Commercial Real Estate Pro Network

Today, my guest is Andy Matthews. Andy is a real estate lawyer at Stoel Rives LLP in Seattle, Washington, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Andy Matthews about Real Estate Law. https://www.stoel.com/people/andrew-l-mathews https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-mathews-8716453/

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you. Andy Matthews, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Andy Mathews Well, that's a great question, and I know you framed it as switching gears from our last topic, but I think there's a way in which it, it is related to the use of things like AI. And my answer is, the biggest risk that I can think of is failure to stay on top of the things that that impact you and your industry or your your realm, and that applies equally to to me and my clients. I mean my clients, like I said, you know, if we're still using the the AI example, ignore AI and its and its offerings to their great detriment. And for me, I mean, AI is one example, but just, I think, I think the the risk that I face as a lawyer. It's really easy to to spend my days, as you alluded to, you know, like, like every other lawyer out there I I charge my day is based around the billable hour, and so anything that that I do that's not a work that that is billable to my client, is something that that is outside of what are the Core expectations of me as as a, as a, as a lawyer in my firm. And yet I my if I were to focus solely on the billable hour, I would be doing both myself and my clients a great disservice, and for that reason, I spend a good chunk, I try to spend, anyway, a good chunk of every day on things that I that I don't have the ability to Bill any client for. But the purpose is to make sure that I'm staying ahead of the game, that I am aware of what's going on in the industry, that that in which my clients operate, so that you know when, when, when a client does come to me with a problem, that I am able to bring a level of expertise to it, that that is helpful to them, and that that is is not just legal advice, but advice based on a business, business judgment and business understanding of how they are operating. https://www.stoel.com/people/andrew-l-mathews https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-mathews-8716453/

Today, my guest is Michelle Hamilton. Michelle Hamilton spent 30 years as a strategic leader in commercial real estate and the AEC sector, before focusing on one of the biggest challenges in enterprise technology, the gap between AI investment and actual workforce adoption. She founded spark AI strategy to help organizations close the gap, and was recently recruited by answer rocket, a global AI transformation firm serving mid market and fortune 2000 companies to design and lead their new AI adoption and change management division. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Michelle about how to bridge the AI gap between corporate roadmaps and workforce reality. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellehamiltonai/

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Michelle Hamilton, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Michelle Hamilton I think the biggest risk. And it doesn't matter how big of a company you are, you could be a small business, a two person shop, or a 10,000 person shop, if you start investing in AI tools, technology, and you don't invest in your people and teach them how to use it for the outcomes you are expecting, then you will not realize your ROI and waste your money. It is the people that have to be invested in so that they understand how to use this unbelievable piece of technology to continue doing their job, so that they are not only creating incredible efficiencies, but it is also allowing them, as humans, to go back to being humans and not being stuck behind a computer screen for eight hours a day, but actually having their AI work alongside them so that they can continue to build business and build relationships, human to human, you have to invest in the people alongside the technology, and don't assume that your IT department is the one that should be providing that they are there to protect you, not to explain to the Business Development Division how to take it to a conference with them. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellehamiltonai/

Today, my guest is Jens Nielsen. Jens Nielsen immigrated from Denmark in 1996 and after a successful career in IT, he followed his passion for real estate and coaching and became a full time real estate investor and certified high performance coach. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Jens Nielsen about using systems and mindset to create financial returns and meaningful impact. https://jensnielsen.us/

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Jens Nielsen, what is the biggest risk? Jens Nielsen Yeah, I mean, the way I look at risk is now is little bit different. I look a lot more protecting the downside. Right in the past, it was all well here, all the ways it can go well and, you know, we can make a lot of money and so on. You know, practical experience has shown that it could also go bad, and if, when it does, make sure you protect your downside, right? So that could be, you know, insurance is one way. I mean, as I mentioned before we started recording, we just had a fire in one of our buildings that shut down the whole building for months. I mean, that's where we have to transfer the risk to the insurance company, obviously. So that's one thing. But even in deals that may not go so well, you know, we try to protect capital and so on. But if that doesn't work, are we actually protecting ourselves through, you know, doing non recourse loans and other things like that, right? So I'm really focused on right now protecting the downside, because the downside is what can crush you, the upside is what gives you wealth, right? And so that's has been that has been more and more in my mind to protect the downside, if that makes sense. https://jensnielsen.us/

Today, my guest is Gino. Barbaro. Gino is an investor, certified money coach, entrepreneur and podcast host. As an entrepreneur, he's grown his real estate portfolio to over 1900 multifamily units and 450 million in assets under management, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Gino Barbaro about multifamily investing and money coach. https://jakeandgino.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@barbaro-360

