
Commercial Real Estate Investing From A-Z
Getting started with Commercial Real Estate Investing, or an experienced investor? This is a weekly podcast on the steps that I take to make my Commercial Real Estate investments (Retail, Office, Self Storage, etc) including successes and lessons learned. We cover advanced techniques for purchasing, operating, and exiting your properties, from the best people in the industry. You will learn everything you need to know about real estate investing. We are based in San Francisco / Silicon Valley and also cover how technology affects Commercial Real Estate, and how you can stay ahead of the game. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support (https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support)
Latest episodes

Jul 20, 2023 • 16min
Industrial Opportunities: Where Are They?
Why is there an opportunity for online lead generation within commercial real estate? What are some areas that you can be investing in an industrial that are showing very good solid returns and low vacancy rates? Max Fisher, an industrial broker with BRD Realty, shares his knowledge.Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/3um3kz3zWhere do you think there is an opportunity for investing in the industrial market right now?It's a tough time to invest in commercial real estate right now mostly because interest rates and the banking world are completely different and seller expectations are different today from one that where they were three years or two ago, but two deals that I've recently invested in, they're both land deals, and they're both infill sites. These are sites that are zoned industrial, but they also have the ability to build some retail. The first one was split up into four parcels to industrial and then to retail pads for drive-throughs or any other type of retail uses. So, one of those pads is in escrow now and the buyer has gone hard, that's done well. The other one, we bought for pretty cheap, because we bought it when the seller has it in escrow with the Self-Storage developer, and then the Self-Storage developer backed out. And then that was also during a time when the Fed kept raising rates in the economy seemed like it was going pretty well. So, I think like infill industrial land, and I'm also just a big believer in a Flex business park, small to medium bay, class B, class C type of industrial.Is industrial, being overbuilt right now? Where do you see the lease rates going?There are two different types of industrial products: small to medium bay and then there’s the bigger assets. The small to medium space really hasn’t been built so, I don’t think it’s being overbuilt. I think that there’s a supply issue and even in some instances, these business parks are being demolished and redeveloped for mixed use or other types of uses. But I do think in the bigger base, maybe in some other markets, some bigger markets, where there’s a lot of lands, and there’s a lot of spec development, possibly being overbuilt, but I’m very confident in business parks, and I don’t think they’re being overbuilt, and that’s fine, like Class B, Class C, industrial business parts.What are some of the things that we should keep in mind as property owners to make sure that we put on the lease and some things that are really non-negotiable with regards to industrial?Having space already clean and marketable for those prospects is most important. One of the things that we actually do is we know who that tenant wants more warehouse than an office. So, sometimes when a space comes available, and there’s more office build-out, just demo it out before you even take it out to market. Another key thing for industrial is if there’s some way that you can build some type of yar or industrial outdoor storage to complement that building, that’s a great value add to a property, you can even get higher rates and take some unused land and just create some more income that way. Overall, just creating a space that’s clean and marketable to your prospect with a mostly warehouse-less office is key.Max Fishertwitter.com/maxfisherREwww.industrialtucson.comJoin the Advanced Real Estate Investing Summit on Oct 19 & 20: www.aresummit.comUse Code SUMMIT20 for 20% off the Super Early Bird Pricing--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Jul 13, 2023 • 22min
How to Build an Efficient & Effective Operations Team for Your Real Estate Business
What should we keep in mind in creating a solid operations arm of a real estate company? How to hire the best of the best? What are the tips for creating a great company culture? Anne Mari DeCoster, President & COO at Kingdom Storage Partners & Self Storage Investing, shares her insights.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/mr3h8emfWhat are some of the biggest things that we should keep in mind with regards to building a solid operations arm of a company?It’s critical that you keep your eye on the numbers. Every software system has a management report, and the management report will tell you where dollars are leaking out. You can develop the best proforma in the world but if it’s not implemented the way you intend, because you have invisible leaks, then you’re not going to succeed the way you should, you’ll still succeed, but not as well as you should. It’s really easy to turn that over to someone else and trust them, but it’s not always wise. I’ve been heard to say that not every manager steals, but every owner is stolen from. To prevent that, keep your eye on those numbers.I’m a believer in consistency and simplicity. Whoever is running your shop, whether it’s a remote manager, or an onsite manager, it’s important to understand what are your processes, how