Today's episode is all about the high-stakes world of real estate investing featuring our special guest, the highly successful investor Remy Raisner - Founder and CEO of The Raisner Group. With a background in finance and a knack for navigating New York City's evolving real estate landscape, Remy's insights are invaluable for anyone interested in the industry. From the intricacies of non-performing notes to the impacts of fluctuating interest rates, Remy's wealth of knowledge is sure to provide you with a fresh perspective on the business.
Remy's journey from finance to real estate is not just about dollars and cents; it's about passion for tangible assets and recurring income. We discuss the impacts of doubling interest rates and how it shocked the market, creating the potential for distress deals. His philosophy revolves around discipline in business, taking advantage of inefficiencies in the market, and the power of compound interest. Tune in to learn from one of the best.
Follow IPRG: @iprg_ny
www.IPRG.com
Today's episode is all about the high-stakes world of real estate investing featuring our special guest, the highly successful investor Remy Raisner - Founder and CEO of The Raisner Group. With a background in finance and a knack for navigating New York City's evolving real estate landscape, Remy's insights are invaluable for anyone interested in the industry. From the intricacies of non-performing notes to the impacts of fluctuating interest rates, Remy's wealth of knowledge is sure to provide you with a fresh perspective on the business.
Remy's journey from finance to real estate is not just about dollars and cents; it's about passion for tangible assets and recurring income. We discuss the impacts of doubling interest rates and how it shocked the market, creating the potential for distress deals. His philosophy revolves around discipline in business, taking advantage of inefficiencies in the market, and the power of compound interest. Tune in to learn from one of the best.
Follow IPRG: @iprg_ny
www.IPRG.com
Okay, so welcome back. We're here at the Real Estate Roundtable with IPRG Today. We have a guest, remy Reisner from the Reisner Group. Welcome, thank you. Good to see you. Thank you, we're also joined with Brian De Villa here at IPRG.
Speaker 2:My first time.
Speaker 1:First time, Thanks for having me All right of course, excited to have you on, and Steve Reynolds, and this is Derek Bestrick, so we're back, remy good to see you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, good to see you guys. Thanks for, so we just closed the deal. I guess that's why you're here. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Me and Remy. Remy buys a lot in the markets that me and Steve work in, so we've spoken a lot over the years and I've learned to know that he's one of the more active guys and good guy to work with.
Speaker 3:All right, thank you, likewise, you guys. I mean, I see you in your office. It's impressive what you built. Congratulations, and you guys have been great to work with. Yeah, thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thanks, let's keep it going. Well, it's impressive what you've built as well. You've built a nice platform where you're buying all these properties. We're speaking before the show. It's 45 properties that you've bought, correct, and I think it's probably something like 60 million plus in acquisition prices, correct? So it's great You've done the numbers for us Do you know the numbers off the top of your head.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, we have about we have 45 buildings. I can tell you our income is about 87% of the apartment income. We have 20 stores as part of this portfolio and I've never done the acquisition numbers as a sum up like you did, but I'm glad you did. Yeah, it's about $200 million now in terms of the current value.
Speaker 4:It's great.
Speaker 3:Our debt is. We don't have super high level debt maybe 55% on the whole portfolio and we're only targeting really free market apartment buildings that are in tax classes that are capped by law. So we've done that for a number of years now 14 exactly and we're in Prospect Gardens. Bed-stuy and Bushwick, that's our territory.
Speaker 1:That's it, huh, that's it for now.
Speaker 2:Just those three-year roads For now yeah, I think in Lefford's Gardens and you own the. I suppose you own the MPOT.
Speaker 3:I used to no longer. I used to own in the Bronx and I used to own in Harlem and I think it's 2015. I got rid of these and then, yeah, there were good deals, but I decided to just be focused on Brooklyn, 100%, in the sense that it was the fastest and most exciting part of the market to us at least to me and then it was easier to manage. Once you start having size over there, it starts to be able to. I mean, it's still a local business. You got to go door by door sometimes, if you're a property manager, to fix things up or receive stuff.
Speaker 4:You made the right choice, in my opinion Well yeah, so far so good.
Speaker 1:What did you own in the Bronx and Harlem so?
Speaker 3:I owned non-performing debt in the Bronx that's how I started my career, actually and I bought defaulted debt on two buildings on Washington Avenue and 171st Street in the Bronx, which is really there was not much change in that area, part of why I exited the deal at some point. The deal was great, but it was not a play where the neighborhood is changing all that much and I bought that. It was a very complex deal.
Speaker 3:I bought it from CPC, which was a local bank that was working with a lot of affordable housing developers, non-for-profit developers, and they had an issue with the loan that, just to make it short, was issued through HPD and had a bunch of restrictions and leasing restrictions, restrictions on how you completed the apartments and the tax abatement at the same time. So it was a complex purchase in the sense that you had a lot of hair on the deal, and that's what I did in the Bronx.
Speaker 1:Did you pick up the actual real estate or it was just a loan?
Speaker 3:We exited to somebody after that you sold the loans. We sold back the loans to somebody to an affordable housing, I believe, an affordable housing investor who went in and, I think, ended up restructuring the whole package, including talking to HPD, and they put these restrictions on some properties that they financed.
Speaker 1:Those are complicated deals Complicated deals, cpc, hpd restrictions Very complicated.
Speaker 3:Why did you get into that? It's a good question. I started my career buying non-performing debt and so that's for a long time. That's what I was doing for three years, basically. I started the company in 08, really get ramped up in 09 and by 010 I was doing the deal and these deals kind of. The timeline was until 2012, 2013, sometimes so a couple years.
Speaker 3:I was really a non-performing debt buyer. My background was before that was in finance. I was actually in my first job 61 Broadway, 45 Broadway, oh cool. So I was out here working for a hedge fund and I just was stranded in finance over time not real estate, and I did other things before some degree were relevant, but I was a non-performing debt buyer, to answer your question, fine.
Speaker 3:And I became sort of expert and I had the right contacts. First of all, within that world you know the bankruptcy restructuring world you need attorneys that understand things, you need brokers that understand things. And then I started being in touch with all the banks that were calling me for their loans and I happened to know the guys at CPC and then I happened to also have an affordable housing attorney working with me that was able to organize the transaction, put a good word for me because they were very concerned about who would buy these notes and they wanted the notes to be in the right hands Because they had a lot at stake. You know, the city had the I mean HPD had their name on it and there were restrictions with the deed and a lot of things that could go longer. So I ended up talking also with the through that attorney. I talked to the head of asset matchmen at CPC at the time and I had HPD at the time and I could organize the whole process, hpd being the housing agency for the city. Yeah, the listeners.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:HPD. What is CPC?
