Latest / Carson's Corner: Entrepreneurship & Investing / Lending Where Banks Won't: Speed, Risk & Returns with Brian Walter

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Lending Where Banks Won't: Speed, Risk & Returns with Brian Walter · Carson's Corner: Entrepreneurship & Investing

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is a market around execution.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Our guest today is Brian Walter, co-founder of Fairbridge Asset Management, and a seasoned finance leader with more than 25 years of experience in credit, real estate, and institutional investing.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be honest, I mean, there's only so many ways to value real estate.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: And most people that know what they're doing are not going to be too far off from one another.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: What you really need to do is execute.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: If you can't execute, that's when you have problems.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_02: And every default we've ever had in our history is a lack of execution.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: You started your career uh in Wall Street at Lehman Brothers, traded through some of the wildest cycles.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: What did those moments teach you about risk?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And how have they uh guided your principles today at uh Fairbridge?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've been um been in the market since 1996 when I graduated business school.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I've seen a lot over 30 years.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: What they really tell you is uh three Sigma events can happen, and they certainly in my 30 years have happened maybe a little more frequently than people thought they could happen.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: And the key that I've learned is you've got to be able to survive through that dislocation before we get back to normality.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where good risk practices come into play.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever go a little higher risk with more money down, like say, hey, you know, this is a little risky, but we're gonna make them put 50% down or 40%.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Is it even worth it at that point?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Think about the risk in this market as there's a lending life cycle, right?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: And if you think about real estate finance in its simplest form, there's two buckets there's non-income producing assets and there's income producing assets.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: The income producing asset world has a very cheap source of financing, whether it be Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or banks in the non-income producing asset, which is the world we play in, does not.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Where are we in the real estate credit cycle right now?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: What has you cautious versus optimistic?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, are there any asset classes that y'all are more like, hey, we we really like this right now, or what are you saying?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh crap, run.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, it gets riskier.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: You see oversupply and different stuff going on.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: So what's your take?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I think it's a couple of Welcome to the Carsons Quarter.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I'm sitting here with Mr.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Brian Walter with Fairbridge Capital.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: He is um a private lender, and he's going to the New York Knicks game tonight.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh NBA Finals.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, what game is it?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: It is game four.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's the series at right now?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've got Knicks two, San Antonio one.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: So pivotal.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome, man.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I gotta ask a really nosy question.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right out of the gate, how much do you pay for that ticket?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: They had something on the news earlier this morning.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: So well, we fortunately uh have uh a half half season tickets uh with the company.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_02: So this comes with the package, so I only had to pay face.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: My my friend Gabe, he's uh he's a younger guy.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: I saw him out in front of it and I asked, Are you going?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I saw the ticket prices.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I understand if you don't I went to the NBA finals uh when the Mavericks were there, they got beat by the heat, but I was there like game two.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think they actually won it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: So uh so a little bit we were tempted tempted to sell them, but uh experience is more valuable.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't disagree.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you started your career uh in Wall Street at Lehman Brothers, you know, uh traded through some of the wildest cycles.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um what did those moments teach you about risk and you know what h how have they uh guided your principles today at uh Fairbridge?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I've been um been in the market since 1996 when I graduated business school, so I've seen a lot over 30 years.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: What they really tell you is uh three sigma events can happen, and they certainly in my 30 years have happened maybe a little more frequently than people thought they could happen.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but you know, a lot of the time the playbook has been written on how to you know resolve those uh three sigma events and bring us back to some sense of normality.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the key that I've learned is you've got to be able to survive through that dislocation before we get back to normality.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's where good risk uh practices come into play.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we have uh investors of all different levels, uh from MA uh investors, you know, all the way up to family offices and institutional capital.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when you refer to Sigma event, what what exactly are you talking about there?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Just for educational purposes.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, it started out for me.