Latest / Real Estate Investing with RealDealCrew / How to Niche Down in Commercial Real Estate w/ Bob Knakal
Transcript
- 0:00Bob Knackle has closed more than twenty four hundred deals and nearly twenty five
- 0:04billion dollars in New York real estate.
- 0:06and he'll tell you the move that built his business was saying no.
- 0:10In this episode you'll learn how a hand drawn map won him a hundred and four
- 0:14of his last one hundred and six listing pitches.
- 0:17You'll learn why specializing literally creates time
- 0:20And why AI is about to break up the big brokerages.
- 0:24If this helps you, subscribe and check out realdeal crew dot com.
- 0:29Let's get started.
- 0:34We have Bob Nackel with me here today,
- 0:36and you can learn what he can help you with.
- 0:38Head over to BKREA.com.
- 0:42I'm going to have that as a clickable link in the show notes.
- 0:45Bob is daring enough to even offer you his email address and phone number,
- 0:51so maybe we'll save that mid-show so that they have an incentive to stick around.
- 0:56Really appreciate your time here today,
- 0:58Bob.
- 0:58Sure thing, Jack. Always great to be with you.
- 1:00So yeah, it's been a minute since the last time you've been on this.
- 1:03was it's going to be great to catch up.
- 1:05And since then, you've started a newer venture at BKREA.
- 1:10Talk a little bit about that transition and some of the highlights along the way.
- 1:15Sure, well, you know, the new firm BKREA was started in April of 2024.
- 1:22So about two and a half years in at this point.
- 1:24it was, you know, I had 26 years of owning and running my own firm with Paul Massey,
- 1:30Massey Nackle Realty Services,
- 1:32which we sold to Kushner Wakefield in 2014.
- 1:35And I spent the next 10 years,
- 1:36two, three and a half.
- 1:38at Cushman and 6 1 1 at JLL. Got fired at both of those places.
- 1:43And after getting fired at JLL in February of 2024,
- 1:48started a new firm in April 2024.
- 1:51And basically, you know, I've been a broker in New York.
- 1:54I'm in year 43 now. And
- 1:57For 40 of those years had a very very narrow value proposition even
- 2:02in the Massey-Nakal days. Only sell properties,
- 2:04only represent sellers, only work on exclusives,
- 2:07only sell stuff in New York.
- 2:09The first leg of those four, however,
- 2:11I was a generalist. I sold all types of buildings.
- 2:13In the new iteration of my professional life,
- 2:17we've now narrowed down the focus in that first leg quite significantly.
- 2:21We only sell vacant buildings or easily vacated buildings in New York City.
- 2:27And what do you do with a vacant building in New York City?
- 2:29One of only three things. You either knock it down and build something new,
- 2:33renovate the heck out of it and convert the use to something new.
- 2:36or sell it to a user group. And that's what we do.
- 2:39you know, last year, our first full calendar year,
- 2:43we sold 43 properties for about 1.8 billion.
- 2:46It's gone over a billion already this year and have close to $4 billion
- 2:51of exclusive listings that we're selling.
- 2:53And have about 20 people working at the firm now and don't want to
- 2:56get much bigger than we are right now.
- 2:58But back to having a lot of fun and enjoying the business more than I ever have.
- 3:03So it's been very exciting and great to be back on the entrepreneurial side
- 3:08of things.
- 3:09You've seen some pretty explosive growth in the past two and a half years.
- 3:13Have you ever looked back at your time with some of these other companies
- 3:17and wondered why you didn't do it sooner?
- 3:20Yeah, well, think, you know, had Massey-Nackle was a 26-year run,
- 3:25actually 26 years and 46 days.
- 3:28That was a great run.
- 3:30We had a number of things we were very proud of.
- 3:32From 2001 when CoStar entered the market until 2014,
- 3:37according to them, the number two company in New York had sold about 1,300
- 3:41properties. We sold over 4,000.
- 3:44So we were a little popcorn stand of a company competing against regional,
- 3:48national, and global companies.
- 3:49And we more than three X'd their sales volume for 14 years in a row.
