Porta Potties, Cap Rates & $20 Cheerios: What Nobody’s Telling You About Business & Deals

0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome in to the K podcast on this glorious 37-degree Wednesday morning as I embark towards Imperial Real Estate Agency on the north side of Lakewood from my home on the south side of Lakewood, and I sit in traffic on Route 9. And I now welcome to the show Be Superstar, Philanthropist, and kind-hearted uh gentleman from Norfolk, Virginia, my holy uh Mr. Lefko. How are you doing on this Kessovinkenyon Wednesday morning, Papa Doo? Baraka Shem. I am well. I want to tell you though, in Norfolk, in Norf actually, I'm sitting in my office in Virginia Beach, and uh the temperature is 60 degrees.

0:43 It's a little bit breezy, but you know, half of the holes are downwind, so I'll see what I can do with it. Well, you know, 60 degrees sounds like uh an absolute vacation-like place. Top it's Adar. It's happy times, business is looking up. The muzzle for the Jews, business is looking like the market's turning towards a positive direction. How do you feel during Adar? That's very optimistic of you, uh the market being uh hot as you think it, but uh I'm wondering who's closing deals. We're uh we're you know, we're we're looking around. Uh I feel great. I I I feel great. And uh, you know, one of the things the Rev talked about a couple of weeks ago was uh during during the time of the chapter on Mun.

1:26 He said, if you if you read and learn the chapter of Mun every day, you will be successful. And I started to think about what does that mean to be successful? And it's really the the three inches between your own two ears. It's it's how you look at things. Zig Ziggler used to say the business is not good or bad out there, it's good or bad between your own two ears. So I respect what you said, Michael, is that things are looking up because uh I'm hearing in your voice that uh your mindset is things are looking up, and because of that, they are. It's totally, it's it's uh for one one thing, the market doesn't matter when you have people that want to buy a house and people need more space.

2:16 So the market is great like that. And if you're trying to help people find their dream home, that's awesome. Plus, there's a lot of don't wanters in the world. There's a lot of there's there's there's somebody in in uh Pleasantville, New Jersey, who I spoke with his agent, and he's an old man. He's owned this property of three different houses on two lots, all under one deed, and he's owned it for a while, and now he's willing to pretty much take any number, even$300,000 for this nice little uh parcel. And uh the guy, should he buy it? Uh my nice client should get it at uh at an 11 cap, and and everyone's gonna be happy because we're gonna waive cons inspection contingencies and it's a mess, so the seller's happy to get rid of it.

3:03 And and and that's awesome. And that's and that's and that's gonna go. So, deals. Yeah, yeah. You know, the closing is closing, Michael. So, you know, the my uh my uncle who should re who's just Nashama should have an Ali, and Shmine used to say you don't have the money in the bank until you have the money in the bank. As soon as I get a lead, I was joking with uh with another agent here. As soon as I get a lead, some guy goes, Hey, I'm in the market for, you know, an investment property,$500,000, collect rent. Like a lead like that. Hey, you got anything for me? Um it's like I already think, you know, what am I gonna do with all that money when it closes?

3:43 I think I'm gonna spend it on Florida. I think I'm gonna take the family. I've already spent the money the day I get the lead. I hear, I hear. Well, let's get the money and we'll worry about how to spend it later. That's uh that's one way to do it. Aaron Powell Do you do you transact differently during Adar than the rest of the other months? Rabbi Friedman used to say that and I I think it's his material, uh he may have heard it somewhere else, that each year is not like a new uh event. It's like a helix of the DNA. Uh if you know the science of DNA, there the it's like a spring circle that goes up and up and up and up.

4:27 So each year it turns around and then there's another Adar above the one before. The reason that I think that that message is good is that it builds on the uh the Adars of your life. So how do I operate in Adar? I have to think back and reflect on what Adar was for me last year and how I'm going to build on that for this year. And it brings me to thinking about a uh a sheer that Ravgov had given where he talked about the Chovitzheim, who who was, of course, one of the the greats of all time. He wasn't a wealthy guy, in fact, he was poor.

