Latest / The Hannah Hammond Show / The Passive Income Strategy Rich People Use | Patrick Luther
Transcript
- 0:00Everybody sees this $3.5 billion in sales.
- 0:03Co founder of National Netley Super success story.
- 0:06But where did it all begin? I'm vailing cars at Postino and
- 0:11the VIG and I'm just trying to put money together.
- 0:13I end up getting like a 30 unit Arcadia really screwy condo
- 0:17conversion where the condos were like 150 grand and I sold out
- 0:21the 30 units. So I made like 150,000 bucks
- 0:24when I was 19/18/19 at ASU. So I'm like selling these condo
- 0:27conversions. I think I'm so smart.
- 0:29I go in like Lisa Range Rover like an asshole and it didn't
- 0:32get repossessed but 2008 and 9 occurred and so all of a sudden
- 0:36my 150 goes to like 0. I see a lot of people in their
- 0:4050s, sixties, 70s, whatever that are worth hundreds of millions
- 0:43of dollars and they're miserable empty shells.
- 0:46That's why, like, mental health is like important to these guys.
- 0:49And I tell them they're like, what do I need to do?
- 0:51Where do you think the bright spot is in retail?
- 0:54Do you think it is more affordability or do you think it
- 0:56is more like high end experiences, high end dining,
- 0:59high end office, you know, those types of things?
- 1:00It's a really, really good question.
- 1:05Welcome back to the Hannah Hammond Show.
- 1:06I am here with Patrick Luther, Co, founder of the National Net
- 1:10Lease Group at SRS Commercial Real Estate.
- 1:13Well done, you nailed it. Thank you.
- 1:16I try but no, I'm super excited. I know you have been friends
- 1:19with Jeffrey from our team at HP Capital and we've done a lot of
- 1:21business together and you are just a beast in commercial real
- 1:25estate Capital markets and Co founded the SRS which has been
- 1:29around for a long time. They're they're national net
- 1:31lease program and which is what you specialize in and now you
- 1:34are nationwide clients for triple net retail investment
- 1:38sale leasebacks, pretty much everything retail and then
- 1:40you've expanded into industrial heavily now too, I believe as
- 1:43well, right. We have, yeah.
- 1:44Industrial is the bulk of the growth right now.
- 1:47Interestingly enough, I would have told you 10 years ago when
- 1:50we started the platform, we were pureplay retail.
- 1:55And then the first kind of deviation from that was Med Tail
- 1:58when all the medical users started getting into the urgent
- 2:02care facilities need to go into a more retail oriented format.
- 2:05Now it's industrial only. The pivot to the industrial net
- 2:08lease is interesting because a lot of it's driven by the the
- 2:12retailer saying, hey, we have some some need between the
- 2:15distribution facility. They need to get closer to the
- 2:17actual stores, whatever it may be.
- 2:22But yeah, it's been a, it's been a fun run.
- 2:25So you, you guys did 3 1/2 billion dollars in transactions
- 2:30in 2025, which was what was that a 20%, sixteen or 20% increase
- 2:35from what you did in 2024? I, I love data because you can
- 2:38manipulate it to look really good or really bad depending on
- 2:41what what you wanted to say. But we were up, we were up over
- 2:4420% from prior year. So the way, and I don't think, I
- 2:49don't know if this is necessarily unique to SRS, but
- 2:53you know, most brokers if you talk to them like they peaked in
- 2:562022 and everyone's been trying to kind of crawl back to that
- 2:59number coincidentally, right, what happened in 22, we had 0%
- 3:03rates. And so you know, I look at
- 3:07things like the way I look at revenue and brokerage revenue is
- 3:11like same store sales, right? Like I could pump the numbers up
- 3:15running a brokerage company saying, hey, we're up 50%, we're
- 3:18up 100%. I won't name names of people who
- 3:20do that, but I could also just go hire 50 more agents, right?
- 3:24I have 75 producers at any given time, so I could double my
- 3:28producer headcount. But what was good to see from a
- 3:30health standpoint was that the individual agents themselves
- 3:34were growing again. And that was kind of the first,
- 3:38or call it 2025 was the first time we saw things start to
- 3:42correct, right? It was 22 to 23 to 24.
- 3:45It was kind of a race to the bottom.
- 3:46And everyone's production numbers were kind of steadily
- 3:48going down, even if they had great businesses, great clients.
- 3:53It was just kind of a function of rates.
- 3:54But everything's kind of turning right now.
- 3:56So it's, it's exciting. Yeah.
- 3:58And you guys were up in 2024 from 2023 too.
- 4:01So you guys have been growing. I mean, you've been growing.
- 4:03Aging power. We did a little bit.
- 4:06We 25 was the biggest year in our career from a top line
- 4:10revenue standpoint. That's crazy as most people's it
- 4:14was like they're one of their worst.
- 4:16Yeah. It's it's, we have people that
- 4:19tend to focus on brokerages, I think are built with, call it
- 4:23cold collars where you put bodies and seats and that works
- 4:29to what end? At some point we try to get our
- 4:33agents to focus on whatever one particular business line might
- 4:37be, right? And the old school way of doing
- 4:39that was, hey, pick a tenant, right?
- 4:42You, you're the Walgreens guy or you're the 711 guy or whatever
- 4:46it might be. And that works really, really
- 4:49well until the tenant has a negative earnings like a
- 4:52Walgreens and they shut 1000 stores.
- 4:55And so that brokers built his entire 10 year business across
- 4:59servicing that account. You have to pivot and the guys
- 5:02that struggle are caught. The men and women that struggle
- 5:05are somehow caught in too much concentration, lack of
- 5:08diversification across the types of clients they serve, the
- 5:11tenants they work on, things like that.
- 5:13Yeah, I think that's so important because we see that
- 5:16like in office, right? These brokers have built 30 year
- 5:19careers in office and then they're still trying to hold on.
- 5:21I don't know if you've read the book who moved the cheese, but
- 5:24if the cheese has moved and you keep going back to the same
- 5:26feeding ground for the cheese, you got to move.
- 5:29Yeah, the office thing is that's literally a story I talked to
- 5:32the agents about and it's, I do think back on my I do chuckle
- 5:37like it's I feel bad for anyone that has a systemic change in
- 5:40their business where they or their family are struggling,
- 5:42right? That's not something to be
- 5:43excited about or to cheer for. But I do laugh.
- 5:47Like when I was starting in commercial real estate, it was
- 5:49the guys that were making all the money where all the CBREJLL,
- 5:52Cushman, big swinging, whatever office broker guys.
- 5:57And they were the guys that would never give me an
- 5:59internship. So I started in the scrappy net
- 6:02lease retail business and I'm like, you know, how's that
- 6:06working out for you now? But yeah, office is tough and
- 6:11there's not enough creative. I don't care how you hack it,
- 6:14people are going to hack it and figure it out.
- 6:16But I mean, the amount of office guys I talked to that are like,
- 6:19oh, we bought this office building, we got it for 30 bucks
- 6:21a foot. So we have no basis and we're
- 6:24going to convert it to residential.
- 6:27Call me in three or four years and tell me how that went.
- 6:28And most of them were saying, yeah, it was, it was tougher
- 6:30than we, it was more challenging than we thought.
- 6:33Some hey, we're taking out right losses, others saying, hey, it's
- 6:36rough, it's it's rough. The buildings don't format
- 6:39right, etcetera. I mean, I do think office is
- 6:41super exciting from an inflection point of, you know,
- 6:44the people that will figure it out will figure it out and
- 6:46there's a lot of money to be made there.
- 6:49It's the same as retailing 10-15 years ago when I started it was
- 6:53like big boxes going away, right?
- 6:55Like it's not going to exist in this format.
- 6:57Amazon's going to kill everything.
- 7:00All the lenders with paper on malls, boxes, etcetera were
- 7:03trying to divest to the paper big box.
- 7:07When we get big box retail vacancies, you know SRS is a
- 7:10company. The other half of the business
- 7:12besides cap markets is tenant Rep.
- 7:14We, we don't have enough box vacancy now, right?
- 7:17The boxes are full and those users have surprisingly come
- 7:21back. You know, you're taking a big
- 7:23space and you're cutting it up three or four ways.
- 7:25But it used to be that, Oh my gosh, we don't want to get the
- 7:29space back. Now it's kind of the opposite.
- 7:31So I mean, things change. Like you can't always operate
- 7:35with a finite outlook if you're doing the same thing forever.
- 7:38You know, it's probably, it's something I've heard you talk
- 7:39about on a lot of your podcasts, like the adaptability.
- 7:41You always have to be looking at the next thing and the next
- 7:45angle to reposition something. Yeah.
- 7:47And it all comes down to the supply and demand.
- 7:50Like retail wasn't built because everyone thought retail was
- 7:53dead. And then now we have a lack of
- 7:56supply of retail. And I think you could probably
- 7:58speak to this more, but there's still some trouble or vacancy
- 8:01with some of the B&C class retail at those old grungy
- 8:04shopping centers. But what do you see in there?
- 8:06They feel good question so they, they they're full unless the
- 8:10building is like systemically not functional.
- 8:14We work with Big Lots or worked with Big Lots when the
- 8:17bankruptcy was occurring and you know, the solution to all the
- 8:21creditors was, you know, when these landlords are getting
- 8:23these boxes back, what do we what do we do?