you do them, and do them that way every time. We have a simple business model and I always encourage people to keep it simple, don’t complicate it with extra services that are logistically intensive, or manpower intensive. By keeping it simple, and having simple procedures and implementing them across the board, you up your game. Things fall into two camps: either an owner is frustrated that they can't get their manager with remote, or third-party management, or on-site to do what they want. And then others would say, I don't understand why they have a problem. And the difference between the two is accountability, people will deliver what you inspect, look at it, measure it, take a look at the MSR, if you're asking questions, you'll get much better responsiveness.What are some things that you look for when you are interviewing someone for either a low-level job or a high-executive job?That's one of the hardest things today, isn't it? We used to be very common in the workplace, pursuing excellence, being committed to doing a good job, you go to work every day, compassion is important, and caring about what you do - these are the things that I look for. And in the process of talking with people, I try to understand what their values are and see if there's an alignment of values. If you're very clear on your values, you establish your priorities based on your values, and then your decisions line up with that. That doesn't mean decisions are easy, but they line up. If you're talking with someone and you can tell that they don't value people, and if valuing people is important to you because you want people who rent from you to give you five-star reviews because you cared enough to make sure they could access their Christmas presents on Christmas Eve to put them under the tree on Christmas morning. How do you create an excellent company culture from the beginning?Culture flows from the top down. "They don't care what you know until they know that you care." A lot of that is conveyed by being really clear on your core values as a company, you know what you're about as your mission and your core values, your customer care, attention to detail, those are enough in running a property. Convey it clearly and frequently. You can't say, "we are a problem-solving organization", and keep kicking the problems down the road.Anne Mari DeCoster(480) 980-7418annemari@selfstorageinvesting.comJoin the Advanced Real Estate Investing Summit on Oct 19 & 20: www.aresummit.comUse Code SUMMIT20 for 20% off the Super Early Bird Pricing--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Jul 7, 2023 • 18min
Fannie Mae's Chief Economist Gives Economic Forecast (Part 2 of 2)
Dr. Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae's Chief Economist gave his Economic Forecast in June 2023. Dr. Duncan is the recipient of the prestigious Lawrence R Klein Award for Most Accurate Forecaster Over The Past 5 Years, he was also named by Bloomberg and BusinessWeek as one of the Top 50 Most Powerful People in Real Estate. Learn from one of the smartest economists in the U.S., who advises the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve on real estate matters. He delves into the topic of bank failures, and sheds light on what lies ahead for interest rates.Full video recording: https://bit.ly/43YaODASlides: https://bit.ly/444rIAoDr. Doug DuncanFannie MaeJoin our Investing Club: www.montecarlorei.com/investors--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Jun 29, 2023 • 25min
Fannie Mae's Chief Economist Gives Economic Forecast (Part 1 of 2)
Dr. Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae's Chief Economist gave his Economic Forecast in June 2023. Dr. Duncan is the recipient of the prestigious Lawrence R Klein Award for Most Accurate Forecaster Over The Past 5 Years, he was also named by Bloomberg and BusinessWeek as one of the Top 50 Most Powerful People in Real Estate. Learn from one of the smartest economists in the U.S., who advises the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve on real estate matters. He delves into the topic of bank failures, and sheds light on what lies ahead for interest rates. Full video recording: https://bit.ly/43YaODASlides: https://bit.ly/444rIAoRead the entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/wzyy5rc8What is the underlying theme for economic activity over the succeeding years?Each year, I spend time in December or January thinking about what is the underlying theme for economic activity over the succeeding years. The reason I do that is this isn't a check against ourselves, the actually team does this, but I want to know whether at the outside of a time period. We had a good feel for the major impulses that were underway in economic activity in particular housing, because as the business Fannie Mae is in and then we use that to test ourselves across the course of the year, what did we miss, if anything or we are just lucky? Did we just make it a lucky guess? But it's also something that we can hang the discussion on when we're talking with people out speaking. So, the interesting fact of it is the optimal number of words for that theme is less than seven. People will remember if it's less than seven words, if it's more than seven, it gets lost so this is for awaiting improvements and affordability. It's not just affordability and housing that rise in interest rates means affordability across the economy and credit affordability, that kind of issue. So, it's intended not just to focus on housing, though it certainly does apply to housing.Housing market supply issue.We believe that geopolitical change is going to lead to the restructuring of supply chains and that's time consuming and