Commercial Real Estate Pro Network

Today, my guest is Travis Watts. Travis is a multifamily apartment investor, public speaker and the Director of Investor Development at Ashcroft Capital.  And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Travis Watts about Lessons Learned Through the Market Cycle 2022 to 2025.   speakwithtravis.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/traviswatts1234  

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Travis Watts, What is the BIGGEST RISK?   Travis Watts I would say, in 25 we talked a lot about market and rates and the discounts, and you know why we're bullish, or why I'm bullish on multifamily, I would say it's more than ever. It's the operator that you're about to invest with. Okay, do they have a lot of distress on their books? Are they losing properties currently? Are they not? Not that any single answer to that is like a red flag and rule them out. But you want to dive a little deeper and make sure that they're dedicated to staying in this business. Because what we've seen is a lot of these student deals and programs and things, folks that got involved in 21 and 22 doing their very first deals are some of them are walking away from the business. You know, they gave it a few years. They're not making money. They're leaving it behind to do something else, and they're for selling properties or they're foreclosing. So you just want to be, you know, up on your due dilig

Today, my guest is Danielle Ash. Danielle Ash is a partner in the real estate group and co chair of the ground leases practice as well as the impact practice at Adler & Stachenfeld, a law firm based in New York that is solely focused on real estate. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Danielle Ash about Demystifying the Reality of Affordable Housing Returns and Risk Profiles. https://adstach.com/attorneys/danielleash/  

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Danielle Ash, what is the BIGGEST RISK?   Danielle Ash Well, I'm going to give a self serving answer, and then I'm going to give more of an investor based type answer. So the self serving answer, I think, is, you know, people come to me from all different sectors of real estate and at all different parts of their career, from early stage developers, sponsors to, you know, super high net worth sovereign wealth funds, who've been investing for 50 plus years. And I do think one of the biggest mistakes or risks that people face is not having good counsel involved in their transactions, having transactional counsel who has the combination of wanting to explain the risk to you and able to do it in a way that you understand, and also not getting in the way of the transaction Just to look smart or kind of win the point. You know, there's a balance of trying to identify risk and be creative about how do we structure around that risk? How do we get you the protections you need? How d

Today, my guest is Mark Goldfinger. Mark Goldfinger is the General Manager Head of North America at Mindspace, a global flexible workspace provider that redefines the workplace experience for companies of all sizes, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Mark Goldfinger about flexible workspace solutions.   https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-b-goldfinger-mba-7aa73928/  

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Mark Goldfinger, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Mark Goldfinger I think it's great question. I think in the co working ecosystem, or in the flexible office space, you know, ecosystem, I think one of the biggest risks is landlords starting to take on the opportunity to create their own turnkey sublet solutions for smaller companies, and kind of take business from us. Now, I don't think that they're able to really run the hospitality arm that we are, because that's not their business, and we put a lot of pride into that. But I think that's definitely one thing we look at. I think the other thing is really looking at, you know, do people continue to believe in human interaction and being back in the office environment with people, and I think as long as they are willing to agree that that is really valuable, then I think we can continue to run and drive this business and agree that the sky is the limit.   https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-b-goldfinger-mba-7aa73928/  

Today, my guest is Chris Zona. Chris Zona is a partner at Mandelbaum Barrett PC in New York, and a trial attorney specializing in Complex Commercial Litigation, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Chris Zona about Turning Conflict into Capital Litigation as a Real Estate Investment Tool.    https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-zona/ https://mblawfirm.com/professionals/christopher-t-zona  

J Darrin Gross  I'd like to ask you, Chris Zona, what is the BIGGEST RISK?   Chris Zona Sure. So I think it really fits within what we're talking about. I think the biggest risk for investors that are in this this realm is that you need to be comfortable with taking over a potential non performing note, right? Like there is no way to avoid risk when you're making this sort of play. So what you need to do is kind of, you know, balance minimizing the risk through your diligence process, because you don't want to take on something that you're not ready to you don't want to overextend in taking it on, and then kind of balance that with the, you know, maximize your return on whatever risk, wherever in the risk matrix that you fall right, they always say higher risk, higher returns. Was very true. You know, if you're going to buy a very, very non performing loan, you're going to be, you know, probably up on the tier of of the extension of capital, and you need to mitigate whatever risk, make sure that you have a ca

Today, my guest is Travis King. Travis is the founder and CEO of Realm, where he is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the organization with a particular focus on culture, strategy and investments.  https://www.realmlp.com/  

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Travis King, what is the BIGGEST RISK?   Travis King It's a great question. It's actually really hard to try to encapsulate it in one thing, so maybe I might give a multifaceted answer, if that's okay with you. One thing I would say that is paramount in real estate, and I alluded to it earlier, is the only real way I know to lose money in real estate is to lever inappropriately. So leverage at the end of the day, that's how you lose control of your properties, right? And that happens. So then I you peel that onion a little bit and say, Okay, well, how does that happen? Right? How do you run into problems there? And I think there's two main areas that I would focus on as kind of sub points. Number one is going to be making sure that you're checking your assumptions and making sure that they stand up in a lot of alternative scenarios you might not have considered, right? A perfect example was back in, remember, during the housing bubble of of 2008 when everything popped, they

Today, my guests are Bill Kannatas and Ben Salzberg with Self Storage Developers. And just a minute, we're going to speak with Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg about Self Storage from Dirt to Doors.  https://self-storagedevelopers.com/  

