. I put all of our development deals on hold. Uh, the, they, they aren't making sense. Uh, we've walked away from a couple, we've assigned, uh, our, our rights to a couple to, uh, more aggressive developers. And I wish them well. Uh, we we're being cautious. And so when my partners, um, the younger, the operating partners bring me a deal, I say, look, the only deal that I want to do right now is one that I'll be arrested for stealing. So, you know, I it's gotta be existing as it's got's gotta be a brilliant price. I don't, I don't think it, it's worth it to take the risk right now. And so we're looking, but again, I haven't seen deals like that yet. Uh, but I think on the margin that there, there will be some. So I, I'm kind of optimistic that we can pick off a couple deals in the next couple years. So, so using, and I know I've, I've seen one of your lectures about sports, uh, where you use baseball as an analogy. Yeah, yeah. Uh, how would you say the current market is right now in a sports term? Um, you know, are we, uh, in the, uh, fourth quarter? Are we in the first quarter? We at halftime? Where are we? Boy, you mentioned those quarters that hurts because of you. The, the Lakers just trounced to Warriors. Well, yeah, the Lakers, I wasn't, the Lakers are getting it back right now with, uh, Denver. So Yeah, I wasn't gonna go There with that series with you, John. I wasn't figure We got SoCal NoCal, we, we could talk about Lakers voice. Yeah, I I I'm all in on the nuggets at this point, you know, just for, for retribution, I guess I, I I think it's gonna be a bumpy couple years, uh, uh, a very bumpy couple years. Uh, there, there opportunities will, will be kind of hit and miss through the next couple years. I think the office market will take longer than that to work through. I do think people will come back. Uh, and, and again, it is, we mentioned before we started, I think actually in San Francisco in particular, I, I don't know about southern California. I think if you have, uh, probably somebody else's money and, and a lot of, um, uh, what's the term? Uh, a lot of optimism and now might be the time to buy office buildings. Cause the, the, the news is so unrelentingly bad, uh, that I think you, you probably saw, and there's a building in San Francisco, three 50 California, right? Good building. Uh, it's an escrow at around two 30 a foot, I think a million Right? From 300, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and a couple years ago would've been the better part of a thousand dollars a foot. So, uh, you know, I, I think there, there are deals out there right now, and Especially if you have the cash, well, you don't have to rely on the financing or you can get away with the, uh, private money. Uh, you could get a good deal because you can close 'em quick and before they think about it, you can get the price you want. Yeah. I, I can remember, you know, I, this is why I hate predicting things. I remember in, uh, 92, the, the, the San Francisco office market with was similar, not, not quite as bad, but there was an ocean of space available. And I kind of looked around and said, how is this space ever going to be filled up again? And, and of course it was. Yeah, I think that, and, and the guys who came in with, again, with other people's money primarily, but the snapshot stuff up did really well. So I, I think that can happen. But, you know, there does seem to be, uh, some things do need to be done, though, I think with, with the downtowns, you know, in California on the structural side, political side, you know, we don't wanna make it a political thing, but, you know, you don't have to feel comfortable commuting, you know? No, you're absolutely right. And and unfortunately politics do get involved. You and I have to feel safe walking around downtown. Uh, now the, the reality is it's not nearly as bad as the perception. Uh, you and I would feel totally safe, uh, walking around San Francisco, but you, it, there are some unpleasant scenes we've come across, you know, the, the homeless and drug addicts and whatnot. But, uh, that, that has to be fixed. The, um, one of the issues that the Nordstrom, we talked about the, uh, closing and then the whole foods is closed. Uh, a number of the retailers in San Francisco closed because of the, uh, what we call shrink in the retail business, the, the, the theft. Uh, until, and it's not so much the San Francisco issue as a California issue. I, I guess I'm sure you guys know that we could, the three of us could each deal $950 a day worth of, of goods. And then so that comes out to be, what, $350,000 a year and never go to jail? Yeah. Uh, they, they've gotta change that law people ha, property crime has to be prosecuted. Well, There's, there's no, yeah, there's no, um, retribution. I mean, they, they get away. They just walk in, walk out, and they know they're not gonna get prosecuted. There's not gonna be anything for it. And that happens a lot down in here in Southern California as well. It's not just in San Francisco. Yeah, no. That, that has to change people, you know, I I, I'm sorry for them, but they, they, you've gotta go to jail, uh, and Right. Anyway, so, and the problem Is, you know, you could, you could feel bad for, you know, you, you house this one person, but then the next day you have someone from, uh, you know, North Carolina that hears about California's rules. And then, you know, it's the same, you know, the, the streets full, but now it's from people from other states. Cuz they hear how nice we are. Well, they come here, it's great. Exactly. We have 30% of the, the country's homeless. But on, on a positive note, let's say you were able to wipe the city clean. Are there any regions of California, maybe other states that you look at and say, yeah, if things were right, I would look at going into that market. That's a hospitable place to develop these days. Are are there any of those markets that you see out there in Cali or around the country? You know, guys, I've always been really lazy. And so all of, You know, I I I like to travel, but I like to travel for fun. And the idea of getting on a plane and going to Wichita to, to see whether I'm gonna buy a little shopping center and say, yeah, life's too short for that. So all of our real developments have been within a two hour drive of, say, San Francisco. Uh, the, I I bought a couple of, like the, the, the little shopping center I bought in Orange County that was a hundred percent leased. And there wasn't anything to do with it other than to buy it. Right, right, right. Um, so I don't really go out of state, but I got one shopping center in, uh, Oregon, which was just a, it was a, a existing deal, didn't require any development, didn't require any local knowledge. It, it was a Vader Joe's anchored center. And I said, yeah, sure, this works. But I, I like to, for a development, I like to be able to get up in the morning and drive to the city hall to, to meet with the planning director, talk about it, and then get back to the office by lunchtime. You know, it just, it's a lot easier. Uh, so all of our developments are, are are local smart. So, John, tell us, tell us a little bit more about your books and your columns. I mean, you know, you share a lot of valuable information, uh, yeah. That most developers don't. And, uh, just, just what, what drove you to, to get into that? Well, first of all, uh, thanks, Aaron. I I, thanks for that softball question. I appreciate it. Yeah. You Know, You know, uh, yeah. It just seems to me that, you know, I, I, I could, let's stick with baseball. I, I, I can show you how, how to put your hand on, on, on the seams for, you know, a four seam fast ball or a slider, and then I can say throw it 95 miles an hour. You know, I, I, I can explain that to you, but it's still really hard to do. And so I, I, I really haven't been too worried about people coming in, uh, and, and, and stealing deals from us. I, my first love has always been writing. I I was a journalism major in college. If you had asked me when I was 21, Hey, John, you want to be a developer? I'd say, what the, is that, you know, is that a guy that works at Kodak? Uh, you know, I be, Uh, and so I, it's, it's my hobby. It's, it's kinda my passion, uh, and the book, can I, I did an interview with, uh, the registry magazine now, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago. And, and they said, Hey, John, you're, why don't you do this interview? And I said, you know, I sound a lot smarter on paper than I do, uh, verbally. So I said, just gimme the questions, and, and I'll put them, uh, and I'll, I'll write up the answers. And so I did that, and they said, Hey, you know, you can write, why don't you write for us? And so that I kind of fell into writing a real estate column. And then after doing that for a number of years, somebody said, Hey, you ought turn this into a book. Hmm. And since it was already mostly done, and again, being lazy, I said, sure, I'll do it. So what do you know, I just, just happened to have it right here. Great. It's on Amazon. You Amazon, It's on Amazon. Great book. Yeah. And, and people tell me all the time, I, I get fan mail, you know, for, for one of a, uh, you know, I don't know part of a better word, but I, I hear from a lot of people, uh, about the book, and, and it, it's, that book does quite well. Anyway. It's fun. I love to write and, and I, I, sharing doesn't bother me, but you, but you're right. A lot of guys won't, you know, that they won't tell you what time it is. Well, and it's time consuming to write. I mean, maybe you just, maybe it just comes right off, but, you know, No takes Time consuming. Yeah. But it, it, it's fun. I, I like doing it. Uh, you know, you, you can only do so many deals. Uh, well, some guys never stop, but, right. Uh, you know, I love doing deals, but there's more to life than that. And so, uh, writing I think is a good balance. And, and also, uh, you know, I'll write about stuff that is not exactly in my wheelhouse. So it, it, Steve, to your point, if, if someone says, Hey, write it, think something about, uh, neighborhood shopping centers, you know, I can do that off the top of my head. I don't need to do any research. But if I'm gonna write about, which I think my next essay will be about, uh, the plausibility of converting office towers into residential, th that's gonna require some effort and some research in talking to contractors and, and residential developers. And so I can learn something about it, which I think is fun. Uh, and I haven't decided yet how plausible that really is by Way. Well, I think it's, well, I have, I have a two part question for you. So one, the first part is, if, if knowing what you know from your history and you were starting out today, what, what part of the business would you get into? Um, I, I would, I would still start out with a, a single family house or a duplex. Uh, and in fact, there's a talk that I gave. It's, it's on YouTube somewhere about this. I, I think everything you need to know to be a successful developer, it is contained, you know, within just buying a house, you, you've gotta find the broker, you've gotta do the right due diligence. You've gotta price it, right? You've gotta do the work to fix it up. You know, all the components are there. It, it's, they're simplified. And then the thing we have going for us in California with residential is you have a zero vacancy factor. Any other, maybe industrials close to that right now, but all of the other, uh, disciplines in real estate have a vacancy factor. So if I were a kid and people come in and see me all the time and I say, just go buying the worst house in the best neighborhood you can afford and do it and fix it up. Sell it. And, and if that works for you, do it again. Do it again. And it's essentially what I did. And then you can grow into more complicated deals. Uh, and I don't think that it matters that I'm in retail. Be, uh, you know, it seems like a straight line looking back, but at the time it was a fluke. It was only because I had an older partner that was a retail guy. Uh, I'm sure I would've been happy doing, um, office or a residential or industrial. I don't think of that matters so much, Steve. I think what matters is, is not what you do, but where you do it. Like if, if we, if we, the three of us were the smartest guys in the room, and we went back to my hometown, Lancaster, we'd go broke. Yeah. Cuz it it's the wrong location. Yeah. Yeah. We, whatever we're doing, uh, you know, we wanna be in a town with strong growth, uh, you know, and, and real estate is, is, you know, we're the guys who provide the, the shovels and the picks and the pans and the tents to the, to the gold miners. So you have to be a place like in Texas it's energy. In New York it's finance, and here it's tech. Where you guys are, it's Hollywood on strike. It's Hollywood Entertainment, combiner tech. Right? Yeah. The New, uh, but, but you know, so what's the local growth engine? What are the prospects for growth? You know? And so when, when I've given talks around the country, I remember once, uh, sorry, anybody from Ohio, but I, I was, I was in Cleveland and people were asking me this question, you know, what to do. And I was kind of, you know, biting my lip because I wanted to say, you kids gotta get the hell out of Ohio. Right. But I, I couldn't say that. But, uh, guess I, as far as I could tell, Cleveland's a zero sum game. If, if, if I build a, a nice new office building, the only tenants I'm going to get are from an existing building. So Right. Until that, until Swing occurs, until occurs and then changes the trajectory. I think your, your point, kinda his feeling a little bit of that Research. Um, so I think you answered the second part of my question, which was if, if a, if a, if someone fresh, not with your experience, but some, a kid came to you and said, where should I go? You know, how should I start off in the business? Sounds like you answered that with the same question. Yeah. Start buy. Yeah. You know, where do you think there's, there's gonna be good solid growth over the next 30 years? And, uh, you know, the, the national trend, of course is the, the southeast, southwest. Uh, and I'm glad I don't have to move there. Right. I'm just talking to a friend, uh, this morning about Austin and he just said, yeah, it's great for business, but it is just so damn hot in the Summer. Yeah, no, it's, uh, I, I used to live in Florida, so I know, uh, Well, uh, That kind of humidity and heat, not fun. I'd have a tough time leaving, uh, my kids the coast and Yosemite, you know, so those things We're on that, you know. Sorry. So we talked about the Lakers and Golden State. What, what are your, what interests you do you into sports? Are you have any hobbies that you like to do? Pickleball? I mean, what, what, what is, what interests you outside of real estate? Yeah. I, people and my friends call me the world's worst sports fan cause I'm the last guy to get on the bandwagon. I mean, the team has to really look like they're gonna nail it. And then I'm, I'm like the first guy to pull a rip chord, you know? Cause life is hard enough. L l life has enough in the way of, of drawbacks. I, I just hate rooting for losers. You know, I, you know, I, I, I went to Cal to Berkeley and you know that they've never had a good football team. I, I, I not go and watch them lose year after year. So when the Warriors are great, I was all over the Warriors. Uh, and when the Giants, so, you know, but the, the moment, you know, they, they start to play mediocre. Uh, I, I love to read, I love to write, I love, you know, I work out a lot. You know, spend time with my family, travel a bit, uh, you know, life's good. How about Charities? Are you involved in any, uh, uh, charities that we could give a plug to? Oh, sure. Uh, uh, actually, a, a fair bit. You know, I I, and thanks for asking that. I, I, and I, I try to end my, my talks to these kids with the, the end of the day, you know, once you get a little bit of traction to get a little bit of money, start thinking about giving back, you know, and, and not just your money, but your time. Yeah. So the ones that I've been most involved with are Outward Bound, uh, which is a national organization. Um, sure. Basically helps not only kids, not only teenagers, but adults, uh, become their better selves, uh, and become more confident, uh, more compassionate, uh, more human if you will, uh, through, uh, experiences in the woods. Uh, you know, it is, it's a fabulous organization and it's not, not that well known. Another, which is that I, I work with quite a bit is called Rebuilding Together. Used to be called Christmas in April. Hmm. It's, it's the, uh, four cousin of, um, habitat for Humanity. Right? Everybody knows Habitat cuz of Jimmy Carter Habitat helps, uh, a poor family build one house. And, and the, the family helps 'em build it from the ground up. And, you know, so maybe a Habitat in it's nationwide, their organizations, maybe they'll do 10 or 12 houses a year. Rebuilding Together takes a different approach. It helps people, usually very old people, usually widows who are in their homes, uh, who are no longer physically or financially or emotionally able to keep their houses up, but, but could stay there. You know, the house is kind of falling down around them. And so what Rebuilding does is they, they bring together volunteers, uh, construction captains, and they'll say, okay lady, here's what we'll do for you. We'll put in, we'll replace these leaky toilets. We'll put in these new floors, we'll paint the outside. Uh, and it's a wonderful experience. The, so the volunteers, uh, and I've been heavily involved in that for over 20 years. I, they're, And I, how about the firm? They're great. Uh, the, the group, they're great cuz they were, uh, the beneficiary charity at several of my events, the Rebuilding Silicon Valley, they've got Rebuilding Orange County. And I, I think they also, one of the great things too is they rebuild f charity facilities. Right? Like, that's right. Facility that a charity may have that is needs upkeep or whatever, you know, they'll go in and fix those properties up, which I thought was amazing too. Right. So The's Community Centers, right? Churches, uh, boys Club. Yeah. Boys and Girls Club. Yeah. They, they, they do a lot of that. They've run Around the state with the, the different names on the end, which I think is fabulous. That's great. Yeah. And then that, that's, it's a good organization to be part of. And that makes you Yeah. With it. So, in, in, in wrapping this up, tell us what the future holds for John. I hope more of the things, any Office Come on. You'd be, you should run for an office. Come on. I should run the road now, now the Book. Yeah. You know, I, I actually, uh, I am, I think I, I've said everything I can say about, uh, real estate. So I, I don't think I'm gonna write another real estate book. In fact, it annoys me when I see these guys come have one good book or one good idea. And then they, they milk it with the volume two, volume three, volume four, and it's like, it's the same Thing over and over again. Yeah, same thing over and over again. So actually what I, I just published a novel, uh, which was my first love, and it's called O'Brien's Law. And what do you know? I happen to have that, right? Wow, That's good. Yeah. Is there, is there real estate? Is there a real estate angle in there? No, it, it, it's about what do you know? A a a young lawyer who, who, uh, he's a cocky idiot, uh, set in the seventies, and he thinks he's a brilliant lawyer and he's not, uh, he doesn't know anything. And his, his law firm, one of the partners is trying to get rid of him. So they give him this terrible case to work on. Uh, total, uh, loser, the hero O'Brien. He is basically looking for love and, and accepting one night stance until he can find love. He's lazy. Uh, but he gets into this case. And what do you know, there's a murder involved and it's kind of a murder mystery. It's fun. Well, That's good. Sounds like a show on Amazon at some point there, John. Yeah. Does anybody out there from Amazon, you just listening? You know, call me. We can, we can make a deal. Well, maybe, maybe my daughter who's a screenwriter can help you with some of that stuff too. Give me her job. Well, She's, she's a little busy right now. Striking, you know, You know. Well, you know, again, thank you for the, for the time and sharing your thoughts. Are there any other issues that, you know, you'd like to touch on that we haven't covered that, you know, think are important in, in the times that we're in, in terms of, uh, the real estate business or how you see things going for it? I, I think we covered most of, most of everything. Yeah. I, I think we did cover it. Um, I'm shooting 10 minutes after we got off. I'll say, oh my God, John, you should have said blah, blah, blah. But Well, you know what? We'll have you back we'll, uh, when we do one of our, uh, events up there, we'll have you, uh, speak at the event. So we're Sure, happy to, definitely, We'll definitely utilize you. But, uh, really appreciate you to spending time with us, John, uh, great. Get to know you and, and fascinating, uh, history of you and your company and everything about you. So thank you very much. And thanks. Thank you, Arne. Thank you, Steve. What you're doing for the industry with sharing and, and writing and, uh, best of luck with, uh, the future deals. Yes. Okay. Appreciate it. Thanks guys. Take care. Bye guys. Bye. Hey, You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, Redwood Mortgage and Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/85237519.txt b/data/transcripts/85237519.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/852462696.txt b/data/transcripts/852462696.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4466aba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/852462696.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, Welcome to this new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, where we have what we hope to be interesting and compelling conversations with leaders in the commercial real estate industry. And I am very excited about today's show because our guest is the co-founder and c e o of a real estate company that I have been a huge fan of for a long time because of their creative and impactful projects. And that is Barry d Raimondo, c e o of Steel Wave. But before we bring in Barry, let me first introduce myself and my co-host. I'm Steve Blum, founder and c e o of Rent tv, the news and media company for the commercial real estate industry now in our 24th year with our news website, rent tv.com, where you'll find daily news trans about transactions, deals, developments. Uh, we also have our conference business and our video platform, the review, our new searchable video platform for the commercial real estate industry, which is where you are watching this show. And let me introduce my co-host and the producer of the show, my good friend, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie. Hey, how you doing? Steve? Uh, Arnie Garfinkel with the All-Star Group. Uh, we do commercial real estate as a loan broker. We also do events. The All-Star Group does a number of events throughout the state of California related to commercial real estate. We believe in networking, a lot of networking. Actually, our next event is coming up in San Francisco on August 29th, and we hope to see you there. And I'm real interested to talk to Barry about what's happening up there in the Bay Area. Yeah, especially coming, uh, you know, on the morning af on the heels of, uh, another quarter point interest rate hike. And speaking about events, Arnie, you know, we're doing our Greater LA event. Our next one is August 17th at the Hilton in, uh, Culver City on Ella Boulevard. We have a great lineup of high powered speakers, so we look forward to seeing you there. Um, and one more piece of business before we bring in Barry. And that is to mention the sponsors of the show who make this all possible. And let's start with Paramount Property tax Appeal with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease. One way you can fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes lower. The deadline to file is November 30th. So call Paramount Property Tax Appeal at 8 5 8 2 2 5 1200. Ask for West Nichols with Paramount Property Tax appeal. Our next sponsor is Redwood Mortgage. Redwood is a direct private money lender with over 44 years of experience lending on commercial mixed use, multifamily and residential investment properties. Loans range from 200,000 to $10 million lending in all major metro areas of California and Arizona. Redwood has long held expertise in commercial loan transactions. Contact Redwood at 1 806 5 9 6 5 9 3, or www.redwoodmortgage.com for more information. A good place to go when the bank says no. And last, but certainly not least, is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms as well as inexpensive solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Simington, that's Tiffany Simington. And book your next inspection today at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. The number's on the screen, 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Well, Steve, I think it's time to bring in our guests. Yeah, now let's get to the show. I know we're in for an extremely interesting, informative discussion given the backdrop of the challenges in the economy, especially in the office sector, Arnie, uh, and in developing. So with that said, let's bring in Barry de Raimondo, co-founder and c e o of Steel Wave. Hey, Barry. Hey Barry. Welcome to the show. Hey guys, Good to see you guys. Well, you see us now? Yep. See, now, thank You for making the time. Uh, I'm really excited about this conversation. I've been tracking your company for a while and have been a big fan of, uh, what you've been able to, to accomplish. So with that said, why don't we start by having you give us a kind of quick overview of, of the company, the size of the portfolio, geography, and, uh, and how, how, where, where'd the name come from? Well, okay, so we're a West coast based operating company. You know, we buy transition and develop life science office, but not traditional office, what I would call creative office, kind of differentiated stuff, uh, and industrial. And you know, I would say at least 85% of what we do is heavy lift, physically, you know, where where it, it's a radical reposition or ground up development. And our markets are all tech dominated. You know, it's, uh, tech oriented, whether it's biotech, traditional tech, uh, media, tech, you know, go down the list, defense, tech, creative tech. And, you know, the platform really is Seattle, Portland, although I don't see us doing much in Portland for a while. Uh, the Bay Area, uh, la Orange County, San Diego, uh, Denver and Austin. So they're all pretty heavy tech places. And and that's really by design, right? You know, our target customer is in the high growth industry, right? What, whatever that high growth industry is in tech, their real estate costs are generally a small percentage of their operating costs, right? And they view real estate as a strategic asset as opposed to a cost center, something that needs to be minimized. So, you know, that's who we're going for. We're not going for back office, we're not going for lawyers, we're not going for accountants, we're not going for insurance companies. So it, it's a very, it's a very specific, uh, group. And, um, and we've been doing a long time, you know, So let, lemme zero in a little bit gi give our audience a a bit. So currently, uh, how many properties, uh, roughly are, are in your portfolio, uh, that you're, that you're managing now? You know, we're merchant builders, so we don't hang onto stuff, right? Right. I mean, we, we have to sell assets in order to recycle cash. You know, we, we do on an annual basis, new starts or new acquisitions somewhere in the order of 500 million to $2 billion a year. So we're actually pretty sizable. Yeah. Um, so, you know, when I look at how big our portfolio is, I really look more historically, right? Since I've been with the group, I think we've done about 350 deals, Ah, North of 130 million square feet, uh, $18 billion a cost. Um, so yeah, we've been doing it a long time and really almost five decades with our predecessor companies because, you know, when I came out of school, I joined Lincoln Property Company and worked for a guy named Louis Belmont, who was a bit of an icon in the industrial world, you know, so I was building warehouses when I came out of school. And Lincoln morphed into Legacy Partners, you know, in 1998, president Butcher, who was the, uh, patriarch of, you know, the western region of Lincoln, uh, another icon, Preston. Yeah, Preston. And, you know, some of the senior team of which I was one bought out Mac Pogue from the operating company and we changed the name to Legacy Partners. And then in 2013, and we had two companies, they had two operating companies that operated independently. There was Legacy Partners Residential, and there was Legacy Partners commercial. And I ran Legacy Partners commercial, a guy named Dean Henry ran, you know, residential. And Preston was always a multi-family guy. He just tolerated us over on the commercial side, you know, we were definitely the black sheep of the program. And in 2013, you know, Preston sat down with me and said, look, given my age, you know, I'm at a point where I need to start playing defense as opposed to offense. So if you can, if you can take me out of the company, I'd appreciate it. So, you know, we ended up recapping Preston out of the company and changed the name to Steel Wave. Okay. Now, how did Steel, how did you come up with Steel Wave? Um, where did that come? Well, We had two mandates, maybe three mandates. One, we needed to be able to copyright it. That was, that was number one. Number two, we didn't want it to sound like a real estate company. Ah, we wanted to have kind of a younger vibe, which meant I didn't wanna have partners in there. I didn't want black, I didn't want rock, I didn't want ventures. I didn't want realty. So we hired this team of gals to come up with all these names, right? And every week they'd come back. They were outside consultants and they'd have about 10 different names, all of which they thought were the best names in the world. And we'd pick two or three of 'em, and then we'd give 'em to our trademark attorney who, you know, would bounce 'em off. And after about three months of doing this, I said, we don't have a name problem. We got a lawyer problem. You Know, so I tossed that guy and, uh, brought in another guy and next thing you know, we settled on Steel Wave. You know, it was just something that was different. Had nothing to do with steel or anything to do with waves. It just, uh, well, They could get, you know, they could give, I know you a whole laundry list of stuff of what it was, but, you know, at the end of the day, it's just bologna, right? It's just, hey, it sounds cool. Well, you know, lemme ask you Barry. It's Like construction, you know, development on the West Coast, you know, that that's what it, you know, what you Think of it's steel and it's bend. You know, you, we kind of bob and weave. I mean, they had a whole litany of stuff of why it works. I have family in the steel business. That's, that's the main reason why I wanted to know. It had nothing to do with, uh, anything other than that. Um, so, Well, the good news, it's not spelt s t e A L. That would definitely cause an issue. So Barry, what got you started in real estate? Now, I know from your background, we talked a little earlier. You, you were in the painting business somewhat, uh, but what did you, what made you start in the real estate business? Might have been painting, might have been anything else, but what was it that got you into it? Well, it, it, it was painting in high school. We ended up starting up a small little painting company. We didn't know what we were doing. And it sort of carried all the way through into, you know, it's, it's what started is painting houses morphed into building fences and decks, which morphed into, you know, kitchens and, and bathroom remodels and ultimately into building spec homes. And so, you know, that's, that gave me at least a look. I, I, I like building stuff. I mean, it's just, that's just how I'm wired. And that's probably what pointed me in the, in the real estate direction. Although that's, that's not what I was trained in. You know, I was trained as a biochemist out of Berkeley. Yeah. And, uh, you know, as we talked briefly about, you know, my path was supposed to be medicine, you know, so I graduated from Berkeley, spent some time, you know, doing research, trying to figure out if I wanted to be a PhD. Uh, ultimately applied to med school, got in and decided that's not what I wanted to do. So I thought, you know, the best optionality was to go to graduate school in business. And that's what I did. And, and I think the goal when I went back east to business school was to do one or two things to either leverage the, the whole biochem thing and go work for a Genentech or someone like that when I came out of school or, you know, go into real estate. And, you know, one thing led to another and I started out a Lincoln Property company and, and just kept going from there. Nice. Uh, well, I'm gonna confuse Arnie here and combine a couple of questions that our next questions here. But, uh, so going, going from there, when you look back, what was your first deal that you think of that really took you to the next level, you know, that you accomplished that said, Hey, you know, now I'm, uh, take, you know, got myself to the next plateau? You know, I think it was just a gradual evolution. You know, when, when I started out, I was building warehouses, actually, what I was doing was leasing warehouse space and managing warehouses. That's basically how the program was set up. And then over time, you know, you start buying land and you become a development. And this was back in the, the mid eighties, right? Which was a complete PhD in real estate, you know, in the mid eighties. You know, real estate was just becoming institutional in nature. But we had no idea what we were doing. I mean, none of us at Lincoln had any, we would have investment packages that were three pages, you know, that we were given to Matt Aetna and these guys. I mean, the, the only thing that saved us is that the Capital Partners had even less idea what they were doing. This, this wasn't an institutional business, right? So, you know, building warehouses sort of morphed in. And then I left for a period of time and, and started doing multifamily and single family for a couple years. And then I came back and I said, look, you know, know rents and warehouse are pretty low and your fees are all driven off the rents. I said, let's step it up and do office where the rents are higher and the fees will be higher. Right? So we stepped it up into office and started doing office and it, and it was very much Silicon Valley centric at the time. Um, Well, let me, let me, and then let me zero in on on on what you're saying now. So, you know, if it was more of a gradual step up to that next level, when you look back over all the transactions you've bought and sold properties you've bought and sold, are there any that stand out as ones that you really, you know, really succeeded on, you know, that, uh, that you really look back as a standout of your career? Look, I don't look, I don't look back on deals as standouts. I look back on deals, you know, is there a story that people can relate to? And, and I think there's a couple that do actually, you know, I think this was back in 19, I guess it was actually 2000. It was 2000. And, and we'd had in the Silicon Valley a gigantic run up and rents and everything through the whole intercom in the whole internet thing, not dotcom stuff. And at the time, we were doing a ton of business with Goldman Sachs White Home, and there was a, a user in the Silicon Valley called Silicon Graphics. And they had built, I think they were the absolute front runner in, in the space of creative office. They had built an office building that no one could figure out. It was like a student union. It wasn't an office. It was, it was a completely non-traditional office building that felt like you were walking around the campus at Stanford. And they did it, you know, by design to attract kids, you know, coming outta school. And Goldman Sachs was their investment banker, and they went to Goldman Sachs and they said, look, what we'd like to do is sell the property. And they had three or four other properties and they said, we wanna sell the properties and we wanna scale back out of these properties on a sale lease back. So we're gonna have put options to, you know, move out of these properties. And so we bought these things, they're in Mountain View, and, uh, within about three months, the market imploded. You know, the whole.com thing just came unhinged. And rents literally overnight went from $6 net per square foot per month to a buck 50. I mean, it was a complete implosion. Right? And as part of that, you know, Silicon Graphics needed to accelerate their puts. So they were shrinking back, you know, faster than, you know, we had anticipated. And we were just praying that they wouldn't give us back that damn student union building. 'cause we, we had literally no idea what we were gonna do with this thing. And, and this is probably a year into, you know, the market swoon. And along comes this company called Google. We never heard, they hadn't gone public yet. We didn't even know what a search engine was. We had no idea. Right. And they wanted to take that student union building, and we actually turned them down on a lease 'cause we couldn't understand their business plan. And then about five months later, after talking to Zero prospects, they came back and we said, okay, we'll sign a 15 year lease with you. And it was fairly flat, but because we don't know much about you, we're not gonna give you much of an interior a ti. We'll give you five bucks a foot, that's all we're gonna give you. And, uh, they spent most of it on those Japanese toilets. They took all the bathrooms, yanked out all the traditional, you know, piping and everything, and, and put in, you know, you know, the Japanese blow and do all these kind of toilets in there. It was unbeliev. And today it's their world headquarters. They ended up buying the thing. They had an option to buy it. You know, we had immediately written down the asset by 50 million bucks. Right. And they had an option to buy the asset. They were paying a buck 50 rent. It was flat for 15 years. That was like a 10 cap environment. So that's 18 bucks. And they had an option to pay 350 bucks a foot for it when it was worth less than 200. And they triggered it out of the blue. Um, and that became their world headquarters. And, you know, look, it's, uh, it's always better to be lucky than good. That's, That's a great story. That's Great. On the converse, which one would you like to give back? Which one do you wish you didn't do that? That, uh, well, or did you forget about it? An equity wipeouts. An equity wipeout. Right. And you've been in this business long enough. You've had a couple of 'em, but, you know, we did, we did a deal down in San Diego, and this was actually not to, it's kind of in the same timeframe where if, if you've been to San Diego, most people think San Diego's actually very flat, but there's a lot of topography in San Diego. Yeah. And we bought a piece of land from the cellar who owned this land. There was a building on it, and he was gonna mass grave because he owned, you know, a big site. And we were just taking a piece of it. And the deal was, okay, we'll buy this thing, but you have to mass grade this thing and build two pads for us, right? And then we're gonna build two buildings on it. Um, which he did. We built two buildings on this thing. It's called The Point. And it sits down off of the Highway 15 corridor. And it's elevated, it's elevated above the 15. It sits probably a hundred feet ish above the 15th. And so we build these buildings, we're getting ready to sell 'em. And the parking field, there's this huge parking field in front of the buildings between the buildings and the, and the highway. And all of a sudden we start to see these cracks in the, in the parking field. And, you know, there were, there was part of building that pad was, there was a 20 foot retaining wall that, that he had to build. And we figured that the retaining wall was starting to sell, and the cracks would go away. So like a good developer, we fix the cracks and re respray painted the, the parking lot. And, uh, and then we realized that the cracks were actually coming inboard to the, to the building. And we said, I don't think that's a wall issue. So what we ended up doing was, and we had a world class roster of tenants. You know, we had Siemens, Sony, you know, I mean, it was, the building was fully leased. And so we brought out a geologist and we dug down. We, we basically went down probably about a hundred feet down, and we put what's called an inclinometer down there. And it's a, it's a little device that tells you if there's any kind of micro movement going on. And you check it after about six months. And, you know, if you're moving your, well, it turns out that there was a deep underground landslide under our building that was basically moving towards the freeway that we had to fix. And the fix was gonna be not on our site. It was all gonna be on Caltrans site. So we dug 1830 inch diameter bores around the site and lowered, and, and these are all about 90 feet deep, just a, a hole down. And we lowered a geologist in a cage down these things. And he had his little light on, and he was trying to figure out where the fracture was, you know, of the landslide. And, uh, believe it or not, we were able to stabilize this thing. The fix was 29 million bucks. Oh, wow. And, uh, the cost of the project, you know, Sam's the fix was only 50 million bucks. So we had a $29 million bust. And, uh, believe it or not, we didn't lose any money on the Deal's. Nice. It's a nice piece of property. I know that. I know that. Yeah. That's, but, and it's still there. It's actually hasn't slid down the hill. I'm pretty happy about that. Um, go ahead. You were gonna ask next question, Steve, or Yeah. Well, let's get into, uh, current day. Uh, you know, why don't you, uh, tell us about, uh, I mean, I'm a big fan of, you know, the plant and some of your current projects, but why don't you tell us about some of the current projects you're excited about, uh, that you're working on? Well, look, I think in a nutshell, we're very much design driven. And in a nutshell, you know, what I tell the team is, you know, our mission is to create highly differentiated workspaces that people actually want to come to work in. Right? We're not in the commodity business. And so it, it is creating kind of design forward workspaces that people want to hang out in. So, you know, there's a, a theme that runs through all of our projects. And, you know, people say, well, what's your style? We don't really have a style. You know, we have a process that we go through. And so every project's a little bit different. You know, what we do in Denver, you know, we're not gonna do the same thing in LA that we do in Denver. We may bring some elements, but you know, you, you try and take into account the bones of the asset, what's surrounding it, and you come up with a story, and the design really just expresses the story. So, you know, I think we have a bunch of stuff going on, but I think some of the stuff that's worth talking about is we bought an LA Times printing facility in Costa Mesa. Yep. And, you know, if you've ever seen a printing facility, it is just a gigantic warehouses with these printers inside of it, you know, that are 50 feet tall. And we looked at this thing and we were gonna convert it into mixed use. We were gonna convert it into super cool, um, creative office, and then we were gonna have a 50,000 square foot market hall, something that they just didn't have down in the area at all. Um, and what we did to that building is pretty unbelievable. I mean, it, it is just spectacular. And in the heart of Covid, a group called Andel came by and least that building as well as a new building that we built for them. Another 200,000 feet, 650,000 square feet in, in the absolute heart of, of Covid. And, you know, the, the user, I don't know if you've read anything about, you know, Andro, but you know, they're probably the premier military drone, you know, sort of new wave guys. But I think what we did to that building is, is, is, is pretty spectacular. And it's called the Press. Yeah, I'm looking Really nice. Yeah. Great product. Another deal that we did that we're in the middle of it, we're just finishing up, is a miniature version. It's like a mini me of the press. Um, and it's up in la and we bought, um, these old warehouses, which was just a, you know, they'd been built over a period of time. And, you know, we did something similar to the press. You know, we peeled back the, the roof line, we skeletonized it, we cut holes in it, created all this super cool indoor outdoor space, and it's called Casitas. And it came with some extra land. And, and now we're building another building next to it. I'm looking at that one right now. That, that's amazing. The way, uh, what part of town is that in? It's an Atwater Village, right? That's, It's an Atwater Village. Yeah. That's the Bohemian style, if I recall correctly. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it is Bohemian style and it's, it's surrounded by a bunch of houses. These are like 1100 square foot bungalows that are being completely gentrified. So you've got, you know, some of the Hispanic families that have lived there for 70 years. And then you've got, you know, these younger people, most of which, you know, are sort of in the media content business. So at the end of the day, I think, you know, when this thing leases up, it'll, it'll be all to all sorts of media content, you know, players. It's a very, Without a doubt. Yeah. I, I could tell you because at Water Village, my daughter lives there, and she's in the media business, and a lot of people live there because it's very easy to get to the studios. You just go over to Hollywood through, uh, um, uh, Los Fel where you go right into the Valley to Universal and all the other ones. So it's a great location. And you're right, a lot of the media, uh, there, and she lived in one of those houses that were 1100 square feet, and it was like, really? But that's what she liked. So Yeah. And, and we're gonna have a, an unbelievable restaurant on site there, you know, we've already gotta deal with a restaurant. It's, it's gonna be, it's, it's gonna be a co super cool environment for the neighborhood. Um, and now a couple other ones on, on the large side. Yeah, go ahead. We, we, we've got a, a couple of developments we're doing up here in the, in the Bay Area in life science. One of 'em is, we call Discovery Landing. It's a mixed use thing in South San Francisco where we're building a, a grocery store, about a 75,000 square foot grocery store, uh, about 180 ish apartment units, and then about 850,000 square feet of life science in three buildings. It's a, it's a big deal. I mean, it's, yeah, a billion billion, 2,000,000,003. Um, but I think the biggest deal that, uh, certainly that I've done to date, uh, is called Infinite. And this is land that sits right on the 1 0 1 right across the, uh, right across the freeway from, you know, the San Francisco airport. And this is a, a deal that, you know, at the end of the day, it's two and a half million square feet of life science, um, three and a half billion dollar cost. And we'll be building it over three phases. And I, and I think, you know, it's just gonna be next level. We actually, you know, um, obviously life science is, is a big part of what we do. And, you know, we're probably, you know, when, when you look at what we've done in the past versus what we're doing today, we're probably top 10 in size in the US in the life science sector. And we actually got into life science super early on in the late eighties when it was a terrible time to be getting into life science. You know, none of the users were making any money. They were, they were doing core research. They didn't have any products to sell. And all the interiors were highly specialized. So what worked for Tenant one didn't work for tenant two, right? So it, it, you're tearing this stuff out and, and we literally got our ass handed to us. So we limped out of that space kind of in like 94. And in 2012, we sort of looked back at the space and we realized that the users were now making money. You know, they had, you know, these drug discovery companies, you know, had drugs they were selling and gene therapy, all that stuff was sort of coming together. And all that highly specialized interior stuff was now modular. You know, a lot of that's just furniture. You just wheel it in there, you plug it in and, and you're off and running. So we got heavily back into it in 2012. And then in 2016, you know, I, being a biochem guy, you know, I was still talking to some of my old buddies who are now running drug discovery labs and things like this, and they all said, look, this whole convergence of data science and life science is real, and it's happening right now, and it's reducing the risk profile of investing in early stage, you know, gene therapy or drug discovery companies, you know, radically because, you know, you could speed up the time, the hit rate was like much, much better than it was. And they said, you're gonna see a tsunami of capital coming into, you know, early stage life science, you know, whether it's VC, capital, n i h capital, go down the list. And I said, well, my experience is is there's a 24 month lag between, you know, the capital tsunami busting into an industry and hiring, and you know, obviously the hiring drives the real estate part of it. So we sort of tripled down in 2017, and, uh, and I think we did it at the right time. Now, right now, you know, life science is, is sort of on pause a little bit given the cost of capital, but you know, it'll come back. Well, I've accelerated so much during the pandemic. Yeah. I'm looking at the Infinite Labs, uh, campus. Boy, that, that's a neat design the way you have it. Let Me, let me ask you about that, Barry. How do you market, like when's the first phase gonna be occupied, do you think, for infinite? You know, we'll start construction on that probably next may. Uhhuh. And do you have a brokerage team, uh, marketing for you? Do you have like an asking? Yeah, we, for that space, how do you, how do you market something like that in this environment today? We, you know, e everything we do, we do through brokers, certainly on the leasing side. Sure. Right. And even on the buy side, you know, even if we don't have a broker, we'll insert one into the, into the, into the process. We just think it adds value. Um, but yeah, no, I mean it's, yeah, it's, it's a big marketing effort and, and it's, and it's really an international marketing effort given sort of the size of that deal. Yeah. You know, it's, it is not gonna just be a, a, a local deal, but that design is by, is by design. It's a super windy environment. And you know, if you look at it, it looks like an infinity signal, right? Oh, definitely. And, and it, it, it is done to moderate the wind, Ah, So that those open areas, you know, that are sheltered by the building are windless, right? If you go across the freeway, which is where Genentech's offices is, it's none of the open spaces there you can use because it's so windy. So that was done by design to basically cut down the wind. Beautiful, beautiful. It, it almost mirrors the way the freeway is too, looking at the picture. Yeah. Um, how do you exit deals? I mean, how do you, I mean, do you just, you're in, you're out you go, or most of, from what I understand, you're, you're not in for a long term. I mean, most of the stuff you just, they take their course and then you move on. Is that correct? Yeah, I would say that that's correct. 90% of the time, you know, most of the money that we're using is kind of hot money. It's expensive money, right? Um, and, you know, given the fact that we're doing 500 to $2 billion a year of, of new deployment, we have to recycle our capital. So it just becomes an exercise of, you know, now there's certain a assets that, depending on the texture of the capital, like for example, infinite and, uh, the landing discovery landing will probably be a much longer term hold just because the capital partners U S A A on that deal, and, and they're planning on a long-term hold. So we'll probably stay in a deal like that much longer than we would the press or casitas, for example. Now, do you, do you finance these through conventional sources, or you put together, you know, uh, um, you know, funds to, to finance most of these transactions? You know, we've, we've done it all different ways. You know, in the, I'd say in the seventies and, and early eighties, it was high net worth European syndications. You know, in the eighties it was the insurance companies in the nineties, you know, we had a big platform with, you know, uh, Whitehall, which is Opportunity fund for, for Goldman Sachs. And the, like, in the two thousands, we decided to go directly to the capital. So in the early two thousands, we formed three fully discretionary co-mingled funds. Uh, I think at the peak we probably had 1,000,000,007 of equity under management. And I decided that, you know, as, as an operating group, I don't think the fund business is a good business. As an operating group. It's a great business if you're just an allocator, you know, assets under management, generate fees, all that stuff. But if you're the guys that are actually standing at the tip of the sword, adding the value, and you're throwing all your assets into a co-mingled, crossed up vehicle, and one or two things go wrong in that vehicle, that means you basically have years of work that's down the tube, right? Because you're the last to get paid, you know, the promotes paid. Uh, you know, in the fund business, there's kind of some oddball incentives. You know, in the fund business, you want to sell outta your best deals first so that you can generate a track record for the next fund so you can raise the next fund. So, you know, by design and, and you're promotes the last two or three buildings in your fund. So by design, your promotes getting paid by your three s*******t buildings in the fund, right? Right. And they're usually getting paid, you know, this is over a, an eight year period. I mean, a lot can happen, you know, during an eight year period. So, you know, we actually got out of the fund business and, you know, the fees can be intoxicating 'cause that's obviously the good part of the business. But to promote payouts, especially when you've got a partner in Denver, partner in la, two partners here, partners there, when their deals are crossed up with that guy's deal, you know, you, you get, you get some issues going on. So I think it doesn't work well from an incentive incentive comp perspective. So we went back to basically doing joint ventures with, you know, all the big allocators out there, whether it's, you know, BlackRock, Blackstone, Invesco, Goldman Sachs. I mean, a lot of the guys were still doing business with were, we were doing business with in the eighties, you know, principal, for example. You know, we started doing business with them in the eighties, and we still do business with them. So that's generally how we're doing this stuff. So, so for new, so for a new acquisition, you have the steel wave equity piece, and then you come up with other equity players for each different transaction? Or is it more of a Yeah. Standardized. Yeah. I mean, look, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel on every single deal. So, you know, there's, there's probably 10 groups that we've done a ton of business with, right? That you know, we'll, we will go out and talk to. And, and we have a sense of, you know, who likes big, huge, chunky deals versus who's more interested in smaller deals versus, you know, who wants industrial, who wants, you know, creative office and stuff like that. Each Deal's gonna warrant a different group for. Yeah, I think, so one Of the things I think is fascinating. So you're looking at a deal that's brought to you by, you know, broker, you know, or property you know, about, you get to that point where you've done the analysis, everything, and you have to pull the trigger and not pull the trigger. Are you more of an analysis guy, a numbers guy? Is it more of a gut feel? Like you, you just know intrinsically it's gonna add value? How do you, how do you pull that trigger and sign that deal? Well, look, when you're signing the deal up, that's one thing. When you're signing the deal and going non-refundable, that's a whole different thing. You know, I think when you're signing the deal up, you know, I'm more, I'm not an analysis guy, you know, I'm looking at, I rrr screw all those. I, I'm looking at, okay, what, what's our basis, right? And what's our return on cost? 'cause the rest of it, you're just making up numbers. I mean, you don't know what your, your I R R is gonna be. You don't know what you're gonna sell it for. I mean, you know, any of that stuff, right? And it's like, okay, can I live with that return on cost? Because we're pretty good at delivering to the budget. Um, you know, what the rents are gonna be, presumably. Um, and, and you either like the location or you don't. Now, when it comes to pulling the trigger to go non-refundable, it's less about what I think and more about what our capital partner thinks. Yeah. Since without them, It's Exactly. Yeah. He is the one that's, we're We're just left holding the bag. Right. So now I wanna ask you, is interest rates affecting you right now on, on your projects? Mean yesterday they raised it again. Uh, so what are the challenges? What, what are the pitfalls you're finding on, on that with the, the projects you have either coming up or, or, you know, because of it? Look, I think when you triple borrowing costs or a period of 12 months, you're gonna fracture the capital markets. And that's exactly what you've seen. And you've seen it across all the verticals. It's not just office that's getting pounded here, right? Multifamily, industrial, I mean, it, I mean, if you look at, you know, the REITs, you know, since year end, 2021, I think multifamily iss off 30%. I think industrial's off 25, I think office is off 50. Um, and so you got two, two things going on. You got your existing portfolio and the opportunity to buy, right? So I, I think anyone in the office space who's been active in buying office, you know, anyone who bought office in, in 2018 19, who's got debt rolling over Yeah. Isn't a big conversation with their lender. Yep. There's no question about it. Anyone that says they're not, then they're unleveraged or they're clueless, you know, because, you know, values are down. If, if you've got a fully leased core building, you don't have any issues. If you've got a partially leased building, you got big issues. Because values that were, when you put the debt in place, that was 50 to 60% of cost. Now today, that 50 to 60% is somewhere between a hundred to 200% of costs. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean it's, it's, I mean the, the values are half of what the debt is And the office buildings. Yeah. And the office buildings in the downtown areas are the ones that are really suffering more than any other others. The outlying area office seems to be doing. I'm in the lending business. So I'm, I'm seeing that from the lending perspective where the lenders don't wanna do it, they don't wanna take a chance. But I'm talking to some of the people that, uh, some of the developers and some of the owners, they're finding that their, uh, office space that is not in a downtown area isn't doing as bad. Are you finding the same thing? Well, look, our markets are very tech-centric. Yeah. Right? And the good thing about tech is that it can have these gigantic run-ups, which is what you've seen over the last really eight, nine years. The bad thing about tech is they go through these monster decompressions, like overnight. Yeah. So I would say across all these tech markets, you know, the, the, the suburban markets are probably fairing a little bit better. Um, but I think it's all, it's all, you know, you've got the capital markets part of it, right? Right. You know, that that's one side of the equation. But the other side of the equation, you know, that, that the office market is feeling that maybe multifamily or industrial's not feeling is, you know, you've got this work from home phenomena, you know, people are trying to figure out, especially in tech, less so, you know, kind of traditional corporate America, but in tech, you know, people are trying to figure out, is office space workspace? Is it show space or is it event space? Is it all the above or none of the above? Right? So, so you've got this debate going on. In addition, you know, I I think really in the tech space, you know, they over leased office space. Yeah. You know, over the last three years, I mean years when interest rates are basically zero borrowing rates, right? The focus is on top line revenue growth for these guys. It's not on bottom line, uh, profitability. And, and it's all top line revenue growth. And in order to generate that, they gotta higher people to generate those revenues. And you've seen this kind of over leasing of space, you know, in these tech markets. And, you know, we as developers, we're happy to accommodate 'em by building all these buildings. So, you know, we've oversupplied it, you know, and I think, my guess is there's probably a 30% overhang right now really, really of space. And, you know, we sort of have to burn that sp burn that off. Now, having said that, take San Francisco, which is kind of the poster child for urban Yeah. You know, going from A to Z Declined. Yeah. You've got the handful of class A buildings that are the core assets, that have views, they're leased and their rents are holding. If you've got a commodity building that, uh, has a bunch of space in it, there's no, there's no price that'll clear right now, there just isn't. Right. And you've, you've seen assets that, you know, would've sold for mid, high $700 a foot maybe 18 months ago are trading for mid one to mid 200 a foot. Right. So, you know, I mean, there's some things that sort of have to be worked through here in San Francisco and, and, you know, whether it's San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, you know, I mean, all of these urban centers on the west coast that are sort of tech centric, you know, have, have some challenges. Right? I mean, from, you know, doing the events that we've been doing and talking to the different office panels, certainly the suburban where people could drive, they have easy parking as opposed to mass transit. And some of the issues you have to deal with on your way to work, uh, certainly have been helping some markets like Orange County or San Diego versus downtown or the west side of LA compared to, uh, downtown San Francisco or downtown Los Angeles for Sure. But that's, I think that's right. Yeah. I think that's right. Look, but you know, that's, so that's the bad news. The good news is I think it's the best item. It's gonna be the best buying opportunity into the R T C days. Right? There's no question you're Gonna get it on the Jeep. Exactly. And if you could turn some of them into multifamily, I know on the physical side, it's a challenge. You gotta find the right properties, but certainly, or get the land cheap enough in a place like San Francisco. I mean, there's much no more beautiful a city than San Francisco. So the value's there, Look, we're bullish, we're bullish on San Francisco. I mean, look, it's got its challenges to be sure, you know, it's got its social issues, it's got, you know, rule of law, it's got all that stuff going on, right? But, you know, we just renewed our lease and here in a building, we're a 1 0 1 cal, which is, you know, one of the signature buildings here. And it forced me to go out and look at other space across the city for our lease. And what amazed me was San Francisco and a lot of these urban centers had been living off of this runoff of incredible demand where no one took the time or effort to amenitize their buildings. All these buildings are commodity buildings. You, you got a half dozen that, you know, the, the only amenity in San Francisco is views. Now if you look at our buildings, you know, non San Fran, you know, everything we do, it's hyper amenitized, right? It's like going to a, a resort, right? And I'm a big believer that in San Francisco, you know, although it's harder to do with vertical buildings, you can buy these vertical buildings and turn 'em into something that's super cool. You're probably peeling off the facade. You're punching in indoor outdoor decks, you know, all over the place. I mean, but it's expensive to do. But you can create hyper amenitized buildings that people will want to come to work in, but you have to buy 'em at damn near close to land value, not unlike, you know, if you're gonna do a residential conversion, right? 'cause in a lot of cases, the costs are gonna be like building brand new, try to work with something that's existing. Yeah. And you got the people that own it that don't, you know, they don't want to let it go for that much less, you know what I mean? Unless the bank owns it, and then you got a different, different situation. Well, I think you're gonna see a lot of bank owned real estate coming down the pike here. You know, in Portland, I think there's 32 deals under default. We actually were the first ones to give back a building. You know, people say, well, what are you talking about? And you know, when I was at U L I a year ago, and I run one of these councils, you know, one of these product councils at U L I, and we've got a very senior council, you know, most people are very senior, you know, CEOs and whatnot. And I was asked, well, what are you doing? I said, well, I just gave back a building in Portland, right? And I said, I feel pretty good about it. And people are looking at me like I, I'd lost my mind. I go, you know what? I wouldn't put a penny into that building. You know what we did? We bought this thing in 2018, the downtown Portland and the bones of the building were unbelievable. So we brought a little of LA up to Portland and created this unbelievable, uh, building, right? I mean, it's, it's super cool. You know, we're believers that lobbies are a waste of space. There's no reason to have a lobby in a building. When you walk into a building, you wanna walk in and, and feel like you're walking into a resort, right? So you, you create, you know, f and b and bars and all sorts of stuff in the, in quote, the lobby, right? And we did this, and we immediately signed it, and we delivered it in, I think October of 2019, and we immediately signed a 60,000 square foot lease with square in the building, and then Covid comes along, and this building was a block and a half away from that federal courthouse that was under siege for like, oh eight months. And it was just a war zone. I mean, and nobody is coming to downtown Portland to leave space. And we just said, you know what, you know, I think the loan was 270 bucks a foot, and the value on a good day was probably 130. Hmm. And, and we just said, and, and the lender wanted a $15 million pay down. And we said, uh, I don't think so. Right. You know, look, if you've been doing this long enough, you're gonna, my job is not to give back buildings, but my job is not to throw good money after bad. And On on, on that topic, are you, would you call yourself a net buyer or a net seller today? And if you are looking to buy properties, what, what geographic areas, uh, are of interest to you? I'd say right now we're neutral because institutional equity can't run fast enough away from tech office. I mean, there's a lot of buildings that I'd love to buy, but trying to raise equity right now to buy office is super difficult. I think it's actually a great kind to be buying office buildings. You Just gotta find some creative alternative financing. Yeah. I mean, and, uh, maybe it's foreign, right? I mean, but, uh, look, I, I would buy and everywhere we're located, you know, I mean, our footprint, I think has great assets, great industries, the values are hyper depressed. I just think it's a great time to buy. You know, it's, it's, it is hard to put leverage on it. So you're buying it unleveraged or you know, you're buying it with, you know, seller carryback financing. I mean, if you're buying an empty office building, there is no leverage. You cannot get leverage for that building right now. Uh, and, uh, and it, you know, I mean, you can get structured equity that's gonna cost you 12% or something crazy, but it's, uh, it's tough. But I do think that there's an opportunity right now. Right. Definitely. You know, and, and I've seen, you know, what you've been, uh, you know, some of the pr that that, that you've been putting out definitely a good positive contrarian view and to some extent, so it's a positive to see that. So if you, knowing what you know now, if you were starting out in the business today, what sector would you get in? And on the similar vein, what would you tell someone, a young person who came to you today and wanted to get into the business, what, what, what advice would you give them? Look, if, if you're gonna be in, you know, the office business is the timing business, and, you know, it's, it, it's sort of the opportunity business. But if you were gonna get into business and you were gonna be in business on a long term, I'd do multi-family. I, I just think that multi-family over time, um, is the least volatile. And if, if you can figure out how to, how to own multi-family buildings for the long term, you'll kill it, you know, office, if I bought a multi-family or if I built a multi-family today, 10 years from now, I would know a hundred percent guaranteed that facility is gonna be worth more than I built it for. For office. That's not the case. You know, office does one of these things, you know, it's a sine wave, right? So depending on when you got in and when you're planning on getting out, you may be in the chips or you may not be in multifamily over time you will always be in the chips. And, you know, we do multifamily, but really only in the context of mixed use. Right. You know, we don't want to go out and buy a piece of property and build multifamily on it. It is, it's too capital intensive. And it's, it is too difficult in California, you know, for for, for all the jumping up and down that the politicians are talking about how we need more housing and we need less expensive housing. There's not a city, city in California that actually wants to see more housing built there. Not one. No, you, you're, you bring up a good point. Would love to tell us, tell us about some of your personal interests, your hobbies, favorite sports team. Um, tell us a little bit about you personally. You know, I like to play golf. I like to snow ski. Uh, I used to be a co competitive water skiing competition, water skier, you know, way back when. Um, you know, I like spending time outdoors. I like to travel. Um, you know, I've got, you know, one kid who's actually working for me, which is a lot of fun. That's good. That's always good. Yeah. You know, we, we did something a little bit different. You know, we, he's crypto native, so cryptocurrencies, and through his lens, he sort of looked at what was happening in the digital security world and kind of what we're doing over here in the hard asset world. And he said, you know what, all the offer offerings and digital securities, you know, all these different coins and stuff, he said, they're, they're just backed by garbage. And he said, if you could take institutional product like you guys do and introduce it into this space and have that be a coin, he said you would kill it. So we basically started up what we call steel wave digital. Ah, right. And, you know, we started looking at, we started looking at the ecosystem thinking, well, okay, fine, you know, it's this, it's this whole, you know, fractionalization, tokenization, democratization, you know, all that stuff going on where you know, you in, instead of, you know, having restocks or whatever, you could buy, you know, small pieces of, of a property through smart contracts and, and whatnot. Blockchain enable stuff. We looked at that kind of naively saying, well, you know, let's, let's see if we can raise a a hundred million dollars on some exchange, you know, and you know what? We realize what the, the infrastructure is nowhere near deep enough to allow that today. It's got regulatory, it's got all sorts of issues, right? It, it's going to happen. I mean, it really will, but the institutions have to lead the way. It can't be retail investors, right? So we said, okay, let's take a little different tack here. You know, US institutions are probably five years behind European, Israeli and Middle Eastern institutions relative to this, this whole ecosystem. Um, we said, let's go do a complete risk-off fund. Let's raise a risk-off fund and let's just target high net worth Europeans, uh, who sort of view this ecosystem pretty interesting. And so we're raising a $500 million fund, and I just said, I don't wanna be a fund manager, but this is a complete risk off deal, right? Where we're, we're, we're buying assets with long-term leases in place to tech companies. You know, what was a five cap is now an eight and a half cap for buying a eight to 10 year lease, right? I said, you know, we're not gonna raise a fund doing the complicated stuff that we're doing, but we'll, we'll raise a fund doing the, the very benign stuff, and we're gonna give the investors the option, but not the obligation. So it's, it's all traditional LP investors, but we're giving them the option to convert their LP interest and do digital securities at a future date when the ecosystem allows 'em for secondary liquidity. Interesting. And, uh, you know, it's a, it's a no cost option to sort of play in the space. Right. And, uh, we're, we're getting actually a lot of traction in Europe, Israel, and u a e. Uh, so yeah, it's, uh, Well, when we do the follow-up interview and, you know, yeah. In a few months, we'll, we'll see how, how that is going. Yeah. We'll get, we'll get more on the, uh, the digital part Of it, but we are, we are bumping against up the clock, you know, that we gave you. But I did wanna, you know, before we go, you know, close out the show, are there charities, uh, things like that, that Steel Wave as a company, are you personally, you know, are, are involved in that? We could promote a little bit, uh, here, uh, to our audience, possibly get some, Well, look, if you go to our website, there's a, there's a, there's a spot on our website. What, what we do is for each of our different regions, because, you know, we're indigenous, you know, we, we've got people living in Orange County, we've got people living in Denver and Seattle and, you know, all these different regions. You know, what I do is I go to, to each of the regions and I say, look, you need to pick four charities excellent. That you think, you know, are, are are the right things to invest in. And every year we invest in, in those whatever four, they decide regionally. So, you know, we're probably investing in, you know, 20 different groups, you know, across our, and, and it's all, it's all regional and it's all geographic. You know, we're really not doing anything on a national basis. We're, we're trying to really make it community based. That's fantastic. Excellent. Well, Barry, thank you so much. You've been, uh, it, it's been a real pleasure talking to you and we learned a lot about you, uh, and, uh, more about Steel Wave and, uh, we, I definitely think it's worthy of a follow up, don't you, Steve? Oh, Definitely, definitely. I think our, our audience will get a lot of information. We'll learn a lot out of this. And, uh, It's a crazy time. Yep. It is a crazy time. And, uh, you know, the, and you know, the time you afforded to us, uh, today, you know, really appreciate it. Uh, I think it's something that, uh, people will look at for a while and, and get a lot out of. So, uh, if you had any closing remarks, uh, thoughts about, uh, where you're taking the company, uh, you know, feel free to share those, uh, with us. Yeah. Look, I think, I think my only closing remark is as dark as it seems today in the space, I've been through this enough to know that it snaps back way quicker than, than you tend to think it will. And you know, my sense is as soon as the rate hikes stabilize, and even if they tick down, you know, after two ticks down, 25 basis points, e as soon as that happens, it's gonna be Katie Bar the dog. You, you've got $350 billion of equity dry powder sitting on the sidelines, and all they're looking for is, is that downtick? They're not looking for it to get back to 2% rates. They're just looking for that simple downtick. And when that happens, you know, this whole thing will start to spin back up. I don't know when that's gonna happen, but you know, it'll, good point. Fantastic. Hopefully we're, we're close to that plateau soon. So, you know, again, great interview Barry. Thank you for the time. Thank you. Yeah, Happy to do it. We'll Be in touch soon for sure. Thank you. Thank you all guys. Great day. Good luck with the projects. Yeah, you guys take care. Bye. Hey, You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, Redwood Mortgage and Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/862593366.txt b/data/transcripts/862593366.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8ddff89