- 3:55I think that goes without saying.
- 3:57that's
- 3:58probably the most dominant performance any brokerage company
- 4:01has demonstrated anywhere in the United States for such an extended period of time.
- 4:06I'm very proud of that. And we sold the company in 2014 to Cushman for $100 million.
- 4:12I was very proud of that.
- 4:14and then three and a half years at Cushman and six and a half years at JLL.
- 4:21After the Cushman days, I wasn't ready to start my own company again.
- 4:24The pain from having to fire 25 % of our folks during the great financial crisis,
- 4:3008, 09, was still a little too fresh.
- 4:33But after JLL fired me, I said,
- 4:35you know what? Not much another platform can do for me at this point.
- 4:39Let's go back to the entrepreneur.
- 4:41roots and start again. And you know,
- 4:43I think we understand how to make this business work.
- 4:47You know, the legacy I'm most proud of is that today there are
- 4:5036 companies or divisions of companies that are owned by or run by people that
- 4:56we taught the business to. And that's something I'm most proud of.
- 5:00And enjoying working with a bunch of younger folks today that are doing a great job.
- 5:06And I know that
- 5:07owning or running businesses are in their future at some point.
- 5:10So it's very rewarding to see their growth and help them along their
- 5:15way to build better businesses and build better lives for themselves.
- 5:20Well, it sounds like you just got enough of a taste of the of corporate world with
- 5:25JLL and and and whatnot to realize that maybe maybe you kind of missed this
- 5:31a little bit. You got to admit once you get that entrepreneur taste,
- 5:35you kind of want to go back to it,
- 5:36right?
- 5:37Yeah, well, you know, I always say that there are pros and cons
- 5:41to every environment in every situation.
- 5:43Whether you're at a small firm,
- 5:45a mid-sized firm, a big global firm,
- 5:47there are pros and cons. Whether it's working for yourself or working
- 5:51for somebody else, there are pros and cons.
- 5:54So the key really is, think, to take advantage of the pros that exist
- 5:59in your environment and try to keep your head down from the cons and make
- 6:03the best of it. But for me, I think entrepreneurial endeavors are the thing that
- 6:09get me the most excited and I'm most passionate about.
- 6:14So very, very happy to be back on the entrepreneurial side of the ledger.
- 6:18Did you, you could correct me if I'm wrong,
- 6:20but a little research and it looked like you hired Seth Samowitz?
- 6:26Yep, Seth is my COO.
- 6:27And as your CEO.
- 6:29First person I hired because I realized that AI is changing the world
- 6:34and likely to have even more of an impact in the future than it has already.
- 6:38Seth has started AI companies.
- 6:40He worked in driverless cars for six years.
- 6:42And I said, if this guy could make a car drive itself,
- 6:45he can help me sell a building.
- 6:46So he was the first hire and we use AI very,
- 6:50very extensively in our practice today.
- 6:53Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that.
- 6:55Because with his AI background,
- 6:58you definitely kind of threw your hat in the ring regarding like showing
- 7:05a signal as to what you must think the direction of this landscape is going.
- 7:11Well, I think, you know, AI is extraordinarily powerful and you just look
- 7:15at what's happened over the last 42 years or so.
- 7:19When I started in 1984, I had no computer on my desk,
- 7:23no cell phone, no fax machine.
- 7:26We used to carry rolls of quarters around in our pocket to make calls from
- 7:29a payphone. And some of your listeners may not even know what a payphone is.
- 7:33you know, and to see how things have changed so far.
- 7:37It's remarkable, but I think that things are going to change even
- 7:40to a greater extent over the next few years that AI really kicks in.
- 7:45you know, we use AI in two main ways.
- 7:47One, to make funneling processes more easily and more efficient.
- 7:52And that basically is prospecting and deal execution.
- 7:55We also use it very extensively for data interpretation.
- 8:00Our data sets are great. Our data sets go all the way back to 1984.
- 8:04and they've used the same methodology consistently over those 42 years.
- 8:09So it's a great way to extract tremendously valuable
- 8:15data out of our data sets.