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um certainly there was the uh Latin American crisis in 1998, the Russian crisis in 1999, and the ruble and the Thai bot and things like that.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh obviously you had the internet bubble in 01, and then we kind of fast forward to the great financial crisis of 08 and 09 when I was trading uh the credit index product at UBS.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I was kind of epicenter of uh that crisis and fund flows and credit.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh, you know, then obviously we hit COVID uh and then the fastest rate rise in uh recent memory back in 22 and 23.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, not all of those were three Sigma events, but they were some Sigma events.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't disagree.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was about to interrupt you and say the largest uh rate increase in uh world history, but I don't know that it was.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just seemed like it was pretty it was pretty drastic.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I know that.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the name of the game lately has been lending where banks won't.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a lot of what you guys are doing.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, how do you see regulation going with the banks?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Probably getting tighter.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: It always seems to get tighter.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, where do you think how's this set up for uh private lenders?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you see private lending going and where do you lend right now?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: What all what asset classes are you focused on?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that was a lot, sorry.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's all right.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: That's all right.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I can hold a few things in the head at the same time.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh look, from a macro basis, um, I come from corporate private credit uh after my days uh at at Lehman Brothers in UBS.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: And uh really the the game there was regulation after the great financial crisis, you know, Dodd Frank, Puzzle 3, etc.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh CFOs went to Aries and Blackstone, got direct loans, and didn't go to broadly syndicated market, and they never went back.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was more driven by regulation.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: Now, the real estate market, um, when I switched over to that in 2018 and started Fairbridge, uh, is really driven by regional banks.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's the big player in our market.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there's always been a place where regional banks can't compete with speed and ease and flexibility.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a good market when I started it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: But when 23 hit and Silicon Valley Bank happened, and uh uh some of the other bank uh issues, First Republic, etc., happened, uh the regional banks pulled back.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: And now the biggest player in our market, uh, which started acting like they were gonna be regulated, uh, and more acting more conservatively um backed away and private markets filled the void.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's really a repeat playbook in real estate private credit that you saw on corporate private credit.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: So um are there any asset classes that would kind of surprise people that you're getting into?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is it mostly real estate?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is it like 90% real estate or it's all real estate uh collateral?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's where you are in that real estate collateral.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Most of our collateral is residential, collateral, multifamily, um, single-family rental portfolios.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: We have done self-storage, industrial, hospitality, um gas station convenience stores.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're a smaller part of our portfolio.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're you know, probably 70 plus percent residential.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so what other is it mainly speed that why people go to you?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it's a couple things.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's um speed, ease, and flexibility.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so speed for sure, banks take 90 to 120 days, and then on the 92nd day, some credit committee could reject your loan and you just wasted three months.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, certainty of close certainly is an attraction of our product where we can close in you know 30 to 45 days.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um creativity uh is another place where private markets excel, customizing loans, uh maybe taking additional collateral to solve liquidity needs of borrowers where you know where banks won't cross-collateralize things for the most part.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: They want to lend against single assets.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: So that's another place where we excel.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then lastly, it's proceeds.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: So a bank may only go to 55 or 60 LTV, we'll go to 65 or 70 for a price.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh, you know, that's the last piece why they come to us.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: So uh what what what's your typical uh lending range?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Are you looking at like what 10 to 50 million, or you go all the way up, you know, higher or lower?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, we we tend to focus on the sub-50 million dollar loan world, and I'd say even the sub-30 million dollar loan world, although we've done some up in the 50 plus.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um really where you want to play is below the multi-billion dollar asset managers.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um it is not worth their time to allocate a resource to a$20 million loan because their portfolios are so large, they just don't move the needle, and it's not worth taking up an analyst's time to review it.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of times what they do is outsource their, you know, the the portion of their portfolio dedicated to smaller loans to people like us, they'll participate with us, um, you know, they'll do different things to access this part of the market, but generally they want to deal with 50, 100 million plus loans.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: So you want to deal in the world underneath them that is less competitive.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: The best thing is, is as we all know, the last six, seven years with all the money raised on these high net worth platforms through Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch is the big have only gotten bigger.