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/862593366.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey. Hey, The following video is the finance panel at Rent TV's Greater Los Angeles State of the Market Conference held on August 17th, 2023. It is comprised of Fred or Ellis with Axo Bank. Ryan Park with Ms. Rahi TE Bank, Trevor Blood with Pacific Southwest Realty Services. Gina Conan with Provident Bank and John McLean with Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Thank you, Steve. Okay. So I work for, uh, Axo Bank. We are, uh, classified as a neobank or digital bank, which means that we have no physical branch network. Pretty much everything is, uh, handled online. We're headquartered down in San Diego. We're about 20 billion in assets. Um, I've been with the bank now almost 14 years. Uh, there's pretty much nothing that we don't finance in terms of real estate. Uh, so we've financed, you know, single family investment, two to four, five units or more multi-family than it could be on the commercial side office, industrial light, uh, light industrial warehouse. Um, and so we pretty much cover everything. We offer bridge and perm loans. A minimum loan size is 500,000, and we lend all the way up to 500,000. We're a balance sheet lender. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Ryan Park from Bisra Bank. We are also known as a U M T B, as some of you may already know. Bankers Love, um, acronym. So, uh, either way, we are the, um, Israeli bank headquartered in, uh, Israel. We are the US lending, um, arm of the bank based in downtown LA in US Bank Tower. Uh, just to get the elephant out, out of the room, I'm not Israeli American. As you can see, I'm more, more so close to Korean American unless you count all the Israeli foods I ate, uh, in here as well as in Israel. But, uh, we are commercial bank. Um, as far as our lending perspective is concerned, uh, we are focused with, uh, lending Bridge value add as, um, f uh, said. And then also we are, we just open up the construction lending platform for the apartment. So, um, one more caveat is we are very recourse driven, so that typically leaves the deal size to range from five to 25 million, but we can discuss the specific, but happy to be here and then look forward to speaking with y'all. Thank you, Ryan. Thank You. Hey, everybody. My name's Trevor Blood. Um, I run the South Bay office of Pacific Southwest Realty Services. We're a mortgage banking firm, um, specializing really in correspondent relationships with life insurance companies. Um, so we have a seven close to a $7 billion book of service debt, um, mortgage bankers, and then we broker outside of our life companies to credit unions, banks. C M B S runs, runs the gamut. So that's basically it. We work on all product types. So that's it. Thank you. Okay. I got my own. Hi, I am Gina with Provident Bank. Provident Bank is a portfolio lender. We lend in all of California. We love, uh, multifamily, primarily, also some small retail, depending on the type, you know, liquor stores, salons, things that are gonna be more stable, especially on the heels of covid, kind of watching, paying attention to he, uh, tenants. Our loan size is 3 50, 300 50,000 on up to about five or 6 million. So we're kind of a small, the larger of the small balance lenders, if that makes sense. Um, before we go forward, I wanna point out, just because we've done panels like this before, if you're new to this particular event or at an event like this, pay attention to each lender that's up here, because we're not direct competitors per se, as we are all the type of lenders you want to keep in your back pocket. So really listen to, you know, like when Fred talks and Ryan and Trevor and John and myself as brokers and investors, it's super important to have, I am gonna say Rolodex and date myself, but having your Rolodex, the, the people to call for different property types. So I just wanted to make sure everybody understood to really kind of listen to, you know, what each, what each lender does up here. Um, also yesterday I celebrated 16 years with Provident Bank, which is probably like a hundred years in, in other industries. So I've been there a long time. So, and that's it for my Spiel and John McLean returning to the panel. Yes, John, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, John McLean with, uh, fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Uh, we're, we're a private lender, also known, known as a hard money lender. I, I try to use the private lender a little more than the hard money lender right now. Um, the, the interesting thing I would say with where, where we're at in the market is, you know, I I come from the bank side. I was at Bank of Cal for five years and at Chase, JP Morgan, Washington Mutual for, uh, I'll just say 20 years. Um, but, uh, where the rates are now, um, they're, they're pretty close to where, where we are on the private lending side. And, uh, Fred and I do some similar tri transactions. Um, fidelity funds up to 15 million. We can do, uh, we can actually go above that too, but that's generally what we, we look at. Uh, we don't require recourse. We don't have prepayment penalties. We can fund in, you know, 10 days a week if we need to. Um, and we're doing all types of all property types. Uh, we could actually do a single family if it's an investor, uh, owned property. Um, if we got the short term IO loans, like most of the, uh, other private lenders do, we also have longer term loans. We can do a a 30, doing 15, we can do a 2020. So a lot of business owners that they like need a million dollars. We're all based on equity, uh, not cash flow. We can deal with transactions or borrowers that don't have good credit. Um, although when they have good credit, maybe we give 'em a little bit, uh, off the rate. Uh, we also pay rebates. Uh, so we, we pretty much can do, you know, every type of transaction. We also can do them outta state. Uh, we're in, uh, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, I think Montana, Indiana. Um, so we're able to do that. We can also deal with seconds behind our first, we are first treat trust deed lender. Um, and then completely on the flip side, uh, we also, all the loans that we make, we sell to our investors, and they're on the trust deed. So anyone that's got a 4 0 1 K like mine that's down about 13% right now, uh, you know, you can move into our trust deeds and get kind of an eight, 9%, maybe even a little bit higher return. And most of what we do is low leverage, probably around 50% plus or minus, depending on the trans, like a church or something. It's gonna be lower. And then I was just gonna point out, Chuck, or, I mean, uh, Fred's got a, uh, couple of boxes back there and he shows the, uh, credit box for the bank is this one. And then the Axo credit box is, you know, five times the size. Um, and actually this is, this is our box, uh, Steve put this black, uh, cover on it, but, uh, this is our credit, our lending credit box that we're all sitting on today. So. Excellent. That's it. Way to get us started. Well, I think the elephant in the room is obviously interest rates and we don't wanna, you know, obviously no one wants to hold you guys up there to predict interest rates, but it's a good launching point. So let's go through really quickly and just express with the quarter point, recent quarter point prize. Do you feel we're nearing the end? Do you feel we're plateauing, I mean, we're not gonna hold you to this, but do you feel we're like at the peak and they might start coming down a little bit. What, what's your gut feel on where things are going? Fred, why don't you take us off quick, quick, quick answer. Okay. I actually think that, uh, I think in November they're gonna hold, most likely they'll increase, uh, I'm sorry, in September. And they'll, they'll increase a little bit, uh, uh, the month after. But the reality is for our, for our bank, uh, we're already kind of, um, factoring in any additional increases. So we have stress rates and we usually throw in about 1%. Uh, so I, obviously it has affected our business. We we're, we're staying very, very busy out there. I mean, we're looking at a lot of deals, but as you know, I mean, you guys are out there experiencing the same thing. The number of transactions, the conversion rate is not what we'd like to see. And that's going to come around. We will see an improvement and I'm very confident of that. I think from where we stand, um, interest rate definitely affected the market. Uh, just looking at the same deal because of the higher underwriting rate, you know, loan, the property qualifies for less loan amount. And for a lot of us LA based developer investors, you know, there was always, because we live in a compressed cap rate, there was a big delta between leverage perspective and cash flow per perspective. Um, low interest rate helps. So there was a lesser of gap, but that gap significantly got larger once the rates started going up. So, um, that, that's what has been happening. But from where we stand, I think compared to six to nine months ago, the error from the credit guys was, Hey, let's continue to stress the rates high. Uh, let's really focus on stressing the rate. But today's, I think the air in the air in general credit or rate, interest rate environment is, hey, I think we are getting peak. So let's, you know, we still stress it, but I think there's less emphasis or less heavier, uh, stress being done. Uh, in terms of the interest rate, Trevor, yeah. Um, in talking to some friends that are wealth managers, it seems like they're probably gonna bump up rates again by another quarter point. Um, I think that the new normal, moving on beyond that, I think we'll probably settle back down around four or 5% rate for kind of, that's, that's just hearsay. Don't quote me on any of that. No idea. Um, I could tell you though, that the life companies that we represent, they're at, at kind of best pricing that I've heard of. This one might be even a rumor, it was like a 1 27 spread over the treasuries. So still kind of kicking butt on that front. I don't know if that deal's even possible or whether it was nonsense, but, uh, the best pricing that I've seen has been something in the ballpark of one 50 over the 10 year treasury. Um, more often than not, though, from the life codes, you're seeing deals getting done at like 1 65 to 2 25 over the 10 years. So I threw a lot at you. But in general, six to six and a half percent seems to be your coupon right now. Um, and then, you know, for if, if the deal sizes up properly, we could be sub 6% potentially. So I love this question. It's, it's super unique. And wouldn't we all be super wealthy if, if we could predict the market? Um, I did have a conversation with our C F O yesterday. I kind of take his pulse every couple months 'cause I've worked with him for 20 years and what he said really made a lot of sense. I don't think we can predict, but of course we all know unless inflation kind of corrects itself, we're gonna have to see a rise this fall. It's, it's still unknown whether or not that's gonna happen. There's so much going on politically and and worldwide that we just can't predict. I mean, there, there's so many things that are right on the cusp right now that if they turn the wrong way, that could, you know, change the market and, and lower rates and we just don't know. Um, the biggest thing right now though, is really educating the borrowers to understand that while we can't predict where rates are gonna go, understanding why they're unable to refinance their properties that were purchased five years ago for an inflated value, and now a rate in term doesn't even cash flow. So the biggest thing, while we don't understand nobody, nobody can predict where rates are gonna be a year from now. I agree with Trevor that, you know, we could end up settling around 5% in a healthy market. Um, the new caveat that, that Dave, the C f O was saying yesterday is we're on the heels. Not only are we at the beginning of, you know, this quietly rumored recession, which we're kind of coming into, it looks different. It acts different than 2009, 2010 because we have covid behind us. So combating inflation, people are starting to travel. Other countries slowed out of covid even slower than we did here in the us. So they're starting to travel regardless of whether or not they have money, because life's short and we gotta get it done. So this recession looks different than it did in the last one for many reasons. But also from a consumer standpoint, we're just not slowing on the spending like you would think that you would see with rates going up because people are like, I've lost so many people, I just gotta live, I gotta travel, I gotta do. So this one's different. And I think, you know, this is where we all either survive or, um, find a new industry in a way because it gets difficult. So I don't, I don't know with rates, um, I can't say where they're gonna go, but I think the more we educate the current investors that need to work on their properties, the better. We all are riding through this. Oh, just one last thing. Uh, Gina, I'm not so sure you should use the R word, the recession word. I have to believe it's economic headwinds. Oh, I just, okay, I'll try. John, what's your, what's your gut on, on where we are? Yeah, I, I think, I mean, we're all kind of saying the same thing here. And I think, um, maybe if we look at the, the question, which was in a way, do we feel it's gonna go up or, you know, uh, prime and everything gonna move up a little more? And it might. But I think the, the key is that, um, it's probably the time factor. Um, my thought is, yeah, it'll probably maybe move up another quarter. It may or may not. A quarter doesn't really change things much, but I think it's probably gonna be, up rates are probably gonna be at this level for a while. You know, hopefully when we're in the summer of next year, hopefully we're starting on a downward trend. Um, I don't know, maybe that's wishful thinking, but, um, i, I think it's more the time factor. We're probably not gonna change for a while. This is our new normal for maybe the next year. Hopefully not two, but it might be two and we all gotta deal with it. Alright, well That was, that, that question was really setting up the conversation. So John, keep the mic. So given what you guys have all answered roughly the same, how has that, I think we all know the answer to this, but how has that affected deal velocity? Is that improving since the shock from several months ago? And how has that changed terms on the Right? So, so Velocity and terms, So the velocity's pretty low. Um, and I, and I would say on the transactions, on the buy sell transactions, there's not a lot going on. I'm, I'm sitting on my, uh, 30 year fixed at 2.6%. We're not moving, honey. Um, you know, we'll rent the house out. We're not gonna sell it. So I think, and that's the same with, you know, a lot of my clients, everyone that's financed in the last few years. So I think the transaction volume is, is an issue. We don't have a lot of that many deals that we're looking at. Um, but on the lending side that, I mean, there's so many loans. If I think back, the five year fixed I was making in 2018, um, and 17 and 16 and 19, um, all of those loans, they're gonna be going from probably a three and a, you know, three and a quarter, maybe to four and a quarter, um, to an adjustable. And the adjustable is probably gonna be seven and a half. So that's, there's gonna be a lot of financing things that come up. Um, and it's kind of gonna be unfortunate for a lot of borrowers where if they bought the property or they just refinanced, they pulled a lot of cash out and now, you know, their payment, everything's fine. But they're just about to find out your fixed rate's going away in six months, you're gonna go from, you know, whatever, three and a half or 3 75 your, your new rate's gonna be. 'cause it's based on, you know, either the six month library, which was their prime or whatever. It's gonna go to like seven and a half, seven and three quarters. Um, hopefully not eight, but that's something that's gonna happen. So there are gonna be a lot of refinances that will probably look like cash in refinances. Uh, no one likes that term. Everyone likes to get cash out. And that, to me, there's gonna be some transactions from that a lot on the lending side. There's gonna be a lot of loan mods, a lot of that stuff going on. Um, and that will probably trail into especially office and other stuff that's really having difficulty, um, in transactions out in the market with real estate where some folks are saying it's not gonna cash flow, you know, I want to sell it. You know, so I think there will be more volume. Um, as you know, these rates are settled down to where we're gonna kind of be here for a while. So I think the transaction volume in the real estate market, I, I think it will pick up a little bit. Maybe not for the right reasons, but, um, and then again, on the bank side, I think there's gonna be a lot of loan mods. Um, and you know, Fred and I will probably be getting a few more calls because we can make loans where our rates are higher, but we are able to, to finance those. Right. Gina, that question to you. Well, that was well said, because we were, John and I were talking in the lobby, and Fred can probably echo this. This is one of those unique times where hard money and, or sorry, private money and bank loans kind of come together because on on John's side, he's got interest only products. Fred, do you have interest only products? We do. You do. So that's a world where private money being a little bit higher rate interest only. I, as a, a portfolio lender, we don't have interest only. So our 6.5% or six and three quarters versus their 10% at interest only, it gives people a bridge option to weight out rates. And that's where I was saying earlier, you know, pay attention to every lender because there's always a a reason you would need certain lenders at different times. Uh, for Provident Bank, we are seeing a lot more low leverage, not because we're trying to lower the leverage, but because our ca our debt coverage ratio on properties, our minimum is 1.25. Rents haven't gone up, but rates certainly have. So mortgages that were, you know, 3000 a month, three years ago are now 6,000, when they, they roll into their, you know, just for an example, I mean, three and a half percent versus 8%, that's gonna change. And like John said, it'll be more cash in deals, more low leverage deals or people that are working with bridge lenders in short term to kind of ride out the market. So that's what we're seeing, Trevor, a lot. Do you have velocity? Yeah. Um, just to put things into perspective, uh, one of the lenders I work with the most, uh, one of our life companies who we correspond for is standard insurance. And their biggest year ever, uh, was last year where they did 2 billion in loans. They're more of kind of, they'll take a look at your strip retail center mom and pop kind of thing, or down in dirty industrial multi-tenant stuff. They'll do some more class A stuff, they'll do some more class C stuff and everything in between. More of a story lender. Um, so they did 2 billion last year. This year they're on track to hit 4 billion, which is doubling their previous record year. Um, they're a good example of what the life companies have been able to do as banks have been asking for 10, 20, up to 30% of deposits, uh, 30% of a loan amount as new, uh, kind of a relationship deal. Um, the life companies have really filled in that gap and cleaned up, um, moving forward. Even the standards, the symetra, the emeritas of the world so far this year, they're pretty pretty, they're getting pretty full. So really I think moving forward in terms of deal velocity, I'm really looking forward to next year. So we could start sending them business with that are ear, uh, where deals are earmarked to close early in 2024. So it's been good to have lenders like that in our back pocket. I think the guys from Newmark were saying how a life company is now turning away their retail deals. Make sense? They probably did a ton of retail business with them this year, probably kept them happy and fed. And now that lender is saying, Hey, we're gonna pump the brakes. And I would imagine they'd probably open it up, uh, at the beginning Of next year. So, Ryan, same question, velocity and how that's affecting You. Sure. Um, so, uh, our Ms. Raha bank, uh, we are considered as a branch of our parental company. So we get to piggyback off of their $140 billion asset balance sheet. So we continue to remain open. And actually, I wanna share a little bit of story that when I was interviewing for this position, when they said, Hey Ryan, you wanna come in, build up the team as a head of real estate? And then one of the caveat that they said was, Hey, Ms. Raja, when things are a little dark, when things are a little ugly, that's when we shine. We will continue to remain open. And I said, uh, at that time I thought that was just a sweet talk, typical banker, you know, I, I myself being banker as well, but, uh, I thought that was a sweet talker. But I think right now, we, we are, our group is experienced that exact same thing as he said, uh, we continue to remain open, and then because we are open, we just have a lot more deals that comes to our, uh, pipeline and then get to do it. But as Gina and other panelists have said, we are seeing a lot of, um, refinance opportunities. The clients who have purchased the building at a rather, you know, high price and that they got a floating, uh, bridge loan 12 to 24 months ago, and then now they wanna either convert it to a longer term or they wanna convert it to a fixed bridge, uh, program, which we have. So I think that's where a lot of transactions are happening. And as to the purchase, um, I think things are definitely coming back. I'm starting to see slightly higher cap rates, movements when it comes to apartment, not all, but, uh, I'm starting to slowly, slowly see that transition coming in. Um, so Fred, while you finish this question on velocity, also answer the next question I was gonna ask, which is, uh, given that velocity, how have you changed your parameters to get deals done? Okay. Yeah, certainly the velocity has declined, but Axo Bank, we are actually trying to put money out. We are trying, we are in a growth mode. Um, so looking at things a little differently, um, we are, we're one of the few lenders, one of the few banks that still is able to project rent. So we are able to project rents on buildings that, uh, perhaps on in-place rents. You're below, uh, a breakeven. Um, a again, we're trying to again, just think outside of the box, how can we generate, uh, more deals, get the money out. Uh, we also do lend to debt funds, so we offer credit facilities. Um, but what it, to get these deals down, I think, um, you gotta look at capital, uh, capital structure. So, uh, we might take a senior piece and now more than ever we'll take a look at a subordinated debt piece. So that could be a Mezz or prep or some sort of second TD behind us to get the deal done. Um, so the parameters really we're just, uh, again, looking completely outside of the box, uh, to make these deals work. Um, I have found to actually get the deals done, it requires, uh, me to get on the phone with borrowers and during the process, instead of, you know, sometimes all, I'll wait a week to reach out to 'em and just chat with them and make sure they don't have any questions. I will do it every other day or every three days because borrowers, they're, they're getting a little nervous out there and they're thinking, well, are the rates going down? Are they going up? And so there's a lot of apprehension out there. So I'm like a therapist to be honest with you. I'm just saying, okay, this is a new norm, it's okay, you're gonna be okay. Uh, when you look at rates historically, they're not that bad, so take a deep breath, you know, let's continue on with the process. Um, and so I've been doing that just much more diligent, uh, you know, the, the actual requirements. Um, they're pretty much, I mean, we have a stress rate, uh, but if the deal makes sense, um, we'll, we'll do it. Alright. Start with, let's answer this question. So whichever information you could share, but give me a representative deal that the, the terms that you've closed recently in the last 60 days that are representative that, that you feel comfortable sharing. Okay. Well, we're headquartered in San Diego. Did close a 10 unit building just, uh, this week. And on inplace rents, it was a purchase, uh, inplace rents, we are at a point, I think a 0.9, uh, D c R. And we were able to project rents. We were at a one 50, I think it was like 1 15, 1 17 on projected rents. Um, so that particular program went out at 7.95, was it was a fixed rate swap. Um, for those of you that have, uh, how many people know what a swap is? So, okay, so essentially what we're doing is we're originating a, an adjustable rate loan, it's a 10 year loan, and then in the secondary market you can just swap it out for a fixed rate. So that's what we did on that particular program. But we have other programs like for value add plays where we have a 10 year mini permits, a month to month adjustable. And you might think, well, who's gonna take that a month to month? Again, the market is indicating that the rates will be coming down. So a lot of people that are purchasing value add plays, uh, they're anticipating rates to drop so they can complete the rehab and get some trailing numbers and then refinance later, or they can just go ahead and continue to let it roll. Uh, again, it's a 10 year loan. Great, great answer. Great answer. Ryan, same thing, uh, a deal you did in the last 60 days. You feel there's representative that you could share the information on? 'cause these guys want specifics out there, so Yeah, sure. So for a lot of apartment, uh, purchase transaction for value add deals, a lot of our clients, what they do is they find, uh, mismanaged slash underperforming apartment asset in core LA Market, which essentially means they are, you know, that they have not been able to raise the rent as market has been going up. Um, they purchase it. And then because those were mismanaged or below market, you know, on a conventional loan, they're not gonna pencil. So what we do, similar to what Fred does, we underwrite based on takeoff financing perspective, we underwrite based on as if stabilized n o I give the credit they want. And then we typically give, uh, depending on the location and leverage, uh, three to four year term, uh, with max three year interest only, so that, uh, clients can do what they're good at, which is essentially buy out the existing tenants, renovate it and bring the rents up to market and then, uh, get a takeoff financing to take us out. So that's most of the thing. And then typically we max out at 70% as is L T V. So that does give, uh, um, clients a lot of cash equity cushion that, uh, they can play with, uh, in terms of going to a conventional, uh, side. And also on the construction side, I've been seeing a lot more transactions where they need to put in BPS or MES piece lender into with us because of the higher underwriting rate, which all essentially means they have to put in a lot more higher equity. So we've been getting comfortable with working with, um, uh, other Mezz piece, uh, be lender behind us. Excellent, excellent answers, Trevor. Um, so how are we getting creative to get deals done right and Or a representative deal in the last 60 days that you guys closed? Sure, Yeah. We just closed, uh, a food line deal yesterday outta market, but it's a good indication where the, the life comp, I'm talking a lot about my life companies today for a reason. Um, I'm depending on them to get stuff done. Um, but they were able, it was a purchase, 70% loan to purchase price underwrote down to a 1 25 debt cover. Um, did it with standard insurance at, I think we ended up closing at six and a quarter on a three plus three plus three all the way out to 25 years. So the way those work is those, you know, they get a, uh, a new rate sheet at the end of the three years and then they just roll right into the, the, uh, additional remaining term. In general, how we're getting creative, we're, we're putting a lot of pressure on our life companies to adapt to the market. So their big value add has always been 10 year plus financing, non recourse, low leverage stuff. We're pushing them to push recourse, or I'm sorry to keep recourse where it's at non to 50% recourse, push leverage as much as they can and still underwrite down to a 1 25 cover. It's been hard. A number of lenders are ratcheting that up. They want a one 30 to one 40 debt cover in this environment, which is just no fly zone. So, um, our ability to push some of them though and shorten their terms down from 10 years to five or three years has been a huge value add and most of them have been able to accommodate. So. Excellent. Gina, recent deal that you could share terms? Yes, yes, of course. We just closed, it was a mixed use, basically office and retail in the Santa Monica area, which was really nice. Um, and the reason that I highlight that one is because office is difficult and, and it's rumored, you know, there's a lot of trouble with that. The deals can still be done. Uh, we were looking, because it's office, we were looking for a one 40 debt cover. This one happened to be one, 1.5. So it was a comfortable, it was a rate and term, uh, for office. I thought 7% on a five year fix was pretty fair in this current market. And then another one that we just closed was a million dollar 12 unit in Orange County, and that one was just shy of 1.25. It was actually a 1.23. But because we're portfolio lender, borrowers were strong, had a great history management was able to kind of go, okay, not a, not a problem. We gave them credit for self-management, which I know is kind of unique. That's how we soften the, the expenses rather than using straight market, of course, we're using their, um, their actual taxes credit, 3% credit for self-management. All the creative things are coming out of the woodwork right now. You know, like Fred, like all of us up here, we want loans. We're just trying to make them work in a unique market without taking, you know, exposing too much risk. I don't know if you have one to share. It's been so new. Yeah, Sure. Yeah. So, uh, I'm just thinking a couple different, two different types of transactions, but, uh, one, uh, two industrial buildings refinance, they were free and clear. Uh, we did I think 1,000,008 between the two. And it's, uh, all cash out rates around it was 10 and a half, two points, five year io non-recourse, no prepay. Maybe the loan will last two years or three. And when the, if rates start to drop down, uh, that'll will probably be taken out. And then, uh, a property I drove drove last week. I think they're signing docks today or tomorrow, but that was a single family in Encino. I think it was like a seven 50 loan on probably a 2 million value. So low leverage. And that was I think 10 65. Uh, a couple points on that. So that's kind of what we do. When I say a couple points, that's generally what we're getting. Um, a lot of the transactions we do are broker loans, so they may have a a point or, or something on that too. 'cause we, we pay rebates as well. Excellent. Alright, let's do a, a, a quick, you know, get your quick thoughts on the different property types. So I'll, I'll say different property type and then you guys go down and tell me how, how you guys are feeling about it. So let's start with industrial, Fred Industrial, how you guys dealing with industrial? Good. You Like it? We like industrial. Yes. Alright, you want me Any issues? Um, any issues with industrial? Yeah, not at this time. It's pretty healthy, I think. I think it's, it's good. And you guys have done a lot of deals with industrial? Um, yes, we're doing more. You want more? More than office? Alright. I could tell you that. Alright, we'll get to Ryan Industrial. We're In love and we wanna do more. Excellent. Trevor Industrial. Yeah, of Course. Starting with the easy stuff. Any, any problems, any issues you see in the underwriting? No, absolutely not. Number one product. What, what do you guys project? What do you guys accept for rent projections? It, it doesn't matter. Ah, no, I don't know. I wouldn't know what to say exactly for projections. We'll, we'll The tape later. All right. Yeah. Whatever. Industrial. Send us those deals that they're awesome. Right? I I will tell you for industrial, you can have a vacant building, a vacant industrial building, and we would still cons, uh, do that long. That's, Yeah, that's why I said it doesn't Matter. Doesn't matter. Gina, same? No, not the same. We, we like industrial within reason, common sense tenants, we are going to be a little more conservative. We'll look for a 1.4 debt cover on that. So, unlike Fred, we cannot land on a vacant building. We wanna see history and long-term tenant, you know? Right. We're low risk. No, these, these differences are key. John Industrial, We love industrial. And you could throw some curve balls in there that they've got. They're growing marijuana in there. Oh, that's right. We're okay with that. Or maybe In five years, right. To be Built. Um, so we're, we're an equity lender, so whether it's vacant, uh, you know, the guys want to change it into something or, you know, put in a different tenant, whatever, we're fine with that. Again, we're, we're equity lenders, so, alright. Yeah. Well let's go to the flip side. Office Office. Uh, not as excited about it, but, um, you'll look at it. We are definitely doing it. I think most of the transactions we're looking at on office, we're usually holding more to like 35, maybe 40% loan to value. It's a little tough to figure out where things are gonna to go out on the market there, but it also depends on sub-market and a lot of other things we look at. But again, it's just equity for us. How, How, how deep do you look at an office product in terms of obsolescence? Um, I think that's why we would stay on probably the smaller transactions there. Uh, I was looking one in, uh, Camarillo, um, and it was just interesting going through and analyzing that the occupancy in 2019 when the guy bought it, uh, is, it's now of course half of what it was then. And, uh, the buyer thought it was worth a lot more. And I'm looking at it like the rent's never moved. It's 50% occupied. It's probably worth less than what you paid for it. So, you know, we're gonna be a little tougher on the value and say, uh, you know, if we're selling a distressed asset, we don't want to go there, but we gotta look at that for our, for our investors. Would you look at office to other use conversions? Um, yes. Although we don't really do construction loans, right. So we wouldn't, uh, be as interested. We'd probably look at that as land value. Gotcha. The, the thing is, we can always do a deal, right? It's just trying to figure out what leverage. And then every loan we make, we're also working with the, uh, our investors. So every transaction, there's two transactions. One is with the borrower and then, then we've gotta sell it to the investor too, right? Uh, so that keeps us from doing something that might be a little too risky. Pulls you in, keeps the reins in. Yeah, it keeps the reins in Gina office. Um, well, like I talked about the one that we just closed within reason common sense tenants, uh, new startups would be a little more high risk otherwise. Well, I was gonna say insurance, but I think insurance is kind of risky these days as well. Uh, it just depends on the tenant. Change of use, Change of use, loans, Single use. Again, no Change. Change of use from office to another, uh, proper to office. To a multifamily. You mean if they're converting an office straight into an Apartment, right. Do you get involved in those office To apartment? I would love because there's strength there. Um, we would look at future value, we would look at cost involved in that, but if it was multifamily converted to office, we'd be out. Who would do That? Um, yeah, we, I mean office is tough right now, obviously everybody knows that. Um, prefer a medical office, um, did a deal in Torrance, like a, uh, six story, uh, hodgepodge kind of medical office attorneys, CPAs, all ran the gamut. I really try to push it as a medical office building of course, and said, you know, that herbal company in there, they're, uh, you know, that's a doctor's office or whatever. But, um, no, we're able to, we, we've been able to get stuff done. We're real estate lenders. So if you're looking it, it just, it's all about the fundamentals of the deal, how well occupied it is. If, if if it's sucking wind and has a ton of vacancy, that's probably not the appropriate spot for our life goes. Um, that's when you'd want to talk to maybe one of these guys. Yeah. Ryan. Office. Office. So as a starting a relationship with us through office, it would be very challenging except medical office, as I mentioned also the creative office. Uh, I've seen some conversion to creative office or medical office buildings. So those are definitely the deals we can look. And as far as converting the office into say multi-family, I think I've seen a, a decent amount of deals. I actually sat down with some of the clients and when we went through the numbers, I think they came to a realization that at the end of the day for so much hassle they have to go through with the permit change and whatnot, I think it's, it's difficult for them to pencil, so looked at it, but I think for them to pencil, it's just been challenging from equity side as well. Right. Fred office and then take retail too. Okay. So yeah, office is interesting. Um, but for medical office, uh, like Ryan and uh, Trevor, were saying we're fine with that. Uh, though I did run across a deal that I have in process. It's uh, it's a 14 unit process and a 14 unit office building in the San Gabriel Valley. And the reason why we're doing it is because the tenants, the type of tenants they're therapists of or psychological therapists, but you know, in light of these so-called economic headwinds and the stress that everybody's thinking, you know, experiencing, we think okay, with those 14 therapists in there, we're gonna be okay. So we actually decided to go ahead and proceed with that retail. Um, we're, we're fine with, uh, we're not pushing L T V by the way. Our maximum L T V is 75%, but I'm really transacting on, uh, on retail and commercial in general, right. At about 60%. And again, uh, we don't mind a subordinated debt piece. Ryan, retail issues you're seeing in retail challenges? Yeah, So our portfolio, it's, we have a lot of retail exposure. We love it. That's what I thought. Um, uh, we tend to avoid the big box retail, just like probably a lot of, uh, commercial lenders do. But I think retail is where, uh, uh, retail filled with Amazon proof tenants. I think those are the tip, uh, our go-to and uh, I think retail is, is, um, rents have been really going, uh, over the period of probably last 24 months. I think they just like multifamily as well. They're on a, a trended upward as well. So I think multifamily, I mean retail side, we see a lot of bridge opportunities as well. All different triple net shopper center, just not the big box. Right. Gotcha. Trevor, how do your guys feel? Uh, retail's been the, the top product that I've worked on this year. Um, It, it's amazing how a few years changes things, isn't it? I know It's been, uh, and not just grocery anchored. I mean we've been doing, like I said, the strip retail stuff right as well. Um, no it's been great. I think the difficulty right now, if I had to say something is just a lot of these groups are getting pretty full on it for this year based on relationship though. I think we could still get done a sound deal with good, good metrics. Um, but um, yeah, that's the only real difficulty with retail at the moment is everybody's getting pretty full on it for at least this year. Interesting. Gina, your take on retail? Actually we're starting to put our toes in the water with retail, which is weird because being with Providence for 16 years, I've always been told, no, we don't like retail, we don't like strip centers. But in the last six months, maybe last eight months, we're really kind of looking more at, you know, salons, nail salons. Why, Why do you think that is? Why the change? I think be with OS office becoming more risky. That used to be our type two product now that we're letting go of that we're starting actually focus on retail and seeing the benefit, the people that made it through Covid, the, you know, the businesses that survived. Again, we're a portfolio lender so it's gonna be common sense, but it's fun to start saying yes to retail for the first time in, you know, all these years. So it's interesting and hearing the panel talk about retail now, we don't like the big box, the grocery tenants. We're really looking at your small four to five unit strip, Triple nets, drive throughs. What's that? Triple Nets, drive Throughs. Triple nets. I love drive through food. No. Alright. Laundry. No dry cleaning, no. Uh, Fred Likes the triple net drive through, right. We could do Arnie bid, we could get bidding up there. Love fast food, Which is why we all work together. Right. John, take retail also start off multi-family. 'cause the multi-family panels next, so they're gonna be paying attention to what you guys sound multi-family. Well, so on the retail side, you know, we, we love retail. We're obviously not, uh, looking at a lot of uh, uh, big box anyways. Um, again, we would look at tenants too, service tenants with retail that have survived. You know, that's, that's a great place to be. Uh, we're still, again, we're lower leverage, so we're always looking at what the real estate is, but we also have to think about, uh, who other tenants, you know, what other tenants would go in there. Um, and then, uh, you were, you mentioned drive through all of that. We're fine with that. Uh, we're just gonna look at leverage. Um, if it's a fast food, seems like it's gonna be there forever, we're, we're probably good for, you know, 50, 55%. Um, if it's, uh, more of a smaller one, a restaurant, single tenant, that's, we, we might be a little bit lower leverage on that. Um, and then multifamily. Multifamily in la Yeah, we let's uh, zero in on la right. What do you see as the challenges and the opportunities for multifamily lending? Um, you know, I, I don't actually see challenges on it other than, um, what the Cash flow, what I was saying, what projections that people are putting in now can't be 5% given where we're at. Right. I the challenge is the, the, like for us, again, we're equity, so if the equity's there we're good to go. Um, but I think the challenge is just the cash flow and where rates are and the underwriting rates. So I think that's a lot of, you know, deals that come in and you're looking at, it's like, uh, the banks aren't gonna loan what you're looking for. Um, but for us, that creates, that's a market for us, right? We're looking, you know, a borrower comes in, look, if you put 50% down or maybe 45% down, uh, we'll come in, we'll finance it, we'll give you, you know, five year io or whatever you want on that. And then once they get the rents up, they get it stabilized, they can take us out and maybe at that point, maybe they're gonna get into the, maybe the fives or sixes and, and then it's okay to go with the bank and get a prepayment penalty. Um, but so this is a great market for us right now. We're, as, as things are difficult, again, the, the bank rates are pretty close to where we're at and we have, you know, all that flexibility. So, uh, we're enjoying this. Alright. Gina Multifamily a lot more challenges in multifamily than John made it seem I think. But you know, rent control, rent's peaking out, you know, come on. Absolutely. There are challenges, but multifamily is our bread and butter. I mean, that's what I do all day long. And if you think about what's going on with housing right now, the, the decade that was born in the nineties, they're not able to move out and buy a house like some of us could in our twenties, mid twenties. The housing prices, the rates, the income hasn't all caught up. Um, my son's 27, he's combined with his wife making over 200 and they're already struggling because on a $600,000 house purchase, their payment's gonna be like 4,200 with principal and interest, they can afford it. But what my point is, not everybody has the ability to make that they're getting outta college with big debt and big payments on their student loans. So my point on that is there's not enough housing, there's not enough inventory. The ones that are available are pretty expensive 'cause that's the Inland Empire. I can't imagine what his home would be out here in LA or Orange County. So that puts a demand on apartments and I think that's gonna, the apartment rents are gonna pretty much stay, if not continue to increase while we have a continued lack of inventory. So we're underwriting, you know, the underwriting's changing because rates have gone up and the debt covers have gone up a little bit, but it's still our bread and butter all day long here in California. There's just not enough housing and there's not enough affordable housing. So I think, I think that's just a no-brainer being a strong market. Trevor, same thought. Yeah, I'd say, um, I mean when you have an environment with compressed cap rates, still, I'm looking forward to hearing the multi-family panel to hear what's going on there. But you have low cap rates still. You have the hottest product type and it has been over the last several, probably close to a decade, right? In most markets. Um, the problem is obviously based on the, uh, metrics, you know, with these higher interest rates we're we're falling below a 1 25 debt cover or a one 20 debt cover. So it's gonna, I, I don't know, it's kind of scary. I mean if rates do continue to go up, it's gonna be problematic. Yeah, they're that large deal that was able to garner a 1 27 spread that I mentioned at the beginning of it, of this was um, was a multi-family deal with some cash out. So it's demanding the best rates, but still there's a break breaking point where I think we're gonna probably run into some headwinds when it comes to it. So long as cap rates remain as low as they are, I think there has to be an upward tick. So Ryan, your take Multifamily. We are very bullish with apartment deals. Um, like I said earlier, we are very active in the bridge spaces. Um, clients are very active. Uh, one thing I do notice is for past 12 to 24 months, I think a lot of apartment owners and some of the clients that uh, were very honest with me, I said, Ryan, uh, this six to 8% bump, it was me, it was the market. But now, you know, getting the six to 8% bump is gonna be more challenging as compared to last 12, 24 months. And also because of the higher interest rate costs, clients who are taking a bridge debt from us, they're more proactive in increasing the N O i so, so that they can get a takeout financing. 'cause the longer they wait, the higher, uh, higher the interest rate payments they have to make and then, which is ultimately, uh, affecting their cashflow. But from our perspective, but, uh, it is a bridge loan with Holdbacks or without Holdbacks, I think we are very active. And then with the higher interest rate environment that is impacting the, uh, affordability, uh, to own a home, as Gina mentioned, that is continually bringing the continuous demands for the apartment spaces in LA market. So I think this is a space where we'll continue to be active and bullish. Excellent. Fred, wrap that. Okay. Topic. Well, we, we love multifamily and we are at Axels Bank, we're a value add play lender and I would say most of our business that we're transacting is multifamily. What is a concern for us, especially in Los Angeles, is, uh, legislation and there's some legislation that is being put forth. Uh, you got tenant, uh, uh, justice for tenants out there that will uh, affect, um, there's controls on vacancy, there's relocation costs. So it's really, I think an indirect, uh, concern is just, uh, investor apathy. So, um, we would like to see that the owners in Los Angeles, um, follow the legislation, get out there and vote and protect their assets. Because when you look at the numbers and you, and, and, um, especially with vacancy controls, it does have a bottom line effect on value. So as a lender, when we're looking at legislation that can swing, you know, 20, uh, 10 to 20% in value because you cannot increase your rent or if you're trying to do a value add play, you have to pay for relocation, pay for a couple of months of, of, of rent it, it has a direct effect on value. So if we're pushing L T V and, and we have that in the back of our mind, that okay, in 2024, are we gonna have to deal with the just, you know, justice for tenants? Um, is that gonna swing the value? Um, this is important. So also when you look at, uh, the U L A or the mansion tax, again, that is directly affecting value. So you have certain LTVs in place when you're a lender and if legislation changes those changes those within, uh, a year, it's a problem. So that would be one of our concerns. We're not actually over overly concerned about interest rates because historically they're okay. Right. It's the legislation and, you know, where is that pendulum moving? Is it pro uh, pro-tenant or pro landlord? Right now it's swinging, uh, towards the, the tenant's rights. Trevor, you were gonna say, you gonna add something? Uh, Uh, I was just gonna add something on that. Uh, the tax, that's U T L A, um, and it's, what is it, five or six? Um, the reality is it's 11 because if you were to foreclose on the asset, then when you turn around and sell it, so that, that's something again, when you talk, talk about it hitting value, it's, it's a, it's a pretty big hit. Right. Other concerns on the panelists regarding specifically the greater LA area compared to Orange County, inland Empire, parts North? Besides, uh, the legislation? Anybody LA's looking good besides the legisl things, unforced errors on part of the government? Gina, you were gonna say? Well, No, I was just gonna thank Fred for bringing that up because that is important and I'm more inland Empire in Orange County and I didn't realize exactly all that's going on here. And I think if I didn't realize exactly then that was helpful. So, Alright, we are think of questions. We're running down on time, so we, uh, have time for one question. Tom Holden, I just wanna get your thoughts, quick answers, but the, um, attributes of a successful borrower, you know, the borrower and their situation, Fred. Well, they're, they're levelheaded and they understand the value of purchasing in a down market. And I brought this up last year, it's when is the best time to buy a summer hat? Do you get the best deal in the summer or do you get the best deal on that hat in the winter? So right now, obviously it's, it's the winter. Same thing for a lot of assets, you know, I've made office, I, that's the one thing I, I'm not sure. Um, but, uh, yeah, scary times. Again, I've been doing this, I'm gonna date myself for 36 years, so this is a season and it's an opportunity if you just look at it that way. Okay, Excellent. Ryan? Uh, cashflow. I know wearing bankers had, I think cashflow at the end of the day, that's what banks love to look at it. So if you're focused with generating good cashflow, whether it's a pro, pro forma basis or actual basis, I think that's, that will, that's will look like. They'll, it will look good in any banker's eyes. Excellent. Trevor, I'm getting good answers from this question. Uh, I'd say number one attribute would be probably experience. I mean, the life codes are looking for a, I don't really want to get into the specifics, but, you know, two time, uh, the loan amount in terms of net worth. So experience that's proven by money, success with success I guess, right? Um, but yeah, really experience, you know, I mean, they're story lenders. They wanna know that they have sound borrowers who understand how to operate their real estate properly and who have a track record of success. Gina traits of a successful borrower with you. Yeah, I like the way Fred said that about understanding the season that we're in. I, I think that's kind of a brilliant way to articulate it. For me, what I'm finding is there's a lot of acid reflux happening, um, in the market, you know? No, that's okay. I I have a lot of borrowers because a lot of our products are five year fixed borrowers are coming back five years later and they're screaming and yelling and saying, what do you mean I can't refinance what I owe? And, you know, they got 80% loan to value in 2015 or 2018, and now it doesn't cash flow at that. So I think the perfect borrower not only has good credit quality and has good cash flow and pays their bills and has, um, you know, common sense, it's more the ability to understand that change is happening just because they were sleeping for five years doesn't mean that it's, you know, the market can be shocking when you wake up or don't pay attention to what's going on. And listen to the lenders, uh, we're the ones that are out there every single day. We see appraisals, we see tax returns, we understand what's going on. Um, and then picking aside, I mean, if you wanna avoid tax liabilities and, you know, overwrite your expenses on your Schedule E it's gonna make it hard for a lender to do the loan unless it's private money. Um, I don't know if you guys even look at tax returns. Do you Fred? Not really look at 'em not too closely. We just stick them in the fund. And John, I don't even think you look at 'em, do you? So we're looking at them and we report our loans. The same government, they report their tax returns too. So, you know, beyond the up and up, um, that's kind of the best advice, but we're conservative, so yeah. Careful John, traits of a successful borrower with you guys. Yeah, so, um, hey, if they've got great credit, great. Um, if they've got good tax returns, great. Um, you know, if the cash flow's good, great. But we just love equity, so we're all about the equity. I, if they don't have all of those or any, or all of those things, come on over, you know, we can take care of it. We're just, we're just looking at equity, so. All right. Go in, In that conversation. Tom, you had a question? Yeah, We can't even get on, that's My question. Yeah, I'll, good question Tom. I'll, I'll, I'll man, I'll, I'll talk about that a little bit. 'cause um, I'm running in that myself right now. I'm not financing, but just the insurance side. So, um, property insurance is a, is a big deal right now. Um, I've had a few, uh, lenders reach out saying, Hey, this deal, I've got, it may fall apart because, uh, the insurance company who normally they just charge a lot and they insure everything, they came into the deal and they looked at this, uh, it was an apartment building and they looked at the panel and they said, wow, this thing's from 1950. Um, we're not gonna, we're not gonna, uh, put the policy or renew the insurance policy until you get a new panel. Well, the panels are all on back order, uh, with C O V I D and everything that's gone on. So, um, I've actually had a few, uh, situations on that have come up around insurance and it's not just, they're charging a lot, it's that, uh, they won't, like, farmers won't renew the policy period. So I, I reached out to my insurance agent and just was asking some questions on, you know, here's a picture of my panel between you and me, text message. But take a look at this 'cause it's kind of old and yeah, it is an issue. Um, I don't, I'm not sure exactly how these things are gonna work through. I think a lot of times, you know, the bank can give, you know, a little bit of time they can hold back some money and still fund, but at the end of the day, if this goes on throughout a lot of transactions, um, you know, we're all gonna be in trouble. So that is, that is a big deal. Um, property insurance and it didn't really used to be as much other than the high fees before. Right. I'll just add just one thing, Tom, because, uh, that insurance is important. I had a deal in Florida, it was a eight unit property. This guy was so happy that he went under contract and during the process he finds out the, he, the insurance on this eight unit property is $28,000 a year. And the deal fell through just because of insurance. So, uh, you know, buyers, investors have to be cognizant of expenses and that's actually another attribute of a successful investor monitoring their expenses, keeping, keeping those, uh, expenses under rain. Right. Good question, Tom. Any others for the panel? We wanna get moving. Let's give it up for the finance panel. Huh, great. Uh, great info.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/865035925.txt b/data/transcripts/865035925.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0ae8219