- 8:19Tell me a little bit about map room.
- 8:21I understand that you had your team walk the streets of New York
- 8:26for like 220 hours for the first original version of that.
- 8:32Yeah, well, it wasn't my team,
- 8:34it was me and my team. I had a different teammate with me each time I went out,
- 8:38because I think the exercise is so valuable,
- 8:41not the physical exercise, but the mental exercise,
- 8:44and going to kick the bricks and see the buildings.
- 8:48so, yeah, it was a...
- 8:50March 2020, senior management at Old Co tells us,
- 8:55you know, go home for two weeks,
- 8:56let this thing blow over and then come back.
- 8:59And I went home and I was watching TV with my wife that night and
- 9:03my doctor called me and said, hey,
- 9:04Bob, I just want to let you know they're talking about shutting down Manhattan
- 9:08Island, quarantining it, shutting the bridges and tunnels.
- 9:12Get out of town right away. So within an hour,
- 9:14I had my wife and my daughter in the car going up to our country house.
- 9:18in Connecticut and two weeks later it was very clear we were not going
- 9:21to be coming back. So we had left the apartment in such haste I had to come back
- 9:25to New York to get some things.
- 9:27pull off the FDR drive and I pull into a science fiction movie.
- 9:31There's nothing, there's no one,
- 9:33there's no cars moving, no people,
- 9:35no stray dogs, no nobody. All the stores were closed and for whatever reason
- 9:40it occurred to me this would be a great time to go count buildings
- 9:43and I always wanted to count buildings under construction so I could
- 9:47get a good handle on the supply pipeline of new construction.
- 9:51It was the perfect time to do it so I spent 220 hours
- 9:55over the next four months, walking the streets,
- 9:57highlighting the tax lot map with different colors for properties that
- 10:03had been demolished, that were under construction,
- 10:06were built to less than 25 % of their max buildable density,
- 10:10potential assemblage sites. And the purpose of doing it was not to create a map.
- 10:15It really was so that I didn't have to try to interpret my handwriting.
- 10:20It was easier just to highlight parcels.
- 10:22And before you know it, I started taping pieces of the map together.
- 10:26I had these pieces out in the field with me and taping together to
- 10:30see what was happening in a neighborhood.
- 10:32Before you know it, I had this map that was 24 feet long and 10 feet wide
- 10:36and showed everything that was happening on the development construction front
- 10:41in Manhattan and created the map room.
- 10:44And it has been an
- 10:46overwhelming success in terms of.
- 10:49pitching business and giving insight to clients.
- 10:53know, historically over the course of my career,
- 10:55I've won about 26 % of my exclusive listing pitches.
- 10:59Well, to date we've given 106 pitches in the map room.
- 11:03We've gotten 104 exclusives. So it's been fantastic.
- 11:07My only regret is that I wish I had done it 30 years ago,
- 11:11but it's been a fantastic thing.
- 11:14And you know, people flying in from all over
- 11:17country and all over the world to stop in and check it out and it's been it's been
- 11:21a great thing for us.
- 11:23How have you been able to maintain or keep updating that because I'm sure that
- 11:27the changes on the New York landscape is is pretty fast paced.
- 11:33Yeah, well, since we did the field work in 2020,
- 11:35we've tracked every demolition permit,
- 11:38foundation permit and building permit the city has issued.
- 11:42And every time we hear about a transaction or see a demo permit or
- 11:46a filing being made, the map is changed.
- 11:49The map is changed probably three or four times a week.
- 11:52And so we're always keeping it current.
- 11:56Wow, just a testament that you you know,
- 11:58you saw this this possible piece of information and willing
- 12:03to make that time investment for something like that that's going
- 12:08to pay dividends in the end. I mean,
- 12:10that the foresight there is is pretty remarkable.
- 12:13Yeah, well Jack, I've always said that I'm not really in the real estate business.
- 12:17I'm in the information and relationship business.
- 12:20And to have proprietary information,
- 12:23to have something nobody else has,
- 12:25is a tremendous competitive advantage.
- 12:27And it's an easy way to differentiate yourself.