Speaker 1:Community Preservation Corporation. Community Preservation Corporation. They do. My understanding is they do a lot of stuff in upper Manhattan, in the Bronx, a lot of like affordable type of housing and it's very intertwined with the city and just in terms of improvements to the property and and regulatory type of stuff.
Speaker 3:Correct, it's a non-profit, so it's set up as a non-profit but it's a bank. And yeah, that's correct, they're very involved with.
Speaker 1:HPD. But those, those transactions in my head are very complicated. I'm sure they're not if you get the hang of it, but in my head they're very complicated. Lots of details. You really have to understand what you're doing. Compared to the small free market buildings in Brooklyn that I think they seem pretty easy to understand. That's more straightforward. I don't know if anything's easy.
Speaker 3:Listen, I actually now you're talking about it, I so, when I was working, working two doors down. I was a trader, I worked on a as an equity trader for Hedge Fund, that's before I went to business school I happened to think the New York real estate market is more complex than securities, finance markets and securities law and and you know all the all that's going on on the street because between the rent stabilization, affordable housing, tax abatements, ground up development, rehabs, Department of Building, HPD, you have so many layers of complexity that I happened to think it's a more complex industry, at least for the local market in New York Interesting.
Speaker 1:So what kind of equities were you trading when you're at a hedge fund Cash?
Speaker 3:equities, Cash equities, prop trading for a for a hedge fund that was doing pretty short term stuff yeah.
Speaker 1:That's two years. Why'd you get into real estate?
Speaker 3:So, you know, first of all, I always thought, you know, growing up, I you know, I was always attracted by the ownership of real estate. It's, it's something tangible.
Speaker 3:I was always interested, like many guys, in this business and eventually you know, my my timing was what it was on graduating business school, at MBA in finance in 08. So it's impossible to find a job and and at the same time, I actually needed a visa to sponsor myself not a US citizen at the time. So I decided this is the time to set up a company, first of all because that's what I want to do. Secondly, it's going to help me stay in a country and lastly, that's you know, I wanted to get involved in real estate and you know I thought this was the time. The crisis was a housing crisis and it was the time to of a lifetime to some degree, to to, to get involved.
Speaker 1:But why real estate of, like all the assets, like, is there like something that you just like really draws you to real estate? Besides, like something, is it just that it's tangible or it's tangible?
Speaker 3:What do you love about real estate? Ultimately, it's not going to answer your question. I love the personalities you know the personalities, dealing with the people. Everybody's so different, especially in a city like New York a diversity of opinion, of ways to work, of ownership. You meet a very big range of people. Ultimately, over the year I figured that's what I prefer, that's what I like the most, but I like. I like a lot of things about real estate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as you can tell, I love real estate.
Speaker 3:To answer your point, the ownership was interesting. It's a great way to, to to build wealth over time. You know, just just most of the Forbes 400 list is, is is pretty prominent in real estate and and and it's it's extremely tax advantage. Yeah, it's, you know, it's really something that can scale. There's really no limit in the market. I mean, you can build a portfolio as big as you want. You're still going to own a very small fraction of the real estate in the country. Yeah, and lastly, it's just you know it's a lot of fun. You deal with banks, construction, different parties. You know it's just a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's definitely a lot of personalities in the markets we work in, so Right, why'd you get into real estate? I mean, to be honest, I didn't. So I was kind of in real estate in some regard doing like construction management for, or project management for, a construction company. So I was in real estate in that regard. But I wanted to get into sales. And you know, I figured I'm kind of in real estate, I am around buildings, I was interested in development in some regard, so I wanted to get into sales.
Speaker 2:So I just stayed that route and now we're sitting here and I've been here for six years, and six good years Went from knowing nothing, and these two guys trained me, and Now you're an expert. I'm in the room. I made the team.
Speaker 4:You guys got started at the same time as that about oh wait.
Speaker 1:I started as a broker in, yeah, january of 2009, because the whole economy collapsed.
Speaker 1:I'm saying it's pretty similar For me at this time there wasn't a whole lot of other opportunities. So I'm like, okay, I'll go be a broker and work for no salary, but I was just drawn to real estate. I was obsessed with real estate as soon as I identified real estate in New York. I mean, these apartment buildings just looked like ATM machines, like all the apartments, all the cash flows. I didn't know what the cash flows were, I didn't know what the expenses were, but it seemed like vehicles that would generate recurring income and I was very drawn to that. And then the more I learned about real estate, the more I loved it.
Speaker 1:The thing is in New York City. You live here a couple years.
Speaker 3:This market, the real estate in New York City. It just seems to never go down in value. I mean, it just seems to go up and up and up, and other markets don't behave like this. But that made a big impression on me as well. It just seems to never go down in value and Brooklyn at the time had pretty much no brokerage. I mean, Massey Nackle had a few brokers but it was very sparsely brokered, Massey was a serious broker before I got into it.
Speaker 1:I got into it in 2009 and I started paying attention to real estate in 05-06 and Massey had a really good presence back then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a good presence but it's nothing like how Brooklyn is brokered today Everybody is there today.
Speaker 4:But even like today, when I got involved in 2012, all the major firms wanted someone that had experience, except the Brooklyn office. That's how I found myself in Brooklyn. I knew nothing about it.
Speaker 1:Why did you get into real estate?
Speaker 4:I got into real estate Well, I knew I wanted to be in sales and I loved the concept of cash flow, value add and the tax benefits. I didn't know at the time what I know now about each of those buckets, but my instincts were telling me there's nothing better than to buy a piece of real estate that produced income and you had others pay your mortgage. So essentially, being able to pay down a mortgage, owning a piece of real estate for essentially free at the time was where my head was at and then just build equity.
Speaker 1:That's why I always wanted to be able to own real estate.
Speaker 4:Nothing in life is guaranteed, but the idea that you can kind of strategically build your portfolio to know X amount of month what you're going to make and then hopefully just build on that and pass it on to the next generation.
Speaker 1:That's where my head was at the time.
Speaker 4:A lot of those same principles still exist today, but what. I love now is that there's, like you said, new York City. Values go up, but there's so many different avenues, there's so many different things that are thrown at us at any given time, whether it's regulation, whether it's a pandemic, and everyone thought New York City was crumbling and just each and every time to see it come back stronger and different ways evolve to make money in this business. It's all very exciting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just to backtrack, I didn't really understand real estate at all when I started in the business. I wanted to get into sales. But once I started learning the business and I'm seeing people taking loans out on buildings they already own, I'm like what is this Refinancing? And it's like you can buy a building for a million, increase the value and, let's just say, make it worth two, and then take a loan out for more than you're in for it and you're pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars, and when you bought it in the first place, the bank gave you 75% of the money to buy it to begin with.