- 8:25Who can we put in there right? And SRS represents depending on
- 8:29the part of the country and we represent Target, we represent
- 8:32Walmart, we represent, you know, a variety of soft good users. 5
- 8:36below, you know, Ross, TJX, Marshall's, Hobby Lobby, right?
- 8:40So depending on where you were in the country, somebody got us,
- 8:43got in touch with us to figure out a solution.
- 8:45And the, the biggest inhibiting factor on those boxes is like
- 8:48clear height. And it's to pop the roof up is
- 8:52really, really expensive. Like it's almost worth tearing
- 8:56down at that point. You can put a nice facade on the
- 8:59thing, but keep hitting this. You can put a nice facade on the
- 9:03thing, but it's, it's really expensive to raise roof height.
- 9:05But I would tell you that I don't know of a single big box
- 9:09vacancy, sort of Big Lots vacancy in the country.
- 9:12I think it's all been backfilled for the most part.
- 9:14So even the B&C stuff, you'll move to AB and C tenant category
- 9:18or a value oriented user thrift or deep discount or whatever it
- 9:24is. So, but you know it and it's the
- 9:29same with like the restaurant space, you know, jumping around
- 9:33a lot. But the restaurant space when we
- 9:35look at retail is really, really exciting right now.
- 9:37You look at, you know, oh, OK, what went bankrupt last year and
- 9:42you know who's on the verge of it, You know, tgi Friday's went
- 9:45away. Trying to be careful with what I
- 9:48say in terms of who is and isn't bankrupt.
- 9:52Hooters went away, etcetera. But we were busiest with those
- 9:57changes and addressing the needs with those vacancies.
- 10:00So it's not like, oh gosh, we're nervous.
- 10:03It's some bad sign for retail. All that stuff got filled up and
- 10:05absorbed, right. So the Twin Peaks is the latest
- 10:08one. We've got a theme here.
- 10:10We have Hooters, we have Twin Peaks.
- 10:11Nobody wants to eat in that type of environment anymore.
- 10:13But it was shocking. Yeah, there's got to be some,
- 10:16but somebody's going to figure out that how to freshen up that
- 10:19dining segment, whatever you want to call it.
- 10:24But all that stuff's all that stuff's pretty like we need, the
- 10:27market needs vacancy. Like if we don't have vacancy,
- 10:30construction costs are prohibitive.
- 10:32Retailers can't just go build. You know, you get a typical
- 10:35Olive Garden and this is public, it's in their earnings.
- 10:37Like Darden's doing super well, Longhorn, Olive Garden, but
- 10:41those things are millions of dollars to build.
- 10:44They can't back into the economics.
- 10:46They do excellent sales per unit.
- 10:48I forget what the four wall is, but better for them to just take
- 10:52an old Hooters or Twin Peaks. They're the beneficiary of these
- 10:55closures. All of a sudden they've told
- 10:57Wall Street they need to open 50 stores this year.
- 11:00Well, ground up new construction takes 2 years.
- 11:03Now they can go in, hey, we'll just go buy these twenty Hooters
- 11:06leases and boom, we cut that pipeline in half, we're solved.
- 11:11So look, is your glass half empty or is it half full, right.
- 11:14And like you just look for the worst thing we could have is
- 11:17like a stagnant market where nothing's changing.
- 11:20Right. That's the worst, yeah.
- 11:22If we, I'd say talk about that all the time, either a falling
- 11:25market or a rising market is great, but we need things
- 11:27transacting. Otherwise the whole, the whole
- 11:29thing doesn't work. Like that's the whole economy,
- 11:31right? Things need to be moving one way
- 11:32or another, whether they're moving at a lower basis or a
- 11:34higher basis. And I think, you know, you look
- 11:37at is stuff, the reason why the 222324 cycle was challenging
- 11:45among a number of factors is everyone was saying, hey, look,
- 11:48if I just wait another couple months, the asset is going to be
- 11:51cheaper, right? That's going to get more
- 11:54expensive. Rates are rising.
- 11:55So the stuff's going to get, why would I buy anything right now?
- 11:58So your point, right, everyone sits on the sideline and says my
- 12:01buying environment is going to be better and better and better.
- 12:05I think we've hit an inflection point in the last six months.
- 12:07Like, you know, our numbers as a brokerage company prove it.
- 12:11But very specifically, the month of December was our biggest
- 12:15month ever from the standpoint of volume sold, brokerage
- 12:19revenue, etcetera. So it was almost like everyone
- 12:22said, OK, while the rate cuts have occurred because we had
- 12:25what, 3 last year and they're saying, gosh, now what I'm
- 12:29looking at buying is going to get more expensive.
- 12:31So it's the opposite, right? More rate cuts in theory should
- 12:35increase prices, right, 'cause people can pay more, that's
- 12:38cheaper. I'm having to go through this in
- 12:41my head 'cause I don't actually know it that well.
- 12:43That's an. Inverse relationship between
- 12:45pricing and rates and I was, I was just posted something about
- 12:48this a couple days ago. You can't change your basis, you
- 12:51can't change the price you pay for the property, but your rate
- 12:53adjusts in 35710 years, whatever your, your rate is, but let's
- 12:57call it, you know, a 55 or 10 year term.
- 13:00And so I would all day long rather take advantage of a
- 13:03better priced asset in a more distressed, you know, no buyers
- 13:08are out there because rates are high type of environment,
- 13:10knowing that in the future rates are more likely to drop because
- 13:13we're in a high interest rate environment where historically
- 13:16rates are not 2% historically, right?
- 13:18So I don't understand why investors were thinking, let's
- 13:21go pay massive amounts of prices because these rates are 2% when
- 13:24they know in a few years their rates are going to reset and
- 13:28their asset value is going to plummet.
- 13:29Like, I just don't understand how those numbers computed and,
- 13:32and how those decisions were made.
- 13:34Like, it doesn't make any sense to me.
- 13:35And then when rates go up and asset prices drop, they're like,
- 13:37Oh no, we're going to we're going to hold off on the
- 13:39sidelines. Or they're just stuck in it and
- 13:41they can't get out and they can't take advantage of it.
- 13:43I think the answer is because sponsors are incentivized to
- 13:45place money and put capital out right.
- 13:47And so that's a tough, I always think about, you know, I, I'm
- 13:53very focused on running brokerage company, but I always
- 13:55think about, gosh, you know, my buddies that are on the Reed
- 13:58side are in acquisitions. There's always some narrative
- 14:01that, oh, we have guidance out. We have to spend 500 million
- 14:05this year or a billion or 2 billion or whatever the number
- 14:08is. I have a buddy at a Blackstone
- 14:10based public Reed, a Blackstone owned platform.
- 14:13And I mean, they have to spend something like $25 billion this
- 14:18year. And I always ask the question of
- 14:20like, would I want that money to go spend from a self-serving
- 14:25standpoint? Yeah, I'd love to be a sponsor
- 14:26and get the fees. And, you know, there's lots of
- 14:28brokerage income to make. But if you have that much
- 14:32capital, you're buying discipline at some point goes
- 14:34out the window, right? Like you have to just
- 14:36constantly, you might start with good intentions as a sponsor,
- 14:40but then you have to modify your box to say, oh, you know, we
- 14:45made this work at committee. Yeah.
- 14:47And that's, that's very much like institutional investors
- 14:49versus private or different. But, you know, back to the, to
- 14:54the topic at hand. I I think there's some of the
- 14:56smartest people I know. And you have very smart people
- 14:58on the show. But they saw last year as an
- 15:00inflection point where they were getting ahead of and tying up a
- 15:02lot of property and, and buying it or putting it under contract.
- 15:07Because to your point, the market for the last couple years
- 15:09has been pretty soft. And what's the narrative now
- 15:12with my sellers? Oh, rates are coming down.
- 15:14I want a little bit more money. Six months ago it was OK, I'm
- 15:17ready to sell. I'm ready to be done with XYZ
- 15:20asset. Now it's hey, look, so the
- 15:22seller greed is coming back a little bit and their motivation
- 15:27to do something has changed. The the smartest guys in the
- 15:30room were all the guys that knew that rate cuts were coming,
- 15:33which it wasn't that ambiguous. We didn't know how many or what
- 15:37percentages, but you know, the guys that loaded up in like
- 15:40July, August before the first rate cut, they just literally
- 15:44got a artificial price discount while they were in escrow,
- 15:49right? It's like, OK, we're going to
- 15:50postpone our due diligence period after the Fed meeting.
- 15:54The deal underwrites and makes sense for us now.
- 15:57The rate cut happens in the middle of due diligence boom.
- 15:59Our debt just prices better by 50 basis points or whatever it
- 16:04might be. Those were the smartest guys in
- 16:07the room last summer, right? And you do that with hundreds of
- 16:09millions of dollars in capital, you just boom, repriced
- 16:12everything. Right.
- 16:13And if immediate appreciation at your, your close just because
- 16:17your rates are going down and then not to mention we had 100%
- 16:20bonus depreciation passed which that's didn't.
- 16:23Hurt big beautiful Bill was really big and beautiful for us
- 16:26now half of our half of what we did and and HB your company
- 16:30helped us with the with quite a bit of the debt.