- 12:29So that's what we did. And fortunately,
- 12:32it's working beautifully. And we hope to keep it going.
- 12:35I also understand that you've kind of assembled an in-house zoning
- 12:39and policy SWAT team. Is that true?
- 12:42The zoning attorney, architect,
- 12:45data scientist, policy experts,
- 12:47how does that team change what you can offer a seller compared
- 12:51to a traditional broker?
- 12:52Well again, it is differentiating ourselves so given all of
- 12:57the legislative changes that affect the construction and development market here
- 13:01in New York with new tax abatement programs,
- 13:04new affordable housing programs,
- 13:06new ways to transfer air rights.
- 13:07These things are very very complicated.
- 13:10So we thought
- 13:11that would be in our clients best interest if we formed our own in-house policy
- 13:17and zoning SWAT team and that's what we did and we have all those professionals
- 13:21as part of it and so we can take a look at a property,
- 13:24dice and slice it within 24 hours and understand how to maximize its value
- 13:30and that has also added to the competitive advantage that we have.
- 13:34Before we hit record, you and I were even chatting about your partnership
- 13:38or your co author, Rod Santa Massimo was on the
- 13:44the on my show not too long ago.
- 13:46And you and him put together a book called selling buildings as a tactical playbook.
- 13:52Could you give us like one piece of advice in there that most CRE brokers get wrong?
- 13:59sure. Well, several. I will tell you that a regret that I have is that earlier
- 14:05in my career, I didn't ask more experienced people more questions.
- 14:09I did so many things by trial and error and consequently made hundreds,
- 14:13if not thousands of mistakes. Fortunately,
- 14:16I make a lot of those twice. But I mean,
- 14:18you got to ask senior people for advice and counsel and so many lessons.
- 14:23Basically, the book is a summary of
- 14:25my at that point my 41 year journey in this business.
- 14:30And I'm proud to say I recently signed a new book deal with Simon
- 14:36& Schuster to write a new book with a working title,
- 14:39How to Sell. So I'm very excited.
- 14:41I'm working on that project now and that book should come out sometime
- 14:45in the fall of 2027.
- 14:47Well, Bob, how do you sell?
- 14:50Well, I mean, number of ways. to
- 14:52You
- 14:53buy the book and read the book to find out,
- 14:55but it's...
- 14:56You know, it's actually, interestingly,
- 14:58I believe the brokerage business is a very simple business.
- 15:01It's just really, really hard,
- 15:03mostly hard because it requires the discipline to do relatively ordinary things over
- 15:09and over and over again until they work.
- 15:11But that's like that in anything.
- 15:13I mean, think about the great athletes.
- 15:16And, you know, I've always been enamored with greatness and...
- 15:22always wanted to try to figure out how the best athletes did what they did.
- 15:27But it's actually very, very simple and basic stuff.
- 15:30mean, you know, Larry Bird staying after practice for two hours to shoot
- 15:34500 foul shots. There's nothing magical about shooting a foul shot,
- 15:38but there's something magical about doing it every day after practice
- 15:42and shooting 500 of them. You know,
- 15:44why did Michael Jordan show up two hours before practice and his teammates came
- 15:49to practice and he'd be drenched in sweater ready?
- 15:51Nothing magic about showing up two hours early,
- 15:54but doing it every single day made a difference.
- 15:57Tiger Woods hitting thousands and thousands of golf balls.
- 16:01know, the very simple, ordinary things done extraordinarily consistently
- 16:07is really what makes the difference.
- 16:09And so we talk a lot about these kind of things and gonna talk a
- 16:12lot about these things in the new book,
- 16:14but it's a function of
- 16:16compassion, expertise, discipline.
- 16:19in becoming what you become along the way and the importance of using discipline
- 16:24to to keep pounding the rock when you feel like you might want to give up.
- 16:29And I think that that is one of the things that leads to failure of most brokers.