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: So the average loan size, you know, we have some relationships with some name brand uh asset managers, you know, they used to say show us anything 25 million and over.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: This was seven years ago.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now it's show me anything a hundred million and over.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah because they've just gotten bigger.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um so these loans live and die on speed, basically.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um you you you move fast without cutting corners.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: How are you able to underwrite so quick and you know not get into the headaches or or I mean the trouble that you know that comes with lending?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Look, one of the nice things about real estate is there's a lot of public information and there's a lot of resources, there's a lot of data on whether it's rental rates in a specific market, they can see rates in a specific market.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: So that stuff can happen pretty quickly.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um site visits, you know, it's running a nimble team.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Banks have, you know, 50 loans going on at once.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: We have you know three or four.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we can get a team out on a site visit immediately.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we can do a model immediately uh to that specific loan and customize it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: The thing that really takes the longest are what we call third parties.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Those are uh environmentals, appraisals, um uh you know, doing title searches, lean searches, all that sort of stuff to make sure that everything's clean, background checks.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's the stuff that we can't control the speed of.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: We have to wait for that.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of uh due diligence do you guys do on the owners?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: How heavy is a lot.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking you are like it's private credits, probably like investigative and you know.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Look, this is a market around execution.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be honest, I mean there's there's a lot of there's only so ways to value only so many ways to value real estate.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, most people that know what they're doing are not going to be too far off from one another, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe you pick a cap rate that's six and a quarter and I use six and a half and use an expense ratio of thirty-three and I use one of thirty-seven, and we come up with somewhat similar NOIs and somewhat similar evaluations for a property.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: But what you really need to do is execute, and if you can't execute, that's when you have problems.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: And every default we've ever had in our history is a lack of execution.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's where you really have to dig into the borrower.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Have they done this before?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: How many times have they done it before?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: What's the depth of their organization to handle what they're trying to do?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And if God forbid something happens to the the face of the organization, is there people behind them that can continue to execute?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you ever go a little higher risk with more money down?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like say, hey, you know, this is a little risky, but we're gonna make them put 50% down or 40.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it even worth it at that point?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're asking for that much, you know?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Just curious.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: Look, every deal is different, every type of collateral is different.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think about the risk in this market as there's a lending life cycle, right?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: And if you think about real estate finance in its simplest form, there's two buckets there's non-income producing assets and there's income producing assets.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: And the income producing asset world has a very cheap source of financing, whether it be Fannie Mae or Freddie Mack or banks in the non-income producing asset, which is the world we play in, yeah, does not.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: And we provide a bridge to that income producing uh asset bucket, hence the name bridge lending.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um but within that bucket is land, pre-construction, construction, light rehab, medium rehab, heavy rehab, and then lease up.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of path over to that across that bridge to income producing.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if I'm doing a lease up loan, no construction risk, just demand risk, that's gonna be a cheaper rate.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's gonna have less risk.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I go a little bit higher in loan to value because it has less risk.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas if I'm doing a construction loan, what you're really doing is is lending against cost, not value.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: But you want to make sure that enough value is created.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: So the difference between cost C and value B is big enough so that you can be refinanced when they go to that income-producing DSCR financing bucket of real estate.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, most entrepreneurs out there have had a loan go sideways, you know.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you have any examples of one?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, what did you learn from it?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I don't know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's been on that deal where you're like, I should have should have seen that one coming, or I don't know.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: But um Yeah, um, look, I think one of the biggest mistakes I see in our market, and you know, we've done it once or twice, is maybe you take a little bit of business risk on top of real estate risk.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a property that had an amphitheater on it as well as a mobile home site.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, the borrower had an idea of you know bringing concerts to the venue, which tens of millions of dollars were spent um from the local government to build that facility.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Uh couple it with a mobile home site where people would come for the weekend, music festivals, etc.