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Gino Barbaro, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Gino Barbaro That is an excellent question. I can look at risk from my own perspective in my life as when I look at risk, what is the risk of not doing something? If I had been at the restaurant back in 2008 and I would have said, You know what? It's too risky. I've got a nice little small business. I'm hanging out. I'm doing okay, and that's what a lot of people out in society right now. They have a comfortable job. They're not looking around. They think that there's no risk involved in that. Whatever you do in this world, whether you're working for yourself or you're working for an employer, there is always risk involved. Choose risk accordingly. I had that picture in my mind of, you know, becoming getting into my 60s and being stuck in a kitchen doing something that I hated. What's more riskier than that? I mean, I don't care how much money I lose and doing whatever, but to me, that picture was scary as hell. There was a lot of risk involved in that, and I didn't want to live my life that way. Now, how do you mitigate the risk? I remember being in the laundry room with my wife. It was around 2012 and I looked at her, I smelled like garlic. I just come home from the restaurant, and I said, Julia, I can't take this anymore. I need to leave New York, and I need to get out of the restaurant business. And she looked at me, and in about three seconds she said, Okay. I was shocked that she actually said, okay, but I think she looked at the pain on my face. Now, the reason why I'm telling you this story is what I proceeded to do after was to try to minimize the risk. At that point, I was all in with real estate. I said to myself, If my wife is give me the grace, and is giving me the permission to get into this venture full time. I need to give it my all. I need to learn, and I need to dedicate time and become an expert in the craft of real estate. Forget about single family homes, forget about self storage, forget about Bitcoin. Focus on multifamily, and I proceeded over the next three to four years to really become an expert in investing in real estate, that's probably the best tip that I can give you on minimizing risk, is to become an expert in whatever you're getting yourself into before you put that first dollar into an investment exhaustive join mentorships groups, go out there and learn how to become an. Investor, read tons of books, see what other people have done as far as becoming experts in that specific area. To me, that was the best thing. When she said, Yes, I couldn't let her down. And I knew that, and it's funny, because she had confidence in me. She knew that I was going to work hard. So for me to know that I'm like, I can't let her down. I can't let my family down, so that's why I plowed in. I even ended up opening up the Jake and Gino community because I knew that was a way for me to start learning. I started a podcast because Darrin gross told me would be a great idea. I wrote a book. All of a sudden, I'm learning all of these things about real estate. That's probably one of the better ways to actually start mitigating the risks is by becoming an expert in what you're doing, ultimately, you're trying to avoid the downside risk. And then for us in the real estate space, we created that framework. And I work with frameworks, whether it's buy, right, manage, right, finance, right, whether it's the three pillars of real estate, whether it's a negotiation framework that we use, you have to really understand to limit that downside risk you're looking at it, and for us to limit the risk is to have more of a long term approach. If you're trying to do something with a short window and less time, there's more risk involved in something like that. But we know if we buy an asset, we buy it with good fundamentals, we buy it in a good market that's growing, if we are able to be able to cash flow, put good debt on that. That's going to limit my downside risk going forward. Now. https://jakeandgino.com/ https://www.youtube.com/@barbaro-360

Today, my guest is Daniel Daly. Daniel didn't start in real estate, but after he scaled an automotive startup to 600 million, then built a cross border European real estate portfolio. Today, he leads a Portugal Golden Visa eligible hospitality fund focused on experiential assets, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Daniel Daly about short term rental properties. https://globalipllc.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-daly1/

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Daniel Daly, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Daniel Daly The biggest risk for investing in short term rentals in Europe, from my perspective, it's the same as any other investment in real estate. Maybe Location, location, location. So you know, the biggest risk is, did I pick the right place to invest in? That is the location where everybody wants to go. Am I in? Ring one, that avoids the risk. Ring two, minimizes the risk. Ring three, it's risky, right? You're further away. It's cheaper, yes. But generally risk one avoids risk ring one avoids most of the risk is, I want to be in a location where people want to go to, where people are visiting, where are things that they want to make their trip easily accessible, whether it's train, bicycle, walking. So that was the biggest risk is, what's the location? Do we feel confident in it and minimizing the risk would then just be if, for some reason, we couldn't afford that ring one to go to ring two. But I do everything that I can to avoid ring two. I don't want to minimize the risk. I want to avoid it by being as close as possible to having the perfect location that people want to come and stay at. https://globalipllc.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-daly1/

Today, my guest is Mark Shuler. Mark Shuler RA is a licensed architect in the states of Washington and Texas with more than 35 years of professional experience as an architect, engineer, business owner and real estate investor as president of SGRE investments, Mark pursues value add opportunities that leverage his professional background and capitalize on his skill sets as an architect and real estate investor, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Mark Schuler about the reasons why multifamily value add investing make a great investment strategy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shulerarchitecture/