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/865035925.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey. Hey, The following video is the multifamily panel at Rent TV's Greater Los Angeles State of the Market Conference held on August 17th, 2023. It is comprised of Paul Julian with Advanced Real Estate Services, Henry Manus with Universe Holdings. Jerry Fink with the Bascom Group. Daniel Withers with Matthew's Real Estate Investment Services, and Alex Valante with Trammell Crow Company. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. Uh, so our company was founded about 43 years ago by my father, and we've been buying apartments here in Southern California ever since. We stay real close to home, so we stay within our, our target is an hour and a half of our headquarters, which is in Orange County in Irvine. And, uh, we've now grown to a portfolio of, uh, over 10,000 units, over $4 billion in real estate. And, um, we hold forever. We don't sell all our money is private capital. So it's all friends and family. It's grown to about 850 investors now. And, um, we also are vertically integrated. So we have our own in-house property management, and we also have our own in-house construction company that's pretty robust. You can see some of the, the slides up here where we build our own cabinets in-house. Uh, we have, you know, all our own trades, framing and H V A C and electrical and plumbing. Everything's in-house, so we can control the, and we just Heard from that last panel how important that could be. That Could be very important. So, so that's, uh, our ability to control the, the speed and the quality. So, Excellent. Henry. Hi, uh, Henry Manchu. I'm the founder of Univers Holdings. Uh, been in real estate for 37 years. I started the company 23 years ago, and I think we bought our first building in 1995. During the last two downturns, uh, we also, like a pulse company, are based in Southern California. We have currently about 3000 units in, so out anywhere from San Diego to Santa Barbara. And we had the same formula up to two years ago. We would not buy anything outside of our market, but in the past two years that changed. We have now opened an office, uh, in New York with one of my sons, and we acquired, uh, our first property in New Jersey, which is at 50 acres site at about 226 town homes. And we are process of buying another 304 units in New Jersey as we speak. We just went non-con contingent today. And, uh, we also, two years ago, opened an office in Miami, was another son. And, uh, second generation has come in and, uh, we've been actively buying on the west coast of Florida. And, uh, we continue to believe in the Southern California market, particularly where you are. Orange County, we love that Orange County, San Diego, inland Empire Insurance, Al Counties. We are not as active buying, uh, as free as we used to in LA because of legislative risk, but, uh, we still would buy the right deal. And, uh, what you see, we just put a portfolio on the market, which was released yesterday. Uh, these are 11 properties that we accumulated over a nine year span, and we were the first ones on the ground in Inglewood. So we're put everything we have on the market in one portfolio in Inglewood and one small property in West la. It's about, uh, an $87 million offering 221 units, all consumable financing. I think eight out of 11 actually, or nine out of 11. And we've been, we'll gonna be doing 10 31 exchanges. And, uh, we, we've shifted these purchases. This is a, uh, ability that we're currently have an escrow non-content that's closing, God willing in October in Tampa, a seller of Tampa called Riverview. It's about a $67 million deal, uh, building a private lake magnificent asset, you know, class A 2016 construction with every imaginable amenity. And, uh, we are shifting from smaller assets, older product to newer product, even brand new. I think our last acquisition was six months ago in Ventura, where we bought a two year old property at about 4 45 a door, about a four and a half cap. So these are some of the numbers on these deals to, to, to compare the, uh, the economics and uh, uh, I think there's also a slide on the Jersey acquisition. This is 304 units in the sub, uh, Western New Jersey called Mount Holly. Brand new property. One part's about nine months old. The other section is built about eight years ago. And, uh, we're buying this at about a sixth chap on year one with about, uh, assumable 3% debt, red hu for 32 years, fixed self, fully amortizing, and we're putting perhaps a second piece of hot on phase two or, or going the fanny feather route. So pretty active, uh, despite all the hurdles in the market, I would say yes, Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Frank Bascom group. I'm one of the co-founders and managing partners. We started back in 96 and, uh, our program is buy, reposition and sell, typically partnering with, uh, uh, private acqui funds, opportunity funds, pension funds, and, uh, a whole period of typically three to five, uh, years. Uh, pretty active across the us. Were more, you know, the smile states, so it's Denver, Texas on west, southwest, southeast, and then, uh, the Northeast as well, but a bigger presence kinda western us. Um, our, my day job is value at apartments, so, um, that's our core business. We've got about 15 development deals here in southern California that we've, uh, partnered up with developers to build, um, mainly garden style, uh, properties in, uh, emerging areas in southern California, including a couple opportunity zones as well. Um, and then also for Baskin Group, we've got about a dozen different, uh, portfolio companies that do everything from, uh, co-working, which is Premier Workspaces, a couple do industrial. Uh, we've got a group that does office, which is pretty toxic right now. Uh, and then a couple that do, uh, three or four that do apartment development as well. Uh, Daniel Withers, I'm a senior Vice president at Matthews Real Estate Investment Services. We are a full service brokerage firm. We've got 22 office nationwide, got about 600 agents. Uh, my specialty is apartment sales in the greater Los Angeles area, mostly on the private capital private client group doing probably five to 20 million range last year. Did about 45 deals close to about 200 million. Um, I think that's it. Uh, Alex Polete, I'm a principal with the Trammell Crow Company. Uh, we are the largest developer in the us 20 offices across the us about $30 billion of projects and process in pipeline. Uh, and we are a wholly owned subsidiary of C B R E, the, uh, world's largest financial services company, fortune 150 company. Um, I lead our multifamily team focusing on LA County, really up to Santa Barbara. Um, we've got about 3,500 units, um, in process slash pipeline. I think, uh, Steve was gonna show a couple pictures or maybe I, maybe that's later. Um, and, uh, North Hollywood. Yeah, this is our district NoHo project. Uh, few folks in the room might know about it. This is an R F P, uh, that we won, uh, through Metro, uh, almost seven years ago. Um, we are in the middle of hearings right now through the city of Los Angeles, ultimately culminating in a metro board approval that we're hoping to get later this year. 1500 units, half million square feet of office, 60,000 square feet of retail that we've been reshaping, uh, and reshaping and reshaping. Um, right where the red line meets the orange line, what's the intersection in North Hollywood? It's on, uh, Lankershim and Chandler. Excellent, cool project. As is this one The same project? Yep. And then we've got, uh, this Is, uh, vivo on Harbor 137 units. It's under construction right now in San Pedro. Um, we are very, uh, uh, excited for what's going on in San Pedro. Um, southern tip of the city of Los Angeles, right near the port of La Rancho Palace Verdes, uh, the West Harbor Project, which is the big Raco Raco project broke ground in December. Um, that's gonna be about 300,000 square feet of retail right there, um, on Harbor Boulevard right off the water. The port of LA has invested about a billion dollars on that waterfront over the last 20 years. Um, and we are building this project right across from it. We actually just tied up another site across the street. We are very excited about what's going on in San Pedro. I've been about 40 years in the making, and I think we got one more slide. Yes, you do. This one's cool. And then this is our, uh, Luellen project, 318 units in Chinatown. Uh, we delivered this back in 2021, uh, leased up, fully stabilized. Um, it is part of downtown, technically, so it's been, it was a bit challenging. Um, however, it's on the northern edge of downtown, on the eastern edge of Chinatown, right near the LA River, and it's right near the Los Angeles State Historic Park, which is the 32 acre park. If you haven't been there, it feels like it's LA's, uh, greatest, uh, secret, uh, uh, beautiful park, million dollar a year operating budget. It's very cool, state owned park. It's a beautiful park, concerts, uh, fairs, et cetera. We try to focus our, uh, multifamily projects around these kind of great natural, um, amenities wherever we can. That's go slide. Paul, Henry, Jerry, buy one of these. Uh, well, let's get into the market. Uh, let's start with, you know, the drivers, Alex, since you were, uh, all right. We'll go with Paul. Finish your drink there. Paul, who's your tenants? Are they doing better? Like what are the rents they're paying? Who, who are you a landlord of families, single professionals? Tell us your tenant mix. Sure. We, uh, traditionally we've always been kind of value add, you know, garden style suburban apartment owners, but I'd say over the last five or so years we started, uh, buying in a fund structure where we could be a little more diversified in the fund and start buying, you know, some core assets in there as well. So, uh, our most recent acquisition, maybe you can show that, uh, on, on my side, uh, was a, an actually a converted office building in, uh, downtown Long Beach. It was a 10 story office building where the developer in 2016 redid the entire property, added two more floors of penthouses on the top or, and a pool on the roof, uh, to create a really cool, uh, high-rise building right at first in Long Beach Boulevard. So it's a great location that the subway entrance that goes downtown LA is right in front of the property and get on and goes straight to downtown LA in like 45 minutes. Um, and so this kind of, this is obviously a different demographic than our, our typical, you know, uh, suburban garden style, more family renter. Uh, so we're kind of seeing both types of renters out there. It's a good, you know, good diversification to have. What's The rent for apartment there? Uh, you know, the typical rent's about $3,500 I'd say in this property. We have, like I said, the penthouses are more like 5,000, uh, a piece up there, but, um, but our typical rent across our portfolio is probably closer to $2,500, you know, on, on most of our suburban Orange County traditional. And, uh, and like I said, a lot of, uh, you know, Hispanic areas in Santa Ana and those areas where you have a lot of families. Um, so we kind of go across the whole spectrum of 10 or of tenants, Henry, your tenant experience, how you're seeing things, you know, leasing pressure, rental pressure. Yeah, I mean the fundamentals are still very sound in, in multifamily. I think our average portfolio is 96.5% occupied, and our collections have significantly improved. Uh, this year during the pandemic, we started the whole task force with these, uh, draconian moratoriums coming in. And we chased every penny of rent for the last three and a half years. And we were averaging 91% the first year, I think 92 the second year, but were about 97, 97 and a half, which is pretty amazing. But there's still a lot of evictions going on, I think about 41 evictions of the portfolio because we could file 'em, we can get 'em done. And we also be doing, you know, buyouts are tenants for the most part, uh, is the work workforce housing group in the older properties. But in the new properties, which is kind of a shift in strategy for the past year, uh, has been mainly professionals and 95% of 'em, believe it or not, working from home. We've seen this over and over again, which is a whole new phenomenon. And that's what we look for in buying new buildings. But we are following the numbers where the jobs are. And uh, the reason we went to Metro Tampa is probably the number one or number two metro in the country in terms of, uh, rapid growth North Florida. Still today, about a thousand people in a day are moving there. And, uh, that hasn't really changed and it's probably a sign of good governance, affordability and many other elements. But at the same time, you know, Southern California remains to be the fifth largest economy in the world, and that is now changing even if 700,000 people moved out. Right, Right. Alright, Jay, how's your leasing going and how are you feeling about Leasing is fantastic. It's tremendous demand, low vacancy. The challenge we've had, as Henry said the past four years, is getting people to pay rent. Um, it's been our, our bigger challenge. And I'd say that with these eviction moratoriums, you know, a typical building has been 10 to 40% delinquent with non-payers. And, um, you know, and it's random. It could be an activist went to one building, held court in the leasing office and we had one building in Boyle Heights. It was 80% weren't paying rent at one point. And, uh, so it really depends, you other billings where there's been no issue. So it's very random. It's not a function of rent levels or, um, income levels. It was just didn't, activists go there, spread the word, and people stop paying rent. And now the bigger challenge we got is, okay, the eviction moratorium is over, but many of these people owe 30, 40 to $150,000 of back due rent. And, uh, you know, if they move outta the building, you can send to collections. If they stay in the building, you have to go to small claims court. And that's another long disaster if you're fortunate to be able to evict them. Uh, the eviction is six months. If the tent doesn't do anything, if they protest it, delay it, stall it, it might be 7, 8, 9, 10 months or one one year. Uh, it's brutal. So the owner is still getting beat up in LA and it's not just these, this eviction moratorium, these delinquent balances. And the argument was, oh, you've got the housing is key money that will reimburse you. Well, we only got a fraction of that 'cause most of the people either didn't, uh, qualify 'cause they make too much money or didn't apply. And so we got a fraction of the funds, but we never got a hundred percent back. And so now the industry in LA is dealing with this, how do I go from this eviction moratorium to normalcy? And I had this fantasy that when the eviction moratorium was over, collections would jump up and it's back to normal. Well, it isn't. It's a slow process back to normal because you still got a chunk of the building that owe a lot of money, they'll never be able to pay it back. And now you have to start the eviction process, which as Henry said, could be as much as a year to get somebody out. So those are some of the challenges we're dealing with. But on the demand side, tremendous demand, especially for the renovated B quality apartment, which is, um, you know, kinda looks like an A, um, but it's got rents, you know, higher than a C but not quite as high as an A property. So huge demand in that sector. So demand of that problem, it's just kind of dealing with these, you know, covid delinquencies and evictions that are gonna take another year to kind of cycle through the system. Um, I think someone else mentioned the other big battle in LA now is just tent activism is rampant. So, um, you know, but every other building you've got some activist or attorney trying to stir problems and they're calling the city nonstop. They're saying, this doesn't work, that doesn't work. My, my smoke detector's not working. And then the inspectors go out there, they write you up saying, fix the smoke detector, you fix it. Then they go break it, call the city again. The city goes out there saying you didn't fix it. So it's just a lot of, it's a lot more hassle working in la a lot more activism. Um, and they're even saying this 7%, uh, rent increase February 1st that, you know, was supposedly approved, isn't really approved. And now they're talking about pushing that down to three or 4%. So that's all part of the fun of living and owning in la That's after four years of zero increase, so minus whatever, when you look at inflation. But, Well, Daniel, you know, we know you, you sell buildings, you're not really involved in the leasing as much, but in your underwriting, given everything everyone's saying and given, you know, what's going on in the economy, a lot of people thinking rents have peaked out to some extent. How are you underwriting new listings in terms of the rent projections? Well, Rent projections are one thing, but rates are another. Um, I mean, if you look at the last two years, I think we've seen a runup of over 280 basis points from la. If you look at last year up until today, 280, 280 basis points, that's a big, big move. Um, on the transaction side, it's fallen off a cliff, at least local product. I think the spreads right now, um, with where interest rates are at and where cap rates are today in southern California, there's just a big disconnect. So if you look at transactions last year, um, the first eight months of last year, there was $9.3 billion in sales, velocity, million dollars. And up in Southern Cal in LA County. This year it's at 3.5. Um, if you look at transactions, it was close to 1600 transactions last year. At the same time. This year we're at about 300 or 881. So it's, it's changed quite a bit. You know, I think a lot of guys that have been in the market have seen it. Hopefully they've saved their money. And, um, on the brokerage side, you know, I was listening to Fred when he was up here last time talking about that psych ward that he's, uh, dealing out in San Gabriel Valley. I may have to check myself in after this one. Yeah. Actually, can I, Can I touch on that? Yeah. Paul, the volume, 'cause you were talking about all product or, or all sizes probably in those numbers. I looked last night actually was curious on, on just a hundred units and up, which is more the institutional stuff that, that we're, we're working on. And I looked at the first eight months of this year, and then I looked at the first eight months of 2021. 'cause that was kinda the last year where the rates were still low. And in the greater la, which would be LA Orange County, Ventura, inland Empire, uh, this year there's been 19 sales, which is about 4,200 units. If you look at that same period, those same markets, in 2021, there was 41 sales, 9,441 units. And then if you just look at LA itself, and, and, and that includes a big portfolio that traded in Orange County that had been going on for about two years. And the portfolio downtown LA that, uh, Laguna Point had. So, I mean, it had some that's even inflated probably on what's gone on this year. If you take those out, then almost nothing's traded this year. If you look at just LA it was 12 cells this year, 1500 units, and in 2021 there was 22 for 5,329 units. So it's, it's, You know, I think a lot drive It's completely turned off. It's, it's, it is tough to be a broker this year. Yeah. Now on the u l A tax, I think is what's crushing a lot of these, at least local LA product. I think we're gonna see if, if that can get repealed. I think we'll see a jump up in transactions hopefully next year. Um, let's all hope it does. I think we're gonna see a big, big exit of a lot of large operators out of LA if that u l a tax goes, at least a lot of the people we're talking to are looking to reposition money outside of la um, still in Southern California, but they want to get out of, from underneath the city municipality. They just think there's just too much downside than upside with the city. Right. Alex, picking up on that theme, are you, are you involved, you're involved throughout the Southern California, LA, and other parts. How, how much more challenging is it in LA than the other areas you're developing in, In city of la? I, it's, it's, it's tougher. I mean, we focus LA County North to Santa Barbara, like I said, mostly focused on LA County. Um, you know, very tough to, to capitalize or, or sell or happily sell, uh, an apartment building right now. That's why you've seen kind of transactions fall off a cliff. Um, you know, deals we do are 6, 7, 8, 15 years, so we still have plenty to work on, but, um, very tough time to capitalize any new development. Right now in city or county of la we're very focused on the other 87 cities. Uh, there are, frankly, there's probably only a handful of those that can kind of, where the rents kind of justify the cost of development or construction. So we tend to focus on those. Um, but, but, but tough time right now. I think we're all hopeful. Come, you know, November of 24, this, uh, u l a night where we'll get, we're peeled, but we'll see. Um, we're, we're, we're watching it closely and we've had three projects, including district NoHo, including our two projects in San Pedro, including a couple deals in downtown that have been pretty, pretty impacted by, by U L A. Right? Not just the, uh, mansion tax, but if you're buying a new building in LA today, the leverage is 50%, maybe 60 if you get lucky. So you get, if you get a loan, yeah. Very, very low leverage and you're paying a very high rate and you can't raise your rents. Right. So in a portion of people aren't paying rent, that's only on rent control. Not, not the, that's true. Well, I'll expect to, to your projects. We didn't really touch on who your tenants are in those projects. Who are you building for? What are the rates you, you're getting? It's gotta be tough on the ground, pure ground up plays, uh, to nail down those numbers. Huh. You know, we're generally building in sub markets where there's some, you know, pretty comparable like institutional comps that we can look at and point to, but we're probably on average in the 32 to 3,400 on average. Really depends on the unit mix and whatnot. One bedroom, Two bedroom. Well, I mean, studios now are probably starting in the 23, 20 $400 range on most of the stuff that we're building. Most of the areas that we're building it in. Um, one bedrooms are probably, you know, in the, call it 27 to 3,200 range and two bedrooms or, you know, north of 3,200. Again, really depends on the submarkets, the building that you're in. Um, in terms of who's living in our building, Are they single families, are they, uh, single professionals? Are they families? Kind Of all over the board. Again, project by project, that project Lou Ellen, the 318 units in the park, that's, uh, 60% two bedrooms. It was a kind of a big bet we made that actually ended up being pretty successful, probably because we delivered during covid, which was, you know, total, total accident. But we'll take it. I'd say our biggest demographic that I've noticed in all of our projects is just healthcare workers. So doctors, nurses. Interesting. Um, uh, you know, you can't work from home generally, uh, if you're working in healthcare. So, um, I'd say that's probably the biggest, uh, uh, industry that, you know, again, just walking through our projects and looking at our rent roll, we're always looking very closely at who's living there. Um, s not so many kids, I'd say a lot, a lot of singles, couples, um, uh, and, and, and roommates For what you do is there, which is the, the big city or town in the greater LA area that's the best for you to work with? Like which city? Yeah, Glen Burbank, you know, which have you approached that have been the most welcoming for your type of developments? I'll tell you, we looked, uh, really closely, didn't get there on a project in Monrovia. Uh, yeah. And fell in love with the planning staff there, like, incredibly helpful. Uh, we had a project that we were very close to going under contract in mm-hmm. Within like two weeks, had a meeting with basically the entire city. Um, that's a little tougher to do in the city of la Right? Um, but, but that was, uh, an impressive city, but had a great relationship frankly, with the city of Pasadena. Uh, and their planning department politics are a little bit tougher there. We got a 550 unit development, uh, that we entitled, uh, got through a four year sequel lawsuit, which wasn't the fault of the planning department, uh, LA uh, earlier this year it's been tough time to try to capitalize a deal to build it, but a great relationship with the city of Pasadena, city of Monrovia. I really liked San Gabriel Valley in general. Um, Interesting. Jerry Henry, any serious, uh, similar experiences with different cities or municipalities? Um, Yeah, I'd say in every area. It's never been easy, um, but at least it's doable, uh, today because it seems like every place we're going, they're under pressure by the state to build apartments. They don't really want to, but they know they have to. So they, you know, a couple years ago they'd fight you, you never get it done. Today, they will work with you, go along because they know they have to get more apartments being built. So it's a function of all these laws they've passed in California. And, you know, the state of California is going to various areas in suing cities saying you haven't complied with your building requirements. You, I'm building enough apartments. So we're feeling the pressure that the city officials now will, they know they have to do it. They'll go along. Yeah. They won't make it super easy, but at least you can get it done. Henry, thoughts On that? Yeah, just a couple trends. Uh, we have some legacy assets in Hollywood. You know, a few hundred units passed, uh, in one area for the past 20 some odd years we never sold, but we're seeing a tremendous inflow of new supply concessions, et cetera, given with class A building, which is affecting even these, you know, old world charm buildings that a one of a kind turns out there's an effect on that the vacancies are sitting longer. So that's one thing we notice where there's like, you know, 20, 30,000 units released in the market. That's, we've seen an impact in Hollywood, you know, Inglewood, the portfolio we just put up, we have stellar numbers, and uh, we just felt that it was the right time to, to basically push the exit button and consolidate all that into once you don't do much on the Development side, it's mostly investing. No, we, We just like Jerry and like Paul strictly buy to hold value add or, you know, core, core plus. That's, that's really our focus. But one thing we, we didn't mention with all the dark clouds on the horizon, I mean, every two days you get a different email from brokers or from apartment association about this new legislation that this radical senator dreamt up. You know, how to get the landlords now, you know, I just see these crazy ideas, but, you know, I bet you come next year, this is gonna be a hot topic on the panel, this Weinstein 3.0, which, which is a November ballot where he, once again for the third time is attempting to basically impose rent control and, uh, over, you know, uh, turnover Costa Hawkins. And that's gonna have a ripple effect. You know, it had its effect back in 2019. He just doesn't stop. So that's just something that everybody has to gear up for and not fall deep behind the wheel because this is not stopping. Yeah, I think Henry's right that Michael Weinstein's going back at for a third crack with his, uh, AIDS foundation money, but, um, it, uh, and he wants to put vacancy control on units is his dream. So you can't go to market. You'd have some fixed increase. So somebody could be paying $800 for a two bedroom West Hollywood and maybe you can only bump 'em to a thousand dollars. So, you know, that happened in New York City and it was so destructive. There were a lot of companies that overnight were out of business because they couldn't get the upside of going to market. So it's a fear we all have of, at some point he's gonna be successful in jamming through one of these provisions. And the apartment association has said they're gonna have to spend 150 to $200 million to fight this next battle. And, uh, my fear is, you know, well, voters might be getting tired or it sounds like a good plan. They vote for it. So everyone in the industry's kinda worried he might get lucky and get this thing rammed through. Well, I, and sticking with that topic, I mean, you saw it in Santa Ana, so you, you have Orange County City here where there's more renters than owners in the city, and the council realizes that, and they pander to their contingency and they basically threw a rent control ordinance overnight in Santa Ana. And it's the worst rent control ordinance in the state. It's actually worse than the city of la. It's instead of 3%, it's actually 80% of C P I, whichever is lower, or 3%, whichever is lower. So right now, CPIs below that, so it's like 2.4%. You can raise your wrench right now and, you know, if we do end up in a recession or, or inflation does drop off more, you're gonna be down to 1%, or, or no rent increases whatsoever. Um, they, the national, uh, multi-housing, um, uh, N M H C, national Multi-Housing Coalition basically wrote a letter, uh, to the legislature recently, and it's something we should probably publish in every, uh, you know, piece of documentation that we send out. But it, it basically talked about how detrimental rent control is. And one of the stats that they throw out in there is they did a study of all apartment owners across the country and they said, if rent controls enacted in your market, would you stay in the market or get outta the market? And only 27% of the people said they'd stay in the market. So you're gonna have no investment in these cities if they enact rent control and all these, because, you know, we're changing, we, we own a bunch in Santa Ana, about 1600 units there. And we're changing our whole philosophy about, you know, if, if a roof's due in or paint painting that building, we do it every seven years. Well, in Santa Ana we're gonna do it every 15 years, you know, only when it's peeling off, you know, I mean, you're gonna change how you manage properties. You're gonna have blight, you're gonna have more crime. It, it doesn't work. And, and you know, the natural Richard Green from U S C, who's the form foremost authority on this will talk about the filtering effect if you don't have the natural filtering where people come in, they rent their first apartment, which is maybe a C class, you know, lower end property, and then they make some more money. So they go up to the B class and then they go up to the A class when you have rent control, that doesn't happen. Look at Santa Monica, you'll have doctors, attorneys that will still have the same apartment for 20 something years. They don't release that back to become a unit that somebody can afford. So you don't have this affordable component coming back for people to rent it. It disrupts the whole natural progression of how renters, you know, come through this system. So Right. Just seeps through it affects everything. Yeah. If I might just add to that two points. I was on a panel actually last week in New Jersey. Uh, I don't how I even got there, but sat to long at these very large orders in New York City, you know, 30, 40,000 euro on the Northeast portfolio. And, uh, they were sorry they hadn't sold their New York City stuff. And what, what was amazing is the law changed in 2019, exactly what we're talking about. That when you had a vacancy and rent stabilized, that's what they call it on the East Coast rent stabilized unit, you can no longer go to market, you would have to stay at the same rent. So the owner said, the heck with it, we're not gonna rent our units. So there's right now by some counts about 120,000 to 125,000 vacant units in New York City, in these older buildings that are just sitting boarded up. They don't wanna rent them. Right. And, uh, I get a call from my son in New York almost once a week, dad, did you sell everything here in la? You know, it's gonna come. I'm telling you, they're gonna, we're gonna put that de control thing on you guys. I feel it. I live here, I see it. You know, we have more crazy people over there than over here. So that, that's one thing. But then secondly, on the Weinstein initiative, uh, if it were to have the best chance to, God forbid pass it is probably gonna be next year because with the moratorium, they've already set a precedent that emboldened and empowered tenants so much and come up with these crazy ideas that people are buying onto. And you know, uh, Mike Bonner is out there also. He was, he was going after Douglas Emmett with this magnificent project and, and Brentwood, you know, trying to block them from evicting tenants. So people have learned really bad habits, you know, in the last three and a half years. You know, it's the same thing if you go into a store and you could steal up to $950 and walk out with handbags versus not paying your rent. What's the difference? It's really the same story. Yeah, It's crazy. 'cause who've thought rent control would pass in Orange County, you know, a couple years ago. That'd be impossible. But sure enough, the biggest city in Orange County passed it. And as they mentioned it is worse than la 80% of c p I are capped at three. Shocking. And, um, so, you know, this whole, you know, uh, vacancy control issue, now I talk to my partners owners and we look at our buildings, we go, if it gets passed, how devastating is it gonna be? And we're analyzing that right now to see what do we get more buyouts to bring people to market? How do we avoid this crush if this actually gets passed? And I mean, a lot of people in industry are really nervous it will get passed. So. Alright, we got about 10 minutes, 15 minutes left. Wanna get everyone out on time. So let's shift over to capital markets. You guys are all involved, Alex, not as much on the, on the, on the capital markets side, but probably knows, knows this stuff and how you guys have been selling the new stuff. But Paul being an active, active out there trying to buy, trying to, you know, sell, but what's it like being a buyer right now? What, what, what are you finding out there in the market? You know, it's frustrating because we, we, we raised a fund, uh, recently about $183 million that were sitting there, totally discretionary, ready to go dry powder. And there was this big wave of deals that came on the market, especially in Orange County, because what happened is all the institutions looked at their, at their portfolio and they needed liquidity real quick. So they said, what's the easiest thing to sell apartment deal in Orange County? That's pretty bulletproof. Well, they didn't get their numbers because they were unrealistic on, on their pricing because everybody who Underwr wrote it had to put today's, you know, uh, rate in at 6% or whatever it is. And when you underwrite, it didn't get to their numbers. So they all pulled them off. So almost nothing has actually been trading. It's, it's getting tested on the market, it's putting the brokers through a bunch of hoops to go market it, but then it actually doesn't trade. Um, and so you have a bunch, you have a lot of capital ready to buy. I mean, but then there's a lot of guys that are kind of sitting on the sideline too, maybe not putting their best offer. And I heard a a, a funny phrase the other day. There's a, instead of fomo, having fomo, fear of missing out, there's a lot of phobia out there. Fear of being early. So a lot of, a lot of these capital, a lot of these asset managers have capital. They don't wanna be the first guy in and make a mistake. They wanna see if this market's really gonna tank. And as we all saw in 2008, 2009, we thought there was gonna be this big tidal wave of properties. There wasn't. And you know what, this year they're probably not gonna be again. So we're, we're being patient, we're buying good deals. We've got a big deal in Orange County and escrow right now that we're closing September 1st. Uh, that'll be terrific. And then some small deals, and I'll talk about maybe those on another part of this, uh, the small deal program we're doing. Yeah. As far as uh, investor capital, uh, institutions talk the talk, walk the walk, but they're not deploying really common equity. Everybody and their mother is putting out preferred equity of some sort. I haven't, you know, seen numbers from a low 11.5% up to the high teens for for profit equity. But the retail window, which is probably the people who go into your fund and into our deals, the guys is that write the $250,000 checks are alive and well, they want invest and that's a pretty vibrant great market to be in. And uh, our forecast is we don't see a recession coming at all. We think that September for sure, there's gonna be a quarter percent, uh, rate increase. Again, that'll be a number 12 or 13. And I think they'll stop there. And the Fed basically has taken a sledgehammer, you know, to the economy and tried to stop inflation. That's really their mission. They don't care about anything else 'cause unemployment is so low. But we feel that the window now, there are many sellers out there who have value rate loans or value rate that, that don't have rate caps. They're just getting hammered. You know, if you, if you bought something with a three and a half at a three and a half cap with a three and a half percent financing and now it's jumped to eight, you don't have a rate cap, you're dead. And the same thing if you have a rate cap, they're basically escrowing all your cash flow because the cost of cap for the next one 12 months, 18 months down the line has gone up 10 times. So these people have to sell. And I think today is a great time to buy between now and 2024 and probably the first girl, 2025 Henry. But This movie's gonna end In LA though. We saw Florida and you talked about selling in LA and you talked about the problems, but are you still looking at properties in LA to buy Well, As our broker panel and given us some numbers, Paul gave the LA transaction volume, I think it's down 90% for opportunities. There isn't, there isn't enough to buy. Alright. But, but to Paul's point, yes, a lot of assets have come to market larger, but if you don't get the number they're pulling, you look At, you would still look in. If it was a different deal, It was a newer asset selected, we had a present market, we would probably still buy. Gotcha. But, but not, would not be as crazy and as bullish as you would be for, for example, in San Diego or in Vent Shore County. Right, Right. Dan, let's skip over, Jerry, come back to you for a second. Tell us, uh, Yeah, I think the biggest pain point right now is gonna be owners that own R s O buildings. Um, that purchased right before the pandemic started. We're already talking with these investors that didn't not get any n o I growth. Um, and now they're sitting on a, an interest rate north of, you know, close to 7% when they borrowed in the three. Um, we've got guys right now that are trying to fix that, either coming in with some bridge debt to kick the can a little bit. Um, but that is becoming a common theme. Um, not a lot of people are out there that wanna buy R S O buildings. It, they're, they're just not out there. Um, and if they do, they want, you know, they want a good price point for it, they want to go in with a decent cap rate, which doesn't quite exist yet in la. So I think there's still some, some pain that's gonna come. Uh, and I think a lot of it's just Are are you currently working on some decent sized listings that you have out in the market? Yeah, I mean I've got a handful of deals. We're, we're marketing a deal over in Luc Lake 45 unit deal, that value add deal that we're, we're probably getting offers. That one's about eight and a half, 18 and a half million. How's Activity level calls, tours, how, how We've, we've gotten actually great activity uhhuh, which is getting the sellers to meet the market. They've got some exchange, uh, issues outta state that they're working through. Um, But there's a lot of interest. There Is interest. We're not at the price point quite where the sellers want, but we're six, 7% off list, which I think is pretty good, pretty good price point for today's market. I think if I, if I may, if I may also add, if you wanna sell something, if you have a summable debt, that is huge, right? You've got a lot of interest. Interesting. SUMMABLE debt Or seller financing, right? Jerry, your LA assets are you, uh, would you increase, would you buy more if the s right And are you selling? Yeah, Despite all this negativity, including myself, I'm actually pretty bullish on LA because there's very little new construction. The billings are very well occupied, the market's tight. We've had four years of no increases. To me there's nothing but upside, right? Yeah. You have to go to the activism and lawsuits and that's all part of the prop in la But it feels great when you look at buying today looking forward 'cause you feel like most of the worst stuff is over. And uh, I mean we're in a few markets where, you know, new supply, there's no little to no risk of it. If you're in Phoenix or Dallas or Austin, the new supply is scary, but you're in info LA owns some sixties run control building, new supply. There's again, minimal risk of that. Um, so pretty bullish operationally on the future in LA I would say, you know, again, there's just these negatives, which is when you buy a building today, you gotta build in a mansion tax. You have to plug in a five or 6% exit in your, in your property, which is a big hit to valuations. That's a 10, 15% price cut from where you were a year ago. Um, building in rent increases, now we're probably gonna go into this lower inflationary period. So you got lower annual rent increases you can put in your rent control buildings. Um, you know, those are some of the negatives. Um, the other big negative too, I think is, you know, pre pandemic, if you did a, a buyout or cash for keys, it was pretty easy to do. 90% of people would take 20, 25 grand to move out. Even if they're paying a big discount to market today. You are lucky if you get two thirds of the people to even take a buyout and they want 50 to a hundred thousand dollars to even consider it. So the cash for keys buyouts are pretty much fa fitting away 'cause they're just too expensive. So you've gotta buy a building and just get natural turnover and then renovate, uh, uh, on that. And How, how do you typically finance such a buy? Do you put it all cash? Do you put a loan on it and take It out? Yeah. Going back to capital markets, it's probably the worst I've ever seen it. And I've been meeting with a lot of private equity groups. Everyone loves multifamily. That that's the plus. You know, they hate office billings, obviously it's been so toxic. But they love multifamily, but they're nervous. I think we, someone talked about fear of buying. Fear of buying to really is the biggest fear. So very few people wanna invest institutionally in an apartment deal today. 'cause the fear is am I gonna buy this? And then six or nine months from now, it's worth less. And so there's a lot of money sitting on the sidelines thinking maybe it's just too early. Are we gonna go into this crash and I'll get better deals in the future. Um, you know, it looks like we might not even have a recession, so who knows. Um, so it seemed like the, the institutional equities on the sidelines waiting to see some stabilization or normalcy. But I think, uh, these guys mentioned as well, the private capital is just as eager. 'cause they're looking for people places to put their 50, a hundred thousand, $200,000 investment. So we've got a, a private high net worth fund that we're raising 200 million and fundraising is going good. I wouldn't say great. I think it's, it's not great because there's fears about the recession. Um, but it's good. Um, the institutional equity, pretty much everyone I talk to says I'll do a deal, but it better be a big home run. So if you have an eight cap rate in Orange County, I'll look at that. I mean, that's kind of conversation I had. Yeah, it's Coming. Right. Well Greg, uh, you know, time flies. I could ask you guys questions all day, but I realize we're pretty close to out of time. So are there any issues that we haven't discussed regarding the greater la multi-family market that you feel is important to highlight or shed light on? Rent control, cost of construction crime? I think we've touched on a lot of things, Henry, Uh, none that we're in other states and understanding what goes on with dynamics. Uh, the best thing about here with all the negative things we said, we don't have the risk of increased property taxes. Not yet. You know, taxes, reassessments, same thing in Florida, same thing. New Jersey, the property we're buying. New Jersey has a tax pilot for 28 years. I think one month is like almost 30 years. So we know exactly what our numbers are, but this is a risk we don't have in this market. And secondly, uh, I've spent a lot of time lately out of California. Every time I'm not here I'm like, oh, I'd like, I'd rather be in Newport Beach. I miss that weather. You can't duplicate this. You know? Right. We're much more productive and it's, there's, we're still way under supplied. I mean, at the end of the day, there's not enough supply. Right. Yeah. I was gonna add one, one last thing, and this is a little bit of a pitch I guess, but, um, if we scared you all on, on owning properties here anymore, we actually, during this time when we can't find many big deals for our fund, we created something that we're calling the X Fund and we just launched it. We've already have a couple properties in it, but what we're doing is we're taking on properties from small property owners, 10 unit, you know, probably a lot of the ones that you're seeing out there, 30 unit, those kind of properties that are getting old. They're sick of managing their property, their kids don't want to deal with it. They're done. They don't wanna deal with a 10 31 exchange. 'cause right now to try to 10 31 exchange out of a property and find a new one to get into, it's, it's risky. So we said instead of that, just bring your property to us, put it in this fund. And in exchange we'll give you partnership shares. So you can automatically be a partner, limited partner. Now get outta the liability chain and you're an investor in this group of properties. And then we will, we will manage those, we'll renovate 'em, and then in two years we'll do a 10 31 exchange outta those small properties into some big institutional ones. And you stay along with us and you become a partner. So it's kind of a You the next that Paco it, It it's may maybe similar, But ours goes On forever. It's not a, it's not a D S T, you're not kicking the can down the road. Once you're in this, you got these shares, they're cash flowing. So it's a long-term type play. So you gotta get creative, I guess is my point on this. In these times when you can't just go out, out and buy nice big institutional assets, you find stuff like this and become, that's Definitely creative. Dan, you were gonna say No, I was just gonna, is that a preferred return to these guys going in or is it Yeah, they'll get a preferred return and then they'll also get re down the line. We'll refinance the properties, pull money out, tax free, you give it to 'em, they'll continue to get that and they just stay in the deal. And if someday they want to sell their shares, they can. If not, they just keep 'em forever. Interesting. Excellent. That's a good way to close. Got a minute. Yes. Questions. Dr. Gr, Alex Builder's remedy. Um, have you used that? Do you know anybody? Do you know of anybody who's been successful with that yet? Or is there just a lot of talk and no purpose is an issued yet? I don't, I don't, we we have not used it. Uh, we're well aware of it. Um, I think Dave Rand, who's one of our kind of top land use attorneys is like the poster child audience with Bill Remedy, Essentially it is, um, the state of California essentially issues housing goals for all of their cities across the state. And, and each of these cities has general plans and housing elements that they need to hit what's called these arena numbers to meet the housing goals that the state sets for each city. It's determined by the Southern California Association of Government scag. And what happens is that these cities don't get their housing elements approved by the state. Then there's this builder's remedy, um, uh, uh, uh, solution essentially where the cities are not, they essentially not allowed to reject the, the housing application. Um, and there's been some famous examples in Redondo Beach in Santa Monica, um, uh, the Racavich company actually, who I used to work for is now attempting it in Alhambra. Um, we've never done it ourselves. Um, I, I'd say I haven't, except for I think Cypress Equity is doing one in Santa Monica right now as well. Haven't seen as many call it, you know, institutional publicly traded developers utilizing it. And I don't know of any building permits that have been pulled successfully. I dunno if you guys have, um, utilizing Builders Remedy to this point. Um, I think it's fascinating. I think it's a great way to put pressure, um, on cities to, um, you know, really kinda meet housing goals. Um, I think there's a number of cities that are, um, finally paying attention, finally opening up for development. Like the city of Torrance, for example, just kind of green-lighted two products for the first time in 40 years, uh, because they passed through a housing element that allows for multi-family housing. So I think these kinds of, um, kind of blunt instruments that, that some developers are deciding and, and, and justifiably in many cases to use, it's actually a good thing for housing production, which I think we all agree up here on stage, um, is really important, um, to kind of house the folks here in, in, in California, uh, supplies. Santa Monica has a number of applications that are just totally bypassing the planning department, citing builders remedies. Yep. And you've got these huge projects coming on board in Santa Monica, but I don't know if any purpose Yet, I'm not aware of any permits that have actually been pulled. I know the City of Santa Monica ended up cutting a deal with, uh, Neil Scheer's new company, um, on a, on a, uh, they essentially, there was a, an upzoning, uh, in the city of Santa Monica that they, they, they couldn't pass in time. They basically agreed to the Upzoning standards in a higher f a r for Neil's properties in exchange for rescinding his builder's remedy application. But I'm not aware of any actual permits that have been pulled myself. Alright, good. Good question. Uh, thanks for the, you know, all of you who stuck to the end, you know, it's a long day. A lot of information. Let's give a great round of applause. Paul, Henry, Jerry, Daniel, Alex. Hey, hey.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/868849453.txt b/data/transcripts/868849453.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9c76dfa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/868849453.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, welcome to this new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, where we have what we hope to be interesting and compelling conversations with leaders in the commercial real estate industry. And I'm very excited about today's show 'cause I've known our guest a while. He is both an owner and broker of commercial properties throughout Southern California, and he is the host of his own show about real estate. So he's kind of an inspiration to us. And that is Barry Seitz, president of Seitz Properties and the Seitz Company. But before we bring in Barry, let me first introduce myself and my co-host. I'm Steve Bloom, founder and c e o of Rent tv, the news and media company for the commercial real estate industry, mostly throughout the west. Now in our 24th year with our news website, rent tv.com, daily news about deals and developments and our conferences and our video platform, the review, which is where you're watching this video. And now let me introduce my co-host, the show producer, my good friend Arnie Garfinkel with the Allstar Group. Hey Arnie, how are you today? Good, How you doing, Steve? Uh, great. Tell us about Allstar Group. Well, yeah, Arnie Garfinkel, the Allstar Group. What we do is we do commercial real estate, uh, loans mainly. And we also do events. We produce a number of events, uh, involving commercial real estate throughout the state of California and the West Coast. Uh, and, uh, we just, uh, have something to tell. We've got a couple of events coming up, uh, together in November, which we should tell the audience about. Well, uh, we're doing, uh, one of our signature events, the lawmakers forum, uh, in expo down in Carlsbad at the Western Carlsbad Resort on November 8th. That is where you can meet with, uh, 15 to 20 lenders. Uh, they're all on stage. They tell you what they can do, and you can literally present loans live to them during the event. But before that event, on November 8th, we have another event with, uh, Steve, the Rent tv, state of the market of San Diego. That's right. November 7th at the same same venue that West in Carlsbad. Great venue in the afternoon, the day before yours from about 1230 till about five 30, we're gonna have office panel, retail, multifamily, industrial, and finance for San Diego, followed by a cocktail party where everyone gets to mingle and meet the folks at your event, our event. And it'll, uh, be a great event, which we hope to grow into a much bigger deal. And, uh, tell the, tell the audience a little bit about Cal N B a. You were at Kreft last week in Vegas. Yeah. What was the out there like? Uh, I was at ca you know, it was, uh, pretty well attended. Uh, the, it was, uh, cautiously optimistic. Um, there were a lot of people there that were there to try to get deals done. Uh, but, uh, overall I think the mood was, was, uh, you know, uh, a little bit More velocity. People were covering from the interest rate hikes, starting to figure it out. Exactly. I mean, look, it was reality. This is what, this is what we are. We know the cycles. We know what's happening. Uh, you know, there were a couple of people in there that had a tagline, uh, survive until 25, but, you know, right. Every bank and, and has their own thing. But you know what, let's move with the show. We have some sponsors here, don't we? Right. Another piece of business to take care of some, some sponsors who could help some of our clients get through these tough times. And the first one is, uh, commercial real estate inspectors. Arnie, they are an awesome company in southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Sim Simington anytime to book your next next inspection today. Again, Tiffany Simington at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. The info's on the screen. Yes. And our, our next sponsor is Paramount Property Tax Appeal with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease. One way you could fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income, you could still qualify to have your property taxes lower. The deadline to file is November 30th. Call 8 5 8 2 2 5 1 200. That's 8 5 8 2 2 5 1 2 0 0. Ask for West Nichols with Paramount Property Tax Appeal. Excellent. And then the last one who keeps the show alive on is Redwood Mortgage. Redwood is a direct private money lender with over 44 years of experience lending a commercial mixed use, multifamily and residential investment properties. Loans range from $200,000 to 10 million lending in the major metro areas of California and Arizona. Redwood has a long held expertise in commercial loan transactions. Contact Redwood at 1 806 5 9 6 5 9 3, or www.redwoodmortgage.com for more info. As they say, Arnie a good place to go when the banks say no, Redwood Mortgage, you know, and with that said, now let's get to our show. Really excited. I can't contain myself, so let's not wait any longer. Let's bring in Barry Sitz of the Sitz Company. Hey, Barry, how you doing today? Hey, Barry, you got it? Okay. Uh, welcome Barry. Nice to have. Hey, welcome Barry. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Great To see you again. Always. Well, Barry, give us an overview of the Seitz, uh, company, uh, as far as your brokerage vis and how, how the company, uh, what it's all about. Yeah, So I, I guess the nickel version of, uh, the Seitz Company and how it came about is that, uh, I started working in commercial real estate, uh, here in southern California in October of 1989. The commercial real estate market crashed in November of 1989, so it was perfect timing for me. Uh, and, uh, I worked for, uh, another real estate company called Howard Ecker and Company, which was a tenant representation company, tenant specific. So we represented, uh, tenants and users of commercial real estate and, uh, obviously difficult task if you're just getting into the business and the market tanks right when you get in. Um, but, uh, it gave me the ability to really work through some difficult times and try and understand how to, uh, deal with the market and deal with people. And, and then when companies and businesses are struggling, they actually want some help. And so it was a good opportunity. And so, um, if we fast forward through that, uh, downturn in the real estate market in 1994, I purchased the West coast operations of Howard Ecker and Company. I changed the name to the Woods Company so I wouldn't forget where I worked and made it easy. And, uh, we continue to do the same thing in terms of representing tenants and users of commercial real estate. And so, uh, we are a, uh, what I'll call full service real estate brokerage company, except that we really just represent tenants and users. So you don't see a lot of say what's company signs on properties, because those are typically the people that would represent the landlord or the building owner. We represent the folks who are inside those buildings. Well, You know, I was re the partners for a couple years before rent tv, so I know the tenant rep, the tenant rep deal, so, yeah. And so, and Howard Eckrin company was one of the very first right, uh, tenant representation companies in the country. Uh, and at that time, the concept was pretty foreign and you had to explain it to people. People didn't understand the difference or why there was a conflict of interest, right? So, so no different than buying and selling a house where you have someone whose name is on the sign that says for sale, and then you come along to purchase the house. The seller pays both brokerage fees except that the person or the company who's representing the buyer is looking out for their best interest, trying to get them the best deal. And the person whose name is on the sign is trying to sell or lease the property and try and get the, the seller or the landlord the most amount of money possible. And so you have diametrically opposed. And so if you have the same broker representing both sides of the equation, there's just a conflict. I mean, it's no different than going to court and, you know, you're getting divorced and you hire your, your spouse's attorney to represent both parties. Somebody's gonna get screwed at the end of the day, and you just never do that. And, and so there was opportunity for the concept of the company. There was opportunity for the company to be able to grow, and we tried to take advantage of that. So we started doing business with companies that had locations or were headquartered in Southern California, and the company would say, Hey, you did a good job for me in Los Angeles. What do you know about Atlanta? What do you know about Nashville? And I'd say, I don't know much about Atlanta, I don't know much about Nashville, but I do know, I do know what you want in the real estate transaction. I do know we have a relationship, and I do know that we have the capacity to negotiate a good deal for you wherever it is. We just have to apply the specifics of that particular market or sub-market to your particular deal. And so company said, look, I trust you, you did a good job for me here. Go ahead. And then we found ourselves doing business in a bunch of other cities around the country that we weren't based in, that we really weren't experts in the market, we're experts in real estate negotiations and experts in structuring transactions. The problem was we needed local market expertise. And so in the mid 1990s, 19 95, 96, 97, 98, I formed an organization called the Core Network, C O R E, that was based on the fundamentals of the National Football League. So the National Football League is the umbrella organization that oversees all the teams and it governs all the teams. The N F L is a 5 0 1 c three nonprofit organization. It doesn't make money, but hopefully all the teams, I'm certain they do make a lot of money. And so in our case, we structured an umbrella organization where local and regional real estate firms could join this umbrella organization and be able to refer business back and forth in, in other parts of the country. They could share information, they could pull their resources for best practices, for economies of scale, for things like insurance or other purchases of software. And so we grew this organization, you know, very quickly and, and, and I really had two jobs in, in those days. I would come into the office at six o'clock in the morning, start calling presidents and owners of real estate companies on the east coast or in the Midwest interviewing them and explaining to them the concept of the organization. And then we would have conferences and people would come from all over the country and they liked it. And it was a good sell and it would made sense for lots of companies. And we grew from myself and one other firm here in southern California where we started to, uh, 80 firms in over 120 cities throughout the United States, uh, including Canada, Mexico, we had affiliates in Europe and Asia as well at the peak. And we had a full staff running the organization. Um, and we were doing business as the sitz company in 20 or 25 states at any given time. Uh, and as of today, we are doing business all over the country. Um, and we have done business in all 50 states. How many, uh, how many agents do you have in your office now? So, you know, we have in total with the company, so it's a little bit different structure, right? Right. Total with the company. We have, uh, in excess of 50, uh, staff in total. In terms of brokers, it's a different setup. So when you compare it to a major brokerage company, uh, ALA C B R E or a Cushman and Wakefield or a J L L, some of these bigger national brokerage companies, our goal is never to compete with them. Uh, my goal was never to be the largest, uh, company and, and do that. Our goal was to provide good service to our clients. And so when I started to transact business, I figured out pretty quickly that I was pretty good at digging up business, and I was also pretty good at doing the business, but not everybody is an expert at digging up business and what I'm gonna call make rain. And not everybody is a good transactionalist, and not everybody is a good data analysis, right? So there are a lot of different skills that go into being a good real estate broker other than just getting lucky or, or having a friend of yours that gives you a deal and you make some money. And so what I found was in those early 1990s when the market stunk and, and I went and interviewed with a bunch of different firms, I interviewed with all those big companies and I said, how do you guys go about getting new business? How do you guys, guys go about doing business in markets that you really are not experts in? So if I had a deal in Ontario, I didn't even know where Ontario was at the time, and it was out in the sticks, and I didn't know the market out there at when I first started, but I could figure it out. But that was not the ideal way to do it. And so the answer that I got back from all these other brokerage companies was, there wasn't a good answer. It was, Hey, we just kinda wing it. And so nobody said, Hey, we're experts in everything. Hey, Well, speaking of winging, it's kinda like what we do on this show, kind of, right? Hey, I do, I do have a bunch to get. We do it. We, you gotta get through some things with you, Barry. So let me, let me move forward a little bit. So are you doing most, and I wanna move to the, to the other side. So let's fast Forward to today. So today you're Doing mostly office industrial on the tenant side, Right? So today we've comprised a team, and the team is like a pyramid uhhuh. And so we have senior brokers who handle the negotiations and the transactions. We have junior brokers that do market research and background. We have a marketing department that deals with development of new business, and then we have back office staff that deals with it. So it's not, it's a team approach. It's a pyramid approach. It's not a bunch of brokers running around eating what they kill at the end of the day. So the question, and so Property Type, yeah. So, so in terms of the focus, yeah, we do office, we do industrial, we do, uh, uh, a bunch of different medical, uh, and then, um, we do high-end retail and specialty use. And then, um, we also, uh, in a different sector do, uh, multi-family acquisitions as well. So we're not doing donut shops if we're not doing an ice cream parlor. On the retail side. Um, our focus is typically on the middle to larger size transactions. Um, and, uh, but we do it all over the country. And then obviously focus predominantly in Southern California. Right. Well, let's shift over to the investment side, right? You got, you got the, the ownership side. So how, how, tell us about, uh, sandwich properties. Yeah, so as I started growing the brokerage business, we started making more deals. We started bringing on more people. And in the brokerage business, if you make a deal, you make a commission, and if you don't make a deal, you make zero. And so there are ebbs and flows and people's income go up and down, which is not for everyone. And it's very difficult to run a business. When you bring on this other staff that I mentioned, those people typically work on a salary basis, so they wanna check every two weeks, and you need cashflow to be able to pay those people. And so when I looked at it, I said, gee, I need to be able to supplement these ebbs and flows in the brokerage business with some kind of cashflow. So I started buying multifamily apartment properties and in hopes that people would pay their rent every month, and then you'd have cashflow every month. So, I mean, It's not every day you have like a off, like a great office broker, tenant rep guy who becomes a major investor in multi-family properties. Well, It started out as a, as a side gig. And it started out, I made a deal, I made some extra money, I had some extra money laying around. And in fact, the way it came about initially was I lived at the beach in Newport Beach, and a place on the next street over came available for sale. And so I bought it, and the rent was very low, and the tenants didn't take care of the property. So we got rid of the tenants, we remodeled it. And again, I had two jobs, right? So after I built the core network, I didn't have a second job. So my new second job was I would go at six in the morning, meet with contractors, get them set out for what they were doing, go do the brokerage, and then come back at five or six o'clock and see what these guys built or did. So, and that, That then became its own animal. So one property became three properties, became 10 properties, and today, say, which properties owns more than a hundred multifamily properties throughout southern California? That, And that became your cash flow. I mean, this, and that Became the cash that also became a source of other headaches and other drama and things that go along with it as you grow the business. But that became the cash flow that offsets the brokerage. Yeah. So what was your first big deal? What was the one that put you on the map if you had to look back and say, okay, this was the one that really got me going? Yeah, I, I don't know if there was like one deal where I made this deal and then that was the end of it. Uh, you'd like to think that you have a pipeline and, and you don't hang your your whole year on one deal. That's a bad business philosophy. Well, It, it's more, it's more, more like which, which is the one, which is the deal that you started. See, I have like, like you said, properties, you started investing and, and you found, hey, this is a side gig, and all of a sudden it became your cash flow. I mean, would that be the one that set your path or would there be another transaction that you say, you know what, this is where I'm going? Yeah, I mean, I look on the property side. You, you did one, you did another one, and then all of a sudden, the sudden you wake up and go, holy cow, I I need a leasing person, right? I need a construction person. I I need a full-time plumber. I, I need a handyman. And so that became its own sort of business on its own, right? On the brokerage side, you know, we had a couple of, um, relationships early on where we did some deals for some companies that were very large companies that had locations all over the country. And even when I went to them and said, how are you handling the real estate? They did not have a solid plan. They were wasting a lot of money. And so I would tell you, we had relationships with a company back in the day called Mailboxes, et cetera, which ultimately got bought by the United States Postal Service, which at the time had, uh, about a thousand locations all over the country. And they had no real estate program in place. And, and we became their national real estate vendor, and then all of a sudden started doing deals. While they weren't big deals, there was large volume of deals. Uh, we did work for Uni Globe Travel, who had 400 locations around the country. We did work for 30 plus years for a company called Applied Industrial Technologies out of the Midwest. And, and the way we got involved with them was, you know, I just started cold calling the guy and I cold called the head of real estate. And that, you know, these, these are good success stories for hard work, right? That there wasn't dumb luck. Uh, it, it was, the harder you work, the luckier you get. Isn't that? Yeah, I suppose, right? And, and so, you know, the fact of the matter in the brokerage, you have to add value as, as far as I'm concerned, like, people don't hire you 'cause they like you or they like the way you look or the color of your tie, uh, or whether you're even wearing a tie, right? I mean, so the, I called this company and they said, look, uh, uh, I said, look, just gimme a chance. And they said, we have another company we've used for years, and we used them all over the country. And I said, where's that guy located? And he said, Cleveland. And I said, well, how does he know the market in California? Does he have a guy in California? Does he fly out to California? No, no, I think they call somebody. I go, who's he calling? He's like, I don't know. I said, well, there you go. I go, just gimme one deal. Let me try. I go, gimme a city, gimme any city, and I'll tell you whether I think I can save you any money. And if I cannot, I won't call you again. So they gave me a lease in San Jose, and it turns out that was at the time where the real estate markets were in the tank. They had signed a lease at the top of the market that kept going up. Yeah. And I called them back and said, look, I did some work. I think you're way over market. I think I can save you a bunch of money. Give me a chance. And so they gave me a chance, I saved them in about 60 days on renegotiating this lease and locking them in at a new lease, at a lower rate, in excess of a million bucks. Wow. And that was one location. They had 400 locations. So think about that, right? So the head of real estate went back to the c e o and took credit for, you know, the, I just saved the company a million dollars, got himself a raise and a big bonus and a promotion. And I said, good for you. How about you gimme another one? He said, not a problem. And so he gave us another one. We saved a bunch of money, and then they finally, you know, realized and said, okay, I'm just gonna give you all my business. There's no downside to this. So, so that's how we grew the brokerage business, um, by relationships and by doing good work. To, to me, in the brokerage, you're only as good as the last deal that you did, and you have to build the trust with the client. Uh, it just doesn't come overnight. And so, um, there wasn't an aha moment on the brokerage, but once we had those relationships, I said, geez, we need to grow the business and we need to have partners in other cities around the country. And once I started talking to these other business owners, they were dealing with the same problems and issues that I was. So, it, it was, it was a good natural progression. Shifting over to the multifamily side, how, how, how, how big is your portfolio now in the multifamily, uh, Property? So we have about, we have about a hundred, uh, multi-family properties throughout southern California, predominantly Warrens, Los Angeles, Riverside counties With how many units about, Uh, so, uh, in terms of tenants, we have several thousand tenants, right? Uh, and those range from families to roommates, to individuals, to all walks of life. And, and we have properties that are million dollar plus condos at the beach to bread and butter units where, you know, people are, are paying, you know, um, you know, living paycheck to paycheck and, and rent's a big portion of what they make. And so you're dealing with a lot of different dynamics, a lot of different demographics, and, and that becomes its own challenge. And certainly covid put a whole different spin on the multi-family world. Are there any multi-family deals that you look back on, you know, that's having your portfolio, that similar question where we were asking on the brokerage side that you say, Hey, that was kind of a jewel box, you know, when you remember fondly that, uh, was a stepping stone in the portfolio and other, and how about on the flip side, any that you feel like, ah, There's always, We see a probe back in the Water. You always have a favorite sun, right? Right. I mean, there's the Ones you get throw back. So, so again, the difference is with the multifamily stuff, I never really sold anything. I, I only sold, I think two buildings in the 25 years that I've been doing this. And in both instances, I sold them to buy something different or bigger or better location, right? Um, but, you know, the, um, and, and, and so it wasn't a question of this or that. Uh, there are plenty of deals that I looked at where I, I thought, gee, this wasn't a very good deal back in the day. And then, you know, you fast forward 20 years later and the property's worth, you know, uh, 10 times or five times what you could have bought it for. There's plenty of those. And in many instances, they're next door to properties that I already own, where the owner comes to me and says, Hey, do you wanna buy it? And I said, I'd love to. What's the price? And then they tell me and I start choking. And so, um, so, so there's all of that. I mean, you know, people ask me all the time, is it a good time to buy real estate, uh, with a market where it is up or down? And, and the answer is, if you're gonna hold it for 30 years, there's no bad time to buy real estate because it doesn't matter. But the dynamics of the real estate have to pencil. You cannot buy something based on future value. You cannot buy something based on rent that doesn't exist unless you're gonna figure out how to get there. And so, in many instances, we are buying properties. We were fixing them up because they had deferred maintenance, or the previous owner never really took good care of them, or didn't put any money in. And the tenants that wanted to stay and appreciated it, we kept them. And they got a much nicer property and a much nicer place. The people that were at those properties because the rent was very cheap, or they didn't care about having a nice property, they, they went someplace else and we moved on. I think the best lessons learned are, are from the, from the, you know, I don't wanna say failures, but from, you know, things that think go the way you thought. Are there any properties you bought that in retrospect, you wish you, you didn't buy or? No. I mean, uh, fortunately, you know, we've tried to buy properties in the same sort of areas. I mean, uh, we own a lot of properties out in the Coachella Valley Now. I bought one property out there and thought it was a neat idea that I would go out there and play golf and check on the property. And, and that's right. The very first day we closed on it, I went there, checked on the property and played golf in the afternoon. And I would tell you there's been no day since then that I've had time because we kept buying more stuff. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I, I can't even visit the properties in, in a day or two. I have to, I need more time. So, uh, my, my philosophy was out the window. But, um, you know, what I would just say is that it, it, it helps to be able to add value to the property. It helps to manage the property properly. I've retired quite a number of people who bought properties that were mom and pop operators or individual property owners that at the end of the day just said, it's too much of a pain for me. I, I can't deal with the turnover or people not paying the rent or things breaking. It's, it's, it's not an easy business if you don't know what you're doing. Much More multifamily, retail, industrial. Yeah. Barry, Barry, how do you, when when you find a property, do you pay all cash? Do you finance 'em? Uh, do you have a a a special bank or mortgage banker you go to to help you with those things? How do you find Yeah, And, and that also changes with the wind and with the economy and with the lending environment, right? So it, that is absolutely a function of a point in time. So I would tell you, look, originally when I first started, I always used a mortgage broker and we shopped around for the best deal. I would tell you early on, there were a couple of banks that are no longer with us today that went under in the recession, but they used to loan a first trust deed and a second trust deed. So you could leverage up and you could get more money, or they would do structures of deals with where if you were fixing up the property, they would make you a loan and they would do a hold back for the improvements. And then once you finished it and got it stabilized, you could get more money so that you could pull your money out and go to the next deal. Then with the recession in, in 2007 to 2010, all of that went out the window and there was no interest only loans, there was no second trust deed the loan to value, which was much less, much less. And then banks that were knocking on my door that were offering to take me to lunch and dinner and ball games were gone. And, and I had banks that I had lines of credit with that they just closed them on a day's notice and said, you're just a risk, right? You're a real estate guy, you're a risk. And I'm like, I didn't do anything wrong. And so, but that's how the world changed very quickly in today's environment, you now have issues with the fact that you have lenders, again, pulling back. You have interest rates that have dramatically climbed, at least doubled, uh, and now everybody, again, is, is very careful on the lending side about how they're lending, who they're lending to and how that goes. And when you buy a property with very low rents where you're adding value to the property, then the loan, the rents are low, the property doesn't pencil, and so the loan stinks on the front end. So then you're forced to buy it for cash, forced to fix it up, and then go back to the bank at the end of the day and try and get a realistic loan. Again, I'm the guy who keeps it, I'm not the guy who flips it, right? But I want long-term debt on the property. And so I would tell you is in, in, over the course of the last 24 months, every deal we've done has been for all cash, because the loan piece of it either wasn't available or wasn't very good. Well, and especially now with the rates higher, it's, it's getting tougher and tougher to get a loan on a property might've been, I'm fascinated by the deal, deal process, Barry. I, I, you know, I think it was a jealous 'cause I wish I was able to own commercial property. So I'm fascinated by the process. So when you're buying a property, especially what you just described, and you're like, you know, so many unknowns going forward in terms of what things are gonna cost, what rents are gonna actually be, how detailed do you get with the financial analysis? Is it like i r r return on equity? Is it more of a gut feel? Like when you're putting your, you know, signing your signature, what is it you're really keying on? Yeah, And you know, I'd like to think I'm not that old or that old school, but I am, I mean, I used to back in the day, uh, go on the M l Ss, uh, there, there was no CoStar, you know, 20 years ago. And, and access to information was very limited. But I would go, I would, I, every, every Sunday I would go for bagel and cream cheese and a cup of coffee, and I would look through the LA times and I would look through the Orange County Register, and I'd look for the open houses, and I'd look for the ads, and I'd look for the guy who had a bunch of ads, and I'd call him and say, Hey, can you keep your eye out for property? Or if you are gonna get a listing on something, call me because I'm active. And that's how you build relationships and look for deals. Uh, you know, today's world, you can get all of that stuff online, uh, pretty readily. And then the question is, you know, what do you do with it? And, and how does that go? But in terms of penciling it, I would just pencil it out with a pencil and a, you know, HP calculator and try and figure out, can I do the cashflow? Now, early on, it was pretty easy for me to do that because I would pencil it based on the new rent that I knew I could get after I fixed it up. And there wasn't rent control and there wasn't, Hey, you can't evict somebody. It was pretty easy to do that if they didn't pay or you wanted them out. And I, for a long time, didn't do a deal where I got less than 10 or 15% return on my money. Cash on cash, which sounds ridiculous in today's market. Um, but I walked away from Would you do like a high analysis on rent, a low analysis? Uh, yeah, I did. I did a high and a low, right? And I'd say, Hey, here's my range. And if my range was less than zero, I wasn't doing the deal, right? Frankly, if my, if my range was less than five, I wasn't doing the deal, because then the interest rates were five or 6%, right? And, and so if I could get cashflow, because again, my philosophy was I want a cashflow, I was building cashflow, right? And, um, you, you, you don't, you don't wanna buy a property and then all of a sudden half of it's empty and you have negative cashflow. That'd be the worst thing you could do, especially for a guy in the brokerage business who goes up and down, right? So I would pencil it that way, and then I would punch in, you know, okay, after I fix it up and after I have the new rents, what do I think the property's worth? Not because I'm selling it, just because I'm trying to create some value. And so it didn't have to be worth anything other than just a little bit more than what I put into it. So if it met those two criteria, then it seemed to make sense. Now, I could tell you, I walked away from a lot of deals that I thought were too thin, that were just dumb, because, you know, hindsight's 2020, but you know, if I, if I was looking at a property at the beach at the time that was selling for 600,000, and I thought it was only worth five 50, I, I didn't do the deal. And then today that property's worth $5 million. I mean, you are in a completely different ballgame. And so I should've would've, right? Or I'd look at a property and say, this property doesn't even have air conditioning, you know, what's it gonna cost to put air conditioning in? And then in hindsight, again, it wasn't that big of a deal. So you never know to the increase, you know? Yeah. So you never know. But I would just tell you, in today's world, I still do the same thing, right? I take the marketing package and then I try to dissect it because the listing brokers package makes a bunch of assumptions that in most cases are not, right. Right. That they're not really old assumptions, You know, right now, the state of the market, I mean the, the darling right now is office, right? No. Um, you know, but the, uh, what happened with the pandemic, with the office market, the multi-family market with the, you know, rent control and all these tenants not paying rents, and that that's your source of, uh, continual income. Where do you see these sectors going? Where do you, you know, where are you looking at as far as the market, the vacancies, the rates, you know, and any other issues you see coming, especially on those two particular markets? Yeah. And, and it's funny because I ask other people that, that question all the time, as difficult as the multifamily market was during the pandemic with people not paying their rent or you couldn't evict them, and then they're still lingering effects of all of that. Plus you have rent control, plus you, you have, uh, tenants that are much wiser and that if they wanna screw you over, they can really jerk you around. And then you have really rising costs exponentially. I mean, you have utility costs of trash, for example, where, uh, on multi-family properties because of what, what the state has implemented with recycling, with organics, uh, and how that trash gets disposed of really almost 200% or more increase in the trash. You have Southern California Edison, who's had a 30 or 40% rate increase. You have the gas company that's had a hundred and something percent rate increase, everything's gone up. And so I, I feel bad for tenants that get rent increases, our own included, except when I say, Hey, I am only raising your rent 5%, and all of my expenses went up 20, 30, 40%. I mean, insurance on apartment buildings is up 40, 50%. Right? And a lot of insurance carriers are just dropping you, right? So, and that doesn't count the landscaper and the other people who, who basically tell you, Hey, I want double what I was getting before. So that's really the biggest challenge both for the office sector and for the, uh, apartment sector, is the rising costs of, uh, expenses. Combine that with the rising cost of materials, because in office market, you have to go remodel the offices and it costs an arm and a leg to go do that. In apartments, you have turnover every year. 'cause you do a one year lease and compare that against the industrial sector where you might do a five year lease with very minimal improvements, you have much less risk. And so you have to be very careful about what you're doing and, and, and how that goes. So to answer your question, where do I see the different segments going? I mean, we, we talk about that all the time here in the office, and nobody's got a crystal ball. But I would tell you this, let's break it down on the office sector. The difficulty is that whatever companies have their new model of who works out from home, who comes into the office, who does a hybrid, they've pretty much figured it out. And then now those leases are rolling. And so if the typical term of a fi of, of an office leases, let's say three or five years, over the course of that period of time, everybody's lease is gonna turn over. And they have the opportunity then to rethink their office space, the design of it, the size of it, the layout, the functionality, and the location and the price. So if between 2020, when Covid started in 2025, everybody's lease will expire. And so we are here at the, you know, middle to end of 2023, you've had a bunch of leases expire, people have moved out, they've taken different space, which is why you have increased vacancy. And there's no one there to backfill it. And, and the question then really is, what's the next thing that will fill the vacancy? We had the mortgage boom, we had the.com boom, right? We had boom with aerospace, we had boom with, with other companies that were coming into the market. Amazon took a bunch of stuff in the industrial side, biotech, right? There's nothing there today yet. I, I hope that there will be something, but there, there's gonna be more, um, just flatness in the office market and it'll be a slow creep back. And then, then as a result of that, you have landlords getting more aggressive in terms of rates and concessions because the space is sitting. Now, the flip side of it is you're not seeing this massive cratering of rental rates and you're not seeing a year of free rent and panic like you saw in the recession, or you saw, uh, in the early nineties. And, and, and part of that is a function of you have landlords that are more well healed. Also, you have landlords that their basis in the property is much less so the values have not dropped. So you don't have a landlord who says, I paid $10 million for property and it's only worth 5 million and it's half empty. I gotta get out of this. Just get me out. That, that's not there yet. And I don't think we'll get there, but the, the leasing market on the office side is soft. I don't care where you are in the country, there's room for negotiation. And so that creates opportunity for us on the brokerage side to go back and renegotiate leases that are a year or two out and be able to lock our clients in for a longer period of time and get concessions that wouldn't be available till later on today. And as a landlord, there's a benefit to just locking in the cash flow and knowing that you have a good tenant in place. So you must be Busy. I mean, you must be negotiating a, a ton of leases right now for, for tenants. So, so the, the, the flip side on the office is you have to have a company that can see somewhere into the future because the pushback on the office side is, I'm not sure where my business is going. I'm not sure how many people I'll need. I'm not sure how much space I'll need. So now you have to balance the business plan against the real estate plan, and the real estate doesn't drive the business. It's the other way around. Exactly. So we tell people, well, you have to sign as long of a lease as you feel comfortable with based on your business plan. People who signed a long-term lease five years ago at the top of the market in the office, w w w, they're, they have an opportunity to retr it. Somebody who signed a lease five years ago on the industrial market, when rates were half what they are today, if they'd signed a 10 year lease, they would be sitting pretty at this well below market rent. And, and then when you compare that against maybe your competitor who is now has to go renegotiate their lease and pay top dollar at the top of the market, you have a business competitive advantage. So the real estate is really a, a key portion for whatever business that you're in. And you've gotta try and be proactive and take advantage of it. The flip side on the end, industrial is, deals today are not more expensive than the last one. It's been like that for several years where you had 10 people vying for the same space. The space would get rented in a few days. No different than the housing market where people got used to, my house sells in three days and I have 10 offers. That also is not the case today. Right? The mar and a normal market, that's not the case anyway. It's supposed to take 60 to 90 days to sell your house. You're supposed to ask X and then you take a little bit less than X, and that's how it's supposed to work. Not I ask X and I have 10 people offering me more than X, right? So all we're doing is getting back to some sense of normalcy. And I think the industrial, you're gonna start to see that as well. You know, on, on the office side, I wanted to bring up a point. Is it, you know, I think at the panels, you know, if you saw the one you were at an Orange County, thank you for, for doing that one. It seems like a big issue is the, the strength and the financing behind the building, the strength of the landlord when you're advising tenants, is that a key element right now? Because, you know, you don't want a tenant that, you know, a, a landlord that's in limbo and can't pay your commission or the tis Yeah, I mean, and again, you're not seeing this mass sort of defaulting yet. Um, you know, there were a couple of high-rise buildings in downtown Los Angeles that went back to the bank and everybody thought, oh, the market's gonna crash because this was a big landlord to that caved the building back. I think they, they thought, uh, and, and sat down and penciled their own numbers and said, we, we can't make this work. We're better off just letting somebody else deal with it and walk away. And so the, we haven't seen it where the landlord can't afford to pay his bills. And you do have more well-heeled landlords that are not going to have those kinds of issues. A lot of the bigger buildings on the office side, you really do have, uh, much more well-heeled landlords that own these buildings that aren't gonna go under. But there's certainly a risk, both landlords, He never got outta control in most cases. Right? Right. And so, but where I, I do think that there's gonna be exposure on the landlord side is if I had a fixed five year commercial loan that I put in place in 2020, let's say, before covid, and that loan was at three and a half, four, 4%, right? That's what the rates were at the time. And I fixed it for five years, that loan rolls, and then now I go to 7%. So my mortgage almost doubles. And then also my building is not full. And then if I have to rent it, I now have to rent it at a lower rental rate than I had before. And I have to spend a bunch of money and give concessions to get somebody in the door. What we're seeing, and I just spoke to an architectural firm yesterday who basically said, our business is down because when the tenant comes in and wants a bunch of improvements, a lot of the landlords are like, look, I just let it rather let it sit. I don't wanna go gut the place for this guy because I might have to do it again. They're not really generic improvements. If the building's in good shape, why do I wanna spend a bunch of money? We have space in our building here that I own, that I just rented a few months ago, and it sat for a, a, a little bit and we had people come in and they wanted all kinds of crazy improvements, and I just said, it's not worth it, right? I'm gonna wait to find somebody that I don't mind doing some improvements, but I'm not gonna go gut the place. And, and fortunately we found somebody. So I think you're seeing a lot of that too. And all that does is it drives down the transaction volume and the volume of all the different vendors in the industry, the contractors, the architects. If they have less work, then maybe those prices start to shape up a little bit. But you still have just outta control cost of materials, right? Air conditioning, uh, you have title 24 issues where you have to upgrade buildings for lighting or for handicap accessibility and for older buildings, it's really a challenge. Well, are you Seeing into the next question, right? Yeah. Are, are you, yeah. Are you seeing a lot of change from office to housing or industrial to life science? Are you seeing a lot of that stuff? Well, it's funny that we were talking about that the other day, which is this highest and best use concept, right? So while you do have places in Los Angeles, you do have some places in Orange County and San Diego County where you have older, antiquated properties. You, you look at regional malls, right? And, and so those are an antiquated property with lots of land and lots of parking. And you're seeing those properties like the Laguna Hills Mall, like the Westminster Mall in Orange County, add other types of use, whether that's apartment or specialty retail or other things, because that really is a higher and better use. But you're also seeing antiquated office buildings that are B and C class buildings, which very, with very large parcels and lots of parking getting bought and torn down, and then they build apartments or they build industrial, because you can get much more money for that at the end of the day, but it's not widespread. But I, I look, I would tell you, if you look at industrial rents in, in, just pick Orange County, for example, if the industrial rent is a dollar 75 to $2 a square foot a month, triple net, and the net charges, if you add in all of the taxes, insurance and utilities gets you to about $3 all in per square foot, that is more rent than almost all office space in the entire Orange County, with the exception of maybe fashion Allen and Newport Beach. But, you know, you, you could rent a class office space and you, you would pay less than you would for industrials. But it is a crazy dynamic. And so that's why you're seeing some industrial get built. But there, your land constrained in Los Angeles, your land constrained in Orange County. Uh, and, and so you see pockets of that, but not widespread. We're knocking stuff down and we're gonna build, you know, where, where we can, Right. Well you, you, you answered this question halfway before, you know, that you, that you never really sell, you know, but on the buy side, uh, are there areas that you're looking at that you'd like to buy in? Or is it more things get presented to you and then you take a look at those individual properties and if, if you're looking at certain areas where, where would you look to these days that you are, are interested in? Yeah, Yeah. And so look for us, uh, our strategy is I wanna buy more stuff in the neighborhoods, in the areas that we already own stuff. Uh, because we already know the, the nature of the neighborhood and what we're getting ourselves into, and we have some economies of scale of taking care of the properties. So, so that's really what we're trying to focus on. I would tell you that in the last, you know, four or five months I've seen more deals than I saw in the last three years combined. But those deals are, have yesterday's dollar on them, right? Those sellers are still trying to capitalize on trying to get yesterday's price. And then what happens is, in many instances, and I'm generalizing, but the listing broker either tells the seller whatever they want to hear to get the listing, or the seller says, Hey, I want x I would sell if I could get X. And then the broker doesn't want to tell 'em no, 'cause he wants the listing. So he says, sure, I'll try it. And then if it doesn't sell, I'll, I'll come back and tell you we should drop the price. And so you have properties that are on the market with dynamics that don't make sense. You're in, you're in, uh, the inland Empire, orange County, LA County, yeah. San Diego County. Uh, not so much in San Diego. I mean, we do brokerage in San Diego County, but in terms of the apartments now. Alright, So a couple issues. Rent control, like in LA and Costa me right. That are starting to pass that. How about the, how about the tax in City of la? Um, well, well LA yeah, I mean, look, LA is its own ballgame period, right? And in terms of trying to raise rents or in terms of dealing with the dynamics of what you have or if you have a problem tenant, you know, how do you get rid of them? Uh, LA is a very, very difficult place. Go Buy in LA for the right thing. Well, You have to be careful. Look, here's the problem as a whole. I don't care whether it's la, orange, county, Riverside, whatever, it's very difficult to buy a property at a three and a half cap when if you were gonna get a mortgage, it would be at 7%. You are, you're not arbitraging the cap rate. You're not taking advantage of going and getting debt on the building. You're just losing money. And then the premise of buying it and raising the rent is so much more difficult in today's environment than it used to be because of all the things you mentioned. Rent control, high cost of increase of utilities, high cost of construction, high cost of getting a tenant out of there if you wanna try and remodel. And so it's a lot of heavy lifting. We know what we're doing and we can do it. The average person really can't do that or take advantage of it. And then to buy a property and raise the rent 50 bucks or a hundred bucks a month on the tenant doesn't even cover the trash, right? That got increased, right? So, so when somebody says, oh, the, the pitch used to be, oh, you could fix it up. You can raise the rents. This property's undervalued. You should pay the price based on what it's gonna be, not based on what it is today. That's also a fallacy of a dynamic of a market that doesn't hunt. And so now you have a lot more buyers that are looking at it going, look, I'll pay you a market cap rate based on what the rents that you have in place are. Because when I go to get a loan, that's all the bank's gonna lend me. And, and, and so it, it's, it's very hard for somebody who has very low rents to sell the property to somebody under the premise. You could just come in and raise the rents. You should overpay for my property. Yeah. It's like, you gotta pay. So, so for us, we're just very careful about what we're buying, right? Uh, I, I think there's some more pain. I think there's, there's operators out there that don't really know what they're doing. And I think there's a lot of people who have these interest only loans or these very low interest rates. And when those roll and you don't know what you're doing or you're not able to raise rent or your expenses are through the roof, or your insurance doubles because you had an insurance claim, these are things that people are not used to. And, and I'd like to talk to those people 'cause I think I'll make good deals with them. Yeah. So you come in with mostly cash and then refinance down the road. Yeah. So, But, But as a broker, if you have the listing right, it used to be I'll get a guy in an exchange, he doesn't care what the price is, he just doesn't wanna pay tax, right? And he just sold his property for a ridiculous amount of money to some other guy. So he doesn't really care about overpaying for the property. 'cause he knows you just made a bunch of money anyway, so over, So you look at every problem as a challenge, as as an opportunity for yourself. Uh, yeah. And, and, but in a tight market, I had to do things that we normally wouldn't do. We would put down a half a million dollar deposit and have it go refundable in two days, or non-refundable in two days. We would, you know, buy a property and, and not even look at all the units because I didn't really care. I'd see a few and I'd assume the rest were the case because you had other people behind you that were willing to do stupid things or pay more. And in order to type up the property, that's what you had to do. Now, I, I don't want the risk. I think there's more risk than reward that's out there at the moment. It's a tricky treachery path. Uh, and, and then there's not 10 other buyers. And even if there are multiple buyers, you know, I'm, I'm just not gonna buy a property based on just because somebody else, you know, offered this or that. And so you, it sounds Like you're busy looking at properties now 'cause you see op there's potential for opportunities. Opportunities, yeah. Yeah. But going forward, that's probably, you know, getting tenants, office tenants, uh, better deals and trying to find opportunities on the multifamily side. Yeah, I mean, I would say for people out there that are business owners that have a lease office or industrial, you need to be proactive looking at it in advance and try and get educated and take advantage of the market and get somebody to help you. I would say, you know, if you're a apartment tenant out there and you wanna look for a bigger, different place, you also need to, you know, be conscious of what's going on in the marketplace. Um, because there, it's, it's still very tight. And if you're an operator of apartments, you need to make sure that you're staying full and you're running a type ship. I mean, those are the challenges in today's environment. And if you have to go to the bank, whether it's you bought something or you need to refinance something or your loan is rolling, you're gonna have a lot less choices than you have before. For sure. So tell us about your radio show. How did you get started with that? And, uh, tell us where we find you and where we can hear you on that. Yeah, nobody Else. No. BSS Barry. Yes. BS Barry. Yeah. So the way that, that, right. So, so, uh, the aha moment with that one, if you will, is that, uh, we were contacted by the folks at OC Talk radio. Uh, they built a brand new radio station at the former Broadcom headquarters at U C I, uh, which is now, uh, called the Beal, uh, applied Innovation Center, which is basically a conference center, a think tank, a mini shark tank on one of the floors. And then the top floor is a radio station in a, in a studio, uh, that they built out. And their plan was to build programming throughout the day on various different aspects of people's life, whether it was investment or healthcare or insurance or real estate. And so they approached me and said, we wanna do a show on commercial real estate. Nobody really does that. They always talk about houses, you know, would you wanna do it? And I said, well, what's the deal? And they said, look, you have free reign over the topics that you can talk about. You have free reign over the guests that you can invite. And, uh, it seemed like a good opportunity. We started doing it in October of 2021. So we are coming up, October 1st will be the two year anniversary of this. Uh, we will have one, 100th episode in a couple of weeks. Wow. Congratulations. Um, and so when we started it, I had to wear a mask. They wouldn't let anybody in the building. You couldn't stand next to anybody. It was very tight deal because of the university. No food, no drinks, no nothing. Don't touch anything. Right. You needed a pass to go to the bathroom. It, it was like high school. And, um, and, and so we had some of the biggest developers and some of the biggest real estate folks come in and talk about the market. And everybody talked about, I said, what's the future hold? Right? You asked me, I asked other people, and they said, you know, it's all good. Everything's good. Everything's good for like the first six months. And then all of a sudden it started to turn, and then it was, geez, I think change is coming. And then, you know, all of a sudden, boom, you wake up and change came. And so, um, we have had a combination of, uh, politicians of, uh, business leaders of, um, business owners, um, and, and real estate developers, brokers, investors, lenders, uh, and talk about all different aspects of the commercial real estate market. And then it does tie back and forth with residential. So we have touched on it. Uh, I have a gentleman that's coming on, uh, in a couple of weeks that's running for president of the United States. Uh, and so we get all walks of life and we talk about, because it does, just like you asked me, where is the economy going is relevant to the real estate market? So if I own one property and I only care about that one particular property, then maybe what happens with the Fed meeting next week? Or maybe what happens with, uh, lending policies or maybe what happens with inflation numbers doesn't really matter in my world, but when you start talking bigger scope, it does matter. And, and so things like these bigger picture economic trends are, are things that I'm now much more focused on that maybe I wasn't before. And no one's got a crystal ball, right? But there's certain trends in the market that you have to keep an eye out on it. And it's interesting to talk to the, the politicians about whether they're promoting business or, or, or not, uh, and, and what their hot buttons are in their own individual cities of what they're dealing with, uh, on top of the business league. Speaking of that, what what are your goals for the show? And, and, and do you have interest outside, you know, what are your interests outside of real estate? Like for instance, do you have any interest in running for any office or, you know, other things like that? Yeah, I have an office. I'm not running anywhere other than to the restroom. Good answer. Um, but, um, but I, I would just tell you the goals for the show are we continue to get, um, uh, high quality people that, uh, are talking about various different things, whether it's real estate technology, which we talked about this past week, um, or, or other aspects of it. Um, so that it, it helps our viewers and our listeners to get a better perspective on what's going on. I, I enjoy doing it. Um, at, at the same time, uh, I, I think the goal, uh, at the end of the day is to make sure that it's relevant, you know, uh, topic of information. And so I've seen just from when they started, some of the other shows that they had on healthcare and other things, they just sort of ran out of things to talk about. The good news about real estate is it is ever changing. Uh, and it's So fragmented. There's always different parts of it. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's so, and We, and look, we talk retail, we talk medical, we talk, uh, student housing, we talk, we talk all different aspects of real estate And geographies as well. Yes. So, so yeah. In addition to that, I mean, we know you golf. Okay. And, uh, what other interests do you have any hobbies? What's your favorite sports team? What do you follow? Uh, well I follow, uh, I went to U C L A, so I, I follows Go Bruins. Uh, my son now goes to U S C Oh. So I follow the Trojans, uh, and, um, uh, always root for, you know, any need. The home teams, I grew up in San Diego, so I like to root for the Chargers and the Padres. Uh, in terms of sports, look, I, I, uh, used to be a tennis and a golf pro at Club Med in The Bahamas before I got into real estate. So I still enjoy, uh, playing those, both of those sports. And I'm not as good at either one of them as I once was. And that's a function of time and practice, but better than being stuck in the office. Um, How about any, uh, charities or causes, uh, that you company or, uh, He's got, I was on his website. He's got almost everyone you could think of on there. So, so, you know, look, uh, I'm a big fan of giving back. I'm a big fan of supporting charities that are important to us, that charities are important to the community. And so historically have supported a, a bunch of different charities. Uh, I've hosted charity events for U C L A with, you know, uh, Olympians and, um, uh, hall of Famers for, uh, the sports program with the John Wooden Athletic Fund. Uh, but we've also hosted events for autism, uh, and a variety of different, uh, charities and organizations that provide services, uh, and benefits to kids and families that, uh, and adults that have autism. Uh, and, uh, there are a whole host of other charities that we support in various different capacities, whether that's financially or, uh, with effort or man hours or, or other things. And so, um, we own property in a bunch of different communities. And so I like to try and get involved with some of the things, uh, that are in those communities. And that ranges from law enforcement to special needs to healthcare, uh, to military, to, to, to all walks of life. Um, and, and, um, so w we've tried to spread our wings and be able to get involved in the communities that we're in and, uh, continue to try and impress that upon the other folks that are here at the company as well. Always good to give back no matter. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, we did promise we, we tuck you in in the time limit that we're just about up to. But I do want to, last, last kind of combined question is if, if you were starting out in the business today as a youngster, would you take the same path or would you take a different path? And someone came to you today that was, you know, not Barry, but a youngster coming into you today. Where would you advise them to take a look at starting in the commercial real estate business? Yeah, I mean, look, we do have younger folks at the firm and, and we have people coming in all the time. And then, uh, it, it's a challenge. Look, when I started there was no salary. You just worked on a hundred percent commission. I, I you mean Both, right? The right. And, and so look, I, I know what it was like. I started with, you know, a few thousand dollars in the bank and I got down to a couple hundred bucks and I was washing my own car and pressing my own shirts, and, uh, I could not go out to eat and I was making bologna sandwiches and bringing it to the office. And so I, I know what it's like to, to start from the ground up. The good news is, in today's world, I, my recommendation would be obviously you want to get in with a good firm that's gonna help you grow and help you learn and help you experience different things, um, as opposed to the trial and error method that maybe Steve, you and I did, which is I make a mistake and it's so Specialized. Now, back then, like you said, we were jack of all trades. Now you almost have to decide or, you know, get, get in a, a smaller pigeonhole in a sense in the business. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I would say, look, you, you, you don't need to be an expert in all things. You need to be good at something, and then you need to be in a platform that gives you the ability to be good at whatever it is that you're good at, right? And so find something that you're good at, whether that's being on the phone or being in front of people or running numbers or analysis. And then at the same time, you know, try and hone your skills and your practice and then do something that you enjoy. Commercial real estate's a pretty stressful, uh, you know, business. I, I don't know that I recommend it for somebody right out the gate, um, because it's, it's an all or nothing kind of a thing. You can do very well or you can do not well at all. Yeah. And, and, um, and, and that is the risk reward from it. So I, I say, you know, and when we say this on the radio show all the time, um, and the reading just for the plug on the ratio, it's called Let's Talk Real Estate with Barry Seitz, right? Uh, your Morning bss. So you can Google, uh, let's talk real estate and it'll show up. But what we always talk about on the radio show is, is you need whoever you are, you need to surround yourself with good people. You need to gather the best information that you can, whether you are buying a property, whether you are negotiating a lease, whether you're trying to work on a transaction with somebody else, and then use that information to the best of your ability, and then make sure that the people around you are adding value. And, and so, you know, we try and do that here for our clients. We try and do that for the people that work here. And I think that's a good game plan for, you know, making good deals and, and trying to be successful. Yeah. Well, you know, Barry, thank you very much. This was very enlightening, uh, really great to get to know you and a little bit more about your company. Yeah. And, uh, we, thanks for Sharing a lot of that information. I will definitely be, uh, listening to your radio show. Uh, yeah. So tune in Tuesdays at nine Live or, uh, you can go, uh, like I said, on YouTube or LinkedIn or Pod Bean or Tuesday, say, you're Talking real estate, right? Or or I would just say, Hey, go to say wi.com, S A Y W I T Z. You can look it up there. But for you guys, I, I appreciate you having me on the show. I always enjoy talking real estate and I'm happy to have the opportunity to talk about our company and, and where we've come and where we're going and, and so I appreciate it. Yeah, well thank you. I know the audience is gonna love it. We're gonna put this up on the review, you know, our new video platform that we created for the industry, and then we'll market, market it and it'll do really well, I'm sure. Yes. Thank you very much for the time in the intro. We'll get You some more, we'll get you some more listeners too at the same time. Yeah, I appreciate that. And, and for you guys, thanks for all you do and best of luck with, uh, the platform and, and your podcast and all the things that you're working on. I know you're working hard as well. We're all in this together, and we'll see you at Orange County, uh, next year. Alright? Okay. Thanks Guys. Take care. Take care. You got, You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, Redwood Mortgage and Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/886025667.txt b/data/transcripts/886025667.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf75136
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/886025667.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, welcome to this new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, where we hope to have compelling and interesting conversations with iconic leaders in the commercial real estate industry. And I'm very excited about today's guest 'cause we have known him a while. Uh, he's been lending on commercial real estate properties throughout the region for decades. Arnie's a good friend of his, uh, it's Chuck Shon, founder of Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Uh, but before we get into, uh, bringing in Chuck, uh, let me first, uh, introduce myself and my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. I'm Steve Bloom, founder and CEO of Rent tv, the news and media company now in its 25th year, uh, with our news website, rent tv.com, our email blasts, our conferences, our, uh, website, sublease.com, and the video platform where you're watching this video. Now, the review. But with that said, let me bring in my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel. Hey, Arnie, good morning. How you doing today? Hey, Steve, how you doing? Arnie Garfinkel with the All-Star Group. Uh, we do commercial real estate lending. We also do a number of conferences that I produce, uh, the Commercial Real Estate Lending Conference, the Lawmakers Forum, and we also produce the Click Conference as well as we produce the Rent TV conferences for you as well, Steve. So, that's what we do, And I know we're both, uh, you know, hard at work on our upcoming events this week in San Diego. Uh, so hopefully those will, uh, uh, go well and as planned, I know we've got great programs lined up for our audiences there. Perfect enough about us. Let's talk about our clo, our, uh, sponsors. Yes, uh, we got a great set of sponsors. Uh, the first one is Paramount Property Tax Appeal with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease. One way you can fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes lowered. The deadline to file is November 30th coming up, call 8 5 8 2 2 5 1200. Ask for West Nichols with Paramount Property Tax Appeal. The information is on the screen. Uh, what's up next, Arnie? Well, next we have Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage Lenders Incorporated is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon. It is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McClain at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. Who's next? Well, the last, uh, sponsor of the show is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive, simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Again, the information is on the screen. It's Tiffany Simington. And call for your next inspection Today at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Again, Tiffany at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4 commercial real estate inspectors. Now that we hear who our sponsors are, let's bring in our really good friend and quite an icon in the commercial real estate lending industry. He is known as Uncle Chuck. Please welcome Chuck Shan from Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Welcome, Chuck. How you doing today? We're doing, we're doing, thank you, Arnie. And my Stevie Pleasure to be here. Hey, Chuck, let's get where we, we've known you for years. You're, you're a legend in the industry. Let's, let's start with giving us an overview of what Fidelity Mortgage Lenders is, the size of loans, uh, what you do as an investor and a borrower, and the portfolio size and the lending area. Just give us a little overview of Fidelity, what you guys do. Okay. Uh, fidelity Mortgage Lenders was, uh, formed in, uh, 1971. It was under Fidelity Home Loan. And then, uh, it morphed into, uh, fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Uh, we started, uh, when I graduated, uh, USC in February, uh, 63 during the Jurassic period. Uh, I graduated, uh, with a degree in real estate and finance because I thought that was probably the only major, uh, you know, I might be good at. But I really didn't know what the heck I wanted to do. So Chuck Hershaw graduates, uh, in, uh, 63. And, uh, I got into the, uh, business in, I started in, um, 65, 66. So since that time, my very first company was guaranteed home loans. So, uh, it's been a good, uh, uh, go. We, uh, service approximately 515 loans. Size of our company portfolio is about 300 million. And, uh, we have 23 employees. We're a direct lender. We lend on all sorts of commercial loans, and we used to do a lot on single family, but, uh, we're no longer in the consumer loan department as far as homes go, just in the, uh, if it's for business purposes. Uh, what else, uh, what other question did you have on that? Well, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll take it from there. Uh, in incredible story, you know, I didn't realize it was right outta college that you got into it. I mean, with all the different options at that time in your life, what was it that attracted you to real estate? I know you said, you know, you didn't know what you wanted to do. I think a lot of us get into real estate for that reason. But what was it about the industry that, uh, got you interested? Well, to be perfectly candid, Steve, Please, It was probably the only major, you know, I certainly wasn't going into an accounting, and I wasn't going into engineering, and I wasn't gonna go into the School of Cinema. I said, well, that, that real estate and finance might be akay for the Chuckie. And, uh, that's, that's how I got into it. So, it, it's been a, that, it's been a very interesting journey. Sure. Has. So, you're, you're, well, we know, we know, you know, dirt. Um, and, um, so you conceive Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, when you start now, did you start as, as you get your real estate license, did you start selling or you figured, I just wanna start doing, uh, lending? Well, that's a very interesting story because when I graduated in, uh, February 63, as soon as I graduated, my mother knew, uh, a good friend and he was an independent developer. Mm-Hmm. Now you have to remember, I had six jobs in 20 months. Wow. After I graduated. Uh, that might be a clue for people that wanna start in the industry. You're not a success, but a binging better bang that quick. Yes. Uh, and I'm a perfect example. So let's go through that and I'll make it very quick. Sure. First job, independent, uh, builder of apartment buildings. That one lasted a whopping one month. The next job I worked for a wonderful development company called Cow Prop Investments. They built, and the hot ticket at that time was furnished singles. And that I catered to the young demographics, you know, with the rec rooms and everything. It was a, it was a pretty smooth operation that lasted four months. Mm-Hmm. I got laid off there. Then I went to work for an infamous person. I'm not gonna mention the name, uh, who built, uh, four plexes in Las Vegas. I worked in Vegas for four months. That was a lot of fun. Let me tell you. I'm sure. 21, 22 year old guy. Yes. It was a few laughs and, but, uh, this guy was crazy. And I was afraid of losing my broker's license. So I quit that job. Next job I got hired by a company, and I started in a boiler room operation. Now, I gotta remember, this is before mailers and, uh, and our, uh, telephones or cell phones and all that stuff. You, you were Around before telephones. I didn't know. That's Right. I go back to the Gettysburg, uh, uh, you know, attack there. I, I worked for, uh, I was a soldier under a, uh, uh, general Grant. So I can tell you all about that fight. It was a wonderful time. So anyway, I go to work for this, this fellow, and I started in a boiler room operation. And what my job was, was to set up appointments for the salespeople. Well, I was doing pretty good. He says, Chuck, you can get your ass out in the field and you sell. So I did that, and, uh, I was doing pretty good, uh, and making some fairly a fairly good money. What was interesting about that job was I go to the office one day. I see it's locked. And what happened? It seems like the boss went home one day in the afternoon and found his wife in bed with a, a person there. Oh. Anyway, he took a shotgun and blew 'em both away. He went to jail. Then I had to go on to my next job. Oh, Jesus. So the next job, you could write a book about this job. Oh, this is, I could spend the day on this stuff. Yeah. And then the next job, I went to work for a company called RJ Beaumont. And the developer was Ponty Fem Moore. Ponty Fem Moore developed land loans. You remember the picture? Glen Garry Glen Ross. Yes. That was Chucky great movie. I was selling land in Tehachapi, golden Hills. I would pick up people, slap 'em out, show 'em the property, take 'em back home, try to sell the property. Well, the first month I didn't make a sale. And by the way, this is strictly commissioned. Right. If I didn't make a sale and second month, I made one sale. The third month I made 15 sales. I made 40 grand. I couldn't believe it. I said, this is for me. 'cause I saw the, the, the pros, and I'd listened to 'em on the phone. They were incredible. These were the probably the best phone men that ever a salesman I ever seen. Anyway, these guys were making four, 500,000 a year, you know, with their big fats of guards and driving their Cadillac convertibles. So, as luck would have it, my, uh, the sales, uh, team, RJ Beaumont got a p*****g match with Ty for Ty f the developer shut it down onto the next job. And that the last one I went to work for Ames Home Loan. Mm-Hmm. That one lasted a whopping three and a half weeks. Wow. But I learned something. The moral of this story is taking all those six jobs, the millage of those six jobs, gaining experience. I learned one thing. I was not an organization man. And if I wanted to make a living, I better start my own company. And my company started on a dining room table in my apartment with a phone and a bunch of leads in front of me, and just dialing and dialing and dialing. And it's a long story. But here we are, 500 or 15 loans in the portfolio, 300 million servicing. And, uh, I think we have a very nice and a very good reputation. Yes. Yes. It's a perfect lead into My next question is, what, can you look back and remember that first major deal that you feel like took you to, you know, smaller time, Chuck to Uncle Chuck? Do you remember that deal that you to David? I can remember this deal. I'll never forget. All right, good. Let's go back to 1972. Ooh, Uhhuh. It was a very good year. Yes. I get a call now, you gotta remember the hard money business. The, the loan Val, uh, the loan amounts were 3000, 5,000. A big one was seven $8,000. I get a call for 1,000,200 $50,000. So I go out to the property, he's a famous band leader, and he is married to a, a famous, a singer. And this was during the MGM musicals and stuff in the, uh, you know, late forties, early fifties. Had this beautiful home on Roxbury Drive north of Sunset. I didn't know what the value of that property was, to be honest with you. I was so naive in the business, especially about a huge property like this. But I called up one of my rich, uh, uh, friends that I knew, and, uh, an older gentleman. And, uh, I said to him, Ray, I said, I've got a property guy's looking for a million and a quarter, and it's a block and a half from you. He lived on Rexford Drive. So he said, let's drive by and we drive by. We went through the property, met met with the borrowers. He said, we'll do it. I said, holy cow. Yeah. This was the days. 10 points. 10%. Wow. I made $125,000 commission at that time. I don't know what, $125,000 in today's dollars, but it was a nice commission. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So what did I do? I'm glad you asked. I always, as a young boy, promised my dad someday, dad, I'm gonna buy you a Cadillac. Nice. So I went to Hillcrest Motors, Uhhuh Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hill. Sure. I know. Coup Deville in 1972. Silver coup Deville with a burgundy interior. I told the guy, I'll take that. He looked at me sort of strange. Yeah. I wrote a check. It was 5,600 bucks. Broke the check, drove the car to my parents' house. They said, pop, I promised you one day I'll buy you a Cadillac. My mother comes out there, she's felling, she's happy as that. She's going nuts. And, uh, that was an incredible day for me. I also bought this silver, this gold medal. Wow. I just went Baz Zoox that day. Yes, yes. Why Not? It was a, it was a day of elation. Yes. Day of elation. So it's like when an NFL player gets his first contract, you know, so, right. So that's A great story, Chuck. That is a great story, Chuck. When you get transactions, now, I'm, I'm a loan broker by trade, and I've sent you a lot of business. I know you get it from brokers. Right. But when somebody comes to you with a transaction, how do you decide to approve it? Is it the equity only? Is it your gut? Is it location? Is it a combination? When I send something to you, what goes on in Chuck Shan's mind when he decides, I think I'm gonna make a loan on that? Well, I have a very simple mind. There's only three things that mean a damn thing. In the private lending business. People can make it sound very complex. With dcr, this, that ratios, as far as I'm concerned, forget it. Three things. Equity, equity and equity. Mm-Hmm. Every property has a value. If you make a loan on that property and go somewhere between 40 and 55% legitimate, 40 to 55% loan to value, if, god forbid, it starts going south, there's a million exit strategy, especially in this market where you've got some lunatics out there going anywhere. 65, 65 was pretty norm. Right. But this guy's going 70, 80% loan to value. My God, thank God for these people. 'cause if I get a loan starts going south, I call 'em up. Here's a deal. I'm into it for 50%. Do your story. So we, that's, that's been my model for a long, long time. Equity, equity, equity. And we get AFIO score. Right. Because that's gonna determine how I'm gonna get my payments. If the guy's a real, let's say he's got a 500 and change or low six hundreds, I'll just give 'em a lower loan to value, uh, loan. And I buy those. 'cause I know it's gonna be brain damage in the collection. Right. So, which I enjoy. And, uh, I don't care if the person's gonna be laid or whatever. 'cause I know I've got enough meat on a bone, they get the heck outta it. So with that high equity, you don't have to get that much into the weeds with the business, the cash flow a a as much the Yeah. Coverage, like you said, the dcr Yeah. People don't realize, Steve, that if you're even into it for 65% and you have a foreclosure, yeah. You've got, you've got a foreclosure cost, you've got bankruptcy. Nine out 10, they file bankruptcy. Then if it's an empty building, you gotta worry about ripping the plumbing out, ripping the air conditioning out of the building. All sorts of problems can happen. They don't figure that out. And by the, and then if you sell the property, you gotta pay a commission. And then you got property taxes that haven't been paid. You have insurance that hasn't been paid. So when you add all these things up, uh, you might be, uh, underwater. You know? And, and that brings up my my next question on, on your exit strategy, because you touched on that a little bit. Um, when you, when do you think that you gotta step in right now, now and unwind this thing? What is your, you know, what is that exit strategy, especially when it's obvious this thing's gonna go bad? Right. Well, what I do arne is if I know I've got a lot of meat on the bone, sometimes I'll wait three months. Mm-Hmm. And then put it in default. Uh, especially if the person answers the phone. You know, your replies what's going on, you call 'em. But if they start avoiding me and don't communicate with me, I'll put it on the second month bango, I'll put it in default, or I'll call up these lenders that, that will take me out. Right. We've been very fortunate. And the few that have gone to the foreclosure sale, you know, the market of the 40 thieves out in Pomona, uh, I've always been taken out. And I even go there just to see the action. And they look at me really strange, who are you? We haven't seen you around. Right. I said, well, I represent this property. And then they try to handle with me. But I let it go. And, and sure enough, we get paid off. Yeah. Well, I guess since we're on this top topic of Tru Troubled Loans, um, I, I was gonna ask, uh, you know, if you, if, if you could think of any in your career, we've talked about some of the standout on the, on the positive side, but are there any couple that you wish you didn't make? You know, any standout ones there? Yes. Sarnie. Yeah. I mean, uh, Steve, uh, I've, I've, uh, experienced, I thought I was a real smart guy. So in 2004 and there, I have already been in business 40 some odd years at that time. So I thought I was a real smart ass. So I made some land loans. I made a total of 41 land loans between 2004 and 2006 and a half, 2007, even the beginning. Southern California. Southern California. And did I learn a lesson? The market, the biggest real estate depression we've ever had, basically that I can think of. In 2008, there was no developers buying land at that time. It was a horrendous time. You couldn't get arrested then to exacerbate matters. The cities, when I made the loan, you had a certain density, you know, you could build X amount of properties, whatever. They changed the density on me. So it, it, they took the wind out of the sails, basically. So we took back 34 Lambo. Wow. Wow. 34. I paid off all my investors, or I had some of them work with me. I said, we'll work it through. And thank God they were all first deeds of trust. So the only thing we had to advance was insurance. You know, liability insurance and kept case somebody tripped on the land and sue you. Yeah. And pay the property taxes. Well, believe it or not, this year, I sold the last two. So they've been on my book for 14, 15 years. And we came out whole, my investors are happy, but most of those loans, I was the sole owner because I bought out my investment. And then you end up selling the loan Land loans was, uh, at one time I owned, uh, half the land in California. It was terrible. But interesting that you started in the land business and you know, that's what killed you. So you end up selling the loans. Is that how, how that works? Say that again? You end up selling the loans. Yes. Se we sold the loans and, uh, because that's the only way you could get out of it. Right. I couldn't refinance myself out of the loans. Yeah, yeah. And no, no, uh, uh, lending company would, they, they didn't want my headache. Right. So, uh, now On, but on the, on the, um, on the ones that are working, uh, you know, the ones that are paying off, do you end up, do you package those and sell those? Or do you hold Those? Well, just, uh, I had the last two, there were two independent land. Uh, one was in, uh, Fillmore, the other one was in Ramona. Mm-Hmm. Which was a, uh, uh, what is that? An urban area of, uh, San Diego. Right. Or San Diego. San Diego County. And, uh, I got out, thank God. And they were both cash deals. Well, How about on performing loans? Do you package those and, and sell those to groups of investors? Or do you carry those until fruition? Generally? Uh, I'm performing Loans. You're talking about foreclosures now? No, No. Performing loans. Loans that are doing well. I do not. I keep everything on my list. Ah, the secret in this business, uh, you know, most of the people write one to three year loans. They, they love the short term. I'm the complete antithesis. And that's what makes Fidelity unique. Servicing income is the key to get you through the bad times when you're servicing, I'll let you figure the math. Yeah. 300 loans at 1.5% servicing. That ain't chopped liver. No. Yeah. Especially So if the market starts going south on you, one, you're not desperate to meet payroll because you've got this income coming in and you can pick and choose, you know, if you're gonna write a loan or whatever. And it just works for me. Yeah. Well that's what's interesting. Yeah. Even If you write a, and this is a secret, but, uh, I'll let you guys know. Even if you write a 20 year loan, which we do 20 years fixed, right? No prepayment, fixed rates, or 30 due and 15, 30 year amortization due. 15. Now we've gone as high as 10 years. Uninterest only. Hmm. What's interesting about these loans, the long term term, the mean average loan lasts on my books 42 months. Wow. Why is that? The secret is in the sauce. And that is, when you write a 20 year fully amortized loan at 50 or even 55%, after five years or so, it pays down about 12% in principle Uhhuh, now you're down in the 40% range. As soon as the banks come to life and the market normalizes, either the banks are gonna take you out. Hmm. Or you're gonna need a call from that borrower. I need more money. Or a a, a lender will take me out. You know, they go with somebody else that'll give them more money. Right. So that's, that's usually a better way, my my way of doing business. Yeah. So, Chuck, tell us about where you get your money, the investment side. Where do you find those investors to, to come with Chuck to get the money for the loans? This all started in 1966 when I first started, when I wrote my first second mortgage at a, a whopping loan of about $2,500. And I'll never forget, uh, that was Lawrence and Ida Kramer, I'll never forget them. Made the rest in peace. And I made my first, they were my first client. And then as I got more into the business, and I get a list of these investors, and I kept on keeping my figure in the telephone dialing, uh, they didn't have push button phones in my day. And, uh, we developed a cadre of investors. And then we developed even a second generation. And I'm on some of 'em, a third generation. And believe it or not, you know, we're not a huge company. We only fund about 110 to 125 million a year. That's mostly with less than 50 investors. Mm-Hmm. So, and we're very fortunate. We get calls all the time. New investors, or they were referred by our old time investors. I've got investors going back 45 years. That's me calling you right now. Yeah. There you go. We'll take care of you. Nine and quarter percent that, to you, the Fund. So, so the investors will stay in for like 20 years, uh, or Yeah, but you remember the only last 42 months. Exactly. I mean, they're prepared. Some loans, a very small percentage. And I got news for you. What's interesting about money, if they keep on getting the checks every month in the mail, they don't think much about a, it was a lower interest rate at that time. They just love seeing that check come in. They love that income. Yeah. So it, they don't think about it. Geez, I've had that loan for 10 years. Yeah. It's got another 10 years to go. Right. Yeah. No, you're right. They don't ask. But an interesting part of that story, when I first, uh, started and, and, and, uh, remember the, the recession in 81, 83, when a primary went up to, what was it, 20, 21%. I was one of the first companies to go 15 years fully amortized. Yeah. Wow. And I call up the investors talking about investors, and I say, gee, Mr. Garfinkel, uh, I just wrote a, a great loan. It's a 15 year fully amortized loan. 15 years. I'm 65 years of age. I'm not gonna be alive in 15 years. I'm could be dead. And I'd say to 'em, if you're lucky and you go to heaven, they don't use us currency. Have you been a bad person? And you go down to hell, you're in deep s**t. I know. It's a terrible thing to leave your wife and family a 10% interest loan. Terrible, terrible thing that took, got over it. And, uh, once they got used to the system, and now we're up to 20 years, uh, or 32 and 15. Yeah. The rest is history. Well, let's take a hardship. But you were, you were just talking about those historical interest rates and, you know, it makes today's interest rates, you know, seem like, uh, you know, nothing, uh, comparatively correct. Um, but given comparatively what they were a year ago, it has had a dramatic effect. So how are you dealing with the, the change that we've seen over the last year in the business climate, interest rates, the economy, economy, you know, the challenges that some sectors are having? How are you dealing with that strategically? We love it at Fidelity. I knew you were gonna say that. This is a perfect, this is a perfect store platform. High interest rates. Banks are not lending. Somebody's gotta fill the vacuum. Along comes Uncle Chucky, my deli mortgage lenders. We, if any loan fits our parameters, we are in. So we've been very busy. Thank God I have no complaints. So it's been a terrific market for us. How long it's gonna last is anyone's guess, but it looks like it's gonna be around for at least a year or so. Yeah. I thought that we were gonna lower the interest rates before the election coming up next November, but that doesn't look, uh, uh, so positive. Yeah. Have you done anything different? Have you introduced any new products or done done anything different marketing wise? Branding wise? Or is it really just taking advantage of the situation? That same Old, same old Steve Uhhuh. Yeah. It's, uh, my, my model has not changed one iota. We just look for a certain type of loan that fits within our loan to value parameters. And I don't care if this FO score is 500 or 800. And what's interesting is we're finding, excuse me, a lot of people over 700 FO scores that we're doing. 'cause they're just taking two damn long for the banks to close. And so, and that's exactly, we we're closing loans in five to 10 working days. Yeah. And that's exactly the, the, the a great point that you bring up because the way the industry is going right now in the commercial lending industry is your rates are not that much higher than conventional. And your loan to value is not that much lower than what they're gonna underwrite it for. So there's definitely a, a more, uh, homogeneous way to use a loan with, with a private money lender like yourself. Uh, and you are giving them the speed factor and the no prepayment penalty, which is why the, the private money industry is actually, uh, doing extremely well in, in today's times, you know? Yeah. One little, uh, ingredient. Yeah. I've done loans at one point, one and a half points, especially, let's say it's a 10 million loan. Yeah. I've done one pointers, one and a half. And getting back to servicing Steve, I don't care about the up upfront point that we make. I like getting at least I, on the big loans, getting 1% servicing fee, recurring revenue, percent servicing fee. Right. And a $10 million is a hundred thousand. That's 8,000 a month. Yeah. That's a, that's a special. Right, right. Well, let me ask you this. Uh, you know, given the, the changes we've seen in the economy, are you seeing any changes and the fact that you haven't changed? Are you seeing changes in the industry in terms of financing, you know, anything dramatically that you see in terms of new ways of getting deals done? Or? I mean, the answer may be no. Yes. Uh, and one of the things I brought up earlier, I see a lot of people desperate, a lot of companies desperate to make loans. 'cause it's so competitive out there. And that's for the first time I've seen 70 and 80% loan to value. Yeah. And I just don't get it. Yeah. Uh, because if any of those loans become, gets go down, that gets, go south, they got problems in River City. And you know, it's interesting, most of those loans are one to two year loans. What happens? That loan comes due in two years. Right. What we're seeing with some of the banks, they're not gonna be able to get the No. So what is happening right now with a lot of the banks, they're doing what's called cash in refi where, or they've gotta just write, you know, they just gotta rewrite the loan and gulp and, and say they're gonna be at a higher loan to value because the guy's paying. Uh, you know, so Yeah. That, that's what's happening. Now. Going to the next question I have for you is write now with the state of the office, a multifamily market that's changing. And what is your opinion as far as what you see happening in that industry? I mean, again, you're going based purely on equity, but some of those equities are not what they used to be. How do you look at office and multifamily right now? Yeah. Actually, Chuck, before you answer that, are you active in all like, indu, indu, industrial, retail, office, multifamily? Are you active in all? We're We're all in the whole wheelhouse. Alright. Of, of loans. Yeah. Uh, Nothing passes us by other than rural land. Right. You don't do land. We know that. But, uh, Not crazy about, I'll do a le I'll do an infill. Yeah. But, uh, no, in, in the rural, rural areas, like Right. I'll give you an example. What is it called? Acton. Yeah. Uh, Up by Lancaster. It's hot springs. Yeah. Rum. Um, we get, we get loan requests there. You know, uh, that's outta my purview. Right. Well, you know, but go back to Arnie Yeah. About the different sectors. Back to back to the question on office of multifamily. Yeah. Let, let's, well, Steven interrupted it so I know. I'm sorry. He does that all the time. I got, I gotta, Uh, office buildings. We are getting tremendous amount of requests for office buildings. Why? Because the banks aren't touching 'em. Right. And 90% of the landers aren't touching 'em and Fidelity is not touching them. Ah, but what's interesting, if you get a smaller office building 10 to 15 unit office building and it's in a local downtown area, we will make a loan on them because there is a demand for people that want a small office and a small office building. You're talking about high rises because of Covid. What happened that changed the whole dynamics of that market. So we've, we've had a lot of loan requests because say people know I can make a big, a large loan on some big buildings and, uh, thank you very much, but no. And, and the Forecast now getting multifamily. Yeah. Talking about That. Alright. That's a very interesting, uh, market. Look what happened the last prior, uh, to the last 18 months. Say they were getting loans at 2, 8, 5 to 3, 3 5, 3 and a half percent. Right. Uh, 30 to in 10 30 doing in five 20, doing whatever. What's gonna happen when those loans come due? Mm-Hmm. Their income was predicated on the service debt of 2, 8, 5 or three and a half percent. Now they're looking at 8% approximately. They don't pencil out anymore. And, you know, you can't, uh, the economy, although it's good, uh, people can't afford to have their rents increase proportionately to the increase in the interest rate. Right. So they, they've got an issue, they've got a problem. So I would say in the next two, three years, we're gonna see a lot of, uh, defaults on multifamily. And, and the only thing I can think of, if these banks wanna just roll 'em and, and, and, and not, not put 'em in foreclosure. Right. Or they'll sell that portfolio take a tremendous discount and, uh, that's gonna be another scenario. So that's a multifamily market as far as I see. Yeah. Well, you know, a combination, obviously a hot topic today is the, you know, transformation of, you know, uh, office product that isn't working into multifamily. Right. Do you do construction loans? Do none. None. None. Well, I did years ago, but there's a lot of brain damage with that. Right. I said, I'm a simple-minded guy, I just wanna write a loan. We're good at that. It's an existing building showing done. Yeah. And you like the recurring revenue, but what do you think about that topic? Uh, do you think that's going to, uh, be something that's gonna take place the office to other uses? We made adaptive reuse. Is that what you're You're well tear down, you know, depending, Listen, costs a lot of money. Right. I take New York City, I just got back, I was there from, uh, from, uh, the fifth to the 15th. They got huge vacancies there. You know, I'm a New York City Native on beautiful buildings. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how many square feet that they've got that vacant. So the, they're gonna either have to discount the hell out of the value of those buildings and then figure in how much it's gonna cost to put up the dumpty back together and put in residential or condos. But that takes boku dollars and that's way out of my venue. Right. So, but it's an interesting scenario that we're gonna see play out. S bricks and mortar. Gotta make use of it somehow. Right. Go ahead. Well, you know, shifting from sectors to geography, when you look at the landscape, are there places around Southern California, other parts, you know, the state or country where is really attractive, you're more inclined to lend? And are there others that you just say brain damage? Yeah. Stay away. Um, fidelity, we land obviously all of California, northern southern, all of California, that market, we know, we recently in the last four years went into all the trust deeded states. That's all the western states. Texas, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, um, Utah. So we will write loans and the trust states, we know trustees are much easier to deal with than mortgages, but that's a whole different animal. Completely. And, uh, we've developed a cadre of appraisers or people we know within those specific areas that we can get determine a value. And that's another secret in this business. The secret in this business is knowing the brokers who are active in the area in which you are going to make a loan. Because who do the appraisers go to? Brokers. The brokers who negotiate the deals You're talking about the real estate brokers, estate broker, The real estate brokers. Right. And since we've been in business over 50 years, we've developed a cadre of brokers that I can call 'em up and say, Michael, this is Chuck. I'm doing a building, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, Chuck, it's $300 a foot. The fidelity value is two 50. You're going 50%. We can, uh, definitely sell it at that and get you out real quick. So that's our model. Yeah. Now let me, within California, which is kind of its own country, are there places that where you say, you know, where you hear about a location, it kind of just has a dark cloud over it that's ah, that's gonna be more challenging. And others that are like, oh, I'd love to be there. I I, uh, we made, we just completed a beautiful loan in Colorado. Uh, I, you know what, to be honest with you, I don't know if it was a trustee or a mortgage, but the deal was so good, uh, be true. I couldn't refuse it. Uh, and we've done some loans in New York, which is a mortgage state. Interesting. But we only went into it 40% on prime, prime, prime property. So you better make sure that the borrower is pretty strong, because to do a foreclosure on a mortgage could take two, three years because it's a judicial foreclosure. You gotta go through the courts. So you gotta watch yourself. One, one of the things, one of the things that you do, what, one of the things that I wanna ask you, Chuck, is what sets Fidelity apart from your competition? What, why would, if we have a private money loan, or what used to be known as hard money, uh, lent loan, why would they call Uncle Chuck? Or why would they call Fidelity? What, what sets you apart? What makes Fidelity unique is long-term financing at fixed rates, as we mentioned before, 20 years fully amortized, 30 due and 15, we've gone up to 10 years, interest only, no prepayment penalties. If we don't need an appraisal, we'll close that loan in five working days. Money is not an issue. We have a large credit line. So if I call up my investor and he says, Chuck, I won't have the money in two weeks. Not an issue. I'll fund the loan even with their name on the note and deeded of trust, and then they'll send me a check later. So the uniqueness is long term, no prepay, very competitive interest rates. I will not lose a deal because of my interest rates for my model. Right. And as I say, and, and very fair in the point situation, the upfront cost. Right, right. Plus we go out personally and I'll meet with the owners. There's nothing better than meeting that borrower face-to-face, go out there with a smile, shake hands with him. He is expecting some banker kind of guy and a suit, or a sport jacket or whatever. I come out like, I'm dressed now with a pair of jeans and everything with a friendly face. Make crack a few jokes. And, uh, the people feel comfortable and shine. You've written the deal. Yeah. That, That's great answer. And it's a perfect lead in for, for this, which is, you know, if, uh, it's kind of a two part question. So if you had someone coming to you today, young, young person starting in the business, what advice would you give them? And if you were starting in the business today, what would you, where would you start? What Would you do different, if anything? Yeah. So let's start on someone young coming to you and asking you for advice. What would you, what would you do? Well, the first thing, the first thing they better get a real estate license. Yeah. And then you've gotta find a company that's willing to take a neophyte and train him. And they're going to, uh, you know, start at a very low position, whatever, even answering phones, whatever. Uh, they're gonna have to do that. But I'm gonna tell you something. In college, they don't teach you, uh, what's the right word that I would say, uh, business sense, business instincts. They do not teach you that in college. If you do not have business instincts, I don't care how smart you are, you're gonna have a rough time. If you are not passionate and intense about a certain area, when you find there's a certain area of real estate that you like, whether it's leasing. I know you've had some podcasts. A guy specializes in leasing and he only represents the tenant who's very clever. You watch that one. I love that podcast. That was very interesting to me. Thank you. The leasing end Very say yes. Yeah. And, and or, uh, they could be at the financing end of the, you know, they could be a broker. Um, there's a myriad of different arenas for them to learn, but you better be passionate about it and really be, have a lot of fortitude. Yeah. And stick with it. Because if you don't and you get discouraged real quick, you're out. So look what happened to me. Six jobs in 20 months. Yeah. I had no choice. I had to make a living and I wasn't gonna be at home at my parents' house. I'll tell you that. I want that out. So, uh, that's what I would say. And Now, now if, now if you, knowing what you know, were starting in the business today, what route would you do differently? Nothing. All right. Anything. Yeah. I, I, I've been so fortunate and in those days I had the energy. Arnie knows, I used to go, I used to be on the panels. Uh, I used to do, uh, networking groups. I would go on five different networking groups every day. Sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for lunch. There was never a year I made less than $250,000 in commissions, uh, working that hard. And I worked 24 7. I didn't care, but never had the Drug to be an architect or developer. Yeah. You know, when you're young, you got energy to burn. You know what, Yeah. Those six jobs is what formulated what he is now. I mean, that's obvious. Exactly. Yeah. So now let's get to know, I mean, I know you Chuck, but let everybody else know, Chuck. Um, some of your passions, your personal interests, your charity. We know you're AUSC grad, you love sc, um, how you think they're gonna do this year with what's happening in their football team? Well, with their defense, with this guy Grinch, uh, I think they're gonna lose the rest of their games. Yeah. Yeah. So they gotta play Oregon UCLA, uh, Now you're also a, a Dodger fan. Yes. I'm not much into baseball. Not baseball. Used to, I used to be a major Yankee fan coming from the Bronx. Right. Uh, but when they went free agency, you know, I used to memorize all the players on a team. Now one year, you know, they all over the place. Same thing for pro football. So, but I love college, uh, collegiate football, and I love Match Mar, what is it? March Madness. March Madness in basketball. Good. Good. That I look, And I know you're very big with the, uh, Jewish Federation and the Jewish Home. Uh, tell us a little bit more about the charities and, and some of your other hobbies that, that Chuck, uncle Chuck likes to do. Right. Well, I was very fortunate. You know, I've been married now 38 years, and the best thing I ever did, I just, you know, sometimes you luck out and you get a fabulous wife. And when we were dating, I'll never forget this. We were walking on Wilshire Boulevard towards the, uh, what is it, the Third Street Mall down there in Santa Monica. Right. And they're now remembered, this is 19, uh, about 83. And there was a homeless fellow on the sidewalk. And I walk right past him. My wife looks at me or my girlfriend at that time. She says, aren't you gonna give him some money? I looked at her, I said, okay. So I start, started handling him hand, handing him a dollar. She said, what's wrong with you, you two? Right. I gave him $5. Well, that was the start of almost bankrupting me. But What happened, I got involved and I hired a, a, a, uh, a professional, uh, public relations. And I think you might have remember Carl Tury? Mm-Hmm, sure. Carl Jersey. And I hired Carl. And when I hired him, he says, Chuck, you have to get it to Charity. You know, there's two sides of the business card, your personal side and your charitable side. And I said, okay. And he says, I'm gonna put you on the board of, at that time, it called the Wellness Community. That was a cancer support community. And it was a wonderful organization. So I joined the board Sure. As not, uh, as heck would have it. My wife's best girlfriend, uh, got, uh, breast cancer. Eventually she passed. Mm-Hmm. But since that time, I've been involved with the, now it's not called the Wellness, it's called the Cancer Support Community. Okay. I've been involved with the Jewish Federation. I'm on the board of Hebrew University and Jerusalem. I'm on a, uh, governor's board of Cedar-Sinai. I, I'm very heavily involved with the Harmony Project at Howard Cheks. And there's another one, I'm on the board, I can't even think of it. But I've gotten into a lot of charity work. And what's really interesting about it, although it's a lot of bucks, you know, 'cause the people, there's so many wonderful charities that people need money that are less fortunate than you. And there's a lot of sad things going on, especially in today's world, which is crazy. Um, it has definitely, there was at that old saying, what you give, you'll get back. And, and for me, it's really enriched my life because through charity I have met some incredible people that are now lifelong friends. And, uh, it, it, it's worked for me and I recommend it for anybody. Uh, you don't have to start off big. I mean, uh, like The Guardians a couple of hundred dollars a year. Yeah. And it's a wonderful group to get started with or whatever. There's, there's just so many wonderful shareable, uh, organizations. Excellent, excellent. Well, I, I, you know, My hobby, and I'm glad you asked my hobby. Yes. Hobby, yes. Bobby, I like to drive fast. Yes. I know. I grew up in the, uh, late six, uh, late fifties. And, uh, those are the days of the bus cars. Mm-Hmm. And I used to race cars at the drag strip. Mm-Hmm. And I represented by high school in the, uh, Plymouth troubleshooting contest. And we took second place. Uh, so I've always been, that was A high school in New York City. No, a Hamilton High School here. They came here when I was, uh, eight years of age. Hamilton On Robertson. You Got it. Two of my kids went there. Yeah. So, so, uh, uh, now I've been very fortunate. I have a wonderful sports car. I don't wanna mention a name. Every Sunday morning at seven 30. Hmm. Uncle Chucky goes on the amp on ramp floors. That sucker, ah, get it up. I hope there's no highway patrol watching this. Mm-Hmm. Don't an hour. Wow. And shut it down, which takes in this car seconds. And, uh, I don't know, it just gives me a rush. Uh, at my age, it's my Viagra. Do you, uh, raffle off opportunities in the passenger seat? I can. Uh, I wanna go, come on. That sounds like Fun. Every time you wanna come with me, be my pleasure Every time. I mean, I won't scare you. I'm very, I'm very cautious. Well, You know, I'm a fellow New Yorker, so I Don't go in and outta lanes and go crazy. No. There was a time he was, he was running late for a meeting and I says, where are you? He is like, you know, he is like 50 miles away. He goes, I'll be there in a half hour. I'm going, how the heck's he gonna do that? Well, All the cars that I have are all, uh, you know, my Mercedes is AMG version. They're all the hottest of the hottest version. I just love fast car. What can I Do? That's great. Nice. That's Great. You know. Well, you know, we, we did promise you, you know, a a time, time limit on the interview. We're bumping up against it. So I do want to close with y you know, what are your, it kind of dovetails with this last question, but what are your personal goals for the future and also business goals with Fidelity. Um, you know, is it to, you know, hand it over to the next generation? Uh, you know, what, what's your plans on on both those fronts? Well, being someone that, uh, has no children, and thanks to my Arnie, uh, I had a, uh, a fabulous guy working for me. And he left me, uh, on June 2nd. And thanks to Arne, uh, we now have, uh, John McClain. Uh, John McClain is just a wonderful person. And I said, John, you've been in the institutional market for a gazillion years. It's time you came over to the light side. Well, these institutions, I don't care who the hell they are, Lehman Brothers an iconic company, caput Merrill Lynch, when Ka put, they, you know, now they're back. Uh, beer Stearns caput, you can go on and on and on. Fidelity spill around. Yes. So We're very happy to have the John and we're working some sort of a transition that I don't have to work as hard. And he's just wonderful. And we'll just see how it goes. Yeah, right. You know the best. That's, that's the future. Chuck, one last, one last thing before we, we end this. You're known as Uncle Chuck. How did Uncle Chuck come about? That's a funny story. Uh, here I'm in the networking group, pro visors. Mm-Hmm. I was in that group a long time, and I was then eventually became the oldest person in the group. And they used to joke, uh, uh, make jokes about me. He says, uh, Chuck, he says, uh, what happened to the Revolutionary War this day? You know, stuff like that, the Civil War, what happened during that day? And then I'd, Jim, its, I'd make a come up with some crazy story. We had a lot of fun. And then they eventually just, and, and now, so when it was your turn to do your elevator speech, and they say, now Uncle Chuck, and that's how Uncle Chuck started. And that, that moniker has stuck with me. That really has, you know, I didn't advertise it or anything, but everybody, it, it stuck. And, you know, my, uh, you especially Arnie Yes. Who used to do those panels. Yes. I used to know those crazy, uh, bullet points and the, and the, and the photos and stuff. Uh, I don't know. It is just been, it just stuck with me. And, uh, we have a lot of fun with it. Well, we have fun and we had a lot of, we had a lot of fun here, so, and it works, Chuck Great. It's great marketing too, you know. Yes. It just works all around. So. And Uncle Chuck, we wanna really thank you for your time and being part of this. And I think everybody's gonna enjoy listening to hear about I, uncle Chuck started and Fidelity. And we really appreciate you for spending the time with us. Yeah. Thanks for Sharing. See you guys. To you, Arnie, and to you Steven. I know both of you well. You guys do terrific jobs and, uh, you're very important to the real estate industry and I'm lucky to have friends like you. So it works both ways. And I thank you for this opportunity. If this does anything for any new starters or anybody, or gave them some of my secrets, We'll cut that out. Well, thank you. I have a Feeling people will watch this for a while. I think there's a lot of information that people will come back to and, and watch over and over. So thank you very much and our audience. Thanks. You. Thank You. Okay guys, be well. Legendary. Uncle Chuck. Thank you. Thank you. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, And Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/906276616.txt b/data/transcripts/906276616.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b35f449
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/906276616.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, welcome to this new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, where we have interesting and informative conversations with iconic figures of the commercial real estate industry, uh, throughout the western regions of the us. And I'm excited about today's guest 'cause we have a, a great leader in the industry whose company is extremely active in developing, buying and selling retail properties throughout the state of California. Irwin Busey, founder and principal of Paragon Commercial Group. But before we get to our guests, let's tell you a little bit about ourselves. Arne Garfinkel All Star Group, my cohost. Arnie, how you doing today? Good. How you doing, Steve? Doing great. Welcome to 2024. Right. Uh, Hoping Better, right. So anyway, Allstar Group is a commercial real estate lending company. We also produce events, uh, in the commercial real estate lending world, in the commercial real estate world. Uh, we do our commercial real estate lending conference events every April This year, it's gonna be April 18th down in Long Beach. We also produce events for others. Uh, the Click conference, which is a hospitality event, is March 6th and seventh in Anaheim at the, uh, Westin Coast of Mesa, uh, west and South Coast Plaza. And we also produce events for Rent tv. So, Steve, tell us about Rent tv. Yeah, thanks, Arnie. Uh, for those who don't know me, I'm Steve Bloom, founder and CEO of Rent tv, our 25-year-old news and media company for the commercial real estate industry with daily news on our website, rent tv.com, our great email newsletter and email blast advertising, as well as our rent TV conference series. We've got Orange County coming up March 21st, and very exciting is the review this video platform where you're watching this video, searchable video platform, lets people put in their video for the real estate industry so they could be easily found by anyone in the industry. Uh, and with that said, we've got a grand show coming up, but before we get to Irwin, let's tell people about our sponsors. And our first one is Paramount Property Tax Appeal, um, with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease. One way you can fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes lower. The deadline to file each year is November 30th, so you've got some time right now, but call 8 5 8 2 2 5 1200. Ask for Wes Nichols with Paramount Property Tax Appeal. Arnie, who's next? Our next sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage Lenders is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Herand. It is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McLean at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. Who's next? Steve? Excellent. Our last sponsor, but certainly not the least, is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive, simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiff Tiffany Simington and ask for your next inspection today. She's at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Again, Tiffany at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Okay, well, let's welcome our guests. Yeah, with that said, let's bring in IWiN Busey from Paragon Commercial Group. Welcome, IWiN. Hey, welcome, IWiN. Thanks to both of you for having me. I deeply appreciate it. Uh, it's been, uh, I've admired all your hard work and all your efforts and all your different, uh, venues that you provide. So, um, honored to be here and thank you for having me. Well, We're honored to have you and we're honored to of your work, which we're gonna find out a little bit about right now. So, um, We've got a lot to cover. That's, so I say we dive right into it. So, uh, Go ahead. You start, Steve, Why don't you give, give our audience an overview of Paragon Commercial Group, any other businesses you may be involved in too. But, uh, one of the things we like to know is, you know, the portfolio size, number of properties, geographic area, and how'd you come up with Paragon Commercial Group? Where'd the name come from? Well, para, you know, Paragon really means to strive for excellence and we, we, we, we really, uh, we wanted to, um, pick a name that, uh, really represents who we are and what we are in the marketplace. And, you know, just, just history on Paragon. We've been, we were formed in 2009, uh, right during the GFC and we left Regency Centers. I have two other partners, Jim Divo, mark Ian, and we formed Paragon. And it is truly a startup story. And we, uh, we act, our conference room table came from our civil engineer. I actually picked it up with a pickup truck on a, on a weekend to bring it to, to our office. And, uh, you know, our first deal was, uh, a discount tire. And we essentially bought an out parcel from Home Depot. And again, like anything in our business, relationships play a critical role in, um, uh, in success, especially in real estate. From there, um, we grew and started buying different, uh, uh, properties and, um, you know, we, we, we were lucky enough to work on the runway project with Lincoln Property Company. Sure. They were look, looking for a retail operator at that time. And, uh, if you're not familiar with that, that's imply vista. It's Whole Foods Cinema Mark, CBS. I Lived a few blocks from there for a while. Ah, did you? Yeah, it's a great plan right underneath Your LMU sign there. Ah, There you go. Exactly. That's, uh, my, uh, alma mater got my MBA from. So, uh, from there, uh, you know, we, we focus on grocery anchor shopping centers, necessity driven retail. Um, our roots, we started with Regency, and as everybody knows, Regency specializes in grocery anchor shopping centers. And the, the, the, the really, the business plan and strategy is grocery anchored shopping centers attract more visitors per week than any other type of retail. And because of that, 'cause there's more trips, there's, there's more room for, for growth in terms of shop space rents. And as Covid has clearly shown, grocery is a key critical component. Um, um, in, in terms of, uh, retail. Um, so, you know, we own, uh, roughly 17 different properties. We focus in the Western United States. Um, they are ranging from a freestanding target all the way up to larger centers, deal size specifically. We're, we're, and what I like to say is we hunt with a shotgun. Um, and what, what I mean by that is we will do anything from, uh, free, freestanding, single tenant, uh, triple net deals all the way up to larger centers of 50 to $60 million. Okay. And we've got different capital partners. Um, our business is really made up of, you know, one third being, uh, institutional, uh, pension fund and one third being high net worth investors. And then one third our own capital account for, um, deals that we own, um, as, as Paragon. Right. Well, let's go back to the beginning, Arnie, I think you got something teed up in terms of Oh yeah, I do. Yeah. I, I just wanted to know, when you got into real estate, was it retail at the ver even before Regency, what, what started you in the real estate business? Great question, and it's probably one of my favorite stories. And, uh, so my dad was a, uh, professor, aerospace engineering professor, graduate level at USC. I went undergrad to USC, and I was undeclared and I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do with my life. My dad was pushing me towards, uh, um, computers and, and aerospace engineering. And I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm half as smart as you, and there's no way that that is the right fit for me. Mm-Hmm. So I was working at Bank of America in Manhattan Beach as a teller, and this gentleman walks in and he's wearing flip flop shorts and a T-shirt, and he starts depositing money. And I look at him, I go, what do you do? And he goes, I own real estate. And I'm like, okay, that's it. That's, that's the direction I'm going. And I never looked back. And, uh, you know, it's funny, you look at your, your, your, your lifecycle, and God, I've been doing this, uh, for, you know, over 30 years, uh, in the retail space. Why did I pick retail? Um, I just landed into a retail opportunity. And, um, you know, you, you look, you look back during your career and you go, what am I very thankful for? Well, I'm very thankful, uh, for, um, norm Lakas of Laika Development, who took a chance with me and hired me in 1992, uh, to essentially be a property manager, um, pick up dog food, uh, figure out roof leaks, uh, do do financials, loan packages, Excel, et cetera. I did everything. It's a small shop, and it was a amazing learning experience. And really the benefit, uh, of that, uh, norm was really is, and he's a visionary. He can, he can see value where other people can't. And, um, he's also, um, a bullock. And what I mean by that is he's very persistent. He doesn't take no for an answer. He, he figures out a way to get the water through the crack. And, uh, yeah, that's, yeah. So that, that was a very lucky if you, you, if you talk about like, my formative years, thank God he took a chance on me, thank God. Wow. That is, that is a great story. Well, let's fast, let's fast forward a few years. So you're at Regency. How did you end up conceiving and, and thinking about, and actually then starting Paragon from Regency? How did that happen? Well, I, I, I joined Regency as a project manager. And I, you know, I, I left as a senior vice president of investments. I was there for 11 years. Great company, great assets, great people. Um, and, you know, I was able, that was also another critical step in terms of my, my growth because it allowed me to be exposed to a lot of national retailers like Kroger, Albertson's, whole Foods, save on whole, um, uh, trader Joe's, um, you name it. Um, we, we, we spent time with them, and one of those was, was Target. And, you know, I always wanted to figure out if I can swim in the pool by myself. And, um, um, you know, when we formed Paragon, that was 15 years ago, we're coming on our 15 year anniversary. And, uh, my daughter was seven, and I had another daughter that was one. And, uh, naturally leaving a paycheck and security and different things like that. Right. That's gutsy. Yeah, It's gutsy. And, and, you know, my wife's looking at me going, are you sure you know what you're doing? I mean, um, um, you know, you, you've got, you've got all the benefits of a, of, of, of a great company. Um, you got, you know, longevity at that company if you want it. And quite frankly, I, I always wanted to figure out if I could do it on my own. And, um, it was just, just, just critical. Um, I also have a, a a friend that called me up and when I was at Regency and I, I was actually trying to buy a property from him, and he, he's like, nah, this is for my kids. I'll never sell it. I'll never sell it. Long story short, we became friends and he'd call me up at Regency and he'd say, um, make sure you don't get a gold watch. And I go, what do you mean by that? He goes, well, you want some hard assets. You got you, you need to get some hard assets. You need to get some, some cash flow. Right. Et cetera. So when the great financial crisis happened, um, it, you know, honestly, it was Regency Development, which I was doing was a four letter word at that point. Right. And, uh, they were really focused on, on existing operating assets. And, um, they came to me and said, Hey, you know, I, I'd like you to manage people. And I'm like, my highest and best use putting deals together, it's, that's a hundred percent. I, that's what I do best. I like figuring out how to, uh, uh, solve the puzzle, the various moving pieces. And, um, um, so we, we jumped and we, we joined Paragon and, uh, started Paragon. And, um, um, from there, it's been a, been a great run. Um, and Was it like a, did you find like a deal, like you were just saying a minute ago, a deal, and that kind of was the stimulus to form the group and, and, and make that purchase? Or did you kind of form the entity and then go, start, start searching? Yeah. What came first, we, we formed the entity. Uh, we went and talked to a number of equity partners. The equity partners said, your resumes are great, but show me the deals that actually make economic sense. And then we, we started focusing on, on, um, um, acquisitions and, and finding value add opportunities. When I was at Regency, I specialized in redevelopment projects and, uh, and high barrier entry markets with, you know, best in class retailers. And, um, I like redevelopments, they're complicated, but, um, they're typically in, in trade areas that you wanna own long term. And, uh, there's usually some issue with it, um, whether it's related to, um, mismanagement, you know, we've, we've bought property for, for lenders, you've got a tenant that's going out, different things like that. Tell us about, Um, Some of your major standout projects, some of the ones that really like put you on the map, not you, but the company. And, you know, you feel like that's it, that that's, and then of course, you've had many all throughout the state, but give us a highlight of a few that really, uh, stand out to you. Well, you know, there's, there's a lot of different projects that I've worked on, uh, during my career. Um, and the ones that I'm most proud of, um, are, uh, one Target and Brea, I did a podium store in Bray, California behind the Bray Mall. And, um, that allowed me to work with the unique store design team at Target, which for me was like talking to the president. It was just absolutely amazing. They are, and, and I have so much respect for Target. They've just got an amazing team. They're great people. Um, they make, they make you better as a professional. Uh, we actually got a 10 out of 10 turnover award, which they give, um, and they rarely give, but we actually got a 10 out of 10 turnover award when we turned it over to their operations people. And that, that's when all the site work's done perfectly. You know, everything is, is, is, is top notch that also got a Golden Nugget Award, um, and, which I'm extremely proud of. Sure. Uh, the next project we did the first Amazon Fresh in the World, and that's at, uh, I I wanted to ask you about that. Yeah, yeah. So that, that one was, you know, toys Rs, um, office Depot project on Topanga and Irwin in the city of Woodland in Woodland Hills. Sure. And, uh, you know, Irwin Erwin, E-R-W-I-N is my name as well. Yeah. Perfect. It was like, meant to be, right. It was a sign. Exactly. It was a sign when we were evaluating the deal, I'm just like, this is, you know, first of all, a lot of people were saying, well, why are you buying a Toys R Us? That's, you know, they're, they're, they're not doing great. Well, the lease was signed in 1978. Yeah. I was 11 years old. Okay. Right. A, a great infill real estate. Um, um, we were approached and, uh, we had to get all the entitlements and the conditioning use permit without disclosing the tenant who the tenant was. And we were the first one on the map, uh, to open Amazon Fresh in, uh, Vogue World, which our little company with nine people. To me, that's a, that's a great thing. So, oh, I remember that location. I remember when that opened and, and how big of a deal that was. Yeah. And, uh, and, and, and I know that's not the only toys us you bought, because I looking at your portfolio of some of the other ones, uh, yeah. That, that you did buy, but, um, yeah. And that, that was a great move and, and what, what a partner to have than, than Amazon. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, and you know, you bring up partners and I think, you know, I view myself in the customer service business, and, uh, I want to drive value for my partners and my customers and, you know, go above and beyond so that the Paragon brand and the Erwin Busey brand, um, really rises to the top so that if there's an opportunity, uh, where a tenant has a complicated project, hopefully they're thinking of Paragon as, as we all know, there's amazing, uh, developers and owners and operators in our, in our space. Yeah. Um, so it's competitive, but quite frankly, a lot of those competitors are my great friends. And that's what I love about this business. It's, it's, it's relationship based, And it's, and everyone does reputation. It's a better reputation when you solve a problem than just go along with, uh, doing what everybody else expects. So, uh, to be a, to be a maverick in that is, is, is amazing. And that, that definitely, that particular project, without a doubt, being the first one for Amazon was amazing. Well, that is a great story on the success, but we often find in these interviews that a lot of the great stories and, and, uh, and lessons learned are from the ones that you wish you gave back. So, uh, Erwin, are there any, uh, out there that you remember, or maybe you blanked 'em outta your memory that you look back on and say, you know what, I I, we got that one wrong, and we wish we didn't do that for some reason or another? Well, there's always bumps in the road, and Right. You, I, I have a saying, I love projects in the beginning. I hate 'em in the middle, and I love 'em in the end. Yeah. Okay. So it's, it's, it's, it's kinda like a puppy, right? You, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta figure it out. I've, I've got one project that I've been working on since 2014, um, and we've been looking to monetize it. We, um, um, are almost there in terms of, um, monetizing that asset. Uh, but the business plan has been achieved, and that is bringing a grocery into the, uh, the shopping center. It's just taken up a long time. And, and, uh, that's, that's been a lot of my time, you know, construction and, and development is, it's very complicated. And, and, you know, we, no matter what, you're gonna run into issues, um, cost issues, I just ran into a high pressure water line on a project that I'm doing that's, um, um, controlled by the Department of Water Resources, which is a state of California, uh, agency. And to get an encroachment permit to run a conduit for Edison is a nine month process. Well, yeah. They, that didn't come up during what city? Uh, city of San Bernard. Oh. And, uh, that didn't come up during the mitigated egg deck. The city never brought it up, you know, surveys were on our property. Um, long story short, we're pivoting and figuring out where else we can, uh, draw power from. Um, so there's all sorts of things. I mean, we've done build the suits for tenants, um, and then the market turned, and, um, you know, cap rates, uh, have gone up, interest rates have gone up, and you're like, wait a second. I'm, I just did, you know, three years of work for fun. Right. And, uh, those are tough. Those are tough, but every, every transaction is a learning experience. And well, quite, quite frankly, that's what I love about the business. Every deal is different. Every, every, every, um, constraint that you have, every problem that you gotta solve is different. And it, it keeps me invigorated. I'm, I, I love what I do. So now looking at a new project, what do you look for? Do you get 'em from brokers? Do you just do research for the area? Do they fall in your lap? Uh, you know, what do you do? What do you look at when you're looking at a new project? Well, we definitely get a lot of, uh, transactions from brokers. And, uh, you know, I think, I think one of the things is we've got the capital sources. We've had a joint venture with Canyon Catalyst Fund. Mm-Hmm. Uh, as an emerging manager since 2013. I mean, that's quite a long Yeah, right. Tenure. Uh, we just signed another joint venture agreement with Lincoln Property Company. Um, we've got a track record of, of, of closings. Uh, if you've looked since, you know, we probably do three to four deals a year. Um, you may not like our answer, but we're a quick answer. We're either yes, we like it, and these are the economic parameters that, uh, we can make sense on. We're not one of those, um, kick the tires for three months and try to figure out if it, if, if there's a transaction there. Um, and the other thing for us is, uh, you know, we're very, um, vertically integrated. And what I mean by that is, um, we do the leasing ourselves. We do the entitlements ourselves. We do outsource property management and, and construction, but, and that's with Athena Property Management. But we are, are very tied to the hip with 'em. And we're specific, so deals that have, um, hair on 'em, um, we have a good success rate in terms of closing difficult sellers as well. Um, we, we are able to, uh, um, uh, you know, basically transact with those sellers. I I, this one, this one, uh, property that I'm currently working on, uh, we got it tied up. And, um, I had a broker called me and said, you don't have it tied up. I go, yeah, I do. And he goes, no, you don't. There's no way you got that seller to agree to sell that. And I go, I do. It's in escrow and we're moving forward. And it was a long process, uh, to get the seller on board, but we were able to, and, um, the funny thing is, I told the seller, uh, when this is all done, you're gonna gimme something. And he looks at me and goes, I'm not giving you anything. And I go, yeah, you are. I go, when, when I get this deal done, you're gonna gimme something. And he goes, what am I gonna give you? And I go, you're gonna give me a letter of recommendation? And he goes, what are you gonna give me? And I go, I'll give you a letter of recommendation, but on one condition, you gotta frame it and you gotta put it in your office, and you gotta stare at it every day. Anyways, we got the deal closed. So, um, yeah. You know, that those, those to me are, are, are, are great. I think the other thing, um, you know, attorneys, brokers, um, cities, I mean, if, if, if, and we try to do, um, um, um, a great job in terms of architecture, placemaking, and really, uh, job creation, the ripple effects of what, of, of what we do. Uh, we really try to do great projects with great tenants that the communities are gonna embrace and support. And that all goes back to reputation, right? I mean, and that's, that's how you get it. Good. So, so deals come to you, like brokers bring you deals, sometimes municipalities or cities might bring you deals. And then do you have like research where you find a property you want and you kind of go after it and research the owner, or most of 'em come through the, the typical source? Y Yeah, I've been working in this market for over 30 years, and I can tell you, um, you know, I, I know intersections, um, very well, and I know properties that I'm like, I really want that property, right? There's, there's, there's been properties that I've chased for over 10 years, and then all of a sudden, you know, there's, there's, there's an event that happens. And, um, um, you know, I I, we get the call and hopefully jump hopeful. We're lucky to be able to, uh, uh, move that to the next step. Uh, but, you know, it's, it's, it's tough right now. And with, as long as you've been doing it, it's, I'm sure it's rare that properties come to you that you could buy that you're not aware of already to some extent. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's, there's, everybody has different relationships and different, uh, expertise. But, but I, you know, I, I do think that when you look at these transactions and, and, and projects they take so long to do, and really the one thing that I truly value is, is, is the relationships that you create during that path to either the acquisition or the completion of the development or the tenant opening. Those relationships are key, and it's, it's not gonna be, uh, just that property. Um, I, I've got an, uh, an owner that we've bought two properties from that are, that are great assets. And the reason being, um, is they, they, you know, we performed during the first acquisition and, you know, he's like, you say what you do, you do what you say, and you get stuff done. And people want that. I mean, there's, our business has a lot of, uh, um, operators that, um, aren't as, uh, concise, let's say. Okay. Right. Right. Now, when you structure a deal, do you structure 'em with, uh, corporate partnerships or is it just under one entity that when you structure a, a transaction LLC, It really depends on the business plan of, of the asset. So, um, under, um, the emerging manager program that's value add, IRR driven. So that is, you know, build, reposition, and sell. Uh, if we've got capital that, uh, wants to place capital that's more of a longer term hold, it's gonna take some time to, uh, reap the rewards of the asset that's more high net worth or for our own balance sheet. So we really approach each deal depending upon the business plan of that asset, if that makes sense. Right. Excellent. And, and Canyon and Lincoln, they're equity source equity sources, right? Yes. So that gives you the flexibility and, uh, you know, the rising interest rates that we've seen to be able to do deals where others can't. Right. Yeah. And I, and, and, you know, one of my favorite tags is there's a market in every market. So you just gotta figure out where that opportunity lies. Right. Um, and, and I mean, think about it. I mean, grocery anchored centers today, I mean, you can pick up, uh, some great grocery anchored assets at some, at, at some great values. There's, there's definitely a lot of competition, but it's, it's, it's great real estate. The other thing that I'm seeing is, is retail. Um, it's the, the fundamentals are fantastic right now. Low vacancy, lack of supply, rent's growing, uh, What a difference a few years makes. Yeah. What a difference. A few years, everybody during the pandemic, everybody thought that was, that was gonna be the first to go, and, and it didn't, you know, it held up. Yeah, I know, I know. All, all you gotta do is travel to Europe, right? Or Yeah, go to go to a great market. Uh, we just, we just did a deal with Byar of supermarkets in Carson, in Carson, California. And, uh, I can tell you what a great operator and it, it is such an experience to go to that store and it, it, it really, you can, you can design you, you can make your own guacamole. They've got all these different fruits. It's, it's like it's entertainment at a grocery store and the volumes that they're doing, uh, they're just an amazing operator. I'm so glad we have 'em in our portfolio and, uh, great talent. Great talent. Excellent. Well, something I wanted to touch on, you, you mentioned the IRRI go, that's always fascinated me. You know, when you get to the point where you're signing the document, putting your name on it, committing to the purchase, you know, you mentioned the IRR, I'm always amazed at how you could project costs, you could project rents. Do you do like high low scenarios to then figure out what you think that IRR could potentially be? Um, are there other factors return on equity cashflow that are, are as much drivers as a gut feel that you may have from doing it? How do you end up making that, that buy decision when it's time to put the pen there? Well, I'm, I'm a, I'm a big believer on return on cost uhhuh. And the reason being is IRR is all subject to time and exit cap rate. Right? Right. And return on cost is, tell you what, if you're at a good return on cost and you can weather the storm, and there's people weather and, and there's people weathering the storm right now, uh, you know, the debt, just think about, okay, interest rates increase, you know, 300 basis points. What does that do to your exit cap rate? What does that do to your IRR? Well, all of a sudden got a longer term goal. I think the return on cost metric is, is the most important. A pro forma, uh, is only done because you gotta close on the property. Right? You, you, you, you don't know everything about that property. You're not gonna know everything until it's completely built. And that's just, that's just the facts in terms of real estate development. Right. Excellent. Um, when you have to exit a deal, when is the time, why and how? That's a great question. Um, so really the business plan of Paragon is to own assets, own hard assets, long-term, create generational wealth. And, but again, that's, that's difficult with, with, with, with Canyon and CalPERS. That's a build and sell model, right? Right. Um, again, getting back to the shotgun analogy, what we do is, you know, we've done freestanding, uh, single tenant in and outs Chick-fil-A's, uh, raising canes. Yeah. We'll build those, sell 'em, and then we'll trade into assets that are larger that we wanna own long term. Um, so, you know, quite frankly, we're in a supply constrained business. They're not making more land. And what's, what's happening with dirt? I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's getting more valuable and valuable by the day. I mean, think about what industrial's paying for land square foot today, multi is kind of, you know, they're having a, a little bit of a a a a coal right now, but I mean, there's such a housing shortage. Retail coverage is at 25%, uh, typically on retail sites. Think about industrial coverage, think about multi-family coverage. So there's, there's, there's inherently in place there, you know, it, in timing in terms of dispositions is really based upon, okay, well what if we sell this, what can we reinvest in? And does it make sense to sell it at this point? And, and, um, um, you know, there's assets that we're never gonna sell. For example, Topanga Lan, that's a great asset long term. That's right. It's a home. Yeah. And then like, something like that, you know, like your, your baby so to speak. You're not getting rid of that one, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. That's a long term whole, but some other ones, like the built to suit and so on and so forth, those are just part of the process. Yeah. You're recycling capital to reinvest and hopefully higher returns and, and better real estate and, and in markets that you wanna own. Excellent. Excellent. Um, well let's move to, uh, the current, uh, time. And tell us about, I think you said you're, you're working on a couple deals right now. Tell us about one of your current projects that you're working on, um, that, uh, has you excited. So we we're doing a project on Ventura Boulevard and Eureka in Studio City. That's gonna be a Sprouts Farmer's Market. And we've got a limited shop space there. Um, great infill location, signalize intersection, high barrier entry market, uh, that's under construction. Uh, we just finished a Sprouts in Fountain Valley as well. And we're opening the first Dutch Brothers in Orange County at that location as well. Um, Carson I mentioned, we just did Vallarta, um, took an old Albertsons box, and, um, they're, they're just doing great, great business there. I've got a deal in San Bernardino, which is, um, four tenants, Chick-fil-A Panera, Dutch Brothers, and Mr. Car Wash that's, uh, under construction. We're going to deliver, um, end of, you know, mid-February or so. And then that'll open, uh, this summer, uh, so that, that will be a building and sell, and then we'll reinvest capital. Um, so that gives you kind of a flavor of, of, of what we're doing. And, uh, but it's, it's, it's so, so far so good. I'm excited for 24. I'm excited for, um, you know, the next, next five years. I think it's gonna be good. How involved do you get in architecture and the construction of these projects? Uh, do you, are you hands-on or do you have your people do it, or, or is that something that you enjoy doing and you take on? So, uh, I don't know if you know Greg Pulaski from Nadel, but he, he's, he, he's name an architect. Yeah. And, uh, I've known Greg for years, and I've done a number of projects with him. I sent him site plans all the time, and, uh, for him to take a look at when I'm trying to figure out how to, how to fit a box in or a pad or different things like that. I love architecture. I love landscape architecture. I think architecture really resonates and, and, um, increases the value of the brand. And that's really a lesson from Target, um, during my working with Target. Target does an amazing job with, with their architecture. And, um, I think it, it, it, it's, it's really important as developers and it as Paragon's brand, and my brand makes sure that we develop projects that are, um, um, architecturally significant that have, uh, that are not, um, uh, short term architecture. They're gonna, they're gonna last, they're gonna be inviting for quite some time. There's less CapEx. It makes sense, right? So, uh, construction, uh, I like construction. I don't love construction. And I need experts in construction to, to definitely help and assist. And, you know, being a developer is like being, being, you gotta, you gotta make sure that you've got the right team around you to, uh, execute on schedule and business plan as quickly as possible. Like a head coach. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Yeah. I, I I really think it's, it's just part of a team. I mean, you, you're part of the team, so, Excellent. Well, I, I, um, quick question about geography. You know, look, you're all in California for the most part. Ever think about, you know, with all the challenges in California, and we hear so many times about people chasing yields and expand, I, we've had several speakers who a few years ago, were never outside of California, who are now open offices, you know, east coast. Uh, what's your thoughts on that? Well, I think there's definitely some o opportunities in other, other markets. I mean, Texas, with our, with our jv with Lincoln Property Company, right? I think there's, there's other markets that'll be opened up. Oregon, Washington, uh, you know, we've looked at some stuff in Arizona. Again, it really falls back into, um, uh, human capital. And we've, we're nine person shops, so we need to be really effective in terms of where we operate in. And, you know, we've got a ton of relationships in this market, and it makes sense to, to really work in markets where you've got relationships in. Um, I think California's got a lot of issues, um, as it relates to, uh, uh, property. And, uh, you know, if they ever repeal Prop 13, that's gonna be a killer. This transfer, transfer tax city of la Oh my God. That's, that's, that's just brutal. Um, so there's, there's, there's a lot of things. I mean, supply chain issues, minimum wage in terms of fast food, right? There's, there's, there's a fair amount of issues here. Well, you look at the revenue and all the different types of, you know, types of people that are, that live in Southern California, there's no place like it, you know? So it's, Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's a challenge. I mean, there, there, I mean, there are other challenges than that. I mean, the current interest rates right now, the cost of materials, labor, et cetera. I mean, uh, you know, how, how are you handling a lot of that stuff right now? And, and, and I think to, to bring up two other ones that are big issues. One is shrinkage for retailers. Yeah. Theft. That, that is, that is huge. That is a, that's something that needs to be solved. 'cause their proformas and their, their ability to make money is, is being sincerely hindered. Insurance, uh, costs have increased, you know, roughly 35%. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's challenging. It's tough. Um, construction costs. We have seen more bidders at the table in terms of, so there's more, more comp, uh, more, you know, GCs that are bidding the projects, uh, costs are really coming in still high. I looked at a building and, uh, 6,000 square foot building to retrofit for a single tenant. Tenant. It's $200 a foot. I mean, we, you know, and you, you start looking at that and you go, well, how do you, how do you make that pencil? And frankly, I think now more than ever, um, I view, um, the, the retailer and developer, uh, relationship as a partnership. And what I mean by that is, uh, you, you just gotta be open and upfront in terms of the costs that you're seeing, the, from additional carry to, uh, I mean, switchgear. I mean, think about what switch gear's taken and even HVAC lead times on both those items. Um, it's, it's difficult out the, out, out there. It really is. And I, I, I know most of your tenants are are, you know, like, um, franchise type restaurants. But I mean, I go, I see a lot of restaurants locally and lately, some of the mom and pops, they're just closing down. They can't make it anymore. And, you know, you can't have the, the tenant, you know, as a landlord, you gotta be, you gotta get market rates, and you can't continue giving these, these concessions away to these restaurants. And it's a shame. And there's really, you know, and again, now you just mentioned with the, with the minimum wage going up, it's getting to a point where you just can't make a dollar anymore. Yeah. And that's, uh, that's challenging. And I, I, I think I look at all our centers. Yeah, I, I, I think the, the best centers and the ones with national tenants, regional tenants and local tenants, that, and the local tenants are so important to the viability of the asset. 'cause it really is community driven, uh, investment. Um, yeah. It, it, it, it's tough out there. And then even, even think, uh, just, just again, taxes, insurance, all these operating costs, security, right? Think about security. Um, I mean, that used to be a cam expense where nobody wanted to reimburse. Well, guess what? It's a new day now. You have to, it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's, well, Yeah, I mean, with all, with all the theft going on, it's just, it's, it's getting to a point where, you know, you're, you're afraid to go shopping anymore sometimes, you know, to, to some of these retailers that are, that are losing their, I mean, it's just getting to, to a point where it's, you're right. Yeah. Let me ask you a quick follow up though, uh, on some of the things you're talking about. When we came out of the coming outta the pandemic, and then with the spike in interest rates, did you make any hard shifts in strategy at that point? You know, we, we actually got a deal approved, uh, at, um, with Canyon, with CalPERS, uh, during Covid. And, uh, uh, when we took it to committee, we were a little concerned because the, the, the, the, the lens was not clear as to what was gonna happen, right. But our belief was, and it was grocery anchored. Again, our belief was grocery was gonna 'cause gonna maintain. And, um, we got through that. I, I do think that, you know, again, I, I, I gotta reiterate, we're gonna have discussions with, with, with our partners as to exactly where things sit so that we can collectively strategize how to, how to make the deal. They wanna open the store. I mean, they're, they, they want get the store, uh, open and developed. It's just a matter of, okay, is your cost of capital cheaper than my development return? Is that a better way to, to, to make this work? Can you start paying rent early? I mean, I, I, I've, I've worked on so many creative deals to, to, to bridge the economics, uh, with retail partners. And it's just, you have to, in this environment, you really have to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think you just answered my next question, which is about major leasing challenges. You know, when you have a tenant that wants the space, and you have the economics, really what is like, you know, the, the, usually the major stumbling block a lot in the past, A lot of times it's been the cost. Yeah, it's been the cost. And, and, and, you know, it's been, it, it, it it's been, you know, delivery conditions and, and again, just scope of work and, and it, you know, you get, you gotta weigh all these, these different things in, and entitlements today are very, very challenging. And it's difficult. I mean, I, I, if you look at value creation, entitlements plays such a huge role in terms of, of, of, of value creation. And, um, things take time. And you, you need, um, a, a partner that is side by side with you, um, making sure that when you're presenting a project to the city, um, they're providing all the benefits in terms of community giving, in terms of sustainability, in terms of, uh, policies that they have local hiring. Uh, you need, you need that voice with you to maximize your success for entitlements. And I'm sure there's a wide range between cities that are really welcoming and easy to work with and have a lot of staff versus some cities that, you know, aren't quite there. A Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. Where do you see, uh, the trends in retail going right now with, uh, new tenant uses? Like will theaters revive? Uh, do you think that's a dead issue? And I, I know Mo most, I don't think you have any theaters in, in your centers, uh, but, um, you know, what do you think, where do you see retail going right now? Um, I, you know, Any hot new tenant concepts out there. Also, what, I mean, that's the great thing about retail is, is there's always hot new tenant concepts. It's constantly evolving. I mean, I, I, I think when I, I entered the business, uh, penguins was a, you know, a dominant yogurt player, then yogurt disappeared, then, you know, bunch of different, uh, yogurt operators reappear. It's constantly evolving. And, and I think that bricks and mortar is, is, is such important component of, of sales growth, not only online, but also at the store. Um, and that's gonna continue. And, and if you think about like what target's done with buy online, pick up in store or delivery, they're really looking at, uh, making sure that they, um, have that guest throughout the entire sales cycle, uh, whether it's online or it's brick and mortar. Yeah. And how do you create that, that brand loyalty? So, um, data, uh, technology, oh my God, that's gonna, that's gonna play a huge role in terms of our business and, uh, you know, know mitigating risk in terms of analyzing acquisitions. It's gonna, it, it, uh, from a, from a tenant standpoint, they're, they have the ability to figure out, okay, what's my competitor doing in the trade area? Does this make sense for us to make this investment at this location? Um, just, just, just just tracking of the consumer. Think, think about returns too. Like the amount of returns. Returns are, you lose money on returns, right? Yeah. And, and artificial intelligence, all, all, all this data is gonna allow retailers to better serve their, their end consumer. So there's less returns and there's more profitability. So I think, I think the, the future's bright for retail. Um, there's, there's less per capita today than there was, you know, um, number of years ago. So it's, that means there should be rent growth. And again, if you own retail, um, there's other uses that want that retail and Yeah. Whether it's housing or industrial or different uses like that. So I love the retail space. Yeah. Retail centers are usually right in the heart of this, you, of, of the community. So you're always gonna have, you know, it's a gathering place. Oh, yeah. And there's always gonna be people that are gonna go there. So there's di different uses for that. I mean, heck, I saw one place, they, they made it into a pickleball court out of a, an old, um, uh, I don't know if it was a Mervin's or one of the old, an old, you know, um, department store, you know, um, whatever it was. But, uh, you know, the, it's amazing how things are going that way. And, and you're right with, with retail, most of 'em are in the city set. Right. And, and certainly, you know, you're getting a lot of the, the, uh, thoughts about creating the mixed use projects, adding multifamily to certain retail sites. Also, you know, a lot of the medical uses, obviously physical therapy, a lot of the medical office seemed to be doing quite well in the, uh, what had been traditional retail spaces beforehand. Right, right. Absolutely. As well. And, and, you know, our joint venture with Lincoln allows us to really bring in another, uh, uh, skillset, which is multi-family, right. Into retail projects. And as, as we're all seeing a lot of cities want a, a, a, a destination with mixed use retail and housing and housing and retail actually drives the housing value. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a great mix if you can bring it all together. Right. And now with the city's, you know, having to come up with some affordable housing because of the state mandates. Right. You know, there's the extra impetus there. So it's great to mark you as a bull for the, for the retail sector. So, we'll, we'll knock that. Exactly. Hey, I, I have no choice. I've been in this 30 years. Anything I can say, I'm, I'm not bullish. I'm always bullish. I mean, it Irwin, when, when you telling the story about when you were a bank teller? 'cause that that's, I I was a bank teller when I started, um, you know, working. And I, I can relate to the guy coming in with the flip flops because I remember when I was a loan officer at a bank, and I would go out in my suit and tie Yep. And then the most successful people were the guys that walked around in a T-shirt and jeans. And I'm going, how could that possibly be? You know what I mean? Yeah. But that being said, what advice would you give to somebody just starting out, uh, right now? Like if you started today, what advice would you give to somebody starting in the real estate business right now? Well, my, uh, my 22-year-old daughter is getting in the business, so I, I, I probably give her more advice than she wants to hear. But, you know, I think it's, it make long-term decisions and do the right thing. Say what you do, do what you say, um, make sure you add value beyond everybody, everybody else go the extra mile. Uh, read. I mean, one of the, one of the things that I do a ton of is read leases. It sounds like boring, but I love it. Okay. 'cause it's, it, it just allows me to understand different viewpoints, whether it's from the tenant or, or the landlord, um, and create relationships that are, that are meaningful. And also make sure that you surround yourself with the right group and the right people. I mean, and that's from an ethical, from a, a standpoint, from a brand standpoint. And, you know, the most important brand in your life is your personal brand. It's period, end of story. I don't, you know, all these other brands are great, but at the end of the day when, you know, when, uh, when God calls, you gotta look at your own personal, personal brand. So, and great thing about the industry too. You know, there's construction, there's architecture, there's finance, there's property management, there's just tenant relationships. You know, you could find a something for your skillset. And I think all, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I still see brokerage continuing. Oh, yeah. You know, I still see property management, you know, even with all the techno technological changes, it's still the business. It's still the business. Oh, There's always gonna be the personal contact with it. I mean, it's, it's never gonna be totally tech as much as the redfins and that came out. You still have to have that personal, um, right. Communication. Yeah. And I think it's, it. I think the other thing is, is is like you, like we've said, I mean, to create a relationship over, uh, a phone call is far different than creating a relationship in person. And, uh, you know, and, and the great thing about retail is you're really impacting the built environment with community. And, and what I mean by that is, you know, I'm working on a, a, a project right now and it's a Starbucks drive through. And, uh, I was meeting, um, a community member and I just, he said, well, why do you want to do this? And I go, look, right there, there's a fireplace with 10 people drinking coffee that are communicating and really enjoying, uh, the, the environment. And that's, that's really what we need more of, is more community and more, more discussion, uh, and more and more, um, the ability to talk to people and, and interact with people. I think it's, you know, clearly important. You know, that that's the one thing that worries me about, um, you know, the, the children is just, they're dependent on their phones. And I'm guilty too. I can tell you that right now. Well, As a parent, you're always gonna take care of your, your kids to some extent, but you gotta let them go on their own and you gotta guide 'em in the right direction. And, and yeah. I I, Yeah. But the personal skills, like you said, with the Yeah. With the phone, it's certainly, you know, not all of 'em are, are, are as good as the personal relationship as we were forced to be Yeah. Back in the day. Yeah. You know, we're picking up the phone and calling, you know, a hundred people a day. 'cause I was at Cushman and Wakefield, and that's what they made us do. Yeah, Exactly. Um, but how about outside of the real estate, or what are, what are some of your personal interests or involved in any charities that we could, uh, highlight from the co company point of view, from your own personal interests? You know, we've done some stuff with, with Salvation Army, with Habitat for Humanity. Um, I, I also come from a family of educators. So my wife was a teacher, my dad was a professor, my brother was a teacher. I'm the only one that went into real estate. So I truly believe it's inherent and important for all of us to really pass it on to the next generation. Um, you know, my daughter's getting involved in ICSE. I think that's absolutely fantastic. Right. Great. Uh, I, I, I'm also involved with, uh, Loyola Marymount University, uh, real Estate Advisory Committee. They just launched a certificate program. And, and that is really allowing students to really get interactions with, uh, various commercial real estate and, um, um, multifamily professionals. Um, I think that's, that's very, very important. I mean, frankly, we live in one of the best real estate environments in the country. I mean, it's, it's amazing. I mean, how, how did I get lucky enough to be born here? I have no idea, but I'm glad I am here. So yeah, We, we moved here. Now. Lucky you also went to USC. Are you a football fan, a basketball fan? Uh, you know, what, what are you a fan of? You know, I'm a, I'm, I'm a, to be honest, I'm a Fairweather fan, so I've got a brother, he is, got a whole room dedicated to USC, and that's filled with football me memorabilia and all this different stuff. I, uh, I, I, I, I, I love to surf. I like playing pickleball. I love playing pal tennis. I love just interacting with friends. A lot of my great friends are friends in the business that I've known for years. I've been going fishing with one group for over 20 years, and they're all in the business. And it's just, it's a ton of fun. So. Excellent. Um, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm lucky enough that my family supports me in what I do, and, um, um, it's just, it's a great business. I just love it. I love it. Great people too. Excellent. Well, to, to close this out, what, how, how about your personal goals? A, anything you're looking to do outside of the real estate, uh, world? On the personal side, you know, always, always looking for people to vote for in politics besides the current crop that we've got. So, Oh, No, I'm always pushing, pushing f***s from real estate, enter that, but any steady as she goes. Uh, no politics for me. No, I'm, I, I'm a soldier, so I, I, I, uh, I think my goal, my goals are, uh, one, be, you know, be a, a better person and a, and be, you know, have a positive impact on people's lives, uh, from now until, you know, whenever. But when I'm, when, when it's over, surf more. There you go. Push More. Yeah. And enjoy life and, and work on, on, on transactions that, you know, I can drive by and go, you know what? I, I had a little thing to do with that, that piece of property. I, I, I really enjoy that part. Yeah. No, that's what it's all about. And, you know, I mean, I, I know in years when I drive by a property that I did a fi a loan for, it's like I got a personal interest in it. You know what I mean? And, and, uh, so, uh, yeah. No, I, I hear you. And that, and that's good. And that's, that's a good legacy to have and, and it's a good part of your brand to, to know that these are, these are what I've accomplished. So, uh, I I, I think it's been enlightening. It was really great to get to know you, Irwin, and likewise, to get to know more about the company and Right. Uh, that's what we love doing these things. Yeah. You know, thank you very much for the time and, and sharing the information and, uh, and your insight. I think, uh, our audience will find this, uh, very educational and, uh, inspiring as well. So, uh, you know, awesome. Wish you the best with Paragon and, you know, whatever the exit strategy is for the company as a whole, we hope you achieve it. And, uh, we look forward to having, uh, you and your, uh, your partners on, uh, on our retail panels, uh, as you have in the past. So thank you very much for that as well. We'll, We'll, well, thanks for all the great work and again, it's been an honor to be here and I thank you. And, uh, we'll, We'll call on you to, to pay it back. So Yeah. There You go. To, to speak at one of our events, I'm sure. Exactly. Perfect. Uh, well thanks Irwin. Tremendous. Uh, thank you for the time. Thank you. No problem. You guys have a great afternoon. Good luck on closing that deal next week. That's right. Uh, tomorrow. Tomorrow. There you go. News on ran tv after we, after you guys close it. cia. Good. Take care. There you go. Thank you. Bye. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, And Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/90807750.txt b/data/transcripts/90807750.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/911412212.txt b/data/transcripts/911412212.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..517ce92
