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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.