Have closed over $50mn of storage acq & dev deals as a gp.
Worked for a couple REITs in years past.
EO Atlanta.
DMs open / perry
@cornerstoragegroup
.com
Land: $500k for 2.2 acres
Logo drawn by a guy who was living in a van: $500
Construction contract: $4.7mn (way more than expected) for 76k gross sf
Building, leasing up (mostly), then selling this thing and seeing the current owner get $169 for a 10x10: priceless
The wife and I, mid-30s and bored, just hopped on a one-way flight to TX a couple nights ago and adopted this baby girl! Super easy* and highly recommended!
Cold calling an off market property owner has led me to (today) crashing at the guy's beautiful house in the country, being served dinner, shooting rifles together, revving up antique American cars, playing cards til midnight, and more.
Even if he doesn't sell, this is hilarious
Real estate developer trying to get a home loan
[Mortgage guy]: "could you get us some detail on the $18,000 auto loan balance on which you're a cosigner?"
Sure. Btw im a coguarantor on a $7m bridge loan, is that a problem?
[Mortgage guy]: "no just whatever shows up on Equifax"
Never had an employee, just agreed to hire one of my best friends on earth to do some grunt work for me, and he wants it to be permanent/grow from there, ideally. Stay tuned on whether this is a disaster.
wife is flying to the beach w the 1 and 2 yr old (good luck w that shit) and i'm taking the car w luggage and a dog
and i'm weirdly psyched about this drive. things i can do:
- abuse substances
- tweet extensively while driving
- blast Key Glock or listen to "boring" podcasts
when i was in college, Wendy's did a promotion where if you collected enough soda cups you got a free flight on Airtran anywhere you wanted. Max was 128 cups = TWO ROUND TRIPS
couple friends and i started out slow, hanging out in the wendy's dining room, asking strangers if
Friend's wife is a recent m7 MBA at a top consulting shop. "Half her b school friends" laid off from consulting jobs, f500 'vp' type jobs, etc
"Half" feels like an exaggeration but even "a lot" flies in the face of what is supposed to be a strong labor mkt right now
Year in review:
Got sued for 1st time
Adopted a baby & lived w her for months in a 1 room loft during home reno
Sold a facility for ~$9m, big win
Started construction on 2 others
Lost $ and time on a site in AZ
Co-GPing w a fellow retwitter on a ground up deal
..Wife is pregnant
While my wife is off seeing Taylor Swift I'm pushing the stroller around on routes we don't normally take.
This guy (Ed) is smoking a cigar, having a few drinks, playing 90s r&b at a good volume, he's got neon lights across his front yard. It's super nice out.
Hesitated to crack open this one (wondering if my wife was saving it for a special occasion) but said,
you know what, what's money for anyway, costs be damned...
Let's forget about the price and enjoy some of the best red wine in the world tonight
Recently wanted to talk to this 89 yr old landowner and his office told us he'd be on site at a certain project of his 15 min away
We pulled up to a cleared 17 acres undergoing dirt work and decided to park our soccer mom vehicles at the front, trudging all the way to the back
i have noticed a few examples of a guy getting very very successful as a real estate operator and then becoming unhinged and borderline crazy.
i, too, aspire to this level of out-of-control success some day
a PE fund mgr i know once said when you get your first 'liquidity event,' whatever that is, you should spend a LITTLE money on something nice (a fast car, whatever) and just get it OUT of your system.
instead, i am just gradually ramping up my lifestyle to unsustainable levels.
Executed construction loan closing docs at attny's office on the way to the labor/delivery room on Tuesday
As of this AM we've added a lil peanut to the household. Now a family of 4 plus 2 dogs.
