Land: $500k for 2.2 acres Logo drawn by a guy who was living in a van: $500 Construction contract: $4.7mn (way more than expected) for 76k gross sf Building, leasing up (mostly), then selling this thing and seeing the current owner get $169 for a 10x10: priceless

and once again: a city takes an area known as the "homeless people hangout" and finally makes it nice because people from other countries are coming

me arriving to sit down after demanding that we pick Chops Lobster Bar for the location

LatAm hiring is a trip 😆 sorry for the weird gray background, but he literally colored his resume that way.

Jeff, to me: "Wow, $9.75MM loan? Biggest of your life? Yes sir that'll be the Small Balance dept down the hall and to the left"

in income producing real estate, we call this a "40 cap"

Really admired this Atlanta developer when i was a kid; his wife was tight w my mom as they were both organists. he got me my first commercial real estate experience where i did a summer analyst stint at a big REIT. And I'm a developer today, so clearly that has something to do with that. Things he did: - decided, as a HS sophomore, he wanted to be an architect and started hounding the state of TN for not having an architecture program. For two years. Until they caved and paid for him to go out of state where Ga Tech had an architecture program. - think he started out doing office leasing for Portman - built the two sprawling campuses known as Technology Park, basically developed the areas now known as Johns Creek and Peachtree Corners - redeveloped the old Standard Club into the master-planned Lenox Park in Buckhead. Then built the Standard Club a new golf club elsewhere - i would argue he was an unofficial member of the Gwinnett Mafia - president of the Ga Tech Foundation - developed Atlantic Station w Jacoby - as part of that, lobbied the white house to get the "B.A.Y. Bridge" built across the intersate (Big-Ass Yellow bridge, which is yellow because of Ga Tech) - was amazingly connected, even overseas, was very close friends w Senator Nunn, etc - optioned the land and brought in Georgia Tech to create 'Tech Square' in midtown - overall, developed 20 million sq ft Unusual for a guy w that background: he didn't drink, he didn't curse, he was gentle, forgiving, caring, and humble. Shortly before he died he was in bed, in terrible shape, but he raised his hands in the air and declared to his pastor, "I'm a winner!" That's how I'd like to go.

a storage broker had his in house "marketing person" ask me for a guest article on storage development: pros, cons, pitfalls etc. i spent some time on it. went through a couple drafts. after i felt good about it and sent, she popped it into chatgpt and sent me back a bucket of AI slop, totally bastardizing what i had written, asking "is this ok?" the rewritten version is packed with corporate-sounding bullshit phrases i would NEVER USE: "premium yields" "affluent destination enclaves" "leverage deep industry networks" "consumer mobility" "vehicle for generating" (cash flow) "complex market conditions" "structural risks" GTFO of here. What i wrote was: - honest, - it sounded like me, - it was easy for a layperson to understand (i promise this guy's clients are not UPenn real estate faculty). And she just wanted to flip all those characteristics around and make people's eyes glaze over and put my name on something fake I would never write that's honestly harder to follow. I swear sometimes I hate this new world.

that one guy who happened to pull the ripcord and get completely out of sunbelt multifamily in 2022

talk to your customers. force them to give feedback. sometimes I'll see a customer at one of our storage facilities and interrupt them: "hey, i never get to talk to customers... is there anything here that you would complain about?" so they stop and think... "... uh... no?"

the wheels really come off when you take the side off the crib they start passing out in random places w the lights on like a drunk college freshman