- 16:34December was so busy with car wash sales, car wash and or gas
- 16:37stations anything that qualified for bonus.
- 16:41Because those have more bonuses. So for the audience that may not
- 16:44know, 100% bonus appreciation is like why every real estate
- 16:47professional loves real estate and every real estate investor
- 16:50loves real estate. It allows you to basically have
- 16:53a big reduction in your taxes that is due.
- 16:56So when you buy a property, if you're a real estate
- 16:58professional, you could buy a property and you can depreciate
- 17:01100% the year that you put into service of the the year that you
- 17:04buy it. And so let's say you have a
- 17:06$300,000 tax bill. You can use that as a down
- 17:09payment to go buy an asset and then get a $300,000 plus or
- 17:13minus. This is simple math, but a
- 17:15$300,000 tax deduction on your taxes, therefore wiping out
- 17:19around, you know, $150,000 in taxes, then you can, and then
- 17:24you're buying a new asset. That asset appreciates, you add
- 17:26value to it, and you get to compound your wealth and profits
- 17:28much more quickly. And if you're not a real estate
- 17:31professional, you still get that depreciation against any passive
- 17:33income that you may have. And so it's the the American
- 17:37dream, really. And that was going to phase out
- 17:39in 2026 because it had been phasing out over the past
- 17:42handful of years, the past four years.
- 17:45But Trump with the big beautiful bill reinstated that to 100%.
- 17:48And so everybody's super happy and everybody was wanting to
- 17:50deploy their capital in December so they can get that 100% bonus
- 17:54depreciation because otherwise the money would have been gone
- 17:56to taxes anyway. Yeah, So I, I wanted to keep
- 18:00diving into real estate, but before we do, I wanted to go
- 18:02back to your origin story, right?
- 18:04Everybody sees this $3.5 billion in sales Co founder of National
- 18:08net Lease super success story. Looking good, feeling good, all
- 18:11the things. You get to talk about myself.
- 18:13Yeah, yeah, this is. Great narcissist, love to talk
- 18:16about themselves. Exactly.
- 18:18But you know what? Where did it all begin?
- 18:21I, I was reading about you and you said you attribute it to
- 18:24your mom. You, you got the idea of real
- 18:26estate back in high school and, and you've had some pretty
- 18:28difficult and sleepless nights and, and have had to have a
- 18:31relentless grit to get to where you're at now.
- 18:33So let's go back into some of those dark times and the
- 18:36challenges and the ordered story of what got you here.
- 18:41Thank you for the opportunity to talk about it.
- 18:44I parents are physician of doctor and a pharmacist in town
- 18:49and, and it, it really was what piqued my interest, frankly, was
- 18:54a, a combination of a little bit of jealousy and I definitely
- 18:58have a little bit of a chip on my shoulder and I by no means
- 19:02threw up wanting for things, right.
- 19:05Dad's not a surgeon or anything like that.
- 19:07It wasn't crazy. I wasn't getting an Escalade to
- 19:09drive in high school and stuff like that.
- 19:10I went to a very good Catholic school, etcetera, for, you know,
- 19:13my entire career. So education was important, but
- 19:16no one in my family had done any sort of entrepreneurial business
- 19:19ever. It was all lawyers, doctors,
- 19:22accountants, things like that. So education was important, but
- 19:26risk was not something that was, I wouldn't say appreciated, but
- 19:31it wasn't something that I learned growing up, like how to
- 19:33tolerate risk, how to be entrepreneurial, things like
- 19:35that. And so, you know, it being
- 19:38around Phoenix, this obviously was a very in the 2000s when I
- 19:41was in high school in 37, you know, real estate was very much
- 19:46segment commercial where everybody was making money.
- 19:48So my high school classmates, like we're, we're hopping in the
- 19:51suburban with my family to do ski trips and my friends are
- 19:54like hopping on dad's jet. And so I'm like, you know, I'm
- 19:59like my parents. I'm like, why can't you have a
- 20:00jet dad? You're just a doctor, right?
- 20:02Stuff like that. And I started researching like,
- 20:05where'd these people make their money?
- 20:06And it was just real estate, real estate, real estate, real
- 20:08estate and commercial specifically.
- 20:12So I said, OK, when can I get a license to do this?
- 20:15So I started testing when I was like a junior at Brophy.
- 20:19And I was because you could take the classes, but you couldn't be
- 20:21an agent until you're 18 or something, so.
- 20:24I was taking the courses and I finished everything and I was
- 20:26like, OK, the the day I could test or the first testing month
- 20:29was May and I turned 18 in April or whatever it was.
- 20:33So tested, ended up getting a license and then started kind of
- 20:39just literally asking around town, friends and family, like
- 20:42who'll take an intern. And that was to my point.
- 20:44I wanted to work at CBI, wanted to work at JLL, right?
- 20:47Those guys had the biggest listings and none of them would
- 20:51take my call. And so I kind of happened into
- 20:54retail because there was a guy friend of her family, one of my
- 21:00mom's pharmaceutical sales Rep gals like, oh, my, my husband is
- 21:05the managing director of Marcus and Millichap.
- 21:08He'll take an intern. And I was like, disappointed.
- 21:11I was like, well, CB won't return my call.
- 21:13Like those are really big listings and I want those.
- 21:15And I'm like, I don't want to do these scrappy little retail
- 21:17buildings, which was like the total wrong attitude and
- 21:19approach, etcetera. So I kind of reluctantly get my
- 21:24summer internship at Marks and Miller chap, which is actually
- 21:27How I Met Jeff Harris, uncle big dog, but I was where is he?
- 21:35So what am what am I doing at this point?
- 21:36So I'm a freshman at ASU. I am hanging my real estate
- 21:40license, doing residential on the side just to earn
- 21:43commissions and and learn how that worked.
- 21:45And then I'm working for a guy in town, Joe Campano, who's now
- 21:50at CBRE. And Joe was very good to me for,
- 21:55for my first summer and he was, he was paying me this is this
- 21:58was minimum wage at the time. He was paying me like 8 bucks an
- 22:00hour. And Joe is doing really well in
- 22:02his mid 20s. He's a developer now.
- 22:04I believe he's a pretty successful guy.
- 22:05And, you know, I'm. So I'm going to ASU Monday,
- 22:08Wednesday, Friday, I'm going to Marcus Tuesday, Thursday.
- 22:12I'm vailing cars at Postino and the vig to actually make a
- 22:17living on weekends. And I'm just trying to put money
- 22:20together, you know, kind of one way or the other and figure it
- 22:23out. You know, Marcus wouldn't let me
- 22:26hang there, my license there. They're like, you have to hang
- 22:28out with a residential firm. Like you're not an adult yet.
- 22:31Get out of college. Yeah.
- 22:33So then I this is probably a really long winded story at this
- 22:37point but so I end up selling, I end up getting like a 30 unit
- 22:41Arcadia really screwy condo conversion where the condos were
- 22:45like 150 grand and I sold out the 30 units.
- 22:49So I made like 150,000 bucks when I was 19/18/19 at ASU.
- 22:54So then I start, you know, thinking I'm really smart.
- 22:57I'm like, I want to quit ASU. Like screw this finance degree.
- 23:00I can make more money in real estate.
- 23:01It's like summer of O7, right? So I'm like selling these condo
- 23:04conversions. I think I'm so smart.
- 23:06I go in like lease a Range Rover like an asshole.
- 23:10And it didn't get repossessed, but 2008 and 9 occurred.
- 23:14And so all of a sudden my 150 goes to like 0 and I, I hand my
- 23:19Range Rover lease back in and like make a payment with like
- 23:22the last 10 grand I had in my pocket.
- 23:25And it's, I'm 21 at this point. I'm like, OK, well, I got to go
- 23:29get a job and there's nothing to do in Phoenix.
- 23:31And I know a little bit about retail.
- 23:33I've been this Marks and milchip interns.
- 23:34So I just, I go to, I go to ICSC and I just print out my resume.
- 23:39It's like May of 09. So the world is ending and I
- 23:42just walked up to booths without meetings and one guy called me
- 23:46back and said I'll hire you on my team at Grub and Ellis to do
- 23:52shopping center leasing. I'm like, well, I know to sell
- 23:57stuff. I don't really want to lease
- 23:58stuff, but like that's a fundamental part of the process
- 24:01is like, here's the one catch, like my portfolios in Vegas, I'm
- 24:05like, OK, well, I don't really want to live in Vegas, but you
- 24:08got to do what you got to do. So then summer of O 9, I moved
- 24:11to Vegas. I'm 21.
- 24:13I get out of ASU in three years and, you know, that's kind of, I
- 24:17started cutting my teeth. I I was the third guy in the
- 24:20shopping center sign. It was the Great Recession.
- 24:22Nobody was calling. So I was just putting like 1400
- 24:25foot nail salon leases at like $18.00 gross for sale.
- 24:31That's a really bad lease rate, if anyone's curious.
- 24:36And then to get, yeah, to get through that, yeah, to get
- 24:39through that, I kind of went back to my roots on the on the
- 24:42valet side. And I was, I was a bartender at
- 24:44The Mirage. It was a union bar back at The
- 24:47Mirage when I was like 2122 for the first six months until I
- 24:53figured out how to make my first paycheck.