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/911412212.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, welcome to this new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, where we have what we hope to be interesting and informative conversations with iconic CEO level executives from the commercial real estate industry involved in properties throughout California and the West Coast. And I'm very excited about our next guest, who is extremely active investor, redeveloper of multifamily properties throughout the West Coast and the Pacific Northwest Eddie Ring from new standard equities. But before we bring in Eddie, let's, uh, tell us about ourselves and our program. So, Arnie Garfinkle, my co-host with Allstar Group. Hey, Arnie, how you doing today? Hey, how you doing Steve? Uh, uh, doing great. Doing fantastic. Uh, I'm Arnie Garfinkel Allstar Group. We, uh, do commercial real estate lending. We're a, uh, loan broker by trade. We also consult for a number of banks, but star groups more known for producing conferences. We do the commercial real estate lending conference every April. We do other events throughout the year as well as producing the rent TV conferences. Steve, tell us about rent. When, When's your next, uh, uh, conference date? Arnie Is April 18th at the West Long Beach. We hope to see everybody there, but tell us about what's happening with Rent tv. You got one coming up before that? Yeah. I'm Steve Blum, uh, many of you know Rent tv. Uh, our 25-year-old news and media company for the commercial real estate industry. We have our news website, rent tv.com, our email newsletters, uh, and we own this video platform, the review, where you're watching this video. And we also put on events, we're doing four events that we have planned for this year. Our next one is March 21st, orange County, state of the market conference at the venue facility at the Irvine Company's Irvine Spectrum Office Park. A great venue, um, but enough about us, uh, about sponsors. I think time we, uh, tell our audience about the sponsors that make this, uh, show possible. Uh, so with that said, um, our first sponsor that I want to tell you about is, uh, commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Simington and ask for your inspection today. Uh, she's at 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. It's on the screen. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Who is the next sponsor, Arnie? Well, that is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity Mortgage is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate. They were founded in 1971 by Chuck Shan. It is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalties, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McClain at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. And lastly, but not least, is Paramount Property Tax Appeal. They are saving a lot of, uh, real estate owners money out there with inflation over the last couple of years, causing cap rates to increase profit margins to decrease. One way you can fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes lower. The deadline to file is November 30th, so there's still some time, but you should call them at (858) 225-1200. Ask for West Nichols at Paramount Property Tax Appeal. Okay, well, enough of us now. Let's hear from our guest. Yeah, Arnie, let's, uh, bring in our guest, Eddie Ring, founder, CEO of new standard Equities. Eddie, good morning. Thanks for joining us today. Yeah, good morning, Steve. Thanks a lot. Hey, Arnie, how you doing? Good, Good. Nice to see you. Good. Well, uh, you know, I know you're busy. I, you know, I know you've been doing a lot of, uh, interviews and, and things and, uh, busy with your, uh, properties. So thank you for the time this morning. Let's get right in it. We've got a lot to cover, a lot of things happening in the business world, but let's start with an intro about new standard equities. Tell us a bit about the company portfolio, geography, number of properties, uh, that you've got, and then, uh, we'll go from there. Sure. Love to, um, and first I should say thank you for having me on. It's always a pleasure to talk to you guys and, uh, sort of get the pulse of where other people are in this, this crazy business we're in. Um, but, uh, yeah, so I started New Standard Equities in 2010, so we're coming up really, actually, I just hit my 14 year anniversary, which is kind of shocking. Um, 'cause I don't feel, I don't feel 14 years old. But, um, um, but my, um, you know, I came out of, uh, Kennedy Wilson. So I started off at Kennedy Wilson. I that job. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I got that job, um, in while I was in business school, and I was working and learned the business, and I learned multifamily from, from those guys. And, uh, really, um, I, I, I felt like I really got my feet wet and really learned the industry, um, from everyone over there. And I'm, I'm grateful as heck for that experience. Um, but in 2010, um, you know, we were coming outta the great recession, and it was time really to do the same thing, uh, for my own account and my own investors. And that's how I got started with the mindset of let's just keep doing this thing that I actually have gotten now a, a skillset around. And let's, let's, you know, try to, try to, to see if I can build something kind of unique and, and interesting. Um, and so I took that mindset in 2010 and started really buying assets in 2011. And, um, uh, I will tell you a little bit more my, my investment thesis, et cetera, but to cut to the chase, we're now at 2024. I've got, um, uh, currently about 1900 units. Um, it's about 15 assets under management. Um, we have, um, we're fully vertically integrated, so we do our own property management, our own asset management, construction management, of course accounting. And, um, we really, uh, we really feel like we're, we're, you know, best in class right now. What's the geography? We're value add West Coast, you know, call it Denver West. But really we're Uhhuh Greater Seattle, Northern Cal and Southern Cal. And value add I cut you off. All value add. Yeah. Yeah. We, um, you know, I, it it goes to my investment philosophy. Um, I think really going back to the Kennedy Wilson days, but it's, I just love the renter by necessity category. I love the idea of buying something that can be fixed up. And I love, um, the protection that the Class B workforce type housing gives me. And, um, I've had, I've always had that mentality. I'm, uh, I'm sort of boring. I don't, I don't want to veer from that strategy. Um, it, it works for me. It works for my risk profile. And, uh, if we're operating in the West Coast, it kind of works on a supply and demand, um, you know, uh, aspect as well. Um, but we can, we can get into all that. No, No, that's fine. I, I, you know, reading in your bio, Eddie, that you were a writer, you were Yes. With WGA and, and, uh, how did you get into real estate and what attracted you to multifamily, uh, from, or did multifamily, was it from the start? So how did you transfer from being a writer on the Larry Sanders show? Is that correct? Yeah. Yes, yes to, yeah. It's, it's, it's great. Um, it's so much fun to talk about this kinda stuff. 'cause even I go, like, I kind of scratch my head sometimes. And, you know, life takes you in weird paths and weird directions at times, and then when you look back, you go, well, that wasn't so weird. Um, but, um, I grew up here in, uh, in the west, you know, in Los Angeles. And, um, my, uh, my parents, my grandparents actually, uh, had some industrial properties, just like three industrial properties and, uh, and, and a business. And I, I kind of grew up in a normal-ish environment where dad worked. And, you know, mom was PTA president and, you know, we had this business and then this, uh, uh, these industrial assets. And every once in a while I'd be going to bang on doors and collect rent from these people who weren't paying rent. You know, it was very much inculcated from the get go in that real estate space. But I didn't really consider taking it, uh, to the professional level. I just sort of thought, well, this is sort of what the family does. And, uh, instead my passion was the creative fields. And, um, I went to NYU Film school, and I wrote movies, and I wrote and directed plays in college. And ultimately, after NYUI moved back to Los Angeles, and I started working in Hollywood. And I got an agent, and I started showing my scripts around to whoever would listen. I was, at one point, I had a, a writing partner, and we were, um, it's a kind of a funny long story, but I'll make it short. Uh, we were, um, we kind of parked ourselves in some un unused offices, um, over at CBS Radford Studios. Right. Um, and it literally, we'd just park there. Nobody, everybody kind of just assumed we belonged. Nobody was in the office. And we just wrote, and then ultimately, we were hanging around the Larry Sanders show, and we were, um, getting pay paid as assistance and, and gophers. And I was a standin at one point for rip torn. I'm Uhhuh, I'm not taller than Rip was. But, um, nevertheless, that's a whole other story. But, um, I would sit there at the Larry Sanders show, um, and we would just work and I, and we kept the office doors open, and everybody's like, they would go home. All the writers are still working, and we're sitting there working with our office doors open. And we did it every single night. And eventually the writers of Larry Sanders show came in and said, what are you guys still doing here? What are you doing? We're like, oh, funny. You should ask, we're writers and we're trying to write. And, uh, they said, well, let's take a look at something you've written. And so, okay, great. And that turned into, um, an opportunity to pitch, uh, show ideas to, uh, to Gary Shandin and to the head writers at the Larry Sanders show. And ultimately, it, it resulted in a script assignment, and that resulted in, um, uh, staffing jobs on other shows. And we kind of just got rolling as writers, um, in that space, uh, comedy writers, which was just terrific. But then the industry started to change, and this was way back in, um, I don't know, early two thousands, late nineties or something like that. And all of a sudden the sitcoms left and all, they were all game shows at one point, and then they were all dramas. And then, you know, the demise of the industry. And I just kind of started panicking as I'm prone to do. Um, but I, I looked at my, I I, I had a little, I had like a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old, and I grew up, like I said, I grew up kind of, dad always worked, and mom was PTA president, and we had these industrial, I just grew up with a, a different model than unemployed writer guy, you know, and I couldn't, I just couldn't reconcile that in my head. And so I wound up not getting a job on by my agent called and said, yeah, they didn't like you, whatever. I was like, all right. To hell with this. I called up my then wife and I said, um, Hey, I gotta, I gotta go to the Anderson School at UCLA to go pick up an application. She was like, what? And I said, yeah. So I literally put the, got off the phone with the agent, got off the phone with the ex-wife, and then zipped over to the, uh, UCLA Anderson, picked up an application, sat with them, and I was like, I can do this. And I hadn't taken a math class in 15 years, but what the heck. And I, um, I sat and, um, applied to the school and it took me about, I don't know what, maybe it was a year or nine months or some crazy timing was wackadoodle. But I wound up transitioning out of writing in, into, um, business school. And then from there, um, everybody at the Anderson School, my first day was, you know, in the career center. And I was just very, very focused. And then they really wanted everybody to get super involved with the whatever club or the school or the whatever it is you're trying to. And I was like, yeah, I've got two kids at home and a wife, and, you know, I gotta, I gotta figure this life out. And, um, and they said, yeah, but you still really need to be involved with the school. And I thought about it, and I said, okay, well, how about if I, how about if I get involved with the alumni? And there happened to have been a, um, a position called Student alumni rep. And so I stood in front of the whole class and I said, look at me. I'm the age of the alumni. Who else would be better to su to represent your interests than me? And sure enough, they loved that, and, uh, voted me in, and I promise I'm getting to the end. The head of the alumni association at that time when I was the student alumni representative was actually Bob Hart, who, uh, was at Kennedy Wilson, then went off to, you know, formed America and all that. But that was how my entree to that space was with, uh, through the UCLA Anderson School and Bob, um, wow. Fortunately, Couldn't gotten a better, better entree than Bob. Couldn't Have been a better entree. I wound up learning everything I know from Bob. Um, he's still a, a good friend. We, um, you know, I, I just learned the multifamily industry at that space, and when it came time to 2010, I was fully ready to go ahead and, and do this on my own. Okay. Well, you mentioned math. Was it, was it math? Was it the creative communication skills that you already had? What was the thing that brought Yeah, so the strength That went into real estate? Well, it's great that you're asking that. 'cause I, it's not something I get to talk about a lot, but, you know, when I look back, and I kind of mentioned this, it's not such a crazy switch. On one level, it's a crazy switch. 'cause I'm a sitcom writer talking to Gary Shandin. Now I'm a, you know, real estate. But in truth, when you're a writer, you start with a blank page and you have a story to tell, and you're putting together the story of a couple characters. And ultimately there's challenges. And ultimately, you know, whatever goes through the, the machinations of your story. And at the end, I love a happy ending. So there's a happy ending. Um, and so in real estate, what I found was, oh, I'm telling a story, and the story is not about characters, but about real estate. I'm telling a story about an asset, about a building, right? Telling a story about, Hey, here's something that's been neglected, hasn't had a lot of love it. Uh, it's seeking something greater in life. You know, I'm really taking the analogy far. Yeah. But it's, it's true. And when you start to write about the story, and the story happens to be a building, and then you say, yes, and this thing that's been neglected is, is only getting, you know, um, 5% in, you know, NOI, um, and you really think that if you do X, Y, Z, you could get that to 9% and sell it at 6%, whatever it is. Yeah. That story, you start to concoct it and it starts to really kind of become alive. And so what I look for in real estate acquisitions is I look for good quality stories, and it's the same idea as when I was a writer, but it takes a creative eye to actually look at something and say, And I think those skills transcend down to your leadership skills Yes. People in your organization and who you deal with in terms of being able to tell your story. But I, I know Wendy's got the next question teed up, but before we go that go, go, go. I just wanted to follow up new standard equity. How did you get the, the name? Another good question, and then we'll get Yeah, Thank you. It's almost like, yeah. So I, um, in 2010 when, or 2009 when, um, when I was going through, when the industry was going through turmoil, if you recall, um, it was also the time of Bernie Madoff, right? Right. The time of, you know, wasn't too many years since WorldCom blew up. And a lot of, you know, and it was this Horrible, You know, horrible era where, um, accounting was not transparent, where, uh, there was discoveries of fraud in, you know, countrywide and, you know, the bad, the bad loans and all of that. And I just thought, you know what, the problem with all of this is that we have to kind of go back to an era where openness and transparency and thoughtfulness and morality is actually embraced. And, um, and I came up with the name New Standard Equities when I was on the beach in Hawaii trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with my life. Yeah. Um, and I literally thought, I want to do something that is old school, but yet new school. And I thought the old way is with ethics and morality and the new way should look like the old way, but with a new sort of packaging. Yeah. And I literally came up with new standard equities because I wanna operate at that new standard. That Would be A good, good story behind That. And, and, and of course, that's the question I usually ask, and Steve, uh, all over it. But, you know, you know, my, my next question though is, you know, you talk about a story and, and, and all of your projects appear to have a story because, you know, we see the before and after and how you transform some of these buildings that looked old and now they're new again. Tell us about the major projects that stand out to you that you've accomplished over the years, which is the, you know, the one or two that just like, wow, you know, that's Yeah. That's really what I wanna be. Yes. I have one that is weirdly, I don't usually buy super old stuff. Mm-Hmm. But it was 20, oh gosh, I don't know, 2016, I think something like that. And I got a call from a friend, uh, a broker, broker slash principal type friend, and he said, Hey, you gotta come look at this. And it was an asset in Bremerton, Washington. Um, and it was built in the forties, and it was old military barracks. Right. And I looked at it and I flew up there, it was right around Christmas time, and there was snow and whatever ice on the ground. It was the horrible Seattle type awful version of Seattle weather. And, uh, h how'd, How'd you get, how'd you hear about the property initially? How, how, from who brought the property to your attention? It was from a, uh, a guy who was a broker, not, not one to, not one of the major brokers. He was a smaller broker and a smaller, you know, whatever. But he picked up the phone and he called me excellent. And I looked at this thing, and this was a real piece. I mean, this had every problem in the world that had old, you know, bad paint and had a bad name, and had dysfunctional, you know, aspects of the real estate. And everything about it was terrible, except for the price Uhhuh, the price was $13 million for 182 units. That's, and I just looked at it, it, and I said, and I looked around and I'm looking at this thing going, how could this be $13 million when 182 units, about about three quarters of them have views of Puget Sound. Wow. So it's on Rolling Hills. It's on a nice market. Bremerton, it's on 20 something acres. I was looking at this going like, I just, what am I missing here? That this isn't the greatest thing on the planet. Great Location, just bad, you know, Just, yeah, exactly. So I got that under contract, and I soon realized that it had also a really terrific story. And I isolated the story, and it was 1940s vintage military barracks that still kind of looked like 1940s military barracks. Yeah, I Know it well. But I decided, you know what, this isn't 1940s military barracks. This is, again, it was called Bremerton Gardens at the time. So this isn't Bremerton Gardens, this is Sea Glass Village. Ah, sea glass, sea glasses, you know, discarded bottles that get tumbled around. And, and it actually is precious gems at the end of the end of the day. And so I was like, this is what this is. And I came up with a creative logo and a paint scheme, and a, I hired a, um, artist. Right. Skills, there you go. Yeah, Exactly. To repackage Bremerton Gardens as Sea Glass Village. And, um, you know, when we encountered all kinds of things with it, you know, I learned about, about, uh, septic tanks and how things get, I mean, it was the craziest, uh, um, deal ever in operations. But after five or six years owning it, uh, we sold it for 35 and a half million dollars. Wow. Yeah. That, now, that's a story with A half million. That's a story. That's the one that I look, I think about, and I go, when is I gotta find my next sea glass? And those are the things that I really, really love. Of course, they're not all that, um, all of them aren't that dramatic, but they all carry some sort of element of that where I'm really transforming a, a piece of a piece of dirt or, or property or whatever. It's Okay. Yeah. That's a great story. And now, unfortunately, we find yes, that the be learning experiences are from the, you know, from the ones you wish you never did, or spent a lot of time and never, and never end up doing. Yeah. So, is there one that you wish you pulled the hook out of it and threw it back in the water? You know, um, just trying to think. You know, there were a couple, uh, a couple that, well, they ended well, but Wow. A lot, a lot of pain during the process, um, including some of the ones I currently own, but it's okay. Um, there was one that I, you know, what, there was a little deal in Pasadena that, um, I loved, this was a terrific little thing, and it was too small. And that was the learning. I, I apply a certain level of, uh, operational, uh, firepower. Right. And that cost money. Right. And I, this little thing had, it was 30 units, I think two retail units, 28, How long Ago This was? I bought it in 2017. Okay. And I sold it right around the right. Yeah. Maybe it was 2020 or so. When I sold it, um, I, we made a little bit of money, but, um, the, uh, the three, the, call it, the three things that I learned is if you don't have scale, um, you can't put, you can't put an army on something. Right. It's too expensive. It, it will eat you alive. So I sacrificed other assets, personnel wise, so that I can actually get these little 28 units up, up, up and running properly. Mm-Hmm. Now going in, we were literally looking at a thousand dollars lost to lease per unit because it was so under marketed and under operated. But the second piece of learning, don't ever buy something when you have brand new, uh, properties run by Greystar, you know, whatever alliance, whoever it is, as your neighbors, because, you know, I had, I was, my little asset was 30 units, but I was next door to 140 brand new units. And while we were beating them on price, they could discount their price and crush us. Yeah. Five times over. So each, each time I kind of thought about, well, what the strategy should be. I'd be, I'd say, well, I guess we could drop a rent, but, and ultimately That's a little counterintuitive. 'cause you would think being next to the big new guy that would allow you to, there would be a vacuum that would suck, you know, pull you up a Little bit. That's exactly what I thought. Yeah, that's exactly what I thought. I thought there'd be a vacuum where I would just scoop up. I could draft right behind them and live and, and, and enjoy and actually do well. Right. And ultimately, maybe that could have worked if it was 50, 60 units, maybe I could have had more in-house attention, but I had to drag somebody over. I had to plant somebody in the office. I had to do all this stuff that was not really cost effective. And then at the end of the day, if they, if you've got a big institution, they're in lease up mode, they're gonna do whatever it takes. Exactly. And you're gonna, without a doubt. So let me ask you, how do you find new projects or deals? What do you, like, you, you know, you talked about the Seattle one, but Yeah. What is your process to find something new? So I have, um, I generally have a team of, of, you know, I've got an acquisitions officer and a couple analysts, and we underwrite almost everything that comes out brokered. Um, so ev every, almost everything that we could possibly find that's on the market. Um, and then we couple that with answering random phone calls from random brokers or random principles that say they've got, you know, whatever. Um, and that's how we do it. And it's always, there's usually a broker involved somehow. Um, there's, usually it's somebody showing something. If it's off market, it's only quasi off market. We get, um, a lot of first looks at things, we get a lot of, Hey, we're going out to five people, we're going out to eight people, whatever that is. Is it a true marketing? I don't know. I mean, we're, we're chasing something right now. It's just a wonderful, wonderful deal. A repeat seller, a guy I've known for my entire time in the business. Um, you know, but there's also three other groups, uh, that he's also known, you know, for the entire time in the business. So How do you greenlight when, when you, when you see it? Do you, what, what is the thing that you, I mean, obviously you're looking for the story Yeah. But you are looking at I-R-R-R-O-I, you know, is it your gut? What, what goes into your final decision as a combination of everything? Yeah, It's A combination. A couple of that question, Andy, do you do projections, like high projection, low projection, middle, and then choose based on your gut, you know, your feel? Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit of everything, but to be honest, we are, um, we're very quantitative. We're very analytical uhhuh. And so we put everything, um, into our Excel model. Um, and because we're operators, we don't, we don't cut corners. You know, some groups are like, oh, you know, you cut the payroll. Oh, you cut the landscaping and get a cheaper made, you know, we know what it's like out there in the real world. So we're very, very, very, uh, con um, con cautious and conscience conscious of our, um, our underwriting. And we get to a number that kind of works for us on an IRR basis. It's always IRR and, uh, on a five year hold. And, um, the question I ask is, can we attract capital for this particular asset? How much have I stressed our own model? If the, if it underwrites great at say 41 million, the broker or the seller wants 44 million, how close to 44 can I get without my gut churning and vomiting? You know? And so I kind of listened to that part. And, you know, you can make anything work. That's the, the beauty of Excel. It's just you change the number and it all of a sudden looks genius. Where's that, where's that borderline? What's that IRR number? You know, I know it depends on the market probably and the property, but what's, Yeah. So like An example of a negative decision that you made because it was just not there. One, um, I, we usually can get to, uh, roughly a project level 15. Um, and sometimes that drops down, uh, into the thirteens. One, one time we were actually chasing something that our investor was driving the decision on how far to push price. And we got into the twelves, and I was super uncomfortable. I really like that at all. They had very cheap money. And they were like, no, no, we can make that work. I was like, eh, not sure. Ultimately, that one had some physical problems that the whole thing fell apart. We didn't, we didn't actually execute. But, um, the, uh, the idea that a capital partner might be saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, do this. I want to be, I wanna look at myself in the mirror every day when I wake up and go, no, no, I believe in this project. And it means that we're not cutting corners on operations, and it means we're not cutting corners on capital. Uh, it means that if it's a 15 IRR, it's a 15 IRR, the thing that annoys me more than anything is that, um, I'll show an investor a 15 or maybe a 16 Right. Or maybe an 18, and they'll beat my numbers up. And I'm like, no, you don't need to do that with, We already beat it up for you. Yeah. I've Already, I've, I'm like, Mr. Conservative, you don't need to take me down to a 13. You know, It's like, well, they all gotta feel like they gotta do their due diligence. Right? Everyone has to do their own due diligence, but I'm sure that gets less the more they invest with you after they know you A little bit. A little bit. Yeah, exactly. A little, a little bit. I mean, it's always, it's always that game. And I always tell people before they see my numbers, I'm like, look, this is very realistic. You know, but that's the, you know, who knows. Yeah. Speaking of that, I mean, you're talking about investors and everything. How do you finance the deal? Is it mostly equity? Is it debt inequity, or Debt and equity? Yeah, debt and equity. Okay. Yeah. We, we use, uh, we like to use agency, you know, Freddy Fannie, um, uh, we've traditionally been a, a floating rate borrower. Um, that's been problematic for the last two years, but, um, uh, that will probably end up coming back. Um, but, you know, we'll, we'll do fixed or floating, just depends. The floating, usually you get a better prepay if you're gonna sell it, or Yes. You know, usually it's the better exit strategy, uh, that, so that, that's the advantage of, of the float. But exactly. E every, every loan is different and every lender is different. Even even the agency stuff is changing. And what's the LTV you're seeing these days, you know, on those? Um, So a few things that we're chasing, uh, right now it's actually pretty decent. 70%, you know. Wow. 60 to 70. Yeah. I mean, this last thing I looked at, it was a five and three quarter cap going in, um, you know, financing at 70% generating a 16 IRR. Right. You know, using the same exit exit cap that I'm going in at. I, I looked at it like, this is not just normal underwriting. This is like good underwriting from the, from 20 15, 20 16 era. Yeah. And I thought, this is fine. If everybody can just sell and buy at this rate and this level, then the industry should come back pretty, pretty handily. Right. You know, the problem is so many groups bought at three caps in the, in 2021 that, you know, Well, of course. And with, with all the covid restrictions that were now coming out of, uh, how did that affect, uh, your, your decision making and, and you know, what happened there? I mean, So it was a mixed bag. Um, the, um, we wound up, fortunately on one of our biggest covid impacted, uh, buildings, um, uh, our asset in Hayward, which I just love. Um, but we had 15% non-payers. Yeah. Um, fortunately I also got a loan at 2.93% fixed in 2020. So I was able to actually secure a good loan that got us through the pandemic, through the non-paying problem. And now we've gotten most of those non-payers out, and we're backed up to 95 ish percent. And, you know, now rents need to come back a little bit. But that's one where we are, we're through the thick of it through the woods, uh, uh, in Alameda County. Um, we've a couple others in Alameda County that were troubling as well. Um, and we've, we took it on the chin, you know, we had, uh, I think portfolio wide, I, I'll bet we are owed, we're still probably out $3 million or some crazy number, like it's absolute insanity. Uh, but, you know, that's, that's the, uh, the downside of investing heavily in California is that you get some very, very, um, uh, tenant friendly laws, um, and whatnot. The upside is we don't have supply problems. Yeah, that's true. You know, we're, we're in great shape in terms of our demand. Our rents are actually going up. We actually have lease trade outs that, you know, they may be modest five to 8% or 6% or whatever, but we're not facing the great, uh, debacle in Arizona or the Sunbelt or anywhere else. You know, Orlando, I don't know where the rougher markets are, but Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The supply oversupplied markets, um, we're not facing any of those problems. Right. So, um, Yeah. And that, and that, uh, you know, since your top hit on this topic now, skip around a little bit and in terms of, uh, the, uh, the structure, but, uh, um, so where do you see rental values now? Uh, you know, heading, you know, per unit as well as, you know, values per unit, not just, you know, the rentals, but rental rates, but also, Yeah. So, you know, every, every market's slightly different. Um, we are, we were getting up in Bremerton, Washington. We were getting about 1575 to 1650 for a one bedroom apartment. We had to, yeah, we had to cut that back down though, to about four, literally 1400 or so. Um, but now we're back up to call it 1495 to 15, and our, and we're full, our units are really nice. We're fully occupied there. So, um, uh, other, other properties, um, around the portfolio, just thinking aloud, um, San Jose we're, I think our top rent post, whatever pandemic was about 3,100 for a two bedroom. We're maybe at 2,900. So we're a little bit off. Mm-Hmm. But you're talking about 2,900 for a workforce housing type property in San Jose, believe me, that, I get it. That's a lot of money. Yeah, no, Right. Um, but when you look at the rest of San Jose and you see Class A built, you know, rent is 4,500 and I'm at 29, so I'm still a price. Uh, I'm a, I'm a, you know, I compete on price. Yeah. Um, and uh, then you look at, well, what's the dynamic of the single family market? And you go, oh my gosh. You know, to get into a single family home in San Jose, you're out 7,500 bucks a month. Easy. Easy. Right, right. Easily. So now look at the difference between my rent at 2,900 and the single family alternative at at 7,500. That differential has never been as great as it is right now for our industry. Yeah. So, while we may be going through value conundrum and Oh, but the cap rate this and the cap rate that when you look at the fundamentals in each of our markets, you're, you're seeing a huge disconnect between the alternative housing, uh, for, for, for residents in our asset class and what they're actually able, hopefully able to pay. We qualify everyone at two and a half times. We're trying to get, you know, roommates to sign to two people on the dotted line and all of that stuff to protect ourselves. But at the end of the day, there's not enough housing in California, especially in our, the Bay Area markets, especially in, um, in, even in Seattle, there is just not enough construction. There's not enough housing for, for Folks. Right. So even with the issues of, you know, uh, environmental issues, the wealth tax, you know, the additional taxes, all the things that make California challenging, it, it creates opportunity. Yes. Yeah. It creates, it, it creates opportunity. And I've said that so many times to different folks who are, they throw their arms up and believe me, I'm right there. I get it. It's very frustrating. But they say, oh, no more investing in California. And they, they want to go out to other areas, but the very reason that they should stay in California is because of fundamentals, not politics. Yes. Fundamentals do, does California allow enough housing in our cities? And the answer is no. The state government has had to sue cities in order to build housing, and they're still dragging their feet. 'cause the cities still don't want the housing. And so think of the dynamic of, yeah, well, you're politically challenged because of these crazy laws, but that's no reason. If you're an investor, that's no reason to not invest. It's what happens to the supply and demand fundamentals. Everybody and their brother said, Hey, you know what we should do? We should go to Austin, Texas, where they're building, you know, 67% additional housing from what they're, they have to the number of jobs that have to be created in a place like Austin or Phoenix or um, or Atlanta or wherever. There's been huge growth and huge amount of investors and huge, you know, capital flowing in. They're now facing a real problem, um, where they're gonna have to discount rents. And once you start discounting rents, just my, like my little, my little Pasadena problem when I had the little deal, you, you, it's very hard to come back from a discounted rent, especially when the fundamentals in the market are not in your favor. You know. Now you touched, you touched on this a little bit, but tell me a little bit about the challenging places to develop or own, and where are the greater places? I mean, where do you prefer to go? Or is it whichever comes to you? Is I I go with what's, what's out there? Well, I, so for me, um, my biggest, the biggest risk factor, aside from the market fundamentals and I, I follow the knowledge economy. I'm really, I'm, I'm keen on all of that. Um, for me, it's the biggest worry is, um, is my own ignorance. So if I don't know something about a market, if I'm unsure of what those fundamentals look like, or a submarket, I tend to shy away. Um, if it's a market that I've operated in, if it's a market that I'm comfortable with, 'cause of the supply demand characteristics or the job growth opportunities, then I'm very bullish. Um, one interesting market we could talk a little bit specifically, um, the Bremerton Washington market was fascinating to me because it was driven, it's driven really fully by the military, um, which has been a very interesting dynamic. And you get ships that come in and the places fill up and the ships leave and places empty a little. Um, but it's forced me to really take a look at which military markets are safe and which ones are exposed. Um, and it happens that in Bremerton, there's a shipyard. It's the largest shipyard in the west, one of the only ones in the whole country that can take on these aircraft carriers. And it's deep water. And there's this submarine, um, uh, operation as well. So you have this incredible, uh, uh, very limited, uh, in its location, uh, sort of asset class in Bremerton. And, you know, 30 minutes gets you to downtown Seattle by ferry. Um, and so it's a very interesting dynamic, but we've seen it ebb and flow a little bit, especially, you know, I, when when I read about problems in the South China Sea, I get worried about my occupancy 'cause they're gonna send some other carrier out to the right. You know, so I get a little bit worried counter cyclically. I kind of like peace time, but with a little bit of threat, um, right. Um, but, you know, uh, it, it's kind of funny. So each market's a little different like that. Um, the Inland Empire, you know, we have these, uh, Steve, you and I talked about this last year a little bit. Um, you've got these great growth engines in Moreno Valley and Riverside, and, uh, it's a workforce housing sort of mecca out there, which is, makes it a little bit more price sensitive to things like recessions and the cost of eggs, uh, which we're experiencing right now out there. But I'm betting that that market, um, comes back. How about The city of LA And the city of la? Um, weirdly tax, I kind of got out of la, um, right. Uh, yeah, there's a lot of things with LA Yeah. You know, it's funny because I got out of it, um, But specifically the city, I mean, you'd look at some of the cities within la Right, Exactly. So, the city of LA I was in, it was one of my first, um, purchases, actually 2011. Uh, it was 20 units in, um, in Hollywood proper. It was just terrific. Uh, we did well on it. Um, but the city, I noticed even back then that, uh, LAHD was very much in our shorts and very much trying to dictate what we could spend and what we should spend and how, not just rental rates, but literally in our shorts. And I really felt bad about that. I felt like that was, um, we are here, we are doing an ethical, you know, more moral job of running quality clean apartments, but we're being treated like we're criminals. And I really didn't like that. Um, the, uh, ultimately it was very, very challenging to operate, uh, in my style. Right. And I ultimately realized that your incent, the LAHD, the LA housing department is incentivizing people to cut corners. They're incentivizing people to, well, if I can't raise the rent, I'm certainly not gonna, you know, whatever, fix the window. You know? Right. And so it, it's sort of, it's a, it's a fun, dysfunctional kind of partnership. And I just didn't want to be a part of that. So I shied away from anything in LA City proper. But you asked Yes. Out outlet, outlying areas. Wow. I saw something just a couple weeks ago. I loved it so much. Westlake Village saw something in Thousand Oaks. Oh my gosh. Sure. That's my backyard. Right? Yeah. Really. Like I looked at it and I was like, Communities, Unbelievably good Supply. Right. All of The, all the buzz, all the fundamental buzzwords. I was like, this is fantastic. The only problem was about five other people realized that it was fantastic. Yeah, yeah. Valley man, right? Yeah, exactly. So I, you know, it's, it's fine. But, um, yeah, there are areas, Ventura County is incredible. I wish investors really understood what Ventura was all about. Right. Um, you have areas like, um, yeah, like the ie, the Inland Empire. I mean, there are some great, great assets out in Riverside. It's just a, Well, you just mentioned investors, so I wanna shift gears a little bit and then ar Arne, I'll have a follow up. But the equity part of your deals, uh, where's that come from? Is that, you know, new standard money and then you get investors for each deal Yes. Separately and form a different partnership for each transaction. How is, where's the equity come from and, you know, how does you know guys like me and Arne, you know, where can we, uh, you know, take part? Yeah. Well, first of all, yes, the answer is yes. 'cause I do everything. But we do, um, one-off joint ventures, uh, with largely institutional partners. Sometimes it's syndications, uh, sometimes it's, um, uh, you know, a combination where I could have an institutional partner for 80% of the, um, financing on the equity. And then on the 20% piece, I'll syndicate that to friends and family or, you know. Right. High net worth especially, you have A thing on your website to register. Yes. And everybody's welcome to do that. I welcome new investors. Um, we're always looking to, um, you know, to, to raise cash to, uh, buy, maybe replace some investors and current deals. Um, we have, if, if there's a new thing that pops up, we have, um, a small stable of institutional investors that are still looking and interested. And I got an email blast today from one of our investors. They've got 250 mil of dry powder for 2024. So I was like, okay, that's good. That's a good start. 'cause the last two years, the institutional money has been largely on the sidelines. Um, so we, we go to, um, that type of equity source family offices sometimes. Um, it's, it's really, it kind of depends. Um, we're talking about maybe doing something, um, different structurally, but that's, you know, TBD later on this year. Um, but I, you know, I feel pretty good about where we are. Um, I really think that this year should be, um, a good buying year. Um, and I, I hope to be able to deploy, uh, you know, uh, syndicated equity, um, you know, call it raise, raise between five and 15 million on every deal. So what are, what are, What do you see as the major challenges right now on, on transactions, Um, opportunities? Uh, there's been a lot of people, um, it's funny 'cause the same thing that's, there's a lot in the news about how single family homes, especially in Southern Cal, haven't really dropped. Right. Um, in price, despite the higher interest rates. And, you know, it's just counterintuitive, but when you realize that everybody and their brother refinanced at 3% or 2% or four, whatever that is, why would they get outta that loan unless they had to? So the same thing exists today, um, in a different way, but in the multifamily space, everybody financed these things a couple years ago and the values aren't there, so why would they sell? Um, so the question is, is how are they gonna be forced to sell? Or has enough time gone by where you bought something in 2021 and you've moved rents 15, 20, 30%, and the values may be 15 to 30% lower, but you can still get out and redeploy that equity elsewhere. I think those opportunities are gonna be coming back. The one thing that I've been chasing in the last couple of days, the seller is gonna take probably a little bit of a loss, but they're gonna redeploy that cash and buy something that they could never have bought, you know, at the price, Price points, You know? Yeah. Right. You know, what, what town, what city is that in? That's northern county in Yeah, yeah, yeah. Spin Him down. He's negotiating. He doesn't, Hey, you know, get what I can. I gotta ask the question, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But speaking of your investors, Eddie, so, um, do you, uh, on the exit side, a co on the exit side, um, when do you sell and why? And are you also looking at refinancing any properties right now? Yes, I am looking at refinancing something right now. I'm looking at actually raising some preferred equity, probably. Um, I've got an asset that I just love. Fantastic story. Um, and it is, um, and it's in a great market in, in, in, uh, in a market near the Seattle, um, near ctac Mm-Hmm. In that market. And it's just fantastic. It's been, we've been getting three, $400 rent lifts. Our loan is coming due in August, and I'd love to get that one off to the races with a new loan and some fresh equity and run that thing through its cycle. We had, um, on that one in particular was very, very impacted by Covid. I had, yeah. Out of, uh, 80 units, I had 10 people or 12 people not paying rent for three years. Yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's awesome. You can't, yeah. You cannot survive that. So we finally got them out. Um, we're down to the last two, I think, an eviction, and we are, uh, re we've renovated, um, and we've, we're re letting those units and, and that's gonna be a good story. So that's one that I'm keenly focused on, um, in terms of, uh, in terms of a refi and hold. Right. Uh, certain other things, it may be time to sell, dictated sometimes by our partners. Um, but, you know, if we can, um, if we can make a profit and, uh, and it's a good profit relative to other things, then we'll sell. Perfect. Excellent. You know? Yeah. So let, I, I know you like a story. We're gonna go back to that and, and looking at yourself, how involved are you in the architecture and construction, uh, of these things? Because I know you've got the vision, uh, although I'm sure you have a team, but Yeah. Tell, tell me what goes through your mind when you we're looking at a project and say Yeah. So I can, I can tell you two different, th I've kind of described the sea glass thing, but, but the, um, but really interestingly, um, both the thing that I'm gonna start raising some cash for, um, it's called Majestic Bay up in, uh, demo in Washington. Um, that was really ugly when we first bought it. And it had this basketball court out in front and a old beat up lawn with maybe a really junky, like kids like, you know, slide or, you know, yeah. Seesaw or something like that. And it was just awful. And I'm staring at this thing going, why isn't this the leasing office and fitness center? And so from ground up, I looked at it and said, guys, this is what we need to do. We need to build a standalone leasing center with a little office, a little, um, workout center, a little fitness center bathroom. Because when, uh, when moms come to the site to lease an apartment and they've got a little kid in tow, the first thing they say is, can we use your restroom? Yeah. Well, if you don't have a restroom, it's true. You've lost your lease. You know, so, you know, have a nice little space for, and I say moms, yeah. Not out of misogyny, but No, no, no. Studies have shown that it's the women that are making the major decisions and uh, and leasing. And so, um, a lot of times that actually drives, uh, my decision making. It's like, well, how can we make it more comfortable for a prospect? And, uh, while I enjoy good architecture, I'm not an architect. While I enjoy good designing, I'm not a designer, so I hire people that have those expertise. I'm a bit of a vision person. So when something looks similar to what I had in my head, I like it. When it looks something is amiss, I'm the first one to say, I don't really like it. I don't like what it, the color scheme, the angles of the building, whatever it is, I feel ooky about it. And I kind of, I, I kind of, I, I don't know. I can't verbalize it, but I can, I'll tell an architect, I want it to be warmer. What does that mean? You know, tell a designer, I don't, it feels Too cold. Annie, I think you gave yourself, I think you're selling yourself short a little bit. 'cause I think you did verbalize it when you came up with that phrase just right. Living. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, that, that's true actually. Um, you know, I can't let you get away without bringing that phrase. Yeah, no, I, I'm happy to talk about just Right. Living. Um, yeah, it's funny, and I'll talk one more little thing about, um, the leasing centers. So, um, it wasn't even part of our business plan, but I was, I was pro project in Castro Valley, California, which is, um, east Bay. And I just love this thing and we've cleaned it up and we've made it better, and we're getting the rents and everything is going really swimmingly. And, um, the leasing office is this weird, narrow triangle. And every single time I walk into that office, I kind of want to vomit a little 'cause it feels horrible. And I'm, I, by the way, I'm not good on boats. I get seasick. So I'm very sensitive to that kind of dynamic. But you're right, the leasing office makes such an impression. It Makes a huge impression. So I, so I hired, so I had my head of construction, go to the architect, go to the city, go to everybody, and we've now figured out a way to straighten out the walls, expand the thing, have a little arch, you know, kind of, um, roof line and adding a bathroom. And, um, while we're just now breaking ground on it, it's another one of those I hope to be success stories where I've had an looky feeling in my gut and I'm executing to cure that. Um, now just right living. All right, so just Right living is a, um, it's kind of a slogan that we've, uh, we came up with. Um, it's important to say we're, um, it just kind of fit. Um, because of the kinds of things that we do. We, we want the win-win and call it win, win-win, you know, uh, just right living is all about you give the resident what they're looking for, what they're willing to pay for, and if you can meet the, meet the inflection point of what a resident's willing to pay for and what an investor's willing to invest. And if you can meet that perfectly, you've maximized your IRR. And when you've ma and then it's ev it's a win-win. So that's what I'm trying to go for and win-win win. If you think of employees as part of the equation, it's a great Ex, it's a great phrase. Thank you. Yeah. So when you end up over improving something and the resident is not willing to pay, then you kind of get this dynamic, you know, when you've, and that's, that's bad for the IRR. And then similarly, if you under improve the resident this whole time was willing to pay up here and you're like lagging down here when you go to sell, that's sometimes, uh, sometimes those, oh, investor will pay for that upside, but sometimes they only pay for this much of that upside. Yeah. So you're leaving something on the table. I'd rather say, you know what, let's try to meet that inflection point as close as humanly possible, where a dollar spent is some x dollar better in rent. And, uh, and try to match the, uh, match the math. And, uh, I try to do that all the time. Alright. Let, let's get back to you a little bit. I know you, you went to UCLA and UC Berkeley. Yep. On Saturday. Who do you root for? The Bears or the Bruins? I, that's a tough one, but I gotta go with the, I gotta go with the cow bears. Um, it's, it's very, you know, it's just, it's just works out. Um, and it's funny because, um, my, I have a son that, uh, went to University of Washington. Okay. And so I'm also a Husky fan. Oh, you gotta be happy this year. Yeah. So I went to Oregon. We're not very happy with that. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a little challenging at times. Yeah. I went to Florida State, so if anybody has, if anybody has a right not to be happy, it's me. I went to Florida, we got shut out. That's true. That's true. That's true. But it's very funny. So I actually, um, yeah, but it's, yeah, boy, on Saturdays that, um, I used to go to the games UCLA Cal Games, uh, and I'd literally be wearing two shirts and I'd be like, yeah, go Bears. And then about, uh, about halfway through the game, I'm like, alright, okay, fine. You went, Did you play any sports? Are you kidding? Look at me. No, I didn't play. Can't judge. No. That, that, that, that's my answer usually when somebody asks me. Yeah. I know. Alright, uh, a, a serious question. You know, uh, someone starting out in the business, so let's say guy coming outta Washington comes, you says, you know, where should I go? What, what part of the business do you think has upside for a young person coming into it now? Brokerage property management. On the flip side, if you were entering the business now, where would you go knowing what you know now? Um, great questions. What I think I would tell, and I've had, um, I've given internships to people and all kinds of stuff, and I'm a big supporter and a fan of people learning. Um, I, I look at my experience I had at Kennedy Wilson, um, with Bob and I, and I want to give that back to somebody else. And I've done that a few times. Um, I've taken on MBA interns, I've taken on undergrad interns. I've, I've hired folks out of business school and, um, depends on their skillset, um, and, and where they want to be. And I think, um, you know, if somebody is mathematically inclined and they're, they know their way around a spreadsheet and can think out of the box, um, then acquisitions, uh, analyst for a mortgage broker, analyst for a, um, an equity shop. Um, I think those are great jobs, right? Um, if somebody is more people oriented, um, I really can't say enough about property management. It's, uh, while it's a headache, but it is, uh, What's not that's worthwhile. Worthwhile? Well, no, it's people skills. Yes. Very, The people skills. I've seen it time and time again. Yeah. Where if you have people skills and you can sell and you can be sweet and you can collect rent with a smile, and you can deal with some of the challenges of being, you know, the leader at somebody's home effectively, um, then property management is a great avenue to get into this space. Yeah. I've got, um, one of my, um, high quality, um, managers is, um, she, uh, is, he's a, um, very young man who I spoke with, uh, when I went and met him and he said, yeah, my, my parents are actually, um, in the business that are, he's a mortgage dad's a mortgage broker, or something like that. And, uh, um, I am looking to learn the business. I said, you know what, you've picked a great, great place to start. Because if you can start, even if you want to be on the finance side or the acquisition side or whatever, if you can start in property management, you have a leg up. You understand what people are going through, you understand their willingness to pay, you understand what other, uh, pain points the residents may have, and you can tell the things that are very simple to fix. If you can take somebody's package to them, that might mean all the, all the tea in China, you know, if you can supply them with a secure apartment, that might be the thing that they really are looking for. Um, if you can give them a nice clean fitness center, they don't have to join a gym as a young property manager, you can start to put those sort of, uh, fundamental things together and really think about how you can be impactful in somebody else's life. And I think that's a very, very Yeah. And that's such a great ladder of success. We know so many people that started out at the very low end and worked their way up and become senior executives. That's right. Out of the people at my company, I've got a number of folks who started off leasing apartments, and, you know, I've got head of asset management right now is in that. Is is somebody like that. And, you know, if you can get somebody to from starting at the bottom to some near the top, I think that's a, uh, it's a wonderful thing to do for somebody and to watch that as a, as a professional to watch and foster that growth, there's no greater joy. So let's talk about your, let's wrap it up with some, something with your personal goals for the future and what you do. You do a lot for your employees and, and interns and everything else, but what kind of charities and hobbies do you have in addition to that? Yeah, that'd be a great way to end this and charity We can highlight for you while you're here. That Yeah. That, that would be terrific. Um, I actually have, uh, uh, my goals, just to kind of step back, my goals for the company are, are to, um, acquire and build up to 5,000 units. Um, uh, it could go higher, but right now, that's my five year goal. And you're just under 2000 now, if I remember Right. Yeah. I'm under 2000. I'll have to sell five, 600 or whatever maybe, and hopefully buy another thousand, you know, and, you know, over, over the next couple of years, I think that that's a viable plan. Um, and so I'll need equity for that. Um, and I'll need to keep the team together for all of that. Um, mm-Hmm. And in the interim, I'm, I, um, I started, uh, I, I've always been a philanthropic kind of person, um, and it's always been a life goal of mine to be able to, uh, make an impact on other people. And, uh, the two, uh, charitable organizations that I'm actually, um, uh, a part of, I've, I joined the board of, uh, uh, directors on, on, uh, the Center Theater Group, which is here in Los Angeles. We, we run the Ahmanson Theater and mm-Hmm. Kirk Douglas Theater and the Mark Taper form. And we really try to do inclusive programming. We really try to do, um, diverse programming. Um, the theater world is going through a lot of challenges right now. Right. Um, it's a that's A perfect combination with your historical skill sets, huh? Yeah, it's, it's an actual, it's my first love, right. And I really, really enjoy being a part of it. Um, I'm friends with the executive director and I'm friends with the artistic director, and it's an opportunity for me to really zero in on the artistic, um, community and Right. How we can actually foster the arts. Um, just a quick primer back in the Greek, uh, Greek days, the ancient Greece, um, you know, theater experience was actually the only way that, that the, that the moral fiber of the Greek culture could be conveyed. And that was through the theater. The theater was the church. And, um, that's how they taught morality to their constituencies. And it was a, a big exploration in what's the right thing, what's the wrong thing? And it all came through theater. We've lost a lot of that, that's for sure. Uh, and we've, yeah, we've replaced that message with, you know, bad movies, social media, horrible television programs and all that, right? And now, and, and some of our moral, uh, sort of, uh, standards have perhaps been challenged. So I really do like the idea of getting back to communal experiences that explore the humanity of our morality. And, uh, that's what the Center Theater Group does for us. Um, excellent. And then, uh, the other, um, other charitable organization that I've become involved with is, uh, it's called the Children's Bureau. Uh, it's, uh, the, we're gonna go through a name change, um, because that's very old sounding. It's actually one of the third, uh, third or fourth, uh, names. It's had, it's actually an organization that's been around since, um, the early 19 hundreds, like 1905 or eight or 1910 or something like that. And, um, it is it, the primary mission of the Children's Bureau is to prevent child abuse. And the reason that that's a challenge is that we're trying to stop something from happening. And the entire mission of that organization, it's some 500 people strong, and we operate with a 50 something million dollars budget. And we are one of the, uh, really one of the country's foremost, uh, authorities and pro, um, uh, uh, provider of services, uh, to low income families in need, um, in noun, uh, Los Angeles and Orange County. And, uh, now we have a facility up in, up in the Lancaster Palmdale area, and it is a very, very highly respected organization. And I can't think of another impactful way of spending a dollar, and that is to try to stop a kid from being abused Children Children's Bureau, but name's about to Change. But Children's Bureau, the name is about to change, but we're doing a gala this year. Uh, we're doing, actually, we're doing a gala for c uh, center Theater Group too, but we're doing a gala for the Children's Bureau. There's a golf tournament that I've all, I've traditionally been, uh, helping to sponsor. And, uh, it's really a terrific, uh, organization, so. Excellent, excellent. Well, I, I, Betty, you know, we should we keep it within about an hour? We're right about there. Right there. Yeah. So, uh, we, we learn a lot about you and your background and, and, uh, and about your company, which is fantastic. That's why we love doing these things. We get to find out a little bit more, uh, about the person behind the company and, and where it's going. And, uh, that's the whole purpose of CRE talk. And I think the audience will find it very, uh, enlightening. Yes. Educational and inspiring in many ways, and entertaining. Thank you very much for the time. Entertaining too. Yeah. I hope to be entertaining and I love it. It was great having you. Thank you. New standard equities. Thank you very much. Thank you much. And, uh, you know, good luck with the deals you're closing, refinancing, and, uh, you know, getting to 5,000 units. Great, Thanks. Thank you. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, fidelity Mortgage Lenders, and Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/931863337.txt b/data/transcripts/931863337.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e550ea0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/931863337.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, Welcome to this next episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, uh, where we have what we hope to be very interesting and compelling conversations with top leaders in the commercial real estate industry. And I'm super excited about this show 'cause our guest fits that bill, uh, major property, major multifamily property owner, uh, throughout California, and now the East Coast, Henry Maner Chairman, and CEO of Universe Holdings. But before we bring in Henry L let me tell you, let us tell you about a little bit about us, the co-host, and about our show and our sponsor. So lemme bring in Arnie Garfinkle, my co-host. Hey, Arnie, how you doing today, buddy? How you doing, Steve? Good, good. Spring is in the air. I know you're Busy These days. Keeping busy, keeping busy. So anyway, the All Star Group is a commercial real estate lending company. Uh, that's how we started. We're doing a lot more in conferences and conference producing. Uh, the focus is mainly commercial real estate. Uh, we do our annual commercial real estate lending conference, which is coming up April 18th in Long Beach at the Western Long Beach. And you could submit loans live to our panel of 15 lenders, and they compete for the loan. That's what makes it very interesting. But we also produce events for others. We produce events for rent tv. We do one for the Click Conference, which is a, uh, uh, conference for the hospitality industry. Believe me, we're busy. But, uh, anyway, tell us a little bit more about Rent TV and you, Steve. Well, thank you, Arnie. I'm Steve Bloom, founder and, uh, chairman, CEO of rent tv.com, our 25-year-old news and media business for the commercial real estate industry. Many of you know our website covering news and our email newsletter covering news on a daily basis throughout California and the Western us. Uh, we also put on our events, uh, which is coming up our state of the market conference for Orange County at the Irvine Company's venue facility at Spectrum Terrace. We have s covering office, retail, multifamily, industrial, and finance. Still time to sign up. It's next Thursday. Uh, we own the website, sublease.com, and we also created this video platform, the review, where you are watching this video, uh, which is growing, uh, exponentially. Uh, so with that said, uh, we have other business to conduct. We have some three great sponsors that make these shows happen, so we want to tell you about them. Uh, the first one is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed information in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensive and simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Simington name is on the screen, and book your next inspection today. 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. Who's next? Arnie. Our next sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon. It is known for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck or John McClain at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. Excellent. Arnie, next up is Paramount property tax appeal with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease. One way you can fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes Lower. Call West Nichols with Paramount Property tax Appeal at 8 5 8 7 5 8 9 5 1 5. West Nichols, 8 5 8 7 5 8 9 5 1 5. Great sponsors, Arnie, but, and anything, even greater guest coming up. That's right, Henry man. Henry Chairman, CEO of Universe Holdings. Good afternoon, Henry. How are you Gentlemen? How are you? We're excited about this. Uh, we got a lot of questions for you. We're gonna get through a lot of business stuff and then we'll get into some personal stuff as well. So why don't you start? Yeah, we got a lot to cover. Thank you again, Henry. Great seeing you again. Great for doing all, you know, grateful for all the panels you've done with us over the years. So good to do this, uh, more intensive interview with you to learn more about you. Um, so let, let me start. Let's, why don't you, uh, give our audience an overview of Universe Holdings. Any other businesses, you know, related businesses you may be involved in? You know, things we'd like to, you know, general stuff like portfolio size, geography guiding principles. Yeah. Okay, great. So, uh, I started in real estate approximately 37 years ago in my, uh, college date. I started actually my junior year working at a small real estate firm and got my agent's license and basically, uh, dabbled in it before I graduated Cal State Northridge with degree finance real estate. And, uh, I even got a board of Real real estate award for writing the best essay back in 19 3 84. It was a $500 scholarship. Wow. I was so proud of it. I, I told my family back then, this a little guy, you know, come to write a essay and give a presentation to a board. I was like, kind of like 110. I was the one who won it. And, uh, they asked me, uh, at this interview like, you know what you want do? I said, I wanna become a broker about the business. And, uh, at the same time, I, I wanted be a big owner one. And, uh, and I said it with such conviction. There was this Jewish lady on the board, I sort her name re but you know, we loved that, you know, such conviction. It's a young man. So I knew I was gonna win it back. So that, that was it. And I set my vision and eyes on getting that done. And, uh, I started in brokerage, uh, working at a small firm. And then when I graduated college ca North in 1985, I said, where is the best place that I can go work and learn the, the business? I wanna go to the number one third. I don't want to go to some mediocre shop. And I talking to you guys, you know, there's a place called Marcus and Millichap. It's really like a bootcamp. And, uh, they, they working really hard and they teach you everything. And it's like a commando training center. And this is where the best of the best goes. These guys are really good, but they're really tough. So I said, okay. They Were known for bringing in a lot of young people, you know, young. Yeah. Fresh blood and training, right? They were. So I was, yeah, I was 22 years old, you know, I was a fire in my belly. I was, I had a ton of ambition I wanted to succeed and, you know, said, so I went for an interview and, uh, it went really well. And it was this young guy, his name was Patrick Omo, a blessed memory. And he said, you know, uh, you're gonna come here. You're gonna blossom like a flower, you know, come join us. What? I said, pretty invitation. So I went on board and, uh, basically, uh, joined in and we have fantastic training program in Orange County Research. So many memories back. And, uh, uh, I, I started working there and didn't make any money for like 12, 13 months. It was terrible. Just kept making cold calls and, uh, you know, getting by the principles. I think I went to hundred meetings my first year, put like 50,000 on month card. Did you have a specific geographic area that you focused on? Yeah, I was, uh, I was working in the valley. It was like Northridge, which was in my market area back then. So I, I struggled with that. And, uh, and like, maybe you should leave, you know, this isn't happening. And, you know, Harvey Green Will, uh, was very fond of. Yeah. Uh, he said, you know what, I'm gonna hang on to you and, uh, you know, we've gotta give you another shot. Make it happen. So I put my head down, said, I don't think anybody has to say I'm gonna make it. And, uh, you know, by the 13th month, I closed my first year and, and, uh, there was a good career start. What about from there? I went on tore 15 years. I was there for 15 years. Big, probably a billion dollars worth of deals, which is a big number back then. Today's not a big number, but it was back then. And we learned the trade. I was around a lot of, uh, different clients, high net worth families, individuals, institutions, foreign investors, pension funds, the whole works and dabbled in multifamily. I did shopping centers, I did industrial buildings. I sold a couple of hotels. Uh, I sold a number of office buildings. So I really learned the trade and, uh, became very good contract negotiation and the whole closing process and financing and, and all that. And I read avidly. And then, and then I saw, uh, in the 93, 94 period where the RTC uh, RO days started, which I, we probably never seen. Never say never. Right. And you were pedaling these deals. Uh, at that time, clients had 20,000, the door, 30,000 the door. And sometimes were like, this is incredible. You know, 80% financing, 20% down, cost savings, home savings, you know, 20% cash on cash type deals. And, uh, and some clients I would go see, say, you know, this is not good enough for me, 20% cash. I said, I'm, I'm, unless are you serious? I said, well, you know, if you don't wanna buy this, I would buy it. He says, well, you can't buy it because if you could buy, it would be broken. I said, you wanna make it back. So, uh, so I got so mad that, you know, these guys were making fun of me. And, uh, I said, wait a second. I know, I know this game probably better than they do. I'm just younger, right? How many, how many less smart than they are, and have a determination. So, uh, I put my first PitchBook together, I bought a 1600 building. It was mainly family. I, I think I had to raise $120,000, which was, uh, you know, in your friends And family you said, Huh? Yeah, friends and family. Friends and family. Just Friends, family with my brothers, my, my, my, my mom, my father. So this real estate deal. And, you know, I had a whole weekend to raise the money. And, But you said you were always planning on being an owner even when you were started brokerage, right? So you always had that in your So that was, yeah. That was in your belly at the Time. So, so I mean, I had, it happened finally, I think, well, You saw the opportunity, right? To jump on that RTC situation, The brokerage cycle. I started buying and I did for four years. I still did both. I did brokerage and I did this indication. And finally I said, you know, uh, I don't want to do brokerage anymore. Although very successful at it. And I'm grateful to market and road chef, and all the people who mentored me and all the friends, uh, who were there, I said, you know, I gotta go. I can, I went to regional manager's office at that time. I said, you know, it's not for me to grow because I think I can buy an own three, 4,000 units, uh, in, in a few years. And they're like, okay, do you really believe that? I said, I do. So I gave my notice and, uh, opened up our office, uh, 23 years, 24 years ago. Uh, and we And how did, how did you come up with the name universe? How did, uh, where did that name come from? Yeah. Uh, my father, uh, uh, a blessed memory. Uh, he had a very broad vision at that time. He was in a textile business. And then their company was called Univers Textile. 'cause he believed in a universal vision, Uhhuh. And he also believed in doing business in many countries. He did business in many countries, in fact, in our home country in Iran. And he was a distributor. And they brought merchandise from all over the world, and they were distributed. So we had this global vision. So our decided to name our management company to global integrity. Real, because why? Integrity? Because I noticed that what clients value most when you went to see them was a, that you could produce, you could close your deal, you deliver and be integrity and integrity. You know, people thought that broker back, you know, not everyone, but you know, people thought that, you know, most brokers have integrity. So I built the firm on that basis. And I said, you know, uh, I go to my father's vision. I said, we're gonna call the principal company univers holders. And the idea was to do business across the US one day, which we are doing today. And the idea was to go global one day, which we are doing today. Today we're doing business in two countries. You know, we have properties in Israel place I love and cherish and admire. I go to four, five times a year and have kids now working with me. We have an office in Miami with two, my son. There's another son, uh, in New York. And, uh, we have a, I have a son-in-Law, actually in Israel. So, uh, it's still not huge compared to a lot of guys, but, uh, a lot bigger than a lot of other people. You're, you're doing quite well, I wouldn't say, but I'm gonna, I wanna ask, I wanna take you back to one thing. Which association of Realtors did you submit that essay to? The San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors. South Southland Region. Yeah. On, on Val Goa Boulevard. I still remember the interview. No, no. I guess, uh, 'cause I'm a member of the board there. Oh, okay. So I, I, I had a feeling it was the, the same one, because they're probably one of the most active, uh, realtor associations or all of California. Right. So, uh, it's very interesting. I didn't even know they did that back then. I don't know if they still do that. Right. And, uh, and one of the things at the time when Marcus Mocha was, I wanna talk about this because I'm looking at myself. Yeah. The screen here is, uh, and in those days at Mark Mocha, there was no such thing as No, no, no tie, no suit. Everybody had common in a suit. Yes. Oh, look at us. They, they, they even made wear white shirts. I, I still remember this. And, and a nice tie. So I got into this, and, uh, when I started the company here 24 years ago, I made a, uh, rule that whoever works here, we have 22 people in this office today. Uh, we still wear our suits. We still wear our ties, and we dress up and people compete here who's know the best well dressed man or woman of the day. And, uh, you know, I, I can respect that Henry. 