Speaker 3:Sounds simple.
Speaker 2:Sounds simple, but I mean, that's how it works.
Speaker 1:So, remy, how did you come to identify Bushwick and Bed-Stuy and Lefkirk's Cards? Why those three markets?
Speaker 3:So the very first one was Bushwick, actually. And so to give you the full rundown finish business school set up shop. I had no idea what I was doing. I had zero real estate experience and when I started, just like you, I started. I went on Craigslist and I went for real estate listings and I just thought, listen, I'll visit a few things. And I audited a class at the business school where I was at a community university. It was a real estate class that I did not take. I was not a real estate student at the time. So after graduation I audited that class to just get a sense of what it was about. And I started calling people from Craigslist visiting a few things and I realized, whoa, this is crazy.
Speaker 3:This is not what I expected Super complex, like we said before. Bushwick at the time was really very basically neglected, rundown, whatever you want to call it dangerous, really different. The tenancies in the buildings were really different, type of people, very, all sorts of different. And I realized this is interesting. It felt like there was. It felt like there were a lot of rules on one hand. On the other hand, it felt like it was just like no rules. It was just very interesting beast, so to speak. So I really got quickly very, very interested.
Speaker 3:The more it felt like a wild environment, the more I sensed there was an opportunity. And I just talked to a lot of people in the industry. I networked my way through my business school alums, friends, friends of friends, anybody I could talk to. Conferences I could go to. It was easy at the time you went to a conference in the housing crisis. I mean you're lucky if 20% show up. It was very different. Everybody free, no problem. They would be happy. You come and just smile. And I remember the first Brooklyn conference, the Maxine Aqual. It must have been 2010 or something.
Speaker 3:Anyway, so I talked to anybody I could, and I kept hearing about Bushwick, Bushwick, Bushwick. And I kept hearing about it the artist moving there. It's changing. I kept hearing about it so I became interested. And then to a friend of mine that got hired to work in the crisis on the strike team of the FDIC, which was a team that was going into the banks on Friday night telling them on behalf of the US government that they're being shut down and auditing them. They take an inventory of all the loans and, by Monday, auctioning everything off.
Speaker 3:So to a friend that was doing that, I learned about not performing debts. I didn't know what it was. And then I was able to connect with an attorney who still works for me today which is something I'm very happy with who really kind of talked to me about it a little bit. He was my age and he was paired up with an older partner. They had a lot of experience and great education, so it was a good combo and they were looking for business, like everybody was at the time, and the more we talked the more I got comfortable with them and I cut the deal for them to represent me if I bought one of these non-performing notes, which I ended up doing, and ended up buying some of the balance sheet of what the time was called Washington Mutual.
Speaker 3:It was a big bank that went out of business. The biggest balance sheet bankruptcy, actually in terms of balance sheet, began with Lehman Brothers at the time. They went into bankruptcy and they were taken over by Chase and Chase just auctioned off everything. So they put together batches of 70 non-performing notes and everything was online with the virtual room and the database to do the allegiance things and it was a fire sale. You had four days to close, 10% deposit, non-refundable closing cash. You just had time to clear a title you know barely, and then the deal was yours. And I mean I didn't start with capital, so I cobbled my way through. I was able to meet small investors and then bigger and bigger and eventually put together a very small pool of capital to purchase one and eventually I did a purchase in four days at the time and ended up non-performing that owner.
Speaker 3:Essentially I ended up being a bank. So I entered the risk of being business by being a bank, which was not my expectation. But in hindsight it was the right way to do this and you know you're a little bit stunned. You know you got your first deal, your first title to a note. You know your first investment. It took me a year to put together and it felt like crossing the desert. But that's how I entered the market and that's why particularly Bushwick had targeted that area, because of what I mentioned.
Speaker 4:Was that note in Bushwick?
Speaker 3:It was in Bushwick. Yeah, secured by a six-unit building. Small start, but you know very when you put it into context.
Speaker 4:I think you know tell me if about six units in Bushwick were probably going for anywhere from three to five hundred thousand back then.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:In some cases a little bit more yeah but I mean. So did you end up doing? You sold the note or you.
Speaker 3:We ended up going all the way through the court process and taking back the property you took it back.
Speaker 3:And then we went and worked with the receiver. I understood what a receiver was, which is somebody appointed by the courts to oversee a property on behalf of the court. We worked with them, I went to introduce myself, I told them listen, you know, we want to take care of a building, we want to restore things. Can you prepare the road for this, as opposed to just the contrary? And then eventually we transitioned into ownership. You know, we introduced ourselves to the tenant. You know to tell them listen, it's going to be okay now, the building's not abandoned anymore. Fix things up and then refinance. And then I had a second debt purchase that occurred in the meantime, a third debt purchase. Eventually I started growing a portfolio and the market shot up. And what happened? Is that about the debt at a discount about fifty-five cents on a dollar, borrowed money or raised money from investors and my ten percent. The first deal was very tiny, it was 250 grand, to your point.
Speaker 3:The property we thought it would be worth this.
Speaker 1:The loan was 250?.
Speaker 3:The loan was 250. Very small on a six unit building which today would be.
Speaker 3:You can add a zero easily and we thought we were concerned whether the property would not be worth this. So it's very different era, very different. And eventually, basically, I had borrowed, either raised or borrowed the capital to buy it. I had nothing. So once that appreciated value, I was able to borrow again to pay the investors a pretty handsome returners they were happy about, and then take control of the debt myself. Eventually, the building had no partner and then that's how I could grow and the price of the debt went up, the price of the collateral went up and we ended up with the collateral. So that was good. Wow yeah.
Speaker 1:How long did it take from when you got the loan, the note, until you were able to take ownership of the property? It was a three year process.
Speaker 3:It took a while and during the housing crisis you had so many properties in foreclosure the courts were jammed. It was like during COVID, with evictions or problems with partnership disputes or lease disputes for people. The courts were so jammed that by the time you're done with the court process, it's a good three years, all right, so that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:I had no idea that that's how you got into real estate and I love that. I mean what a good experience to get just going through the entry door that direction.