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And um we like that part of it.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um we accepted the business uh part of it, which was the concert venue, and unfortunately the borrower did not prove adept at managing a concert venue nor developing a mobile home site.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: So the buyer of that and the natural buyer of that, when we take back that property, is you know unique.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's something you've got to work through.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, versus a multifamily property, you kind of know what to do with it, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I think that's that's one place.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then as I said earlier, sponsorship and what's their bench like.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: So when we were smaller and we did smaller loans, and this is one of the reasons we try and stay away from kind of sub four million, five million dollar loans, is those tend to be smaller projects.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Smaller, smaller projects mean less sophisticated sponsors.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And we, you know, unfortunately, we had a situation where one of our sponsors had a very big health scare and had to step back, and there's no one behind him.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's a single man operation.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he had a he, you know, he was kind enough to handle it well and he handed us the keys to the business, but we had to finish it.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And fortunately, we had the capability to do that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're dealing with a large organization with you know a next up sort of you know, function and size, um, that wouldn't be such a devastating situation, but that's what can happen.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's pretty crazy.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So he just said here, you know, y'all, if y'all can help help me, that's pretty nice.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Look, it was pretty it it's sad.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he had a he basically had a a he was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, that's terrible.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was a pretty sad situation.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: We said, look, we'll step in, we'll cut you a deal, we'll give you a certain part of the upside.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, stopping a construction project mid-construction is the worst thing you can do.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: So he uh you know agreed to that.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, we made it, made a deal with him.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll finish it, we'll get some of the upside, he gets some of the upside.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: But it becomes uh it was an income-producing loan, and now we own it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, that's what's gonna happen.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not not so bad, but um where are we in real estate credit cycle right now?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, what has you cautious versus optimistic?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, are there any asset classes that y'all are more, you know, like, hey, we we really like this right now, or what are you saying, oh crap, run.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, it gets riskier, you see oversupply and different stuff going on.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: So what's your take?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Look, I think it's a couple of interesting crosswinds going on.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh COVID has created and we're still living in some of the bubbles created by COVID.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: So normally real estate moves in the same direction, it's just a matter of rate of change, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: This market's up one percent rental rates, this market's up five percent, or the other way.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh today we're in a market where certain markets are moving down and certain markets are moving up.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it's all it's all because of who built post-COVID and put shovels in the ground and got a bunch of approvals, and all that happened in 22, and it's all been delivered in 25, and uh which has oversupplied certain markets, and mostly that's been in the Sunbelt.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, Austin, Vegas, Nashville.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in Nashville.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Nashville, um Atlanta, so you're seeing rental rates down.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and look, there are places that are still attractive, people want to live there, they're still migrating there.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: It just takes time to absorb it.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Versus the Northeast in California, nothing was built after COVID, nothing got approved.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: There was a lot of not in my backyard pop political stuff that went on.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: And as a result, supply continues to be tight, even though we've had some migration out of the New York metro area, uh, and rental rates continue to be strong.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, two on real estate, I would say the interesting thing about the last three years in real estate is normally when you get into these sort of troubling real estate markets, it's fundamentally driven.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we're in a recession, uh, non-payment of rents goes up, um, and now you're you know, we have fixed fixed costs as an owner and you're dealing with that issue.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: This is not that right.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: This has really been an interest rate-driven um you know, shock to the industry real estate industry.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, demand is strong.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's interest rates and cap rates that have and and capital structures that were put in place when rates were zero that are creating the issue.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, now what I worry about is both those things.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're it's a pretty uncertain world here.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: Rates, you never know if they're gonna pop one way or the other.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh, you know, obviously you never know if something could knock us into a recession or not.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, you know, and I was I put up a post and I don't like trying to scare people, but you know, these gas prices need to come down because the consumer taps out, and I mean it's just the average person out there's not doing that well with this inflation.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, they're already at 1.25 trillion in credit card debt.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Does that mean there's gonna be a crash?