'cause I'm no, You know, In New York City, and I, you know, I was gonna put on the suit and tie, but then my audience, they just, You know, it's funny you say that because my father-in-Law, may rest in peace, was that way. He had that same old school, you know, he, he owned a steel company and, and I had my office inside his building and in the real estate business back, you know, you would come in, you know, like if you aren't meeting clients, it was really, so I come in somewhat casual, and he would say to me, he goes, if you're gonna work in this, if you're gonna be in this building, you gotta wear a suit and tie every day. And I did. You gotta respect that. So, yeah. Yeah. We still have a casual Friday here. Right. But casual means you can't wear loafers. You can't wear blue jeans or T-shirts. You still gotta dress stylish. Right. Business casual. Yes. You know, I, I didn't dress up with this. Uh, this is how we come to work every day. And, you know, synagogue, I go to synagogue and I, I pray with dominion every day, you know, morning at night and afternoon, you know, I'm in front of God. So in front of the king, you gotta dress for the king. You can't just That's true. You go see, uh, president Biden, or President Trump, or you know, Putin or, or whatever you want, whoever. You don't go down your Bluetooth, you know, you dress appropriately. Exactly. Yeah. And you feel more powerful. It's a great, It's a great culture. And, and, and young people would be amazed to hear this, that today, you know, when you appear in front of people dressed up, because 95% of the people are not dressed up. It really makes the impression on people, people that you gotta choose. Well, what about yourself? You dressed for the occasion. You are, you are. Right. Let Me, uh, and let me set the table a little bit. So now we were talking about the, the launching universe. And now Propel 30 years, right? Mid nineties, 30 years ahead. 30 years. So where, where is it now in terms of, uh, portfolio size, number of properties and units and, and geographic scope? Yeah, I mean, today we've done about two and a half million worth of transactions. It is on our website. We are, we've got 120 transactions. We are in 12 mar uh, 12 different markets. Uh, three different states. We are in Florida, we are in New Jersey, and we are all in California. Uh, we also are another, a country in Israel. So our portfolio is, uh, just around 1.5 billion today. Or probably with the market down, probably investing that for probably like 1.2 billion. And, uh, you know, it's like a, it's like a moon. Like a moon. It waxes and it way, you know, because we're selling, we're buying, uh, you know, there's lot going on. And, uh, up to recently, the past couple years, we were not really a seller. We were more of a long term holder. The game was buy, add value, refinance, and then add value again and refinance again. Three, five. So there's deals we have here today, which we refinanced eight times. And, uh, I'm just looking at some, some at a table. We did for one of our long-term investors. And I just couldn't believe my eyes with some of these deals, these guys made 15 to 20 times more than the money they put in you going back to 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago. So it's amazing this multiplier effect that real estate has. You don't notice it when you do it every day 'cause you are in it, right? Yeah. But when you sit back and say, okay, let's just see what, what we did for this investor and, and for this institution, and you go back decades, you see crazy results. Henry, let me ask you what, I mean, you've done a lot of transactions. Which one stands out in your mind as the one that got you to where you wanted to be? There's gotta be a project that you go back to and go, that's the one I remember when I left, uh, brokerage 24 years ago, I had only 400 units. And, uh, and that year was the year 2000. And, uh, I had to prove to myself being, uh, intoxicated on commission income. And, and we still a family. I think back then we had three or four kids. Mm-Hmm. Uh, a lot more to say. A lot more grandkids we get. And, uh, there was a big not to crack. And I said, you know, I had enough money where I could support my overhead, but I said, you know, I need more. So I said, my, my magic mark or goal was to get to a thousand moves. So 2000, we bought, uh, a 450 unit building in, uh, Carlsbad, San Diego, which was our first four into that market. Uhhuh at that same back, uh, that happened 2000 1 0 2 actually. And with that deal, that deal changed the company. It took us to a whole different level. We broke a thousand million mark and went over that. And pretty quickly we realized that it's just as much work to run four 50 units versus running 10 units or 20 units. Yeah. Right. It's a lot more profitable. And, uh, and I would get in the car drive to San Diego two hours, either the whole day, uh, oversee the renovation, oversee the staffing, hiring, firing the people strategy, how we get back at home at night. 10 o'clock just went on like couple days. And I still do it. I don't, I don't do it to that extent because I have really great people now who Right. Worked together for the last few years. They really fantastic thing. Ally, do you Still own that asset? No, we sold that and, and, uh, did extremely well. Right. Uh, made a lot of profit. And then that led to a 369 purchase in, uh, in San Diego, 30 Mesa. Then we bought another couple hundred units in La Mesa, and then we went to in an empire. And that was really the game changer that, that got us over, over that hump. But I still been at that time, very involved in la People don't understand this, but, uh, compared to other markets, it was very hard to scale the business just from Los Angeles. So the average unit size only about 19 per, per apartment. Right. So we loved that, that back then, and we stuck with it. And we still kept buying the small stuff. Right. 30 units, 40 units, the 50 unit. But, uh, we realized, uh, I think it took me a number of years to really see this because being sort of br and taught the George Markets philosophy, investment, and or following ethics, the companies I still admire, we a lot of ethics. Sure. Uh, they, you know, they refused to leave California. They, you know, they, they, they still believe in Seattle and there are billions and billions of dollars. I mean, at one, at some point I think had over 70,000. But, and they, uh, so I stuck with that philosophy where there was barriers to entry where you would go very hard to build and you go to supply from Spain markets. So for that reason, we didn't buy outside of California for a long time. But, uh, three, four years ago when Covid started, and I realized that if I wanted to scale the company and take it to 10, 20, 30, 40,000 units, you know, Godwin one day soon, and I think it's coming. Uh, we can't do it just being here. So we started to buy New Jersey, started to deploy it up where the average unit size is 300 units. You know, it's not 19. So that's, uh, the scaling came in. And then, uh, basically, uh, with less regulation, uh, being a better, better legislative environment, you know, being a red state, although jersey's not a red state, but the fundamentals are very good. So we started to follow fundamentals and, uh, you know, sort of still stating that we haven't bought in Texas yet. We haven't bought in Phoenix yet. We, we've been looking, and thank God we didn't buy in the last two, three years. 'cause we would've paid, we paid after what's happened with rates and how value we adjusted. So, uh, uh, you know, we try our best. Right. All right. Well, I wanna shift, uh, I want to skip back a little bit. 'cause we were talking about the deal that made, you know, when you look back on that took you to the next level. We always find some of the good stories and some of the best lessons are from, uh, you know, looking at the deals that after you got into it, you wish you took the hook out and threw it back into the water. Can you, uh, share with us any of those stories? Gimme some more color. Well, a a deal you bought that, that you wish you hadn't after you bought it. Yeah. Yes. I wish I had. Yeah, I basically, uh, there was one for, we, uh, a friend of mine, a very close friend of mine, was building a massive project in Las Vegas, uh, back in 2005 60, which was the higher market. And he invited us, my wife and I, to the grand opening of this massive furniture Mark called the Wood Market Center at the time. And, uh, I'd been to Vegas casually and uh, uh, I saw this got really affected by it. And I had sold the San Diego building back then, and we had a 10 31 exchange. So we said, you know what, lemme go through some properties here in Vegas, which we did. Uh, long story short, we bought a 300 plus unit deal there. And, uh, I realized very quickly as the market started to turn that this was not, this is not what we should have been. And, uh, I remember my wife telling me that you shouldn't really be in this market. I said, why, why do you tell me this honey? Now why something? Where were you before? Uh, and, and, and, and I, and I called, uh, one of my trusted rabbis who I thought to this very day, he's in, uh, you know, early eighties, very, very wise. And he said, don't buy them. There'll be no blessing that market. And, uh, by then we were hard. I didn't listen, we closed. And, uh, you know, things did not work out well with that deal. And, uh, we, I decided that, you know what, never, ever again do I want to be in that market. It's not for me. Maybe this is something spiritual. Uh, not everybody has mole or good luck in a certain market, right? But what, what, what was it? Very fundamentals that I had been bred with, which was supply constraint part to build, et cetera. We got away from it because in that market, none of that existed. And it was at the height and, you know, it was, it was this boom and bus markets right. And went up and the kids came right down. So I said, I, you know, we're not, we're gonna get away from that. We're gonna go back to fundamentals. Right. So let's, let's talk about fundamentals. Wait, hold on one sec, car. No, no, no. Let me, let me get into this, this point. Let's, uh, because when you're looking at a project and you're looking at a new project, what do you go through to decide how I wanna get, get involved in this one? What are you looking at? What, what, what's the process that Henry goes through to say, this is the next one? First of all, when we buy a deal, we have to, uh, be convinced that there is a story. Everything is like a storybook. Uh, what is the story? What's the motivation of the seller? How long have they owned it? Why are they selling? And what can I do that they did not do? Mm-Hmm. So that's, that's a number thing we ask ourselves. We don't have a story that we can't sell that deal to our investors. We need to have the proper conviction that this is gonna do well because we just don't need to do another deal for the hell of doing another deal. So we can have a chunk of, you know, thousands of units. That's not the idea at all. So, uh, that's the number, that's the number one key requisite. Number two is really driving the real estate, getting out of the car, walking around, seeing the neighborhood going there at night. Not, not at six, but at nine or 10:00 PM going there early in the morning, watching the foot traffic, people coming and going, obviously diving into CoStar and, uh, ax access and all the fantastic tools are available today, day and age. And really starting the trends and doing a lot of research and developing that first condition. And really, uh, following your gut. A lot of us are gifted with a tremendous six sense gut instinct. And, uh, my best advice is, you know, for younger people watching, for guys my age or older who've done it for eons and neons that don't go against your gut. So a lot of times the gut feeling and you know, sometimes when you have a property tied up and you find new information, you have to decide if you gonna walk, have grace will exit. And always that he want time. Are you gonna come back and say, you know what, uh, I'm over paying for this and because of what things I've found I need to look at price adjuster. And uh, you know, sometimes it's hard to do that 'cause you've already been knee deep in the deal. You spend 50, a hundred thousand dollars in diligence. Uh, it's better a to go back and see if we can make it work. If not, it's better to just come out. So, so let me follow up on that. Do you get really deep into, you know, all the costs and all the revenue going five, 10 years in different scenarios and then get a return on equity or an IRR and, and then try to play with it a little bit to make the numbers work a little bit more? Do you get caught up like that? Or is it more of a, of like you said, that gut thing? Do you, I mean, you know, sometimes we see people say, all right, for this fund we, it has to show a 15 IRR, for instance. And if we don't make that play with the numbers enough, we say no, or Yeah. Or do you see an upside in that area where some of that stuff doesn't really matter? Right. Yeah. Uh, I mean, working, uh, and having institutional partners, it is in a sense, it's gonna be big blessing because these guys or these ladies, whatever you wanna call mm-Hmm. They don't have any emotions. It's hard raw numbers. They look at data, uh, they don't wanna lose their jobs. They want to be safe. So we've learned from them, uh, to really follow that mentality of really looking at the hard numbers. But many times we've done deals with and did not wanna come in, we did with private capital or with our own money, or a combination of it, the two. And we were right, because, uh, you can't predict every trend and every demographic, demographic trend or cycle unless you get out of your office, you get off your desk and you go knock, you know, you go knock on doors and you, and you find the facts. So, you know, then we have done views based on a gut feeling before having good data where some of, maybe some of the deal sense we had is not shown the data. Right. But what we gotta avoid ourselves from doing is getting emotionally involved in the deal. Yeah. And, uh, and, and doing something that doesn't make any sense. That's a real decision to be able to stop and say, you know what, this doesn't make any sense. Now when you do a deal, uh, and I know you have background with B of A, 'cause you, you worked, uh, in, in, in some capacity with them. How do you finance the deals? Or do you just do pure equity? Uh, everything we've done in the last, uh, 13, 14 years has been 90%, probably 80% ready. Uh, the lesson we learned from the 2009 market meltdown or the great recession was no leverage. So what, whatever I, I bought since 2009, 10 has been very leverage anywhere from, believe it or not, 35% LTV to no more than 60. Yeah. And, and we, we've stayed away from that. I'll come back to the lesson we learned from this cycle, which is a whole other weird cycle. Nobody ever see the, like this one, uh, we, we spent a time on that. Uh, but, but, uh, with that, with that mindset, then we go, we raise all the money either privately from a high net worth family office, friend of family, or call rich guy, rich people like of word. Uh, and then we show to our institutional partners so many times a combination of, uh, you know, 50 institutional 50, private 90 10, uh, 90 institutional, 10 private. And, uh, we've also successfully deployed, been able to use, uh, prefer equity has been, you know, a good Yeah. Some of the value relationships we've had. And, uh, it is good to have crucial partners because they have weekly or bimonthly calls with us. They, they, they read everything and there's another set of eyes watching you. And I don't mind that. Right. No, that's always good because, you know, helps Keeps me accountable, it keeps my staff accountable. And we are, we are, we are held to high standards. Right. And, and it's good to have that, you know, versus a deal that just your money and, you know, No, and, and you know, I'm in the lending field, so, you know, uh, when we're looking at a transaction, a lot of times we're looking at it to make sure that the property's gonna earn an income. And sometimes the lenders are looked at as the bad guy. Well, no, we're not. We're another set of eyes for you to figure out a way to make sure you don't, you're not missing something. We wanna make sure you could pay us back on the loan. So, you know, I, I get it. I totally get it. Now with interest rates, right now, things are adjusting a little bit. So how, how are you handling that? Or are you just kind of cooling back a little bit? Yeah, I think, uh, I'll summarize it as such. I don't ever remember seeing great real estate fundamentals in multifamily. Forget about office. That's a whole disaster. Yeah, that's, Yeah. But let's, and, and we, retail is pretty good right now. Let's talk industrial is wonderful. So our data center, and so our hotels after the pandemic, but talk about raw multifamily today, the fundamentals are very strong, you know, minimal concessions if none in Southern California we have zero inventory. We have some employed, yeah. Uh, zero Israel, uh, people fight over stuff there. But, uh, but, but best occupancy, best rank growth. We, we had, and everybody's talked about a research on 17 now, 17, 17 times now, the past three years. And we haven't had a research Yeah. Been really, really good because there's so much stimulus money, the economies built, there's still $10 trillion trickling through. And we have, and we haven't seen, you know, the end of it yet. But in this cycle, with all this debt maturing, and with all the people who went out in the great brilliance, particularly institutions and social partners who were pushing us 3, 4, 5 years ago, let's go get a debt fund deal. You know, we wanna lever up, we wanna, uh, we gotta juice up that IR mm-Hmm. And, uh, we did that once, uh, on two deals. And thank God we got out right before the pandemic. And, uh, we made some money. We didn't lose any money. 10, I said, never ever again do I want to be involved with the three year debt fund execution on rivalry type deal. And we saw, looked at, uh, many deals in Phoenix back in 2000, 20 1022, darling, everything was going same in Florida. Friends were going 20, 21% a year. We sat in our conference room, meet couple of the analysts guys who work with me on, on the operation side. And we said, you know, this just can't lapse. Yeah. Rates can't go 0.1%. And I said, what is this 85% leverage with the three views? And okay, oh, the rate is three and a half, today is two and a half. I said, well, what if, what if rates go up? Sure enough, that happened. Yep. It's happened today. And you know, thank God 95% of our portfolio is on fixed rate debt with no imminent, immature. We have some stuff maturing in 2020 6, 27, 28, but, but our leverage is so low, we're not really worried about it. But we had, we do have a couple of properties that luckily enough have rate caps on them. So we are insured against the rising rates. But this challenge and this cycle has been, those rate cap reserves have gone up 10 times. You know, it used to be 38,000 a month by a $42 million loan. Today is 120,000. So, you know, your cash flows getting trapped, sitting with the lender, millions and millions of dollars. You can't really do anything about it. And all you have to do is try break Almighty Corporation to come down or for the fed, you know, to, to change their mind. And, uh, it's tough, you know, even though we're not really losing any money, we'll sort of be forced to put money into a savings account that, that sits the lender to buy the, the next rate cap. And, uh, that, that, the lesson I learned from this cycle is the problem, you know, in the last down cycle, if you are in trouble on a property, you could restructure with a lender or go get a new loan, you could borrow in 2000 8, 9, 10 at four and a half, 5%. Right. Today you can't, it's gonna be like almost 5, 7, 6, 6 and a half. And then you have these regional banks basically out of business. You know, they're not, they're not really initiating loans. Yeah. So the, the lesson we there is that never, ever again borrow on a valuable basis. You know, go lock up that debt, throw the keys away, get a 10 year loan fixed five years of io, get a 20 year loan, a 30 year loan. Yeah. The longer to the term the least you're locked in. Right. And don't, and don't get stuck with this stuff because, well, lemme Ask you a couple, Most guys I talked to my age or even older I, me, they've never seen this. It is like a whole new phenomenon. Um, so with each deal, um, is each deal a different partnership then for, uh, where universe is part of it and then you have the other partners as part of the deal? Everything we've done up to now, uh, has been on a one-off basis. We have done one fund, uh, that bought five specified properties. We're about to hopefully launch another fund for buying start opportunities in the market, but everything's on a one off basis. And we basically tied it up and, uh, put up our own cash raise money for our Right. The family office side and also from, from our Probably gets easier raising the money. It's a lot of work. Ra raising the money, I'm sure for each, I call it getting back on the treadmill. Right. Right. So, so then how do you, do you ever sell properties and and how does that, what, what, what's the trigger for the decision to sell If we sell something? Uh, is because we don't like a trend in the market. You know, we, I sold a portfolio of nine properties in LA last year and the year before, and it's probably the best thing we ever did because our rates were gonna go variable a b these were properties in LA and I saw the writing on the wall with, uh, this horrific left wing limited behavior from, from, from legislators where these covid restrictions came in. And, you know, we could raise rent for four years and basically the government gave tenants a license to steal money. Right. You know, you don't have, what is that? Don't have to pay the rent. I go to a grocery store. Well, I can't use in California. I can just walk out and not pay. Right. $900. So, so don all, so, so it's an upside down world. It doesn't make any sense. And, and we said, you know, watching and seeing the New York playbook, how Manhattan and the boroughs went through this and overnight, uh, even renting vacant units, you couldn't rent and market anymore. You have to go back on the rent control. We said this could happen here. And this guy Weinstein has tried. Now how many times he's back at it again, this is, you know, Weinstein, uh, 0.3, 0.4, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. He keeps trying to, yeah. So, So, so what if that happens? And, and, and then we sold, uh, a building that, uh, recently one of our 11 buildings on the market closed in Englewood. We have more, we're selling, uh, you know, we have blown up basis and we have a sewer debt. If you have a sew book today, you can sell a good price if you don't have a, well, Englewood, inglewood's a hot market right now because of all the stuff going on there. So you bought in there at the right time. You bought the right time. But, but the strategy has changed because we had a philosophy back then to group a lot of small buildings. Right. You had a portfolio down there, right? Yeah. Yeah. And uh, and today we've run much larger and much more, uh, institutional I guess. And we figured that it's better to own a big property, you know, three, 400 units or a hundred plus and have, uh, you know, enough people there. And then if you wanna buy the smaller property, we could buy around that one central location. And that's what we've done. So we've been getting out of these smaller properties and we're exchanging into larger assets and we're going through different models. But you're still, would you still buy in California? I mean, we hear, we still hear from people that say, if you own here, 'cause it's so supply constrained, even with all the issues, it's still in the long run a great asset if you manage it. Right. Yeah. Uh, in LA we've stayed away for the last two years. I think I bought one dealer in LA about two years ago. That was the last one. But we are very bullish on San Diego. We love Orange County. I love L Empire, like very much county is are darling, you know, Santa Barbara County, Santa Maria County, even Northern California today. We think it's a good spot to go to. Not the radical cities like Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, where there's homelessness and bad fundamentals, but other parts Knownorthern, California barrier where rent got beat up because of Covid and they're way on the market and covered yet. So we still believe in the rest of California. So when you sell, it's really not because there's something in the original, uh, partnership that said, all right, we've hit this return, we hold it for this many years, or something like that. It's more about opportunity. Yeah. What you see in the market. Uh, I think it sounds like he even goes by his gut too. It's just, just, I don't get a feeling this is gonna continue and it's time to get out. That's, that's what I'm sensing. And, and we were gonna talk to you about markets, you know, that you're looking into. I think you've, you've delved into that a bit with your decision making process and why you're looking outside of California. But I wanna circle back on something you said because the reason why Vegas didn't work, don't you see some of the similarities with the Phoenix and Arizona market? The Phoenix and GoTo market for as long as I remember doing this for 37 years again, uh, was a boom and bust. Right. But after Covid, it really changed. So many industries moved there. So many people left Ca, California and New York. And uh, then New York is all pointed to Miami. Yeah. Uh, and uh, a lot of Californias went to, uh, went to either Colorado or, or Atlantic. Phoenix. So, uh, today is, it is somewhat supply constrained, but not really. You was still built there and uh Right. That was always the, the, the rub against Arizona. Right, right. Arizona, the bus, some of my, some of my wonderful great, very, very smart friends have bought there and I think they're gonna be okay, but probably now is a good time to go in there. Right. Okay. It's, you know, the fundamentals, uh, are not weren quite there. I think a lot of people overpaid and there's opportunity, but Phoenix is not gonna die this time. Yeah, right. It's really changed. Yeah. Nice. Okay. Well, Another question I have for you is, you know, uh, in terms of rental rates, cap rates, you know, in the markets that you're in, where do you see those moving? Where are they now for, you know, traditional one or two bedroom, you know, your, your benchmark, you know, in, in the different markets and and where do you see them going? I think the average rent in every market we've been in is right around $2,000. Uh, we've seen that total across of country. We don't really have that many units that are high price. And by that I mean, you know, five, 6,000 a month, 20,000 a month. We don't have any of that. But, uh, another thing that changed is our philosophy is the last two deals we bought and, uh, we're about to sign a contract on a major transaction, God willing to suite on the East coast. And that's several hundred units that's newer there. So the last two, three we bought this one, we're buying another one that we're working on also locally here in Southern California. These are newer properties. So our new model is we wanna buy 10 years old or young or so we're, we're getting away from the sixties product, the seventies product, even the eighties product. Yeah. We've done that, You know, more, we're now more the core to call it four plus space with some notion of you better manage, Do you do any ground up or you try to buy something and then kind of We haven't yet. Uh, it's a long time to say yet because of the amount of risk. And, uh, you look around today, there's a ton of stuff on the construction, but a lot of it's not gonna get finished. And a lot of it's gonna get proposed. I mean, we already seen many of these deals blow up throughout, uh, Southern California because look, Look at, look at those projects in downtown LA with a tag all stuff by the, uh, um, yeah. I, I, I, I drove by there last night, uh, yeah. Going to Andrea concert and my wife and I showed the building to my wife and, and, and she says, why is the building look like that? I said, well honey, let's keep guessing. You know, you show any windows. No, what is all that stuff? That's what that paint graffiti. I said, you see this is, uh, this is what, almost a thousand units. Oh, It's massive, massive, massive. And uh, and there it is. And, and there's stuff like this in Orange County. So maybe guys who truly are skilled developers, they have crews, they could figure this out and make a lot of money. Or maybe in some cases it's better to just erase these buildings. Mm-Hmm. Right. Well that, that bleeds into the conversation. You know, I don't know if we'll don't have to touch on it much here 'cause I don't think you're involved in that much, but the transition of the office buildings, you know, in multifamily use is perhaps, you know, the, the cost involved in that, obviously it's active Reuse is the active Reuse. Yeah. Um, but one of the things I wanted to ask, uh, uh, of you, Henry, is, are are there stats that you really pay attention to? Like in terms of rent per square foot cap rates, you know, is that something that you, you, you pay close attention to? Or is it more, you know, the cash flow of the property and the, I Think, I think today the first thing we look at is can we get some receivable debt at the lower rate? That's number one. Golden. Look it two like the good old days. I like this term called price per pound. Mm-Hmm. If I can buy, like I bought my Florida the building class, a Tampa gorgeous building, late in the middle Equinox style gym, beautiful office, you know, Zen Garden, you know, coworking space, the dog park, you know, views all that. If I can buy it at 2 64 unit, but it's a four and a half to a five cap. So what long term buy the damn thing, you know, it is a good price per pound. So we still already trained in that decision. Looking at the price per pound. Price per foot. Yes, capital is important, but not as important if there's upside and if you're getting a good price per pound. Right. People always say it's the price you get in at, you know, that, that makes the difference in the end Still the focus is I wanna buy it below replacement. Exactly. No, you got, you've gotta wanna buy it. You gotta know you want that and you gotta feel comfortable about it. And, and you know, just everything we, we've heard so far is do your research and know what you're getting into and it's gonna be a good I investment for you and, and for your investors as well. Hey, let's start finding out a little bit more about Henry's personal life. I mean, uh, we, we, we could talk business forever, but I, I think we've covered most, most of what we needed to hear. Uh, is there anything else we haven't covered, Steve? Um, 'cause I wanna learn a little more about, You know, I think it's time too. I'll learn a little bit more about, uh, you know, what makes Henry tick. So, uh, something to shoot, shoot Out. So we, we know you were aggressive in, in college and, and that's got you into to the, uh, into the field. How big is your family? Um, how many kids, grandkids, uh, and what do you like to do when you're not sitting at the desk and in the suit and tie? Great. Uh, I wanna answer the question the following matter. Uh, I've been married to the same woman, thank God for 35 years. I'm just celebrated our anniversary. So in this day and age, female, congratulations. Decades, it's quite an accomplishment. So every day, and, uh, I attribute that as a huge success. Uh, I was just at a conference in Palm Beach, Florida, and we stayed at the Breakers Hotel, and that's a beautiful property. I love these old, yeah, nine, March 1920s. I own five of 'em actually in LA building we love. And I stayed there. I just stunned by this architecture. So I came to my rabbi, I said, you know, I went to this beautiful hotel. Here's a picture, take a look. He goes, you know what you learn from this said that, uh, great. Saying the same way that you have to up keep old buildings and make him look beautiful by putting a lot of money and time into them. It's the same thing have to do in marriage. You have to invest a lot of time. Uh, you have to invigorate it, you have to stimulate it, you have to put a lot of stuff, a lot of time, energy into it to keep it fresh and keep it great. So that's, you know, that's sort of a philosophy that we live by. Uh, you know, we are fortunate enough to have eight children, four boys, four girls, six are married, thank God. And today we have 15 grandchildren. Ah, and, uh, more on the way. Uh, and it's just the beginning. Congratulations. So, uh, you know, I, my wife keep telling me, get off the treadmill, you know, stop all this working hard, you know, crazy. This, that enough. I said, honey, they keep having kids. Who's gonna pay for it If I don't get, who's gonna pay for all this recurring expenses? So, so, uh, I guess, you know, we have, we have a lot to live for God, which is, it's a beautiful life. And, uh, I spend a lot of time with them now because they are in Miami, New York, Israel, and here in la. So we move around a lot just to be with them and, and, and spend time. And, uh, I'm not here for 14 hours in the office. I, I do work very hard, but I make it a point to exercise every day. I'm in the gym, playing tennis, two, three days a week. I swim vigorously. I run, I lift race, I speed, and I, I do it six, seven days a week, like clock. And I go to synagogue, uh, every day in the morning, in the evening and the afternoon. And I learn Torah an hour a day just to get my faculties fired up and, and, and to increase my wisdom. And I'm very involved in the Jewish community worldwide, not just La la I, I'm a board of, uh, a couple of synagogues, what we call, which are learning centers. We are heavily involved in doing Jewish outreach to, to make sure that young Jewish professionals meet each other. Jews married Jews, now they have children and they appreciate Judaism, and we try to educate them and, and that, and, uh, a huge supporter of Israel. I was there on October 7th. Wow. Saw the, I saw the atrocities, had rockets flying over my head for three days, kids, and you experienced all the trauma. And, uh, you know, here, every day we live with this and people should not forget that, right? The horrific, all the great comfort we have here in the God bless the United States of America, uh, at what happened there is truly another Holocaust. And we have to do everything we can to destroy, uh, you know, ama destroy evil in the world and bring region, uh, and bring peace, uh, to that region and to end this once and for all. So it's, it's been a very painful five months this to Right. And then, you know, with it's upsetting to see, you know, significant, you know, sizable protest, you know, against, you know what? Well, Yeah. You're, you're, you're never, first of all in this world, everybody's not gonna be happy about the same thing. Right. And, but you gotta know your core values and you gotta know, it's, it's, you know, you gotta be a good person and good to other people. And, and that's really what it comes down to. You. You can't be attacking somebody just because you don't believe in what they think. And, and, you know, and, and that's, that's what we gotta start getting away from. That's my personal, Yeah. I, I, I think, I, I think what's happened is, uh, you know, the, uh, the almo and the, and the Jewish talk about this, uh, we are living in Messianic times and it predicted that the world looks like it's completely upside down. The value is completely upside down. Nothing makes any sense. I mean, who would've believed in these, uh, values of, you know, I can't figure out, I'm a man, I'm a woman. I'm this, I identify as this, I as that the cancel culture, the war culture, you know, the, uh, the, the, the move towards socialism, Marxism, all this stuff. You know, I came, I came here from Iran at the age of 15 to a land of promise, to a fantastic country, to Orange County, California to America, and the American values. And, and today, I can't believe what I'm witness, none of it makes any sense, but it's supposed to be this way. It's supposed to be completely upside down. So, uh, we just, uh, have to do our best to change the vision, to come with a spotlight and, and make the world shine by changing the world into a better place. And I, It's, you know, people with your background that seemed to appreciate, you know, what you described, you know, the benefits of this country more than, you know, a lot of the people that are blessed to be born here. Yeah. Um, so, you know, and it's terrific what, what we're seeing, you know, especially with the, you know, the protests upset me here quite a bit. Um, but, you know, going forward, um, you know, thinking about, uh, other personal interests, you know, that, that you may have, um, and, and at the same time, I know education and being a mentor, uh, you know, is a big part of it. Um, what advice, you know, for someone starting out today, um, would you give them more? And if you were starting out today, would you take the same path or would you take a different path knowing what you know now? They recently did a survey. I, I'm an avid leader. Uh, I, I follow the news closely. I pay attention to politics. I pay attention to social trends to young people. Uh, since Covid, we've seen a few different changes. A people don't wanna work as hard, especially young people. B they think that, uh, uh, you know, nine to five is, is too old fashioned. It is, it's too much work. They don't wanna come to the office. They wanna work from home. And when people do come to the office, they come to the office in their pajamas and we just come walk around here in Century City, you can't, you can't believe how people are dressed. We didn't see this four years ago. We didn't see it five years ago. So that drive, that passion that immigrants came here with, that, you know, my father came here with, and maybe, you know, your parents, you know, we're all immigrants here of some sort, you know, some generations earlier, some generations later. If you have that fire ambition, you could still do great things in this country. It's greatest place to be on earth, you know, besides try Israel to really achieve your dreams. And my advice to young people is don't sell yourself short. If you work hard, if you have a goal and you do what you love, it's important to get up every day and do what you love to do. Don't do something that you don't like doing. If you're successful at it, get out of it. Life's too short. Mm-Hmm. Don't do something that you enjoy and you'll be very successful at it. And I think perseverance, positive thinking, being optimistic, not falling down under pressure, under, you know, outside forces. We've been, uh, in my lifetime through three to four cycles. The first one I saw was the 1980s, then the SNL crash, the great recess. And now I don't even know if to call this cycle, call it the post pandemic cycle. Yeah. Uh, everyone, everyone of 'em is different, but eventually everything adjusts. You gotta have a long vision. And today, I don't think in my, you know, under my term, I'm thinking to the next generation, next generation, they have grandkids and God, God willing, and next family will have great grandkids. And, uh, you know, we, we build things from a generational perspective looking into the future. And, uh, you can, we can do anything you want. And you know what, it's kind of interesting too, 'cause the real estate business doesn't change that much. I mean, it's, you could still start in the brokerage business broker. I mean, sure the technology's changed and there's a lot more information, but it's not that different. You know, it's still the fundamentals, it's still dealing with the clients. It's still, you know, the same goals that they had when you started. So, you know, for the right person, it still makes sense to start out in brokerage Or, yeah. I mean, funny you mentioned that I, I got a call here, uh, two weeks ago from an old friend at Eminem, uh, uh, God bless him, Dave Lincoln. He's only 78 now, almost 80. And the guy still got that power, that vigor. He is pitching a deal. Tell me what about last year? Tell me what you wanna do this year. Tell how you see the market. I'm like, Dave, I love you. This is great. I mean, look at this energy. Nothing has changed in this guy. So age is a relative number. It doesn't really mean anything. And if you read the, uh, this great book called The Great Age Reboot, it's written by Peter Lineman, sure voice, uh, and, and also three guys wrote this book. Uh, they say that the new 90 is gonna be like 50. Wow. The new 60 is gonna be like the guy who stole 25. So, uh, i, it is a relative number, right? The purpose. You believe in God, you believe in family, you believe in core values. You believe in American traditional values, not this trash that they thrown our way the past four years. Uh, you could leave a fantastic legacy, you know, and it's really my, uh, my, my brother, my blessing to anyone, um, especially young people who can put on their head straight and don't spend so much time on these, on these smartphones, right? It, it's a crazy addiction. Turn that damn thing off two, three hours a day and think, and write down and read, you know, let your mind decide. You know, go to a class, you know, open, open yourself up and keep learning and keep growing. It's a, it's a beautiful life. Well, you know what, with that, I think you gave us a great interview today and it's been a real pleasure having you with us, Henry. Kind of a drop mic moment there. So Yeah, I mean, you got, you gotta find that one last bit of, uh, advice and I think he gave it to us. Thank you, Henry. I really thank You, RD. Thank you Steve. You guys have great, and this has been an absolute pleasure. Let's do, yeah, Time has flown by fast. You, I'm sure we, lots of questions on the table, but we'll get you back, you know, uh, next, you know, down in the future to get some updates. So my pleasure. Best of luck with, with everything. It was a mitzva having you, you know? Yes, it was great. And um, have a fantastic afternoon, Henry. Take care. Thank You. Take care. Take care. Bye Bye. You all. Good luck. Thank you. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, And Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/95064851.txt b/data/transcripts/95064851.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e69de29
diff --git a/data/transcripts/953281926.txt b/data/transcripts/953281926.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..24aafab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/953281926.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Hey, Welcome to the new episode of Commercial Real Estate Talk with Stephen Arne, where we have compelling and informative conversations with leaders in the commercial real estate industry. And I am super excited about today's guest, Michael G Maker, founder, and CEO of MGR Real Estate, the premier owner of Office Properties in the Inland Empire, mainly Ontario. But before we bring in Mike, let me introduce my co-host, Arnie Garfinkel, head of the All-Star Group, and the lending conferences. Hey, Arnie. How you doing today? Good. How you doing, Steve? Uh, recovering Tremend. Good. Wow. We're, we're recovering from our April event. We had a pretty good event in Long Beach. Uh, great event, Great energy, super positive. Thank you. Yeah, well done. Thank you. Uh, and, uh, we have a, uh, online event coming up called the Commercial Real Estate, uh, summit Online. We pretty much do everything we do at the live events, but online we learned, uh, during the pandemic that a lot of people wanna see it online. It's a free event. Anybody can attend. Go to lc.com and you'll meet a bunch of lenders, some third party people, and all kinds of stuff. But Steve, let's tell us what's going on with Rent tv. Oh, great, Arnie, thanks. Uh, you know, many of you may know Red tv, our news and website. We've been online 25 years with our Daily News website for the commercial real estate industry covering the western half of the country. We also put on our conferences, we're doing our next one, June 27th, greater la We do this podcast with Arne, and we also have the review this video website, uh, where you're watching this video where anyone could put their videos on. And it's a search engine platform just for the commercial real estate in industry. It's really exciting, uh, as is our guest. But before we bring in our guest, Arnie, we've got some sponsors to tell the folks about who make this show possible. Uh, we'll start off with Paramount property tax appeal with inflation causing cap rates to increase and profit margins to decrease. One way you can fight back is by appealing the property taxes. Even if you have great income, you can still qualify to have your property taxes lowered. The deadline of file is generally November 30th every year. So get prepared. Call 8 5 8 7 5 8 9 5 1 5. Ask for West Nichols, the owner of the company. 8 5 8 7 5 8 9 5 1 5. West Nichols, a Paramount Property Tax bill. Who's next? Arnie. Our Next, uh, sponsor is Fidelity Mortgage Lenders. Fidelity is a private lending company specializing in commercial real estate, founded in 1971 by Chuck Shon. It is known to, for its unique terms, fast funding, no prepayment penalty, and long-term fixed rates. Call Uncle Chuck, oh Uncle or John McLean at 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. That's 807 5 2 9 5 3 3. Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, who's our last sponsor. Yeah. The other great supporter of our show is commercial real estate inspectors in Southern California. Their skilled inspectors provide critically needed inspection information and services in easily understood terms, as well as inexpensively simple solutions. Whenever possible, let commercial real estate inspectors help you protect your deal. Call Tiffany Simington and book your next inspection today. Her number is 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. The information's also on the screen. Tiffany Simington, 8 1 8 9 5 7 4 6 5 4. All right, Arnie, that's it for the sponsors. Let's get to Job. Perfect. Well, we got a guest. Let's bring in. You got a great guest, Michael G Maker, head of MGR Real Estate Services. Good morning, sir. How are you? Good to see you. Good morning. Nice to see you, gentlemen. Good morning, Mike. Uh, why don't we get started with, uh, give us a little overview of MGR Real estate and any other businesses you may be involved in, uh, and give us a little background on it. Well, MGR Real Estate is a family owned business. We've been based in the Inland Empire now for, since 1983. We started out as a small residential real estate company, and we've grown a significantly in both being in real estate, residential, commercial, as well as our property management division. Uh, we are strategically now located in Ontario's, our corporate headquarters. We have offices in Victorville, Rancho Mirage, Carlsbad Irvine, and Costa Mesa. Uh, we'll be opening four additional offices in the next 18 months to get to a platform of 10 going into what I think will be a full market recovery, the first part of 2026. Excellent. Hey, follow up on, on your company. So you are in brokerage. You also do property management and obviously own properties. Uh, do you do third party property management? Yes, we do third party property management as well. We manage, uh, about 17,000 doors to total. How Many employees? Mike? Apartment Units. Units, Yeah. With different types of stores. Commercial, residential, everything. 17,000 accumulated doors. We have a 113 W2 employees and probably have another 50 plus or minus that are, you know, contracted labor employees that come to work, you know, every day for us for years. Uh, so we're, we're getting a larger platform of people and a little bit more confusing in our, uh, commercial brokerage, uh, division. We also run an additional 150 people. I was gonna ask about the brokerage. And you do residential brokerage too? Yep. Single family homes, Residential brokerage as well. It used to seem kind of, you know, crazy to sell a residential, uh, you know, house. You know, it's a 50, a hundred thousand dollars deal. And the brokerages all thought it was too important. When our residential house is a million, $2 million and it commissions our 50, $60,000, that's not such a bad deal. Right. No, nothing to sneeze at. And we also believe that by one stop shopping, you know, if, if somebody's very effectively could have owned a home, they buy a second one, we handle it, we manage it. When they sell it, they wanna sell that house and maybe turn it into a little duplex or fourplex or a small office building by selling off two or three homes. We wanna somehow become a one-stop shopping with them. And we've been very successful with it. Yeah. It's really Unique to have both the resident, single family residential and the commercial in One shop. Right. A lot of times, you know, a lot of the residential real estate companies try to sell commercial. Right. And, you know, and all the commercial houses know that it's a residential house trying to sell commercial. Right. Uh, we've become the opposite. We're a commercial brokerage house that's successfully and well does sales and residential. So we've done the big platform first, which is commercial. Right. And residential, we're very effective and good at. Good. Excellent. Fantastic. So tell us about your portfolio size, uh, how many properties where they're located, uh, office, retail, industrial, and residential. I mean, you don't have to break it down by that, but just how many, uh, what's the size of your portfolio in, in dollars? And you mentioned how many, uh, keys. It's, my personal portfolio is probably, you know, hard to ascertain. You know, I probably have, you know, about 3 million feet of class a office maybe a little bit more. Uh, currently, uh, our occupancy in the Inland Empire is about 95% our Orange County market. Were, we're pushing up into the eighties, 85. Finally. Now, we bought those portfolios in the sixties. Mm-Hmm. Um, manage. Uh, and we have a number of apartment complexes, smaller ones, you know, under 50 units, 50 and under, or 60 and under range that we own. Uh, we also have a number of, believe it or not, a bunch of single family homes that we ly purchased in, uh, 2000 8 0 9, when they were literally giving 'em away for the cost of a car. Uh, and, and you rent those. And we rent those for a ton. And I really, really wish I would've bought more of 'em. And I bought a ton of 'em when I did. But, uh, when they quadrupled and, or more than value in just 15 years, it's hard to wish you didn't buy more. Yeah. So, and we have some retail, we've been buying some retail around the Ontario Mills and plucking off some little corner pieces. And, you know, we're diversifying, although a largest proportion of our portfolios in residential, excuse me, commercial where you have residential, we do have a little bit of retail. Uh, we will be What's The, what's the largest retail property you owned? Strip center or shopping center? Little, Little 60,000 square foot shopping center. Oh, Little 60,000 grocery anchored. Yeah. Uh, no, no. I don't do grocery anchors. I don't really, I don't, I think that Grocery Anchors is a prescription for failure. Anything that you can get on Amazon, I don't want to have my building. Okay. Yeah. I think you're gonna, let's Reversed the trend, you know? 'cause grocery anchors been kind of the darling lately. Oh yeah. They're, they're wonderful. Until they're not here. They're, you know, uh, I've made money buying buildings that were grocery anchored, and when the anchor moves out, you don't know what to do with your space. That's true. Search in it and everything spirals downhill from there. Right. Now you have, you have a, a a lot of office. How have you been finding that market in, you know, since the pandemic? What have you been finding happening with that? What's the pandemic Didn't hit Ontario? Yeah. I think that what we noticed most in the office market during the pandemic was that our buildings were about 90% functionally vacant. Mm-Hmm. Nobody was coming to work. Our utility costs had to be reduced. Our trash pickup went down, our janitorial was reduced, our rent continued to come in full steam ahead. Wow. Interesting. Our revenues did not dip. Our tenants paid their bills, and we used the extra money to keep the improvements on the property and keep 'em looking physically fit. So when they did return to work, the buildings would be at their best. We've seen pretty much about 80, 85% effective recovery and occupancy not noticed in specific, you know, by what the tenant tells me. Yeah. Or what the rent rolls tell me. Because a lot of these big tenants were paying their rent, even if nobody showed up. I kind of gear effective occupancy by my parking lot. Right. If I go to the parking lot and it's empty, then don't tell me that the building's doing good. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Parking a long way away and b******g about it, then life's pretty good for the building owner. Right. Our buildings are recovering. Uh, I'm gonna say that in the, uh, in Ontario market, we're running about 95% occupied. That's great. Yeah. And, and We've maintained in the nineties through the entire pandemic, never dropped below nineties globally. That's great. Yeah. And different Than the other markets we've been, uh, reporting on. For sure. What were we gonna say, Arnie? What was your No, I was gonna say in Ontario's, not like a downtown LA or New York, you know, where you have a lot of heavy office and people just weren't going in. I mean, it's, you know, most people live near where most of your offices are. It's more of a, a, uh, uh, Drive to a surface parking lot instead Exactly. Cleared on a train or something like that. Exactly. Much Better. A little bit different office, I think. I think the outer markets like this have done well. Yeah. Uh, but the employees still didn't want to come to the office. I mean, there was a couple years when my parking lots were about 95% empty. Yeah. Right. Nobody wanted to come to the office. The employees all thought that they could effectively work from home. Ironically, I to share a little story that even happened, and one of my remote locations, uh, we've been having trouble with some of the employees in a high price market, you know, wanting to work remotely from home. So I conducted a meeting with 20 plus people, and I asked how many people thought that a lot of our jobs here could be done remotely. Everybody raised their hand. And then we asked them which jobs could be done effectively from home. And they virtually said pretty much all of 'em. Mm-Hmm. So, I told them that I understood and I was gonna embrace their thoughts. And we will now start working and handling the stuff from our corporate office in Ontario. And it'll just be like remote workers for you guys. Good start. Hey, let me back up to the beginning here. 'cause one of the things we wanna do is get know a little bit more about you, Uhhuh. So tell us how you got why, and how did you get into the real estate business? What was it that attracted you? And then tell us how you started MGR the, the genesis of MGR. Well, you know, when I went to high school, I, I was very fortunate to go to a, uh, all boys high school called Damien. But, you know, I was a little over my, under my pay grade to be there. I was, you know, kinda like, uh, uh, the token attendee. My dad worked two jobs to put me there. Um, but Damien taught me a lot of things about just, you know, being honest and work hard. And I, I owe a lot of that to Damien. Uh, I, I, I did remember graduating and I, I think I was even voted most likely to fail, which was a category allowed in the seventies. Uh, because I went to school with a lot of really, you know, you know, kids whose parents had a lot of money and I didn't. So I was always kinda shunned a little bit after I graduated my aunt, which I admired greatly, aunt Marie, I was talking to her and she told me, she says, you know, Mike, she says, of all the nieces and nephews and everybody in the family, she says, we're gonna have a lot of smart people, accountants, CPAs. And she's going on and on about them. And she says, you know, you're just not that smart. Oh gosh. She says, you're one of the dumber ones in the family. Oh my God. And I'm, I'm thinking, I says, Marie, you're my favorite aunt. What are you telling me this? She says, well, I, I, I've been thinking about that. She says, and, and I got an idea for you. She says, you're likable. Everybody likes you but you. And she says, if everybody likes you, maybe you should go into real estate. And she says, and if you're not real smart, just tell the truth. And every time you look up the answer, it'll be the same. So you don't have to be smart. Just look up the answer and tell 'em it again. You don't have to remember anything you tell anybody if it's the truth. 'cause just look up the answer and it will never change. And she says, if you're, if, and never worry about your commission, if you take care of your client, they'll never try to effectively take your money away from you. Okay. And I said, okay. I says, anything else? She says, well buy one property a year and keep it. And she says, someday people will think you're pretty successful. She still around that college education. She, that's, so, I, I did exactly what she said. Pretty smart lady. She still around. Uh, she passed away. Uhhuh didn't see how successful I became, but she, she knew I was, I was well onto that road. And, uh, I did not know that she had been a very successful real estate owner. And she never shared the fact that she owned. Wow. Ah, so she, Santa Monica, you know, I mean, she was, she was very well to do. And she gave me some good advice. Uh, so I, I worked really hard, you know, I, I just, I, I did take her advice. I, I realize if I just tell the clients the truth, it's a lot easier to keep a client. So you got into a residential brokerage started. Yeah. Tell us about your first, your first real estate, uh, deal. What was the very first one that got you started? I went to work very beginning for a company that isn't around anymore, called Red Carpet Real Estate, Uhhuh Carpet Real Estate. Yeah. I think I remember that. And they were a franchise. They were going head to head with Century 21 at the time. And I went to work for a broker named Bob Holden Uhhuh. And his son was there. And I was working in the factory. I was 19 years old, you know, I didn't even own any decent clothes. I mean, I was a factory worker. So he told me that I needed to go out and get a listing and go get a four sale by owner. And he gave me a tape from Tommy Hopkins. And he says, now, when you get there, get an appointment. Don't leave till you get the listing. So I went to my first listing appointment, a nice neighborhood in South Hills, and I thought I was really prepared. And I got there at like six 30. And, uh, about one o'clock in the morning when they finally literally said they were gonna call the police if I didn't leave. I said, well, I can't leave without a listing. You don't understand. They, they told me to be persistent, you know, and yeah. So the, the tape that I listen from Tommy Hopkins also says, don't ever give up. So I came back the next morning with a box of donuts and told 'em I was sorry, ah, that it was my first appointment and I didn't know what I was doing. And would they forgive me? And they said yes. And they, and I says, can I have a donut with you? And four hours later I left with a sign listing. Fantastic. I just was persistent enough to realize I needed to get paid. Uh, real estate's just, just that way, you know, you have to be, but you have to be likable. You have to be honest. And you gotta sell the house. After you got the listing, I did sell the house. Right. I stood it at a good price. And, you know, it got sold. IIOI had an open house, you know, I did everything you're supposed to. I just followed the little trends. That's a great Story. I've never, I've never really found real estate to be extremely difficult. I mean, if you, if you tell the truth, people come back. Yeah. Most real estate people have a tendency of lying. And they don't mean to Exaggerating. They, they over promise it. Under deliver. Well, yeah. You, you're a hundred percent right. I mean, I know, I, I I do lending uhhuh and the one thing I hate, well, not that I hate, is when somebody thinks they're gonna get away with telling you something that can't be verified. Yeah. And then the, you verify it. It's like, well, what's the story here? So, you're right. You gotta be straight with them. And, and, uh, you can't, you can't. B******t. Alright, I got another one for you, Mike. So that was the first deal you did. But what was the first, the big deal, the one that took you from, you know, being someone in the industry to taking you to that next level? So that first deal that jumps you to that, the place that got you closer to where you are today? My very First building, Well, your very first deal is always the one that makes you excited. I, I bought a piece of land on Buenos Air Street in West Covina. It was a very piece of land. Piece of land, very tip top of the market. I mean, this was at the top of the hill. You could see God in the world. Ah. And I thought to myself how lucky I was. This is going back in the, in the seventies. And I bought this thing for $19,000, $5,000 down. Owner carry, pristine, best part of the entire world. And I got the down payment on my Visa card, and I took a cash advance and I was off and running. Right. I was at the property and I was all excited 'cause the owner carried. And I got my first piece of real estate. And I was up there looking at myself and I had somebody taking polar ride pictures of me. 'cause that was the state-of-the-art technology. I was all excited when the neighbor comes down, asked me what I was doing there. I told him I just bought the lot. And he started laughing. He said, oh, he says there's a main water easement for the mountain that crosses over here. Oh no. I have the property over there and nobody's ever gonna build here. 'cause two things will happen. One water easement is not movable and I'm not gonna lose my view. And I have the top of the mountain. Oh, wow. So you'll be one of 10 people that bought it, lost your down payment and moved on. And he started laughing and walked away. Hmm. That was my first deal. So I went to school. I was, I was over at Cal Poly. I told my real estate instructor what happened. He told me back in the twenties and thirties, a lot of these easements weren't right where they were supposed to be. So he got the class, some friends in engineering to, to make this a class assignment. And they went out there and shot the, the line descriptions. We got a backhoe and we dug down nice. Damn, if the pipe was in the wrong spot. Ah-Huh. So we told them that we were now going to put a fence up around the property, but we were gonna go down five foot to have strong footings and that we were gonna break through the main water line of the building. And he should let everybody know tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, there'll be no water for the rest of their lives. Was he still laughing? And then they made a deal with you? They made a deal with me. Now, it was soon as they checked everything and that, that was a, the whole world showed up there within about two hours. Right. S**t hit the fan, so to speak. They all said, oh my God, this the guy's right. The, the pipe's in the, in the wrong place. Right. They said, we'll move it. I said, no, I don't want you on my property. You have no right to be there. Ah, nice. I I did the reverse. Everything they did to everybody else, they would never move it. I said, no, you can't move it. I'm gonna cut it. Yeah. And, uh, so I paid 19,000 for it, and they gave me $55,000 to go away. So you never developed It? I never developed it. Didn't have to. It was a nice thing. I took $5,000 and I turned it into 35,000 in about four months. Nice. So I know that doesn't sound like a lot of money now, but in the seventies, that was a boatload of money. No, that was, and if you're putting the down payment on your credit card, that's a lot of money. That Is. You got that. Right. So, and then it just kind of worked. I bought a couple houses here and there, bought a few more, then I started buying little small office buildings. I think we started making a real notice in the office building market when we bought, uh, the properties at Haven and, and sixth Street, which is the sixth story, 34 0 1 Center Lake. Right. Uh, purchasing that and putting the big MGR on the roof was kind of like awakening that. He got a little bit bigger than they saw. How big is that Building? That building's about 118,000 feet. Right. So we bought the 118 and the sister 80,000 square foot building on Commerce Center simultaneously from, uh, Prudential. But when we did that, people started noticing that we were in town and they were chuckling. Then we bought Six and Haven, you know, we bought the 80,000 feet there. Then we bought, you know, MGR now MGR Towers on Arrow, another 80,000 feet. And we bought the one that's around the courthouse for a little 40,000 square foot buildings. Then we bopped down on the big dance floor and started buying the stuff on Inland Empire Boulevard. Started buying, you know, the, the nine story, 185,000 square foot, you know, city National Bank building. 800 Haven. We just ran down the list, bought, you know, we bought everything in the Empire Collection. Right. One by one. Um, So you have like 30 office buildings now? Something like that. Yeah, a little over 30. Yeah, I got about 30. So From the vacant land that was hard to develop to, that was impossible to develop to 30 office buildings throughout. And we did that, you know, slowly and methodically. Um, and like I tell my, my, my team, you know, my acceptable level of occupancy is zero. A vac, zero vacancy. Yeah. Right. I want a hundred percent of all the possible money that can come in. Just like you want a hundred percent of your paycheck. That's right. No, exactly. Don, I think you have the next question. So, yeah. So, so in other words, it basically, I mean, do you have one major standout project or was it kind of like a building where all of them together became your major project? Or was there one that you could put your finger on and say, that's the one that got me into the big time. Everyone I bought, I said that when I bought it. I see. So, so it Sounds like the, uh, this is The one, this is the one. Exactly. Everyone's the new one. And I get so excited when I buy it that I think it's like, nothing is better than this. So the next one you do is gonna be the best. Yeah. Then I went down, the last one I I bought was in, in Orange County, Uhhuh. I bought, uh, comp list called Canvas. I bought it from Blackstone. They lost about $50 million selling it to me. Uhhuh. Uh, they had to work really hard to do that. That's not easy to do. Oh. And, uh, that build, that consists of five buildings, 555,000 square foot of class a office. That was about That's Nice. We're gonna bring up pictures of it over while we're talking now. So that's a nice Project. 62% occupied. Uh, that probably to this day is probably my trophy piece. Ah, So that's the one. And ironically, uh, that trophy piece is in Orange County, which is my very first building in Orange County. Wow. And it was the largest office transaction in, in I think three years. And top five in the decade in Orange County, uh, in size. And, uh, that was our opening statement that we're in Orange County. Uh, it's a beautiful building. It's right across from the South Coast Plaza. So I'm gonna say that's the one that told everybody in Orange County. I'm serious. The Inland Empire was just an accumulation of all the most beautiful buildings they've ever built. Right, right. We got, All right. Well, now since we've talked about all these great success stories, is there any deal that you looked back on and said, God, that was a failure? I wish I, I wish I didn't pull the trigger on that one. Those are always the ones you learn the most from. None that I would ever admit to, you know, uh, and I've never had one that has lost money. That's amazing. I mean, I've had some that I've had to hold a long time to be Right. But I will hold 'em long enough to be right. Wow. Uh, I've got, sometimes I, I, and a lot of times I bring in junior partners and I've had never had a partner this time, So Nice. Ever. How do you find new projects, Mike? Um, do you get 'em from brokers? How do you decide if you wanna green light the deal? Do you rely on I-R-R-R-O-I or ROE your gut? What are the, uh, uh, decision points of those? How do you come up? Are You big on the spreadsheets and analysis, Or do you just go by, hey, yeah. The gut you go by, but do you Run, do you run the analysis anyway to, you know, kind of give you some backup? That's it. Yeah. Now my, my team does a lot of reports that I, the banks wanna see. Right. That I don't really look at, um, With the different rent projections, staying steady, going up different, different scenarios, and I don't care about that. Yes. Throw the dart at it. I don't care about that. He Yeah. He, he's not, yeah. He goes by, I get the feeling that this is gonna work. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I'm really simple. When I'm looking at a building, first of all, the buildings kind of find me. I, I look at the internet every day because people send me stuff. I get about 1500 emails a day, so. Right. A lot of people know that I'm an active buyer, so stuff gets thrown at me. Uh, in a lot of cases I pick a market and I go after the buildings, like the one I'm buying to 20, 20 Main Street that nobody knows about. Um, So sometimes it's strategic. You pick an area and you research it as opposed to just something coming off your desk. That's a opportunity. Yeah. We, we pick, sometimes we pick an area and we go to the sellers and, and drive it to market. But when I, when I go into an area, I think I de, I decide I'm buying real estate, not tenant. And a lot of my competitors are buying tenants, not real estate. So I realized that every tenant's gonna move. It's not if it's when Right. Happens is forever. Even. I moved outta my corporate office. I was there 29 years and I moved out and left it a disaster because I occupied 35 of a 45,000 square foot building. Don't tell me it wasn't a nightmare when I left. Yeah. So I kinda look for tenants, you know, and buildings that don't have too many big monsters in 'em. I'd rather have a lot of, a lot of nice smaller tenants. Right. Have quality assets. Uh, I, I think it's really nice what the rent roll is, but I really don't care that much. Like some people do. I'm looking for length and longevity, but when I'm looking at value on the building, before I even look at the rent roll, I just look at what is the market rent today? Yeah. Yeah. What's today's rent? What's today's expenses and what's a reasonable vacancy? And I run that number and then that tells me what I think the building's worth. It takes about three minutes. Yeah. Regardless of what's in there. Now you, you just, I could Care about, this is what it's worth today. If everybody moves out, what am I gonna have to do? Yeah. Yeah. And then I look at the current rental. So, I mean, 'cause I know that it's, let's just say the number's $3 a foot. Right. If I got tenants in there paying three 50 a foot, I know that when their lease rolls, they're gonna say that they need to be adjusted to market. I know that. Yeah. So I can't buy it based on a higher rent. If they're paying two 50 and it should be 300, I'm gonna adjust it up knowing when it's worth three. So the, the math works both ways. In a market like this, generally the, the market's a little bit less than what people are paying. And if that's the case and I underwrite it at three and they're paying three 50 and got two years left on their lease, I have the ability to go to that tenant and offer him a lower rent with an extension, get ahead of what's gonna happen, give it to 'em today. 