expensive. The Fed is going to be leaning against the restructuring of supply chains, and you're seeing the stories emerge now about how difficult it is to replatform your company from one country to another country to strike relationships, shipping and transportation relationships, restructuring those things can be time consuming and expensive. We felt like that we got ahead of that one before others did. That's going to be a contributor to the underlying rate of inflation for some time.What is the relationship between housing and the business cycle?There is a typical relationship between housing and the business cycle. As the Fed tightens on anticipation of the rise in inflation or in response to the rise of inflation, interest rates go up. Housing is very interesting since this is the first thing that happens: residential fixed investment, which is dynamic targeting building starts to slow; then, the next thing that happens is New Home Sales start to slow because builders are building less and so there are less being sold and then existing home sales start to slow. When the recession is full force and fit, interest rates come down, construction starts to pick up, new home sales start to pick up and existing home sales start to pick up so there's a predictable relationship. That was not the case in 2007 to 2009 because the center of the financial problem was the decline in underwriting standards in real estate so it was the core of the issue.Dr. Doug DuncanFannie MaeJoin our Investing Club: www.montecarlorei.com/investors--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Jun 20, 2023 • 18min
The San Francisco Real Estate Crisis: Uncovering the Decline
What's the state of commercial real estate in San Francisco, California? I will be giving you my personal insights of what I have seen happen to the city and what I think has led the city to its current demise.Read this entire episode here: https://tinyurl.com/mryyfc6b1. A San Francisco office building that was worth $300 million pre-pandemic is now in contract for around $60 million. And that is between 200 to 225/sf. The building next door at 550 California St is reportedly in contracts for $130 a square foot. Lastly, a friend of mine put an offer in an office building about a month ago, her offer was $75 a square foot and although she did not get the building, she ended up going to the second round, which means that people are considering $75/sf offers. Let that sink in for a bit! Rent was getting close to $100/sf per year. And now you are able to buy an entire office building for between 1.5-2 years worth of rent pre-pandemic.2. Uber announced that they will be leasing out their entire office building in San Francisco.3. Google announced that they will be shedding 1.4 million square feet of office space in Silicon Valley. As we all know commercial loans are 3, 5 or 7 year fixed, a lot of them are coming up and they have to refinance at not only double the interest rates, but also they have to refinance when their office building is completely vacant - and nobody will give you financing for that. Operators are returning the keys to the bank, or they are having fire sales which is what happened with this 350 California Street building.4. Nordstrom is closing both of its Stores in downtown San Francisco, citing the changing dynamics of the area that hasn't recovered since the pandemic and has been in the spotlight for crime.5. AT&T just announced that they're closing its flagship store, citing declining customer visits, occupancy and sales.6. Cinemark also just decided to permanently close the Century San Francisco Centre 9 and XD theater following a review of local business conditions.7. Whole Foods in Downtown San Francisco Closing a Year After Opening due to safety issues.8. Several Other Major Retailer closures since the pandemic: Saks Off Fifth, Anthropologie, Office Depot, Amazon Go, The Real Real, CB2, Banana Republic, Athleta, The Container Store, Crate and Barrel, Disney, Marshalls, H&M, The Gap. Imagine how many hundreds of 1,000s if not millions of square feet will be available for rent right now in the retail space alone in this city? But who would want to open anything when criminals can steal what they want, technically up to $950. There are homeless tents in many of these major streets. These people are on drugs, a lot of the times shooting themselves up with needles. Sometimes you're stepping on needles yourself, sometimes they're defecating or urinating right in front of you. Why and who would want to take up that space for rent and who would even be successful there to begin with? 9. Westfield Mall announces that they are returning the keys to the bank, they have been operating in the San Francisco center for over two decades. They are attributing this decision to the challenging operating conditions in downtown San Francisco, which have led to decline in sales, occupancy, and foot traffic. 10. Hilton Union Square (which is one of the largest hotels in the city, an entire block) along with Park 55 Hotel will be stopping payments on their loan.11. Huntington Hotel and Yotel were recently sold in foreclosure auctions. This is not only because San Francisco took a very long time to get out of the COVID mentality, but also, because of the crime and all of the issues with the homeless and everything else.12. People don't want to have conferences in San Francisco anymore. Hotels are struggling.Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/steffboldJoin our investor club: https://montecarlorei.com/investors--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

May 30, 2023 • 19min
Benefits & Risks of Investing in a Syndication. How to Evaluate a Deal & an Operator?