- 16:34Not that they're necessarily doing the wrong things or
- 16:37not because they're implementing the wrong strategies or tactics,
- 16:40but they give up too soon. You know,
- 16:42the the stone cutters
- 16:44creed is that you know the stonecutter pounds the rock with the mallet
- 16:4899 times and nothing happens and you don't see any change in the rock
- 16:53but the hundredth blow splits the rock in half and to the casual observer they look
- 16:58at that and say well that hundredth blow on the rock must have been different
- 17:01somehow the stonecutter used a different mallet or struck the stone
- 17:04at a different angle or hit it harder and the stonecutter knows no not
- 17:09at all the hundredth blow is no different than the
- 17:12that came before it, it's the 99 that came before it that allowed the 100th
- 17:16one to work. And unfortunately,
- 17:18some people quit after 30 or 50 or 75 or 99.
- 17:24And you have to keep going until that last one will work.
- 17:28And I think the interesting thing is that while we all celebrate the 100th blow,
- 17:35we celebrate the rock breaking in half.
- 17:38We celebrate the closing of the deal.
- 17:41the best-selling book, we celebrate the standing ovation,
- 17:45but it's really not about the hundredth blow.
- 17:47Your life is really made in the pursuit.
- 17:51of the hundredth blow and how you behave during the 99.
- 17:57And the 99 is where you become the person who's capable
- 18:03of breaking stones one after the next after the next.
- 18:07you know, I discovered that, you know,
- 18:10God was not nearly as concerned about the rock as I was.
- 18:14He was more concerned with creating the stonecutter.
- 18:17And so
- 18:18It's that process of the 99 that make you become a person who's capable
- 18:23of succeeding. And I think it's really important to keep that in mind when you're
- 18:27going through the process of trying to become an elite salesperson.
- 18:32Well, just to remind everybody,
- 18:33if you like what Bob is chatting about,
- 18:35do us a favor, head over to his website,
- 18:37it is BKREA.com. Bob,
- 18:41did you want to give out your phone or email address here as well?
- 18:45Sure, sure.
- 18:46Or you can go follow me on social media.
- 18:48I'm on all the major platforms.
- 18:50Or you can email me at bk at bkrea.com or call me at 917-509-9501.
- 18:55I'd love to hear from you.
- 18:58And if you found some value in what we're chatting about so far,
- 19:00us a favor, share this with one of your friends.
- 19:03And if you're watching us on YouTube,
- 19:04give us a like and subscribe. So,
- 19:07Bob, when you're talking about the stone cutter,
- 19:10have give us a little wisdom here regarding how do we know if
- 19:16we are even hitting the right stone?
- 19:19Well, that's the key.
- 19:20And that's what you have to keep in mind,
- 19:22Jack, is that the stone cutters creed and continuing to have the discipline
- 19:27to keep whacking the stone works provided you're doing the right things
- 19:32and doing the right things the right way.
- 19:34So success in our business comes from doing the right things the right
- 19:39way for a long time. But that's a big if is to,
- 19:43know, if you're doing the right things,
- 19:46if you were hitting the stone with a roll of
- 19:48paper towels, you could hit it a million times and it's not going to do anything.
- 19:52So, you know, it's important to have your fundamentals down and make sure you're
- 19:57doing the right things to succeed.
- 19:59So you know, you mentioned being let go of your these previous positions.
- 20:04You've you've been hitting this stone now for you,
- 20:09you said 40 plus years. When you heard that news,
- 20:12did you just like instantly jump into the new venture,
- 20:18you just said, Okay, this is what I'm going to do now.
- 20:20Or did you take a minute to kind of find your bearing and decide what to do next?
- 20:25No, I had a pretty good idea. First of all,
- 20:27I had a pretty good idea it was going to be fired.
- 20:29So as soon as I walked into the meeting and I saw the head of HR walk
- 20:34in right behind me, I was like,
- 20:35yeah, I'm getting fired. So that was actually a good thing
- 20:37Hahaha ~
- 20:38because it got me out of a contract that I probably still would have been stuck in.
- 20:42So because they didn't, they fired me without cause.