J Darrin Gross So if you're willing, I'd like to ask you. Mark Shuler, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Mark Shuler I have a pat answer for that. The biggest risk to real estate is government. That's what I was alluding to. And beginning of this conversation, the West Coast Seattle is as Uber blue as it gets. You have a lot of well meaning city councils and county councils trying to address significant housing crisis that exists throughout the entire country right now. And they, rather than letting the markets Mark operate efficiently. They get in there and they they throw roadblocks in it, and we can't produce enough housing as a consequence, then we have a supply problem, and they enact rent control and other pieces of legislation that make the operation of real estate even more difficult. I That's why I left Seattle. I can't do it here anymore, specifically because of that. So that's one thing you know. You've got to look at the the risk posed by your local government, and see if that you know, if you can develop hedges against that risk. I when I first got into the business, I could do that in western Washington, but they it just became apparent after a while, there was so much legislation being layered on that the hedges were disappearing left and right, and so I made the choice that I couldn't do it here anymore. I had to find marketplaces that were more fair. And also, I will say this is a political side. I mean most politicians, politicize housing as if it's a fight between corporate interests and you know, you know tenants who don't have any control over their lives. You know, that's the nature of renting. Most operators I know are very hard working people and are doing the best they can in a pretty oppressive regulatory environment. There's no cabal of operators out there colluding and setting rents. And Berkeley just learned a big ass lesson about this where they. They tried to sue. Who was it? You know, that online platform, real page, claiming that real page was setting rent prices in the marketplace, and they were like taking them down real page. Those are, those are some tough guys, and they did not back down from a fight. Sued the shit out of Berkeley. Berkeley tucked tail and back down because they knew they were going to lose and lose big. So this issue is very emotional. It gets very politicized. It plays well on an election cycle, and so I just get tired of it. I just want to do my job. I really want to do my job and not have this white noise distraction that I have to deal with. But unfortunately, that's what that's the biggest risk I see in real estate right now. Then you you layer on top of that, this the politics in general, what I what really concerns me. Now, in addition to that, the other big risk is, this is just our political environment. It's so but, you know, bifurcated, and it's so politicized and the conversations are so extreme, there's no more middle ground, and there are only two or three things that control our entire economy, oil and bonds. And you know, if it seems like every time Trump opens his mouth about tariffs, the bond market Spike 25 basis points, I was in the middle of a refi three weeks ago, and he, he kind of went on his tariff tantrum again, cost me $250,000 that's, that's the impact bond rates have on, you know, the cost of doing business. I was in the middle of refi. I had to do nothing but suck it up and, you know, sign that loan in one day, I lost $250,000 on a refund. So government is a, you know, housing is one of the most nuanced and market driven things I can think of. It responds to supply and demand. The players are in it, who are in it, who are really good their market, they're they're watching this all the time. And contrary to popular belief, the margins in real estate are thin. They're not that great. So if the market swings wildly like that, how do you how do you do business? You can't make you can't plan for 612, 18 months down the road, which is that's the long, the length of time we think about. We're thinking in terms of multiple years cycles. And when you have this volatility in marketplace, how do you make business plans? That is in large part why we have such a housing crisis in this country that and the cost of labor, the cost of materials, has spiked dramatically. It's just more expensive to put up housing. But then you layer on all this government nonsense, this is really hard to build housing, and that's and as a consequence, supply, demand being what it is, price of housing goes up, rents go up. I don't know a developer out there that would not love to build affordable housing, but they can't afford to do so. That's my soapbox. https://www.linkedin.com/in/shulerarchitecture/

Today, my guest is Caleb. Christopher Caleb is the founder of Creative TC, DOS Guard and Creative Title Company. He's a cyber security expert specializing in creative finance, risk management and ethical business building, and in just a minute, we're going to speak with Caleb about Creative Finance Mechanics. https://creativetc.io/

J Darrin Gross I'd like to ask you, Caleb, Christopher, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Caleb Christopher I'm going to answer with a categorical answer. I think the biggest risk is any risk that you either refuse or fail to identify and seek to address, like you talked about, what bucket can I put it in? Can I transfer it or do I have to accept it? But the ones where you don't have the eyes wide open, the ones that catch you unawares, are the biggest risks. So I think the biggest risk comes from a reluctance to engage either JV partners or consultants or attorneys or any general education, leaving yourself open to be blindsided by something you didn't see coming. That is very well said. Eyes wide open and make sure you understand the risk. That's good. Caleb, where can listeners go if they'd like to learn more or connect with you? https://creativetc.io/

Today, my guest is George Thomas. George Thomas is the founder of Financial Freedom Builders, an organization helping families build confidence with money. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with George Thomas about Money and Wealth Building Concepts. https://www.thefinancialconstructor.com/