5:08 And uh his wife would make food from scraps of bread that she would be able to get from the baker. The baker would would uh would advance the the breadcrumbs to her on credit if she didn't have the money. And then she would make these cakes and the and the the Kobitskhaim would come home and he would eat. And so one day he was learning and he came home and his wife was crying. She said, There's nothing to eat. Now, Ravgov in his own way goes, There's nothing to eat. That that means it's nothing to eat. He said, you know, not like your children go, there's nothing to eat. Because there is stuff to eat, right?

5:49 There's something to eat. He said, I'll make you a sandwich. He said, he said, the kid goes, I don't want a sandwich. He said, Why don't you want a sandwich? I'll make it for you. He goes, because then I have to bench. He goes, You're not allowed to hate benching until you're 14. So anyway, so the chovitzhaim comes in. There's nothing to eat. He's gotta be hungry. And he yells out, Sutton, you are not going to keep me from my learning. And he turned around and he went back to learn. And when he came home, his wife was making the cakes because the baker had changed his mind and gave her the scraps that she needed to make the cakes so that they could eat.

6:32 Because he wouldn't, he wouldn't let the Sutton get in the way of what was important, which was his learning. So in Adar, what I look at, in addition to uh to thinking through the mun and the daily things that I'm blessed with, which starts with getting up in the morning and having really a full plate of everything, of every challenge and foods that I need to make my day uh powerful, I also think about when something breaks, and something can break at any time, including uh, you know, you can spill something, and it'll take some time to clean it up. You can say, Sutton, you are not gonna keep me from the joy of this day.

7:15 And I think that that is the uh power of what I think I'm taking into this day and this month. That is that it needs to be said. Happiness is a choice, it is not something that certain people have. It's a mindset, it's a me-da. Um, and adar, you know, it's hard, it's hard to understand. You know, what does it mean in adar we increase our joy? People ask, what does that really mean? And the answer is it's it's it seems to be it's straightforward. You be happy because it's a choice to be happy. You can choose that. You can choose to put a smile on your face, and you can choose to be to focus on what's exciting, and you can choose and choose and choose and pop, let's talk about deal analysis here, because I think what we have here is a bombshell of a revelation.

8:02 I want to talk uh precision here because you came for Shabbos along with the family a week ago, and uh we had a nice time driving around and going to Trader Joe's to pick up some seltzer and and pick up uh Cheerios that are three dollars at Trader Joe's as opposed to ten dollars at your local grocery stores. Penny's penny saved is a penny earned. But that's neither here nor there. That's a good commercial for Trader Joe's. Make sure to make sure that uh you check the for the coach's symbol there. Anyway, um when we were talking, I was telling you about a certain deal that I'm trying to pitch to a client, and it's got a great cap rate because in in my uh estimation, that is the most straightforward way to assess a commercial uh real estate deal, a multifamily deal, really any business deal, if it's an investment, is a cap rate, which basically is the the net operating income divided by a certain number.

9:06 If that number ranks higher than a than than a six or seven, we're looking good. If it's a ten, we're looking great. That's what a cap rate is. But you told me the most extraordinary words, which I hope you'll elaborate upon and explain it to the audience. You said that you never once bought a deal because of the cap rate. What does that mean? Uh cap rate, I I won't discount that it's a that it's a a useful measure that that is a universal uh industry term. It makes it easier for you to talk to a buyer, especially if you're a broker.

9:48 It's easier to talk to a uh an investment advisor, an asset manager who may be involved in acquisitions, uh a banker or a lender, because it's an industry term that makes sense to everyone. And that's why you use it, and others do too. So that that that it that it has a function doesn't mean that it's not useful. For me, I look at where opportunity is based on uh the couple of factors that I told you about. That I if I see a property that I want to own and that I'm willing to go to every day to to to manage if I have to, when it meets that criteria, then I look at where it came from, what the what the potential of the deal is and what's the downside.