Speaker 3:It was very. I mean learning. These things are really, really interesting. It gets you really an insight on the business world, banking, all that stuff For sure, and it's very interesting yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, we were talking before we started recording, so we've sold you a couple properties. We sold you a mixed use property on Fulton Street Correct Three apartments in the store Correct that was a nice building. And then, as we mentioned last week, we closed on an eight unit right, correct, bushwick, bushwick. It was a new building. It was newly built 2014 built. Correct With no tax abatement. Right no tax abatement. So it was a new free market. Eight unit building, so congratulations.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you Likewise Thanks for the opportunity Brian brought that to me. Appreciate it, and I think you brought me the one on Fulton.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Appreciate it Of course Bring some more Open for business. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're coming.
Speaker 1:Anything you guys want to share on the property from last week? I mean I think that was seems like great property. As far as I could tell, yeah, we're happy with it.
Speaker 3:Obviously, we purchased it, so we're happy with it. We you know, we buy on a my main metrics is to buy on a price per foot basis. That's the number one driver for us. We paid for 69 of foot for this. And the markets where do you see the market for this? On the low end, it's 700.
Speaker 4:You know, for the new product We've been selling between 700 and 900 foot for these.
Speaker 3:Okay, so that's where we think the market is. We're conservative, so let's say on the low end 700, and then we look at replacement cost. I want to buy things below the price they cost to rebuild. That's how I can last, that's how I can have pricing power in the market. When things get rough, like COVID, I can justify lower rent and still be in the black. So so you know, basically you would buy the land over there, maybe 150 foot. You would build for maybe 400 foot there. So you're only at 550 foot. So we're below these two numbers. So that's why we that's how we screen our properties in the first place. And this particular building well, listen, it had some history in terms of the ownership that had been in the news for having been part of a bankruptcy that was discharged. But basically, very much from my background in bankruptcy's purchases and non-performing notes, I got quickly comfortable with the discharge order court and all this stuff. So you know we're happy to proceed with the purchase.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's in the department Under 500 foot is. I mean, listen, it wasn't. It's not the top of the quality, I think units that are on the market right now, but I mean by no means are they in bad shape.
Speaker 4:I mean the units are right.
Speaker 2:But, I think 2016 construction, maybe 2015. So I mean for under 500 foot, I think it's a great deal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, we're happy with it. Yeah, the units don't need much, we'll just spruce them up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Maybe install washers and dryers and dishwashers. You know the usual playbook for us.
Speaker 4:I was going to say from what I've noticed, that you buy typically the building is. It needs just like a little TLC, but they're renovated for the most part and you get them at this price per foot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, we've bought from you guys. Yeah, we've gotten involved with a bunch of.
Speaker 4:I've seen the one off Unfulton. You like doubled the rent there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, fulton didn't need much, but we're thankful to the former property manager there. He was kind enough to let us get involved and talk to tenants. It was very useful for us. And then, yeah, it's good bricks. And then you know we got lucky because they're putting together an $800 million office project in front of the building basically. So our retail should do well, because you'll have more just more density, more people coming. I think it's called the restoration plaza the. Bed-stuy right on Fulton Street, so yeah.
Speaker 2:But you're doing some gut renovation job. I know you said that that building on an ocean avenue.
Speaker 3:We've done a number of them. I just don't want to have too many at the same time because it's heavier work you have to do more oversight, more involved. And also we have certain people we trust for construction. We keep them busy. We don't want to overstretch them, but we've done a much. We've done a much. We have a presence on Austrian Avenue.
Speaker 2:We've done a bunch of good renovations over there, so that's.
Speaker 3:Prospect Leffert's gardens. We're very optimistic about what this area is becoming, Even in terms of the tenants and the people moving there. We feel it's turning into pork slobber. People that are coming are really affluent Software developers, people that work for tech companies and in other capacities. It's very interesting the friends that live there now. I think this area really, you see Austrian Avenue it's still in transition. Nevertheless, every new store becomes something spectacular. Some of the restaurants are really actually somewhat the best in the city, Really, yeah.
Speaker 4:And to tell you, in terms of the type of people that are moving in, we just got done selling a development site over there. I think it was like 60 plus thousand square feet on Fenimore, new York Avenue, and we got a sneak peek at something like the renderings or what they're trying to build. They're like duplex units, huge spaces, looking for people to move families or homes, or you have the hospital. You have a great transportation on the four, five train, two, three.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's turning into a medical hotspot around Sweden downstate. And now the hospital is selling its land, which for a long time sat vacant buildings on it, and now it's you know, douglistan, I think announced a big project over there.
Speaker 2:Or something like that Of the top amount 400 something units or whatnot, the town's horn.
Speaker 4:It's a horn. Yeah, that's part of the hospital. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I believe, and there's another big one on Clarkson. Yeah, it's definitely moving there, and the hospital itself is. You know, they have a biotech startup lab now like an incubator. They have a lot more than before. It's exciting over there.
Speaker 1:So just getting back to location, drill quick. So you skip over Crown Heights in your portfolios. You have Bushwood, Bed-Stuy and then Lefferts. There's nothing wrong with Crown Heights.
Speaker 3:I just never got an opportunity to get involved.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:And then, once I anchor you, know something in Prospect Lefferts.
Speaker 3:We kind of try to stay around if possible.
Speaker 4:I mean Crown Heights historically has low inventory. You know even though our years of like we've way outpaced in terms of selling in Bed-Stuy Bushwood, or even, you know, lefferts, flatbush and Crown Heights.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's happened with Crown Heights is, you know, on the western side it's changing a heartbeat around Franklin Avenue. It's become fantastic and I guess I didn't catch that wave and I can catch them all and that's okay, that's okay. And then east of that, you have two or three blocks with very, very beautiful historic real estate and I'm outbid by any home buyer there. It's not for me. And then you go further east. What's happening not a lot of people are aware of is you pass Utica Well, you have a bunch of housing projects that's probably going to be improved, but they will always be housing projects and pass Utica Avenue. You have a lot of buildings that were built with what we discussed before 30 to 40 years regulatory agreement and the tendencies won't change, or the profile tendencies won't change for that amount of time and for that reason it lags a bit. So what's now called Weeksville because the brokers of partitioned Crown Heights into two, what's called Weeksville is lagging a bit.
Speaker 3:Eventually it might change, but it's still the highest ways to go. For this reason I never got a chance to get involved.
Speaker 2:What about? I mean, I was just curious like East Williamsburg or like Ridgewood. I mean, we consider Ridgewood like a sense of a bushwick. I mean East Williamsburg. There's like venues over there that people say it's bushwick, even though it's not. But I was just curious about that.