What else can I do to ⬆️ my monthly cash burn rate? Taking suggestions.
my 9-month old crawled over to the dog bowl, put all this dry dog food in her mouth, and held it in her mouth until it got so disgustingly soggy that it made my pregnant wife throw up as she was trying to scoop it out
I was basically the first jr guy hired at a small public REIT that 10X'd in size and ultimately sold to BX at the absolute peak
This is kinda like being an early employee at a successful tech company, except without the money or prestige
A friend at JLL I went to college with, who used to be in NYC and specialize in a certain asset type, moved back to his hometown and is doing whatever deals he pleases as a generalist
Texted me "I'm selling a $495k pizza hut right now
Lol"
an apartment acquisition friend of mine toured this place in Simpsonville SC and i know the design snobs of retwit will LOVE this.
built by one of the richest developers in upstate SC, this Universal Studios-esque apt complex "in the middle of a suburban concrete jungle" of
Some new followers (5 to be exact, half of whom are likely russian bots).
Here's a random story from my earlier days in RE:
While working a $14/hr apartment leasing job during the GFC, an alum at a RE fund in NY named Bruce Batkin replied to an email encouraging me to ...(1/x)
@for_yield
Short the fuck out of these guys immediately.
When the REIT i used to work for started doing stuff like this, earnings growth dropped like a rock and they eventually got bought out and taken apart
friend is buying a bunch of acreage with a small biz tenant on it.
He met the owner of the business, they talked about buying him out of his lease for $550k.
At the end of the conversation my buddy goes "you've been super easy, why don't we make it 650 just to grease the wheels"
under LOI on this BEAST of a conversion opportunity.
the part on the right will be demo'd but the 80k sf on the left is in great shape. all that extra land is free and i don't know exactly what to do with it.
When I'm waiting on a GC to put bids from subs together, I could be wrong but kind of assume that half their job is politely "reaching back out" to subs multiple times "just following up on this" and barely getting a response
/acknowledgment half the time.
Met a guy the other day who sold his first company like 10 years ago then bought a classic "boring SMB" about 8 years ago
What surprised me:
He paid about 600k cash, all equity. None of the business loans or creative seller financing i hear about on here
He didn't take out a
You took a datacenter REIT from $1b to $15b, exiting to KKR. In the process you mastered one of the most high-tech and sophisticated asset types.
What do you do next?
Follow the capital flows/double down on tech-heavy real estate, knowing it's only in its 2nd inning? Or...
I am CRUSHING it as a dad. Brought the toddler up to the preschool dropoff with vomit all over her chest, as if they would welcome a sick child (thought she was carsick). She then threw up twice WHILE WE WERE STANDING THERE.
She was of course denied entry - apparently there is
Watching the Netflix Madoff doc and thought about how 80+ percent of victim losses were recovered. So 19-20% lost?
Isn't that about in line with the RIA/syndicator fee load on a DST raise?
I created this amazing 'graphic for dummies' to explain distribution of proceeds in a RE deal. Important distinction: if sponsor puts $ in, he will participate in both the dark AND light blue.
my dream is that
@CavemanREGuy
will incorporate this into one of his slides. (1/2)
My aunt married a man who came over from Greece at age 13 with very little money and little to no reading/writing skills
At some point as an adult he opened an auto shop. They lived cheap and he made enough that when he interviewed a financial advisor, the guy was shocked.
The small business operator of course said he wouldnt complain about that. Is in his 60s and retiring. Amazing how something that barely moved the needle for my friend's land play meaningfully changed the guy's retirement plan. What a crazy industry this is.
Wife is at an out of state bachelorette party, the 2 yr old is with the in laws. And most importantly, the weather is almost warm enough to post a tank top pic for the people on here who love the tank top pics
@gschill21
@anothercohen
The bald community, as has been defined by Larry David in the past, is generally horrified at the events of this evening.
A thread on what we can do to better bridge the gap between "us" and "them":
So lucky to live walkable to stuff like this. Felt like I overpaid for a 2/1 when we bought in 2017 and now its laughable how little we paid.
Gotta give credit to my wife for wanting walkability to a bar/coffee/etc. I guess she knows good real estate.
I followed Naval's advice that you should value your time at $5,000/hr and outsource everything that is not accretive to that.