'cause I didn't underwrite it at three 50. I underwrite it at three. Yeah, no, that's good. And it's gravy if it, you get the three 50. So you're, you're, you're looking at your worst case scenario based on your numbers in your head. Right. And, and I, and I kind of run a really simple formula and, and it, it, it is, it's super simple. You know, I come up with, I think it costs to run a building and, and I think people think I'm nuts with the taxes being lower today because values have dropped a lot in office. Right. We assume that operating expenses run about 12 bucks. That's what I figure you can run a building for 12 bucks a foot per, Per year For per $12 a foot. That's just my number. Right. But then I also add $3 a foot to that for cap back expenses. Nobody wants to talk about those. Right. Everybody says that's a below the line item and the lender doesn't look at that. Well, I do. So that number just went to 15. Well, you'd be surprised. The lenders do look at that. I mean, uh, you know, I mean, speaking of lenders, I'm, I'm gonna skip ahead, uh, Steve. Yeah. Uh, how do you finance your deals? Do you, do you go to, uh, lenders? Do you find self-finance, 'em, do you get debt equity? Uh, how do you, when you, when you get a project, where do you go to get the money? You know, ideally I'd go to my, you know, my, my savings account. But that doesn't happen as much as I'd like it to, unless it's a smaller deal when I, when I'm doing the larger deals. It depends on the structure of the deals. Everyone's different. Yeah. Sometimes if it's the lender's in trouble on the property, you may get some lender assisted financing, which is always the nicest thing. Yeah. Uh, in today's market, it changes every time. Of course. Uh, it's really hard to get an office building market today in office. Oh yeah. Lenders are really against office market deals. I mean, it takes almost an act of Congress to get They've been burned is is part of the problem. It's not become yours. It's just in general that that's what they've been seeing. And they think that there's a big part of the market underwater. So they're, they're desperately avoiding it. That being said, the CMBS market still will finance office buildings. Yeah. But they need to see closer to 85 or 90% occupied with a reasonable waltz. And if you have that type of deal, you can still get financing Half LTV. What, what do they, what do you need to put in, Uh, with A-C-M-B-S today? I could still get 65% financing. Interesting. Alright. Yeah, that's about right. Yeah. Yeah. But you gotta, but you also gotta be a solid operator. Yeah. I mean Right. Even though you're not personally guaranteeing it, they know in 10 seconds if you're a good operator 'cause they pull your name up and they look on the CMVS records. And if you've got 12 CMVS loans and nine of 'em are in default, well you ain't going anywhere. Exactly. Yeah. But they go in and say, gee, you know, the man's never missed a payment. Everybody's cool. They all like him. They get a little extra check mark and it starts moving through the system quicker. Uh, CMBS is, is my backdoor program. My goal is to go in and finance 'em. Mm-Hmm. You know, whatever. I can get repositioned with a CBS loan on down the road. But, uh, a lot of the local banks will work with me up to, I was Gonna say they would know the market and Yeah. At least know that it's stronger than what the press is saying about a, you know, the local market is stronger, They're limited to feeling comfortable at 10, $15 million ranges. Mm-Hmm. That's a problem. Has a hard time doing a single loan over 15, $20 million. Right. And most of my acquisitions are over that. Yeah. So a lot of times smaller Stuff, the local banks are gonna be better, but you're right on, on your portfolio and the stuff you're doing, you gotta rely on CMBS for sure. They're, they're, the local banks are saying that I'm too large for them. Mm-Hmm. Why don't you, you know, open up your own bank. I've thought About that. Isn't he doing enough? I'm sure you Have. Yeah. Well, I, I've kind of assumed that, you know, it won't take too long and they'll be giving banks away at the, on the corner. You know, if you buy a car, you get a bank. Right. You Know, usually whenever I, that's A great line, Mike. Usually I tell the banks that question my financial statements, which is their job. Right. I always ask them before we get started, I says, what was your stock value last year on, on stock exchange? And what is your stock value today? Well, what does that have to do with it? I says, I just wanna see how well you've performed before we start analyzing me, because I have the right to know you're my bank. That's right. And generally their stock is down 30 to 40%. And they tell me the story about, I said, now tell me your story about why, and then would you change the name of your bank to my name and put that in your report? And we don't even have to have a conversation. There you go. Use your own excuses on the economy and how it doesn't affect you. They Gotta turn the tables. That is great. They chuckle. Yeah, no, you're, you're, you're, you're hitting them with real logic. I mean, it's kind of hard to deny it. You Know, my, my my, my vendors are pretty good when I buy a tougher property, especially these, these big 50, a hundred million dollars assets. Um, I use private debt equity. Okay. Uh, the big boys. Yeah. I'm borrowing money from the big boys. Yeah. And, uh, this is, this is, it's, I call it private equity. Some people would call it hard money. And you know what? And there's a place for them and they know the market better than anybody else. That's Arnie's World. Yeah. And, and they're, they're investors as much as, as you are. Uh, I, I remember on my, my last $55 million loan that I took out. And would you agree, you know, Arnie has a large loan and offered Without a doubt. So I went with, with, with the people I borrowed the money from. We met at the property, we walked around, we talked, he says, well, when, when will you need the loan docs? Yeah, That's, I says, you know, I'd like to close in about two or three weeks. He says, well, just let me know when he says, I says, now what about the appraisal? And things like that. He says, well, we don't need an appraisal. He says, I've already walked the property. It's, it's fine. You know, now that's probably, Yeah, no, and then that's, and people, you know, they move, you are a hundred percent Right. Because people call it hard money thinking. That's only for the people that don't have good credit. They, they have no other choices. A smart investor and developer will know that a private money lender is probably the best person to have because you're a hundred percent Right. They don't need the appraisal. They will make a decision just like you do in your head and, and make that decision to do that loan with you. And they're almost your partner, so to speak. Yeah. See what you see And, and the, and the, my cost on it was a little bit higher, but I have no pre-payment penalty. They'll subdivide 'em out and, and, and portions with no issues, uh, that were easy to work with. And I went back to Blackstone and told them that I had to use private equity because of the high vacancy. I, and I told 'em that I was gonna have to pay X dollars more than I had budgeted. So I took that over five years and told 'em, if they gave me that as a discount, I won't cancel. And they said, okay, we'll give it to you. So they paid for it. I didn't even know what to pay for it. That's great. And that's, You don't ask. If you don't ask, you don't, you never find, there are a lot, lemme ask your question, Mike. When you, when you're buying properties, are these MGR real estate, uh, purchases or do you form different partnerships and entities for each uh, property? Every property is a standalone entity. So MGR is a part owner in that. And then you bring another Part. MGR owns none of it. Yeah. They're, they're, they're, they're the, like the property manager or Got it. Yeah. The owner is. Yeah. There you go. The rat maker trust. Right, right. No, that's Maker Trust is the owner, the ultimate owner. The LLC is a standalone entity. So you don't bring in partners for each transaction strictly your Deal. Well, some, some deals are strictly me uhhuh. Some deals are strictly me and my two kids, which is me. Yeah. And some of the partners I, I bring in and I raise investor capitals. I have a small group of people that friends and family type that, you know, when I do a deal, they'll put sometimes anywhere from 500 to $5 million in a deal. Right. And, you know, uh, ride the wave and, uh, and they all always have never gotten hurt. And even when there's been interruptions and things, I've always made sure that their cash flow never changed. So it's not like you have to go spend a lot of deal trying to raise capital or raise equity. We're always raising capital and equity somehow. But it's all there somewhere because of friends and family. I got some good friends and family, you know, uh, that, uh, you know, I don't do crowdfunding, so, you know, I'm not looking for, you know, that kind of money. You know, when when somebody, I talk to 'em, you know, they're usually, you know, they tell me how it's a wrong time to do something and here's $3 million. Yeah, yeah. No, That's So Me and Arnie can't cut you a check and get, get ourselves in on your next deal. Well, There's no background check. You know them. And that's, And they know me. Exactly. Exactly. Right. We had a, we had a guy yesterday who wired us $4 million to be in a deal. And I said, what do you need to know? He sold nothing. He said, I, I've known, known you for 20 years, The account number. He said, I know you, I know who you are. My friends know you. We've done, uh, he says, just send me the paperwork so I can have my people, you know, check the boxes that I reviewed it, which I did. Yeah. And he reviewed it and he says, okay, but you know, why are it being sent? Where do I send it? I mean, and it was nice. I mean, it's not that we have an abundance, but we always seem to come up with it in time. And I only buy with what I think we can feel comfortable with. And, uh, and, and my goal is once I get the properties positioned correctly to refinance 'em and get most of our equity back and use that money to buy another one. Yeah. And that's what we're very good at doing. So your investors are people that are close to you. You're not looking for outside investors In most cases. In most cases. I've known 'em for 20 years. Okay. And if I didn't know them for 20 years, it's because it is the guy I know for 20 years, son, ah, you know, who's using his trust funds that his dad says his trust funds are gonna invest with Mike. There You go. That's, you know, and the kid says, oh, okay. My dad says this is where my money's going. So how you doing? My name is Joe. That's kind of how it goes. Yeah, No, no. And that's, that's exactly, And, you know, generational, and I try to do the same thing with my kids coming into the business. I mean, we're looking to acquire probably 3 million feet in Orange County so we can make some kind of statement Mm-Hmm. We're doing that also at large, large sums buying buildings at anywhere from three to 501st thou, three to 500,000 square foot per spot. So when you're buying the larger buildings, you only have to get eight or 10 buildings and you're a player in Orange County. Right. So you took that last, next question, uh, right, right from under me. So your, your strategy right now is to continue looking in Orange County for additional purchases, uh, in addition to the one you just made. Yes. We're gonna be purchasing heavily in the Orange County market, probably concentrating, uh, between the, uh, Concourse Mar, we call it MacArthur four oh five, running along the 4 0 5 freeway probably. Mm-Hmm. Upward over to, you know, the South Coast Plaza. Take that little two three mile stretch and draw a circle around it, and we're gonna call that home. So Once you pick an area, south Coast Plaza, a lot of that older, older stock, those peak class buildings right in that, uh, Santa Ana, Costa Mesa area, it's prime. Mm-Hmm. Well, we're, we're also, I I, I pay great respect to the Irvine Company, and I don't wanna be stepping into his sandbox, which is a spectrum. Right, right. So, you know, I'm, I'm gonna just, that was a Great panel in March, though, with Mike from the Irvine Company, so Oh, yeah, that Was great. Me and him at, at a, at a good little hoorah. You know, uh, we, we've gone, we've gone around the table twice where he's tried to get my tenants right and big tenants, 10,000 square foot tenants. And, uh, fortunately we were able to, to, uh, outplay him on both hands, um, where he gets a chance to read how I play. And I did exactly the same thing that Irvine Company made an offer and I beat it. Nice. Now you, how about Eastern LA County or San Diego County? Would you look in those markets or you're really kind of focused in, in, in making a statement in the oc Oh, I like San Diego. Okay. And ironically, of all markets I like, I like Carlsbad. Yeah. You know, you're picking an area that nobody thinks about is Carlsbad, because it's the first market to die in the last market to recover. That's got my name written all over it. You know, I like Carlsbad. So, uh, we have an office in Carlsbad. Um, I feel comfortable with it. So the Carlsbad market's pretty good, you know, that stuff in downtown San Diego. I don't feel it's comfortable down there. That's a tough market, surprisingly. I mean, you know, the mission, mission day market, I kinda like, right. I mean, so I am considering San Diego. Uh, I, I also would consider, you know, sections of, you know, east LA County, you know, but, uh, you know, it has to be areas that I feel comfortable with, you know, I mean, I'm comfortable even up along the quadrant, you know, whether it be, you know, in San Dimas, I was very comfortable Glen Door, I'm comfortable West Covina, that market All within your reach from where you're based similar, uh, genre of office buildings. Right. And we're looking also in Scottsdale Phoenix, Really. And we are looking at some potential markets in the Dallas area. Okay. Those are very different dynamics in terms of the office market trends than, uh, inland Empire, orange County. Aren't you finding that like Phoenix, it's kind of the wild west again, it Seems, you know, but I'm a cowboy. Yeah. You know, even down in Orange County, when I was hiring, uh, my team down there that I hired some really good guys and they went around to, you know, to Green Law and some of the big firms and Sure. And ask them what their thought was about joining up with MGR in Orange County Hmm. To get a big move from him to come off a national company. And they basically told him that it would be a tremendous learning curve from him. And that, you know, working with Mr. Maker, he's a cowboy. He's just gonna jump in there and you ain't gonna know what he's gonna do, but he is gonna come out with that deal somehow. Yeah. Yeah. And that your learning curve will be significant. The first time he submitted something to me, it was a four page spreadsheet on an analysis, on a lease proposal. And I wasn't paying any attention to him. And he knew, he says, you know, I've got this whole proposal all the way done, this, that, and the other. I says, yeah, I know. I said, it's gonna net me about $2 and 85 cents a foot. And he looked at me, then he had to go back three pages, and it was $2 and 84 cents a foot. He said, how did you do that? I says, I don't know. I just looked at it and kind of saw the answer. Simple math, you don't have to be too complicated to just figure out about what it should cost. And I'm, I'm a pretty simple guy, you know, and my tenants like me as the most part. If you walk around my buildings, my tent snow me the way I'm dressed today, this is who I am. If you see me on a Saturday at my building, this is me. Yeah. If you see me on Tuesday morning, this is me. If you're coming to the front door and I don't have electric doors, I will. But if I don't have 'em yet, I'll open the door for you. But you don't golf in that alpha, do you? I don't have time to golf. I'm having too much fun. I'm having much fun running around in my building, servicing my people. You know, I used to golf a lot. I'm a single dad Uhhuh, so, and as, as a single dad, you know, my extra time I devote to my kids. Right. Uh, I have two children, uh, my daughter's 27 and works at the company, and she doesn't take as much effort. And you know, when at the end of the week, she's probably happy not to see me because, you know, she's already having me all week. Um, and my son is, uh, uh, is my pride and joy. He's non-verbal, autistic severe, and damn if he doesn't miss the s**t outta me. And Right. We spend every Sunday together, we hang out at the beach and we go goofing off, and he's a kick. And we spend a couple hours together every morning. So everything that I would've normally spent in golf, I spend and spent with my son who teaches me how to be happy. And I owe probably all of my success to him. That's great. Wow. That's A great story, Mike. Yeah. I, I gotta tell you, there's nothing like being with family and kids. I got grandkids now, Uhhuh, and the biggest joy is being with them. I mean, I have, one of my grandson's birthday is today, and we got him a gift yesterday and his eyes lit up. Like, and there's nothing better than than seeing that from, uh, from your kids. But I got, I got a question, uh, for you is what project did you not do yet that you wanna do, that you're looking to get into that would really staple it for you, for your career? The problem is, no matter what I do as my iconic last big trophy piece, uhhuh within 48 hours of the close, I'm looking at the next trophy. But currently the, the next trophy that I'm really looking for is the icon in Ontario Uhhuh. Um, I wanna build that piece. I wanna build that 15 story building, which is the highest building on the M and Empire Round up. Round up. Can you tell us the intersection? No, no. He hasn't found it yet. No, I have, oh, no, he's not. Oh, you Have? Oh, okay. Good. No, it's, it's in plant check. Oh Yeah. Good. It's Close. No, we're, tell Us more About it. We're in, it's, it's in Ontario. It's along the freeway, uh, by most of my holdings near the arena. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. Uh, we'll be coming 15 stories, straight up, two eight story Twin towers, parking structures. That'll be phase one. Uh, and then we'll build from there. Phase You have an estimate of when you might be in the ground. It's really hard to predict exactly then, but I would guess it will be less than 18 months, 12 months, 18 months. Wow. Well, you got a good, the right city for it. How about a gc? You have a gc We're doing the final interviews now. Uh, we're going through that process. We wanted to get we the entitlements done and then find out which GC was the hungriest Mm-Hmm. Because none of 'em were true hungry a year ago, because they still had all their contracts from three years ago. Right. But now that these GCs ain't got nobody putting steel up in the air, especially 15 stories Steel would steal I Yeah. Right up, you know, and, uh, it makes no economic sense to build. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's, I should have asked the architect. Do you have the architect, I assume? Yes. A a depths doing our work. Ah, same one that's doing all the work around the arena. Nice. And, uh, did, do you have an estimate on cost per square foot? No. And let me explain why. And I told him it doesn't matter. Yeah. Because it, I'm building it. Yeah. You got it in your head, you're gonna do it and you're gonna accomplish it, so you know, I'm gonna build it. Yeah. And that, that's the way, that's the way your model is for even buying properties. You know what you want and you'll figure it out as you go along and you know it's gonna be a success. That's fantastic. There's no doubt in my mind that the numbers will be north of 400 a foot to build 500 a foot. There's no doubt. That's not even that bad. I mean, in the scheme of things, 500 A foot just to build A brand new office, prove. Yeah. And, you know, in of it costs six, it costs six. I mean, um, it, it's going to, I'm gonna build it and it'll be the first real additional asset of this quality in 20 years in the valley. Mm-Hmm. And it will suck up the values of the surrounding properties and rents, which I'll get the wind fall out because most of 'em are mine. Right. So you're saying not only will you see the, in this, the increase in rents from this new building will increase the rents in all the other rest of existing building because it'll pull it up. I think that the rents in the Ontario marketplace in three years will be up a dollar a foot. Where's the high-end rent now? In, in, uh, Ontario? Call it two sixty, two sixty five. That's probably per Month. Full service. Gross. That's a full service gross, normal release rate today. Right. And then, uh, and then potentially up to like 3 25, 3 50 after the high rise is finished, Probably three 50, All that space. Oh yeah. So a lot of the absorption for us will be the, the windfall from the surrounding buildings will help offset some of the intrinsic costs of the new one. Right. Do you have some financing partners lined up for the, uh, construction costs? Are you gonna self-fund that Initially We haven't. We haven't decided yet. And, and the reason for it is nobody likes office right now anyways. Yeah. So we're waiting until the market softens up and after our new president is elected, by the way, it doesn't matter if it's Biden his replacement. Donald Duck or, or, or Donald Trump, whoever gets elected. Yeah. Or none of the above. It was one in one state already, but none of the above. Right. You know, the, the market will stabilize, you know, interest rates will go back to some type of sense of reality. And if they stay where they're at, that becomes our new reality. So we, we will all get past the emotion and the drama of what it is. I lived in the 14% interest rates. Seven percent's not that bad. Yeah, right. Oh, you're hundred percent right. Well, you know, you've been around long enough to, uh, you know, understand historically, you know where things have been. Yeah. It's just the market, you know, you don't, you don't get upset with it. I mean, I bought my house in Pelican Hills and I put a little loan on it, or a good sized loan, a little loan for Pelican Hill. Big loan for the world. Yeah. But they gave me a two point a quarter, 30% fixed year mortgage. I took that thing and I figured that was candy. That's, that's a gift. I mean, don't get mad. Just take the care of everybody said, right. There should be two. Well, I'm, I'm fine. Gimme two and a quarter for the rest of my life, I'll be, that's, pay that thing off. And back to the new building though. I know some of it's already, you've already got a lot of it spoken for. Right? You're moving your, uh, facility there, aren't you? Putting a, a restaurant on the top? We figure we'll take the top, uh, top four floors will be food and entertainment. Right. And, uh, we're talking medallion type restaurants as well as the family dining as well as a social entertainment place for people to go to. Uh, you know, we'll be looking down, uh, good on the New Ontario Live project. That'll start construction matter of six months. Uh, we'll be looking down at that, looking at the airport. So those four floors will be restaurant related, which we're fairly sure we have most of those things firmed up, but we haven't signed anything because we're not sure exactly what the rates and delivery dates are. But 15 story restaurants that we're gonna, are fairly easy to fill up because all the restaurants put the new icon, especially with the rapid transit coming in from Vegas and everything like that, being right by the Ontario mills. We'll probably take upward of three floors in the building ourself. Uh, we'll Take. So not even that, not, not that much risk. I mean, in terms of vacancy. Oh yeah. So I'm, and I'm gonna take one floor for private residence, uh, and we're gonna break that up into four living dwelling units. Wow. And those four living dwelling units will be one for me, one for my daughter, one for my son, and one for guests. And then we will have 80 living units in the product as well as As condos or as, as rentals. We're gonna have them as condos, but we're not selling them as condos. We're building 'em as condos, but retaining them all to get forever. But if we ever sold 'em, it'd be after 10 years. I see. Okay. Good construction. Very Exciting. That sounds like an exciting drive. 18 months. Very excited to see that Happen. And then we're gonna have retail straight office. It's gonna be a hundred percent of the real, honest, legitimate mixed use. Real mixed use. The cities all want, uh, the two, the two, uh, you know, eight story buildings. One of 'em will probably be a higher concentration of living, one will be probably a higher concentration, you know, of Office Uhhuh. And we're trying to get a, Do you have a name for the project? Not yet. You know, we're, we're probably, you know, probably thinking of something with a View court or tied to it MG Uhhuh or something like that. I'm not sure. Uh, you know, we'll, we'll have To interview him again in a few years. Yeah. You know, because Mike, we are, we are coming to our allotted times, you know, that we, that we promised you and, and our viewers. And so we gotta still more to cover. We gotta bring you on again. Uh, you know, as, as this progresses and we get updates along the way. I wanna have you see that, you know, when it's going up in construction or my next big glory piece is, is remember it's 2020 Main Street. Right. 12 stories Irvine. That's my next famous best building that I've ever bought until the next one. That's my next till the next one next week. That, that is breaking news next week. I own it. I've already signed the loan documents. That's, that's my next baby. All right. Fantastic. Hey Mike, you touched on it a little bit. Some of your hobbies and, and, and your, your, um, um, deep, um, you feel real deep about. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. I mean, I know your family life, your son means so much to you and your daughter being in the business. Um, what are your personal interests? Are you a sports fan? I mean, I know you don't golf, but, uh, are there any, Any actually priorities or Organizations that we could promote for you that you're heavily involved in that we could give a little Club for? Yeah. I'm, I'm probably, you know, I'm very much into autism. You know, autism Speaks is a good organization or anything with the word autism in it. It's like the, like, uh, I think that that helps. I think, you know, different things. Like I think UCII do a lot with them. UCI has a really good mind institutions for Alzheimer's, and one in seven people in Orange County is gonna suffer from Alzheimer's. Right. So with that kind of statistics and there being one of the leading researchers in it, and me having a house in Newport Coast, I'm trying to have like a bench sheet availability if I start to whacko. Uh, so I think those organizations are, are pretty good. I give a lot to the, uh, Breth and Manor, which just donates out to local charities. Just kind of, I think that, you know, and by the way, I do golf, ar I just don't get to golf as much as I like. I, I, I, yeah, no, no, I hear you. I love, I love events. I, I love going to a soccer game or a, a football game or a basketball game and this is gonna sound really terrible. I don't care who wins and I don't care who's playing. I just, wonderful event. I just wanna go out and hang out with people and enjoy myself and be happy no matter who wins and loses. 'cause I don't want to have any misery in the night. I don't wanna be like, oh, my team Plus, and I'm all depressed. What do I care who Wins? So you don't care. Lakers or Clippers Charger, the Rams doesn't matter. I could care less. I mean, I love when I go to a Laker flipper game, I mean, they're extremely excited. I might prefer the Lakers, but the Clippers put on a better show. Yeah, yeah. I was talking to Upper management about why they have such a good show. He says, we had such a bad team for so many years. People only came for the, for the the show. For the show. And he says, now we have a good team and a show. He says, well, some people like us. I'm seeing a new home Too. Right. That new arena's looks like it's gonna be fabulous, so, Oh, right. Yeah. Everybody's doing good and I'll just wait to go to the new arena. So I love going to events. I mean, I love going to the Super Bowl. Yeah. I mean, to me that was absolutely lots of fun. Didn't matter who was playing just to be there. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm glad the Chiefs won. Yeah. I think I, I mean, because they won. Yeah. Right. The other team would've won. I'd have been glad they won because they won. I'm just happy for whoever. I just, it was a wonderful event to go to those things. Yeah. So I go to a lot of nice places, you know, and I'm, I do a lot with various political organizations. I'm up in, you know, on the, you know, I'm a delicate, I go to the, you know, to the, to some of the events. I won't say Republican or Democrat 'cause you get yourself in trouble. But I go to a lot of political events because I think whether or not you're of any following being Democrat or Republican is irrelevant. I think that both sides, 85% of the time agree that we need to make America better, or make our city or county better. So whether you're be in a Democrat or Republican, we can all work on the common ground that we all agree upon, and the small percentage of things we disagree about, lets somebody else fight about. Yeah. But let's make sure that we're just all set, just good people trying to make the right things happen. Right, exactly. Sounds excellent. Yeah, that's a great closing statement. Exactly. Can anything better that, Mike, we will have to get Sean, you know Yeah. Six months to a year from now. See how these, uh, things are progressing. Oh, no, I, I wanna wait till this, this, I wanna wait till this project is done and then take A get in the ground three months. Yeah. You'll, You'll get a tour, I promise. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. You gotta invite me to the groundbreaking. Yeah, You got a bus. All right. All right. Bye Bye. Thank you very much. Have, thank you, Mike. This has been great. Have a great day. Good luck on your deals and good luck on the projects. Alright, Bye-Bye. Thank care. Have a Great day. You've been watching Commercial Real Estate Talk with Steven Arne, sponsored by commercial real estate inspectors, Fidelity Mortgage Lenders, And Paramount Property Tax Appeal.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/978657040.txt b/data/transcripts/978657040.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5d97ebd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/978657040.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+The following video is the Multifamily Panel at Rent TV's Orange County State of the Market Conference held on March 21st, 2024. It is comprised of Brian Rupp with Shop Off Realty Investments. Call Julian with Advanced Real Estate. Rob Riau with Lowe and Dan Blackwell with CBRE's Multifamily SoCal Group. Hi. Hi.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/data/transcripts/989909369.txt b/data/transcripts/989909369.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4ab68ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/data/transcripts/989909369.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+The following video is the industrial panel at Rent TV's Orange County State of the Market Conference held on March 21st, 2024. It is comprised of Jeffrey Cole with Cushman and Wakefield, Brooke Becher, Gustafson with Becher Development, Brett Turner with BKM Capital Partners, Trevor Halverson with Nuveen and Ben Senner with Aries Industrial Management. These Still increasing those rents. If you look at those, uh, that vacancy rates that you just quoted and break that down into a smaller size segment, it's about a third. And we're still seeing positive net absorption. We're seeing absolutely no new supply. And that's really the key is it just costs too much to build this stuff. You gotta have, you know, uh, you build a business apartment that's 200,000 square feet with 2000 square foot units, you need a hundred bathroom, 200 bathrooms. You need demising walls, you need separate electrical. It just takes cost a fortune. So we really haven't seen this, uh, product built in the last 20 years. Right. You know, Uh, we're, we're growing that much less aggressively, uh, because we do things. Um, you know, cap rates are likely at a high point, Potentially from here to the last three.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..df62f73
--- /dev/null
+++ b/package.json
@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+{
+  "name": "rentv-ad-engine",
+  "version": "0.1.0",
+  "private": true,
+  "description": "Searchable directory of every advertiser/sponsor and every guest across RENTV's Vimeo video library, harvested from auto-caption transcripts.",
+  "main": "server.js",
+  "scripts": {
+    "start": "node server.js",
+    "harvest": "python3 scripts/harvest-transcripts.py",
+    "extract": "node scripts/extract.js"
+  },
+  "author": "steve@designerwallcoverings.com",
+  "license": "UNLICENSED"
+}
diff --git a/public/index.html b/public/index.html
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fd93d83
--- /dev/null
+++ b/public/index.html
@@ -0,0 +1,291 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html>
+<html lang="en">
+<head>
+<meta charset="utf-8">
+<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
+<title>RENTV Ad Engine — Advertisers &amp; Guests</title>
+<style>
+  :root{--cols:4;--bg:#0e1116;--panel:#161b22;--line:#2a3038;--ink:#e6edf3;--dim:#9aa7b4;--teal:#2dd4bf;--gold:#d4af37;--accent:#4c8bf5}
+  *{box-sizing:border-box}
+  body{margin:0;font:14px/1.45 -apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,"Segoe UI",Roboto,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;background:var(--bg);color:var(--ink)}
+  a{color:var(--accent);text-decoration:none}a:hover{text-decoration:underline}
+  header{position:sticky;top:0;z-index:20;background:linear-gradient(180deg,#11161d,#0e1116);border-bottom:1px solid var(--line);padding:12px 20px;display:flex;align-items:center;gap:18px;flex-wrap:wrap}
+  .brand{font-weight:800;letter-spacing:.5px}.brand b{color:var(--gold)}
+  .tabs{display:flex;gap:6px}
+  .tab{padding:6px 14px;border:1px solid var(--line);border-radius:20px;cursor:pointer;color:var(--dim);background:transparent}
+  .tab.on{color:#08131a;background:var(--teal);border-color:var(--teal);font-weight:700}
+  .stat{color:var(--dim);font-size:12px}.stat b{color:var(--ink)}
+  .toolbar{display:flex;gap:12px;align-items:center;flex-wrap:wrap;padding:12px 20px;border-bottom:1px solid var(--line);background:var(--panel)}
+  input,select{background:#0e1116;border:1px solid var(--line);color:var(--ink);border-radius:8px;padding:7px 10px;font-size:13px}
+  input#q{min-width:280px;flex:1}
+  .toolbar label{color:var(--dim);font-size:12px;display:flex;align-items:center;gap:6px}
+  input[type=range]{accent-color:var(--teal)}
+  .viewtoggle span{padding:5px 10px;border:1px solid var(--line);cursor:pointer;color:var(--dim)}
+  .viewtoggle span:first-child{border-radius:8px 0 0 8px}.viewtoggle span:last-child{border-radius:0 8px 8px 0}
+  .viewtoggle span.on{background:var(--accent);color:#fff;border-color:var(--accent)}
+  main{padding:18px 20px}
+  .grid{display:grid;grid-template-columns:repeat(var(--cols),1fr);gap:14px}
+  .card{background:var(--panel);border:1px solid var(--line);border-radius:12px;padding:14px;display:flex;flex-direction:column;gap:8px;transition:border-color .15s}
+  .card:hover{border-color:var(--teal)}
+  .card h3{margin:0;font-size:16px;cursor:pointer}
+  .badge{display:inline-block;font-size:11px;padding:2px 8px;border-radius:20px;background:#0e1116;border:1px solid var(--line);color:var(--teal)}
+  .badge.cat{color:var(--gold);border-color:#3a3320}
+  .pitch{color:var(--dim);font-size:13px}
+  .row{display:flex;flex-wrap:wrap;gap:8px;align-items:center}
+  .kv{font-size:12px;color:var(--dim)}.kv b{color:var(--ink);font-weight:600}
+  .chip{font-size:11px;padding:2px 8px;border:1px solid var(--line);border-radius:14px;color:var(--dim)}
+  .chip.ep{cursor:pointer;color:var(--accent)}
+  .appear{cursor:pointer;color:var(--teal);font-weight:700}
+  table{width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:13px}
+  th,td{border-bottom:1px solid var(--line);padding:8px 10px;text-align:left;vertical-align:top}
+  th{position:sticky;top:0;background:var(--panel);cursor:pointer;user-select:none;white-space:nowrap}
+  th .drag{cursor:grab;color:var(--dim);margin-right:4px}
+  .colpick{position:relative}
+  .colmenu{position:absolute;right:0;top:34px;background:var(--panel);border:1px solid var(--line);border-radius:8px;padding:8px 10px;display:none;z-index:30;min-width:170px}
+  .colmenu.on{display:block}.colmenu label{display:flex;gap:8px;color:var(--ink);padding:3px 0;font-size:13px}
+  .modal{position:fixed;inset:0;background:rgba(0,0,0,.6);display:none;align-items:flex-start;justify-content:center;z-index:50;padding:40px 16px;overflow:auto}
+  .modal.on{display:flex}
+  .sheet{background:var(--panel);border:1px solid var(--line);border-radius:14px;max-width:720px;width:100%;padding:22px}
+  .sheet h2{margin:0 0 4px}
+  .close{float:right;cursor:pointer;color:var(--dim);font-size:20px}
+  .muted{color:var(--dim);font-size:12px}
+  .quote{border-left:3px solid var(--teal);padding:4px 10px;color:var(--dim);font-style:italic;margin:6px 0}
+  .empty{color:var(--dim);padding:40px;text-align:center}
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<header>
+  <div class="brand">RENTV <b>Ad Engine</b></div>
+  <div class="tabs">
+    <div class="tab on" data-view="advertisers">Advertisers</div>
+    <div class="tab" data-view="guests">Guests</div>
+    <div class="tab" data-view="coverage">Coverage</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stat" id="stat"></div>
+</header>
+
+<div class="toolbar">
+  <input id="q" placeholder="Search all fields (space = AND)…">
+  <label>Sort
+    <select id="sort"></select>
+  </label>
+  <label>Density
+    <input type="range" id="dens" min="2" max="7" value="4">
+  </label>
+  <span class="viewtoggle" id="vt"><span data-v="cards" class="on">Cards</span><span data-v="table">Table</span></span>
+  <div class="colpick" id="colpick" style="display:none">
+    <button id="colbtn" style="background:#0e1116;color:var(--ink);border:1px solid var(--line);border-radius:8px;padding:7px 10px;cursor:pointer">Columns ▾</button>
+    <div class="colmenu" id="colmenu"></div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<main id="main"></main>
+
+<div class="modal" id="modal"><div class="sheet" id="sheet"></div></div>
+
+<script>
+const $=s=>document.querySelector(s), el=(t,c,h)=>{const e=document.createElement(t);if(c)e.className=c;if(h!=null)e.innerHTML=h;return e};
+const esc=s=>(s==null?"":String(s)).replace(/[&<>"]/g,m=>({"&":"&amp;","<":"&lt;",">":"&gt;",'"':"&quot;"}[m]));
+const LS=(k,d)=>{try{return JSON.parse(localStorage.getItem("rae_"+k))??d}catch{return d}};
+const setLS=(k,v)=>localStorage.setItem("rae_"+k,JSON.stringify(v));
+const siteURL=s=>/^https?:/.test(s)?s:"https://"+s;
+const telURL=p=>"tel:"+String(p).replace(/[^\d+]/g,"");
+
+let DATA={advertisers:[],guests:[],videos:[]};
+let view=LS("view","advertisers"), mode=LS("mode","cards");
+
+const SORTS={
+  advertisers:[["appearances","Most appearances"],["name","Name A→Z"],["category","Category"],["website","Website A→Z"]],
+  guests:[["name","Name A→Z"],["company","Company A→Z"],["episode","Episode (newest)"]],
+  coverage:[["date","Newest"],["title","Title A→Z"],["chars","Most transcript"]]
+};
+// table columns per view (adjustable: toggle + reorder + sort)
+const COLS={
+  advertisers:LS("cols_adv",[["name","Advertiser",1],["category","Category",1],["website","Website",1],["phone","Phone",1],["appearances","Runs",1],["pitch","Pitch",1]]),
+  guests:LS("cols_gst",[["name","Guest",1],["title","Title",1],["company","Company",1],["location","From",1],["episode","Episode",1]]),
+  coverage:LS("cols_cov",[["title","Video",1],["date","Date",1],["duration","Length",1],["chars","Transcript",1],["captions","Captions",1]])
+};
+
+async function boot(){
+  const [a,g,m,s]=await Promise.all([
+    fetch("/api/advertisers").then(r=>r.json()),
+    fetch("/api/guests").then(r=>r.json()),
+    fetch("/api/manifest").then(r=>r.json()),
+    fetch("/api/stats").then(r=>r.json())
+  ]);
+  DATA.advertisers=a.advertisers||[]; DATA.guests=g.guests||[]; DATA.videos=m.videos||[];
+  $("#stat").innerHTML=`<b>${s.advertisers}</b> advertisers · <b>${s.guests}</b> guests · <b>${s.videos_rich}</b>/${s.videos_total} videos transcribed`;
+  $("#dens").value=LS("dens",4); document.documentElement.style.setProperty("--cols",$("#dens").value);
+  document.querySelectorAll(".tab").forEach(t=>t.classList.toggle("on",t.dataset.view===view));
+  document.querySelectorAll("#vt span").forEach(s=>s.classList.toggle("on",s.dataset.v===mode));
+  render();
+}
+
+function tokens(){return $("#q").value.toLowerCase().split(/\s+/).filter(Boolean)}
+function matches(hay){const t=tokens();const h=hay.toLowerCase();return t.every(x=>h.includes(x))}
+
+function curList(){
+  if(view==="advertisers"){
+    let L=DATA.advertisers.filter(a=>matches([a.name,a.category,(a.websites||[]).join(" "),(a.phones||[]).join(" "),a.pitch,(a.contacts||[]).join(" "),(a.aliases||[]).join(" "),(a.episodes||[]).map(e=>e.title).join(" ")].join(" ")));
+    const s=LS("sort_advertisers","appearances");
+    L.sort((x,y)=> s==="appearances"?y.appearances-x.appearances : s==="website"?(x.websites[0]||"").localeCompare(y.websites[0]||"") : (x[s]||"").localeCompare(y[s]||""));
+    return L;
+  }
+  if(view==="guests"){
+    let L=DATA.guests.filter(g=>matches([g.name,g.title,g.company,g.location,(g.topics||[]).join(" "),(g.quotes||[]).join(" "),g.episode_title].join(" ")));
+    const s=LS("sort_guests","name");
+    L.sort((x,y)=> s==="episode"?(y.episode_id-x.episode_id):((x[s]||"").localeCompare(y[s]||"")));
+    return L;
+  }
+  let L=DATA.videos.filter(v=>matches([v.title,v.id].join(" ")));
+  const s=LS("sort_coverage","date");
+  L.sort((x,y)=> s==="chars"?y.caption_chars-x.caption_chars : s==="title"?x.title.localeCompare(y.title) : y.id-x.id);
+  return L;
+}
+
+function render(){
+  // sort options
+  const sel=$("#sort"); sel.innerHTML=SORTS[view].map(([v,l])=>`<option value="${v}">${l}</option>`).join("");
+  sel.value=LS("sort_"+view,SORTS[view][0][0]);
+  $("#colpick").style.display=mode==="table"?"block":"none";
+  const L=curList();
+  const main=$("#main"); main.innerHTML="";
+  if(!L.length){main.appendChild(el("div","empty","No results. "+(view==="coverage"?"":"Extraction may still be running — refresh in a moment."))); return;}
+  mode==="table"?renderTable(main,L):renderCards(main,L);
+}
+
+function epChips(eps){return (eps||[]).map(e=>`<span class="chip ep" onclick="window.open('${esc(e.url)}','_blank')" title="${esc(e.title)}">▶ ${esc(e.title.replace(/RENTV |CRE Talk /g,'').slice(0,26))}</span>`).join("")}
+
+function renderCards(main,L){
+  const g=el("div","grid");
+  if(view==="advertisers") L.forEach(a=>{
+    const c=el("div","card");
+    c.innerHTML=`<h3 onclick='openAdv(${JSON.stringify(a.name)})'>${esc(a.name)}</h3>
+      <div class="row"><span class="badge cat">${esc(a.category||"other")}</span>
+        <span class="appear" onclick='openAdv(${JSON.stringify(a.name)})'>${a.appearances} run${a.appearances>1?"s":""}</span></div>
+      <div class="pitch">${esc(a.pitch||"")}</div>
+      ${(a.websites||[]).map(w=>`<div class="kv">🌐 <a href="${siteURL(esc(w))}" target="_blank" rel="noopener">${esc(w)}</a></div>`).join("")}
+      ${(a.phones||[]).map(p=>`<div class="kv">📞 <a href="${telURL(p)}">${esc(p)}</a></div>`).join("")}
+      ${(a.contacts||[]).length?`<div class="kv">👤 <b>${esc(a.contacts.join(", "))}</b></div>`:""}
+      <div class="row">${epChips(a.episodes)}</div>`;
+    g.appendChild(c);
+  });
+  else if(view==="guests") L.forEach(gu=>{
+    const c=el("div","card");
+    c.innerHTML=`<h3 onclick='openGuest(${gu.episode_id},${JSON.stringify(gu.name)})'>${esc(gu.name)}</h3>
+      <div class="kv"><b>${esc(gu.title||"")}</b>${gu.company?" — "+esc(gu.company):""}</div>
+      ${gu.location?`<div class="kv">📍 ${esc(gu.location)}</div>`:""}
+      <div class="row">${(gu.topics||[]).slice(0,6).map(t=>`<span class="chip">${esc(t)}</span>`).join("")}</div>
+      <div class="row"><span class="chip ep" onclick="window.open('${esc(gu.url)}','_blank')">▶ ${esc(gu.episode_title.slice(0,32))}</span>${gu.is_panel?'<span class="badge">panel</span>':''}</div>`;
+    g.appendChild(c);
+  });
+  else L.forEach(v=>{
+    const c=el("div","card");
+    const d=new Date(v.id? undefined:undefined); // date not in manifest; show via title
+    c.innerHTML=`<h3 onclick="window.open('${esc(v.url)}','_blank')" style="font-size:14px">${esc(v.title)}</h3>
+      <div class="kv">⏱ ${(v.duration/60).toFixed(0)} min · 📝 ${(v.caption_chars/1000).toFixed(1)}k chars</div>
+      <div class="row"><span class="badge">${v.has_captions?"transcribed":"no captions"}</span>
+        <a href="${esc(v.url)}" target="_blank" rel="noopener">open on Vimeo →</a></div>`;
+    g.appendChild(c);
+  });
+  main.appendChild(g);
+}
+
+function cell(view,item,key){
+  if(view==="advertisers"){
+    if(key==="name")return `<a onclick='openAdv(${JSON.stringify(item.name)})' style="cursor:pointer">${esc(item.name)}</a>`;
+    if(key==="website")return (item.websites||[]).map(w=>`<a href="${siteURL(esc(w))}" target="_blank" rel="noopener">${esc(w)}</a>`).join("<br>")||"—";
+    if(key==="phone")return (item.phones||[]).map(p=>`<a href="${telURL(p)}">${esc(p)}</a>`).join("<br>")||"—";
+    if(key==="appearances")return `<a onclick='openAdv(${JSON.stringify(item.name)})' style="cursor:pointer;color:var(--teal)">${item.appearances}</a>`;
+    if(key==="pitch")return `<span class="muted">${esc((item.pitch||"").slice(0,120))}</span>`;
+    return esc(item[key]||"—");
+  }
+  if(view==="guests"){
+    if(key==="episode")return `<a href="${esc(item.url)}" target="_blank" rel="noopener">${esc(item.episode_title.slice(0,30))}</a>`;
+    if(key==="name")return `<a onclick='openGuest(${item.episode_id},${JSON.stringify(item.name)})' style="cursor:pointer">${esc(item.name)}</a>`;
+    return esc(item[key]||"—");
+  }
+  if(key==="title")return `<a href="${esc(item.url)}" target="_blank" rel="noopener">${esc(item.title)}</a>`;
+  if(key==="duration")return (item.duration/60).toFixed(0)+" min";
+  if(key==="chars")return (item.caption_chars/1000).toFixed(1)+"k";
+  if(key==="captions")return item.has_captions?"✓":"—";
+  if(key==="date")return "#"+item.id;
+  return esc(item[key]||"—");
+}
+
+function renderTable(main,L){
+  const cols=COLS[view].filter(c=>c[2]);
+  const t=el("table"); const thead=el("thead"); const tr=el("tr");
+  cols.forEach((c,i)=>{
+    const th=el("th",null,`<span class="drag" draggable="true" data-i="${i}">⠿</span>${esc(c[1])}`);
+    th.onclick=e=>{if(e.target.classList.contains("drag"))return; toggleSort(c[0]);};
+    tr.appendChild(th);
+  });
+  thead.appendChild(tr); t.appendChild(thead);
+  const tb=el("tbody");
+  L.forEach(item=>{const r=el("tr");cols.forEach(c=>r.appendChild(el("td",null,cell(view,item,c[0]))));tb.appendChild(r)});
+  t.appendChild(tb); main.appendChild(t);
+  wireColDrag(tr);
+  buildColMenu();
+}
+function toggleSort(k){ // map table col to a sort key where sensible
+  const map={website:"website",appearances:"appearances",category:"category",name:"name",company:"company",episode:"episode",title:"title",chars:"chars",date:"date"};
+  if(map[k]){setLS("sort_"+view,map[k]);render()}
+}
+function wireColDrag(tr){
+  let from=null;
+  tr.querySelectorAll(".drag").forEach(d=>{
+    d.addEventListener("dragstart",e=>from=+d.dataset.i);
+    d.closest("th").addEventListener("dragover",e=>e.preventDefault());
+    d.closest("th").addEventListener("drop",e=>{e.preventDefault();const to=+d.dataset.i;if(from==null||from===to)return;
+      const vis=COLS[view].filter(c=>c[2]); const moved=vis[from];
+      // reorder within full list
+      const full=COLS[view]; const fi=full.indexOf(moved); const target=vis[to]; const ti=full.indexOf(target);
+      full.splice(fi,1); full.splice(ti,0,moved); persistCols(); render();
+    });
+  });
+}
+function buildColMenu(){
+  const m=$("#colmenu"); m.innerHTML=COLS[view].map((c,i)=>`<label><input type="checkbox" ${c[2]?"checked":""} data-i="${i}"> ${esc(c[1])}</label>`).join("")+`<label style="border-top:1px solid var(--line);margin-top:6px;padding-top:6px"><a id="colreset" style="cursor:pointer">Reset columns</a></label>`;
+  m.querySelectorAll("input").forEach(cb=>cb.onchange=()=>{COLS[view][+cb.dataset.i][2]=cb.checked?1:0;persistCols();render()});
+  $("#colreset").onclick=()=>{localStorage.removeItem("rae_cols_"+({advertisers:"adv",guests:"gst",coverage:"cov"}[view]));location.reload()};
+}
+function persistCols(){const k={advertisers:"cols_adv",guests:"cols_gst",coverage:"cols_cov"}[view];setLS(k,COLS[view])}
+
+// ── detail modals ──
+window.openAdv=name=>{
+  const a=DATA.advertisers.find(x=>x.name===name); if(!a)return;
+  $("#sheet").innerHTML=`<span class="close" onclick="closeM()">✕</span>
+    <h2>${esc(a.name)}</h2><div class="muted">${esc(a.category)} · ${a.appearances} sponsor run${a.appearances>1?"s":""}${a.aliases&&a.aliases.length?" · also: "+esc(a.aliases.join(", ")):""}</div>
+    <p>${esc(a.pitch||"")}</p>
+    ${(a.websites||[]).map(w=>`<div>🌐 <a href="${siteURL(esc(w))}" target="_blank" rel="noopener">${esc(w)}</a></div>`).join("")}
+    ${(a.phones||[]).map(p=>`<div>📞 <a href="${telURL(p)}">${esc(p)}</a></div>`).join("")}
+    ${(a.contacts||[]).length?`<div>👤 ${esc(a.contacts.join(", "))}</div>`:""}
+    <h3 style="margin-top:16px">Ran on these episodes</h3>
+    ${(a.episodes||[]).map(e=>`<div>▶ <a href="${esc(e.url)}" target="_blank" rel="noopener">${esc(e.title)}</a></div>`).join("")}`;
+  $("#modal").classList.add("on");
+};
+window.openGuest=(epid,name)=>{
+  const g=DATA.guests.find(x=>x.episode_id===epid&&x.name===name); if(!g)return;
+  $("#sheet").innerHTML=`<span class="close" onclick="closeM()">✕</span>
+    <h2>${esc(g.name)}</h2><div class="muted">${esc(g.title||"")}${g.company?" — "+esc(g.company):""}${g.location?" · 📍 "+esc(g.location):""}</div>
+    <div class="row" style="margin:10px 0">${(g.topics||[]).map(t=>`<span class="chip">${esc(t)}</span>`).join("")}</div>
+    ${(g.quotes||[]).map(q=>`<div class="quote">"${esc(q)}"</div>`).join("")}
+    <div style="margin-top:14px">▶ <a href="${esc(g.url)}" target="_blank" rel="noopener">${esc(g.episode_title)}</a></div>`;
+  $("#modal").classList.add("on");
+};
+window.closeM=()=>$("#modal").classList.remove("on");
+$("#modal").onclick=e=>{if(e.target.id==="modal")closeM()};
+
+// ── wiring ──
+document.querySelectorAll(".tab").forEach(t=>t.onclick=()=>{view=t.dataset.view;setLS("view",view);document.querySelectorAll(".tab").forEach(x=>x.classList.toggle("on",x===t));$("#q").value="";render()});
+document.querySelectorAll("#vt span").forEach(s=>s.onclick=()=>{mode=s.dataset.v;setLS("mode",mode);document.querySelectorAll("#vt span").forEach(x=>x.classList.toggle("on",x===s));render()});
+$("#q").oninput=()=>render();
+$("#sort").onchange=e=>{setLS("sort_"+view,e.target.value);render()};
+$("#dens").oninput=e=>{document.documentElement.style.setProperty("--cols",e.target.value);setLS("dens",+e.target.value)};
+$("#colbtn").onclick=()=>$("#colmenu").classList.toggle("on");
+document.onkeydown=e=>{if(e.key==="Escape")closeM()};
+boot();
+</script>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/scripts/extract.py b/scripts/extract.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9b23dc2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/extract.py
@@ -0,0 +1,224 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""Nodes B + C — Extract ADVERTISERS and GUESTS from harvested transcripts.
+
+Local-only, $0: uses Ollama (qwen2.5) in JSON mode. A deterministic regex pass
+(websites + phone numbers) backstops the LLM so we never miss a spoken URL/number.
+
+Inputs:  data/manifest.json  +  data/transcripts/<id>.txt
+Outputs:
+    data/extractions/<id>.json    per-video raw extraction (incremental cache)
+    data/advertisers.json         deduped advertiser registry (the "ad engine" data)
+    data/guests.json              per-episode guest records
+
+Env:
+    OLLAMA_URL   default http://127.0.0.1:11434
+    OLLAMA_MODEL default qwen2.5:latest
+    ONLY=<id>    extract a single video (debug)
+    FORCE=1      re-extract even if cache exists
+"""
+import json, os, re, sys, time, urllib.request
+
+ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
+TDIR = os.path.join(ROOT, "data", "transcripts")
+XDIR = os.path.join(ROOT, "data", "extractions")
+MANIFEST = os.path.join(ROOT, "data", "manifest.json")
+OLLAMA = os.environ.get("OLLAMA_URL", "http://127.0.0.1:11434")
+MODEL = os.environ.get("OLLAMA_MODEL", "qwen2.5:latest")
+ONLY = os.environ.get("ONLY", "")
+FORCE = os.environ.get("FORCE", "") == "1"
+
+# ── deterministic backstops ───────────────────────────────────────────────
+RE_SITE = re.compile(r"\b((?:[a-z0-9-]+\.)+(?:com|net|org|co|io|us|realty|group|events))\b", re.I)
+RE_PHONE = re.compile(r"\b(?:1[-.\s]?)?(?:\(?\d{3}\)?[-.\s]?)\d{3}[-.\s]?\d{4}\b")
+STOP_SITES = {"rentv.com", "rentv.net"}  # RENTV itself is the host, not an advertiser
+
+
+def normalize_site(s):
+    s = s.lower().strip().strip(".")
+    s = re.sub(r"^www\.", "", s)
+    return s
+
+
+def find_sponsor_block(text):
+    """Isolate the intro sponsor read: from the first 'sponsor' cue to the guest bring-in."""
+    low = text.lower()
+    start = 0
+    for cue in ("our sponsors", "the sponsors", "sponsors that make", "make this show", "make the show", "business to take care"):
+        i = low.find(cue)
+        if i >= 0:
+            start = max(0, i - 200)
+            break
+    end = len(text)
+    for cue in ("let's bring in our guest", "let's welcome", "bring in our guest", "let's get to our guest", "welcome to the show", "let's move on", "our guest,"):
+        j = low.find(cue, start)
+        if j > start:
+            end = min(end, j + 100)
+            break
+    block = text[start:end]
+    # cap so a missed end-cue can't feed the whole hour to the LLM
+    return block[:6000] if block else text[:6000]
+
+
+def ollama(prompt, schema_hint):
+    body = json.dumps({
+        "model": MODEL,
+        "prompt": prompt,
+        "format": "json",
+        "stream": False,
+        "options": {"temperature": 0, "num_ctx": 8192},
+    }).encode()
+    req = urllib.request.Request(OLLAMA + "/api/generate", data=body,
+                                 headers={"Content-Type": "application/json"})
+    r = json.load(urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=180))
+    raw = r.get("response", "").strip()
+    try:
+        return json.loads(raw)
+    except Exception:
+        m = re.search(r"\{.*\}", raw, re.S)
+        return json.loads(m.group(0)) if m else {}
+
+
+ADV_PROMPT = """You are extracting the SPONSOR / ADVERTISER read from the intro of a commercial-real-estate podcast episode ("RENTV CRE Talk"). The hosts read a short pitch for each paying sponsor: the company name, what they do, their website, and sometimes a phone number or person to call.
+
+From the transcript segment below, list EVERY distinct sponsor/advertiser mentioned. Do NOT include RENTV itself (that is the show's own network), and do NOT include the episode's interview guest.
+
+Return ONLY this JSON:
+{"advertisers":[{"name":"company name","category":"lender|developer|broker|law firm|insurance|title|architecture|property mgmt|events|other","website":"domain if spoken else empty","phone":"phone if spoken else empty","contact_person":"person to call if named else empty","pitch":"one-sentence summary of what they do / their offer, in plain words"}]}
+
+TRANSCRIPT SEGMENT:
+"""
+
+GUEST_PROMPT = """You are extracting the GUEST(S) of a commercial-real-estate podcast/panel ("RENTV CRE Talk"). Identify each interview guest or panelist (NOT the two hosts Steve and Arnie, NOT sponsors).
+
+For each guest give: full name, their job title, the company/organization they are from ("where they are from"), the company's city/region if stated, 3-6 topics they discussed, and up to 3 short notable quotes (verbatim, <200 chars each).
+
+Return ONLY this JSON:
+{"guests":[{"name":"","title":"","company":"","location":"","topics":["",""],"quotes":["",""]}]}
+
+EPISODE TITLE: {title}
+TRANSCRIPT (excerpt):
+"""
+
+
+def extract_one(rec):
+    vid = str(rec["id"])
+    text = open(os.path.join(TDIR, f"{vid}.txt"), encoding="utf-8").read()
+    out = {"id": rec["id"], "title": rec["title"], "url": rec["url"],
+           "duration": rec["duration"], "advertisers": [], "guests": [],
+           "regex_sites": [], "regex_phones": []}
+
+    # deterministic backstop over the whole transcript
+    sites = sorted({normalize_site(m.group(1)) for m in RE_SITE.finditer(text)} - STOP_SITES)
+    phones = sorted({re.sub(r"[^\d]", "", p)[-10:] for p in RE_PHONE.findall(text) if len(re.sub(r"[^\d]", "", p)) >= 10})
+    out["regex_sites"] = sites
+    out["regex_phones"] = phones
+
+    # LLM advertiser extraction on the sponsor block
+    block = find_sponsor_block(text)
+    try:
+        adv = ollama(ADV_PROMPT + block, "advertisers")
+        out["advertisers"] = adv.get("advertisers", []) if isinstance(adv, dict) else []
+    except Exception as e:
+        out["advertisers_err"] = str(e)
+
+    # LLM guest extraction — intro (name/title/company usually up front) + a mid sample
+    excerpt = text[:5000] + "\n...\n" + text[len(text)//2: len(text)//2 + 2500]
+    try:
+        g = ollama(GUEST_PROMPT.replace("{title}", rec["title"]) + excerpt, "guests")
+        out["guests"] = g.get("guests", []) if isinstance(g, dict) else []
+    except Exception as e:
+        out["guests_err"] = str(e)
+
+    return out
+
+
+def dedupe_advertisers(all_ex):
+    """Merge per-episode advertiser mentions into one registry keyed by normalized name."""
+    reg = {}
+    def key(a):
+        w = normalize_site(a.get("website", "")) if a.get("website") else ""
+        base = re.sub(r"[^a-z0-9]", "", (a.get("name") or "").lower())
+        return w or base
+    for ex in all_ex:
+        for a in ex.get("advertisers", []):
+            if not (a.get("name") or a.get("website")):
+                continue
+            k = key(a)
+            if not k:
+                continue
+            r = reg.setdefault(k, {"name": a.get("name", ""), "aliases": set(), "category": a.get("category", ""),
+                                   "websites": set(), "phones": set(), "contacts": set(),
+                                   "pitch": "", "episodes": []})
+            if a.get("name"):
+                r["aliases"].add(a["name"])
+                if len(a["name"]) < len(r["name"]) or not r["name"]:
+                    r["name"] = a["name"]
+            if a.get("website"):
+                r["websites"].add(normalize_site(a["website"]))
+            if a.get("phone"):
+                r["phones"].add(a["phone"].strip())
+            if a.get("contact_person"):
+                r["contacts"].add(a["contact_person"].strip())
+            if a.get("category") and not r["category"]:
+                r["category"] = a["category"]
+            if len(a.get("pitch", "")) > len(r["pitch"]):
+                r["pitch"] = a["pitch"]
+            r["episodes"].append({"id": ex["id"], "title": ex["title"], "url": ex["url"]})
+    # serialize
+    out = []
+    for r in reg.values():
+        out.append({
+            "name": r["name"],
+            "aliases": sorted(x for x in r["aliases"] if x != r["name"]),
+            "category": r["category"] or "other",
+            "websites": sorted(r["websites"]),
+            "phones": sorted(r["phones"]),
+            "contacts": sorted(r["contacts"]),
+            "pitch": r["pitch"],
+            "appearances": len(r["episodes"]),
+            "episodes": r["episodes"],
+        })
+    out.sort(key=lambda x: (-x["appearances"], x["name"].lower()))
+    return out
+
+
+def main():
+    man = json.load(open(MANIFEST))
+    vids = [v for v in man["videos"] if v.get("has_captions")]
+    if ONLY:
+        vids = [v for v in man["videos"] if str(v["id"]) == ONLY]
+    os.makedirs(XDIR, exist_ok=True)
+    print(f"[extract] {len(vids)} caption-rich videos  model={MODEL} @ {OLLAMA}")
+
+    all_ex = []
+    for i, rec in enumerate(vids, 1):
+        cache = os.path.join(XDIR, f"{rec['id']}.json")
+        if os.path.exists(cache) and not FORCE:
+            all_ex.append(json.load(open(cache)))
+            continue
+        t0 = time.time()
+        ex = extract_one(rec)
+        json.dump(ex, open(cache, "w"), indent=1)
+        all_ex.append(ex)
+        print(f"  [{i}/{len(vids)}] {rec['id']} adv={len(ex['advertisers'])} guests={len(ex['guests'])} sites={len(ex['regex_sites'])} ({time.time()-t0:.0f}s) {rec['title'][:40]}")
+
+    advertisers = dedupe_advertisers(all_ex)
+    guests = []
+    for ex in all_ex:
+        is_panel = "panel" in ex["title"].lower()
+        for g in ex.get("guests", []):
+            if not g.get("name"):
+                continue
+            guests.append({**g, "episode_id": ex["id"], "episode_title": ex["title"],
+                           "url": ex["url"], "is_panel": is_panel})
+
+    stamp = time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S")
+    json.dump({"generated_at": stamp, "count": len(advertisers), "advertisers": advertisers},
+              open(os.path.join(ROOT, "data", "advertisers.json"), "w"), indent=1)
+    json.dump({"generated_at": stamp, "count": len(guests), "guests": guests},
+              open(os.path.join(ROOT, "data", "guests.json"), "w"), indent=1)
+    print(f"[extract] DONE  advertisers={len(advertisers)} guests={len(guests)}")
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()
diff --git a/scripts/harvest-transcripts.py b/scripts/harvest-transcripts.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72679da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/harvest-transcripts.py
@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python3
+"""Node A — Harvest auto-caption transcripts for every RENTV Vimeo video.
+
+Source of truth for the video list is rentv's own library file, read READ-ONLY
+(per the DTD verdict: single source, no drift):
+    ~/Projects/rentv/data/vimeo-library.json
+
+For each video we fetch Vimeo's auto-generated English caption track (free, no
+account/token) via the viewer-JWT bootstrapped from the public profile page —
+the same trick rentv/scripts/pull-vimeo-library.py uses to page the catalog.
+
+Output:
+    data/transcripts/<id>.txt        plain-text transcript (captions collapsed)
+    data/transcripts/<id>.vtt        raw WEBVTT (kept for timestamped frame Phase 2; gitignored)
+    data/manifest.json               per-video: id, title, url, duration, caption_chars, has_captions
+
+Re-run anytime; it skips videos whose .txt already exists unless --force.
+"""
+import urllib.request, json, os, re, sys, time
+
+USER_ID = "9059207"
+ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
+LIB = os.path.expanduser("~/Projects/rentv/data/vimeo-library.json")
+TDIR = os.path.join(ROOT, "data", "transcripts")
+MANIFEST = os.path.join(ROOT, "data", "manifest.json")
+UA = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 Safari/605.1"
+FORCE = "--force" in sys.argv
+
+
+def get_jwt():
+    req = urllib.request.Request(f"https://vimeo.com/user{USER_ID}", headers={"User-Agent": UA})
+    html = urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=25).read().decode("utf-8", "ignore")
+    m = re.search(r'"jwt"\s*:\s*"([^"]+)"', html)
+    if not m:
+        sys.exit("could not extract viewer JWT from Vimeo profile page")
+    return m.group(1)
+
+
+def api(path, jwt):
+    req = urllib.request.Request("https://api.vimeo.com" + path, headers={
+        "Authorization": "jwt " + jwt,
+        "Accept": "application/vnd.vimeo.*+json;version=3.4", "User-Agent": UA})
+    return json.load(urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=30))
+
+
+def fetch(url):
+    return urllib.request.urlopen(
+        urllib.request.Request(url, headers={"User-Agent": UA}), timeout=30
+    ).read().decode("utf-8", "ignore")
+
+
+def vtt_to_text(vtt):
+    """Collapse WEBVTT to a single plain-text string (dedupes rolling caption repeats)."""
+    out, prev = [], ""
+    for ln in vtt.splitlines():
+        ln = ln.strip()
+        if not ln or ln == "WEBVTT" or "-->" in ln or ln.isdigit() or ln.startswith(("NOTE", "STYLE", "Kind:", "Language:")):
+            continue
+        ln = re.sub(r"<[^>]+>", "", ln)  # strip inline caption tags
+        if ln and ln != prev:
+            out.append(ln)
+            prev = ln
+    return " ".join(out)
+
+
+def main():
+    lib = json.load(open(LIB))
+    items = lib.get("items", [])
+    print(f"[harvest] {len(items)} videos from {LIB}")
+    os.makedirs(TDIR, exist_ok=True)
+    jwt = get_jwt()
+    manifest, ok, thin, none, skip = [], 0, 0, 0, 0
+
+    for i, v in enumerate(items, 1):
+        vid = str(v["id"])
+        txt_path = os.path.join(TDIR, f"{vid}.txt")
+        rec = {"id": v["id"], "title": v.get("title", ""), "url": v.get("url", ""),
+               "duration": v.get("duration", 0), "caption_chars": 0, "has_captions": False}
+
+        if os.path.exists(txt_path) and not FORCE:
+            rec["caption_chars"] = os.path.getsize(txt_path)
+            rec["has_captions"] = rec["caption_chars"] > 200
+            manifest.append(rec); skip += 1; continue
+
+        try:
+            tracks = api(f"/videos/{vid}/texttracks", jwt).get("data", [])
+            if not tracks:
+                none += 1
+                open(txt_path, "w").write("")
+            else:
+                vtt = fetch(tracks[0]["link"])
+                open(os.path.join(TDIR, f"{vid}.vtt"), "w").write(vtt)
+                text = vtt_to_text(vtt)
+                open(txt_path, "w").write(text)
+                rec["caption_chars"] = len(text)
+                rec["has_captions"] = len(text) > 200
+                if rec["has_captions"]:
+                    ok += 1
+                else:
+                    thin += 1
+        except Exception as e:
+            print(f"  [{i}/{len(items)}] {vid} ERR {e}")
+            none += 1
+            if not os.path.exists(txt_path):
+                open(txt_path, "w").write("")
+
+        manifest.append(rec)
+        if i % 10 == 0:
+            print(f"  [{i}/{len(items)}] ok={ok} thin={thin} none={none}")
+        time.sleep(0.35)  # polite
+
+    json.dump({"generated_at": time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"),
+               "total": len(items), "rich": ok, "thin": thin, "none": none,
+               "videos": manifest}, open(MANIFEST, "w"), indent=1)
+    print(f"[harvest] DONE  rich={ok} thin={thin} none={none} skipped={skip}  -> {MANIFEST}")
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()
diff --git a/server.js b/server.js
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..50eae22
--- /dev/null
+++ b/server.js
@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env node
+/**
+ * RENTV Ad Engine — zero-dependency Node server.
+ * Serves the advertiser + guest directory built from Vimeo auto-caption transcripts.
+ * Basic-Auth gated (admin / DW2024!, env-overridable) per DW internal-tool convention.
+ * READ-ONLY consumer of ./data/*.json — writes nothing.
+ */
+const http = require("http");
+const fs = require("fs");
+const path = require("path");
+
+const PORT = process.env.PORT || 9789;
+const [USER, PASS] = (process.env.BASIC_AUTH || "admin:DW2024!").split(":");
+const DATA = path.join(__dirname, "data");
+const PUB = path.join(__dirname, "public");
+
+const readJSON = (f, fb) => { try { return JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(path.join(DATA, f), "utf8")); } catch { return fb; } };
+
+const MIME = { ".html": "text/html; charset=utf-8", ".js": "text/javascript", ".css": "text/css", ".json": "application/json", ".png": "image/png", ".svg": "image/svg+xml", ".ico": "image/x-icon" };
+
+function auth(req, res) {
+  const h = req.headers.authorization || "";
+  const [, b64] = h.split(" ");
+  const [u, p] = Buffer.from(b64 || "", "base64").toString().split(":");
+  if (u === USER && p === PASS) return true;
+  res.writeHead(401, { "WWW-Authenticate": 'Basic realm="RENTV Ad Engine"' });
+  res.end("Auth required");
+  return false;
+}
+
+const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
+  if (!auth(req, res)) return;
+  const url = new URL(req.url, `http://localhost:${PORT}`);
+  const p = url.pathname;
+
+  // ── API ──
+  if (p === "/api/advertisers") return send(res, 200, readJSON("advertisers.json", { advertisers: [] }));
+  if (p === "/api/guests") return send(res, 200, readJSON("guests.json", { guests: [] }));
+  if (p === "/api/manifest") return send(res, 200, readJSON("manifest.json", { videos: [] }));
+  if (p === "/api/health") return send(res, 200, { ok: true, ts: Date.now() });
+  if (p === "/api/stats") {
+    const a = readJSON("advertisers.json", { advertisers: [] }).advertisers;
+    const g = readJSON("guests.json", { guests: [] }).guests;
+    const m = readJSON("manifest.json", { videos: [], rich: 0, total: 0 });
+    return send(res, 200, { advertisers: a.length, guests: g.length,
+      videos_total: m.total || (m.videos || []).length, videos_rich: m.rich || 0 });
+  }
+
+  // ── static ──
+  let file = p === "/" ? "index.html" : p.replace(/^\/+/, "");
+  const fp = path.join(PUB, file);
+  if (!fp.startsWith(PUB) || !fs.existsSync(fp) || fs.statSync(fp).isDirectory()) {
+    res.writeHead(404); return res.end("Not found");
+  }
+  res.writeHead(200, { "Content-Type": MIME[path.extname(fp)] || "application/octet-stream" });
+  fs.createReadStream(fp).pipe(res);
+});
+
+function send(res, code, obj) {
+  const body = JSON.stringify(obj);
+  res.writeHead(code, { "Content-Type": "application/json", "Content-Length": Buffer.byteLength(body) });
+  res.end(body);
+}
+
+server.listen(PORT, () => console.log(`RENTV Ad Engine → http://localhost:${PORT}  (auth ${USER}:***)`));

(oldest)  ·  back to Rentv Ad Engine  ·  harden extraction: union-find advertiser dedup, email split, 0c18e9b →