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm not trying to predict that, but you know, I think things need to change, they need to get that war uh overseas resolved as quickly as possible.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think things could turn out fine.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like being gloom and doom, you know, but like you said, if you if you're not looking at the downside as a lender, you're not doing your job.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, I love hearing that.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you're bred to be uh think of downside because there is no there is an upside other than getting your money back.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um have you looked at do many people that are on the lending side of the ball game, you know, are they looking at stuff like immigration?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like the, you know, I've I've witnessed some Class C properties popping up and, you know, heavy migration territories, the deportations, and I'm kind of wondering if the landlord lost a bunch of tenants.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, are you hearing much about that or is that a big deal?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, not so much on the demand side because affordable housing continues to be in short supply.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um if you're losing some tenants because of the immigration policies of the of the current administration.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: What you have heard it on is the worker side.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, a lot of the day laborers and things like that working on construction sites have had uh, you know, scares, uh hard time finding employment.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I, you know, maybe it's not the skilled workers um who are uh installing windows or framing out a building, but they would pick up day laborers to carry the lumber from the trucks up to the fifth floor so that the skilled guys can you know do what they do on framing, and all of a sudden you can't find day laborers.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: And now your skilled guys are having to do both.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: Things like that, um, you know, have you seen a little bit in pockets around the country um for sure.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: But we look at everything.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we look at cell phone data, we look at U Haul stats, where are people moving?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's crazy, man.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you see in the cell phone data?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: You see migration patterns.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, look, there's a lot of talk, obviously, post-COVID about everyone moving to Florida and Texas and Nashville and everywhere else.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: But when you look at the cell phone data, most people just moved locally.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: They live moved within their region, they downsized whatever it was.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now I'm not saying the migration patterns didn't happen.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Of course they did.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: But they still drastic.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And they're not as drastic as they as the headlines made them appear.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, they were drastic just for a period, but they're not right now.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not like it's continued.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's in and it's just slowed way down.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And people were moving to Florida before, and then it just shot up, and then it was like, but it Florida got way overbuilt because they tried to, you know, they thought it would just keep going like that for eternity, and it didn't, you know.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, people started having a lot of problems, especially in Florida.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little bit of a specific microcosm, but they started having people moved, right?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people on fixed pensions, you know, whether it's a teacher or you know, a New York City cop or whatever, and they move, they move into a condo thinking, all right, I've got my mortgage covered, my HOA fees covered, and then all of a sudden your insurance doubled or tripled, your HOA fees skyrocketed because you got to re reinforce windows that are old because of what happened with the sinkhole a bunch of years ago.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden they can't afford it.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't you can't get out of those condos right now because of fear of HOA fees.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's crazy.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love hearing about stuff like that.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so do you love New York City?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is that where you're at?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, obviously you're going to be able to do that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're in Connecticut.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're up in Connecticut, but um, you know, we have a fair amount of our portfolio in the Northeast.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's in our backyard.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: We've limited New York City exposure to about 10, 11% of our portfolio.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Really we limit it, you know.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, we're cautious, you know, given some of the policies of the current mayor, but even before that, um, we started limiting it back in 23 because of the courts.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh foreclosing in New York City has just become very, very difficult.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um just don't operate you know in a in a predictive way.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're lending, right, when we lend, we'll sit there and say, okay, look, this is a foreclosure state, it's gonna take me two and a half years to get this property back.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: I gotta build that into my LTB.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas Texas, I get about property back in 30 days.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Tennessee not is not much worse.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I can be I can lend higher.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: You asked before, like, where do we go on LTV?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'll lend higher because I can get the property back quicker.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: If I have to.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, go ahead.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, I just think it's funny because you talk to somebody from like New York or California, somebody from California is like, oh, it's got to be like a seven or eight percent cap rate, and then like Tennessee, they're like a six, and it's and it's because they can evict quicker.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in like California, you know, your bad tenants, you're stuck with them for eternity, you know.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean Yeah, well, look, we have we have those issues, and you know, that's where things are slow, where you take back a property and then the own the borrower moves in.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, then you gotta go through evicting the very person who defaulted on you.