So after a few weeks of flying private and hiring staff members to do everything for me, I filed for bankruptcy and had to take a job paying $40/hr.
There's a self made billionaire multifamily developer from the Atlanta area who uses only his own equity but heavily fees his own projects. Why?
One suggested explanation: maybe he is showing lenders that "this company" and "that company" generate revenue to borrow against?
getting avocado toast at
@jasoncoxnc
's beautiful little crepes place - ended up here as I've got family walking distance
oddly, the interior is decorated with anti-firetruck propaganda from over the years
My friend wanted to treat a late-20s single male broker for bringing a great buyer on a time-sensitive deal. Plan was to get him a brand-new X5. They both test-drove it, etc.
Broker now has a girlfriend and is leaning toward cash instead because it's more 'responsible.' SAD!
@JoeCassandra
@RaphaelKahan
I was explaining to my stepmom that I got a $1200 bike (as my first extravagant purchase in years) so my wife wanted a $1200 purse, because "oh that's nothing, there are $50,000 purses..." As if there's any excuse...
Met a guy doing urban ground-up multifamily, say 40 units, says he's getting an 8% ROC.
Self-performs a lot of it and self-manages upon completion, and might be embellishing about his yield, but I don't think he'll be going out of business any time soon with this model.
@Stu_V15
this was Stu's idea, i just had the courage to try.
so far it's almost all autoreplies and undeliverables coming back,... i did get a direct reply from
@harrisoncmac
A relative's 20 yr old boyfriend is picking my brain abt real estate on the beach. He is about to have his license and not sure which direction to run in.
My suggestion was: path of least resistance, figure out a way to make money (entrepreneurially) as fast as possible. (1/x)
The number of class a apt complexes with burst pipes managed by 'top' property mgmt co's, as evidenced by the ATLscoop videos my wife showed me, is surprising. Big hotels (and I think maybe I saw malls?) too.
We all knew it was going to be cold!
Wife is still at the beach with the kids and I'm back in Atlanta - all the usual structure is out the window, my dinner is a sandwich from a Subway attached to a Valero and I'm eating it on the curb alone at almost 10pm
I've penetrated the map room.
it was actually slightly confusing. their website doesnt have an address and the security guy in the lobby didnt recognize the name "Knakal"
got to see him crawl around on the table on his knees - that dark thing is an italian designer knee pad
here's a layout of a site i sourced/invested in, tied up, 'diligenced' etc - then, instead of building it myself, had to give to someone simply b/c i don't have this kind of capital. but at least i'll learn from the passenger seat.
density would be higher if not for zoning:
One of the richest guys i knew when i was a kid, he bought me my first set of golf clubs, was a massive wendys franchisee, arguably a real estate guy in disguise. Bought and/or built some hotels. Got big into Zaxbys in more recent years.
He died last month and while reading
This is how you win LinkedIn. Just posted this.
If anyone is interested in upping their LinkedIn game, DM me. Happy to advise for a consulting fee.
(Eric's tweet below is relevant to this)
a friend/neighbor, who has had great success in another asset class, told me right before we left a party tonight
"i can tell you're hard on yourself. and that kid is exactly like you, he IS you. so don't be too hard on him."
this made me tear up a little bit. i don't know how
starting to look like a real building these days
figured out pylon/monument sign location with a 'balloon test' (used heart-shaped valentines day balloons)
some glass on top floor corner above leasing office
can see the slew of drive-up units on the building for fun/variety
Passing on sites because I don't have enough help - but can't afford a real serious junior guy yet. Who wants to be an unpaid development manager?
Not everybody all at once now.
Driving back from beach, kid threw up... took him out and undressed him in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road
I was holding this mostly-naked baby in this jacket while my wife cleaned up the mess and she goes "you look so fucking redneck out there"
The only time i broke down in tears like a baby over the past few years was when i thought this dog was dying.
