The Real Estate Espresso Podcast

On today’s show we are talking about a question that came to me on a phone call yesterday morning. The person asking the question was seeking to help another investor who has run into financial difficulty.  The question was whether a standby letter of credit could be used to help a real estate investment firm that was seeking to refinance their bridge debt into a lower interest rate permanent financing.  Given that the person asking the question wasn’t clear, I thought it would be helpful to share the question and the answer live on the show.  --------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

On today’s show we are talking about a project of ours that recently completed the zoning approval process.  This is a 20 acre site in a suburb of Salt Lake City called Brigham City. The property itself is situated next to one of the two highway interchanges from Interstate 15 into Brigham City. Immediately across the street is a new Walmart Super Center.  The total site plan consists of the Marriott Town Place Suites hotel, 120 apartments, 50 townhomes, and several buildings of flex multi tenant industrial. All of these products have to have the requisite amount of parking. It is the surface parking that ultimately determines the density that can be achieved. At one point in the design process we had proposed a larger number of apartments. But this has to be scaled back to meet the parking ratios required for a viable project.  Throughout the process, the economic outlook in the area accelerated. One of the main contributors is the newly announced Inland port.  It took a few months longer than we expected, but we have an amazing project that we expect to create a lot of value for our investors. To be clear, we are not soliciting for investment and just sharing our story about this project. This project was funded over a year ago. 

Mauricio Rauld is the founder of the Premier Law Group and specializes in securities law. On today's show we are talking about the forecast changes to securities regulations in the US. Mauricio's team performs all of our US securities work at Y Street Capital. He also wrote a new book called "Legal Strategies for Everyone" and you can connect with him through his website at https://legalstrategiesforeveryone.com/ He also has hundreds of education videos on his youtube channel. -------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Gary Vaynerchuck discusses the importance of aligning marketing messages with customer attention on various social media platforms. He emphasizes the shift towards interest-based content distribution and the need for targeted, resonant content creation in digital marketing.

Today’s question comes from Dan who asks.  I’m currently evaluating an investment in a multi-family apartment project. I’ve heard so many horror stories lately about investments going bad in the past year that I’m struggling to figure out how to perform due diligence. If you were looking to make a passive investment in someone else’s deal, how would you conduct the due diligence?  ---------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

You have probably seen the pitch on social media. I’m approached almost daily on LinkedIn. These companies and individuals are frequently offering any amount of funding from $500,000 up to $500M. Some are offering to partner with you on projects. Some are offering both debt and equity.  Offers of funding can sound enticing to those who are seeking additional capital to cover a shortfall in their business.  As always you need to do your due diligence on any kind of funding source. You need to know that they can deliver what they are promising.  Think about the potential risk that exists for any borrower who provides tremendous volumes of data to a lender including details about your real estate holdings, tax returns, a complete statement of assets and liabilities.  What if that person who is posing as a lender is not really a lender at all, but someone who is seeking to steal your identity? Have you armed them with the necessary information to make identity theft incredibly easy? Sometimes an identity theft can occur with just one or two critical pieces of information. But in this case you have given them everything.  -------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

As many of you know, in addition to being the host of the Real Estate Espresso Podcast, by day I’m the senior partner at Y Street Capital. Our firm is active across 9 states in the US and also in Canada where I reside.  It sounds strange to say this, but Canada has a much more acute housing crisis than the US. Our population has grown through immigration much faster than the US. Many Canadian cities are facing a crisis of availability at any price and it’s no longer even a question of affordability.  Unless governments are going to take over housing and socialize housing like you might in a communist country, the only free market way to address the housing crisis is create the incentives for additional supply to enter the market.  Just like in the US, Canadian cities get their power from the next level of government. US cities get their power from the state in which they reside and Canadian cities get their power from the province in which they reside.  In addition to the steps taken over the past couple of years at the provincial level, the Ontario government has a new bill called bill 185 which is aimed at  Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes. One of the obstacles to creating more supply is the red tape and bureaucracy that exists in the planning system.  Most of our listening audience is outside of Canada. In fact 81% of our listeners are in the US. I’m going over this in some detail because I believe you can influence the political process and create improvements in the development process that will benefit developers and ultimately the people who are going to live in those newly created homes.  ------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

Today’s question comes from Daniel who asks: I’m a busy professional and have several friends that also have money to invest. I am considering inviting my friends to invest along with me but am conflicted. If there are problems with the investment, I don’t want to damage the friendships. At the same time if these are good investments, it would seem disloyal not to invite my friends along the same journey. What are your thoughts on co-investing with friends and how one might structure such a venture?  ------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

There are numerous misconceptions about the oil market. As a result, we have many people including the mainstream media drawing incorrect conclusions about the economy. On today’s show I’m gong to go deep on a few of these items. -------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com

On today's show George and I are talking about the current market cycle and what signs to look for when seeking inflection points in the cycle. George was very clear. Get to the specifics and stay away from the macro discussion. But the appraisers who determine valuations don't always see it the same way. Listen to my conversation with George Ross. ------------- Host: Victor Menasce email: podcast@victorjm.com