Why should a busy professional invest in real estate? What are the benefits and the risks of investing in a syndication? How do you evaluate a deal right now and how to vet operators? What are standard fees that real estate syndicators charge? Our anonymous guest shares her knowledge to us.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/bdtzrpypWhy should a busy professional invest in real estate in general?Real estate has many benefits, unlike crypto or stocks, it's a hard tangible asset and it's generally stable and less volatile. So, there will always be some value in the land and the building itself and you can use leverage or debt to purchase it. For example, if you purchase a property and borrow 75% of the property's cost, and the property value increases 25%, you've essentially doubled your money. You're basically borrowing money to generate income and grow your wealth.Real estate is also great for an investor who has a long-term horizon, it's a long-term game because real estate tends to appreciate over time, if you hold on to a property for many years, you gradually grow your wealth over time. You can also force appreciation on a property by making some repairs or improvements and you can also reduce expenses, that will help you increase value and income. Given our high inflationary environment, another major benefit of real estate is that it can be a hedge against inflation because property values tend to increase over time, especially in an inflationary environment. Leaving money in the bank can sometimes cause it to lose value when there's inflation.There are several tax advantages, such as writing off the depreciation, which is the wear and tear of a building and it's over a specified period of time. It's possible to receive positive cash flow even if you have a tax loss.How do you vet an operator?Talk to them, try to meet them on a zoom call or ideally in person, listen to what they are saying and ask yourself: are they listening to you and interested in learning about you, what is their track record, do they have experience in this particular asset class?Another good question to ask the operator is, are they co investing in the deal and if so, how much? In general, I have tried to measure their character, do they seem overly confident or do they have a more conservative mindset, are they dodging your questions or are they being open and transparent and that gives you a sense of how trustworthy they are. A way to evaluate this is to understand if they've encountered challenges or failures or how they've handled underperforming deals and what they learned from the experience because everyone has failures, so transparency is the key.The most important question to ask yourself is what does your intuition tell you about the sponsor? Women tend to be incredibly intuitive and we're very attuned to what our gut is telling us so at the end of the day, you should listen to your gut regarding a sponsor. You can also do background checks or Google them as well. Lastly, you should do due diligence on the deal itself, review the properties and locations and understand how they analyze the deal. Look at their projections for returns, are their numbers too positive? Do they seem to be over promising in terms of their returns, or are their returns much higher than average? Those are good questions to ask yourself.What's the standard fee from acquisition all the way to exit fees that sponsors typically charge?Asset management fees are anywhere between one and 2%, acquisition fees can be between one and 3%, the disposition fee is typically between one and 2% and the construction fee is typically around 5%. The total is up to 10%.Sign up to attend Fannie Mae's Chief Economist talk on June 8th: https://bit.ly/44kzfvpSign up for the Monte Carlo Real Estate Investing Club here: www.montecarlorei.com/investors--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

May 18, 2023 • 23min
How to Decrease Property Taxes When the Economy is Booming or Declining
What are some techniques in decreasing property taxes when the economy is doing great and values are going up, and when the economy is in a downturn and values are going down? How often should you request a reassessment? How to approach properties in multiple states? Nicholas Mau, Partner at FirstPointe Advisors, shares his knowledge.