10:45 So I'm I'm always looking at where where the conservative approach to what I what I'm investigating is. And then I look at where the upside is. So the place to find those things is through a lens of what I think is gonna work. For an example, uh years ago I bought uh a small self-storage facility next to, I think I told you this, next to a piece of land owned by the city who wanted it developed. So I looked at why the owner wanted to sell it because the numbers didn't make sense for what it could be. I was able to buy it, turn the numbers around based on managing it correctly, because he didn't, and acquiring the next piece of property, which I was able to expand it and then sell the whole thing off to a national self-storage company, and I made some good money.

11:39 It was also a good management property for my staff and uh and and a good income producer for a while until I I took the chips from selling it. So that has to do with looking at where to buy something that has a limited downside with a good upside. And that's one of the things that I would look at. So my numbers weren't based on a cap rate, they were based on potential with a limited downside. That's how I've operated on acquiring property. And that came from a guy who didn't want his property. When I called the broker and I looked at it, I said, Why doesn't he want it? What's what's wrong with it? Because there's nothing wrong with it.

12:19 And went over to look at how they were managing it, and it was it wasn't smart. Let me just put it that way. I don't want to cut him down. They just didn't pay enough attention to it. For whatever reason, they had other businesses. I don't know what their their purpose was. So when I look at any kind of deal, I'm taking my own uh spreadsheet, looking at current income, less expense, less holding cost, and then looking at what the upside would be if I rented it up or or I were able to build on it and see what that would be based on the value of the land itself. Uh and so that's how I've always looked at things. I don't know how explicit that comes across on the podcast because it's specific to how I operate and and not necessarily how other people do as well.

13:07 And I don't look at 10-year projections, five-year projections. I look at, I look at what is now and what can I expect the day I close and how long it's gonna take me to make it look good uh and what the downside risk is. That's that's how I look at everything. It comes through very clearly. I mean, there's there's to the way I understand it, one is is is do you said do I want to be there? Do I want to go there? That's a that's an important question. And do I want to drive to manage that? You know, am I proud of owning this property? Is it something that I want? You know, not just if if because if it's just about I'm gonna make 10% of my money, but it's a port a potty distribution center, and you need to do that.

13:52 Might be a good business. If you know, if you don't want to drive there and deal with all that, it's the is it's the uh maybe the Christian church of anti-Semitism. I don't know if you want to manage that necessarily, even if you're making more along the lines of the thing that you looked at, I don't know, the group home situation. I mean, I'm gonna go. Oh, that was a cash cow. I should have done that one. No, I don't know. Uh I don't know about that. Think about it, Bob. It was 15 rooms in one house. Every room is a thousand bucks. They all are and it all smelled like like cigarettes the day that you wanted to to to to exit the property. There's a reason the guy wants to sell it.

14:33 Well, he said no. I mean, I met the owner. I met the the manager. He lives there free because he doesn't have any money. He just manages it. You gotta put the money inside of a lockbox as one way, cash only, and the only rule they had is no drugs in the common area. It's only gonna be in your room. Great. Anyway, let's uh let's let's let we digress. Let's uh find something else fun to talk about. Um when we talk about um what you were saying before, I think also I was just gonna get the second point that you made is risk management. You said what am I willing to to what can I see? What can I see to see that where's it gonna be in a little bit? Am I willing to to what would be the worst case scenario?

15:14 Another thing I wanted to talk about for a second, but also we don't look at it in five to ten years. We look at it now. That seems to be something that can't be overstated. Right. But but asset managers uh do look at it that way. They do. They look they look at they look at what the long-term projection is. That's why you have something called an internal rate of return, uh uh uh an IR that they look at. They go, okay, well, your cash flow is only gonna be 5%, but because we're paying down the debt, the internal rate of return is gonna produce you 10%, and then they sell based on that.