Speaker 3:East Williamsburg. I've gone close to a few things, never pulled the trigger or never finalized. It's good. We just happened to have more in Bushwick and we just focused there. And actually what we've done. We bought a lot in Eastern Bushwick and Eastern Besty because it was a third of the price of East Williamsburg and half the price of Western Bushwick, for example.
Speaker 3:So we focused on East Bushwick and that popped actually during COVID because it became like a party nightlife area illegally at first, then legally, and then it picked up the area next to Queens, actually by the cemetery by Ridgewood and Ridgewood same thing. I've gotten close to a few things, but I never pushed hard to be in Queens. I always thought the zip code had value and we see that on the rents. When people look for apartments on streets. We see these on the sales sides or the banks. The Brooklyn zip code and it's our brand that we're uniquely in Brooklyn Got it, so the Brooklyn zip code is value for us.
Speaker 4:The rents are higher in Bushwick and your tax are lower. Ridgewood's almost double the tax.
Speaker 3:Correct, correct because these buildings were assessed long ago and when, like Ridgewood's always held up and Bushwick or Bed-Stuy were really well, really didn't hold up and the values were very close to not so much. So the assessments that were grandfathered in are on very low numbers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're across the street and Street Easy registers the properties in a different neighborhood, it can have a serious impact on the rents and on the property value. So it's just interesting how they draw those lines and it's like in your head you think the neighborhood is encompassing maybe a broader area, but then Street Easy says it's not Absolutely All right. So what percentage of the portfolio is retail, Our retail?
Speaker 3:income is 13%.
Speaker 3:So we're apartment owners primarily, but we like the retail it allows us to. First of all, we see the tendencies and the incomes that are in the apartments and we see that the our neighborhoods are completely under retail. Arguably Brooklyn is one of the most under retail areas in the country. But we see the incomes, we know what's come in. Then we become more interesting in buying some retail for the upside also to control our portfolio better, especially the corner retail, the most valuable I can put in a next liquor store or something like that. Or I can put in a nice restaurant or gallery or something that's going to add to the community, which I prefer. It protects our portfolio as well. And then, generally speaking, it's good to have a mix. The more we grow, the more we want to be a little bit diversified, even though we're apartment owners. That's our bread and butter business.
Speaker 1:Do you look at retail like when you're underwriting deals? Do you have to look at it like totally differently than how you're looking at the residential income. Is there like a different mindset or skill set? Very different.
Speaker 3:First of all, I would only be on major streets. You know, nostra Avenue, maybe Franklin Avenue, niko Barker Avenue in Bushwick, fulton Street, really the major avenues from Flatbush. That's where the retail, I think, is really going to fulfill its potential. And secondly, it's more volatile, you know. First of all, you can stay vacant. I mean apartments you rent quickly, it's a matter of weeks most of the time. Retail, it's really a matter of months and you can stay vacant for a long, long time. When COVID hits, you can stay vacant for more than a long time. So that's number one.
Speaker 3:Number two you have to understand, you know so. Once you're a tenant, that's great. You have a broker to pay and that's a bigger check than for an apartment. Many times the tenant would pay the commission for apartments maybe not in Brooklyn or Marques, but in most of the city Retail is different. You have an agreement, you pay 4% of the lease or something around that number over time or whatnot, but the cost of brokerage is much higher. And then, on top of it, many times the tenants come in and it's a common thing for the landlord to offer tenant improvements, ti. So they come in and they get one, two, three or more months of rent for free, negotiated so when you add everything I said together you know, you could be looking at a long period without income.
Speaker 3:And if you make a wrong decision on a tenant that doesn't work out, whether he's, you know, for X or Y reason and back to square one. So you have to be careful and also it's less bankable income than apartments. Banks cash you out or finance you less properties with retails than solely apartments.
Speaker 1:Well, do you know the calculation for refinance on retail Like? Is it higher vacancy? Is it higher debt coverage ratio?
Speaker 3:Listen, in my experience, it's mostly two things. We tend to number one. It's banks are more likely to ask you personal guarantees on the sponsor when they're not making use building as opposed to full apartment building.
Speaker 3:Okay, many times, not always, but many times at least in terms of the stuff we buy. And secondly, you know, especially on I mean in my experience the LTV tends to be more around 65 to 70% and it's easier to go to 75, very few times 80% on apartment purchases. So that's the. These are the two main differences that I've seen.
Speaker 1:And in terms of TI, is that mostly free rent or is it actual like comp money as well?
Speaker 3:Well, it's a couple months of no rent. Basically it's a rent abatement, got it, and that's an industry thing, I mean it's commonly done, and the idea is that let's say let's say I want a building and you have a restaurant and you'll tell me okay, remy, I need three months for my restaurant of no rent. I need to set it up, I need to bring in a kitchen, I need to bring equipment, I need to hire cooks. I say, okay, I understand.
Speaker 3:I don't want you to have income and be able to generate income, and this is when the rent start. It will negotiate, and or you come to me and say listen, all right, I want to open a. You know, I want to open a hair salon. Give me three months, I'm going to tell you. Listen, you know, you just need to put in some booths and that's it. You know you need a few weeks maximum, but after that you should be ready. It's not as extensive of a setup, so so the negotiation is made in light of the needs of the tenants and the landlord Got it.
Speaker 1:How about all these, these two families and three families and four families that you bought? I feel like a lot of people object to buying buildings under five units. Once you start to get into the residential space, I think people you know investors a lot of times think it's more difficult to finance, I don't know. Other complexities go along with just like the residential you know labeled residential under five units. More complexities go along with an asset class, but you have, you have so many of these.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've bought I mean, we focused mostly on this and also some some buildings have a couple more units because they're mixed use, but most of our buildings are like this. I always thought this is the part of the market that's very neglected, okay, and therefore I decided to go into it and I you know for what you're saying with regards to financing, I haven't really seen a difference. Yeah, and it's a volume business. You know, once you start having a big enough put for you, can, you can manage better, you can refinance them better because you can, you know, bring 30 million dollars of properties to a bank, and it's a much bigger, much different consideration. You open yourself up to the CNBS market, things of that nature. So, yeah, that you know. For us, we've loved the opportunity. It's become popular. We have their love. Institutional buyers now, yeah, buying these.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've done this for a long time. Look the team 2014, 2015,. We're buying on. We're buying rent stabilized properties over larger size. We're converting them and you know I always wanted to do positive things and it didn't feel good at the time to do this. The city was coming asking us, asking our tenants if they were harassed, or the ratios, and it didn't feel good doing business. So we stopped doing that. We stopped, we stopped purchasing these properties. We purchased properties that were free market by the nature and also smaller by the nature, because that that many time came together. We've tried to buy really historic housing stock, you know, fully good-looking, interesting and really with character Brooklyn style character and restore that to their standard.