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/2pk8c3adWe are currently in a recession and there are two scenarios of appealing taxes: when the economy is doing great, and they want to come after you and get more money for your properties; and when the economy is going down and property prices decrease. What are techniques for decreasing taxes when the economy is doing well?You must take into consideration different factors that you have for that property, the income producing potential, what's the end place income, and comparing that to what the overall market looks like, the market occupancy, market rental rates, market cap rates, etc. Diving more specifically into the nuances of the property is going to be where you'll find opportunities when it comes to properties in an up market.The property appraiser is going to have more of the shoe on their foot when it comes to valuations in an up market. The sales are going to be supportive of higher values, the incomes are going to be supportive of higher values so this is where it really is a lot more imperative to be diligent in the review of the individual property to ensure that you're taking into consideration all of the nuances. You should look into what are some of the challenges that this individual property may have, are there little things that are not evident to the property appraiser from their mass appraisal perspective because they are required to value all the property within their jurisdiction so they're looking at the overall market factors. Market cap rate might be 4% for an industrial property, but is that the correct cap rate for the property that you have, which might have an additional risk factor associated with it, where there's near term leases that are coming due or there might be some different occupancy challenges that they may not know.There's hesitation in the community to lower values when the market tends to turn downward. Make sure that the right rental rates are being used; if rental rates have decreased, ensuring that the appropriate market rental rates are being applied; make sure that the appropriate vacancy and collection losses are being considered and that any nuances with the property in terms of near term lease expirations are being considered, or credit defaults.A lot of office properties are struggling where tenants are vacating because they don't need as much space. Property appraisers don't necessarily know these things are occurring until it's brought to their attention, so it's important to make sure that that type of information is being put forth to them and being provided to them.Sales velocity has slowed dramatically across a lot of property types in the commercial real estate world. When you have a lot of sales and you have brokers that are selling deals at 3.5, 4.5 cap rates, everybody's willing to sling out their cap rate when cap rates like that transact. When properties do transact, the brokers and property owners are a lot more tight-lipped on what is the cap rate that properties traded for because a lot of people are taking haircuts on these deals.Rely upon building cap rates through the weighted average cost of capital, or an equity dividend rate, or looking at the debt service coverage ratios and different things like that to try to come up with an accurate estimate and support for the positions that you're taking in your property tax appeal.Nicholas Mauwww.first-pointe.comn.mau@first-pointe.comSign up to attend Fannie Mae's Chief Economist talk on June 8th: https://bit.ly/44kzfvp--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

May 11, 2023 • 13min
How to Avoid Potential Lawsuits & Best Practices for Hiring
What are some top lessons learned from lawsuits and how to avoid potential litigation in the future? Where is NYC going with regards to tenant laws? What are some of the best hiring practices in order to grow a real estate company? Top commercial broker in New York, Bob Knakal, Head of New York Private Capital Group for JLL, shares his insights.Read this entire interview here: https://tinyurl.com/2wuc94kyWhat have been the top three lessons learned from lawsuits that you have seen out there? How can we avoid potential litigation in the future?The number one advice relative regarding litigation is don’t get into litigation. Nobody wins except the lawyers. Even lawyers will admit that in litigation, nobody wins. Avoid it, it would be my number one lesson to learn from. Number two, avoid litigation. The easiest is with full disclosure. The brokerage law in New York requires that the broker convey to a buyer what they know, or what they should have known. You can’t say, I didn’t realize that there was a hole in the roof, even though all the apartments on the top floor are flooded every time it rains, because you didn’t know that you should have known that. Was there a fire in the building two years ago? Was there some condition that you either knew or should have known? Do you have to convey that to the parties?Also, in New York, if you’re representing a buyer and a seller, disclose who were you getting paid by, if you’re getting paid by someone, let the other party know. You will eliminate many potential issues relative to litigation by being an open book, being transparent, communicating, over-communicating. That’s something that’s generally good in real estate, to over-communicate rather than under-communicate. Having a lot of transparency avoids a lot of potential problems. What are some of the best hiring practices? What do you look for not only from the brokers that work with you, the agents that work with you, but also from the rest of the team that supports you?Real estate is a very