- 20:45I was scot-free with getting out of my contract,
- 20:49which was great. you know, I was,
- 20:50went over to the map room. I had the map room as an offsite office,
- 20:54even when I was at JLL. And I was fired at 10.05 and at 10.15 I was in
- 20:59the map room making calls. So things kind of continued.
- 21:02And it did take me a couple of months to definitively decide what to do.
- 21:07I talked to a bunch of people.
- 21:08And I always think that's a great learning experience.
- 21:13talking to folks, finding out what they do,
- 21:15how they do it, why they do it that way.
- 21:17And so I learned a lot, at the end of the day,
- 21:20I thought that there's really not a heck of a lot that any particular platform could
- 21:25do for me and decided to get back onto the entrepreneurial side of things.
- 21:30You mentioned the importance of learning from those that have been there,
- 21:33done that, or have the experience.
- 21:35Is that what drove you around the NACL dealmaker network?
- 21:40Yeah, pretty much. you know, I started becoming very active on social media back
- 21:46in January of 23. And, you know,
- 21:48I'd get a DM a week or an email a week from somebody saying,
- 21:53hey, you know, I've been in the business a couple of years and love
- 21:56to pick your brain. And, you know,
- 21:58I set up a lot of those those meetings,
- 22:01Zooms or having coffee with somebody.
- 22:03And, you know, today I have close to 20000 followers on all my my social media.
- 22:09platforms and I get about a dozen of those requests a week.
- 22:13So I can't possibly meet with everybody or zoom with everybody.
- 22:17So I have people join the NACL Dealmakers Network.
- 22:20It's an online mentoring program.
- 22:22We talk about different ways to think,
- 22:25different best practices for the brokerage business,
- 22:27deal stories to help you win exclusives.
- 22:30And then there's an Ask Me Anything session,
- 22:33which we do twice a month to have people ask.
- 22:36me literally anything. How do I grow my business?
- 22:38How do I grow my team? How do I handle this comp related issue?
- 22:42And, you know, happy to share my perspective on things.
- 22:46And I don't claim to have a monopoly on the best way to do things.
- 22:50I just share with people what works for me.
- 22:53Certainly a lot of people do things very differently and there are a lot of
- 22:57different strategies and tactics that work,
- 23:00but I just share what has worked for me over the years.
- 23:03And last week I closed my deal 2,422.
- 23:07It's closing in on $25 billion worth of transaction volume and
- 23:12100 million square feet of deals.
- 23:16So, you know, fairly extensive track record and just hope to both educate
- 23:21and inspire another generation
- 23:23of real estate professionals by sharing my experiences with them.
- 23:27You've also said that most brokers have two assets,
- 23:31knowledge and time. And now with your leveraging AI in a number of ways,
- 23:36what specific uses are you finding for some of those categories in support
- 23:41of those two assets?
- 23:43Well, there's two things on that front.
- 23:45One, yes, AI is great for making things more efficient and effective.
- 23:50And I mentioned the funneling processes of prospecting and deal execution.
- 23:54Data interpretation is very, very powerful.
- 23:57I think that one of the interesting things about time is most people think time
- 24:01is finite. I agree, technically,
- 24:03it's finite. But I also think that you can make time by using time more effectively.
- 24:09The illustration I use to support that is,
- 24:11let's say I'm a generalist. And last week I sold an apartment building,
- 24:15a retail property, and an office building.
- 24:18And this week I'm pitching an office building.
- 24:21That owner wants to hear everything about the office building I sold last week.
- 24:25Couldn't care less about the apartment building and the retail property I sold.
- 24:29So two thirds of my time last week selling properties isn't helping
- 24:33me get this week's assignment.
- 24:35But imagine if I had sold three office buildings last week.
- 24:39This week's client wants to hear everything about everything I did last week.
- 24:43I just created time out of thin air.
- 24:45So I think that further supports the thesis that specialization
- 24:50is the best way to differentiate yourself today.
- 24:55And in the old Massey-Nackle days,
- 24:57we specialized by geography. Today,
- 25:00we specialize by product type with a geographic orientation.
- 25:05layered on top of that.