- 24:54And then I quit my bartending job and I've never looked back
- 24:57since. But so that gets us to like 22.
- 25:00I don't know how much further we're going to go with the
- 25:01story. But 2022, so you've built a lot
- 25:04in a pretty short period of time since the comeback.
- 25:06I mean, you got started in the bottom of the great, you know,
- 25:09financial crisis. The GFC started leasing, which
- 25:12is how I started too. I would just do, I remember
- 25:13doing a deal with Jay Stein and he was like, I've never seen
- 25:17someone work so hard on a 1200 square foot crappy retail lease.
- 25:22And I was like, well, you're working on this deal too and
- 25:24you're like the owner of the whole development firm and the
- 25:26whole shopping center. So we.
- 25:27Were Jay's very smart? I talked to his team today.
- 25:29They called me about a circle. I'm probably revealing this.
- 25:32They called me about a Circle K in Florida that they want to
- 25:34buy. Oh.
- 25:36Well, this won't get released for a couple months, so you'll
- 25:37be fine. But yeah, you know, that's it's
- 25:40you have to put in the work, you have to put in the grind.
- 25:42And people just want to, like you said, go to the big firm,
- 25:45chase the big deals, but you, you have to pay the price to be
- 25:49successful. Well, in hindsight, the best
- 25:51thing that happened was not getting the CB or JLL job.
- 25:57And you know, I think those are wonderful companies with runner
- 26:00programs and things of that nature.
- 26:01If you can get your foot in the door, I think there's some good
- 26:04to that formality. I just learned sort of figuring
- 26:07it out in a, in a more scrappy way and that the benefit to that
- 26:11and I wouldn't everything that happened to me badly.
- 26:13You can look and you can whine about things that happened to
- 26:16you in your career and how could I have done this better and like
- 26:18cry over spilt milk or you can say like, what was the positive
- 26:21in that? And the positive was that I got
- 26:23to see a lot of transaction. DI got a lot of reps being a
- 26:28junior really early on and I didn't have some big
- 26:31bureaucratic companies saying you can't do this, you can't do
- 26:33that right. And like, you know, nine it was.
- 26:36I was the sign call guy and my my senior brokers, good guys.
- 26:39I won't mention their names, but they were golfing like they were
- 26:42fine. They've made their money.
- 26:43They're like there's no velocity here.
- 26:45And they were at their California houses in the summer.
- 26:47So I'm like tour in space when it's 110.
- 26:49But I was meeting real tenants, right?
- 26:51And I was really doing the work and I wasn't on some team of
- 26:54like, oh, when you get here, you can then get here and here and
- 26:57here. And I, I really, I didn't like,
- 26:59I had kind of a rejection of authority mentality.
- 27:01I was like, I want to make money now.
- 27:03And I was like, oh, I made money when I was 19.
- 27:05I'm 21 now and I'm broke. But I got to figure this thing
- 27:07out. And I really like, didn't like
- 27:09being restricted. And so all the CBJLL guys and I,
- 27:12I know young guys that go into those programs, it takes them a
- 27:15long time to like start really earning income because and then
- 27:20long term their senior has to pass in their book, retire, die,
- 27:25something like that, God forbid. But it takes a long time to kind
- 27:29of there are very few young people below 30 in those
- 27:32companies that are doing really, really well.
- 27:34There's some right, you can tell they're, they're on their way.
- 27:36But you know, I encourage young people that I meet, I'm like,
- 27:39get into a company, like stop worrying about your seniors
- 27:43title. Stop worrying about oh, the
- 27:44company like some of the best places to learn and train are
- 27:46like the small regionals because you actually get real world
- 27:49experience. You're not just like the 8th man
- 27:51on some pecking order of a team. Right and even now, because of
- 27:56AI and the access to data and the access to marketing, like I
- 27:59was just talking about that with Luke Morrison before you got
- 28:02here, the Co founder of Crexy, he was saying just be
- 28:05entrepreneurial. Like you don't need we could
- 28:07everyone can build their own little mini Blackstone.
- 28:09Like you don't have to go be Blackstone and you can have a
- 28:11big advantage by being small and being nimble and being and
- 28:13that's what we're doing at HP capital.
- 28:15Like, yeah, we can beat with CB and all these massive firms, but
- 28:18we also have our disadvantages are also our greatest advantages
- 28:21that we can actually have a competitive edge, especially in
- 28:24a rapidly changing environment with technology.
- 28:27Like, you got to be pretty nimble and quick to implement
- 28:30these things, and you can't do that so easily if it's a public
- 28:32company with layers and layers and layers and layers of
- 28:35bureaucracy. It's it's, it's really I don't
- 28:39even know to your point, right, There's a lot there that you
- 28:42just went through. But you know what these what the
- 28:45kids are doing these days, like the kids like how they're
- 28:49accessing information, right? Like I'll e-mail somebody in the
- 28:51company when we're working for a particular tenant, comps or
- 28:56landlords, things like this, right?
- 28:58The Twin Peaks, when they announce the closure, I'm like,
- 29:01look, I know all these other retailers want to go there.
- 29:03Our clients are developers. They want to see these sites and
- 29:06these vacancies. I don't know what this kid did,
- 29:09one of my junior brokers, but in 15 minutes I had every store,
- 29:12their square footage, the parcel size, the landlord's contact
- 29:16information and phone number, right?
- 29:18I mean, when I started, that's what I was doing IN2000789 as I
- 29:21was like staying up until midnight, putting these damn
- 29:23lists together and looking at likewhitepages.com for some
- 29:26guy's cell phone number. Right now it's like this.
- 29:29Does it ask ChatGPT? Yeah, exactly.
- 29:32It's a brave new world. But you know, until ChatGPT
- 29:36figures out how to put the property in escrow, buy it for
- 29:39you, wire the money, etcetera, etcetera, I think we're good.
- 29:42But you know, a lot of the administrative functions are
- 29:46going away, right? So the real estate practitioner
- 29:49has to get better at where's the value going to come from, right?
- 29:52Like, OK, you have all this time in your week now where you don't
- 29:56have to do data entry and so get really, really, really good at
- 29:58something else. Right.
- 30:00And that's the relationship, that's the being an advisor of
- 30:03fiduciary. It's bringing people together
- 30:05because Luke and I were talking about this too, is AI and these
- 30:09tools will allow us to be even more important and better at
- 30:12what we do because all of our time is freed up from the order
- 30:16taker task, doing, you know, research, analytics and things
- 30:18like that. And we can spend more time on
- 30:20the actual relationship, the actual communication, the
- 30:22negotiation, the problem solving.
- 30:24And when in a world where there's so much fraud, it's
- 30:27going to be so hard to even know it's real or fake people could
- 30:30create fake buildings online, fake personas online, like fake
- 30:33everything. The relationship is going to
- 30:34become even more important. And we were talking about how we
- 30:38think the brokerage position, that fiduciary, that
- 30:42intermediary is going to become even more important because
- 30:44there's going to be so how many opportunities like, right, you
- 30:46could tokenize real estate and put it on a marketplace, but how
- 30:49do you know which one you want to invest in?
- 30:50How do you know which jockey to bet on?
- 30:52How do you know who's trustworthy?
- 30:53How do you know who's not taking your money?
- 30:54And and they don't even actually own any real estate.
- 30:56Who's going to vet the AI right? Like it's we call it QC ING
- 31:00right? Like we use ChatGPT all the time
- 31:02like most brokers do. And if they're not, they've
- 31:05window dressed it to their own proprietary AI.
- 31:08It's all the freaking same, but we use, you know, when we're
- 31:12when we're using it, it's like we always have to quality
- 31:14control it. And it's like, to your point,
- 31:17it's a relationship business at the end of the day.
- 31:22And there's a whole lot of noise out there.
- 31:24It's sifting. People ask me like, what are
- 31:27you, what do I actually do? Like what am I, what are my
- 31:30skills or whatever? And I always say one thing is
- 31:34I'm like, I'm really good at probability assessment, right?
- 31:37And like, that's the biggest thing you get with anyone in any
- 31:42form of the business. Like these 75 agents, many of
- 31:45them run their own book, but then there's thirty of them that
- 31:47work for me that are constantly pursuing listings, right?
- 31:51And I'm paying for it and supporting them.
- 31:54But I would say, you know, to sell the 3.6 billion, we sold
- 31:58930 properties, right? We analyzed like 3300 of them.
- 32:03So we did a BOV for a client on 36300 of them.
- 32:09If I had enough time to look at those, I could tell you in 2
- 32:12minutes like we shouldn't have spent all this time on this BOV,
- 32:14right? There was 1000 of them that we
- 32:16didn't have to do because I can look at it and assess it very,
- 32:19very quickly. But the whole probability
- 32:22assessment thing is something like these young brokers are
- 32:24like, oh, I'm struggling. I have all these proposals.
- 32:25It's like if you operate just looking to fill your coffer with
- 32:30a go, I have proposals. If that's your metric doesn't
- 32:33you're not going to make any money if 90% of your proposals
- 32:35are unsalable. Like I can go get 500 proposals,
- 32:38but is this something I should be spending time on, right?