competitive business, and it’s also very team-oriented. We enjoy talking to people that played team sports growing up. We also like to talk to people who exhibited excellence in some type of competitive area, whether it was captain of the debating team or president of the school newspaper, or something that was a competition where they excelled. Secondly, we looked for people who didn’t necessarily have the best grades in the world or the best education, but were very motivated. We used to joke around that we would only hire PhDs. And those were folks who are poor, hungry, and driven because they were going to work hard. But besides being hungry and driven, they must have passion for the business. We have people who had a passion for real estate, not that they thought they could make a lot of money, but did real estate resonate with them? That was a big part of what we thought led to success in the business because no matter how good you are, you’re still going to have tough and challenging times. But what enables you to get through that challenging time is that you love the business. And we looked for that passion, the most important of them all.With the real estate investing mindset, is there anything else that is important for our audience to know?A broker should specialize in one thing really well. Investors should do the same. Pick an area of town, a city or region, a type of property, a type of transaction, or a type of something where you can know that particular thing better than others. This ability gives you a competitive advantage.Also, be good to brokers. There’s an expression that says mean what you say, and say what you mean. Don’t lie to brokers, don’t mislead us. Treat us with respect. And that’s a two-way street.Bob Knakal@BobKnakalbob.knakal@jll.comSign up to attend Fannie Mae's Chief Economist on June 8th: https://bit.ly/44kzfvp--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

May 2, 2023 • 15min
Is Buying Prime Real Estate at Top Prices a Good Strategy? Techniques that Buyers and Sellers Use
Why should commercial real estate brokers represent only one party? Is buying prime real estate at a top price a great strategy? What are some techniquest that buyers and sellers have used when purchasing a property? Top commercial broker in New York, Robert Knakal, Head of New York Private Capital Group for JLL, shares his insights. Read this entire intereview here: https://tinyurl.com/2jyny68pPart of your business is focused on representing one party only, can you share a little bit about that and the reasoning?Most brokers represent both sides, I've always focused my entire career on seller representation. As a broker, working with control is important. Many sellers are optimistic about the value of their property, and when the value gets down to the point where it is truly market, there are a few buyers that would buy at that price. I always wanted to work on the seller side for a couple of reasons: 1) We like to avoid conflicts of interest. We don't represent buyers. 2) I don't like to have to remember what I say to anybody. If I'm always working for the seller trying to get the highest possible price, I don't have to remember what I say. And that has worked out well over the years and as a broker to the extent that you can specialize in something, and articulate what you do and how you do it, it enables you to differentiate yourself from others. Back at the old company, we always say that we only represent sellers, we only sell properties, and we only work on exclusives. And that was very easy to convey, easy to understand, and it let clients know exactly where we stood.George Ross, Trump's previous attorney, always talks about the fact that the best deals were the highest-paid deals. Can you attest to that? And how does one go about the first couple of years of paying top price, waiting on that until it becomes the next phenomenal deal?In terms of buying property here, there used to be an investor in New York named Saul Goldman. He owned more property than anybody else in New York. I had the good fortune to meet with him back in the mid-80s when I started in the business. I said to him Mr. Goldman you own about 500 buildings, how are we able to do that? How did you amass such a big portfolio? He said Bob, I paid more than anybody else. That's the way he did it and that's the way you have to do it. I applaud him because he built an unbelievable portfolio and, even though at the time, he may have been paying a lot, in retrospect he didn't pay that much.People must have reserves. The most popular type of transaction in New York is multifamily, and often, regardless of what the cap rate is, there's very little free cash flow in the first few years. You must be able to break even. A lot of folks are counting on appreciation, but it's challenging. What are some techniques that buyers have used when purchasing a property after going in contract? What is the best way to approach it?I've seen a lot on all those transactions I've done, but