- 25:06You know, one of the things that I've been talking about a lot is that
- 25:09we are living in an age, especially with AI that we can create dashboards,
- 25:15have some additional insights,
- 25:17do some data mining that would have typically been reserved for the big players,
- 25:22you know, that I used to work in the corporate world,
- 25:24and we'd have data scientists that would cost ridiculous amounts of money
- 25:31to get some of the insights we can have today leveraging AI.
- 25:36You know, you have the NACL land index that goes back to 1984.
- 25:40Like, what did it take to get 40 years of sales data to the point where
- 25:46AI model could be leveraged against it?
- 25:49And where did that data lie mean to you in the first place?
- 25:54Yeah, well, you know, it's just that all the information was sitting in
- 25:58a bunch of boxes. And just a matter of digging the boxes out,
- 26:01dusting them off and sifting through it.
- 26:04So the NACA land index took us about three years to put together,
- 26:08but it really is a one of a kind study of 2489 development site sales south
- 26:14of 96th Street in Manhattan going back to 1984.
- 26:17And that data is also disaggregated into land sales
- 26:22residential rental, residential condo,
- 26:24office, hotel, and miscellaneous.
- 26:27And it really is quite an extraordinary thing.
- 26:29But I think you bring up a good,
- 26:31great point, Jack, and that is that I think the power of AI today is going
- 26:36to change the way the brokerage industry performs.
- 26:40I think we saw from the 90s through last decade
- 26:44a significant consolidation within the brokerage business because the
- 26:48thought was, hey, if I work for one of these big global companies,
- 26:52I'm going to have access to so much more data and that will help my business.
- 26:56I think today there is less need to be at one of those big shops.
- 27:01Anybody, high school kid could get the same data that used to take,
- 27:04you know, a whole research department to come up with.
- 27:07And so I think there's less need to be at a big shop.
- 27:11And I think also the big shops with,
- 27:13you know, the full
- 27:15full service shops have so many conflicts of interest embedded in them that
- 27:20I think you're to see a disaggregation within the brokerage business and
- 27:24a lot more boutique firms starting up and a lot more people starting their
- 27:28own businesses because you just don't need to be at a big company the
- 27:32way you used to have to be at a big company.
- 27:36Yeah, I think the stats are even showing that out now.
- 27:39I think we see, I thought I saw something recently where we're seeing
- 27:44the biggest uptick of entrepreneurship than we ever have in this country.
- 27:49And you're probably proving out already.
- 27:53Yeah, no, I think it's absolutely going to happen and,
- 27:57you know, I expect to see a lot of that.
- 27:59You being in New York, I'd be curious as to what you see on the horizon there.
- 28:03mean, it, you know, being as remote as I am,
- 28:07you know, we hear of ma'am Donnie,
- 28:10the socialist mayor in that part of the world.
- 28:13Do you foresee any significant changes on the landscape?
- 28:17How does that look? Or how is that impacting any immediate changes
- 28:21to the real estate?
- 28:22Look, generally the real estate market in New York City is absolutely
- 28:28on the upswing. It used to be we had to talk about specific product types,
- 28:32but our transaction volume is up marginally,
- 28:37it's up. Values are up very significantly again,
- 28:40depending on product type. The only sector of the market that
- 28:43is really suffering today is our rent stabilized housing stock,
- 28:46and that is 100 % because of public policy.
- 28:51Our rent regulated housing stock is more highly correlated to public policy than
- 28:56even supply and demand. That's not the way it should work.
- 28:59And so that sector of the market is really hurting down
- 29:0575 % in terms of value from the peak.
- 29:08And I think that by the time the current administration is done,
- 29:13it'll be down 85 to 90%. But all other property types are
- 29:18are seeing big increases in value.
- 29:21clearly every property type with the exception of rent regulated housing
- 29:27is seeing an upswing in transaction volume and in property value.
- 29:33Well Bob, it's always such a pleasure to chat with you.
- 29:36Before we start to dive into the rapid fire and close out this episode,
- 29:40is there anything else we should have tried to hit on?
- 29:42No, I think you know we could talk for hours and hours and hours about real estate.