- 32:41Like I have people that call me all the time and they're like,
- 32:44oh, hey, Patrick, I'm I'm interested in buying a property,
- 32:46right? You get a young person, they're
- 32:47like, Oh my God, I want to take that phone call.
- 32:50Why would you spend time on this person?
- 32:51I'm like, just wait a second. I'm like, let's get him on the
- 32:54phone. And I'm polite about it.
- 32:56They're like, OK, I want an 8 cap with investment grade credit
- 33:01in the top 10 market and I want an ADLTV loan.
- 33:03And I'm like, well, I want a fucking pony.
- 33:05Like, I don't know, like that's not, is that a buyer?
- 33:09Is that a live human being? Like that will buy something
- 33:12somewhere, sure, but that's a Unicorn deal.
- 33:17That's not worth spending time on, right.
- 33:19So like the biggest thing in any business is like probability
- 33:22assessment. Like, and I always call it like
- 33:24fake work, fake news. Like when these young, oh, I'm
- 33:26working on all this stuff, I'm like, show me what you're
- 33:28working on. I'm like, OK, 9 out of 10 things
- 33:31you're working on are not deliverable.
- 33:32Like the property, like everyone's a seller at a price,
- 33:35right? So I can go get 10 listings if I
- 33:37just go tell the guy is 3 caps worth of five cap and I want to
- 33:40waste my time on it. So anyway, I got off on a
- 33:43tangent. But no, it's true, it's such an
- 33:45important skill set because another way to look at it is how
- 33:48Steve Jobs used to explain it. He said signal versus noise.
- 33:52You know, and all of the best leaders, CEO's, producers,
- 33:55business owners, employees, people in general, they have a
- 33:58acute ability to very quickly identify what is signal and what
- 34:02is noise and what are the top three things that you have to
- 34:05get done every single day to move the needle in the direction
- 34:08of your true north and what you're trying to accomplish.
- 34:11And if you, because all of us can be busy, all of us can work
- 34:1420 hours a day. If we, you know, make ourselves
- 34:18busy with things like there's unlimited things to be busy
- 34:20with. And then that's what's this.
- 34:22The real skill is being able to determine, yes, there's all
- 34:25these opportunities and I have to deal with that too, right?
- 34:27Everyday there's all these opportunities, all these people
- 34:29want to talk to you all, if we want to meet with you all, if we
- 34:30want to pick your brain. All these people want to buy a
- 34:32deal. All like all these things.
- 34:33But like, what is the signal? And I only am going to focus on
- 34:36the signal. And I have to say no to 99.9% of
- 34:40all the other things. And that's a very difficult
- 34:42skill. The worst, you know, the 11 of
- 34:45the things I think is interesting when you're talking
- 34:46to like successful people is everybody wants to brag about
- 34:49what they did and like how they made money and the deal that
- 34:51they just absolutely hit a home run on.
- 34:54That's interesting. But what's more interesting is
- 34:55like where did you screw up? Right?
- 34:57And it takes a certain you can't just go and ask somebody.
- 34:59You don't know that. But when you get to someone real
- 35:01successful and they, you know, they feel like mentoring you or
- 35:04sharing or being a little more forthcoming and they're not
- 35:07sociopaths. They you can say like, tell me
- 35:10about your mistakes. Like that to me is way more
- 35:13intriguing and I, and I would, to your point, the biggest
- 35:16mistakes I've made are it's not saying no enough to things that
- 35:20I should have said no to from the standpoint of money or time
- 35:24or whatever it is. And it gets back into like your
- 35:26commodity eventually. Like the older I've gotten, it
- 35:27becomes time and it's like I have to, I have to do the
- 35:31highest value activities per hour.
- 35:34That doesn't mean myself or as a firm that we won't service the
- 35:37client because again, we're, we're client services firm.
- 35:41That is what we do. But does it mean that, hey,
- 35:44look, this assignment is not for Patrick Luther himself, Someone
- 35:48on the team will service this right?
- 35:50And we can do it. And you know, you got to frame
- 35:54that properly. You can't be like, oh, I'm not
- 35:55good enough for you, right? It's it's just, hey, look,
- 35:57someone else has a better expertise in this area or can
- 35:59better serve you, assist you, whatever else.
- 36:01Like this whole servant leadership thing is really
- 36:03important. But.
- 36:07Yeah, no, it's, it's so true. And it's difficult, especially
- 36:10because a lot of entrepreneurs are people pleasers and they
- 36:13want to do they, they're opportunists and they're people
- 36:17pleasers and they want to like take every opportunity like, oh,
- 36:19what if I should have said yes to that or this?
- 36:21But there's opportunity cost every time, every minute you
- 36:24spend on one opportunity, you also have an opportunity cost of
- 36:26another opportunity that you're missing.
- 36:28It's. Hard though, to coach people
- 36:30because like these young folks, like I do tell them, like when
- 36:32you have nothing going on, the answer is yes, right?
- 36:35The answer is yes to everything. And I operated in this, it took
- 36:39me until 3-4 years ago to realize, like my answer can't be
- 36:42yes to everything anymore. But that's not, is that the
- 36:45guidance I would give to someone?
- 36:46It depends on where they're at in their career, right?
- 36:49Like I am a people pleaser. Like it's, there's something
- 36:52like deeply insecure in me about like, why I can't say I want
- 36:55everyone to be happy, right? Like Patrick wants everybody to
- 36:58be happy all the time. And I want to do great for
- 36:59everybody and I want to make all the money and I'd sell all the
- 37:01deals. And you get to a point where you
- 37:04can't do that or you'll destroy yourself.
- 37:07And then frankly, the relation, you'll fail the client too if
- 37:09you take on more and you can't serve it does more harm than
- 37:12good. So the saying no is like an
- 37:14evolved. Yeah.
- 37:16That's like my version, you know, my V1 was college V2 is
- 37:21like the transition to SRS. So I'm like looking for what's
- 37:25the next chapter but. Where do you think you're like
- 37:28people pleasing comes from? A deep desire to be loved.
- 37:34Like, yeah, like all of. Us right it's something like
- 37:36there's something deeply like wrong there I mean, I I don't
- 37:39know I go to therapy like as much as I can to talk about it
- 37:43but like somebody makes a lot of money telling me what's wrong
- 37:45with me yeah you know I think it's it it's some point you have
- 37:49to have a natural like curiosity is one thing, but like a desire
- 37:53to be great, like a pursuit of excellence and it's truly like
- 37:58it's innate, right And it's easy with athletes.
- 38:00It's like I ran this fast. I want to run faster, right.
- 38:04This very much is how I operate and it drives me but as you get
- 38:09older you start to realize like to what end?
- 38:11And if you're constantly moving your goal line, you're going to
- 38:13be dissatisfied. So it's like I'm on this
- 38:16constant place of like, OK, do I want to keep being a masochist
- 38:19with my work? Or do I want to, you know, at
- 38:22some point you got to like pat yourself on the back and say
- 38:25you're doing fine, everything's good.
- 38:28Take a deep breath your. Work is not in your performance.
- 38:30Yes. You are loved, yes.
- 38:33Yeah, but I'll tell you, I mean, at the end of the day, I'm
- 38:34always like, I'll catch myself spiraling like shit, what could
- 38:38I have done better, right? Like, why didn't I do this?
- 38:40But at the end of the day, it's like I consider it personal
- 38:43accountability, right? Like I don't, when I screw
- 38:47something up, I'm like, what's the lesson there, right?
- 38:49How could I have done better? What's the feedback?
- 38:51I'm not like, oh, that guy didn't hire me.
- 38:53I'm whining, right? I'm feeling bad for myself.
- 38:56I don't live and operate that way.
- 38:58But there is a bit of like a be kind to yourself in like work
- 39:01and life. And you know, if you're
- 39:02constantly like down in the dumps, you know, that shows like
- 39:07your energy, your energy with clients, like your positivity,
- 39:11things like that. It's, it's very, very important.
- 39:13Like mental health is like one of the biggest things we're
- 39:16really going on on tangent now, but like.
- 39:17No, it's true. That's what I talk about all the
- 39:19time because yeah, I've done a lot of trauma therapy and just
- 39:22psychological psychology studying and healing because I
- 39:26had that too. It was always more and more and
- 39:28more and more and more. You hit a goal and then you're
- 39:30immediately fall right after the high.
- 39:31You're immediately followed by what's next.
- 39:34I have to do this next thing. How do I build more?
- 39:36And I take on more pressure and go do this next thing.
- 39:38And then it's just this never ending spiral of of misery and
- 39:42it's never enough, right? It's never enough.
- 39:45And like, I think you've, it seems like you've done a good
- 39:47job kind of raining that in and like, look, I'll have some days
- 39:50where I don't, I don't rain it in myself.
- 39:52But on the opposite end, I, I generally do think most people
- 39:56don't suffer from this affliction that we suffer from.
- 39:59I, I think they pretend that they're working hard or they
- 40:03pretend that they're busy and they're not.
- 40:07Like I, I would, I do tell people they're like, oh, how did
- 40:09you get here in this period of your time?
- 40:13I'm like, look, I'm not. I always tell folks I'm not
- 40:15smarter than you. I just have more reps, right?
- 40:17Because I started when I was 18. I just have most folks that get
- 40:21out of college, they do something for a year.