I haven't seen it all. It seems like in every deal there was a new thing that comes up that I wasn't prepared for. From a buyer's perspective, buyers try to get contingencies to their transactions to the extent they can. That's rare in New York, we very rarely have any post-contract execution or due diligence. And by not having that post-execution due diligence, the contract deposit is hard when it goes up. There are times when people will make claims of breaches if they don't want to close, that's generally difficult to prove. But the most common area that creates an issue for a buyer is environmental. And there are several environmental issues we have here, we have lead paint, we have asbestos, we have potential oil leaks, and a number of buildings are still using heating oil. Some of those tanks are very old.Robert Knakal@BobKnakalbob.knakal@jll.comSign up to attend Fannie Mae's Chief Economist on June 8th: https://bit.ly/44kzfvp--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support

Apr 18, 2023 • 15min
Latest in Real Estate + Diverse Teams Do Better + Women & Men Operators
This post covers a few different real estate investing topics: what is happening in the market today, how can diverse teams make you stand out from the competition and increase revenue, and I'm also giving a quick update on our tech stack.Read this episode here: https://tinyurl.com/7evvpwe What is happening in the real estate market today?The following are four different people that are having issues that I learned about just last week:1. We are already seeing people go bankrupt in the multi-family space: 3,200 units from one operator were just returned to the bank in Houson. 2. Another big time person in the multi-family space sent an email out to their investors saying they will be doing a capital call.3. I spoke with someone else that is currently extremely busy helping several owners add value to their multi-family properties, they weren’t good managers and are now hanging by a thread, if the value isn’t added, it’s over. 4. I also met someone else that partnered up with operators, this person was responsible for raising the funds, and now the management company that the operators hired is so bad that they only have 3 months runway. This person asked them multiple times to change management companies, and because the operators think the management company is highly regarded, they are not budging. Now what? The capital raiser not only updated all of their investors on the situation that they're in, but they're also speaking with attorneys and the attorneys said to keep a record of all conversations that they're having with the partners.Why is Diversity Important?This is a very important topic because I see a lot of non-diverse teams in the industry. And it's a proven fact that the most diverse companies outperform their less diverse peers by 36% in profitability. One study by Gartner revealed that a highly diverse environment can improve team performance by up to 30%. Diversity can also lead to better decision-making and higher profitability. When I talk about diversity, I don't only mean people of different colors, I mean people of different backgrounds, countries, younger, older and everything in between, because we have experienced different teams and therefore are more creative in the unique scenarios that arise when building companies.Men vs Women: Who is a Better Operator?This is, in my opinion, the best kept secret that is not a secret: women are fantastic operators, women led companies are simply ran better and are more profitable. This is because men and women are different in nature, and that is a beautiful thing because we must work with people that are strong where we are weak.If you don’t have a woman in your exec team, you definitely must look for one, and I’m not saying this because I’m a woman, I’m saying this because we are very different by nature, we care about different things, we observe different things, and we have different strengths and weaknesses that I think, combined, make for a super powerful team. And I’m not just saying this for the sake of saying it, it’s proven that women led companies perform better, and I’ve seen this both in the tech world and the real estate world. I’ll be generalizing, but according to my personal experience, men have big hairy goals and they don’t really think about the details of those goals. Women, on the other hand, are way more careful and conservative. Imagine how we can both lift each other up to a much better place? Women will be more careful in her underwriting and more conservative on her estimates, and the guys will be dreaming big and aiming high, in my opinion it’s a great combination, and a combination that must be implemented in your company asap.Join the Monte Carlo Investing Club here: www.montecarlorei.com/investors--- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/best-commercial-retail-real-estate-investing-advice-ever/support
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