Speaker 3:You know, so it's a mix of business investment, private equity, historic preservation you know all that together, yeah, and, but we've loved the opportunity that you know. We've loved the market.
Speaker 4:Would you say that space has gotten more competitive since 2019?
Speaker 3:So it's gotten more crowded. For sure, we talked about it before the show it's gotten more crowded because Wall Street is buying that. Now it became a popular strategy. People have noticed that this has been the shining star in the in the rest of the market. You know, over the last 10 years, with what happened in New York real estate, the rent loss, the politics, people have had very different results. That's been a fantastic result. So it's gotten more crowded.
Speaker 3:I still find the opportunities, you know, to be quite frank and and I don't feel the market is picked over Things change, you know like like one example, like I don't know what you guys feel, but you know now New York in the summer for business is not as busy as before COVID. I feel that's a great opportunity. We're out there, you know, try to try to buy properties and try to do things. So you know, change with the time. Or in the winter, you know a lot of investors tend to take off. So we want to be here, we want to be active when people are not here and you know, over time, things over time, I've consistently felt that the opportunity was still there and I also felt that it was changing, but it's always been there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was gonna. I think you just kind of touched on it, but I was gonna ask, I guess you you never really got involved, or at least that I know of everyone buying the six units, tenant buyouts, you know getting these units, not so much since 2014, 2015,.
Speaker 3:You know, it's just. I don't want to say we saw the 2019 laws, which which really made the stabilization permanent for apartments in the in the state. I don't want to say we saw that coming, but long before I didn't feel like doing business in the conditions that we're developing.
Speaker 1:So obviously interest rates have gone up a lot over the past few months. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, that's what everyone's saying.
Speaker 1:I mean, I had a call with a mortgage broker today and he made it seem like banks aren't even lending. He basically made it seem like a lot of the regional banks are just sitting on the sidelines. He made he named some, some big banks that haven't issued term sheets in months. So like, what are your thoughts on interest rates? I mean, I know that obviously it impacts the pricing and the debt coverage ratio and the amount of debt available and the pricing and all that, but any thoughts or anything that you could share on interest rates or loan maturity?
Speaker 3:Yeah, listen a lot, a lot. Look the reality. They're definitely doubled. So they increased the fastest space for the last 40 years since March 2022.
Speaker 3:So now we're in July. We're going towards a year and a half of increases. Doesn't look like it's fully finished. I mean it's it's, it's it's. It has been a big shock to the market. You'd get really quiet. So the rates have basically doubled, but the reality is for non-stabilized properties or developments or things like that, it's really triple or or refinancing of things that are not completed. So it's a big change for the business. Thankfully, we've never taken short-term financing. I mean, the deal would just close a seven-year money. That's really as short as I would take it Just out of being conservative and having a lot of different properties and I don't want to spend a lot of portfolio of close to 50 buildings soon. I don't want to spend all my time on one property or two. It's a management thing. So listen, everybody's expecting high distress. We'll see. There's so much capital waiting to be deployed on the sideline that at some point, the animal spirits will probably take over and people will start doing deals. You can just a lot of capital waiting to be deployed Enormously, enormously.
Speaker 4:The whole world, arguably, is waiting to do.
Speaker 3:The whole world, arguably, is waiting to invest in real estate. I mean investors here, investors that I talked to in the Middle East, investors in Europe. Everybody seems to be like we're waiting, we're not doing deals and we're just waiting.
Speaker 1:Are you seeing distress deals?
Speaker 3:Not as much as you would think would happen in these circumstances. I don't know what you guys are seeing, but we're not seeing as much as the playbook would say.
Speaker 1:We're not seeing it, I mean it's just like, I think, we can identify where people have potential issues. And everyone's just kicking the can down the road right now, just kind of waiting to see, like the Washington.
Speaker 3:Journal this morning there's a big article about how the banks are asked to. I mean, the Fed is asking the regulators or asking the bank to work with their borrower.
Speaker 1:Oh really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, office buildings are others, which obviously office buildings are the most troubled and it seems like the banks are working with the borrowers.
Speaker 1:They are Like accommodating on debt coverage ratio requirements and it seems like banks aren't putting people into technical default banks.
Speaker 3:I haven't heard much of that, yeah and they could, they could you know, but it seems like that's not what they want.
Speaker 1:They just want the borrowers to pay and hopefully find a way out of this. I guess at the back end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and also with the. I mean, look everybody. There's so much potential breakage of coverage ratios and other things like that. If banks start to do this, I imagine it could be systemic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's more than just one person's problem?
Speaker 3:Oh, it's everyone, the entire industry. Yeah, it's a big industry issue, the entire countries in this boat together.
Speaker 1:We all have the same exact issue. Everyone has the issue where we can't afford our debt on these buildings.
Speaker 3:I mean, these buildings don't cover If they were to refi cash and refis that's the main impact for us is that we've been set up for refinancing a bunch of properties and we're sitting on loans that were made in the last three years and it starts with a 3%, and we're not refinancing them Because, first of all, we just prefer at this stage to keep the loans and paying double and the equity would pull out would not be the same as what it would have been 18 months ago. But that's part of the game and in the meantime, I feel this year is a year to buy. When people are not buying, definitely we're happy to buy.
Speaker 4:I was going to say as a broker's perspective any time there was limited activity from buyers the ones that bought we always turned around two, three years later and we're like, wow, like they did it right yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, some of our best purchases were made in the crisis all night I mean away all night and a couple years afterwards. And then in late 2020, fall 2020, we started being aggressive again on the purchase sides when a portfolio had to become stabilized because of all the madness that happened with our tenancies and vacancies. But once I felt like this was starting to show some stability, in September 2020, we went and we bought things and look, any time I walked in the building and I'm the only guy to visit, I'm the only possible buyer. I mean, this happens once every 10 years in New York City, a market like here that's so busy, as here, so I recognize right away this is the time to go.
Speaker 3:And then it paid off pretty handsomely. So to your point.
Speaker 2:I mean I think also that market you're in that, call it one to $2,000,000, $3 million market. I mean you see the headlines and it's all. Real estate violations are down. Commercial real estate's 90% down. But my friends ask me oh, you're in real estate, how's it going? Expecting me to say it's terrible. I mean, maybe it's a little slower but a lot of deals are doing 1 to 10 million. It's still pretty fluid.