- 40:22They don't figure out which way is up in their business until,
- 40:26you know, they might go from a career one to another.
- 40:29I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I was 18.
- 40:31I started doing it when I was 18.
- 40:33So by the time I was 22, I had four or five years of reps.
- 40:36I like young brokers. They start when they're 2223.
- 40:39They're not making money until they're 28.
- 40:41That's the difference. I just started it earlier.
- 40:43Now you will not get the reps and you won't improve if you
- 40:48don't put yourself out there. And that's what I struggle with
- 40:52when I'm addressing people on my team that'll say, hey, I'm
- 40:56struggling, you know, what can you do to help?
- 40:58And I'm like, look, there's no epiphanies.
- 41:00Like did you show up to the ICSC?
- 41:02Did you show up to 10 of them, right?
- 41:04Are you in the are you putting in the time, the hours, the
- 41:06reps, right? You'll score a lot of points if
- 41:10you take a lot of shots at some point, right?
- 41:12Like statistically, you look at any sport and activity, there's
- 41:16like lifetime scores that were never phenoms.
- 41:18They were just consistent. And I'm like, I show up.
- 41:20If I'm happy, great. If I'm sad, great.
- 41:23I close a big deal. I don't go fuck off and
- 41:25celebrate for two or three days. I double down and I'm go to work
- 41:28again the next day and again and again and again and again.
- 41:32And part of that like that builds your stamina and it's
- 41:36like, you know, again, more analogies weight lifting, right?
- 41:39Like you can comfortably squat 100 lbs.
- 41:42Your goal is to get to 200. Well, throw on 150 and fail.
- 41:46It's the same with work, right? It's load management.
- 41:49And like we're like, oh, you're, you will learn to be more
- 41:53efficient and effective if you just, if you do say yes, you
- 41:57load on more pressure, then you can figure out all the other
- 42:01stuff. You can figure out how to be
- 42:02happy and be a good person and all that other stuff.
- 42:05But if you just don't have the stamina on the, the build, if
- 42:08people come to me and they're like, I'm, I'm busy, I have 5
- 42:10deals. I'm like, you're not going to be
- 42:12able to do 10 deals until you take on 20 and you're running
- 42:16around like a chicken with your head cut off.
- 42:17Like you will figure out what's important and what's not
- 42:19important. Yeah, just to take the chance,
- 42:22take on the pressure. I mean, that's how you.
- 42:25I like that you said that because it's either I have that
- 42:27same perspective of I either win or I learn.
- 42:29And I don't really believe in failing because I fail.
- 42:33You can't grow unless you fail. Let things.
- 42:37And so it's not a failure unless you quit.
- 42:39And I know it sounds so cliche, but it's so true.
- 42:41Like you just keep going. You analyze and don't make the
- 42:45same mistake over and over again again, like actually pause,
- 42:47analyze where you messed up, analyze what the lesson is, how
- 42:51do I get better? How do I grow from this?
- 42:53And then you take that experience and that wisdom can't
- 42:55be taken from you. So even if you end up in a
- 42:57crisis or a crash or you lose tons of money or have a bad deal
- 43:01or lose whatever, right, you have that experience and that
- 43:04knowledge to be able to go now, do it better, faster and
- 43:07stronger. And most people, they just can't
- 43:09handle the the pressure. I think a lot of that comes back
- 43:12to also is the push versus pull motivation.
- 43:15You know, a lot of the unworthiness, the lack of I'm
- 43:19not good enough or I needed people to love me.
- 43:21Like that's the primary desire in every human being.
- 43:24That's how we exist, right? And so if we a lot of
- 43:27entrepreneurs or people that didn't feel that for some reason
- 43:31as a child from their parents, like they weren't good enough or
- 43:33they couldn't live up to the expectations or their dad was
- 43:35never around or their mom was a narcissist or whatever, right?
- 43:38And their parents were just doing the best they could.
- 43:40They're not bad people. Usually that's how I define my
- 43:42my family. Right, and I had to have those
- 43:45conversations with my parents like I love you to death.
- 43:47You did the best you could. You did an amazing.
- 43:49It doesn't mean that my 5 year old brain took it that way of
- 43:52you guys are awesome. And and like that's what caused
- 43:55me to create those biases in my own life.
- 43:58But then it served me, it pushed me, it made me relentless, it
- 44:02made me obsessed. It made me absolutely committed
- 44:05and have this type of grit to get through anything and just
- 44:07dial in on on what I was going to accomplish.
- 44:09But then at some point I woke up and realized the pattern.
- 44:11The probability of OK insanity is doing the same thing over and
- 44:16over and expecting different results.
- 44:17And I am seeing that any goal I achieve is not followed by the
- 44:21satisfaction that I assumed the goal would bring me.
- 44:24And I don't want to live like this forever because I see a lot
- 44:27of people in their 50s, sixties, 70s, whatever, that are worth
- 44:31hundreds of millions of dollars. And they're miserable.
- 44:33Empty shells, and that's going to be me.
- 44:35And so that's where I started to shift into more of that whole
- 44:40motivation. And that first coach I hired
- 44:42when I was 25, when I became a millionaire and was suicidal, I
- 44:45was like, Hey, how do I, you know, fix this?
- 44:49My, me, How do I fix me? And he's like, well, what's
- 44:51your, what's your motivation? What's your intention behind
- 44:54every action that you're doing? And ultimately it was to try to
- 44:56earn love for myself and from other people.
- 44:59And he goes, that's all wrong. Like, as long as your intention
- 45:03is coming from that motivation to try to earn love, you will
- 45:08feel like this for the rest of your life, no matter what you
- 45:10achieve on paper. And he said your motivation has
- 45:13to come from love. Like you do this, you serve
- 45:16people, you create, you grow, you lead because you love
- 45:20yourself, not to try to love yourself.
- 45:22And that's where I had to go down that whole journey of like
- 45:25really exploring where that all came from.
- 45:27That's a lot, yeah. We could have a whole podcast on
- 45:30that. No, it's very.
- 45:32Yeah, That's very. Yes.
- 45:34Yes, That's all I'm gonna say. Yeah.
- 45:35I don't know if I'm ready to reveal all of this on camera,
- 45:38but yes. Yeah, this is only like your
- 45:40second podcast, right? The first, the first one was
- 45:43audio. This is the no, wait, wait, this
- 45:45is the second one on video. Yeah, I did a short one in
- 45:47Dallas at one point. But it it's so true and it's,
- 45:51you know, people, I think finally it's becoming more
- 45:54acceptable for like men in particular to talk about their
- 45:58feelings and like what drives them and all these things
- 46:00because it really is a sign of strength, right?
- 46:02The old be tough, don't bitch and complain like all these
- 46:05things. Yes, be tough and be relentless
- 46:08at all these things, but also be vulnerable and authentic to like
- 46:10we're human beings, we have emotion.
- 46:12And if we're disconnected from our emotion for our whole lives,
- 46:15like that doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help ourselves and
- 46:17it's a waste of our one experience of life that we get
- 46:22in this world. And it once you are able to push
- 46:25through that and actually love yourself, like not from a
- 46:28narcissistic, insecure way, but a whole compassionate,
- 46:31empathetic you, you're great. Like, I love you, I cherish you
- 46:35and, and who you are. And you don't need it filled
- 46:38from other things around you. Then you're able to actually
- 46:41create and take on so much more and build so much more because
- 46:46the motivation is right. And because you now have that
- 46:48pull motivation where you're not trying to force every outcome in
- 46:51your life and you're exhausted and you're drained and you're
- 46:53fighting everything and you're in this victim scarcity, fearful
- 46:57mentality. But now you're like actually
- 46:59infinite potential, infinite abundance in this infinite
- 47:02energy. And like, that's what I feel
- 47:03now. I'm like, bring it on.
- 47:04Like every day I wake up and I'm just ready for it because it's
- 47:06coming from the right place. No, I'm gonna yeah, you're an
- 47:08abundance versus scarcity person.
- 47:11Like I'm the like glass half full, glass half empty, right.
- 47:14Like I First off, you should also like get paid to talk about
- 47:18all that. So you should charge like our
- 47:20company would probably pay you to like tell that entire story
- 47:22like, but it's, it's, you know, that's why like mental health is
- 47:28like important to these guys. Like, and I tell them they're
- 47:30like, well, what do I need to do?
- 47:31I'm like, look, take a deep breath, get good rest, go to the
- 47:34gym, like get in a routine, like, or spend a couple hours or
- 47:40days whining about like why the deal didn't go your way,
- 47:43etcetera. Like process it.
- 47:44Let's figure it out. I'll help you with that.
- 47:45Move on. Like the best thing you can do
- 47:47for yourself is like, get out of this freaking cycle and, and go
- 47:50back to work. Like I'm struggling.
- 47:53My deals fell out. Well, how many do you have?
- 47:56Five. OK, well, if you had 10, like at
- 47:59some point it is numbers and it's probability.
- 48:01So like go get 10 and then you'll be it'll roll off you
- 48:05when a couple die, which they'll my pipeline blows up all the
- 48:08time or it expands and contracts and all that stuff, But it's
- 48:11like I've just got enough of it hedged.
- 48:13I'm like, you know, makes me feel better having 10 deals
- 48:16behind it, right? Like not like, Oh my God, every
- 48:19the world is ending. Like the deals are dying.