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you Bill Kanatas and Ben Salzberg, what is the BIGGEST RISK?   Bill Kanatas I look at two different risks, one as an investor slash investment, and one is a developer slash development. Um, so if we're talking about the development aspect first, because, as I mentioned earlier, Ben and I spend our money up front first, before we go to the investors looking for their money, we do a lot of work upfront to mitigate that risk, and in any development, nothing ever goes perfect, as much as we think it's going to be great. It's not going to rain tomorrow. We're going to have sunshine for three weeks, and the bulldozers will be out there, and all sudden, we get rain for three weeks, and the holes we just dug flood, right? So you gotta be able to have that in your underwriting. Right? So when I tell somebody it's going to be 10 to 12 months, you know, I underwrite it 14 months, in case we have an additional four months of interest reserve or operational losses. So we try to mitigate all

Today, my guest is Philippe Lanier. Philippe Lanier is the principal at East Bank Inc, a DC based developer with 2 million plus square feet of trophy office, luxury retail and residential assets in the greater DC region. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Philippe Lanier about commercial real estate's evolving intersection with technology and culture. Eastbanc.com  

J Darrin Gross  I'd like to ask you, Philippe Lanier, what is the biggest risk?   Philippe Lanier Just to answer, because you gave me a little bit of a chain, one of the first important steps sitting in my feet. And to simplify for your audience, if you are an owner, you are an owner of real estate, is to recognize that the world changed and you lost a lot of money, and not bury your head in the sand. The value was fundamentally changed, and it's not coming back. And once you can emotionally get over that, you know, then you're then you're thinking about how to apply what I know and what I have left to rebuild it and to create something great. And that's where we are right now. I think the worst is in theory over and then, how do we reassess where we are as owners, what we've had lost, and how do we build something new? The you know, the biggest risk is if you haven't absorbed that, but you think that help is around the corner, if you run out of time, then you're out of the game. If the banks foreclose, then

Today, my guest is Josh Bauchner. Josh is a partner in the landlord tenant and litigation practices at Mandelbaum Barrett PC in New York. He brings a depth of experience and dedication to his practice, where he's involved in complex commercial litigation and class action lawsuits, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Josh Bauchner about the Nuisance ADA Lawsuits. https://mblawfirm.com/  

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Josh Bauchner, what is the BIGGEST RISK?   Josh Bauchner Well, the biggest risk here is getting sued by one of these serial plaintiffs, with one of these attorneys who's just in it for for the fees. To answer your question, I think ADA compliance planning, bringing in one of these testers, like we discussed, to assess the premises and make any determinations as to what's not compliant, then do an assessment as to what the cost would be to potentially bring it into compliance. Is it something that you could readily do, putting up the handlebars in the bathroom stall, for example, perhaps changing the front entrance door to provide handicap accessibility, or is it cost prohibitive? If the bathroom is downstairs and you can install an elevator, there's really no way around that to gain access. And then the challenge becomes with respect to shifting that burden, the landlords are doing that right. So in most lease agreements, most commercial lease agreements, the landlords are

Today, my guest is Jennifer Brener Seay.  If you're a developer who wants your projects to become more than just buildings, today's episode is for you. Jennifer Brener Seay is the founder and CEO of Art Plus Artisans, who's rewriting the playbook on real estate development by transforming commercial real estate. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Jennifer Brener Seay about the ROI of Art. https://artplusartisans.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-brener-seay/  

J Darrin Gross If you're willing, I'd like to ask you, Jennifer Brener Seay, What is the BIGGEST RISK?   Jennifer Brener Seay So I'm going to give you two Darrin, one of the biggest risks, I think, is just having solid contracts, and the contracts are there to protect you from all different kinds of risks. So, you know, we're a small business. We've been in business for for 23 years. I think for a long time, I had a very simple contract that I don't think was probably protecting me from what could go wrong. And it was actually a real estate developer friend of mine, as we were going after and winning these bigger and bigger projects, you know, 15 floor ground up brand new builds, and we were going to be installing huge sculptures, he was like, You need a better contract. You need a better contract than this. So we really have worked to strengthen our contracts, to protect us, to protect the artists, to protect the clients, and in addition to that, or as a risk to the business and the economy, I, as a business

Today, my guest is Blake Rogers. Blake Rogers is the co founder at Steel Peak Properties. Steel Peak is a Southern California based real estate investment firm focused on acquiring and improving industrial outdoor storage assets throughout the western US, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Blake Rogers about outdoor storage properties.    https://steelpeakproperties.com/  

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Blake Rogers, What is the BIGGEST RISK?   Blake Rodgers Sure. So I think in in our space, we say this all the time to to our investors, because they ask us this question as well, what? What's, what do you think the biggest risk is here, guys with this asset class? For us, it's really, since we're buying single tenant deals. I think it's the single tenant nature of these deals. We're buying vacant sites a lot of the time. So the risk for us is you either lease it or you don't, and you either do it in the amount of time that you said you would or you don't. So that, I think that for us is just being hyper focused on, you know, how long is it going to take us to do this. What are all the other, you know, properties in this market leasing for making sure we have all the data and that we're and we're underwriting the amount of time that we need to to lease these up, and that we're buying a product that these tenants want, and that's not going to sit there for a long time, becaus