Speaker 1:We're having. Yeah, like Remy asked how people are asking how's your year going. I mean it's going OK, it's not going bad.
Speaker 4:I mean it's definitely slower than last year. But I will say I think it goes back to what you mentioned, where we've essentially created this niche of some of the smaller buildings that at one point a lot of brokers weren't going after. This is something we've always gone after.
Speaker 4:Yeah, even before the rent loss. So the same as you buying this kind of product. I think it kind of gave us an advantage to get almost a head start. I was thinking I mean I'm curious to hear what you say across your portfolio. But the rental market, is it still climbing? Have you felt it plateau?
Speaker 3:I mean overall this year it's very strong. It's hard to say whether it's higher now than last month or whatnot, but overall it's a strong year, I think, stronger than everybody expected. It's a mathematics thing. You have no supply. You really have none for the last three years. You're not going to have any because 421A tax abatement went away. So you're looking at a period of time. It's supply and demand and you have a very limited number of free market departments that can actually turn. Million apartments in the city, or a third of the housing stock, is rent stabilized. It's not available for anybody that would want to come live in New York City. So that free market supply is not growing and more and more people still want to come back to New York if they left or live in New York or they're like.
Speaker 3:Amazon or other tech companies are telling them to start an employee. It'll be five days in the office or you have to repatriate towards the New York headquarter or office. So I think for that the rents are momentum.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we've covered a lot. I don't have a whole lot more to go over. I mean, I could obviously keep it going, but it is getting a little warm in here. They turn off the AC at 5. But anyway, I feel like I've learned a lot in the past year. I feel like I've grown. What's amazing about real estate is I feel like I'm constantly learning, constantly growing. There's always new things that are coming up, new deals that I'm learning on, new buyers perspectives. I'm just wondering, in the past year, going back to the summer of last year, is there anything that jumps out at you that you really feel like you learned about real estate or the market in the past year?
Speaker 3:This is a very good question. Hopefully, I learn every day. Yeah, that's my goal In the past year specifically. I guess it's the first time I see things really changing very fast on the right side, really really fast. Obviously, none of us or our generation have really lived this, whether it was the stock market or other investments or real estate or private equity investments but this rate change really was really between March last year and I guess the summer. It just went up so fast and I guess people were used to so different that the takeaways that can really move fast and I just rate something that I knew. I haven't really learned it, but when you need to exit, exit quick, as soon as possible when the markets are there. There's no time to wait because you don't know when the market can come back or will come back after a slowdown. Yeah, I think that's a great point, my whole brokerage.
Speaker 4:Career rates have been 3%, if not lower, just above. And you almost get into this groove of how can something go wrong? Or anyone can buy Renault, refinance. This game seems easy. You start to see a whole different tone right now and rates are still historically at a low point if you look at the grand scheme of the entire graph over time. But it's really like you said, how quickly it went from three to seven and you have to adapt.
Speaker 1:You know, when I got into real estate I always heard you can get burned by taking on debt. All the old school guys always told me don't over-leverage assets like conservative financing. It got so tempting over the past few years to just max out the leverage. It seemed like interest rates are going to stay low forever, rents would keep going up. And here we are where it just changed so fast. It is a serious learning lesson to see what it does and I never understood the second order and third order consequences of what happens when the rates go up and what that means for loan maturity even liquidity in the market for us as brokers. So it's interesting to actually live through that because it's one thing to note in a book.
Speaker 3:We don't take any short-term financing, like I said before, very happily so that's another take away of last year. It's a long-term business.
Speaker 1:What is short-term financing to you?
Speaker 3:I try to avoid really anything below seven years fixed rate and most of the time 10 years is the minimum I really look for.
Speaker 1:Got it, Brian. Anything for you that you feel like you've learned? I just had a question. Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2:What is the Razner Group exit plan Like?
Speaker 1:is there a point in time I'm not asking the explicit here the portfolio is sold and you go off into the sunset. What do we?
Speaker 4:have to do for the business.
Speaker 2:No, because I know I called you once and you got the Carlisle Group. They're paying big numbers for renovated properties, free market, and it's like what you own. And I remember you said I'm not a seller.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I no problem. Is there an exit plan?
Speaker 3:Well, listen, first of all, yeah, in general we're not really interested in selling. We just want to build, build, build. I will never. I will listen to offers. I'm not going to turn down an offer I cannot refuse, but we don't really have a motivation or an incentive to sell. But to your question, listen.
Speaker 3:I've always approached this with a very long term mindset. So we've been at it for 14 years and the portfolio is what it is and it continues to grow and accelerate and we have very big ambitions that can carry that on for a long time. So, portfolio sale perhaps one day not immediately, unless somebody really comes with a very interesting number. But I happen to be very interested in urbanism, in how neighborhoods get formed and develop, and now I'm in a position to contribute and even drive this. So that's very exciting. And we built a reputation. I mean, nothing's overnight in real estate. It's a slow-moving business. You need exits to build a reputation. By itself it takes a couple of years. So we've built all that. So I'm still thinking in the. My mindset is we've built the foundations for a much larger business from here on and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 3:But in terms of the direction we would be picking, I'm happy to stay in Brooklyn for now. Population is all time high Again. The job creation in Brooklyn is all time high. It's exciting as a market as I've ever seen any, and you can still do so much.
Speaker 3:There's so many areas that are still neglected today in Brooklyn that are next to trains, that you have big development sites. You can scale and we're in the best city in the world in terms of many, many things. So I'm excited to continue bigger and stronger, and then we'll see. Maybe at some point there'll be time for us to do things in other parts of the city or even other parts of the country, or even maybe internationally. We'll see. But we've established a brand of you know. Our rental units are a certain way, have a certain look, and we've established a brand with that design that we can carry through in many different geographies. Eventually, and right now we have. I mean, when I've started the business and any business I've always either looked into or invested in or been interested in my first question is how scalable is this and, thankfully, the rest of the business, or Brooklyn for that matter you can scale absolutely extensively. The depths of the opportunities is what really gets me excited.