- 48:21It's like, no, I can't control a why are doing something crazy
- 48:26and not waving contingencies, not closing escrow.
- 48:29I can control going up, showing up to work the next day.
- 48:33I can control putting the effort out and getting more listings
- 48:36right. So I can.
- 48:37It's like we're, we're our owner's worst enemy and like we
- 48:39can fix our own problems. And it's like when most people
- 48:42talk to me about this and the junior brokers, I'm like, you
- 48:44know what you got to do? You're just like, it's right in
- 48:46front of you. Just just go do it.
- 48:49Like, and they're so worried about like trying to be right or
- 48:52trying to convince someone to do something.
- 48:55And I'm like, look, you're not, you're not going to the the
- 48:57client is the one making the decision.
- 48:59Like you don't own the asset. So like it kind of doesn't
- 49:02matter what you think or how you feel like you can give advice,
- 49:07but at some point, like follow your instructions and like don't
- 49:09get worked up. Like people do crazy stuff, like
- 49:13you're going to just drive yourself insane if you don't
- 49:15operate like that to some extent.
- 49:17Well, an energy is so important and that's what the same coach
- 49:20taught me, he said. The outcome can only be as great
- 49:23as the energetic state in which you initiate the action.
- 49:26Interesting. So if you take any action from a
- 49:29poor state, your outcomes going to match that.
- 49:32It's going to be poor. But if you take an action from a
- 49:34peak state, like if I showed up on this podcast, I was like,
- 49:37hey, Patrick, I feel like shit, my life sucks.
- 49:40I hate myself. Like, are we going to have a
- 49:42good interview? No, Hell no.
- 49:43But I come up pumped up, peak state, flow state in the zone
- 49:47connected. We're going to have an amazing
- 49:49conversation and we're going to help a lot of people and all
- 49:50these things. And that's the same in deals.
- 49:52If they show up and they're like my deal fell out or I'm working
- 49:55so hard or nothing's going well or the market sucks, like all
- 49:59they're going to do is create. You're going to ruminate, you're
- 50:02going to perpetuate. That's like, and I agree.
- 50:03And you know what, you might have felt some of those things
- 50:06before this interview or whatever, and you're going to
- 50:09feel better after you're done, like, right, You show up and do
- 50:11the work, like probably feel less like that now if you did
- 50:14like show up, right? What scares me with people is
- 50:18like when they experience some form of failure, they run away
- 50:22or hide or you don't hear from them.
- 50:24I'm like, that's the worst thing you can do.
- 50:25I'm like, be with people, talk about it.
- 50:29Some of the biggest learning opportunities I've had is again,
- 50:31to the point of like failures till something like, you know,
- 50:34the vulnerability, the authenticity thing.
- 50:38You had a guy in the show, Josh Simon.
- 50:39I met Josh when Josh built a building at like age 26.
- 50:45Josh is one of the first people I call when I've had, you know,
- 50:48a failure. I need advice.
- 50:49I've had a rough day and like, I don't know if you wanted this on
- 50:53the podcast, but he'll he'll tell me the same thing.
- 50:55Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, buddy. I did too.
- 50:57It's all good. You'll be good.
- 50:59Everything's fine. You're doing it right.
- 51:00Good job. Keep it up right.
- 51:03And that gets back into like who are your mentors and, and who do
- 51:06you have as a support structure, things like that.
- 51:08But I would say there's like a common thread of most of these
- 51:11really successful people. It's like they get kicked in the
- 51:13teeth and they wake up and they ask for more so.
- 51:17That, that masochistic tendency, but I know we don't have a ton
- 51:22of time left, but where, where do you see the future with?
- 51:24I mean, there's obviously so much going on in the economy.
- 51:26We have AI, the immigration of AI called the mass immigration
- 51:30that's that's coming for a lot of orders, taker type admin jobs
- 51:35and eventually blue collar construction jobs and things
- 51:37like that. And Elon thinks, you know, the
- 51:39prices of everything are going to drop tremendously because.
- 51:42We need that. Yeah, right.
- 51:43I know. But he also says we'll be in a
- 51:45world of abundance and everybody will have a high income and the
- 51:48cost of goods and services going to be so low and all these
- 51:50things. But where does that leave
- 51:51commercial real estate over the next, you know, 13510 years?
- 51:55Like what? What did I know?
- 51:55You don't have a crystal ball and nobody does, but it's fun to
- 51:57talk about. What do you think as far as real
- 52:00estate, commercial real estate as a whole and also like
- 52:02specifically the retail to help perspective in this rise of
- 52:05technology and robotics? Markets really market is very,
- 52:09very healthy outlook over the next.
- 52:11I never like more than a 12 month outlook because I'm like
- 52:15I'm like like things change. But I always say, look, barring
- 52:18Black Swan events like is there AI don't think there's a
- 52:20fundamental like obsolescence to retail like 10 years ago would
- 52:26have told you about big box, which is a conversation we
- 52:28started in all the demand drivers are there.
- 52:30There are enough fresh concepts. I don't care if it's food or
- 52:34apparel or big box, whatever it may be like there is depth if
- 52:38these spaces go dark. So there's in the companies that
- 52:41do the best job with it are the Omni channel guys.
- 52:43They're selling you the product through multiple means and the
- 52:45retail is some combination of distribution or a billboard or
- 52:48this or that. The only thing that I think is
- 52:52the, the real big change in the, the net organic stuff that's
- 52:55being built in like massive scale is the, the data center,
- 52:58the data center stuff. So that's obviously that sits on
- 53:02the top from like the standpoint of like, we need more of this
- 53:05and that is going to be built in great supply offices on the
- 53:09other end of like, OK, what do we do with this?
- 53:12At the same time, like the best office space is 100% lease.
- 53:15Like we have an office in Newport Beach at Fashion Island.
- 53:19Our rents went from 70 bucks a foot gross to like 90 a foot
- 53:22gross. Like you don't get concessions
- 53:24with Irvine Company, right? And but what they've done to
- 53:28command that rent is I have everything I need.
- 53:31I have a Whole Foods that I can walk to.
- 53:32I have a Hill Stone R&D restaurant that I love.
- 53:36I have a Neiman Marcus. If I sell a deal and feel like
- 53:38going shopping, right, like every I have a hotel I have we
- 53:41have a pseudo Four Seasons flag next door.
- 53:43So everything's there. So if you really look at like
- 53:45placemaking, it's just that everybody says all office is a
- 53:48disaster. It's like if you're a commodity
- 53:50office, yeah, it's probably a disaster.
- 53:52You're just a race to who's the lowest price per foot.
- 53:57But I think in this country I think things are fundamentally
- 54:01relatively healthy. The biggest thing that concerns
- 54:03me is growing income gaps like the haves and the have nots,
- 54:08right? And like you get to where it's
- 54:10just like with tax load, like 8090% of the spend is by 5 to
- 54:1510% of the population. And the big indicators I look at
- 54:18that make me nervous about the only things that make me nervous
- 54:21about the state of the economy are like credit card balances
- 54:23going way up. So you're like, OK, people are
- 54:26paying their bills more slowly. And then you actually look at
- 54:29like used car delinquency rates because the a foreclosure on a
- 54:33house takes months. If you don't make one car
- 54:36payment, your car gets repo, right?
- 54:37So you look at like you look at Carvana, CarMax, these guys, you
- 54:41look at their repo rates. So when people start slow
- 54:44playing that, paying that and putting money on credit cards,
- 54:47that shows you, hey, the consumer's under pressure.
- 54:50When we look at tenants and retail, like the discretionary
- 54:52categories, there's a little less spend there.
- 54:55And that's been happening the last year or so.
- 54:57Like, are people going to go out to, you know, Top Golf as much
- 55:02as they used to, right? And stuff there are always,
- 55:04there's a whole value segment of entertainment, but it's like,
- 55:07are people going to take a few less vacations?
- 55:09Are they going to put a little bit more on their credit card?
- 55:11Right. Those things make me nervous.
- 55:14The political divisiveness of the country, which I think is
- 55:17exacerbated by wealth gaps, that kind of thing makes me nervous.
- 55:21Like all the shit happening, we don't have time for a political
- 55:23conversation. That kind of stuff makes me more
- 55:26nervous than anything else. The K economy and almost wealth
- 55:30gaps in. The K economy.
- 55:31I heard that the other day. Yeah, rich dad, poor dad, Robert
- 55:35Kiyosaki, he he talks about that a lot.
- 55:38But yeah, and that's The thing is even, and now with AI, it's
- 55:40going to exacerbate it even more because now it's like all
- 55:43there's abundant wealth being created, but it's all in the
- 55:45hands of a. Few people.
- 55:47Five people, yeah. And, but, but that has to be in
- 55:51order for there to be economic growth and GDP growth and all
- 55:55these things, which I think GDP, that whole indicator is going to
- 55:57change because it's not going to be a valid metric.
- 56:00But there has to be buyers, right?
- 56:04And so it has to circulate. But that's where the complexity
- 56:07is, is well, is it all circulating amongst one small
- 56:10group? And then it has to be
- 56:11redistributed to the, the population so people can
- 56:14survive. And we're not in civil war and
- 56:15all these difficult concepts, but as far as like utility of
- 56:19retail and companies that are growing and going bankrupt,
- 56:22because we're seeing a lot of companies go bankrupt and we're
- 56:24seeing a lot of companies have massive growth.