- 29:46I just think you know I always come back to the point that specialization
- 29:53is the great differentiator and differentiation leads to
- 29:57the best competitive advantages and so I think it's important for us to keep that
- 30:02in mind and to also always remember that it's an information
- 30:05and relationship business. So try to have the best information you can
- 30:09and make sure you
- 30:10You covet each of the relationships that you have with your clients.
- 30:15Yeah, we could have probably spent some time on that regarding the niching down like
- 30:20you did and finding that path.
- 30:22You know, it seems like everybody that I talked to that actually picks their niche
- 30:27and finds that sweet spot they that's when growth actually starts to take off.
- 30:33Yeah, it's an addition by subtraction.
- 30:36And you you think about when Steve Jobs came back to Apple,
- 30:40he cut 80 % of the business lines that Apple had,
- 30:44and the company absolutely took off.
- 30:47And in the same way, you know,
- 30:49I feel like, not that I'm comparing myself to Steve Jobs,
- 30:52don't try to make that comparison.
- 30:53You can go ahead and do that,
- 30:54Bob. That's fine.
- 30:55It's okay. But in
- 30:57the same way, by eliminating working on many different types of properties,
- 31:02like I say no to three or four times the number of listings that I
- 31:06try to compete for, because I really want to stick to what's right down
- 31:09the middle of the plate for me.
- 31:10And I think that you actually grow by saying no to things.
- 31:15And as counterintuitive as that is,
- 31:18I really believe that's the case.
- 31:20Well, if you're ready, Bob, we'll jump into the rapid fire and close
- 31:22out this episode.
- 31:24Sure, let's go Jack.
- 31:26What lie do real estate investors often tell themselves?
- 31:31that the cap rate is going to be what the cap rate is.
- 31:34If you could go back in time and give your younger self a piece of advice,
- 31:37what would it be?
- 31:39Niche down, become an expert at one thing and create value in yourself
- 31:45by knowing more about one particular thing than anybody.
- 31:49Generalists get considered, specialists get selected,
- 31:55the specialist doesn't want to know something about everything,
- 32:00they want to know everything about something.
- 32:02I need you to step back in time a little bit.
- 32:04But when you were scaling your first business,
- 32:07what was the first position you hired?
- 32:09And would you have made the same choice?
- 32:12Well, wouldn't. The first position we hired was just a salesperson.
- 32:17But I will say the first position we hired that really was impactful
- 32:21on the business was hiring head of admin to take a
- 32:27lot of the burden off what Paul and I were doing at the beginning.
- 32:30It was just Paul, myself and a secretary.
- 32:32And we were doing everything. And every time we hired,
- 32:35whether whether it was our head of admin or our CFO.
- 32:40or head of HR, or a COO,
- 32:43or a head of training. Every time we hired someone
- 32:46to take administrative responsibilities off our back,
- 32:49it allowed us to be much more productive as salespeople.
- 32:52And so those are the hires that really mean the most.
- 32:56I think you have to look at what all the different tasks are that you do and say,
- 33:00is the most valuable thing I do for the company?
- 33:03And try to do as much of that as you possibly can.
- 33:07And then finally, what single tool or process have you implemented that
- 33:11has had the biggest time saving impact?
- 33:12Well, I think using AI, but I think the biggest or the most impactful activity
- 33:19is always prospecting calls. Always has been,
- 33:22always will be, whether you call them cold calls or prospecting calls,
- 33:27making calls is the number one revenue generating activity a broker can do.
- 33:32And you have to focus on that day after day,
- 33:35week after week, month after month,
- 33:36year after year, in my case, decade after decade,
- 33:39but you always have to be making those
- 33:41calls.
- 33:42Well, this was fantastic. It was great to see you again,
- 33:45Bob. One more time, is BKREA.com.
- 33:50Or you can email Bob directly at BK at BKREA.com.
- 33:54Really appreciate your time, Bob.
- 33:57This was great to catch up and hope you'll be back again real soon.
- 34:01All right, Jack, thanks so much for having me on.
- 34:03Best of luck to everybody out there.