How to be a successful RE developer: 1) Find deal 2) Get excited about deal 3) Tell everybody how awesome deal is 4) Actually underwrite deal, like fr 5) Discover deal is actually terrible 6) Abandon deal 7) Repeat Follow this formula and you will be very successful.

Going to Scotland soon. While there, should I buy a Barbour jacket?

San Francisco is so extremely back. $772 psf for office trade would have been unheard of a year ago

A first for me today: Broker sends me CoA for a deal I'm underwriting. It's in Chinese. Since the deal is in CA, I assume it was originally in English, but the broker translated it into Chinese and sent me only that version. So I am now (un?)translating it back into English. So I can read the CoA. Wild stuff!

My summary of all the SpaceX IPO commentary:

An update on AI tools I've been using recently: >Gemini has taken a big step back. Hallucinating. Not reading things. Thinks it's a different day than it is. >Zoom: the AI companion/meeting notetaker thing is actually really strong. My new favorite tool. >Claude continues to impress. I've now built template skills to buildout detailed dynamic muni fee estimates in Excel; same for apt rent comps >ShortcutAI: still my favorite Excel plugin. Very reasonably priced

I do this every day

Talking to a seller who I KNOW I'm not going to be able to get a deal done with. Every instinct telling me to cut it off and spend time elsewhere. But can't disengage bc the real estate is THAT good. Need someone to slap me around and knock some sense into me.

I love to shitpost about brokers, but one just called me whose listing I turned down last month. The feedback I provided on the deal helped them find/educate a buyer and now they are in contract. Called to thank me and now wants to be my best friend. The lesson: give quick and sincere feedback on deals even when you know it's not for you. You can create value in other ways.

The Bay Area housing shortage is 100% self inflicted, as any ride on Caltrain will show. Well-intentioned legislation in the late 1970s put environmental protection and property tax stability over the ability to build housing to meet the demand of a rapidly growing region. The CA political machine then moved in and layered on new fire codes, seismic requirements, energy efficiency standards and other rules that have made building housing more expensive than anywhere else in the country. These were good ideas taken too far. As Silicon Valley wealth ballooned, commuter towns grew wealthy and pulled up the ladder - NIMBYs blocked developments and prices rose. Impact fees, inclusionary housing, CEQA - it’s hard to building housing in the Bay Area because that’s the way the system was designed. Decades passed and after the twin shocks of the GFC and Covid, building has fallen off a cliff and now with the new tech boom - Artificial Intelligence - there’s not enough apartments or homes for the people who want to move here. I wish there were an easy way out. Some magic bullet - a single policy. They’ve passed dozens of new regs aimed at making it easier, with minimal impact. A regime that took decades and a coordinated political movement to build will not be torn down in a matter of years. It can only be taken apart in the same way, brick by painful brick.

I wonder if the future buyer knows this thing is going to fall into the ocean eventually. Insurance will probably be a nightmare.

Sometimes you just need to play tennis, go to the pool, and drink two bottles of wine before dinner.

We did this exact same thing with our ground floor retail

I am once again asking you - no, begging you - to stop using corten siding on your buildings.

OH GOD IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN

I see everyone has suddenly become an expert in analyzing public homebuilding companies

There won't be a 2nd date, but at least now she knows why the contractors, service providers, and vendors make all the money in real estate.

My controversial RE design opinions: -Islands in Class A apts are unnecessary. Get a moveable island instead -Most apt buildings are grossly over-amenitized -New spec homes rarely need more than 2.5 bathrms -Lot size/open space is a bigger amenity than ppl think it is -Roofdecks are sad and depressing if not designed properly -There should be more 3BD units in inst apt complexes