There were plenty of other things to be upset about in that moment, as life was chaotic:
- wife and 2 big dogs and i were holed up in someone's carriage house while our
You have to celebrate the little things. After closing my first couple construction loans, one of them a big challenge, I had to get something extravagant.
To this day there are yachts in Charleston named "1st Draw" -- that's what I named this '77 Honda CT70.
say what you will about Matthews brokers but i recently experienced an extravagant closing dinner with one and brought a friend who commented afterward
"Matthews brokers totally bring 80s deal energy to real estate"
we need more of this
...inexperienced guys would reach out. Surprisingly, they don't!
But I'm all ears and I know this industry is full of assholes, so maybe someone will read this and ask me some dumb questions. Because I know I did a ton of that. (10/10)
When I was a teenager living in a cookie cutter house in the burbs I had a sneaking suspicion that people who lived in the city were basically superior.
Now that I'm 37 with a small/old/crappy but expensive house in the city,
I can confirm that my suspicions we're correct.
the wife did not want to drag herself and the baby to easter Sunday yesterday so i had this photo taken at the altar in between other people's family photos
Cant believe this was 2 yrs ago.
Was talking to a guy who was adopted as a baby and he said his parents told him when he was 2. Seriously dreading that. Nobody tells you how to do it.
@ErnieBrownII
how did you handle that one??
The wife and I, mid-30s and bored, just hopped on a one-way flight to TX a couple nights ago and adopted this baby girl! Super easy* and highly recommended!
Love this guy maxin out this lot with an absolute unit of a white modern box in a neighborhood with lots of cute little historic homes (Morningside neighborhood of Atlanta)
i've now had 2 experienced commercial real estate friends, whose jobs involve deep familiarity with debt, say offhandedly about how the agencies probably do self-storage
i don't know why this needs to be said, but:
Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA do not finance storage facilities
an apartment developer friend of mine has 11 very real projects in various stages of development or predevelopment and no employees - no 'analyst' or intern etc.
his partner already owns the land in many cases so they aren't all time-sensitive, but it's still amazing
for the umpteenth time in my career, we'll open with fucking banners instead of a real sign because of sign permitting delays
but the flip side is we finished faster than expected. 6 months from demo to CofO. competitors across the street have barely started framing!
we ran
the small satisfaction i get from a nice-looking Coming Soon sign facing tens of thousands of cars/day
the 40k sf is the gross sf, not net rentable, but it sounds bigger. i just talked to a group who put out a press release about a big expansion to scare a developer down the
A college kid approached me while I was filling up my '13 Acura RDX
"Bro. That car is BUSSIN. What do you do and how do I get in??"
My response was... unless you're a 4.0 interviewing at Oaktree (doubtful given the use of 'bussin'), in which case you wouldn't need my advice:
i was almost backed on my storage deals by a big multifamily guy who tragically died the day he was going to deposit earnest money on our 1st site together. i was all ready to quit my job and office with him etc.
awesome guy. one of the reasons he was willing to roll the dice
under contract on a 6-acre, already-zoned BTR/TH rental site in central Florida at about $134k/acre. too small to pass off to a big guy so trying to take this all the way myself. wish me luck.
If you can be at peace - happy, even - eating cold spaghettios (would've been tossed as the baby didn't like them) off the hood of your car in some shit town on the way to visit a property,
you can probably sustainably make a living in real estate
Dubbed "the crown jewel of the emerald coast" by Architectural Digest, this magnificent token of design ingenuity is finally more than half full and will, lest I draw the ire of the capital market gods, be sold for a kings ransom later this year.
h/t
@FranklinST_llc
for the vid!
My brother in law is at a boutique sponsor/GP that has done really well over the years across product types in their market. I found it interesting that they continue doing the occasional ~$3-4m deal they COULD do with their own cash at this point but in order to maintain (1/2)
bout to be actually under construction again for the first time in over a year. YES!!
can't wait to roll up to the site in my boots (being sure to get them dirty during earthwork) to spend 5 minutes asking dumb questions to my construction mgr and pretending to be relevant.