Speaker 4:It's interesting. What comes to mind for me is just the discipline of the business plan. Right, we've seen buyers come go last a long time. Some have started small and they always get the itch to go big or go to another asset type Ground up development. Let me go to Manhattan and each time I see you buy it seems like that makes sense. I picture what a Rajner Group building is and when you buy it I'm like that fits the portfolio to a T. So I think one word in my mind is just discipline to the business plan, because you keep sticking to it, everything you describe to us, and I foresee you probably continue to do that for a very long time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hope. Listen, I'm glad you pointed out. Thanks, that's what we do. My game is the compound interest game. That's my game. It's not really real estate at the end of the day. I play the compound interest game and that's how we've scaled. And I always thought I started the company and I graft on Excel potential, pass and you realize the numbers over time get exponential and it is what it is. So I'm glad you pick up on this. I'm very disciplined. I mean I want to be ideally going one direction and that's how practice makes perfect. So the more I do the same type of building, the lower my risk is on the next deal, the higher my success is and eventually people join me to work with me or in different capacities and that's very exciting and rewarding because I feel that a lot of people want to work with people that feel are very solid anchors in their businesses and going a clear direction. So I'm glad you pick up on this.
Speaker 4:This is a strategy.
Speaker 3:We go one direction and stick to it.
Speaker 4:It's not broke, don't fix it.
Speaker 2:You taking new investors?
Speaker 3:We always are.
Speaker 2:You going in. I mean, I heard you say once I literally heard you say if Remy buys a deal, it's a great deal.
Speaker 1:I think Remy's got such a good eye, or good nose, for these properties. I think everything I've seen him buy, I thought it was an excellent property. It just really made a lot of sense. Well, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:It comes through excellent brokers. He's not just saying that.
Speaker 2:I heard him say that before. No, I haven't said it.
Speaker 4:There's buyers in the market.
Speaker 1:I've said that. I've said that in the office numerous times over a very long period of time. There's buyers in the market where you see what they buy and just like I like that, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Every single purchase we've bought below replacement costs and below construction costs and below the market price. I'm sorry. So yeah, we've tried to be as consistent as possible, so I appreciate the eye.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just so interesting the inefficiencies in the market because every property you have to pay the most, but at the same time there's still so many inefficiencies where you could get really good value.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're not the only one to say like these are your deal metrics right, but not everyone is performing or acting on these deals. That's good to say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, human nature plays a role. People get bored, people want to do different things, people want to try ground up, people want to try different geographies. I'm fine with doing what I'm doing and continuing and it's part of the plan and we'll see, but I'm comfortable. Really, I think that's my strength I can go one direction for 14 years now.
Speaker 4:I think it's competitive.
Speaker 3:And we'll see where things go. But yeah, the answer to your question is we want to really start really scaling when conversation with some capital partners to really get to the next level. I need to hire property managers in-house at some point because we've had all third parties so far. At some point it makes sense to consolidate that. Anybody listening is welcome to protect me. Send a resume. We're picky but we're solid.
Speaker 1:Some free advertising here for you this is what we're here for. No, Can we talk a little bit more about your discipline? So I feel like we kind of uncover the little something. So I know you're a professional basketball player, but how much are there things that came up when you're younger that got you to be very disciplined, or is this just a natural part of your personality? Is there anything else you could share about that?
Speaker 3:Listen. A very good question. So basically, sports for me it's been the biggest school for life, for business and my personality. I guess I've always been very competitive, maybe something my father installed into me. He was very successful in his own regard and I came to this country as a basketball player. I was 19, and I decided to stay and I always wanted to be here for the opportunities in sports and elsewhere, and also as an immigrant. You really learn quickly Like, listen, you got to pay the bills, you got to work, you got to move, otherwise you'll be in trouble or you'll just go back home and that's not something that would have been pleasant. But to your point. Sports, really, that's where I learned discipline.
Speaker 3:I played professionally, starting when I was 16 in France, which became a big country for basketball. At the time it was just picking up, but it's a competitive place and then I tried to play in the NBA here. That was the plan. I had an injury. I stopped my career but I came here playing sports.
Speaker 3:I was in the gym at 6.30 in the morning doing 1,000 three-point shots every morning, practice 2 and 1 half hours per day, and then I was doing extra lifting weights for an hour and a half Would be maybe doing extra in the evening, working on the jumps and high jump and other skills, and I've always been trying to approach this with the high, high, high level of regularity and that's been my strength. Like I was playing sports, I'm 6'4". I'm not a big guy for basketball there are thousands of players that are 6'4". This is really almost a random height for basketball but my strength was really to be able to grind through a lot of circumstances or challenges in sports and elsewhere through this Just being even today.
Speaker 3:I'm like clockwork in the gym four times a week. I'm in the office every day at 7.30. I'm six days a week in the office On their Sunday. That never really changes. Or I'm out in the field two or three times a week. People are nowhere to find me. That's very, very consistent. I'm glad you pick up on this. That's highly reflected in our business and that's our style and people that work with me have a similar style and I guess that's why we get along and work together.
Speaker 1:Is this something that comes naturally for you, like? Is it easy, like when you're back in the gym with basketball? Is it easy for you to have that amount of consistency? Or was it like?
Speaker 3:something you had to struggle with. No, it's hard, you've got to discipline yourself, but it makes me feel good. There's nothing like the feeling of a job well done.
Speaker 1:Compounding the gains. Yeah, just the feeling of a job well done and going places, and it's personal satisfaction.
Speaker 3:Unless you brought it up, I wouldn't talk about it. But that's how I sleep well at night. I know the job is well done and I'm doing, hopefully, positive things and stay focused, and it's very exciting.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like repetition in sports translates to the same kind of outcomes in the business world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great school. Sports is a great school and you learn discipline, you learn to deal with people, you learn to think quick.
Speaker 2:I mean there's a bunch of people in our all. I think you just look across the industry. I mean just a lot of brokers.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I play baseball in college.
Speaker 2:I mean we've got lacrosse players here wrestler.
Speaker 1:I mean Steve's brother is wrestler, so yeah a lot of business comes down to discipline and consistency and just kind of being able to deal with it when it gets boring and it gets hard and you're not having the easy successes, and just continuing to go through and stay at it with discipline and consistency. Yeah, yeah, absolutely it's a huge part of success in business.
Speaker 4:Especially in today's market too. It's not easy, so. I think, those who keep sticking to their routines and the consistency will pay off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially in a business like realistic. In New York, 9 million people, 26 million in the whole area, I believe, like you got to find your niche and stick to it. It's so complex and otherwise so big. You get lost if you don't harness yourself somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, cool. Is there anything else you'd like to add to the discussion?
Speaker 3:Listen, it's been a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed the show. All right good. Happy to have you here. You guys have great reputation. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2:All right, excellent, let's keep progressing. Sounds good. I want to do some more business.
Speaker 1:Good, all right thanks so much, remy. Good seeing you Likewise, likewise Jump. Thanks for reading.