15:56 And you know, that's a good thing to be able to say, look, on it in addition to everything you're getting, you're getting an internal r rate of return that's even higher. But is is is that is that enough money? I think that that's I think that's the the question. And and really a lot of a lot of the guys who have see, right now you're dealing with um people who are sitting on so much cash. I mean, there are people who really raked it in through uh through uh flipping properties at low interest rates years ago, and they made a lot of money doing that, and then the government gave a ton of money away in in uh the COVID area area.

16:37 If you had enough employees, you could really pull a lot of chips off the table that the government gave you that were tax-free. It was unreal what that was going on. So so there's a lot of cash out there. The thing is that uh that the interest that that cash players want for their money is substantially higher than even bank rates or or or or prime interest rates. The cost of cheap money, institutional mortgage money has a lot of caveat to it. Uh you have to have a lot of upfront reserve, the cost of of the of the of the closing, including lawyers' fees and broker fees and uh and all of the reports, uh uh appraisals, environmental reports.

17:23 There's a lot of upfront cost in acquiring low interest money, and then there's defeasance charges, so that if you want to sell, you have to pay a big number to be able to get out a loan. So so flexible money is much more expensive, typically tied to a floating interest rate that might be the sofa or the LIBOR or something like that, where the spreads are somewhat higher and you're paying, you know, 9, 10, even 11% for your money, uh, or or the people who are sitting on a lot of cash that are going to lend you hard money, bridge money, those numbers are 11%, 12%, because they're not really interested in in low interest uh payments.

18:05 If if that were the case, they could go into different stocks or different mutual funds that they're performing. And so the the the the interest in the interest, the level of interest and what the the the cost of money is can be expensive. And that's what that's what drives uh a hard bargain to be able to find deals for the don't wanters. So where where the focus is is where do you have the backing to be able to write the check and and make the deal. That's really if there's cash available, then there's opportunity. Love that. I love it. I love the game of business every day. I don't know how anybody gets up and just does the same thing every day in their profession.

18:50 I think it's so cool that you gotta hunt and gather. If you do sales, you know, you could you gotta make sure you could pay your bills, but the the thrill of putting it all together and all that. Um pulling up to work now, can't wait to get started. But do it's not about the capital. I will tell you one thing before you before you go. It's fun to be able to do the business that you're doing, and it's good to be excited about it. There's a book that I read, I think I loaned it to you. I'm almost sure I loaned it to you called Winning Through Intimidation. It's an interesting book, and it's not necessarily about intimidation, but rather to understand what happens in an intimidation mode when you run into it.

19:36 Because the players and business, in terms of winning, there's a level of intimidation that you can avoid by by certain preparations that you can make. I it's it's written by Robert Ringer. I don't think it's in publication anymore. You probably can get it on like a like an eBay or something like that. He talks about a lot of philosophy in it, but one of the things he says in the book, he said, there are only two words in this book that are capitalized and underlined, and that's for a reason. And those two words are get paid. You can run around doing a lot of different things and you can deal with a lot of different people. But at the end of the day, if you if you close a deal and don't get paid, it's like scoring the winning touchdown in a Super Bowl and having it called back for a penalty.

20:26 So you have to So you have to be you have to be very clear on what your mission is, and that is we're not in this just for fun. We want it to be a fun business, but it is a business, and it's about making money when you're in business. So go to work, get paid, have a great day. I'm there, I got it all. I'm gonna go to work, I'm gonna get paid. So the way the way that it's probably the first time uh well today, the way that I may get paid is actually not even closing in a deal. It's actually a deal that I did almost no work on except for about a half hour. Uh found a piece of land, showed it to a different agent who works with a developer and negotiated a$5,000 referral fee, and they made the offer today.

21:10 So if it goes through, uh maybe we'll you know go buy more uh high-priced Cheerios at kosher grocery stores. Michael, have a have a great day. Uh everybody smash that like button. Smash that like button. Don't forget to hit the hit the subscribe button. Don't forget to hit the donate button for sure. Double double click that one and we'll go get it. Let's get it. All right, pal. Have a great day. See you later. Bye. Bye bye.