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that's another nine months, and it's just delay taxes, and they know that they have this capability.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so look, some situations obviously are are legitimate.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um some people are taking advantage of the system.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Have you seen that reality squatter show?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I saw it the other day.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was funny, like where the guy moves in.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's unique.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's a real thing.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's a real thing.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we it's uh, you know, certain places we can get people out in a month or two months, and other places it takes 12 months.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I grew up in Texas and I live in Tennessee now, so I don't see it like y'all do, or like up in Washington State or other places.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I was just curious.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's kind of crazy.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's fun to watch, honestly, for a TV show.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um so uh what are your like favorite markets right now?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I know you're like 10% in New York, you know.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: What like do you have like two or three that you really like a lot right now?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we've we've we do like the Sun Belt as it begins to absorb some of its exposure, but that's kind of the easy answer.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Some of the places that we've really had a lot of success in have been some of the rust belt getting revitalized.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: So a place we've done a lot of lending is Ohio.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: So Ohio, or first of all, in Columbus, you have state universities.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um they never get smaller, they're only getting bigger, and that continues to drive the economy.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Then you have the Intel plant out in the northeast there that's being built and all the ecosystem around it, uh, up in the New Albany area.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've done some lending up there.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh they really they're really doing a great job.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: They have a government uh in the state that's very pro-business, yeah.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: In flows of capital, uh, which is really good.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: So um that's been a that's been attractive uh market for us.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it's places like that, it's places um you know, Kansas City, we've had some success in, places that are revitalizing.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody was running to Florida in the Sunbelt.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's very competitive.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: I love uh Kansas City, it's predictable, but it's kind of becoming a boom town, it seems like.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but uh Ohio, I have a lot of friends there that are you know doing smaller apartment complexes and stuff like that.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: But um, man, I don't want to are you're going to the Knicks game, right?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: I am.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Go Knicks.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't watched a long time.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't watched, I need to watch baseball.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really a big baseball fan.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: I used to watch sports every day, and then like I turned like 33 and I was like, I'll never do anything with my life if I don't get away from the TV.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I haven't really, you know, over the last 10 years it's just kind of gone like this.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I and then I'm a Cowboys fan and they suck.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't I I like I watched them a year or two ago and I said I'm never watching them again.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: I just so pissed at them.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I'm very happy for you that you have a team that made it to the finals.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, I can't tell you how excited I was when the Dallas Mavericks finally won a championship, and I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is really happening.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's been a long time in our city for any sports team.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Basically, I think the Giants in 2011 were the last one.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: So my kids have not really seen any sports team in New York win a championship.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: So they're super excited.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of rooting for you, man.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: I just I think it'll bring a lot of energy and y'all need it, you know.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of lifts up the spirit of the city.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like you know, you go into like Dallas and everybody's so freaking depressed because of the Cowboys, but you know, not like the college towns when their teams are losing or having bad years, everybody like wants to kill each other.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: So um well, appreciate you on that, and I appreciate you giving me giving the time here.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: I I want you to uh leave your contact information if you're comfortable doing that, or just are you findable on LinkedIn, however you want to do it?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm on LinkedIn.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um my email is Brian, B-R-I-A-N at Airbridge L C dot com.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um you can reach there as well.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh happy to take takes care of takes care of loans on you know multiple asset classes, you know.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so anyway, um look forward to uh watching your journey and all that.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to see you at a networking event down here in Tennessee.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: I throw them here and there.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, some investors in Nashville.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: So next time I get down there, uh we will definitely see you in person.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: My my daughter's college roommate lives there as well.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: So awesome.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: We'll go to dinner or something, man.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds good.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Brian, absolute pre pleasure on my end, and I appreciate you coming by.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we'll talk to you soon, okay?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for the time.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.