- 56:26Where do you think the bright spot is in retail?
- 56:29Do you think it is more affordability or do you think it
- 56:31is more like high end experiences, high end dining,
- 56:34high end office high, you know, those types of things?
- 56:36That's a it's a don't have enough time to answer the
- 56:40question. It's a really, really good
- 56:42question. You are seeing pressure on, I
- 56:45mean this again could change next quarter, but like LVMH put
- 56:48out earnings and they finally saw a contraction even on the
- 56:52high end you're starting to look at and this is just fun stuff,
- 56:54but like high end Swiss watch manufacturers are actually
- 56:57lowering prices, right. I think that might have
- 57:00something to do with tariffs etcetera, etcetera.
- 57:04Back to all the whole global thing, I think global supply
- 57:08market, like supply markets of Labor, I don't think we're going
- 57:10to have mass unemployment. The AI stuff scares me with
- 57:13certain jobs getting wiped out. But one thing I always like to
- 57:16talk about is the biggest thing that we struggle with as
- 57:20brokers, the biggest thing that developers, the people that
- 57:21build what we lease and sell are they struggle with skilled
- 57:25trades and labor, right? So it's not like we don't have
- 57:27jobs in this country and or consumers.
- 57:30It's the consumers have a skill that's been replaced in some
- 57:32way. We don't have enough people to
- 57:34do, you know, work with their hands, whatever that might be.
- 57:38Again, trades, right. So I look at things like do we
- 57:41need, and this again is a huge macro conversation, like do we
- 57:44need more majors and like underwater basket weaving and
- 57:47stuff like that? Or like do people should people
- 57:49go to a learn how to work with iron, steel, whatever it might
- 57:54be like, right? Do people should learn how to
- 57:55make things and do technical skills.
- 57:57The biggest developer issues aside from like supply chain,
- 58:00it's supply chain of humans and labor as much as it is
- 58:03materials. It's like I can't get capable
- 58:05subcontractors. Yeah, yeah.
- 58:08But then there's, you know, Elon saying in three years, robots
- 58:11will do better brain surgery than any surgeon ever could,
- 58:15which means labor is, you know, blue collar is coming next.
- 58:19I agree. I Yeah.
- 58:21But but people still exist, like people still want to go to
- 58:24restaurants, people still want to gather and do podcasts and go
- 58:27to conferences and, and go to like Soho House and social
- 58:29clubs. And so that's what I, I think is
- 58:31like that in person, experience based relationship, like
- 58:35connection. We always are going to have it.
- 58:37We're not at all just going to like live in our cave in a
- 58:39virtual reality, at least not for the foreseeable future.
- 58:41And that would be a pretty sad world.
- 58:43But yeah, some people do. But yeah.
- 58:46No, I I think there's look, it's the Phoenix Open week.
- 58:49We're in Phoenix or what's February 4th, whatever it is
- 58:52February 3rd today. I can't get a reservation
- 58:54anywhere. Right.
- 58:56The the same store sales we Rep. I mean it's public.
- 58:59I can say it, but there's a we're going to catch restaurant
- 59:03in two days catch open their first store in Dallas.
- 59:07It's going to be their most profitable unit ever.
- 59:09And I mean, we're talking about sit down restaurants now, 10,000
- 59:13square feet that are doing 20 five, $30 million in sales,
- 59:16right? I mean, you look at things like
- 59:18that and you're saying what's wrong with there is nothing
- 59:20wrong with the economy, right? But what are you in that you're
- 59:25either hyper value. On the other end of the
- 59:26spectrum, Texas Roadhouse is a tenant of ours.
- 59:29They are the top casual dining chain by I think they would do 9
- 59:33million a store on average now. And that's a $1415 steak.
- 59:38They have tremendous growth. It's, it's everyone in the
- 59:41middle, right? You're either providing and
- 59:43everyone says like, oh, we offer the experience where we can
- 59:46charge 50 bucks for a steak. No, you don't catch does, you
- 59:49don't, right. So you're, you're going to
- 59:51struggle, right? You're, yeah, it's 100 now.
- 59:54Everything changes. I think it's the the middle is
- 59:58what struggles. And it's the same thing with
- 1:00:00retail. Like, are you clearly one thing
- 1:00:02or another? And we can't be all things to
- 1:00:04all people, right? So.
- 1:00:05Yeah, be the best at at what you are and forget the rest.
- 1:00:08And it's just it's it's capitalism.
- 1:00:11You just have to fight for being the best in your niche thing
- 1:00:15like who is your client? Who is your avatar and serve
- 1:00:17them better than anyone else. I agree.
- 1:00:19Cool. Awesome.
- 1:00:20Well, we'll end with a rapid fire.
- 1:00:22Oh boy, school hard knock style. Oh God.
- 1:00:26OK, how old were you? And you became a millionaire.
- 1:00:30I was 24, I think plus or minus. I actually haven't been asked
- 1:00:35that one in a while. I'd have to look.
- 1:00:37The first year I made $1,000,000.
- 1:00:39I was 27. Like in my pocket post tax.
- 1:00:41Wow. But I think cumulatively I was
- 1:00:442425. That's.
- 1:00:46Insane. Yeah, I was 25.
- 1:00:48What's the greatest advice you've ever heard or received?
- 1:00:51Oh boy. Oh, that's a really, really hard
- 1:00:54one. Comparison is the thief of joy
- 1:00:57because we're on a whole mental health thing right today.
- 1:00:59So let's go with that one. There's probably a lot more.
- 1:01:01Comparison is the thief of joy. I like that.
- 1:01:04What's the number one thing you attribute to your success?
- 1:01:10My, my pain tolerance, yeah, stamina for continuing when I
- 1:01:16don't feel good or I don't mentally, emotionally,
- 1:01:19spiritually, whatever it is just continuing.
- 1:01:21Yeah, I think most of the most successful people I've talked to
- 1:01:26or learned from, they just have a massive ability to handle
- 1:01:29immense amounts of pain. Yeah.
- 1:01:31What's the most important thing? It comes what's the most
- 1:01:36important thing when it comes to building and scaling companies.
- 1:01:42God, I would almost say pain tolerance.
- 1:01:44I, I think it's a, it's an ability to meet your clients,
- 1:01:49stakeholders where they're at and find some common ground.
- 1:01:54Like I don't want to bastardize it with saying likability, but
- 1:01:58it's like the ability to relate to wide swaths of people and
- 1:02:01figure out what's important to them and like be able to have a
- 1:02:03conversation with them. Because you can't grow if you
- 1:02:06can't get people to want to work with you for you, etcetera.
- 1:02:11And people aren't going to work with you and for you if they
- 1:02:13don't like you or they feel like you're full of shit.
- 1:02:15Right. If you could leave one message
- 1:02:17to the younger generation, what would it be?
- 1:02:26Stop looking at your fucking phone and get out in the world
- 1:02:29and meet human beings and learn how to talk to adults.
- 1:02:32That's literally what Luke said, Really.
- 1:02:34Just on the last interview, Yeah, he said stop scrolling.
- 1:02:37Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
- 1:02:38I scroll a lot too, but like my doom loop at night.
- 1:02:41But yeah, get out of there. Who is your hero and why?
- 1:02:47My hero is my mother. Yeah, for sure.
- 1:02:50She's mom because she is a hard working Midwest woman who moved
- 1:02:58with no money out West Arizona and met my father, the Doctor
- 1:03:02Who had a red 9/11 turbo at the time, by the way.
- 1:03:04And I'm like, Mom, seriously now it's that the woman like the
- 1:03:08point of stamina? My mom raised 5 kids and you
- 1:03:11know, everyone handles things differently, but she had a job
- 1:03:14the entire time. She was a pharmaceutical sales
- 1:03:16Rep. She still works to this day.
- 1:03:17She's 65. She doesn't have to, right?
- 1:03:19The woman's just a grinder. But at the same time, she is
- 1:03:24very devout with her Catholicism, which I appreciate.
- 1:03:26She's a great mom to all of our kids.
- 1:03:28My dad's dying of cancer, She takes care of him.
- 1:03:31The woman's just freaking indestructible.
- 1:03:33You know, something's like, really fucked up when that woman
- 1:03:35starts crying because it's like she keeps everybody else locked
- 1:03:39in, including myself. Yeah.
- 1:03:41So that's awesome to have her in your life.
- 1:03:44But all right, last question, if you could send one text to your
- 1:03:4825 year old self, what would it say?
- 1:03:51Or for you is probably if you could send one text.
- 1:03:53To your 20 year. Old self.
- 1:03:54What would it say? Good one.
- 1:03:56Stop caring. Yeah, you'll be fine.
- 1:03:58And quit giving a shit about what other people think of you.
- 1:04:04Wise, famous words of wisdom. So, well, thanks so much for
- 1:04:08coming on the show. Excited.
- 1:04:09For dinner at Catch. It's actually tomorrow night, I
- 1:04:11think. I'll ask Uncle Jeff.
- 1:04:12Thursday and the Open. So excited.
- 1:04:16Appreciate you. Thank you.